'OPP' Syndrome, and other such things...

Now I have your attention... (Oh, and to get the Editors attention: Look! A Viking-type with long hair in leather trousers...)

If you’re sitting comfortably then I will begin – whether you want me to or not. This is my column, mwhahahaha, so like it or lump it.

This will hopefully be the first of a regular column for the magazine. This is of course assuming that I can drag myself away from my truly dull and humdrum life, and stop drinking long enough to prop myself up against my lap top and not vomit on the keyboard.

However, I digress.

You may be wondering what an OPP is? Well, it is my startlingly original acronym for Organised Pagan Practice. Ah, I hear you cry, but what then, oh great one, is OPP syndrome?

OPP syndrome is fucking irksome, that’s is what it is.

Allow me to elucidate.

Pagan groups are fun. They let you have fun and be happy, but they also suffer from OPP syndrome. Take as an example, you and your fellows are caught up in the mindless ecstasy of a ritual, the time is right, the energy is buzzing and a chant to the Goddess (yes I know, fluffy is not the word but bear with me here – apart from all you hermetic types at the back; you can leave – go on fuck off – I'm watching.... close the door behind you.....), as I was saying, a chant to the Goddess springs unbidden to your lips and you begin to raise your voices in glorious song, your companions’ delicate tones blending to form a cavalcade of praise... When suddenly some bumptious cretin – normally in the form of a woman who has ill-advisedly squeezed herself into a crushed velvet monstrosity - glares at you and with the fascism born of the OPP syndrome and declares that “there will be no chanting until the appropriate time – do I make make myself clear!” And with a muttered curse of “ya mein grumpen furher”everyone subsides into silence and the ritual proceeds with the moment lost, and the all-pervading sense of the bumptious cretins smug 'fuck you' attitude lying like a turd dropped on an altar.

I'm all for structure and things being planned, but this is, after all, meant to be a spiritual experience isn’t it? What is this, a Church of England mass? Christ on a bike in high heals! I mean, come on: a Goddess temple where celebrating the Goddess in any way other than sitting in quiet contemplation “IS FORBIDDEN”?!?!

Please.

Take yourselves a little less seriously. Go on, you might enjoy it. You might!

And it you don't, go and find the Ritualists and they will give you a script and you can rehearse with them.

There will be dress rehearsals too.

Oh. What. Fun.

Yours,

(Singing chants with knobs in.)

Frater Y.M.C.A

Frater YMCA is a member of the Secret and Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Knights, and Magister Proctor of the Coven of Atlantis Majoris. He lives at home with two cats and his gimp, called Doris.
He is always happy to have visitors for tea, as long as they bring there own whip.

He is also wondering how on earth that stain got on the ceiling....