How I became Pagan

[Linzyhop]

In response to a request on the How I became a Christian thread, I'm going to post how it came to be that I'm pagan.

Feel free to read further if you're genuinely interested, if you're just going to try to berate me, please desist. I'm not trying to convert anyone or show how paganism is above any other religion, I'm just going to convey as best i can, the events in my life that led to me being pagan.

I was born into a Christian family. My mom was raised Catholic, my dad was Protestant. I was baptized and raised Catholic in Western Maryland. I went to a private school when I was little and my mom sent me to CCD at our local Catholic church. I have memories of our priest being rude. My mom never liked him. She said once he stopped a sermon and yelled at my brother Coby when he was a little boy because he was hanging over the railing when my mom had her head down. I always had a not so favorable view of him growing up. Apparently he had a chip on his shoulder because he used to be further up in the diocese but had insulted someone so they stuck him at our church in the middle of nowhere. Once I was a little older, I started going to a Catholic middle school in the city half an hour away from us. When we went to mass I remember the church being much more grand and the priest was much nicer, full of love for everyone and he always seemed genuinely concerned with anything you told him. However the nuns at the school were far from the same, as I hear most nuns at Catholic schools have been known to be.

This is when I started wondering why women couldn't be priests, why they had to be nuns. I remember being younger in CCD, and then again in middle school in religion class, I would always ask questions. Why God would do this, or why the bible says that. Natural questions from an inquisitive child. the answers that came back never satisfied me and always left me wanting more.

In 8th grade I moved to Rhode Island to live with my father. my parents had been divorced since I was 9. My father went to church in RI and he wanted me to go with him. sometimes I went, sometimes I didn't. I didn't know if I believed in God. I knew I didn't believe everything I heard preached. i had found too many holes in the doctrine and I had too many unanswered questions. But then I started to realize that I believed in "something" because I knew I 'felt' something spiritual inside of me, but I didn't know what to do about it.

When I was a sophomore in highschool we learned about Henry David Thoreau in English class. I learned about Transcendentalism and that was the beginning for me. for a while I felt like Transcendentalism was what i was lacking, but then I realized it was more. I started on a spiritual quest of sorts to find a religion that embodied what I already felt in my heart.

I was friends with a girl towards the end of HS named Marissa. She was playing around at "being a witch" and i was curious and started reading some of her books. some of the stuff was interesting, but it was clear to me that she didn't take the stuff seriously. I personally think she was doing it to rebel against her irish-italian parents.

Regardless, I started looking into Wicca. This went into college and as a freshman I became friends with this girl named Nicole. Nicole was goth (i had a few goth friends, so this didn't deter me) and she was also a witch. more importantly, she was a witch at heart. I asked her questions, she gave me real answers and she said it's unfortunate a lot of kids say they're witches or pagan to freak their parents out, but aren't really at heart. she said if i was really interested in it, I should study it by myself and see if I felt it was right for me.

I started going to Barnes and Noble and reading books in the alternative religion section. I bought the book "pagan ways" which is an inner journey to discover if paganism is in you.

It was. after i finished the book, I never felt the same. to me paganism answered all the questions I had. I felt "right" about everything in my heart. I felt full. I felt.

To me Paganism is feeling in sync with the world around you. Everything around you comes from the earth. even steel and concrete, broken down into the simplest terms, come from the earth. It's about appreciating what we have, and respecting it. It's about knowing we have a connection with everyone. It's about knowing our place in humanity. realizing that there isn't a infinite good or infinite evil, but everyone has this duality and we each have to recognize it. I'm a firm believer in Karma, as I've stated in the past. the golden rule is the core of Paganism, and it's a very good motto to live by. knowing I am part of nature helps me to communicate with it. it helps me to communicate with the spirit of the earth, that i've always felt, but didn't know what it was until college. it's a grounding sense to feel, when the world is crazy and everyone has busy lives and no one has time for anything, i can stop, close my eyes and have my private spiritual time outside everyone.

i feel it in my heart. and it makes me feel great.

I would call myself an eclectic pagan. I am not Wiccan, as Wiccan's follow a few things that I don't necessarily agree with, but Pagan's are broader and more adaptable, and therefore I feel more at peace with that.

i think if everyone who are religious could just feel that, and not feel the need to push their beliefs on other people, but just be happy that your neighbor can be happy with their choice and coexist, life would be much simpler. of course that's just a pipe dream, but that's my stance either way.

thanks for reading.

[avsp]

OK thanks for sharing

Much of your post is about your unsatifactory expreiences with catholism. If your early experences had been more positive do you supppose that you could have found the same solace in catholism or some other Xian church?

What is actually going on here with ppls need for this kind of thing?

It was. after i finished the book, I never felt the same. to me paganism answered all the questions I had. I felt "right" about everything in my heart. I felt full. I felt.

I'm uncertain myself. But in groping to understand, ..., (warning: Eamble alert)

Humans hate purposelessness

'Spirtuaity' seeks to answer those ineffible questions of life the universe & everything that arise during the slack times of winter if your a peasent or when theres a power cut or nowt on the telly for the rest of us. (Or during times of stress, ..., 'why me?' etc)

Feelings of greater connectedness to the universe, earth, umma, the body of christ, the godgead whatever seem to provide some solace

Equallly such feelings arent unreal & can arise unbidden.

I cant decide the significance of this. Perhaps the universe is trying to know itself because its in the nature of matter to do so. Perhaps its just noise in the machine. Perhaps its the underlying search for meaning/purpose.

How can one tell? I certainly cant.

However modern western life, (capitalism/consumerism/corperatism) typically seeks to answer the 'purpose' question by encouraging us to define ourselves by our jobs or by our consumption. "I'm a teacher", "I'm a Jaguar owner" etc. It even seeks to co-opt the beliefs of those who've sought the answer in some kind of belonging "I'm a Villa fan", "Go Mets" etc.

Such consumerism can not really answer these questions & only lead to a sham spirtuality, ..., notice how oftern the word 'full' is used by those desribing their religious experences.

I very much suspect that this is to some extent deliberate & that some (hiya Rupert) purposefully inculcate feelings of continual nearly-but-not-quite-satisfied purposelessness in their audience in order to deliver votes to whoever they're cutting a deal with.

Lastly coz its only fair etc.

I call myself a Newtonian, (he shares a birthday with christ, ..., or does he?) I make it up as I go along. I've one negitive tenet I try to live to "dont be a c*nt" & its positive corollary "try to make the universe a better place". Both are problematic , ..., but in the meantime have an apple. I find it aids thought & if you cant come to a decision in the time it takes to eat an apple its probably best to do nowt.

The mainstrean religions cant all be true despite each's insistance otherwise. They do seem like means of exterting control to me. Why should I place special emphasis on the myths & legends of a displaced/nomadic people with a tradition of hullucinogen use as opposed to the myths & legends of any other groups of hullucinogen users?

My positions is a bit like Linzyhops but I identify with the 'universe' or 'matter' rather than the 'earth'. I've had moments of unbidden 'transcendence'. I'm at a loss to account for them, ..., but I like them & have tried unsucessfully to induce them.

At these moments there is a great sense of inner calm & my vision gets a quality not dissimilar to that of some 'hyperreal' paintings. Most frequently these moments are connected with observing natural things such as spiders spinning webs, dragonflies emerging from their nymph skins etc. Occasionally they are linked to songs, ("Cars drive by my windows like wves upon a beach"). There is very often a serendipicious quality to the seconds leading up to its occurence & as such there has been one person who has seemingly induced such times. They've absolutely forbidden me from talking about this at all in front of them.

I've never really felt a great sense of loss/injustice/suffering & so cant really speak for this as a motivating force behind the spirtual experience. I did once have a 'blanket' moment when I realsed that I wasnt going to die if I failed my exams & so there was no great need to worry over much. Ity was a very visceral experience. I cant judge if it was like Prostreet's but I suspect it wasnt.

I'd very much like to hear in exceptional detail about such experences & to be allowed to question very skeptically any such relief/solace/'blamket' experiences

Cliffs: Aint got a clue whats going on with spirituality & it mightnt be significant but it feels as if it is, Modern western society actively seeks to distance us from such experiences, possibly deliberately so. Mainstrean churchs seem to seek to use such experiebces as a means of control, perculiarly, by 'demystfing' them. & linzyhop would've got more 'action' on this thread if she'd talked about the 'sky-clad' nature of her religious practices

Lastly, LH do you participate in any rituals? What form does your paganism take? Is it purely an internal thing?

[Linzyhop]

Originally Posted by avsp

& linzyhop would've got more 'action' on this thread if she'd talked about the 'sky-clad' nature of her religious practices

Lastly, LH do you participate in any rituals? What form does your paganism take? Is it purely an internal thing?

haha. no, i don't do skyclad rituals. I tried it once and it's not for me. I mostly make up my own stuff. I go back and forth with groups and friends and solitary. mostly now I just do solitary practicing. Every once in a while, i'll meet up with a group for a larger holiday worship, but I never really feel the need to, it's more just to meet other pagans in the area.

the hard thing about being pagan is that a lot of other pagans, wiccans, witches in general have a tendency to come across very "dark". they wear their pentagrams out in the open and are very "yeah, I'm pagan, you gotta problem with that?"....

me, i've never been like that. it's an internal thing for me and usually people don't find out i'm pagan until they've known me a while. I'm not saying it's wrong for people to wear their religion on their sleeves, but it's just not my thing.

to answer your other question about my past experiences with catholicism, i started questioning it at a very young age. I think the premise of it is good, but over the years, I think the dogma has become too over complex and gotten away for the original core. if it was practiced as some say Jesus intended it to be practiced, it would be more like paganism I think actually. out in nature, love everyone type stuff.

[motivez]

Thanks for the story, it's interesting to read the spiritual journey others have been on..

How much of an effect do you think not liking that Priest so early on had on your decision to ultimately reject Catholicism?

[Linzyhop]

Originally Posted by motivez

Thanks for the story, it's interesting to read the spiritual journey others have been on..

How much of an effect do you think not liking that Priest so early on had on your decision to ultimately reject Catholicism?

it probably started me off earlier, but ccd was raising questions too, so I think it was a matter of time on my part.

[avsp]

Is it entirely internal or is it possible to 'petition the earth' to bring about magic? (Like rain, or the love of another or even the meeting of a person to love etc as examples)

[Linzyhop]

Originally Posted by avsp

Is it entirely internal or is it possible to 'petition the earth' to bring about magic? (Like rain, or the love of another or even the meeting of a person to love etc as examples)

magic is in the earth, but i make it a point to not "petition the earth" to do things. love shouldn't be "controlled"...

there's a difference between meeting the person you're meant to love and making someone love you.....

it's possibly to do both, but if you mess around with it too much, karma is bound to bite you in the ass.

[avsp]

Would the karma aspect mitigate against you doing things for your own selfish benefit?

Are you claiming that it would be possible to cause an objective action, like to make it rain, for example?

I am not & will not ask you to prove it if you are making such a claim

[Linzyhop]

Originally Posted by avsp

Would the karma aspect mitigate against you doing things for your own selfish benefit?

Are you claiming that it would be possible to cause an objective action, like to make it rain, for example?

I am not & will not ask you to prove it if you are making such a claim

doing things, like making someone love you, would be for selfish reasons, hence karma would not let you get away with something like that without coming back to you. not that you shouldn't do something because of karma's retributions, but just because you're making someone do something they normally wouldn't have done.

making it rain, i suppose it's possible (just as possible as the native americans trying to make it rain with a rain dance). i've never tried it, nor do i have any reason to....

[avsp]

So your religion is for internal use not for external influence, ..., it is to provide solace, insight, will building & the like.

Also for you the group rituals are fairly unimportant?

[Linzyhop]

Originally Posted by avsp

So your religion is for internal use not for external influence, ..., it is to provide solace, insight, will building & the like.

yup. you got it.

Originally Posted by avsp

Also for you the group rituals are fairly unimportant?

it depends how i'm feeling. whether meeting with groups, or practicing alone, it's still in my heart, so I don't feel like I need to practice in a group to be faithful.

[Thorgrim]

What you say differentiates your beliefs from those of say animists...in particular American tribes like the Cheyenne

[Linzyhop]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

What you say differentiates your beliefs from those of say animists...in particular American tribes like the Cheyenne

i think in fact they are very similar. i do not know exactly what the native tribes believe, but in regards to the great spirit and respect for nature, they are based on the same premise, with different names.

Paganism is based off the first religion of the world, Shamanism. I imagine the tribe's beliefs stem from that as well.

[avsp]

Do you believe in communing with the spirits of your ancestors?

If so what form does this practice take?

I ask coz to me thats typically what shamenism/animism pften largely is

[Linzyhop]

Originally Posted by avsp

Do you believe in communing with the spirits of your ancestors?

If so what form does this practice take?

I ask coz to me thats typically what shamenism/animism pften largely is

i think you can communicate with them, but only in certain instances. Halloween, or Samhain as it's called, is the one day a year where the veil between the living world and those who have gone before us is thinnest and where you have the best chance of communicating with them. I have only ever tried it once and I didn't try it to get an answer to anything, I just wanted to send love through to the person.

then again, don't people try to communicate by talking to those that have gone before them at grave sites, or simply by talking outloud?

[Linzyhop]

to avsp, since your PMs are full and i can't reply to your message!

************************************************** *

no problem. I am actually pagan, you can ask ballz. i have a little mini altar in my bedroom and one day when ballz was over he was confused cause he didn't know I was pagan.

anyway, if you have any more questions, i can give you my experiences on the matter and what i believe. as to what other pagans practice and believe, that would be up to them.... i like paganism because it's broad enough to leave interpretation up to the individual.

also no idea what you mean about the quotes thread.... want to elaborate?

[Stylerod]

I really haven't spent much time in this forum, but yours and Pro Streets threads are fantastic It inspired me to write my story.

Thanks for sharing!!!!!!

[Linzyhop]

Originally Posted by Stylerod

I really haven't spent much time in this forum, but yours and Pro Streets threads are fantastic It inspired me to write my story.

Thanks for sharing!!!!!!

no problem. it's nice to get positive feedback about this from open minded people. I'm so used to getting negative.

[Roonie]

I enjoy reading other folks paths. Thank you for sharing. It is great you are asking the questions!

It also spurred me to write my own post.