So, in case you haven't heard, Doreen Virtue, aka the Goddess of the Oracle Decks, is putting out a call for every single one of her decks to be destroyed.  I wish I were exaggerating.  Not only that, all of your tarot cards should be destroyed as well.  In a fire.  Because, demons.  Duh.

*sigh*

Well now.  Ain't that a head scratcher?

It's not like she's new to the God scene, either.  Most of her publications (over 50 books, tarot, and oracle card decks) were based on angels, which are a bible-based belief.  Some of her decks depicted mermaids or something else mythological, but most were angels.

But now, apparently, she's found Jesus and she thinks we're all going to hell (or, in her words, "possessed by demons") for using new agey things.

Oh my goodness.

I can't pretend to know what would cause this sort of turnaround of events in her life.  Sometimes it's mental illness, sometimes people find sobriety and lean on religion so they can get through their addictions, and sometimes it's just a natural progression of a thought process.  And sometimes, we replace one obsession with another.

I had a friend who was a "crunchy pagan" back when I used to be a pagan.  She was so much more pagan than I was (which is something that goes on in pagan communities--the comparison of just how "crunchy" or hippy you are).  She dedicated her life to paganism.  She held onto paganism in the way I see born-agains hold onto their faith.  She raised both her kids pagan.  It was totally hardcore. 

But then she found a new boyfriend and converted to being a Christian.  Just.  Like.  That.  Huh??  What happened to my crunchy pagan friend?  Who whole-heartedly believed that our coven leaders embodied the actual god and goddess during a particular Samhain ritual, that left her in tears from the overwhelmingness of it all?  The girl who never missed a drum circle or never once wore underwear to a ritual??  (If you don't know why this is important, you're not "crunchy" enough!)

Now her kids participate in all the churchy stuff and are hardcore Christians when they were used to attending Burning Man with their mother.  Go figure.

One person may say adaptable.  But another (like myself) might see this as a narcissistic splitting, or the "idealization and devaluation" that goes on when a narcissist decides they  no longer value what they once HARDCORE VALUED at one time.  And my old friend?  Is 100% a narcissist with NPD (long story).

Narcissists mainly do this to people (idealization--love bombing, devaluation--ghosting you, etc.), but also to activities, ideals, and obsessions. Something in one moment is "the best thing ever!!" and the next moment (or maybe years later), it's the "dumbest idea ever!" (and the new thing they're into is now the "best thing ever!").  Now, I am not mental illness shaming here.  It's not just narcissism that does this, but also autism (black and white thinking--though this is a lesser degree than an actual personality disorder), borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, among many others. 

But I have absolutely no way of knowing if Doreen Virtue is a narcissist or maybe has aspergers otherwise, but on the outside, she sure looks like she's splitting.  

She is literally swinging from one end of the spectrum with her strong belief in angels to the other end, now, with demons.  

But just because she didn't talk about demons in her work (or that I know of, I honestly can't say I read any of her books, I only owned her oracle and tarot cards), doesn't mean she didn't always believe in them.  Maybe this isn't as big of a leap as I am assuming it is?

But it sure seems to me that a person who has developed over 50 different new age products in her lifetime so far to just not only stop creating them but urge people to burn them??  It feels a bit more than just a leap in faith.  It feels like a betrayal to the people she was marketing her work to.

• I used to be a breastfeeding Nazi, and believed that people who bottle fed their babies were assholes (I even had a website dedicated to shaming mothers who bottle fed! UGGGHH!!). Then I learned (with the help of nutritional education) that both are valid ways to feed a child, as long as the child is fed.  
• I used to believe gmo's were unhealthy and that organic was best.  I then learned (also through nutritional education) that gmo's are harmless and organic is just a buzzword that is intended to rape our wallets.  I also learned that organic food has MORE pesticides on them (because the organic ones--which are still poisonous to drink, btw, do not work as well) and as long as you wash your produce in water (nothing else needed) both traditional and organic pesticides wash away, leaving nothing left on it to hurt you.  
• I used to be scared to death of vaccinating my children (but did it anyways--somewhere deep inside of me, my brain was working) because of my "crunchy" friend above, who never vaxxed her kids (well, until one day, their father wised up and took them to get all updated on their vaccines) who got it into my head that I was hurting my kids by doing it.  Now, after learning how vaccines work and understanding why they are needed, I am still being an asshole because I wholeheartedly believe that not vaxxing your kids is child abuse (not child abuse on purpose, but still child abuse) and a danger to the human population. 
• I used to believe in magic, psychic ability & ESP, ghosts, and all that jazz (like for real, my husband and I met in a ghost hunting group!).  I grew up abused and used that shit as escapism.  I wanted so desperately to believe there was something more than this mundane (and awful) human existence.  I even saw a gnome once as a kid!  I read all sorts of books about fantasy and lived in a fantasy world.  I thought the real world was filled with awful people who just wanted to hurt you.  As an adult, I felt the same way.  I was a popular tarot reader with clients all over the world.  I made some good money, but mostly, I believed in what I did.  I helped people!  But then I had an epiphany, and mind-altering experience (no, I wasn't doing shrooms).  My thoughts were slowly shifting to science (as they had been for a long time) and I realized that everything I was doing was a delusion I created in order to deal with my abuse.  So instead, I worked on healing myself and as I did, my need to escape from reality melted away.  I became an atheist.  At first, I hated being an atheist.  It was fucking depressing.  But now, years later, I shifted my view from thinking science was a cold, dark place to understanding that science is fucking exciting!!  AND that introspection is more important than flights of fancy (although I am still an avid fantasy reader and writer) when it comes to feeling "connected" to the world around me.  My journey has also taken me to understand mental illnesses more and to really get what makes a human tick (how their brains work and why they think the way they do).  It's god damn fascinating!  This has brought me to a greater understanding of humanity and why the adults in my life chose to abuse me as a child (it's better to understand rather than assume).  I don't need to escape my feelings anymore with magical bandaids, I can use tarot as one introspective tool to figure out why I am feeling the way I do.  This clarity led me to finally getting rid of lots of my own metaphysical stuff I'd been holding onto for years (which kind of mimics Doreen's journey in a way, except hers is with religion instead of science).  (You can read my full journey on this here.)