In this episode:
Why your self proclaimed identity is BS
What is the ultimate goal of any Slavic Pagain
The maps of meaning of Slavic Paganism
Homework for this month
Transcript:
Hello again,
Welcome in the 2nd episode of the 2nd season of Searching for the Slavic Soul. I’ve briefly thought about greeting you today with “Sława przodkom” which means “glory to the ancestors”. But then I thought to myself that greeting you in a more pagan way will likely make you think that over last month of ancestral veneration you have somehow became more pagan, which, I assure you, you have not. So, to not to feed your pathological need for validation, you will only get a plain hello from me. And the reason why I do not want to feed your zombified ego with the, oh-so-cherished-by-you validation, is that, if you ever want to become a Slavic pagan, you need to get rid of the concept of having an identity that needs to be affirmed and validated.
You know what I am talking about. It’s the concept that you know who you are, that you are who you say you are, that you should be believed if you say you are this magical creature, made from snowflakes and rainbows and unicorns, absolutely unique in the scale of the whole universe and if some random bloke on some stupid social media platform does not validate and affirm your oh so wonderful identity, you will literally die and it will be a literal genocide.
Get over yourself, sweetheart. Firstly: you’re not unique and wonderful. You’re mentally ill, although, I have to admit, it’s most likely not entirely your fault, as you’ve been fed with the stupid woke propaganda since before you started to walk and talk. But, still, you’re a grown up now and you should know better. You should be able to think better. For example, screaming your head off about how you are literally being genocided by the slightest shred of doubt from other people, you should logically conclude that your proclaimed identity is not as solid and real as you claim. Something can be either real and solid and therefore unaffected by doubt, or this something can be fragile and immediately falling apart if criticised or doubted. It simply can’t be both, sunshine.
So, if you’re literally dying without validation then whoever you claim you are is not real. Reality – istina, as it is called in Slavic tradition – is real and solid and can’t be easily changed. Any identity that you give yourself and proclaim is not a part of istina. The only identity that is solid, real and a part of istina is the identity that you are given by Gods, through the blood of your ancestors, the bodies of your parents and – if you’re lucky – through the spindle of Rodzanice.
I said “if you’re” lucky, because I don’t think that nowadays many of us are visited by Rodzanice when we are born. And if you do not know who Rodzanice are, do listen to the episode 9 of the 1st season of Searching for the Slavic Soul, which I will link in the notes. And here I will only say that Rodzanice are responsible for spinning your Dola, or Niedola, which is a sort of your personal, protective or – if it’s Niedola – malevolent spirit that accompanies you throughout your whole life. But we are not going to talk about Gods and Goddesses, and we are not talking about any sort of, benevolent or malevolent supernatural beings, because you’re still zombified, brainwashed pseudo-Christian neo-Marxist gnostic and you are not ready to talk about any of this stuff.
Today we are going to talk about the identity that you so violently claim to have and that you believe is the core of your existence and is valid and real, but at the same time you claim that it needs to be validated 24/7 otherwise it will just go whoosh and disappears, because it is so fragile.
So, let’s talk about your identity that you identified yourself and claim to have:
It’s bullshit.
End of the talk.
Now, having extensively and exhaustively talked about this moronic gnostic identity you scream in everybody’s face, let’s talk about your real identity: the only one you will ever have in your life as well as about the ultimate identity you want to develop as a Slavic Pagan.
Identity is something that you can be identified by. If someone asks you to identify yourself, you can truthfully reply that you are so and so, born there and then to so and so mother and so and so father. That’s the only valid, stable, real and undeniable identity you will ever have in your whole life. That is the only thing you can’t change about yourself. That is the only constant in your life. It’s such a solid, real and self-explanatory identity, that if you say I am the child of my parents, no one will ever be able to question that. What more, you do not even have to name yourself or, by the way, your parents, and everyone will know straight away who you are talking about. This identity of yours, being a child of your parents, is so solid and so real, that it is enough to be the basis of the identity of other people – such as your parents, your children or, say, your siblings.
To give you and example: if I say “my daughter” or “my mum” I do not have to identify these two women in any other way. Everyone will know who I talk about, because on the whole entire world there is only one woman who is my daughter and one woman who is my mum. Which, I might add, makes being a mum or a dad absolutely the most kick ass thing ever. Because, apart of mums and dads there is only a handful of people who can describe themselves accurately without using even their name or other descriptors, like profession or some other associations. There is the Pope, the is the Dalai Lama – they are recognised in the whole world. In, say, England, if you say “The King” people will know who you’re talking about. And then there are mums and dads, who can be identified and can identify themselves as the mum and the dad and not only everyone knows who they are, but they are the point of reference for a whole bunch of other people. This is why it’s disrespectful to call your parents by their names. By using your mum and dad name, instead of calling them mum or dad, you are disrespecting what they gave you: the reference point for who you are. You are using their name, their secondary identifier, instead of using a noun: mum or dad, which so beautifully and so precisely identifies them and you at the same time.
But we are not talking about family ties today. We are talking about your identity, which, let me remind you – is not what you claim it is, but is what is either given to you by people closely related to you, or, at the absolute most, can be build by yourself, through interaction with other people, and takes a form of your reputation. You can identify yourself all you want as a wiedźma – a Slavic witch, Slavic Pagan or even, as the Kokoszka twat I mentioned in the last episode, as a Slavic studies scholar. None of it makes you the thing you claim to be. The only thing that would make you be the thing you claim to be, would be if you actually were the thing you claimed to be and if it could be verified in an objective way. And, as it stands, there are only two types of verifiable and real identity you can have. One is being a son or a daughter, a sister or a brother, a mother or a father – it’s the identity that is a result of your family ties. And the other one is doing the things that you are required to do in order to be identified as the thing that you claim to be. So, if you claim you are a healer but can’t heal shit, you are not a healer, and no amount of screaming will make you one. If you claim to be a victim of the oppressive system, but are being platformed by mainstream media and funded by international corporations, you are not a victim of the oppressive system, because victims of an oppressive system are not invited to conferences and TV shows, but are buried in Katyń or Siberia and no one, with exception of maybe a handful of historians, but otherwise no one knows their name or that they even existed.
And, to address any “gotcha” questions any of you brainwashed morons might have: no, I do not identify as a Slavic Pagan. Slavic Paganism, Rodzimawiara, is my religion not my identity. My identity is being the daughter of my parents, the mother of my daughter and, more broadly, a member of one generation of my family. And it is not how I identify myself. It is how I can be verifiably identified. And there is nothing anyone can do or say to affect the validity and solidity of this identification. This is what makes it real. The fact that nothing you can say or do can change the fact that I am a daughter and a mother, this is what makes this identity valid. Similarly, any identity that falls apart and genocidally ceases to exist after some criticism, is not a real or valid identity. This is why whoever you identify yourself as is bullshit. Because you do not get to identify yourself basing on your gnostic vision or other enlightened revelation. All you can do is to be who you are and be identified as who you are. Regardless of whether you agree with it or not. Because your family-based identity is so solid, that even you yourself can’t deny it or make it disappear.
So, now, having burst your delusions of your self-proclaimed identity being valid, we can finally get to the results of the homework I gave you last time. Which was venerating your ancestors. Hopefully, you have been venerating your ancestors, you’ve been respectfully sharing your dinner with them, thanking them for all the gifts they gave you and apologising for hanging postmodern neo-Marxists dogs on them. And now, my guess is, that you either finally humbled, or, if you really got sucked into narcissistic cult of woke, you are fed up with paying attention to others and crave for the attention for yourself. Because I bet, half of you can’t make it a day without literally dying without support and affirmation, which is, basically, without fulfilling your narcissistic need of attention. And if that’s the case, if you have been craving the attention and validation for yourself, I’ve got good news for you. If you become a Slavic Pagan, if you embrace Slavic Pagan tradition and be smart about living your life, you will get all the attention, all the validation and all the veneration when you become an ancestor yourself.
Because the ultimate goal of a Slavic Pagan is to become a venerated ancestor. Like Christians for example, live their lives in such way to end up in Heaven after they die, or Muslims strive to get their virgins or whatever reward they get on the other side, Slavic Pagan’s goal in life is to become a venerated ancestor. Everything else in Slavic Paganism, all the theology, cosmology, demonology, all the rituals and other fancy stuff that you morons do, identifying yourself as Slavic Pagans, it’s all secondary. The ultimate goal is to become a venerated ancestor. And the secondary stuff is there to give you a frame of understanding of the world, so you can more easily and with less confusion achieve the goal of becoming a venerated ancestor.
In a way, one could say that the theology, cosmology, demonology and all the rituals are, as Jordan Peterson called them, maps of meaning. They are, like the oldest, most ancient stories humanity passed through generations. They are to tell you what’s what. To help you to recognise what’s the right and what’s the wrong thing to do as a Slavic Pagan. Like the story from one of the first posts on Witia’s blog, a story about encountering a Snake King in the forest, which tells you, a Slavic Pagan, what to do if you want to gain an ultimate knowledge about the Universe. In this story, you need to take an embroidered rushnyk and go to the forest at the end of summer, when all the reptiles move to Vyraj to spend the winter there. You need to go alone and you need to go at night and when you see the travelling reptiles led by the Snake King – which, by the way, is Veles, but that is a story for another day because we are not talking about Slavic Gods today. So, you are in the middle of the forest, in the middle of the night and you encounter the Snake King, the one that possesses all the knowledge about the whole Universe. And you know what you should do to be blessed by this knowledge? Well, you will be surprised that screaming at the Snake King and showing him your newest tattoos to prove how devoted Pagan you are – is not going to work. Calling him genocidal fascist for ignoring your presence will not work either. The only thing that will work is kneeling on your rushnik, bowing respectfully and waiting in silence for the Snake King to identify you as the one who is worthy of such knowledge.
This story is such a beautiful map of meaning. It just shows you: plainly and clearly, how one gains knowledge. Firstly, by working hard: in the story by cultivating field to grow flax, then processing the flax to get linen, then actually making the linen rushnik. Secondly, in order to gain knowledge, you need to know how to gain it: where and when to go to encounter the Snake King. And thirdly, you gain knowledge by listening – humbly, respectfully and in silence.
I am really tempted to tell you to shut up and listen, but I will not do that, because I am not the source of ultimate knowledge. I am here only to talk you through how to be come a Slavic Pagan, which includes telling you what Slavic Paganism is about and how you should practice it. And the ultimate practice of Slavic Paganism is striving to become a venerated ancestor. Because Slavic Paganism is all about venerating the ancestors. Even if you look at Slavic religious celebrations, every one of them is either related to veneration of ancestors, or to celebration of fertility – which is, obviously, the main way of making sure one becomes a venerated ancestor.
To be clear, I am not saying that one can’t become a venerated ancestor without having children – absolutely not. Adoption of both children and adults into a family or a tribe was a custom known to pre-Christian Slavs. One could also become a member of a family and even a parent, by marriage. What’s important to note here, that, while talking about a Slavic Pagan family, we are not talking about the modern nuclear family. We are talking about a whole family tree with a network of kinship extending to both mother’s and father’s family. Following this understanding on kinship, if you have brothers or sisters and they have children, you will be the ancestor of their children and the children of their children. But, still, as they say, better safe than sorry, which in this context means that if you are a Slavic Pagan, your best bet on becoming a venerated ancestor is to have children, instead of relying on your sibling to do the right thing – the right thing for your afterlife, of course.
In one of the episodes in the 1st season, I think it was the episode number 22, I mentioned that being a mentor also counts as an ancestor. This claim was based on something that I heard from a person I consider very knowledgeable, but when I dug deeper into the topic, it turned out is not such a certain claim that I thought it was. I haven’t found enough to reverse it, but I have not found enough to confirm it either. In the known to me literature on Slavic culture in medieval times, not necessarily the culture of pre-Christian Slavs, mind you, as written sources on this particular topic are scarce. Nevertheless, there is some mentions on the concept of spiritual kinship among early-medieval Slavs, although mostly in the context of noble families which could indicate Christian influences, but still, let’s be generous and say that spiritual kinship, in a form of mentoring, could arguably be part of pre-Christian Slavic tradition. That would mean that becoming a mentor to one or more members of next generation could also be a way of ensuring veneration after your death, the only problem with it is that it rarely secures you longer than one generation of veneration. I mean, I will absolutely be venerating few not genetically related to me people after they die, because they had such a huge positive impact on my life. But I cannot reasonably expect my daughter to venerate this people too, mostly because she has never met them and has no idea who they are. I could obviously tell her about this people and ask her to venerate them after I die, but there is simply no way she will pass this to her children, because… well, because they would be complete strangers to them. So, again, we come to the most straightforward way of ensuring veneration after your death: have children.
Having said that, your children will not be venerating you if you do not teach them the Slavic Pagan customs. Especially if you live outside of Slavic countries, where the customs of veneration of the ancestors did not quite make it to the modern times. On the Slavic lands we have Zaduszki or Radunica, which are like the All Saits Day in Catholic Church, but from what I understand such celebrations are not a regular custom in the West. Which, basically means, that even if my daughter does not bring her children up in Slavic Paganism, they will still at least once a year burn a candle for me, because such is a custom in Poland. But if you live in America or Canada and you do not bring your children up as Slavic Pagans or at least instil in them some sort of form of remembering the dead, you are guaranteed to fail as a Slavic Pagan. And this is where we are getting back to your stupid, inexistent identity, which you force down the throat of everyone who wants or does not want to listen and which needs constant 24/7 validation, otherwise you will literally die.
Because, sunshine, the human psychology 1.01 is such, that children do not do what you tell them to do but do what you do. So, if you’re spending hours validating your identity on various internet forums and thinking of various new tattoos or other decorations to validate your BS identity, your children will do the same. They will not venerate you, because they will, as you are, narcissistically focused on enforcing and validating their delusional identity, instead of paying attention to cultivating their relationships with their family on this and the other side. And don’t even get me started on the intergenerational literal trauma that you allegedly experienced and therefore are not able to do anything constructive about your life and have to constantly be spiritually healing by following various more or less insane and self-centred influencers on TikTok or another time-wasting platform. Because, by healing this trauma and telling everyone about it, all you are telling your child is that your family – and therefore your child – is damaged and can’t be fixed, because as you are allegedly healing this alleged trauma your child is not interacting with you in any healthy or constructive way. So, your child will grow up being convinced that your trauma gave him or her trauma and will be the source of income for next generation of more or less insane and self-centred influencers. Which is obviously not good for your child, but it is also not good for your afterlife.
We will have a separate episode about family ties, so I will not say any more on this topic, other than maybe reminding you about a simple fact of history, which is that until very recently wars and other forms of military conflict was the most natural and common thing that has been regularly taking place in human societies. And given that wars and other forms of military conflict are obviously resulting in all sorts of trauma, such as death, rape, all sorts of tortures, injuries, starvation, destruction of homesteads, land and all sorts of means of sustenance, there can be absolutely no doubt that humans evolved to deal with trauma and live a productive and fulfilling life after experiencing trauma. One could almost argue that without such trauma humans can’t deal with anything, since all the narration of trauma induced mental health issues and various other ailments and other shit is 100% first world problem. It’s just unheard of in places where life is actually, objectively hard.
But never mind, that’s just a side note here, because I am talking too long already and I still have not given you this month’s homework.
Naturally you are to continue venerating your ancestors, because this is what an actual Slavic Pagan has to do. So, do continue having dinners with your ancestors, making sure you take away all the sharp objects, serve home made food if possible and, ideally, fermented or milk/honey-based drinks.
On top of the veneration of your ancestors, I want you to get rid of all your made up identities and focus on building up the only real identity that you have: one of daughter, son, sister, brother, mother, father and any other type of family-based identity that you have. Take a break from all these online forums and influencers. Cancel the tattoo appointment. Stop screaming at people to force them to admit that your 3 times removed grandmother from Ukraine makes you the most Slavic Pagan ever and the wonky pseudo-symbol you’ve just had cut on your body makes you some sort of daughter of Morena or some other gnostic mambo-jumbo.
Focus on your family ties. If you can, reach out to you family, ideally the previous generations, and ask them how they are. And then shut up and listen. Respectfully and in silence let them tell you who you are and where are you from.
And if you, for whatever reason, can’t reach out to your family, just get rid of all your made-up identities and focus on building up the only real identity that you have: a human being that’s a daughter or a son. Whatever happened to you, your parents likely had it worse. Whatever you think you’re lacking, your parents did not have it either. If you believe in the intergenerational trauma BS, start thinking how to stop it and how to protect the next generation from it. We will be talking about it more in the next episode, but for now, try to connect with what connects you with your family and disconnect with whatever you think disconnects you. Because you need your family to become a Slavic Pagan. You simply can’t become one on your own.
And that’s all for today. I’ve got a feeling I haven’t offended you enough, but despite that, I hope you will not doubt that I care about you deeply.
I am extremely humbled by all your comments after the last episode, as well as the comments that you left in the 2 years break between the 1st and the 2nd season. I am still trying to catch up and reply to everything, but I can’t guarantee I will find time to do it. But still, I do thank you for listening.
And for now, take care, do your homework and
Sława
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