Once upon a time, in a distant past far far away... well, about a decade ago, I moved to a new city, one that had a good reputation for things involving the occult.
I was very excited about the new start, but mostly, I was excited about the reputation of the place as it brought some hope that I could finally find a connection to the Occult Societies.
I started networking, facebook was booming back then, so I made an account at the local library (hadn't settled yet in the city) and I discovered a group named “City Name – Pagans” (at this point I would not like to name the city).
The group had over 1.000 members! Bingo, I thought!
A few weeks went by and it was time for my first “Pagan Moot”. Needless to say that I was overly enthusiastic about it!
DISCLAIMER:
This is not about all pagans, this is purely about my own experiences with certain groups of people in certain places, so, please do not paint everything with the same brush or start drama.
The Moot
The meeting was nice, people seemed kind, there were many conversations about paganism etc. and the word “magic” was thrown around loosely. It was clear that none of the attendees knew about actual magic, but I was “ok” with it because the group had over 1.000 people and the moot had about 2 dozen people attending.
I kept hoping, that if I attend all the monthly moots, eventually, I will meet more of the members, and there might be a chance that one of them could be someone from or with a connection to the Venumbris Societies.
Alas...
Month after month, and moot after moot, nothing.
I could do without meeting anyone from the Venumbris Societies, I could do with having only Umanis in the moot, as long as there was interest in genuine magic... but... there wasn't any.
I kept suggesting that perhaps during each moot every member could bring a piece of information, a technique, a recipe for a concoction, something they could share with the rest so we start practising and gather knowledge... eventually this could lead to some genuine specs of magical practice.
Nothing...
Every time, the suggestions were met with suspicion and negativity, even with hostility, and a couple of times people got offended going paranoid that “this was all a test to weed out armchair magicians” etc. (see my previous article for a better idea about hostility)...
I was quite disheartened to be fair, I had so many hopes, and I really wanted to connect with these people, practice, learn together etc.
Fast-forward a few months...
Hitting a wall made me stop being an “active” member during the moots and I simply started observing. I soon realised that all of this was a form of real life role-playing for some, and a way to feel special and not be lonely for others.
I still remember a time where the speaker of the day (every mood had a subject, more on that later), had a plastic (I kid you not) wand with its tip pressing against her throat during her speech (I kid you not again) like the wizard-guy was doing in one of the Harry Potter movies in order to sound louder (yeah, I might come from the Venumbris Societies, but I lived in a 100% Umanis environment since I was a teenager so I am quite well versed in pop culture).
In one of the moots a girl who loved cosplay made a presentation about “Foxes in Japanese Magic”, she got the chance to wear her kimono and role-play a fox by changing fox masks and behaving like different foxes (borderline playing her furry character)...
The examples can keep going on...
The thing is, that I finally understood that these groups (attended many and visited other cities too in the meantime) were simply this:
Groups for outcasts role-playing on their quirky interests and making each other feel special so they can be outcasts together in order not to be lonely.
It sounds judgemental, but it is not, it is simply a statement of the facts based on observation. And it was painful to watch, honestly, it pained me to see people so lost and so forced to act in certain ways in order to finally fit in with a group.
There was also the fear of not being a magical outcast, which caused all of them to blatantly lie to each other. I think that because none of them knew anything about magic they could not tell that the others didn't know either. This caused each individual to feel like an imposter, so they started saying bigger and bigger lies to each other in order to appear like powerful mystics so none would suspect they were a “fraud”.
Examples vary from trying to convince each other that they all saw or felt the same thing, to completely absurd statements... but what the examples were is not important, what is important is that this was just a social support group for people with “fantasy/gothic” interests.
Of course, I do not criticise or judge this, happy for them and happy it was working and it was bringing lonely people together.
My mistake was that I kept going. Hope, you see. I thought that in the same way that I was there, maybe someone else from the Venumbris Societies could be there too, maybe searching, maybe visiting out of curiosity, perhaps monitoring to see if the Umanis are messing with any dangerous stuff.
So... I kept going, month after month, for over three years.
It came a point in time that I stopped attending the moots and I cut off all contact with the members.
Long story short...
The stroke that broke the camel's back and made me speak out was the winter solstice ritual!
Everything was just TOO MUCH to handle and the aftermath was a disaster. Thus, I left... If you want a detailed story-time I will write everything about it.
-Mortimor
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