I recently made an account on Beehaw because I've been having pleasant interactions with the instance from my lemm.ee account. Some good threads, seemed like a progressive space. So I went back to the philosophy documents and read them again, liked most of what I saw (again) and signed up for an account today. Decided to break in my new account by browsing the top posts of the last month. Several of them were threads I recognised and had commented in, and felt like revisiting. Except my comments weren't there. When I got to a comment I very specifically remember replying to (someone asked what's up with HBomber and James Somerton), and couldn't find my comment, I decided to check the modlog.
I'm banned. I've been talking into an empty void for 4 months. I was banned for being in bad faith. And one of my comments was removed by an admin, because I told people to assume good faith and apparently that's not nice.
This doesn't align at all with the documents I've been reading today. The ones about assuming good faith, and about giving people chances to clarify, and about how banning is a last resort only for obvious trolls. When I came to this community 4 months ago to make a post about fediverse drama, I wasn't interested in active participation in the community, and I didn't make that post with that in mind. I understand how that might not fit the desires of the community here. But I didn't make that post in bad faith. I, and whoever wrote those pages on the philosophy of Beehaw, wanted the same thing back then. To create a corner of the internet free of hate speech and full of kindness. Now? I'm jaded and beaten. I don't want to create a kind community anymore, I want to find one. I've given up on that ambition. So that's why I reread the updated documents with hope. Why I created an account. And why I want to know whether beehaw.org is actually the website I read about in those documents. Because those modlogs say the opposite of what those documents said. If I don't fit in here, if the ideals I thought I saw aren't present, I'd like to find out quickly.
Should I still hope?
I get that you're trying to look out for OP but you probably shouldn't liken non Western spiritual processes to 'another cult thing' in case there are people for whom magic is an important part of their life.
I've read the other comments and edited mine. I clearly don't know enough on the subject to have an informed enough opinion, and what works for people works.
I do feel that there is a difference between the generic idea of occult practicing and spirituality and the specific one OP is advocating for.
My scepticism was triggered by the website through which I read OPs field manual. It immediately showed me multiple links to a "Free guided meditation" for which they wanted personal information, their "Magick.Me" online school for chaos magick which costs $81.07/month or $843.37/year, and a link to 8 celebrities who practice chaos magick as proof of it's validity, which is a tactic used by scientology.
https://ultraculture.org/blog/2015/11/13/psychonaut-field-manual/
This has to be a joke right? For people who magic is an important part of their life? Really?
a religious practice being unfamiliar and a bit strange to you is fine, but what you consider a weird religious practice is almost completely arbitrary--and something just being a weird religious practice to you isn't good grounds to call it "another cult thing", which is what's being objected to up-thread.
as an aside: if we're being intellectually honest "practicing magick" or believing in its existence is really no weirder than adhering to Catholic transubstantiation--the former is just niche while the latter is adhered to indirectly by a billion people.
Religion is by definition "another cult thing"
Of course. They're the same thing, total nonsense
i don't care if you think religion is bad or cringe or whatever--i am not religious--but if you want to continue being on this instance you cannot use this as a justification to be weird about other people's sincere spiritual beliefs. demanding they justify themselves to you is stupid, in the same way it would be stupid of me to harangue you about why you're not religious and what a weirdo you are for being that way.
If they don't want to justify it that's fine, but they're making claims that their magic is better than psychology, which is dangerous. And it's totally valid to ask for evidence for claims that their magic is real
this is literally the sort of haranguing i just described--pretty much all religious belief is predicated on a non-resolvable, non-falsifiable metaphysical debate that is supremely uninteresting to all participants and even less interesting to read and moderate because in this lifetime it is non-resolvable and non-falsifiable. put simply: you will never convince a sincere and devout religious person that their worldview is wrong by asking them to source where that worldview comes from--and if their worldview harms nobody, bluntly, who cares if their worldview is wrong anyways? it's not your problem. i don't know why i would care that someone else is wrong about something that doesn't impact me.
Hey i think you can not believe in something, and also think the person with the belief is acting wrongly or has bad or irresponsible takes about their belief, without using the validity of that belief itself as a basis for discrediting or putting down the person in a disagreement. Does that make sense? I think you can be totally free to find someone annoying or disagree with their ideas, and even privately think something is silly, without using someone’s spiritual or religious belief as the thing that is the problem you have with them. Demanding evidence or proof of someone’s religion or asking someone to justify what they believe spiritually or explain to your satisfaction why it’s not evil/dangerous/bad/fake is almost always trolling and can verge on bullying. But you can disagree with someone without doing that. It’s easy.
Nope, not a joke. Magic is important to me because it's how I stay connected to my hivemind. I'm grateful to @gaywallet for looking out for us religious people