English Ale, Birthdays, Slow-burning Incense, Paganism & Early Gnostic Heresies

I wrote this article yesterday (18.08.2023)

I am celebrating my birthday today and I am usually a very quiet, modest, humble, low-ley (and sometimes very shy and reserved) type of guy. I don’t like telling people, being loud and vocal about it, and I don’t really enjoy throwing big parties with lots of people, booze, food, loud music and presents, or to seek out or invite people to come and pretend as if they care about me while wearing their weekend persona re-usable leather masks. Birthdays in general are supposed to be private gatherings with close family and kin. They need to be private, because it’s like a personal sacred ritual to honor the person you love and care about. Instead, lots of people these days are inviting half of their colleagues at work, school mates and neighbours, employees and bosses, drinking buddies and comrades from the local gym, random “friends” or the friends of their friends of their friends. It’s a hell-of-a circus with a dark twist. It’s as if birthdays are some kind of an extraverted charity meetings to fill in the void of those participating. I cannot understand this whole mindset and hive mentality. I honestly would’ve felt like I am being hunted like a wild animal if I was at the very center of the crowded birthday party instead of “playing” the role of the person who needs to be honored, respected and given the needed attention. Early kings, jarls and chieftains of the bronze and iron ages, or later the so-called “Dark” and “Middle” Ages were very strict about these matters and birthdays were more like honoring various patron deities, instead of the person him/herself directly. In this day and age, it is mostly scaled to an inversion on all things sacred. Certainly, being hunted is not a nice position to be in, and in order for a person to keep him/herself from being violated, humiliated, unsanctified, defield or one’s psyche “raped” and shred to pieces, then that person must somehow reverse the role of the sacrificial animal (of the hunted), and develop ways to shield the harmful elements and interract and develop ways to filter transcendent consciousness on much higher levels. Those levels are like countless steps on a steep hill. Those who succeeded at climbing that hill were hunted or persecuted by the rulling “elite” at that time, or flat out wiped from the face of the earth. I consider myself like one those people. Yes, Paganism is the at the very core of my so-called “spiritual” beliefs and personal philosophy, but I am also a Heretic and have always been one, like those early Gnostics immerging from the mists of time. And so, I feel that it is important to learn, know and understand how it all begun. Take your archaeological tools and notebooks out. Lecture time!