Gatekeeping the occult

Thought I would share this essay I recently wrote on "woo woo" subjects. My hubs is an astrologer and there has been a lot of discussion about whether there should be gatekeeping of these subjects...mainly complaints from whiney Twitter users, but I address that below.

Oh, and hello Steemit, long time no talk!

There has been quite a hullabaloo lately on the Twitters about Gatekeeping of Astrology and other supernatural areas of study. The loudest voices, of course, tend to often also be the youngest, and likely least inexperienced in their particular field. I totally understand this. It can be easy to feel like the world is against you when you are first starting out in anything. The success of others seems to be impossible to ever achieve, and when one is looking at someone’s success, they rarely see all of their failures and hardships that came before it. It also doesn’t help that these areas of study are becoming less like a community and more like a competition to become the next big thing, or the most popular, or beloved, or the sensei that everyone comes to for knowledge. The reality however, is there’s a process to everything, and that process cannot be sidestepped just because one is going into a field of study that is loosely regulated. If anything, in these subjects, those that hold the keys to the gates should grab on more tightly. I swear I am not an evil person looking to disenfranchise the young. I can just see so many more advantages to gatekeeping than to opening the door to anyone and anything without regulation or consequence.

There is a reason why so many people roll their eyes when I mention that I practice Reiki, or that my husband is an astrologer. It is likely that they have never actually used Reiki, ever, in their life. Also likely is that the only knowledge they have about astrology is some bullshit sun sign paragraph they read about in their youth. So where does this reaction come from? Why are people so disgusted by something they literally know nothing about?

Fraudsters.

Alternative medicine/study is teeming with them.

Why would anyone trust a practice in which they have been met with very little legitimacy? Can you blame people for shrugging off the entire Woo-Woo brand because there are so many idiots out there pretending to be empaths, psychics, mediums and “healers?” I mean, one of the most popularly trending shows on Netflix just a few weeks back was about these kinds of topics. While the first one was captivating, and had some pretty good evidence to back it up, (an episode on past life regression), the following episode about mediums was a shit-show. There were two different women who explained that their mediumship required the assistance of ghosts they had encountered in their lives, and they comedically “took on” the character of these ghosts with changing their voices and everything. It was difficult to watch, and most definitely one of the cringiest things I have ever seen. The unacceptable part of this though, is that there are real mediums out there. There are absolutely people who can communicate with the dead, just as there are really empaths and psychics, amazing astrologers, tarot readers, and reiki masters that have healed the sick. So why not use the people who can actually do these things? Why must we highlight the idiots? This question has been ringing in my mind.

I guess to answer this we can take a look at social media in general. I am not going to use specific examples, or call people out, because I have been on Twitter’s shit list already and I don’t care to return, but just do me a favor. Do a search on Twitter for astrology and see who comes up as the head honchos. Then do me another favor. Click into those accounts with tens, if not hundreds of thousands of followers and take a look at what they are saying. It’s not great. Most of it isn’t even good, and a lot of it is straight up inaccurate. A lot of people who accrue tens of thousands of followers don’t even know what they are talking about, and because they have a huge following, people just assume they know what’s up and take them at their word. In the age of the influencer, the amount of followers you have reigns supreme. It matters not if you have the intellectual acuity of a slug, if you are a narcissist that can capture the attention of many, you have earned the general public’s respect…and follows…and likely even money, but I will get into that in a little bit.

Even worse is YouTube. Some of the most popular astrologers on there are straight up ridiculous. I won’t name names once again, but oh is it taking the resilience of RBG fighting the patriarchy to refrain from doing so. Let’s just say they are good looking with a less-than-average knowledge on the subject and are almost unbearable to watch. Their daily videos are banal regurgitation of what you can read in any ordinary sun sign book, and some of them straight up rip off others’ horoscopes. YouTube doesn’t check and YT doesn’t care, because these people bring in lots of views, and YT loves dat money doe. So much that is said on YT goes unchecked because there aren’t enough educated people in the field to keep track, and it’s not like people get paid to be the astrology police. Any number of these people could really mess someone up who is new at learning these subjects, but no one really seems to care.

In the land of witchcraft, any pretty girl with a nice set can call themselves a “witch” and get a buttload of followers, and many have even written books about “how to become better witches.” Out of sheer curiosity, I have purchased a few of these books and while I was neither shocked or impressed, I was kind of appalled. So many of these new age witches are not selling books about how to do spells, or train yourself to become better at your craft, but instead are hocking the very idea of being a witch and what you need to buy to be the best witch you can be. Ahhh the commercialization of witchcraft and ancient pagan tradition! Mmmmerica! But really, in a book I purchased called “Craft” by Gabriela Herstik, there is an entire chapter on fashion, and what clothes you should be buying. This isn’t to say, by any means, that the whole book is bad. There is a very informative section on Tarot, a chapter on crystals, and a discussion of Earth and Moon Magick, but the section on fashion is about 30 pages long and reads like an article straight out of Seventeen magazine. Don’t get me wrong, is this a fun, light read for any basic bitch out there looking to dip their toe into the occult and glitter pen their way through a grimoire? Sure, but like, is this also blatant capitalism and exploitation of the women who went before us and risked their lives to do magick? Maybe just a bit.

The last major group among these fraudsters are the general woo-woo gurus. These people pick the easiest areas to learn that take the shortest amount of practice and reading and jump head first into becoming experts at their subject. These self-taught “gurus” have classes that start in the high hundreds into the thousands of dollars. Preying on the desperate. It is what these people love to do. What’s crazy is, they aren’t just doing this here in the States. They are traveling to Bali to do this as well, and it has all but upended the local’s economy. They are stealing a lot of the traditions of the natives of Bali and then labeling themselves “gurus” after just a few weeks of study, and selling their services to gullible, wealthy tourists, taking the money right out of the natives’ pockets and creating a pseudo-economy of wealthy American ex-pats that don’t pay taxes to the country they are currently living in, and who parade around as experts in their “practice”. A young woman, using Bali as a haven from the expense of the US, tweeted about her time there, and was recently deported for exploiting the Bali community and basically bragging about it on Twitter.

So what does gatekeeping do to stop this?

It creates what many dread ever happening in these subjects: accountability. If there was a bar that people had to surpass in order to be officially educated in their field of study, or a certification people had to pay for in order to practice, you would see a lot less fraud. It would make it much easier to oust the illegitimate. It wouldn’t be that hard either. Most of these areas have organizations that represent them, all they would have to do is bring the biggest and brightest minds together and create some exams in order to practice their subject, as well as a required number of hours practicing said subject.

There is no job on Earth in which you can simultaneously consider yourself an “expert” but also not have to acquire any kind of specific education or certification. If you want to become a lawyer, you have to pass your BAR exam. If you want to practice medicine, you have to become a doctor. It seems as though people who study the occult want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to make money off of these subjects, but they don’t want to have to be held accountable for their knowledge in these fields.

Heck, yoga often requires certification to teach it, and usually hours and hours of practice, and while someone could strain a muscle while doing it, it does not even come close to the kind of ramifications that magick or astrology could have if used incorrectly.

I remember the evening I first set eyes on my copy of the Picatrix. Right there, as a warning before even attempting to read the first chapter, was a litany of messages which would probably scare off a good number of people. One such was:

"It is therefore urgently necessary, if you choose to put any of the following teachings into practice, to do the necessary research yourself and be sure that you know the health and safety issues surrounding every ingredient.”

This is a fairly straightforward disclaimer, but was also followed with

“Be aware of the potential risks involved in these processes and activities,” and “some of the recipes in this book produce lethal poisons.”

These are just consumer label warnings not unlike the “don’t eat Tide Pods” campaigns apparently now necessary circa 2021, but also covered in the introduction was Christopher Warnock’s hesitation to even publish the Picatrix. Warnock discusses the internal struggle he had in releasing this kind of information to the general public. This type of information was never allowed into the hands of those that were not deemed “worthy”. (Granted “worthy” likely had a completely different context even 400 years ago, seeing as though it could mean “has a penis” or “can read”, but more likely, in these very revered texts, it meant to not share with anyone not trustworthy, or without the marbles to use it within the confines of what it is meant for.) Luckily, the Picatrix, in many areas, is completely useless without a very complex understanding of astrology and even the astrological lot of fortunes. This complicates things for the uninitiated, as you can’t exactly ask a Lord of a Lunar Mansion for a favor if you don’t know when the window is available to talk to them. So in a way, some things are gatekept merely by needing in depth knowledge to understand them, but for some areas, this is not enough.

There are still many spells in the Picatrix that can be used outright with the correct ingredients and that could actually hurt, mame or kill people. Granted, you can do those things without magick but it is the disbelief in the occult that makes it so dangerous in some ways. If people are just messing around with something for fun to “prove” it doesn’t work, or even to “prove” it does, they aren’t going to take a hex on someone as seriously as holding a gun to someone’s head. Yet, it can still do an incredible amount of damage. Intent in magick and the dark arts is really all you even need to wreak havoc on someone’s life. Whether or not one believes in it is irrelevant. Energy exists, Intent exists, they are both real and all you need to cast a spell.

Magick isn’t alone here though. Astrology may seem fairly harmless, but just beneath the surface is the ability to ruin someone’s life. Birth times especially can be an extremely nefarious way to damage someone. By looking at someone’s natal chart, if you know enough about astrology, you can see their every weakness and just where to hurt them, and you don’t even need to know that much. On the flipside, astrology can be dangerous even if you don’t mean to harm someone. I have seen over-eager Tweeters exclaim proudly that after just a few months of study, they are ready to read charts! This is surely fine within the astrological community, and among family and friends who understand you are still a student, but for anyone taking your reading seriously, you could do some real damage. A misreading or an over-pronounced transit could have someone frantic for years to come. (Don’t even get me started about the time that after 3 months of dating, Patrick told me he saw a bad transit coming up and wasn’t sure about our relationship, which put me in panic mode and made me consider breaking everything off. Eight years later we are happily married with 3 children, but God damn, it almost didn’t happen, and he is an extremely knowledgeable and esteemed astrologer. It just goes to show you how someone can react to news they were not expecting, and how delicate one needs to be about how they deliver astrological news.)

So what are we going to do as a community? We have over-eager youngin’s practically breaking down the gate, and over cautious elders holding the keys. Perhaps there is a middle ground somewhere? I believe there is, and as I said before, it lies in certification. It doesn’t really matter how someone gets there so long as they get there. This breaks down many of the walls that people talk about when broaching these subjects. There is enough info out there to learn these subjects at great length for little to no cost. There should be a fee for these certifications, but perhaps the organizations that exist in these areas could offer scholarship for particularly talented students, or those who write great essays about why they want to pursue this particular field. Anything worth doing right shouldn’t be easy, and the occult should be no different.