SINS OF COMMISSION AND OMISSION

Spiritual Teachers stand accused of!

BIRCH TREE DREAM INCUBATION CHAMBER, painting by Imelda Almqvist

In the Roman Catholic Church of my childhood a distinction was made between sins of commission and sins of omission. In plain English: wrongdoing and doing wrong by not acting (or speaking out) when you should.

I often see accusations thrown at spiritual teachers on social media platforms. Most of this falls into the category of “same old” (which I have learned to ignore completely): spiritual teachers and practitioners should work for free and not charge any money for their courses (or services)! Well… obviously course venues will still charge a hefty fee and platforms hosting online schools also charge an eye-watering annual fee for hosting class listings and recordings (oh and obviously you need to pay Zoom an annual fee too, for hosting meetings of unlimited duration!)

Spiritual teachers still need to eat, drink, pay rent, fund trips to the vet for their pets, and save money for their children to go to college (in US speak, that is university in UK speak), just like everyone else. So following this popular suggestion would instantly wipe out about 97% of spiritual offerings. Some community-spirited people will still host an occasional ceremony in their house or garden. However, most spiritual teachers would draw the line at funding participants out of their own pocket.

Every once in a while a more thoughtful accusation appears. This essay was inspired by such a post. I did not screenshot the post, so I have no idea who wrote it. I only noticed a few days later that I was still chewing on the words. I was not tagged or personally targeted either, it was directed at a large group (“spiritual teachers” as collective). And you know, I even felt some (but not unlimited) sympathy for the sentiment expressed.

The actual post read something like this: “I can’t believe that there are spiritual teachers out there who carry on as usual and do not use their large platforms to raise awareness of the Palestine issue!” The person went on to make very clear that this is both unbelievable and unforgivable.

OK…

I agree with this person that not acting (when we should) can be as much of a crime as serious wrong-doing. The real issue obviously is who decides whether a person speaks out and when/how they then act. That decision has many dimensions such as exercising free speech and free will, deciding about priorities and choosing between “the hill I will die on” and “hills not worth dying on”. Meaning that it is personal choice made for very complex reasons.

As I can only speak for myself, let me start by explaining that I have not been completely silent. I have written about the Israel-Palestine conflict in two essays. Below I will reproduce a few paragraphs from my second essay, titled: OF COLLECTIVE GRIEF AND THE OBSERVER EFFECT (When our world becomes a graveyard for children).

Those words were written on 7 November 2023 (and I could not have written anything earlier because I was on a gruelling teaching tour in the US):

«This week the United Nations secretary-general called for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, as he warned that the bombarded Gaza Strip was becoming a “graveyard for children”, as he also criticized “indiscriminate” firing of rockets into Israel. Source

UNICEF estimates that around 1,500 children have died or gone missing while attempting the Central Mediterranean Sea crossing (since 2018). Source [Update: eleven children continue to die this way every every week, that is 572 children a year].

In my first book, Natural Born Shamans, I wrote a (long) list of all the issues that violate the human rights of children in spectacular ways. Did you know that children are commonly used as human shields in war? […]

Many street children in in our world have no parents or guardians at all and resort to hiring out their bodies for sex, just to stay alive. I am talking about children as young as six or seven years old. They have no human rights, no guardians and are subjected to unspeakable things. Criminals and paedophiles rule those shadowlands. I invite you to watch the following documentary (but you will never ever again “unknow” what you learn): Harrowing Documentary from Pakistan «

So, why have I not returned to this topic in recent months? The short answer, other than working full time and traveling non-stop, is that I have been listening to dozens of podcasts on the Israel-Palestine conflict, trying to educate myself, so I don’t say anything misleading or ill-informed in public. (I don’t mind being wrong, admitting that publicly and learning something but I do not wish to add to the steady stream of biased viewpoints already washing over us daily).

I vividly remember being a child attending primary school (in the Netherlands in the 1970s) and doing a project for school on the Israel-Palestine conflict. I am 57 now.

About 45 podcasts later (I have listened to all possible viewpoints) I still feel extremely ill-informed. The issues do not appear black-and-white to me. I have moments where the horror of the sheer violence (in that region) make me question my faith in humanity. I also observe some terrifying things playing out (over here, in peaceful Western Europe). This fills me with a different kind of dismay and dread. There is a reason why refugees risk their lives to reach safety in Western countries!

BLACK ROSE MADONNA, pen-and-ink drawing by Imelda Almqvist

To Western eyes the bottom line appears to be that we can not equate a terrorist attack (of horrific intent and brutal execution) with a genocide occurring in an entire region (Gaza). In terms of “pure maths”, I can see the point of that. Though every single death is a waste of a human life and of human potential. It represents a unique contribution to humanity that will never be made, as well as untold suffering.

The most recent escalation in this conflict was caused by the Palestinian group Hamas executing a lethal attack and massacre in Israel, on October 7, 2023. The attack resulted in more than 1,200 deaths, primarily Israeli citizens, making it the deadliest day for Israel since its independence. Additionally, more than 240 people were taken hostage.

The UK, my official country of residence, officially defines Hamas, a militant Islamist movement established in 1987, as a terrorist organisation. There is unlikely to be fair play and also a serious concern about agreements being honoured, when one negotiates with terrorists, who place little value on human lives. Doing so will pose an immense long-term risk to Western values.

Public opinion is that the way Israel responded to these events is so out of proportion and evil, that Palestine is the side we must all support. Additionally, many people seem to believe that that the Palestinian people are the “indigenous people” of that region, (I have heard many experts debunk this claim), so we not should not repeat the horrors of what colonization did to Native American peoples (historically, on another continent).

Comparison: more than 9,000 children have been killed or maimed in Iraq since 2008. At least 120,000 children have been killed or maimed by wars around the world since 2005. That is a (tragic) average of almost 20 day. At least 105,000 children have been recruited or used by armed forces or armed groups. Child soldiers are still a “thing” in 2024, while parents in peaceful Western countries agonize about minor parenting decisions. Source: data courtesy of UNICEF

More than a 100 children die in Gaza daily.

Leaving aside for a moment who is “wrong” or “right”, there has been a tremendous rise in antisemitism in the West. London has been declared a “no go zone for Jews” during the pro-Palestinian marches happening at weekends. A significant portion of London’s population no longer feels safe. Jewish schools have been forced to step up their security arrangements. Parents have been harassed on school runs. Students have been advised not to wear school uniforms and not be “openly Jewish”. (Is it time to read up on events unfolding in pre-war Germany in the late 1930s?)

Gaza has undeniably turned into an outdoor concentration camp or death camp (partly because neighbouring countries will not accept refugees, so they can’t leave the area) and a mass cemetery of unspeakable proportions. People have nowhere to go and nowhere to hide. They starve. They suffer unfathomable things every single day. The fate of the people in Gaza rips our hearts out.

My own personal take is that the people of Israel, of all people (!) ought to be know what it feels like to be unwanted, persecuted and to live in fear of death, brutality and starvation. Pogroms and antisemitism have scarred the collective soul of Jewish people over many centuries in indelible ways. And now Israel is doing the same thing to another group of people, on a very large scale. This takes my breath away. For me the dilemma goes between the horror of this and accepting a terrorist organisation as viable political leaders on the world stage. Here is where I get stuck, lose sleep and yes, lose my voice.

Returning to the assumption that is the moral duty of (well-known or well-resourced) spiritual teachers to use their voice, their platforms and their large following to “speak up for the cause”, we are going to hit some complexities.

There are brilliant Jewish teachers who have personal ties to this region, and their families were decimated by another genocide: the holocaust during WW2. Of course they will be on the side of Israel. They would betray their ancestors if they didn’t.

A related issue is that the existence of no other nation in the world is ever called into question, the way that the existence of Israel now daily is.

When Britain granted India independence, 75 years ago, the territory it had ruled over was divided, or partitioned, into India and the new state of Pakistan (with East Pakistan later becoming Bangladesh). This, an event known as Partition, created an upsurge of violence, in which approximately 15 million people were displaced and an estimated one million died. India and Pakistan have remained rivals ever since. Source

As someone who has spent time working in Bangladesh, I simply observe that no one ever questions the existence of Bangladesh, nor the existence of Pakistan. It seems that most commentators agree that the solution for the Israel - Palestine conflict is a two-state arrangement. Therefore we would do well to study the case of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in terms of long-term outcomes (and lasting tensions).

I very much hope that most people are aware that there are MANY areas of armed conflict and disastrous violations of human rights, in our present world. What we see on the news is not the totality of reality - it is a stream curated by new editors who make difficult choices about what to feature and what to ignore. In this case no news is very much NOT good news!

I cannot provide an exhaustive list (for that I direct you to organisations such as UNICEF and Amnesty International) but most of today’s serious conflicts are concentrated in Asia and Africa. Territorial disputes and civil wars are the most common form of conflicts. At the time of writing (June 2024) there are at last 32 live conflicts raging in our world!

The situations tipping into ever greater instability with escalating levels of violence are: the Israel-Palestine conflict, the war in Ukraine, the war in Afghanistan, violent extremism in the Sahel, the civil war in Myanmar, the confrontation over Taiwan, instability in Haiti, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, ethnic conflict and violent resource competition involving ethnic militias in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the power struggle in Sudan, and instability in Pakistan. There are currently civil wars raging in Afghanistan, South Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Syria and Iraq.

There are millions of displaced people on our planet.

Millions of children in Yemen (locked in a bloody war with the Saudi-supported government forces) face starvation. One child dies in Yemen every 10 minutes. That is 18 children in the three hours it took me to write and edit this essay!

Over 75% of the population, or 21.6 million Yemenis, remain in dire need of humanitarian assistance. Millions have been pushed to the brink of starvation including 2.2 million children under five who have required treatment for acute malnutrition, and a cholera outbreak has affected over one million people.  - Source

International law is disregarded with impunity. Criminal networks unfailingly profit from division and violence.

In September 2023 Azerbaijan launched (so called) anti-terrorist activities in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, claiming it wanted to restore constitutional order and drive out what it said were Armenian troops. This move could we initiate a new war. Armenia and Azerbaijan have already fought two wars over Karabakh in the three decades. They were both members of collapsed Soviet Union.

China also stands accused of committing genocide. Human rights groups believe China has detained more than one million Uyghurs against their will over the past few years in a large network of what the state calls "re-education camps", and sentenced hundreds of thousands to prison terms. This affects not only the Uyghurs but also also other mostly-Muslim ethnic groups in the north-western region of Xinjiang. Source

In at least 15 armed conflicts, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Mali, Burkina Faso, and South Sudan, government forces or non-state armed groups have been implicated in abuses against civilians. Source

We also find armed violence in many other locations, such as Mexico and other countries in Central America.

"In 2021, we witnessed forced internal displacement, migration and people going missing. We also continued to see how violence affected communities' access to health care and education. In addition to the visible effects of the violence, such as homicides, there are profound invisible effects: the violence is turning people, families and communities into the living dead,"  -Jordi Raich, head of the ICRC's regional delegation for Mexico and Central America. Source

Many zones of armed conflict and heinous human right abuses get no (or only an occasional) mention. They certainly do not attract daily world attention, the way that the plight of people in Gaza does. (Even the people in Ukraine no longer receive this unwavering focus).

The issues in the Middle East (or Near East, if you prefer) have politicized, divided and (in some cases) radicalized the Western audience. Voicing a more critical (or nuanced) opinion “is not worth it” if your children are going to be assaulted on the school run, your colleagues are going to ostracize you, or you are going be cancelled. It is (or seems) easier to stay silent, because we all have a conflicting duty to keep our loved ones safe. Acting as a human lightning rod tends not to achieve that, to put it mildly. But not speaking out adds to the problem and distorts public perception.

As someone who is self-employed I do have the privilege and freedom of speaking out. So I do, but still choose the time, place and topics.

VISITING THE MOMENT OF MY OWN DEATH (A Daily Spiritual Practice), pen-and-ink drawing by Imelda Almqvist

Most well-regarded spiritual teachers I know will speak out bravely on issues close their heart. Not just that, but spiritual teachers also face a fairly high level of general ridicule (“WOOWOO Merchants!”) and invisibility, compared to professionals in more “respectable” professions. It takes guts to be a spiritual teacher in a secular world!

After serious soul-searching, for me the most burning issue here is fairness: if I am going to speak up for Gaza, I really need to do the same thing for the Uyghur people, the Armenians, the people in Yemen, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Mexico, Ethiopia, Mozambique etc.

Additionally I am acutely aware that many other “wars” or dark power struggles rage on the world stage, which we do not define as wars: human trafficking, paedophile networks making and distributing (highly lucrative!) child porn, criminal networks adapting AI for very sophisticated purposes (such making a recording in the voice of your child claiming that they have been kidnapped) and extortion.

Behind the scenes I do shamanic work on these issues.

As a spiritual teacher I could get very busy, if I am to be scrupulously fair in terms of activism, platforming issues and engaging awareness-raising every day. It seems to me that, done properly, this could easily turn into an 80-hour a week job. But is that my job?

So, in reality, what do I DO?! I made the decision, about 15 years ago, to focus primarily, on children. Children are one of the most vulnerable groups in society. They cannot bring themselves to safety. They have not yet lived a full life . They are also quite literally our future (your and my future both in a literal way. They will hopefully be the ones feeding, toileting, bathing and visiting us in the extreme old age we all seem to hope for. Let’s face it: impressive longevity generally means assisted living at some stage!)

My personal brand of activism is focussed on the children of our world. I do not make a distinction between locations, causes or sides of conflicts as children do not choose any of those things. I do not operate a sliding scale for one-to-one sessions, but I have always worked with some vulnerable young people completely free of charge (but until today I have never admitted this in public). I seek no praise for this, nor do I invite a flood of emails requesting free shamanic services. I am only trying to be accountable for my choices, my sins of commission and omission, my conscience as a spiritual teacher and Seiðkona (practitioner and healer working within the Old Norse Traditions) by adhering to my personal Code of Ethics. And now deciding to be a little more transparent about this, in our world of cultures wars, influencers, memes and easy accusations.

BLACK HENBANE - The Choirs of the Dead (painting by Imelda Almqvist)

Like many other spiritual teachers I am also an advocate for the dead and dying. I speak openly about death (including about being in a conscious relationship with my own death). I give voice to ancestors. I try my hardest to be an Elder in our world. I seek to be truthful (telling the truth as I perceive it), rather than “popular” or “on brand”. My colleagues and I also do psycho pomp work: we work with souls beyond the point of physical death. We accompany them some distance in the other world and ensure they make a full transition. We also make brief visits to the Land of the Dead to check on people.

A lot of the work spiritual teachers do happens “off stage” and well away from the “main discourse”. We quietly do the necessary, appease restless ancestors, pay the ferryman for safe passage, speak the Prayers of the Dead, maintain a fragile balance between the worlds, so the dead are not “leaning on the living”, in their need to have trauma healed and past injustices witnessed. It is hard work, living from a place of opening oneself to all of those forces, all of those voices - but I would not have it any other way!

It is not going to help the most troubled places in the world if all of us become so overwhelmed or enraged that we acquire tunnel vision and become depressed or unable to function. Let’s be brutally honest: there is serious suffering in our own local communities too (teenagers bullied into suicide, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, bullying, unacceptable levels of poverty etc.) It all exists on our doorstep. Often we can have the greatest impact close to home. For eight years now I have advocated for mature and responsible adults mentoring one vulnerable young person, if they are able to do so.

Reality check from my home city:

» Knife and gun crime in London both leapt by 20 per cent last year amid a surge in blade robberies, teenage homicides and firearms offending, official figures revealed today: 14,626 knife offences were recorded by police in the capital over the 12 months to the end of last December. That was 2,481 more knife crimes than the 2022 total and meant that an average of 40 blade offences were committed each day in the capital last year. There was also a big leap in gun crimes with 1,208 such offences during 2023, up by nearly 200 on the 1,010 recorded by police a year earlier. « Source

Spiritual teachers can give people powerful tools to stay grounded, effective and skilful in spiritual crises, connected to spirit allies, ancestors and spirit guidance. There is no blame in empowering people and the world badly needs healing skills. Spiritual practitioners (in many different disciplines) can lead people back to wholeness on the level of soul. People who feel whole, properly loved, deeply seen and connected to All-That-Is do not bully, terrorise, victimise or indeed knife down other people on city streets.

As I have already explored spiritual narcissism quite exhaustively in a previous series of three essays, I have left those issues out of the equation for now. This was done to keep a clear focus on the main topic of this complex piece. I will be honest: this essay was headache to write and it is too long but I felt it needed to be done!

I try (but sometimes fail) to get out one essay a week, due to travel, international teaching commitments and family care responsibilities (our family lives with Alzheimer’s and I have written several posts about that). If you would like to see regular posts about about sacred art, Nordic spirituality and my life as a Forest Witch (and of course short videos of the wildlife here!), please follow me on Instagram or Facebook, thank you!

Imelda, Forest House and Forest School, Sweden

MY ROOTS - MY ANCESTORS, pen-and-ink drawing by Imelda Almqvist

BIO FOR IMELDA ALMQVIST

Imelda Almqvist is an international teacher of Sacred Art and Seiðr/Old Norse Traditions (the ancestral wisdom teachings of Northern Europe). So far she has written four non-fiction books and two picture books for children. Natural Born Shamans: A Spiritual Toolkit for Life (Using shamanism creatively with young people of all ages) in 2016, Sacred Art: A Hollow Bone for Spirit (Where Art Meets Shamanism) in 2019, Medicine of the Imagination - Dwelling in Possibility (an impassioned plea for fearless imagination) in 2020 and North Sea Water In My Veins (The Pre-Christian spirituality of the Low Countries) was published in June 2022.

The Green Bear is a series of picture book for children, aged 3 – 8 years. The stories and vibrant artwork, set in Scandinavia, invite children to explore enchanting parallel worlds and to keep their sense of magic alive as they grow up.

Imelda has presented her work on both The Shift Network and Sounds True. She appears in a TV program, titled Ice Age Shaman, made for the Smithsonian Museum, in the series Mystic Britain, talking about Mesolithic arctic deer shamanism.

Imelda is currently working on a handbook for rune magicians (about the runes of the Elder Futhark) and on more books in the Green Bear Series. Imelda runs an on-line school called Pregnant Hag Teachings, where all classes she teaches remain available as recordings, which can be watched any time.

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Online School:                  https://pregnant-hag-teachings.teachable.com/courses/

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