In the pagan community, one often hears about "cultural appropriation" and how terrible it is. As a pagan myself, and having heard the numerous terrible things about people appropriating Native American culture and practices, and misrepresenting tribal culture and tradition, it's no wonder that cultural appropriation has such a bad name.
What does this mean for those of us who practice magic of a Jewish flavor, like Kaballah? For those of us who are not Jewish, who do not even have Jewish family or anything rooting us to it by blood or marriage, what business do we have using Kabballah? What business do we have speaking the god names, and working within a magical mythos that we have no ties to, other than practice? What does this mean for me as someone who identifies as pagan? I'm basically someone who has taken old gods of the Egyptians, the people who enslaved and killed Jews according to the Torah. How do I even reconcile the fact that I work with Egyptian gods, and yet work in Kabbalah, a system which I have appropriated from a culture that I'm not even a part of.
People who work in Kabbalah, and who are not of Jewish blood, are guilty of cultural appropriation. The question becomes, does that make it wrong? To answer that, we have to look at why cultural appropriation has been a problem in the past. To look at a more modern example, lets look again to the Native Americans. There are plenty of New Agers who have no idea what they're doing, who have no training, who try to run sweat lodges, and end up killing people who thought that they were some kind of leader. Great example, and a recent one. The person who ran the sweat lodge, appropriated native practices to fit his agenda- making money off of the gullible who thought he was some kind of guru. Then there are other people who claim to be shaman of a native flavor, without understanding what that actually means, and without having ties to any actual native shamanic tradition outside of the "new age" phenomenon. It appears that this mostly becomes a problem when dealing with people who claim to be a leader, a spiritual authority in an area that they have no business with.
There's a reason why cultural appropriation is so common right now. There's a reason why people are turning left and right to different religions and cultures to find identity. At least here in America, we don't have a culture. We don't have a mythos or framework we can turn to. Even our bedtime stories, our fairy tales, all come from a continent away. Cultural appropriation becomes a problem because we have no culture without adopting from another. The problem isn't so much cultural appropriation, but the con men who make a living off of it: the people who both exploit and discredit the cultures they are taking from. There will always be con men though, and there will always be people to fall for their cons.
Western magical practice is not exempt from this. How much "knowledge" was supposedly taken from Tibet, according to magical history writings in the early to mid 1900s? How much do Hermetic groups claim their lineages back to ancient Egypt, when it is likely not true? Western magic is rife with appropriation!
Now we're back to the question though: Is cultural appropriation wrong? I think the answer is no. Cultural "exploitation" is wrong, but the appropriation in and of itself is not. Appropriation isn't something that is going to stop, and is a big part of how we learn and grow. The thing we have to do as responsible mages, is we have to check ourselves. Do we have the authority to do what we're doing? Is something you're doing damaging to others who you may have taken ideas from? We also have to put our foot down when we see con men and women in our communities. If these people have less of a chance of flying under the radar, we will have done more to help the magical communities we know and love, as well as prevent others from becoming victims.
The exploratory writings and magical experiences of a Hermetic Egypto-Pagan.
Well said. I think the difference between appropriation and expoitation is crucial. Cultural appropriation is simply a description of how humans borrow cultural traits from one another and have been doing so for many thousands of years. Everything from modern (and far older) fusion cuisines to the spread of the printing press and its antecedants comes from cultural appropriation.
ReplyDeleteThe difficulty comes when there are significant power differences between cultures. At this point, several problems can arise - from the nastiness of borrowing cultural traits while simultaneously disparaging the culture you're borrowing from, to stealing art styles or other works owned by specific individuals in the less powerful culture (a particular problem with native PNW cultures), to the more complex and often seriously unclear issue of using borrowed cultural traits to make money with none of this money going to the culture that was borrowed from.
I think people who have an issue with cultural and spiritual appropriation go far beyond exploitation. There is an inherent disrespect to the traditions that are being appropriated. The very act rips part of a culture or tradition out of its context and adopts with a sense of entitlement that is often seen at fat country buffets.
ReplyDeleteThis is especially true in spiritual paths. There is a difference between syncretic approaches and the insensitive appropriation we see today.
The number of New Age traditions who have adopted conjure practices, for example, but each one completely bastardizes the system by revmoving integral elements like the invocation of God and the use of the Bible.
But the implications go farther and deeper; it leads to weak, diluted magick. There is a reason why "cabalah" as practiced in the West produces little physical magick. Case in point: how many times have you picked up a book on "practical" kabbalah only to find a book about "pathworking" and other "advanced" visualization? Not much magick going on, eh?
The context of a system, culture, and tradition holds it power. A tree without roots falls over.
I see this too often.
@ConjureMan Ali
ReplyDeleteApologies if this ends up showing up twice- I'm trying out a new commenting feature on my blog
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You make a very good point. I'm much less familiar with traditions that have legit modern followers, and still very unfamiliar with traditional conjure, or how appropriation has harmed the tradition.
As for the last part however "A tree without roots falls over" That's why I don't work with reconstructionist systems- there are too many cultural memes or other tricks of language that within the culture would have made sense, but in modern times, we would take out of its proper context. Any attempt at reconstructing an ancient magical system and way of life, would be incomplete, and therefore a false, even disrespectful representation. I guess the same can be applied to appropriation of modern systems when being outside of the culture you're taking from. - It's something I should have considered, but at 3am hadn't thought of. Not to mention the dilution of magic aspect.
You've got a really unique inside view on this don't you? I'm coming from a background without having been truly initiated into a tradition, whereas you have roots in a few places.
And now you have me craving Country Buffet :) I haven't seen one of those since I lived in California.
Well I am a root doctor among other things ;-)
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to share a point of view from the other side of the fence.
And those country buffets, oh man. If you ever want to give up eating, just watch how the people eat in there