Now I've been accused by someone for not stating that something was UPG. And in the spirit of that I've decided to do a blog post about UPG and why I can't stand it. UPG is Unverifiable Personal Gnosis or 'Pagans not doing any actual research.' I love research! I love dusty, dry, boring books. And I know that not everyone has the money for a three to five hundred dollar book that you might only get a bit of information about.
But this UPG is something that shouldn't be in the Hellenic community. If you write a book about Hellenic worship, or Greek worship, I better not find a bunch of nonsense in said work that I spent money for. Hence why I love previews on Amazon.com. The top violator here is Wiccans. It seems every last one of them fill their practice with UPG and then get all mad when we tell them that's not how, say, Hecate was worshiped. They accuse us of ruing their religion with our dogma.
It's not dogma to point out a mistake.
Here's a prime example about UPG that really make me shake my head. A man did a video that said that Apollo was a gay god. Now, I'm not against people having a view about a certain god, but please don't put it on Youtube and not say that it's UPG. If you want to view Apollo as a gay god then fine, I'm not about to rain on your parade, but call it UPG. Don't make people think that what your saying is the truth.
When I gave my offerings to Apollo I did a bit of UPG as far as offerings were concerned. I gave him a white chocolate candy ball. Is this how it was done back then? Heck no! When I mention about the offering I made it clear, in the video, that my offering was UPG.
I didn't pretend that white chocolate candy balls were given to Apollo in ancient times. I'm not that stupid. He was usually given sacrificed animals as a offering. Now I don't think it's UPG giving him a laurel leaf as laurel's were connected directly to Apollo and he had a laurel tree in his temple. It was a huge, tall, tree and I'm pretty much guessing it was chopped down.
New Age books are filled with UPG. In-fact the entire line of New Age books are nothing but UPG and it doesn't talk about the ancient sources, thus those that buy the books don't feel the need to do any form of research to dispute what's being said. That really makes me wonder if we're the steadfast and research kind that will save the entire spirit of ancient worship from the lazy people that don't want to do any form of work and reading. Another famous UPG is a woman said that Hecate came to her in the form of a crone.
I told her that's UPG and she said that's not. I then told her to site sources where Hecate is viewed as a Crone. She pointed me to some site and then I told her, after I had seen the site (yes, I believe in going there and not pretending that I did so that I can insult her, which I didn't insult her) I told her that the site was filled with false information and that if she really is honoring Hecate that she'll honor her the way that she wants to be honored. I told her that the crone part of her was created by the church because the church hated Hecate, and, in-fact, any of the gods.
She told me to leave her alone and stop insulting Hecate. Excuse me, but I was just pointing out that your experience is UPG. I think that's why Wiccans don't like me too much. Yeah, I so didn't cry when that happened. The point that I'm trying to make is that UPG, once again, is something that shouldn't be in the Hellenic community. However we shouldn't accuse someone of UPG just because we don't like what a person said. As long as they know that it wasn't a revelation given them by a god and they don't use what they have heard as part of their practice, then I think the world will continue to turn.
Thanks for reading.
Note: Is there a book out there that has a complete listing of some of the offerings and animals that were sacrificed, and given, to the gods. That would be wonderful if someone could tell me.
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