Spiritual Red Flags || OWC: #Itsgivingredflag

——

Red Flags—especially regarding spiritualism—are prevalent in all forms of media. With the resurgence of spirituality in the mainstream (i.e, 2020 witchtok), it is important to be able to identify these red flags and how to find credible information.

——

Let's start by discussing examples of red flags within media you have most likely been exposed to regarding spirituality:

Reactbait

Media that contains wording like “this deity is reaching out to you”, “share this with 17,000 of your friends or you’ll be cursed”, “like, comment, share to receive good luck” — anything that subtly solicits or coerces is a red flag. The general idea of this content is to get you to react in some way that can benefit the creator within the algorithm, not to give you credible information.

“White”/”Black” Magic

If you see this within the form of media you are trying to learn from, it is an absolute red flag. The term “Black/Evil/Negative” — or any other similar terminology is rooted in demonizing POC practices; using mass media to portray these practices as “evil/black/negative” as something you don’t want to be while promoting “love and light/positivity/white” magic as something you wish to strive to be.

We have a PSA regarding our stance on this matter with tons of deeper information on this terminology: [PSA| “Black” Magic| http://aminoapps.mejorapp.org/p/g9q4xg]

“Light”/”Dark” God/Goddesses

There is no such thing. Deities (entities, etc) are all grey just like every facet of anything that exists. “Light” and “dark”, “good” and “bad” — these are terminologies we have created for a multitude of reasons. Aphrodite is not a “Light Goddess”. The Morrigan is not a “Dark Goddess.”. Aphrodite is portrayed that way because our current society prioritizes her “light” aspects (love, beauty, etc), disregarding the fact that she is also associated with war, just like The Morrigan. The Morrigan is vice versa, with her being associated with anything “light” being ignored. Not to mention, these terminologies also fall under the discussion above of demonizing POC’s practices as well as demonizing goddesses who act out of feminine norms of current society (pure, nurturing, innocent, etc).

Hollywood

Anything “Hollywood” or Mass media-based should be taken with a grain of salt–or none. We may all enjoy Charmed, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and The Coven season in AHS, but they are made off of little to no true facts and carry harmful rhetoric about many practices in the umbrella of spiritualism. If you see these forms of entertainment being used as foundations for information, it is a red flag. (For the record, this is not discussing Pop-culture practices.)

Entity “levels”

Working with an entity does not have levels, and everyone’s capabilities range regardless of “novice” and “experienced” titles (which are subjective). The idea that entity work is for more “experienced” practitioners is based on a range of valid and invalid reasoning. Even once you finally get ed being seen as a “beginner” and are “allowed” to do entity work, you will hear Anubis is “harder” to work with than working with Apollo (an “easy” deity). The right answer is, a relationship with an entity should be based on what you are ready for and being educated on what this relationship means. Whether an entity is more “demanding” is subjective; maybe they are not for some. Once again, do your research and communicate with the deity you wish to work with.

“That is your belief, this is mine.”

This dangerous term is a red flag. It gives the green light to normalize negative beliefs by using opinion to justify the reasoning. If a practice is closed, black magic is rooted in systemic racism, etc the opinion is not above that, nor the belief. No matter how someone sees it, that is a privileged mindset, and if you're objectively wrong, you're wrong. You wouldn't say the sky to the human eye is white because your belief says otherwise. That doesn’t apply here either.

Personal Experience as Fact

Your personal experience in your practice is UPG unless backed up by credible sources (VPG). If you find someone claiming that Lucifer does something that is not based in VPG, and claims that it is (claiming that it is fact), It is a red flag, please stay away from that individual.

No sources

This goes into the last topic, but any practitioner who cannot give you sources for where their information comes from is a MASSIVE red flag. Cross-referencing is crucial beyond just spiritualism, and it is important to be able to look through sources on your own, outside of their content. If they can’t cite sources, where do they get this “credible” information from?

All their sources are from problematic practitioners

If this practitioner is quoting or giving out sources from these creators, they are most likely just as problematic or no more credible than they claim to be on that particular topic.

(Obviously, it is valid to not be aware of problematic authors, but bring it up to them and see how they react to the matter, and go from there.)

Some honorable mentions:

“The entity has to reach out to you.”

“Tarot decks have to be gifted.”

Fear-mongering content

5D Earth

New Age Spiritualism

Humanizing of entities

Scammers (of main channels or standalone)

“I just had to message you to give you this reading.”

Reality Shifting

(i.e, talks of shifting to different realities literally; like a cartoon universe)

——

Now that we have discussed some red flags to look out for, how could you avoid/identify this?

Media Literacy.

Media Literacy is “The ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication.” (NAMLE). The ability to understand/comprehend what you are looking at is so crucial and is typically undervalued. The act of just reading the information is not enough, but going further than that is. Using this source further (and if you have time, I encourage a look through), NAMLE uses the term “Media Monsters” to describe individuals who spread misinformation (intentionally or not) and who doesn't take the time to look deeper. They go on to say this:

“Every day we interact with endless media all around us: pictures, articles, T.V. shows, podcasts, ments, social media posts, and headlines just to name a few. It’s become an overwhelming roar of information and it is all driven by an agenda: the desire for more clicks, attention, money, to generate buzz, or even spread misinformation. We choose the ways in which we interact with media, and sometimes, we make choices that turn us each into our own special kind of monstrosity— by not checking sources or by believing every salacious headline without reading the article or by sharing unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. We can all act like Media Monsters. It’s as if we have no brain for thinking but one thousand hands for sharing. And in our monster state, we spread the behavior and turn other people into monsters, too. But there’s a cure that can turn us all back into humans: recognizing and declaring ourselves Media Monsters.”

NAMLE goes on to discuss a few ways to better identify and work better at taking responsibility, taking information, and sharing it, which is a reason why I encourage reading up on NAMLE.

Study The Creator.

If you see any form of media, it was created by someone, and typically that individual has an “about me” page, a message, a video somewhere, or maybe their content does the talking about what they are about. Outside of that, you can look up some credible websites and forums regarding the author as well as reviews regarding their content (I.e. Amazon reviews for books).

Cross referencing.

Cross referencing is the being able to find documentation that s the one topic you’re looking for. It’s a simple practice of being able to your findings and confirm if something is of personal experience, shared experiences, backed up by facts, or complete misinformation.

More research Informative Blogs:

Know Your Sources

Guide to Research

How to Research

Researching: The Funnel Approach

Those are just a few things to note about how to go about avoiding or detecting non-credible sources but media literacy is the root of the two mentioned afterwards.

——

I hope this was insightful and helpful for you moving forward in your spiritual and research journey. Be on the lookout for those red flags, share some of your experiences with red flags mentioned here or not if you like. It helps us all to understand how to not to become “media monsters” and become more informed people working the internet in our favor.

#PWSpotlight