Community Warning: Matthew Catalano

I am sharing this post for the safety and protection of the Neopagan community both online and off. I have been made aware of deeply disturbing information about a man that many people know, and have become connected to by social media: Matthew Catalano, who also goes by the name Matthew McEwan, and sometimes Artaigne McEwan. The link I just gave to his FB may disappear soon after this blog is made public, but many screenshots from it are preserved below, demonstrating the potentially very dangerous, certainly hateful, and two-faced reality of this homophobic and racist man.

Catalano has been lurking in the Neopagan community for a space of years, wearing many hats within it. You may have seen him under these “Pagan” and “Witch” incarnations:

The Ouroboros Question

“All of this has happened before, and will happen again.”

* * *

I was watching a discussion on social media a few days ago about modern myths that we all accept. The person who began the discussion started it off with a fun question that ran something like this: “What modern myths do we all accept as true, without much proof (or any proof) that they’re real?”

People gave lots of answers, some better, some worse. And then, one person responded with a bombshell that went something like this:

“That we can ‘get over’, or heal from, or ‘move past’ traumas and emotional injuries”.

I think this answer might have punched a bit deeper than the people participating in the conversation could comprehend. And it punched deeply into me, because as a former professional counselor and therapist, I was taught years worth of ways to help other people heal from traumas and injuries. More than that, I was taught to believe that healing from traumas and injuries was possible.

For one long, dark, and vacuous moment I let myself entertain the possibility that “healing”, as we all believe in it, might be an empty myth that we all accept; just another empty myth to stack alongside countless others that we’ve been raised to believe in.