Intended Audience
This website and the material here is intended for:
- Qadishuma, we who practice Natib Qadish, a polytheistic Canaanite religion
- People interested in becoming qadishuma; Canaanite polytheists; Polytheists who aren’t Canaanite polytheists but who are interested in our religion
- Polytheists in general
- People, who in good faith, are interested in our religion
This list, above, is in intended prioritized order.
Before engaging with this material and this community represented within this site, consider where you are on this prioritized audience list. Consider whether or not the material here is actually intended for your needs. Consider whether the material presented here is intended for your needs as a guest more than for the community which is actually represented here. This does not mean that your needs are unimportant; it simply means that your needs may not be addressable here. In trying to meet your needs above the needs of the intended audience or in opposition to the needs of the community represented here, we erode the very intention of this site, and the foundations of our minority community. This site, this community, and this religion are not all things for all people.
Why Considering Whether or Not You’re the Intended Audience is Important
It is generally hoped that a reader can and will make a quick assessment of the provided here on this site and realize “Yes! This pertains to me,” or “No, this does not pertain to me,” and then figure out from there how to operate on a level of “thoughtful human being,” but sometimes that’s a challenge. It’s a challenge because operating as a thoughtful human being requires that a person be aware of things they’re thinking of…which is tricky when sometimes they may not be entirely conscious of those thoughts that they bring with them as they sit down to read a post. We call upon you to actively and consciously engage in thought on this matter and take a moment for personal reflection. In taking a look at sites and blogs of other polytheists, it becomes clear that sometimes this understanding, this clarity about “who is the intended audience” is sometimes lacking in the audiences who read polytheist material on sites and who might assume that the conversations are about their needs or practices as non-polytheists when this may not be the case. This process of active thinking and conscious, thoughtful engagement also applies here for polytheists and more specifically for Canaanite polytheists, and even more specifically for Canaanite polytheists who practice Natib Qadish.
Our religion is a polytheistic religion. When a non-polytheist bursts in on important conversations polytheists are trying to have with other polytheists and in polytheist spaces, with no thought or concern for the intended audience and then demands that his own non-polytheistic concerns be met, the conversation gets dragged down lower than a remedial level 99 class and useful, necessary discussion is not possible beyond that point. We end up trying to reinvent the wheel (“Prove to me deities exist!”, “Prove to me the deities are individuals!,” “Prove to me polytheism means worship of many individual deities!”) instead of moving on to more important matters which are worthy of discussion. Those may well be good discussion topics, but they will not be covered here. Deities exist. Deities are individuals. Deities are not human-created concepts. Deities are not facets or masks of a homogeneous undifferentiated oneness or one deity. Polytheism means the worship of many deities. If you want to debate these things, this site which is our religious home on the web is not the place for you to do that, and this specific religious community is not the place for you to do that.
If you’re showing up to a conversation on polytheism by polytheists in polytheist spaces, and you’re not a polytheist, realize that you’re not the intended audience here and that polytheists should not have to, and do not have to, cater to your needs, wants, and opinions. Polytheists also shouldn’t have to comfort you when our conversations are uncomfortable to you (when the conversation isn’t even about you or for you), and we polytheists shouldn’t have to comfort you at the expense of our own wellbeing, safety, and/or sanity. Please remember this when engaging in discussion here. Polytheists in general are struggling to find our voices, and a person can do active damage to a deeply disadvantaged group by showing up in our spaces and hijacking our conversations. If you actually want to be respectful and helpful, if you actually want to be an ally, refrain from engaging in disrespectful behavior.
Our religion is specific. When a person who is not qadish, who does not practice Natib Qadish, bursts on the scene demanding that we meet their needs, again our conversation sinks to a remedial level. This is our space on the internet. If you do not practice Natib Qadish, consider very carefully whether an article regarding our religion is meant to address your needs. If you are a Canaanite polytheist but you do not practice Natib Qadish, please also consider carefully whether an article is meant to pertain to your practices or not.
Regarding Topics of Foundational Polytheism
Some of the topics here on this site may venture into foundational polytheism on a general level, and some of them stay centered more towards more specific practices of Canaanite polytheistic religion, and even more specifically Natib Qadish. Topics cover polytheism from a general standpoint so that we can better understand polytheism in general, and so that we can move forward and apply that basic understanding towards our own specific Canaanite polytheistic religion. This is important because we are surrounded in a dominant cultural matrix which actively erases polytheism. We need to undo this damage, and we need the space in which to undo this damage.
Foundational polytheist matters are pertinent to beginners who have no idea where to start and who do not have the benefit of a specific tradition or polytheistic religion, or context of that sort to rely on. If you are a polytheist but you already practice a specific polytheistic religion or tradition, and a topic here is on a general foundational level which does not apply to your specific polytheistic religion or tradition, then it doesn’t apply and we’re not issuing orders or telling you what to do, or what to do in your specific religion, tradition, or religious tradition.
Some of the topics here on this site will be of a non-specific foundational polytheism, and some of the topics posted here may bridge both foundational polytheism, Canaanite polytheism, and specifically Natib Qadish. When we speak of matters which are more foundational and broader in concern, we are not issuing some edict that every polytheist should absolutely conform to, so please read this in good faith and take into consideration nuance, shifting audiences, and shifting intentions. If we’ve said something here (from either a qadish perspective, or from a foundational polytheistic perspective, or both) which does not apply to your specific polytheistic religion or context, then it doesn’t apply.
Many folks come to Natib Qadish with little understanding of how to function as a polytheist or how to approach a polytheistic religion–if this is you, know that this is normal and that you’re not alone. Most of us here have lived in dominant cultures which actively erase polytheism, and in our journey towards good relations with the deities, we must undo this damage within ourselves and heal. This is what makes any general Polytheism 101 foundational material important to post here. If you want to practice this religion, it would do you well to consider this general polytheistic material seriously.
What this Site, and the Religion it Represents, are Not
There are multiple categories here, listed above, which overlap. Natib Qadish is a living polytheistic Canaanite religion. If you adopt some Canaanite polytheistic aspects to your religion or your private household traditions, but you are not practicing Natib Qadish, you are welcome to be here, and also keep in mind that your practices are not necessarily ours. Your religion isn’t our religion, and that’s ok. What we offer here may not suit you, meet your needs, or support your relationship with your deities.
There are some concerns regarding overlapping communities here. Although a few Canaanite polytheists may identify as NeoPagans, many Canaanite polytheists are not NeoPagans. This is not a NeoPagan site. Natib Qadish is not a NeoPagan religion, and it is not part of the NeoPagan community, although we hope to have good relations with our NeoPagan neighbors. NeoPaganism has come more and more to represent a general subculture which is more and more focused on social matters and political matters, and less focused on religion. We are focused on religion, and we try to live in devotion and good relations with our deities.
This site, this community, this religion are not about: Judaism, Jew-witchery, Christianity, the social and political Canaanism movement of the twentieth century, Ceremonial Magic, Wicca, eco-feminism, matriarchy, extraterrestrials, social justice, historical reenactment, history, politics, international politics, modern relations of nations and peoples in the Middle East, engineering, telenovelas, or cheeses of the world. All of these things need their own venues too, this just doesn’t have to be a corner of the internet which includes all of these things. This site, this community, and this religion are not all things to all people, An overlap in matters is not to be considered evidence that different things are “actually” the same thing when they’re simply functioning in relationship to other things: if, for instance, we end up discussing how one of our gods enjoys a particular cheese as an offering, we did not just become a community focused on cheeses of the world! Just because boundaries and limits are fluid and dynamic, it does not mean that boundaries and limits don’t exist or are irrelevant.
If you are an atheist, a monist, a monotheist: do not proselytize here, and do not attempt to engage in erasure of our ways. If you come here intent on shaping our ways to your specifications, your needs will not be met here. If you come in good faith as a guest, with respect and dignity, you are welcome.
If you are anti-Semitic, ableist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, sexist, misogynistic, or fascist, you are not welcome to peddle your hate here. Please see our Policy page.
In Closing
Consider very carefully the content of any article posted here and the context in which it is presented and whether these things pertain to you, or not, or something in between. Consider the level at which you engage here as audience:
Are you at home: are you a practitioner of Natib Qadish?
Are you visiting family or visiting familial friends: are you a Canaanite polytheist or a polytheist in general?
Are you a guest: are you not qadish, not a Cannanite polytheist, and also not a polytheist?
Are you an intruder: do you barge into conversations which are not for you or about you, do you behave poorly or in bad faith?
It would be disrespectful to burst into a stranger’s house and start rearranging the furniture to suit your needs, especially when you were not invited to do this and you don’t even live there. It would be foolish not to realize you had done so. It would demonstrate a lack of awareness regarding your own behavior, a lack of awareness of this social context, and a lack of awareness of your own behavior in relationship to this social context.
We are trying to differentiate ourselves and come into our own as a religious community, and as a religious community in a broader context of religions which have polytheism in common. Among other folks who are not polytheists, people who are not aware of our struggle towards differentiation, they often do not see the differentiation and therefore they assume–if they even bother to make a quick context-assessment at all–that matters which are being talked about here pertain to themselves or to a much broader audience / community than it actually does. It’s difficult to function at a level of “thoughtful human being” when there are assumptions a person engages in before reading, and the person isn’t aware that he or she is having those assumptions. We hope that by addressing the issue of intended audience here in an open manner, readers can engage more consciously, compassionately, and cognitively with the question “Am I the intended audience here?”
Natib Qadish 