Your Wiccan/Pagan Path...and How Did You Know?

[Sanguina Cruenta]

GoddessDementia

First, I apologize about placing paganism and wicca together. It was not my intention to imply they were the same thing. I will refrain from doing so again.

It's no problem - just a pet peeve for many of us here.

Quote:

Second, I worded that horribly. I only meant that tarot reading felt natural for me and that everything as a whole (everything I have studied thus far) has made me feel as if I am on the right track to finding a religion that is right for me.

Ah, okay.

What does your religion entail?  

[StarGoddessSiren]

I worship the Greek gods and goddesses. I follow most of the ancient rituals of worship and celebrate most of their holidays. I also rely on natural herbs and stones/crystals as remedies.  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

GoddessDementia

I worship the Greek gods and goddesses. I follow most of the ancient rituals of worship and celebrate most of their holidays. I also rely on natural herbs and stones/crystals as remedies.

Hellenic recon?  

[StarGoddessSiren]

I'm pretty sure that's it. Like I stated earlier, i've been studying and practicing solo, so i'm not really acquainted with terms or the different pagan religions(i hope i stated that correctly). Even though I have been studying for years, my resources have been limited. That is the main reason I am here, to acquire more knowledge and better resources.  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

I've always studied and practiced solo; I don't think that has anything really to do with the quality of one's sources or what terms one is familiar with *shrug*. If you practise the reconstructed religion of the Greeks, you practise Hellenic Recon. Is your religion a reconstruction?  

[StarGoddessSiren]

yes  

[queen katz]

My parents have forced me to be christian most my life, and i hated every moment of it. I never felt like i belonged, and at most church servises they would take me to i would get really really mad. And so i started looking at other religons and i was asking some of my friends about it when two of my friends said they were wicca, and they explained the main stuff to me and something about it just clicked. It felt so right, it was like a gaint weight was lifted off my shoulders. I don't have a specific "type" of pagan that i follow though because i do not know enough about it, and i can't really practice my faith at all because 1. i don't know how and 2. im a broom closset pagan who can't let her parents know so it makes it hard to even try and worship at all, but i still meditate when i can and other small things like that.  

[Fieoras]

I grew up in a christian environment, but felt scared of myself because of the dreams I would have. All my friends were christians too and I was tooo scared to tell them, but then they started catching on by themselves when I started to 'guess' what would happen and was always right on the dot. They started bullying me after that calling me a demon, and it didn't help when my mom made me go to bible camp. Eventually I found new friends that kept inviting me over and saying we should play these 'games' that were too their benefit. I started freaking out because suddenly my dreams got waaay out of control and I started having nightmares. My older sister use to tease me about being christian and after I told her about what was going on, she introduced me to wicca and from there I started connecting the dots. That was 15 years ago, and I realized those people weren't my friends but just using me for their own benefit. But slowly I'm still learning to control my dreams so I can stop seeing people die before it happens, it still creeps me out sweatdrop I stopped listening to my parents altogether because there is no way that there can be that much coincidences in the world, what more proof do I need??  

[rmcdra]

I'll share since I'm sure you all are dying to know more about me.

I'm Robert and I'm a Christian Gnostic.

If I could isolate a point in my life when I first started seriously questioning the religion and beliefs of my youth was when I finally realized that my dad was not going to recover completely (He had broken his C4 diving into a 4ft swimming pool). My first question to God was "why are you against witchcraft if it can be used for good." I was willing to sell my soul to the Devil for the ability to make my Dad walk again. This was where I began exploring and eventually made up my own gods to follow along the way because the God I was told about was too contradictory. I continued to worship these thought-forms and fell into a bad Mr. Dark believing I was some demon banishing hero in the body of an earthling and the soul of someone from some other world. I hoped for some kind of end days because I did not want to be part of reality anymore. One good thing my thought-forms did was that none of them wanted me to kill myself or cause harm to others. I still called myself a Christian though I didn't believe a good portion of it (salvation, afterlife, OT rules) and I had a soft-polytheistic view of things so even though I was worshiping this god I didn't believe in, I'm still worshiping my god. I refused to believe for the longest time that I was just making this stuff up. I had no problems with living this dual life up until I got to college and was introduced to a flavor of Christianity I had only heard stories about. It was a real ugly side that I could not believe that one could call themselves Christian and still be such "dicks" for lack of a better word. I was told by my secular friends that this was the majority of Christianity. It made me ashamed that I followed what I believed at the time to be a hypocritical faith.

Instead of having the self-confidence to research and stand up to those that were misrepresenting my religion, I became an apostate. I became a Neo-Pagan seeker. I seriously considered Wicca for the longest time (confusing it for Neo-paganism) and even met a group that misrepresented itself as Wicca. After realizing what was involved with becoming Wicca, the alienation I felt from the Neo-Pagans in my area, and the general lack of any feeling of divinity, I almost ready to give up on religion.

I remembered hearing about the Gnostics in a college course a few years back and started to seriously examine it. The first text I looked at critically was On the Origin of the World. This was when I realized that I was on a similar track as the Gnostics because I noted similarities in the thought-forms I created with what was described in this text. I finally acknowledged that the beings I was serving were just thought-forms and I decided that I wanted to be a Gnostic. I stumbled and stumbled greatly. I bought into many, many of the misconceptions about gnosticism being presented such as that Gnostics were not Christians or somehow antithetical to Christianity, that what is being practiced today is the same as the ancient Gnostics. I even nearly got sucked into a cult. The cult situation was really the thing that nearly drove me away from religion. I was on the verge of become a secular irreligious atheist at this point, but God had other plans for me. Eventually though, through a bit of guidance, I began to realize that I had many, many expectations of who or what God is. One day on Feb 28, 2009, I let go of my expectations and asked God to show me what s/he wanted to show me. I finally saw the Light that scriptures spoke of. It was only for a fraction of second but it was incredible. All the questions I had about Christianity at that time were answered for me. And here I am now. I recognize that I still have a long, long way to go.  

[Lady_Suula]

I grew up in a christian household, but never truely believed or really understood most christian beliefs. I had always been intrested in Wicca and Pagan beliefs, but never really looked into them untill my 7th grade year. My friend found some books in our school library and we checked them out. She did it just for fun, but I was really intrested. I then began to read more, look up more, and study more on the Wiccan beliefs. The more I studied, the more I found I believed. Then I found out that alot of my friends were Wiccan and spoke to them about it. I am still constantly looking up things, butI am set into my path. I am a solitary Wiccan and am very happy in my path.  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

Just to clarify: one cannot be a solitary Wiccan. see the sticky for more information.  

[Aakosir]

I kind of got into this thread late, but Christianity never worked for me. I guess I'm touchy about the "he is lord and only he! If you worship a false idol you will go to hell" and all that fun stuff. I actually don't believe in hell, hense why I do not capitalize it. It's just a word to me. Another thing is how sexist it is! No one ever has thought maybe he is a she! God is a goddess, et cetera. I also find Christians a bit close minded, I'm not saying all are, just the ones I've encountered. So, I started a thought process a long time ago, probably when I was eight-ish. That thought process still hasn't come to a conclusion so I'm still learning and discovering. I consider my self a pagan witch. I mainly follow the Egyptian pantheon. They just appeal to me the most. And I feel like I have some sort of connection. Maybe I was Egyptian in a past life? I'm not sure.  

[Kyra the Sorceress]

I, like others, grew up in a Christian environment. However, I never recieved religious instruction, leaving me to find my own path. So, I sort of "made up" a religion in which magic was real. In eighth grade, my friend introduced me to Wicca and I found out that my "religion" wasn't at all made up and that it has a name. I am still learning about Wicca, but I do feel that this path is the right one for me.  

[Violet Song jat Shariff]

awsomnesschik

I, like others, grew up in a Christian environment. However, I never recieved religious instruction, leaving me to find my own path. So, I sort of "made up" a religion in which magic was real. In eighth grade, my friend introduced me to Wicca and I found out that my "religion" wasn't at all made up and that it has a name. I am still learning about Wicca, but I do feel that this path is the right one for me.

Your path is Eclectic. Wicca is not Eclectic. Please see the sticki'ed thread.  

[surukio]

I currently practice Haitian Voodou, and not what they practice in New Orleans [thats New orleans voodou and yes there are differences sweatdrop ]

it hard to explain how i feel religiously, as i am paritally Christian, and Paritally not. Voudoustans believe in God[Bod Dieu] and the Lwa[saints/angels/other deity like beings] and the natural spirit and the ancestors.

I also practive Native religion, and also so no one has to ask me YES i am about 1/6th American Native {my mother is 1/4 cherokee/creek[mixed between the 2] and 1/8th powhatan indian}, and YES I have personally begun my training for such in natural medicines, cleansing homes, learning to dance the traditional dances, and how to tend to the sacred fires.

as for how i knew, i had a good understanding of Native American religions, but there in only studing one, my other ethnic back ground were being neglected [ my mothers family is mixed as follow:
grandfather- british isle{some from all of them} powhatan indian
granmother- Cherokee, Creek, mullutto french{which is black, indian and white}
dads family is german and french gypsy[sinti]