Magickal Perspectives on the Cultural Appropriation Issue

A Livestream Class with Gus diZerega

Sunday, February 18 at 1:45 pm in The Jupiter Conservatory

In the NeoPagan and Pagan community, cultural appropriation issues are usually discussed from within the Western secular framework of how the world works. Ideas and practices are in some sense (or not) the property of a group or culture that has historically been oppressed by dominant Western European cultures. The result is often confusion.

Magickal teachings in almost every tradition see words and practices differently. Certain words and practices are powerful in themselves. They have a life of their own, and using them is most appropriate when used in the context within which they traditionally operate. People who know how to use them are thereby empowered.

But they are more than tools. They are thought forms, sometimes deliberately created, sometimes ‘wild’ ones empowered by long use. The secular term “meme” is as close as the dominant society gets to describing thought forms, and when scientists describe memes, they find themselves using the language of animism: memes seek to reproduce, they can be parasitic, and so on. That is because thought forms are alive.

• Understanding the relation of thought forms to culture transforms how we look at cultural appropriation issues.
  
• It strengthens our ritual practice as we get a deeper understanding of what is happening in our work.
  
• It deepens our understanding of similar psychic phenomena such as egregores.
  
• It makes our personal practice safer.
  

This workshop will deepen your understanding of cultural appropriation issues and improve your ritual work.