The US can help stop the cartels by:

• Fixing its drug laws / policies so that American addicts can get help getting clean, and stop paying money for Mexican drugs. American drug demand fuels the Mexican cartels.
• Actually regulating gun and equipment trafficking from the US to Mexico. US weapons and ammunition flood Latin America, and the US does virtually nothing about it.

You’re just being willfully obtuse by now. Modern pagans know that it’s impossible to fully practice ancient traditions in their original forms, because these traditions were practiced by large groups of people within state-sanctioned and organized festivals and temple worship. Nevertheless, modern pagans do look at historical texts and value academic history of these traditions to reconstruct what we can in good faith and accordance with as much historicity as possible within our modern context. New Age is an uncritical approach to ancient religion that does not study or respect texts and scriptures, and tends to follow naïve anthropology and archaeology that came out of 19th century Europe and America. Your confusion about these speaks more to your lack of knowledge than the rules of the community.

Enjoy your tea however you take it, and thanks for the good wishes!

Cultural amalgamation as a result of internet access and diverse information through the web is still valid cultural amalgamation. Greeks had no cultural or ethnic claims to the ideas brought from Eastern Mesopotamia and even Persia, so the line drawn here is arbitrary.

The rules in the community distinctly say:
“If you are practicing or trying to construct a faith based on non-abrahamic or pre-christian religion, this is an open space for you.”

That we are building and constructing modern practices is transparent. I don’t know where you’re getting the idea that we’re resurrecting actual ancient practices wholesale. That’s impossible. The space is also open for people with real lineage to ancient religions and practices, so there’s also that. That’s why the rules ask people to keep discourse respectful.

The rules also don’t state that content about psychedelic substances is forbidden. You just can’t condone or encourage the use of psychedelics because the substances and blends of drugs used in ancient shamanic practices are still hotly debated, and substance use gone wrong can kill a person. All content about drugs is to be considered for educational or harm reduction purposes, but there can still be a discussion about it.

You also overestimate the use of psychedelics in ancient religion. It’s still an open case as to how they were used, and how they were combined with other practices like meditation, ritual dance, fasting, and exercise to induce altered states. Drugs alone are not the basis of ancient religion. Any academic of the subject will tell you that with confidence.

There’s a world of difference between a Nordic witch learning about West-African magical traditions and someone pushing the “Ancient Aliens - Akashic Records” theory. Syncretism has been widely practiced along the ancient world. A clear example is the goddess Venus, also known as Aphrodite… And Astarte, and Isis, and Inanna. She was not a Greek goddess originally, but was acquired by the Hellenic people from trade Egyptian and Mesopotamian people.

Another clear example is the Berenike Buddha, which was found in an Egyptian port city and is theorized to have been made in Alexandria around the second century CE. That suggests that Egyptians were blending Buddhism and the Dharma into their practice and ritual at the time. Religion has always been syncretic, so there’s no reason to silo them off today.

I also don’t know what you even mean by being “against the basis of every ancient religion”.

Reality tends to have an anti-conservative bias.

I’d like to add some context for people reading this comment.

This analysis by CHOICE was funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a Washington-based private non-profit that has served as a frontline actor of American soft power. NED has been funded by John M. Olin foundation and the Bradley foundation, both conservative organizations. While NED claims its interests lie in the spread of liberal democracy, it has come under fire by several people from both within and outside the US for paternalistic policies and meddling in other countries’ affairs. Links to that here below: https://books.google.com/books?id=yLWOAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA311#v=onepage&q=&f=false https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democracy#cite_note-61

According to sociologist William Robinson, NED funds during the Reagan years were “ultimately used for five overlapping pseudo-covert activities: leadership training for pro-American elites, promotion of pro-American educational systems and mass media, strengthening the ‘institutions of democracy’ by funding pro-American organizations in the target state, propaganda, and the development of transnational elite networks.”

“those who spearheaded creation of NED have long acknowledged it was part of an effort to move from covert to overt efforts to foster democracy” and cited as evidence a 1991 interview in which then-NED president Allen Weinstein said, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

Political scientist Lindsey A. O’Rourke writes that the Reagan-era NED played a key role in U.S. efforts “to promote democratic transitions in Chile, Haiti, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, the Philippines, Poland, and Suriname,” but did so to promote the success of pro-U.S. parties, not just to promote democracy, and did not support communist or socialist opposition parties. The North American Congress on Latin America says that the NED engages in a "a very particular form of low-intensity democracy chained to pro-market economics–in countries from Nicaragua to the Philippines, Ukraine to Haiti, overturning unfriendly ‘authoritarian’ governments (many of which the United States had previously supported) and replacing them with handpicked pro-market allies.

NED is an instrument of American soft power that is mainly interested in promoting a US led world order that centers “liberal” democracy and pro-business policies. It has a bias, an agenda, and the means to carry them out. Having “democracy” in the name doesn’t mean that they are altruistic in nature.

One thing that the analysis posted above does not show is the role of the American CPAC in supporting and rallying the European far right through CPAC Hungary, which has become a hub for parties like Vox and the Dutch Party for Freedom. https://www.cpac.org/post/cpac-will-return-to-hungary-for-third-year-in-2024

The analysis is made to place the blame for a rising European fascist wave on China, while it ignores key factors in the formation of these groups. Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Pat Buchanan, and Richard Spencer are just some examples of American pundits and politicians that have been active in Europe, creating a ground floor for fascism to rise in the continent.

The US has all sorts of organizations that have been actively helping right wing movements around the globe for decades. From operation Gladio in Italy during the mid-20th century, to active organizations working to shape foreign policy in America’s favor today. Hell, even the NRA has been involved in promoting right wing thought around the world. https://apnews.com/article/1c3d04173b6343bd8ffa45a3487c2e28 https://www.americasquarterly.org/fulltextarticle/the-nras-hemispheric-reach/ https://aoav.org.uk/2025/the-national-rifle-associations-international-funding-and-activities-examined/

Why isn’t this shown in the “analysis”? because that’s not an analysis at all. It’s a puff piece designed place the finger on China, while whitewashing American influence abroad. This is not good journalism, and it certainly should not be a trusted source of information.

Gotta cut all trade with them.

Israel should absolutely, unequivocally be a pariah state on the world stage.

It’s shameful. The recognition of Palestine should have taken place years ago. Israel has been committing terrorism on Gaza and the West Bank for ages. Europe should have ceased all relations with Israel the moment the IDF started indiscriminately bombing residential areas and refugee camps. Children were bombed to pieces, for God’s sake. Europe –ALL of Europe has blood on its hands, and it will never wash away.

for a good second i had no idea what you were talking about. Good one!

Even more reason to boycott OpenAI and any American owned tech giant.

2 issues with that:

1). Trump is the figurehead, but not the one actually designing the agenda. That’s the Republican cabal that is effectively dismantling the US federal government and setting the scene for an authoritarian government. They don’t need it to be a cult anymore. They have grabbed on to enough power. The Epstein list debacle shows that Trump voters (over half of the electoral race) are now malleable enough to be spun any narrative. When Trump dies, there is a replacement in line. I don’t know who it is, but the major investment in fascist propaganda here in the US shows that the party as a whole is getting ready to install itself for the long term. Blind obedience is not to Trump, he’s just the symbol. The obedience is to a right wing Christo-nationalism that the symbol represents.

2). Even if the Democrats win, they tend to stay the course with previous Republican administration’s policies. Obama kept the war in Iraq and Afghanistan for his entire 8 years and even expanded on the Patriot Act. Biden maintained a lot of Trump’s policies in place as well, especially regarding immigration and environmental regulation. Democrats try to “scalp” Republican voters from the GOP to win elections, and with the majority of Republican voters getting more entrenched into Trumpism, The Democrat party getting into power is not a guarantee of reversion to “normal”.

It’s a fool’s strategy. Trumpism has become the standard for American politics. The Democrats are lame ducks and are widely hated. The Republican party has become more and more brazen in violating election rules, suppressing votes, and overall not playing according to the political rules once held in place. The US will not go back to “normal” and Europe needs to ditch that ship ASAP.

She’s the worst thing that’s happened to Europe in the last few years. Hasn’t held Israel accountable, and has been first in line to kiss ass for the US regardless of how unhinged they become. She’s keeping Europe complicit with war crimes and human rights violation in the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic. She’s from a political cloth that I hope is burned and thrown out soon.

finally!