The Magenta Dragon

[I wrote the following article for The Wild Hunt (a UK Pagan magazine) in 2016. It also appeared locally in SA Vampyre News (SAVN) and on Penton Alternative Media at more or less the same time. At the time I was acting as the chief researcher for the Alternative Religions Forum, after working on the academic paper known as "Satanism: The Acid Test".]

Most in the South African Vampyre community who have done a little research into the history will know that this community’s recorded history began in May 2010 with the foundation of House Valur. Most will know that the community only began growing and taking form with the founding of the South African Vampyre Alliance (SAVA) in June 2011, but little if anything is known about the community in the time before that.

Bread And Circuses

Last week I had the pleasure of having to get up really early for work, at around 4 am, when all the respectable birds were still asleep. It was while having breakfast a little later that I heard something faint in the night, a kind of singing chant in the distance that reminded me of a Muslim call to prayer. I really had to strain my hearing to pick it up, as the very light wind at that time of morning affected it, and it faded in and out. It seemed to me that it might very well be that, from one of the mosques in the old part of town somewhere. I began to wonder if I was imagining it, but no, there it was, for a whole 2 or 3 minutes. It brought a smile to my face as I wondered why I had never heard it before.

I heard it the next morning too, while having breakfast, confirming to me that I had not imagined it. At the end of the week, I received an email notice that some people in my area (Richmond Hill) were angry about the "disturbance" coming from North End so early in the morning and were drawing up a petition about it. I was stunned. Could people really be so small and anal about such things? 

Apparently so.

Polly Wanna Crapper

It seems that some people just know how to make a lasting impression. I suppose you could say they might have been reading a dog-eared copy of "How to make friends and influence people", or might have, if it was available in their local religious book store, with suitable recommendations. In fact, some people will read or believe any old thing, as long as it is sold from such places, preferably with strong recommendations from folks like James Dobson or Erroll Naidoo, and assurances that it won't "corrupt" their minds, faith or threaten their families by actually causing them to think.

Growing Pains

Over the past few months a war of words has been raging over the activities of "ex-gay" groups in the USA and around the world wherever they have set up affiliates or branches of their own - including in my own country, South Africa. The "ex-gay" movement operates on a purely religious basis and claims solely out of a misinterpretation of religious dogma, that gay (or trans) people can and should either deny their nature - or "change". They claim all sorts of "studies" and "proof" exist to support their theories, but the truth is that no such evidence exists - and that every reputable medical, scientific and psychological institute, authority or body asserts that "conversion therapy" - IE attempts to change sexual orientation by "ex-gay" industry, is dangerous, risky and harmful to those it affects.

All this has prompted me to look back - and inwards, to a time when I was struggling for self-acceptance, and to find my own identity.

The Cult Of Mud And Dirt

I have often wondered at the clear division between people who see the world as it is, and those who see it from inside a book written by other people.

Last week a person who described herself as a "metaphysical consultant" and I engaged in a stimulating short exchange of personal views. I have to say I liked the views she expressed and the discussion because my blogs and articles always tend to drift towards the religious and esoteric side of things - though "metaphysical consultant" sounds awfully impressive, if not a little intimidating!

The writer referred to Mary Douglas, a renowned anthropologist and her suggestion that "dirt is matter or place." "In other words," the writer explains, "Mud is fine in the garden, but called dirt when the dogs tramp it into the lounge. In other words, human beings consider what is out of place in any particular context dirty or impure."

 

Is that not perfectly in line with the religious trope of Puritanism? Is it not then also ironic that Puritanism is what lies at the root of Western conservatism today?

There is a school of thought that says fundamentalists are "best left to their folly until such times as they see the light or the shift of consciousness leaves them in the same position as the dinosaurs."

Were it not for all the other people around them who they affect negatively through their folly, I would agree with that completely. Also, the comparison of mud being "mud" outside the home and "dirt" inside it, can itself be compared to gay and straight people both being sinners and children of God at the same time - and not necessarily only inside a church - but everywhere all the time.

I suppose you could say it would be an eye-opening experience indeed, to see the carpet or the lounge from the viewpoint of the mud/dirt - or the dog.

Double Talk Heralds Double Standards

On Tuesday 28 July a letter was published in the EP Herald, a newspaper considered by many, including myself, to be a forward-thinking publication which frequently presents unbiased and fair articles touching on the topic of sexual and gender diversity. 

 

The letter was titled "Flaunting of gay lifestyles offensive" and penned by a certain Mike Jones of Port Elizabeth. In his letter Mr Jones berated the popular TV show "Top Billing" for "ramming gays down our throats every week", "as if their lifestyle is something to be proud of, particularly in a programme of this calibre". He also called gay people "deviates", and elaborated further on his personal prejudice by saying that he did not "regard homosexuality as 'cool'" and intimated how gay people whose homes were featured on the show "got up his nose".

 

The very first thing that popped into my head - after a healthy flush of adrenaline had run its course, and the thought of something a lot more satisfying I could get up Mr Jones's nose flashed through my mind, was the question why a supposedly straight and vehemently anti-gay man so obviously stricken with a case of toxic masculinity would be remotely interested in watching that TV show in the first place? But, brushing such private generalization and stereotyping aside, I decided to look into it.

Stirring The Pot

Many feel it is their duty to meddle in others lives. To them it is "helping others right", "doing good" and doing "the Lord's work". They're called missionaries, whether by themselves or their churches or by their comrades. They see others violating what they themselves consider to be the values and ethos of civilization - most typically their personal concept of what is euphemistically called "Christian civilization" (WTF is that, anyway?) - and cannot resist sticking their pointy little noses into the lives and affairs of others. Whether or not the activities of these other people actually affect them directly - or even indirectly - is of course the entire point of this perpetual debate on morality.

I suppose the very first question that pops into my head at this point is "WTF has my morality got to do with you?".

I could also ask these self-appointed crusaders WTF my sexuality, sex-life, choice of a partner, their gender, and who I choose to marry and what I do with them in the privacy of my bedroom has to do with them?

They meddle in the affairs of others, spreading news nobody needs to hear or cares about - and then act all "persecuted" and offended when their noses get knocked out of joint by the all too predictable slamming of a door.

Sex, Drugs And Diversity

"Gay activists are outraged after Xavier High School, a Catholic school in Albury, Australia published an anti-gay piece by a former student in its alumni newsletter. "Writing in a letter to the editor in the newsletter, former Xavier student Matt Price entreated “a world free from homosexuals”, who he said lived lives devoted to drugs and sex.

His letter called for businesses not to employ homosexuals, with Price revealing that he lobbies CEOs with his message." http://queersunited.blogspot.com/2009/07/australian-high-school-publishes-piece.html

Interesting.

Equality - A Goalpost On Wheels For Every Occasion

In December last year, a man was thrown off a moving commuter train in Johannesburg.  

 

His crime? Carrying a woman's handbag and behaving in a feminine manner.

 

The Metro security didn't come to his aid - because the two men who threw him of the train were Metro security guards.

 

Now, supposedly these security guards are there to protect the passengers from just this sort of thing, which is a most bizarre and disturbing turn of events to say the least. To compound this insult to the victim's person and dignity, when he tried to report the incident at a police station, the policemen refused to take his statement or to lay a charge against his assailants - and chased him away.