So Long and Thanks for All the Abuse: A History of Sexual Trauma in the Pagan Community

[icymist]

...If a narcissist like Brett Kavanaugh is approved it can mean the end to women’s reproductive rights, a backslide away from gender equality, and an end to human rights being respected in the USA. I believe Dr. Blasey Ford. She has everything to lose and nothing to gain from coming forward with her sexual assault testimony. This political nightmare has been a big wake up call for a lot of people. I can’t think of a more appropriate time to talk about the sexual abuse that has been rampant in our pagan community since its start which continues on to this day. I have no university degree on the subject of sexual assault, I am in no position to tell people what their own experience is, and there are no statistics from the pagan community specifically to draw upon. All I have to share with you is the stories of my own experiences. If you have experienced abuse within the magical community I want you to know that you are not alone and I believe you. If you are too scared or too traumatized to speak out, I hope my personal stories will clearly demonstrate that what happened to you was wrong and is completely unacceptable. Maybe it will inspire you to speak out against a predator in your own local community or group or to support a friend who is too afraid to. I hope my opening up in turn opens a dialogue within our greater community about the abuse that is so prevalent within it and how we can work together to prevent it for our future members.

These are my true stories as I experienced them.

T H E S T A L K E R

I met her online through a big Wiccan forum I used to help administrate with one of my still best friends. She was smart, blonde, cute, tattooed, nerdy and I didn’t care that she was 32 and I had just turned 19. We used to chat for hours online. We shared our spiritual beliefs and a love of Xena. When we finally met in person she wooed me hard and pressured for sex immediately, but I sensed something wrong. She was coming on way too strong, too fast. A friend of hers confided in me that this woman had some untreated mental health issues and a habit of dating and obsessing over teenage girls. The girl she had dated before me was still in high school and her parents found out. She stalked her after they broke up. This woman never told me any of this of course. I told her thanks but no thanks. She didn’t take no for an answer. She sent me crazy poetry. She called my home repeatedly. She called and emailed my pagan friends and even my family asking why I wouldn’t talk to her or date her. I didn’t respond. It took two months but she finally stopped pursuing me. I never saw her attend a local community event again. Later she was diagnosed with schizophrenia but refused treatment. The entire experience just made me deeply sad.

More at the link:
http://sarahannelawless.com/2018/09/28/sexual-trauma-in-the-pagan-community/

[Hekate]

1. That's an intense read at the link. My aged perspective is that religions are inhabited by humans...

...and that humans are flawed. My husband the Buddhist has been deeply dismayed by the sexual scandals surrounding some of the most respected leaders and teachers in America. It makes me sad, too, just not to the same degree.

When we create a new community or embrace a new philosophy we all want to believe that what we are creating is and will remain perfect and untouched by the grime of everyday life and politics. That was the impulse of every Utopian community on this continent, from the Pilgrims to the hippie communes. That was certainly the impulse of the earliest Christians and the earliest Buddhists.

I like the Pagan philosophy. I was in a Moon Circle, an all-female Goddess group, for about 20 years, and made feminist spirituality the focus of the dissertation I wrote at midlife. I did ask myself why I didn't ask admission to the local co-ed coven, but I already knew the answer: I was abused as a child, and though I married and had children, there were some facets of my spiritual and physical self that remain in a zone of privacy and absolutely resistant to coercion by male authority.

Wherever one's heart and soul lead, enter with clear eyes.