Discussion of belief systems

[x_plastic_sushi_x]

Greetings, and well met.

I would love to hear about other people's beliefs, within the umbrella classification of Pagan.

Who here follows a specific school of beliefs, and who has a more eclectic one? Does everyone believe in a higher power? Are you more inclined towards a named entity/entities or a nameless being? Or not even a being, just a power?

Anything you want to share about your personal beliefs is great!  

[Nomad of Nowhere]

The similiarities between mythologies that are sometimes obviously derivatives of each other forced me to adopt a more eclectic view, and identify similiar deities with one another. One thing that sealed it for me was Slavic mythology, (from the regions around modern Russia and Ukraine- look it up if you're interested.) which has so many elements from pantheons everywhere. I do embrace many precepts of Wicca, since it is very similiar to some of the old mystery religions, such as Orphism, and even the Israelites once embraced such concepts, and with them, much of the near east.  

[Starlock]

I don't self-identify as anything more specific than Neopagan, but I also don't tend to consider myself eclectic as my own system does have a rather specific angle to it (there simply doesn't seem to be a pre-existing labeled tradition that pegs me right). I don't follow any classical Pantheon nor do I mix deities from any classical Pantheon. Since my path is extremely Nature-centered (even for a Neopagan) it did not make sense to me to allegorically detach from Nature by using classical Pagan deities. In other words, worshiping Ra doesn't make sense to me, but simply worshiping the Sun for the Spirit/Divinity that it is, DOES make sense to me. I can't imagine limiting myself to one particular allegorical interpretation of the Sun Spirit when I can draw upon all the mythos and science of the world's cultures to greater understand the Divinity that is the Sun Spirit. I live in the Information Age. I intend to make good use of it. whee

The question of a higher power is an interesting one. I think many people get afraid of that term, which is too bad. The terms 'higher' and 'lower' are really a function of point of view and values. As such, they're subjectively assessed qualities. But I'm not going to get off on a philosophical diatribe here. Suffice it to say that in my view of things, everything in the universe is Sacred and should be honored for what it is. It is neither higher nor lower, but when you view something as Sacred, you view it as intrinsically greater than yourself. I find it much more enriching to look up upon the world and awe at its wonders than to stare down my nose at it and complain all the time about its nature.

As far as attempting to pigeonhole how I see the Divine, it doesn't really work very well. I do not believe that any human description of the Divine is the Divine any sooner than I think the dictionary definition of a pencil is actually what a pencil is. Whenever you define something it's always one step removed from what that thing actually IS. I find all descriptions of the Divine to be valid and enlightening; they each provide a different angle on this thing called the Divine. In terms of practice, I tend to have a strong Pantheistic and Animistic bent, but the question of 'how many' is irrelevant to me. It's like asking is there a forest or a bunch of trees.  

[x_plastic_sushi_x]

Thank you for such insightful and intelligent responses! I find it very interesting to read about other peoples beliefs.

I would label myself, if at all, as a witch or kitchen witch. I have come to this classification after a lot of others that didn't fit. I have been exploring Pagan religions for almost my entire life, and my own combination of bits of those is what fits me best.

I do not believe in any one specific deity or God/Goddess, but only in what they represent. Similar to what Starlock said, I see no point in calling on a specific God of something, when I can simply call on the essence or energy of that something. I truly believe in magic, not as a skill or something borrowed or invoked, but as the act of focusing energy, whether your own or someone else's.

I am not nearly so eloquent on this as Starlock, as I don't have much excuse to talk intelligently about this.

So, another question, if anyone feels like answering:

How did you come to you beliefs? What life experiences directed you to what you now believe?  

[Nomad of Nowhere]

A lot of my current point-of-view comes from simply studying everything I could get my hands on- typical ecclectic. I always felt a predisposition to a great-goddess figure, so I became interested in Wicca. When I read the Epic of Gilgamesh, I became interested in middle eastern mythologies, not just the usual western ones. From there, I found more than enough patterns to speculate. It became more of an actual belief than a speculation over time, especially after I began meditating, and began identifying deities as states of mind, much like the Sephirot of the Kabbalah. From that perspective, everyone has a special relationship with a god, whether they know it or not.  

[loahnuh]

I am eclectic and don't really worship my deities per se but rather follow their respective teachings to guide me on the path of life.  

[Starlock]

Oooh... kitchen witchery sounds really fun. May be something I start incorporating more over time. I had a pretty good herb garden going this year which I loved to use throughout the season; hopefully I'll have a place to get another one going this next year! Gotta have fresh herbs!

Hmm... how did I come to my beliefs. Past experiences. As with everyone else. We all perceive information with bias every hour of every day. We latch onto what confirms our worldview and tend to dismiss what doesn't (gotta avoid that thing called cognitive dissonance after all). But I'll stop going all psych on ya'll. In essence I think it was probably a few key things that threw me down the path of a destined Neopagan.

1) I was a child who played in the woods and perhaps more importantly, 'played Indian.' Very early on I felt that connection with the land and developed a sense of its sacredness.
2) I was a child who devoured science. Particularly sciences that related to the natural world. Hence an intellectual fascination with the world around me.
3) I was a child who was enchanted by the fantasy genre and on top of that had an overactive imagination. Hence early mystical experiences both magically and with Otherworlds at a young age.
4) Church didn't work. I left at a young age. Young enough that it's hard for me to say exactly what my true reasons were anymore. But at any rate, this left the door open for me to system build my OWN beliefs; that's exactly what I did. It wasn't until much later that I was like "Oh... there's already a movement associated with what I'm doing. ROCK ON!!!!"  

[Rustig]

I hate to sound pretentious, but in all honesty I'd class myself as performing eclectic postmodern magick. I try to gear my system around the idea of semiotics and semantics, or magick related to meaning, symbolism and intent.

I don't follow any one pantheon or school of thought, but borrow from the ones that I mesh with and incorporate them into my worldview. I believe that magick is really just a way of making complex processes more abstract so that we can interact with them easier (kind of like folders on your computer - there are no folders physically there, they just represent electrical pulses). As such, I think any magickal idea is fair game, really, provided you don't think of it as a literal object unless your needs require you to.  

[Nomad of Nowhere]

Sort of reminds me of how I perceived the world during a trial of Kabbalistic meditation. The world was a sphere, and the world I had known up until then was an angle of perception of the center of the sphere, meaning that there were an infinite amount of positions one could perceive it from, and an infinite amount of radii or angles that could be drawn towards the center of the sphere, each of them representing a perspective from which the uniformity of the sphere appeared to be divided into matter and emptiness, dark and light, bonded particles and disassociated particles- but that is only the distortion caused by one line of vision. Learning magic is the slow process of overcoming the limitations inherent to mortal perspective- not that I'm telling you that, that's just my conclusion.  

[Kieron_Dark]

Me I'm mostly straight Norse, pun not intended. I't has been joked that I'm too much of a fighter for a nature religion, and part of that is true. I can't really see myself standing in a circle calling the elements. But give me a drum circle and I'm there. Not to sound melodramatic but I didn't find religion it found me. And I think i've been a better person because of it. I've been happier and I have had more good things happen to me than ever before.  

[[BlkCat]]

I'm Kemetic Erisian (eclectic mash up of two things that encompass some of the beliefs of just about every religion.