Stop Normalizing Abusive Relationships with Deities

I’ve been thinking more about the whole gods harming their worshipers discourse on TikTok and I think it goes a lot deeper than just spreading fear and misinformation in our community. 

By so casually going onto social media and posting about these experiences as if that’s just what happens as a worshiper, the message they are sending is “The gods can and will ABUSE you and you deserve it” 

They’re basically normalizing abusive relationships with deities. And I say this as someone who was in an abusive relationship. 

Swap out any of the gods in these stories for a mortal and we all would be calling the cops. So why is it okay for a deity to cause such harm?? The answer is that it isn’t. 

These people shouldn’t be promoting these kinds of relationships. It’s harmful, especially to the younger crowd who already struggles greatly with their own self worth. 

And truthfully by normalizing abusive relationships with the gods, they’re also normalizing abusive relationship in general. If you can accept a god causing you harm, you’ll likely accept it from anyone. Because the feeling of “I deserve this” and “This is my fault” will transfer over into other relationships. 

So essentially what these TikTokers are doing is creating an enviornment where more young people are going to be susceptible to abusers. 

Another equally large issue I find with that situation is that these TikTokers (usually witches who aren’t actual Hellenes or polytheists) are making all these claims and acting like their UPG (Unverified Personal Gnosis: a personal experience with the gods that hasn’t been confirmed by any religious precedence) is fact or absolute truth, when it is not.

Witchtok (not including the accurate and responsible Hellenes that are also witches) has a big issue of acting like they’re the ultimate authority on Hellenic polytheism or polytheism in general, and that’s not true. We don’t have an ultimate authority bc the faith is so complex and diverse. It’s especially harmful when baby witches or baby polytheists go to TikTok for info and advice with their practice/worship because it’s a bit more accessible and not as hard to navigate as the many sources online that mix good and bad pieces of information. And these babies hear about all this abuse from the gods, and they either think they should avoid the faith altogether or that this one person’s experience wraps up all others’ experiences with Hellenismos and polytheism as a whole and that abuse from the gods is common and acceptable.

And let me say that no two people’s experience with polytheism is the same. That’s for sure. But it goes too far when one person claims their gods have hurt them harshly. Like, yeah, sometimes Apollo will give me a little pat upside the head if I do something stupid, but it’s not excessive, and it is because I did something stupid and not for some dumb, illogical reason. And I never feel afraid of him, and I never feel depressed or tormented because of his actions. Quite the opposite. Apollo acts like a father to me. Pulls me in the right direction when I’m lost and occasionally will give me a little whack if I did something wrong that’s against my morals or the guidelines of Hellenismos. If I make a mistake, he makes sure I know it’s a mistake and learn to be a better person.

Like, the girl who said Aphrodite tried to drown her in a dream or whatever because the chick gave her an unliked offering or something. Like no. Okay? The gods aren’t petty or childish like that. They do want what’s best for you and want to help you and guide you. They’ll give you a push in the right direction and maybe a warning tone or a nudge if you do something bad. If they want to really punish you really harshly and roughly for something, it would be because you committed some kind of huge crime like murder or some kind of act of insane hubris. But they won’t hurt someone on a whim or for a dumb reason. So whatever entity is hurting you under the name of punishment for a wrong deed and claiming to be your deity is NOT that deity, most likely.

So please don’t just think that the people on TikTok, witches or polytheists or otherwise, are all speaking perfect truth. Everyone is different, and there’s a big issue with misinformation there. Take things with a grain of salt, do your own research, ask legitimate and experienced people for help if you feel lost or don’t know where to start or feel like something bad is happening to you. Okay? So please. Just be careful.

Here are some really good blogs/people to go to with your questions:

Can we also talk about how these people are probably not dealing with deities?

There’s other things out there who aren’t deities it will do whatever to claim they are deities and actually are energetic leeches who will claim to be a deity because the person hasn’t practiced good warding/discernment/cleansing techniques.

I’m not saying that a deity isn’t capable of abuse, because they can be, but it’s far more likely it’s not a deity. Especially considering I highly highly doubt these newbie witches or whatever are practicing safe techniques.

If a deity is treating you like an abusive boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever, call them on their shit but also ask who the fuck they are.

Thanks for coming to my TEDx talk.

Sincerely, someone who also had months of her life spent with a random energy draining spirit who claimed to be Loki among other random imposter spirits that I’ve came across due to lack of experience.

You’re absolutely right and I’ve discussed already how I personally believe these Tiktokers are likely making up the entire stories or not actually dealing with the deities they say they are. Tho I’m more leaning towards it’s all complete bullshit.

But I wanted to highlight specifically the dangers of what these people are ACTUALLY saying to their audiences.

When they casually go on to social media and tell their viewers that a god has hurt them for really any reason but especially for minor reasons, they are teaching these viewers that it’s okay for someone (god or otherwise) to hurt them.

And the sad part is that the people who DO believe these stories are the ones who likely have a low sense of self worth already and feel the need to be told what to do because they don’t trust themselves, meaning they are already very susceptible to abusers.

So I just wanted to basically state that regardless of how we view their stories (real or not, entity or deity) the message they are sending is extremely harmful especially to the younger crowd that it’s mainly catered to.