My Fivefold Path

Last updated on: August 28, 2012 at 7:51 am By John Halstead

Over at Humanistic Paganism, “NaturalPantheist” recently shared his fourfold path for naturalists, summarized below: Path of Earth: Connection Path of Fire: Celebration Path of Air: Mysticism Path of Water: Education He includes specific suggestions for practices that fall into each category. I have always enjoyed these kinds of systematizations of spiritual practices. Early on in my pagan path, I articulated my own Five-Fold Path that was modeled on Matthew Fox’s Four-Fold Path of Creation Spirituality. Fox’s path includes the following:... Read more

“One Needful Thing”, Part 2: UUism and the Transformative Experience

Last updated on: August 26, 2012 at 8:11 am By John Halstead

In Part 1, I traced the development of Unitarianism since the early 19th century to the present and argued that UUism has, since its inception, been characterized by what William Channing called a “too partial culture of the mind.” I hinted that the “one needful thing” for UUism is enthusiasmos or personal abandonment, which I will explore in more detail in this Part. Jung and religious experience In 1910, early in Jung’s career, Jung wrote a letter to Freud regarding... Read more

A Mormon therapist takes on masturbation

Last updated on: August 23, 2012 at 6:40 pm By John Halstead

I typically do not blog here about exclusively Mormon issues. When I do bring up my history with Mormonism or my interactions with Mormons now (through my family) on this blog, I relate it to my Paganism. However, I recently read a post on the Mormon Therapist blog at Patheos about mastrubation and I have to reblog it here. I re-read the post with my son because, as I explained to him, shame and guilt from masturbation colored my entire... Read more

Who are we talking to anyway?: Humanistic Paganism and the gods

Last updated on: August 22, 2012 at 10:04 am By John Halstead

Over at The Wild Hunt, Brendan Myers has posted a guest article about whether Humanist Paganism is on the rise. It has stirred up some controversy in the comments section. Old Gods and New Orthodoxy What was most interesting to me were the comments of several polytheists that Paganism and atheism are incompatible because Paganism is necessarily theistic. “Raksha”, for example, argued that being atheist is “okay”, but it is disingenuous to call oneself Pagan also, because Paganism is the... Read more

Pike’s Peak

Last updated on: August 20, 2012 at 2:18 pm By John Halstead

This past week, I took a trip to Denver for work, and when I was done I drove up to Pike’s Peak. As is often the case when I travel to a different environment, I felt disoriented and out of place. That was until I drove out of the city and headed up into the mountains. Pikes Peak Highway is a long, winding road with steep drop-offs and beautiful vistas. I stopped at one place which looked like a kind... Read more

An infant dedication and second thoughts on Unitarian Universalism

Last updated on: August 7, 2012 at 8:04 pm By John Halstead

Last week, I went to town on the excessive rationalism and the lack of “poetic enthusiasm” (William Ellery Channing) in the Unitarian Universalist church. But as I sat in the service this past Sunday, I felt that I had been unfairly harsh last week. For the past year, we have had a young interim minister who really has been great. One of his first sermons coincided with one of the stations of the Wheel of the Year and he actually... Read more

Mid-Summer (First Fruits)

Last updated on: August 5, 2012 at 9:09 pm By John Halstead

We celebrated our Mid-Summer ritual today — closer to the actual midpoint between solstice and equinox than the traditional Lughnasadh date. As part of our ritual, we sang “The Maypole Song” from The Wicker Man (the Mediaeval Baebes cover). It’s a great song for a day that is about both sex and death, and in honor of the day I’m posting the link and the lyrics: In the woods there grew a tree A fine, fine tree was he On... Read more

These are my gods: or my biography told in deities

Last updated on: August 3, 2012 at 9:58 pm By John Halstead

The God of the Old Testament The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was […] in the wind. — 1 Kings 19:11 (NIV) I once met the God of the Old Testament on a mountain. I was Mormon at the time and very... Read more

Apolytrosis: My bill of divorce from the Christian God

Last updated on: August 2, 2012 at 10:42 pm By John Halstead

Over at Patheos, Star Foster has divorced herself from Jesus Christ. While this is more of a public announcement by Star of what was a more private divorce that happened years ago, it got me thinking about my own divorce from Christianity. I remember reading in The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels about a secret Gnostic sacrament called apolytrosis (release). The Gnostics believed that Christians worshiped the false god, the Demiurge, and by attaining gnosis they came to know their... Read more

“One needful thing”, Part 1: What’s missing from Unitarianism

Last updated on: August 1, 2012 at 4:22 pm By John Halstead

This is a mutli-part series. In this part, I discuss the history of Unitarianism, including the Transcendentalist revolt, the humanist revolution, and the search for a language of reverence. A few weeks ago, a married couple who are friends of mine joined the Unitarian Universalist congregation that I attend. They have been attending for about as long as I have, I think — about 2 1/2 years. I have not joined, and my friends’ decision has me asking myself why... Read more