Things Get Seriously Weird...

[ecosophia]

During this week's Magic Monday, one of my commenters -- tip of the Druidical hat to Seasidehermit -- noted that people on one of the popular Neopagan online forums were talking about a sudden distance opening up between them and their gods:  the gods they pray to have gone silent or, in some cases, gone away completely. (You can find two of the many examples here and here.) In the light of what follows, it's probably worth noting that the Neopagans in question are among those for whom yelling "Orange Man Bad!" and praising the latest excesses of cancel culture and woke activism are standard social habits. 

I was interested enough in this to follow up on it -- and what to my wondering eyes should appear but several comments (here's one of them) by Neopagans who have had their gods go silent, but are now suddenly noticing strings of repeating digits on clocks and other digital readouts. 

That is to say, they're seeing "gets." 

For those readers who didn't follow the Kek Wars in the months leading up to the 2016 election, or missed my four-part blog post on the subject (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four), a "get" was slang in alt-right forums (such as the notorious "chans") for sequences of repeating digits in the numbers automatically assigned to posts by forum software. One of the many weird features of that memorably strange election season was that posts dealing with Donald Trump fielded improbable numbers of "gets." (The most famous of these was a random post on 8chan on June 19, 2016, which said simply "Trump will win," and got the post number 77777777.) The cascades of "gets" was among the things that convinced a great many alt-right chaos mages during that election that they had somehow come into contact with the ancient Egyptian frog god Kek, who had taken Pepe the Frog for his mascot and who had chosen Donald Trump as his anointed candidate. (As I said, it was a memorably weird time.) 

And now Neopagans who are opponents of Trump are being quietly left in the lurch by the gods they worship, and at least some of them are seeing the signs of Kek's presence...

Something very strange is stirring, in the midst of this extremely strange time.

I'd like to ask my readers this: are you experiencing any particular sense of distance opening up between you and your gods? And are you seeing "gets"?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I was reading comments to this post and I thought that I never see any "gets" and then I checked the time and it was 16:16. Coincidence?

[(Anonymous)]

"This is not a coincidence, because nothing is ever a coincidence." -- from Unsong

(But it may not mean what you think it means.)

[(Anonymous)]

FWIW, my take is this - in this case, there is at present a conjunction of ‘heavy’ astral weather with a feeling of urgency and import with regard to valued social goals. If you read that ‘area’ of the neopagan movement as an egregoric group mind, it would not surprise me if there is somewhat of a feedback loop amongst those who identify together that makes divine contact more challenging.

My guess, if I were to hypothesize further, is that grounding &etc technique that worked well pre-coronavirus might not be ‘enough’ or ‘fit to purpose’ right now, and if people who experienced divine disconnect switched it up some, they might experience improvement.

Heavy astral weather + a sense of urgency about valued goals + (perhaps?) less than efficacious grounding, centering, banishing, and blessing = a recipe for divine disconnect

That said, I cannot and do not impose judgment on what the divine might or might not be doing in this case, just putting forward a possible alternate explanation.

[open_space]

I don’t think I have a strong personal connection to any god besides Jesus from infancy to provide a useful data point but his presence was felt a few days back; very strongly about a month ago as well as other goddess which sent me a helpful nudge. No ‘gets’. So I would say the contrary, I have felt an increased presence of the gods in my life.

*Queue closing music and talking voice about the next episode*

“Could this be the decisive end of the Neopagan scene?

Could alg-right magic have been used to reroute their devotions towards Kek and use that energy for the upcoming election?

Could a mysterious force be sending ripples through the theota of the world?

Have AWFLs successfully invoked unknown and unstoppable powers from the Karenomicon?

Find out in the next episode of 2020...”

[lincoln_lynx]

I know you were joking but their devotions being rerouted to Kek isn't that crazy actually...

A common way of bringing yourself closer to a god is intense focus on symbols associated with that god. These people's obsession with the Right and Trump could possibly have done that.

[(Anonymous)]

The gods have certainly not stopped talking to me! In fact, they seem to me more active in my life than ever before. And they tell me things I need to hear - often as not, things I'd rather not hear.

Venus has now gotten into the act, and not in any way I would ever imagine. (To the end that I just sent a check for $70 to Child Advocacy of (the city I'm in) and one to Girls' Place, Inc. (Of which Artemis also approves. Naturally.)

[(Anonymous)]

I've been a practicing Heathen for about 10 years. I haven't felt any issues with my Gods out of the ordinary. Since I have started the Dolmen Arch I feel probably closer since I am practicing the SoP regularly. I had a pretty clear message earlier this year while meditating to pretty much focus on survival.

Blackwolf

About Athene

[(Anonymous)]

One think all the mythology makes perfectly clear, is that Athene can spot the winner whenever there is any question, and always goes with the winner.

[(Anonymous)]

I've got a long standing devotion to a couple of Hellenic gods, and more recently I've been working with some Welsh gods. No issues with distance or silence in the former, and the in the latter case it's DA work and they've only recently made it clear that they are present, so it's less silent.

Also, check 'em

[(Anonymous)]

(Above poster here. For those who don't know, "Check 'em," means, "examine my post number for something significant." In this case, it's a time stamp rather than a post number, and I forgot that this displays UTC, so the hour isn't what I was going for. Oops.)

To answer the other half of the question, I haven't been noticing gets.

I keep politics strictly away from spiritual practice, though I am rather more toward the right.

I'm something of an ex-channer, so I have an odd relationship to the situation. "Ex-" because it cost more time than I could afford and abstinence turned out to be simpler than moderation. Coincidentally, I also formally cut ties to all of the Neopagan groups I had been involved with a few months before I stopped using the chans. Breaking from the chans was 70% time and 30% hygiene, with a strong sense of "Goodbye, old friend." Breaking from Neopaganism was 100% hygiene, with an even mix of "Good riddance" and "why did I stay for so long?"

I try to keep my nose out of other people's spiritual business, but I have to admit that I wonder if the things that have stopped talking were gods to begin with. Maybe I'm just not special, but I've never met a god who wanted to chitchat about how correct my social and political opinions were.

I also wonder why the gods of ancient cultures never bothered to bring up the overwhelming importance of adopting early 21st century social ideas back when they had dedicated temples with political clout.

With appropriate respect to what probably started out as, and will hopefully return to, sincere spiritual seeking, if your "god" is really just Progress dressed for the renaissance festival, then could the shattering of your faith inhibit you ability to contact that egregore? Or perhaps it's not on the human side at all, and a certain Frog just decided to deflate an egregore that had outlived its usefulness.

[(Anonymous)]

"In the light of what follows, it's probably worth noting that the Neopagans in question are among those for whom yelling "Orange Man Bad!" and praising the latest excesses of cancel culture and woke activism are standard social habits."

I wonder if the gods have gotten annoyed at cancel culture (Considering how many of their followers are affected, it seems plausible), and so those who partake in it are being canceled by their gods.....

[(Anonymous)]

I never thought of that. Considering over at Wild Hunt, they have a writer who is rewriting Norse religion to fit modern sensibilities and make it more "universal." Loki according to this writer is the God of Trump. Becket and Mankey at Patheos are also rewriting the religion - Pan has been neutered, and the Morrigan is on the side of Good. So, yes, it makes a lot of sense that the actual Gods would take a hike.

[syfen]

I haven't had any gets, but I've been having way more intense dreams and nightmares. My normal nightmares are just me getting chased and eaten by the xenomorph from the movie aliens, or by zombies. The current nightmares are totally new and way more disturbing.

The Devas are still around, and my practice is moving forward in leaps and bounds. Sorry I don't have anything more exciting to report.

[avalterra]

No and No, although we support Trump. Kek is a god of chaos - correct? Maybe, he's trolling Neo-pagans.

[(Anonymous)]

A god of chaos and patron deity of the Chans trolling the Neo-Pagans? That would make a huge amount of sense and would be hilariously funny as well.

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't seen or felt any difference. I'm Catholic, a convert from another form of Christianity. I have never had a strong sense of the personal presence of any person of the Trinity or saint--it's always been in the results rather than direct observation that I see them at work. This last year has been the same.

SamChevre

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not seeing any change in the distance between myself and my gods. But then, I tend to be more of a centrist and not part of the fringe, either left or right.

Tibetan Buddhism

[(Anonymous)]

Tibetan Buddhist. I get the same sense of clarity and joy I usually do after a good practice session (including regular offerings to Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Gods).

Neither pro nor anti Trump. I support some things he did, not others.

I noticed that Jason Miller, who's quite openly Anti-Trump, said recently that he drew a divination that indicated a Trump win in 2020 (similar to his divination in 2016). Of course he is resigned to it and seems to think it will be the end of democracy, but to his credit he read the divination as it was given rather than what I've seen some astrologers do by trying to read birth charts into the election.

Follower of Minerva

[(Anonymous)]

My spiritual practice is proceeding consistently and quietly. No gets. I don't live in the US, don't have social media and avoid the occasional flicker of TDS from my social circle.

[(Anonymous)]

This data point is not what you asked for, but perhaps it will be useful coming from a different angle.

I am a devoted JMG reader for about 10 years but not particularly spiritual. I find the political and magical writings on the current version of the blog about equally interesting. I have books in my house by Dion Fortune, Rudolf Steiner, and many others, all of which were acquired in my fairly unhappy late teens (early 1980s). My spiritual practice at that time progressed to the point of attaining a reasonable level of agency in my dreams so I could get a good night's sleep, and then I became interested in more worldly things.

I read the magical writing on this blog with interest, mostly because it makes more sense to me than the dominant religions of the Book, but I have not felt compelled to start working toward greater enlightenment at this time. I don't think I am particularly sensitive, but over the past year I have had an increasingly strong feeling that it does not matter at all who wins this election, and that I should instead focus on getting my house in order.

I don't know of any source for this feeling, other than cynicism born from the fact that I think Donald Trump and Joe Biden are both awful leaders and awful people. The feeling was building before Joe Biden's sudden South Carolina ascendancy, but that makes sense because the other Democrats (and Republicans) are about equally awful. I was kind of hoping for the Green party to turn authoritarian as JG had predicted a while back, but if that's going to happen, this doesn't seem to be the cycle.

I am not feeling any more or less cut off from whatever gods may be, and I am not seeing "gets."

Maybe they just had some moments of calm, but...

[(Anonymous)]

I went back and reread the "yearning" and "doldrums" threads you linked, including all the comments.
I did not see pulling of hair and crying about 'being abandoned'; instead I saw a lot of comments to the effect of:

"From the first time I noticed this, I’ve described it as 'silence, not absence.' ... Our Gods are not angry and we have not been abandoned. They’ve just been otherwise occupied. And as usual, They aren’t saying much about what They’re doing."

Many of those commenters have the impression that Something Big Is Going On and their various gods are engrossed in that. One person's deity told her to batten the hatches, that it's going to get rougher "by the time the snow flies". Others were told 'no, we don't need you to do workings to try to help right now, just stay in a safe place.' I don't know that this is even about the election; I get a feeling that 'Trump vs The Establishment' is simply a bright (orange) leaf being whirled around on top of a much larger, deeper vortex.

Speaking of battening the hatches, Beckett linked to an earlier post, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/2019/06/storm-and-tower-time-simple-names-complicated-situation.html, talking about "The Storm"/"Tower Times"/"The Long Descent". Yes, JMG, that's your "Long Descent". Apparently it's a wider meme now. Beckett picks at it in this post but can't deny it completely (although he tries).

The people (including Beckett) in these posts seemed as thoughtful and non-screamy as the posters on this blog. But maybe these posts just caught them at a calmer moment, judging by comments here from 'laruse' and others.

- -

I think the King In Orange ( :D ) has some kind of glamour going on. I felt it tugging at me in 2015-2016, but eventually decided against voting for him because he was talking about 'jobs for Americans' but hiring H2B visa people for his Mar-A-Lago resort instead. I went for Jill Stein that year.

Perhaps if I am mildly attracted by his glamour, others are repelled and react to it with instant disgust. Maybe that's a component of / reason for TDS.

- Cicada Grove

If the Gods don't listen, perhaps demons will?

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder if this silence from upon high is why so many occult people seem to be looking below for answers.

I've seen a number of people on the cringe left end of the social media occult scene argue that the violently and recently departed, and demons, are the go to for getting things like interfering in elections done. Because, you know, the Gods don't know what they're doing and need pOwERFul OcCulTisTs to do the job for them.

I wonder what they'll resort to next when that doesn't pan out the way they expect. Cthulhu?

N

Re: If the Gods don't listen, perhaps demons will?

[(Anonymous)]

Cthulhu in 2020? There's a ton of his campaigh material already out there! Sample:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cthulhu/comments/ap6tr7/the_stars_are_right_for_cthulhu_2020/

[thuley]

I just want to note that the 11:11 'get' everyone is posting is relevant to the topic of gods going silent, by way of a bible verse:

Jeremiah 11:11 "Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them."

I've mostly not been 'getting' 11:11 or 1111, but the staggering number of times I've seen people posting it, either totally confused by its meaning or blithely assuming it to be positive is staggering. I take that as an omen of all the people hopelessly unprepared for disruption or hardship.

I recognized the meaning of this get early in 2019 because it was featured prominently in two major Hollywood films last year: Jordan Peele's 'Us' and Todd Phillips' Joker. The story of these films is relevant. 'Us' is about Americans' shadow nature rising to take control of the surface after years of abuse and neglect; and Joker (despite ostensibly being a comic book movie) is about a neglected mental patient deciding to burn down the American society that no longer serves him and inspiring much of his city's underclass to do the same.

That sums up my assessment of the right and left wings in this country, respectively.

In this context, gods going silent *before* being inundated with pleas for help that cannot be answered because the punishment is most assuredly deserved--well, it's simply an act of courtesy.

[(Anonymous)]

Good catch on Jeremiah 11:11. Seems to be singularly appropriate right now...

[brendhelm]

Not really and sort of.

It was 5:51 this morning when I woke up, and it's been 5:50-something several times in the past few days. I have been noticing more intense and seemingly more meaningful dreams.

Gets in front of me

[(Anonymous)]

I was reading about President William McKinley. And 1901, 11, and 01, 19, kept repeating themselves.

Then I was reading about various Egyptian dynasties, and 1313 kept reappearing in various forms. Also, the scarab made it appearance after the main posting.

[deansmith]

JMG,

No and No. And for what its worth, in the past I've reliably found that if I am feeling distance to deity, it usually has to do with my own orientation and state of mind, not the gods.

[(Anonymous)]

No to both the question about gods and the one about gets.

The only thing I have noticed in the last few months is that divinations seem to keep giving me messages saying "wait" and "be patient", while also hinting at how hidden things will be "uncovered" or "illuminated". But it's hard to say exactly what that could mean.

I've read some of Beckett's writings in the past, and used to think he had some useful things to say - but like too many other people, he seems to have gone over to full TDS, and IMO its infected his posts and articles with myopia and hysteria and I am now finding him largely unreadable.

Like many of the posters above have already stated, I too am not a fan of Donald Trump, but am also not a fan of the dismal Democratic alternatives. Frothing-at-the-mouth liberal TDS is now driving me just as crazy as the wingnut right rage-festing used to, and I just try to avoid political conversations with most people.

Anti-trumper here and no to both questions

[avalonautumn]

I hate Sir Orangeness with the passion of a 1000 fiery suns, though I am able to see and acknowledge that he's made some good moves along the way, so I'm not that far gone. However, I think he's more stupid, corrupt, and dangerous than any other president in my lifetime, easily, and though I understand the sentiment that swept him into office (essentially that the Republican voters on the ground carried off a revolution within their own party, upsetting the Old Guard completely) I think it's insane to back him now.

Meanwhile, my spiritual life continues as it has for a while. Spirits, gods, and "other dimensionals" of various kinds communicate with me at the same rate and I don't feel even slightly abandoned.

To be fair, I've never done a spell or ritual to get rid of a politician. It's hard enough to get a small thing done personally with some extra back-up. My experience has told me clearly that interfering with another's free will (let alone that of many people) is wasted energy.

Guanajuato radar anomaly

[(Anonymous)]

In other 4chan-related paranormal frog news (and what I assumed this post was about when I saw the title and Kek state), on Wednesday, a large patterned circular radar anomaly was spotted by 4chan, centered on Canada de la Virgen, in Guanajuato, Mexico. Guanajuato means "Frog Hill". The debate went on about whether it was glitch or a signal, but then somebody noticed the frog connection and it really took off.

stirring

[walt_f]

No and no.

The strangest things stirring around here recently, and quite literally, were two enormous snapping turtles, mostly submerged, making sweet squamous Jurassic love in the tidal shallows a few dozen yards from my home. It can be difficult to augur from a (to oneself) so-far unique sight, but implications of very old hidden forces engaged in new creation (brewing new trouble?) aren't too hard to pick out.

That presaged a number of challenges, including pandemic-related disruptions and my own illness not from Covid but a locally endemic bacterium. But there's been no withdrawal by the local nature spirits and (presently unnamed) deities. Quite the contrary. One, associated with the cattails, came to my attention in dramatic fashion during the illness and has been a strong presence since; another answered an intercessory prayer with a minor miracle. All this is rather far from politics.

Thinking about 'gets' makes me realize how relatively little engagement with numbers I have these days. Even the clocks I look at most often are analog. (Sometimes the hands are overlapping, or opposed. Such as, right now as I write this at 7:37 PM! But those happen 45 times a day.)