Credulity, credulousness and curmudgeonism

Ever think that some pagans would be better off as skeptics in the Amazing Randi vein except they can't quite get past the idea of having to be an atheist to do it? I see this sometimes. Their knee-jerk reaction to ideas like dealing with the Fair Folk of any variety with something closer than ten-foot silver tongs is to snark first, get pushy later.

Oh, certainly, lots of people take that sort of thing to an irrational conclusion, like the fluffybunnies who think all of the Shining Ones are friendly playmates who look like Tinkerbell. But I've seen people get rudely dissected for material that has some grounding in the lore, if not their perceptions, the latter being occasionally hard to argue with. I've made comment elsewhere about the Norse lore relating to attracting a helpful house brownie only to have someone get cute about chocolate fudge in a fashion that clearly indicated they weren't only punning to be cute. It's only annoying in that they showed no understanding of context and assumed they had the right of it when they clearly couldn't tell elfshot from Elfquest.

What some pagans seem to find hard to believe is that the lore of the cultures they are at least allegedly drawing their beliefs from is rife with stories of interactions with non-god-type entities with varying agendas and different means of being addressed. They either scoff or assume they all must be treated very carefully if not outright ignored. I grant you, an Asatruar setting up a house for their local wight isn't going to have a spic-and-span house as if by elfin magic, but it's perfectly within the lore to guess their tendency to always be able to find their house keys despite having no real system for keeping them in the same place might be related.

On that note, I need to put some cream out.

Thinking and Contemplating

I've been enjoying blogging and interacting with other bloggers for a while now, but lately, I've been turning a bit more private. It may just be me experiencing the change of the seasons in a way I never have before. That said, I'm not sure how often I'll be posting for a while, and I'm sure I'll be reading less often than I used to. I don't plan to shut this down, but I figured I'd make a note so the regular handful of you who've been following along will know why I've gotten quieter in case you hadn't been told via other means.

Of course, saying this, I may find myself posting a flurry in about a week or two. I'm just going to roll with it for a while and see what happens.