What a Decade It’s Been: A Spiritual Retrospective

December 22, 2019 By John Beckett

Decades used to be a big deal. There were the Swinging 60s, the Malaise 70s, the New Wave 80s, and the Grunge 90s. But I haven’t heard many references to decades since the turn of the millennium.

A lot of that is because we never could figure out what to call the last two decades. I’ve heard the 00s (I said “zero zeros” as I typed that) called “the aughts” or “the noughties” but neither really caught on. This decade should have been called “the teens” and it may be in retrospect, but by the time we hit 2013 we had already been in the decade for three years.

The coming of the 20s snuck up on most of us. We’re ten days away from a new decade, and so before I do my usual year-end features, it seems appropriate to do a retrospective on 2010 – 2019.

Jason Mankey did a retrospective on the past decade in the Pagan movement earlier this month. I couldn’t have written that kind of post – I don’t have the breadth of experience to do it. I’m not sure any one person does, but Jason comes closer than anybody.

This post is a personal retrospective of the 2010s. It may be too personal, but this is my story and I want to share it.

before the Denton CUUPS Beltane circle – 2010

2010: Mired in the Mundane

My paying job took a turn for the worse in mid-2009. 2010 was the worst of it. Additionally, my spiritual practice was stuck. I had finished the OBOD course, I was serving as Coordinating Officer of Denton CUUPS, and I had been to a wonderful Druid gathering in California. I was starting to see what deep Pagan practice could be, but I had no idea how to get there.

In April I wrote this post titled Begin Again. It’s barely a hundred words – Jason would kick me off Patheos if I tried to post something that short today. But it was important for me to make a public statement:

What I wanted before is still what I want. I can give up, or I can begin again.

I begin again.

And so I did.

2011: Getting off the Plateau

In September 2010 I set a deadline for my paying job to improve or I was going to start looking for something new. Two months later there were several major organizational changes which improved my life considerably. By the start of 2011, the elevated – and at times, debilitating – stress was down to a manageable level.

But while I suddenly had the time and energy to work on my spiritual quest, I didn’t know where to go. I was doing what I had been doing for the previous eight years, and I was seeing first-hand that doing the same things in the same way tends to bring the same results. I felt stuck.

I had met Thorn Coyle at the House of Danu Gorsedd in 2009 and 2010 – I was very impressed with her as a teacher and a leader. I knew she did spiritual direction (I don’t know if she still does that work or not) and so I contacted her about getting help.

It was nothing special. There were no magical secrets, no powerful rituals, no long list of things to do. It was so ordinary I wondered if I was getting my money’s worth.

But then things started happening. I made a connection with the core of my being that has only gotten stronger. My occasional evening prayers became every evening prayers, then four times daily prayers. I picked up my exercise routine and while I didn’t lose any weight, I felt great.

Thorn’s magic worked. It wasn’t mystical or spooky or flashy. It just worked.

2012: Ordination

One of the things I did after I got off the plateau was start looking for an ordination. I had been asked to perform weddings, I needed legal recognition, and I wanted an earned ordination. ADF has a rather rigorous clergy training program, but I wasn’t a member of ADF at the time. OBOD does not ordain.

In mid-2011 I started studying one-on-one with John Michael Greer. At the time he was Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America, and he was (and as far as I know, still is) an Archbishop in the Universal Gnostic Church, with the authority to ordain priests. The study program took about a year – the ordination rites were performed at the 2012 OBOD East Coast Gathering.

John Michael and I parted ways in 2014. I suppose it was inevitable, for reasons I’m not going to discuss on the blog. But I remain thankful for his guidance. I needed an earned ordination to support my clergy work and he helped me get it.

2013: A New Home at Patheos

I started this blog on a free Blogger site in 2008. In 2012 Star Foster (the original Patheos Pagan Channel Manager) invited me to move to Patheos. She left before that could be completed, but Christine Kraemer facilitated the Patheos setup shortly after she took over for Star. My first post here was January 21, 2013.

Patheos has been a very good thing for me. Within a year my readership doubled, and within two years it was up 6x. It’s grown every year except for 2017 (the worst of the Facebook algorithm changes) and 2019 has been another record year.

Patheos isn’t perfect. But writers want to be read, and there is no other platform that gives Pagan bloggers as much exposure and reach.

2014: Pantheacon at Last!

As I became more active in the wider Pagan community – and especially after I made two trips to Druid events on the West Coast – I began to hear about this thing called Pantheacon. In my mind, it was a both a modern Roman Bacchanal and a Pagan Council of Nicaea, where everybody who was anybody in the Pagan movement gathered to discuss important topics and party into the night.

At some level I knew I was making it out to be far more than it was. Still, I was envious of everyone who made the pilgrimage to San Jose each February. I told myself it was too expensive and the crowds were too much.

In 2014 I finally went. Reality was rather different from what my imagination had concocted, but I still had a great time. I went again in 2016 and 2018.

2020 will be the final Pantheacon. The post-Pantheacon future will be smaller and more regional, and that’s a good thing. But that first trip in 2014 was a truly magical experience.

Patheos Pagan at Pantheacon 2014: John Beckett, Niki Ruggiero, P. Sufenas Virius Lupus, Jason Mankey, John Halstead

2015: Defining Polytheism

I’m not sure how the Great Polytheist – Atheist Kerfuffle of 2015 got started. The competing blog salvos between myself and John Halstead got more publicity than anything else, but it was much broader than that.

At the core of the debate was the question “what are the Gods?” Many individual beings? Aspects of one great God/dess? Or the higher impulses of our human minds? And at the core of the controversy was one side insisting that Paganism needed to give up its “primitive” belief in real Gods, and the other side insisting that while everyone is entitled to their beliefs, if you don’t believe in real Gods you have no business calling yourself a theist of any description.

In late 2015 I wrote It’s Not All The Same And That’s OK to emphasize the need for clear theological boundaries and mutual respect. To me, this post sums up the debate (or at least, my views on it) as well as anything.

There were many other posts by many other writers – you can spend all day following the links in the various posts. Possibly the best of all of them was this one titled Paint It Red by the Anomalous Thracian. It shows not just the topics being discussed, but the passion with which they were debated.

This controversy produced some of the best writing our wider community has seen. It also produced hurt feelings and broken relationships.

Was it necessary? Yes.

I just hope we don’t have to do it again.

2016: The Shredded Veil

This was the year we went from “a storm is coming” to “the storm is here.” In June I saw what I’m now convinced was an Otherworldly bird that somehow made its way into our world. By the end of the year I said the Veil Between the Worlds is shredded.

I still don’t know exactly what’s causing this. That hasn’t stopped me and others from investigating and speculating and trying to come up with strategies and tactics to deal with it.

We speak of cusps and transitions because shifts in eras and aeons take years and in some cases decades to complete. Liminal zones that are neither within nor without are known for being magical – and dangerous. But when historians look back on this time, I’m confident they’ll mark 2016 as a major milestone on the way from where we were to where we’re going.

Even if in 2019 we still don’t know where that is.

2017: The Path of Paganism

I always wanted to write a book. After I moved to Patheos Pagan in 2013, people started asking me “when are you going to write a book?” I didn’t think I had a “ book-shaped work” in me. Turns out I did – I just had to figure out how to put it together.

I started work on what would become The Path of Paganism at Imbolc 2014. After a couple of false starts, I finished it in December 2015. The physical book started shipping in April 2017. The full story is here.

The book-making process is so long that by the time I could hold my book in my hands, it didn’t feel like a very big deal. But there aren’t many intermediate Pagan books on the market, and now there’s this one. And not just any Pagan book, but one that describes Paganism as I understand it and practice it.

And I’m really happy about that.

2018: The Fairy Dog

I’ve made three trips to Ireland and they’ve all been great. I’ve blogged about them all. The last trip in 2018 was special for many reasons, and at the top of the list was an encounter with what my entire traveling party is convinced was a fairy dog.

This happened as part of A Visit to Fourknocks – An Adventure in Four Parts.

We had been inside Fourknocks for perhaps ten minutes when a small dog decided to join us. He looked around inside, as if checking us out, then went outside on his own. We went back to examining the rock carvings inside the mound. A couple minutes later we heard a long, loud howl like no dog any of us had ever heard.

I’m not a dog person, but some of our group are – they said the same thing. I went outside and the dog was staring at me – this time I saw the dog instead of just glancing at him.

It was a small tan dog – nothing out of the ordinary. But his eyes were solid black, and there were broad red streaks under his eyes, as though the dog had dipped his fingers (if a dog had fingers) into red ochre and painted his face with it.

In Celtic lore, red markings are a sign of an Otherworldly animal – even I could tell this was not an ordinary dog. Apparently it was time for us to go.

Most of my religious and spiritual experiences are, well, spiritual. So when I see and hear something Otherworldly with my this-world senses, it’s yet another confirmation that even though many people say this can’t be real, I know it is.

2019: The Year Everything Was On Fire

It’s hard to say what themes or events will have a long-term significance for a year that’s not completely over yet. But someone in Denton CUUPS called 2019 “the year of setting things on fire” because so many of our rituals involved ritual burnings (including Beltane, which I led). And then someone else looked at our community and the wider world and said 2019 was “the year everything was on fire.”

On one hand, I participated in some amazing rituals – the best of which I can’t talk about. My second book came out and was generally well received. I had some wonderful travels, both mundane and spiritual. It’s been another great year on the blog.

On the other hand, my paying job has been stressful, I’ve had financial challenges, and my health has been up and down. Many of my closest friends had difficulties and upheavals that were far worse. When I asked my Gods about this they said “you’re living in Tower Time – what do you expect?”

Nevertheless, we persisted.

I often recommend journaling as a spiritual practice. Many times you don’t know how far you’ve come until you look back at where you were. I’ve come a long way from 2010 to 2019. But the biggest shift has been the confidence I have that no matter how difficult things may be, whether the results are good or bad or in between, I’m on the right path.

And that makes this decade a success.

Dealing With Religious Uncertainty: Hold Loosely But Practice Deeply

December 8, 2019 By John Beckett

Over on the Modern Witch blog, Storm Faerywolf has a very interesting piece titled The Undeniable Hubris of Knowing. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything where I simultaneously agreed and disagreed so strongly.

I encourage you to read the whole thing for yourself. Read it twice (I did) to make sure you understand exactly what Storm is saying. He writes as a witch, for witches, but what he says is applicable to pretty much anyone in the Big Tent of Paganism, and well beyond that.

Storm does an excellent job of describing the inherent uncertainty in religious and magical experiences, and the difficulty of interpreting them accurately.

Whether one asserts that the gods are independent, separate beings, or affirms that they are but aspects of the human psyche, both arguments suffer from the same fatal flaw: they assert to know something that by its very nature cannot be assessed fully with the rational mind.

I’m in complete agreement with this statement. And I think it’s important to pay special attention to the final words: “they assert to know something that by its very nature cannot be assessed fully with the rational mind.” It’s not that we don’t know the true nature of the Gods and magic because we haven’t discovered it yet. We don’t know because it’s beyond the capabilities of our brilliant but still limited minds.

How many religious conflicts would simply disappear if everyone understood and accepted this obvious truth? Not all of them – many “religious” conflicts are cultural or political, not theological or doctrinal. But plenty would.

Beyond that, how many meaningful spiritual experiences do we miss because we’ve decided they aren’t possible?

I grew up in a fundamentalist Baptist church where preachers continually talked about knowing this or knowing that and how doubt is a sin. I can remember being 11 or 12 years old and silently screaming “no, you don’t know – you believe.” I never want that kind of false certainty in my Paganism.

But having accepted the inherent uncertainty of religious experiences, we are still left with the question of how to interpret them, and how to integrate them into our lives. This is where I shift from strongly agreeing with Storm to strongly disagreeing with him.

Before I begin, I want to be clear on one thing: I’m not saying Storm is wrong. I’m saying I have a different approach that I think is better, even though we can never be completely sure who’s right… or if we’re both wrong. As always, you must choose for yourself.

Experiences require interpretation

Raw, unfiltered experiences – religious or otherwise – are literally meaningless. They’re a collection of sensations: sights, sounds, and smells. Touches that range from barely noticeable to pleasurable to intensely painful. Emotions like joy, elation, anger, and fear. And thoughts: not words in your head that may or may not be your own, but ideas and images not yet articulated – what our earliest ancestors would have experienced before they had the capacity for language.

Part of interpretation is a simple matter of determining cause and effect. I feel pain in my arm. I see blood flowing from my arm. I see you standing in front of me holding a bloody knife. I conclude that you cut me.

But the bigger part of interpretation is figuring out what it means. Are you a doctor performing surgery? Was I tied up and you were trying to cut me free? Or are you threatening to cut me again unless I hand over my wallet? In each of those cases I have a very similar set of sensations, but the meaning I assign to the experience is very different.

Likewise, we have to interpret our spiritual experiences. Do these raw sensations have an internal source or an external source? Was a favorable outcome the result of our magic (whatever magic is) or was it random chance? And regardless of the source, what does it mean? How should we respond?

Even calling something a spiritual experience is an act of interpretation. Doing so assigns a meaning of “special” or “non-ordinary” or “significant” – as opposed to random or ordinary or trivial.

We may never know exactly what’s behind our experiences, but we still have to decide what they mean.

Interpretation requires context

Gordon White of Rune Soup once told a story about dog-sitting for his mother. This particular dog was old and needed daily medication, which had to be given by injection. Gordon wondered what the dog thought of the fact that the people who fed him and pet him and generally loved him also hurt him once a day every day. The dog had no context for chronic diseases or injectable medication.

In Paganism In Depth I talked a lot about unstated assumptions – the things we’ve always been told are true or assume are true that may not actually be true. And perhaps more importantly, the things we assume can’t possibly be true. These assumptions form the context in which we will interpret our experiences.

One of the reasons medieval Christians conducted witch hunts was that official church policy said that humans were incapable of working magic on their own. Any magic had to come from a spirit, and any spirit not approved by the Church had to be from the devil. Lots of assumptions there and none of them are likely true.

On the other hand, there were very few witch trials in Ireland. When bad things happened, the medieval Irish didn’t assume someone had bewitched them – they blamed the Fair Folk.

Our assumptions about the world and the way it works provide the context for interpreting our spiritual experiences. We will only consider what we believe is possible.

Two heads are better than one

Storm Faerywolf talks about maps, their usefulness, and what happens when we go off the map. He says

In the end we must adopt the role of explorers, paying serious attention to every detail we encounter, and resisting the very human urge to relax into explanations based on what amounts to little more than hearsay, rather than direct experience.

I love the explorer imagery, and I’m in strong agreement with the need to pay close attention to the details of our encounters. The best way to kill a mystical experience is to start analyzing it while it’s happening. In the moment, simply experience – and if you can, take good notes. Save the interpretation for after it’s over.

But while all of us can make mistakes in observation and interpretation, together we can do better. We can point out things others miss and we can challenge weak logic. More importantly, we can compare and contrast our experiences – larger sample sizes facilitate better data analysis. This is how unverified personal gnosis (UPG) becomes shared personal gnosis (SPG) and can eventually become confirmed knowledge.

Knowing through intense experience

Part of me is still that little kid in the Baptist church saying “you don’t know, you believe!” But that little kid hadn’t had multiple first-hand experiences of Gods and other mighty spirits. He hadn’t worked magic and gotten favorable results over and over again. He hadn’t discovered that his true calling was becoming a Druid and a priest.

How do you know your spouse loves you? They can say it, but people often lie. But over time, between their concern and affection and interest, it becomes pretty obvious they do.

I don’t know that my beliefs about the Gods and magic are true in the way I know the Pythagorean Theorem is true. But my experiences have convinced me they’re true, and that’s good enough for me.

Be careful of “this is my truth”

Truth is not relative. There is no “my truth” or “your truth” or “this is true for me.” Things are either true or they’re false. Or they’re too complicated for simple binary classifications, but that’s another rant for another time.

The Gods are not real distinct beings for me and psychological phenomena for you. Either they are one or they’re the other (or they’re something else neither of us is thinking of, which is a distinct possibility). And if the Gods are real distinct beings, that doesn’t mean your psychological phenomena isn’t real – it just means it’s not a God.

Do you want to try to get closer to the truth, or are you content with not knowing?

I’m never content with not knowing. I have to try, even if I can’t get all the way there.

What do we do when we don’t know for sure?

Storm says

I might have ideas on the nature of the gods with whom I work, but in all honesty, I can’t know for certain.

I completely agree with that. It’s what comes next that brings the disagreement.

Storm says we should approach the Gods as a mystery. He doesn’t explain exactly what he means by that and I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but most people who say “the Gods are a mystery” mean something along the lines of “so I’m not going to think about them too deeply.”

I want to be clear that this is a perfectly valid approach. As I said in the beginning, Storm isn’t wrong.

But I prefer a different approach.

Hold loosely but practice deeply

My first-hand experiences of the Gods are the deepest and most meaningful part of my religious practice. I want to understand them as best I can, and more importantly, I want to incorporate them into my life. And so I interpret them, and then form beliefs from the interpretations. Those beliefs lead to religious practices, which in turn lead to more religious experiences.

Over time, over multiple iterations, and after consulting and collaborating with those who are doing similar things in a similar context, those beliefs get stronger and stronger. Stronger beliefs enable stronger experiences.

At the same time, I never forget that humans contemplating the nature of the Gods is like cats contemplating the nature of humans. If I encounter new experiences or new lines of thinking, I am ethically obligated to give them due consideration. If they look promising, I’m obligated to explore them. If my exploration indicates they’re true, or likely true, I’m obligated to change my beliefs and incorporate them into my practice.

Hold your beliefs loosely. But while you hold them, live them out as deeply as you can.

And at the same time, understand that everyone else is doing the best they can. While it is necessary to draw boundaries around significant religious differences – and to actively oppose those that harm other persons – we are still ethically obligated to treat others with dignity and respect even if they follow a drastically different religion.

Even if we can never be sure who’s right, or closer to right.

Finding Your Way Without a Spiritual GPS

December 1, 2019 By John Beckett

Over on the Double, Toil & Resist blog, Courtney Weber has an excellent piece titled Gods, Path, And Magick: You Don’t Have To Know. It’s well worth your time to read the whole thing – here’s a brief excerpt:

Am I doing this right?

The short answer: I don’t know.

The longer answer: Nobody does.

Witchcraft is a mystery. It will always feel a bit elusive.

What is true of witchcraft is also true of Paganism, polytheism, and life in general. Choosing between the many spiritual paths is hard enough. When you get to the point that you’re working off the map it gets exponentially harder. Courtney expresses the key point in her conclusion:

Accept uncertainty as part of the process.

Shrug.

Laugh.

And keep going.

I’ve been in this situation myself, on more than one occasion. I’ve learned a few things along the way, things that may be helpful to you.

And if I’m being perfectly honest, some things I need to hear again.

Seek – but then choose

There was a time – not so very long ago – when changing your religion was virtually unthinkable. The vast majority of people followed the religion of their parents and grandparents before them, whether that religion was Evangelical Christianity, Roman Catholicism, or ancient Celtic Paganism. Today we have more religious choices than ever before, and changing your religion is far more acceptable than in the past.

But change is always hard, and trying to find the right path is even harder. Our era has seen the rise of “seekers” – people who are seeking the right path for them. It’s common to see people trying different versions of Christianity or Buddhism or Paganism or some other religion.

This “trying on” period is good and even necessary. But at some point we all need to make a decision. We need to pick a path and start walking it. If you wait for a Sign From Above there’s about a 99% chance you’ll be waiting till you die.

Remember that it’s only the fundamentalist versions of Christianity and of Islam who insist that finding the right path is of ultimate importance. The rest of us realize you can live a good life in any religion. If you choose wrongly (i.e. – what doesn’t work for you), then you can try something else later.

But you’ll never find your way until you get started on your way.

Choose.

Build on the foundations of your ancestors

And here I mean your ancestors of spirit – the people who walked this path before you.

Modern Pagans don’t have the seemingly-endless resources that our Christian friends have. Our movement is relatively new. Those of us who are re-creating or reimagining the religions of our pre-Christian ancestors may have even less.

But we have something. We have 300 years of Druidry. We have perhaps 70 years of Wicca. There are people worshipping the Gods of the Egyptians, the Greeks, and virtually every pantheon known to humanity. Find them. Read their books, listen to their priests, talk to their participants.

Find what other people on your path are doing, so you don’t have to figure it all out by yourself.

Go far enough and eventually you’ll get to the point where you do have to figure it all out by yourself, or at least, with the help of a very few co-religionists. But take advantage of the experience of those who came before you for as long as you can.

The essentials are always essential

The Dalai Lama meditates for 4 to 5 hours a day. Professional basketball players shoot free throws every day. The essentials of any art or skill need continual practice.

For those of us on a Pagan path, this is prayer, meditation, offerings, contemplation, and academic study. It’s embodying the virtues of your deities and expressing Their values in this world.

These practices are always essential, no matter how far you go. They keep you connected to your path, and to the Gods and spirits who share it with you.

Do the work in front of you

This has been just about the hardest part of my journey. I like big, elaborate projects with detailed plans and precise timelines. Most times we don’t have them. When I’ve asked about them in prayer and meditation and even in divination, I’ve been told “do the work I gave you. When it’s done I’ll give you something else.”

Many times the work in front of me doesn’t look very important. Sometimes it’s so routine I can barely see it. But it needs to be done, so I do it.

Doing routine, ordinary things builds skills and experience – skills and experience that will likely be needed down the road, even if you don’t know how or when just yet. Sometimes doing one thing requires learning new skills in a second area that may come into play in a third.

Do the work in front of you.

Find the others

Traveling alone is hard. Traveling alone when you don’t know where you’re going is even harder. But you don’t have to do it alone.

In this era of social media, finding other people who are doing more or less the same thing you’re doing is simple. And you don’t have to form a coven or a religious order to work together. Just having someone who shares your religious orientation and especially your commitment to your path can be a tremendous advantage. I’m fortunate to have a strong local polytheist community, but I’ve also got friends and colleagues around the world who I can e-mail or even call when I run into situations where I’m experiencing something I don’t completely understand.

Find others who are doing more or less the same thing you’re doing.

And if you do end up forming a coven or a religious order or a priesthood or something along those lines, so much the better. That’s not necessary, but finding the others is pretty important.

Listen!

Many times when you don’t know where to go or what to do next, it’s because the Gods and spirits who are leading / pushing / dragging you along can’t be heard over the roar of your mundane life. Take regular time to slow down and listen.

Most times this means meditation. Not Zen-style emptying of the mind (though that can be helpful) but rather a contemplative meditation, where you set an image or other representation of a deity in front of you, contemplate Them and Their stories, and then listen for Their voice.

Other times it means divination, especially when you’ve got a specific question and you need an answer.

And don’t forget to use your mundane eyes and ears. Sometimes the opportunity you’re looking for is right in front of you, but you have to recognize it so you can say “yes.”

Draw a map as you go

Keep a regular spiritual journal. I find it helpful to “write through” difficult issues – finding just the right words forces me to think carefully about what I’m doing and why.

Perhaps more importantly, keeping a journal provides a record of your experiences and your thoughts about them. This can be helpful for those who come after you, especially if you end up becoming one of the “others” that someone else finds in their own search.

And it’s always good to look back and see how far you’ve come. Many times we get so caught up in routine work and the crisis of the month that we don’t notice our own progress. A journal lets you look back and see where you were, so you can appreciate how far you’ve come.

Keep moving

I’m not one to shrug and laugh – I’m more likely to worry and complain. But either way, Courtney Weber has the right idea – keep going.

About 10 years ago I had no idea where I was going. I had finished the OBOD course, I was a leader in a local Pagan group, I was writing a blog, and I had been to a few large Pagan gatherings. But I felt stuck. I said some prayers of desperation and what I heard was “just keep moving.”

And so I did, though to be perfectly honest it was more because I couldn’t figure out anything else I could do than from any sense of duty to follow instructions.

It took a while – the rest of 2009, all of 2010, and into 2011. And then shortly after Beltane 2011, things broke through and I haven’t slowed down since.

Be careful what you ask for – you might get it.

I’ve had other periods where I felt stagnant, or more frequently, where I knew I needed to do something but couldn’t figure out exactly what. Or how. But the things I’ve talked about here have kept me going, and I expect they’ll continue to do so until I’m ready to take up permanent residence in the Otherworld… which I don’t think will be any time soon.

A House Cleansing Ritual: Spiritually Protecting Your Space

October 3, 2019 By John Beckett

Let it be known you’re a witch, a Druid, or any sort of magical practitioner and the requests for magical assistance will find you. By far the most frequent request I get is for house cleansings and blessings.

Someone moves into a new place and they want to make it theirs. Something feels unhealthy, unwelcoming, or just not quite right and they want to clean it out. Or something bad happens, or happened in the past, and the residue is still there.

This isn’t just a Pagan thing. While Baptists and atheists tend to dismiss house blessings, Catholics, Methodists, and even Unitarian Universalists do this sort of work on at least an occasional basis. So do Buddhists and followers of most other religions. Each religion and each tradition has their own way of doing this work – all of them can be effective in the right context. My way, of course, is grounded in Paganism, polytheism, and the active practice of magic.

If you feel the need for a house cleansing, the good news is that you can probably do it yourself. This is some of the most straightforward magic there is. Plus nobody knows your house as well as you do, and nobody is more invested in getting it good and clean. In my rough estimation, 19 times out of 20 all that’s wrong is some residual energy that’s simple enough to get rid of.

That one other time? We’ll talk about that in a minute.

Begin with a mundane cleaning

According to Dictionary.com, the phrase “cleanliness is next to godliness” was first written by John Wesley, but the idea is ancient – and it did not originate with Christianity. A line we adapted from the Pyramid Texts for our Egyptian Temple Rituals says:

Oh water may you remove all evil,
As Ra who bathes in the Lake of Rushes.
I come before thee, O Isis, O Ra, my purification upon my arms.

Water – and soap – removes many evils. You don’t have to go full Marie Kondo, but get rid of garbage and junk. Vacuum, dust, and wipe down all the surfaces. Hoodoo practitioners are big on floor washes – whether your mop water is magically charged or not, use it to get your floors as clean as you can.

Many times a good mundane cleaning will also get rid of spiritual dirt and grime. At the least, it makes it harder for unwelcome things to hide.

Listen first!

Probably all you have is some spiritual residue, but if you don’t listen to your house, how can you know for sure?

“Listen” with all your senses, both mundane and magical. You probably don’t have a ghost or a house spirit, but if you do, treat them with respect. And with caution – just because they’re a spirit doesn’t mean they mean you well.

Mainly, do your best to determine what’s wrong and where it’s wrong before you begin. You’ll want to cover your whole house, but hot spots (or the legendary cold spots) will need special attention.

Gather your team

You can do a house cleansing by yourself – I’ve done it on numerous occasions. But it’s easier if you have help. It’s also a good community building exercise – think of the “broom ritual” in Practical Magic.

I prefer to work with a team of three or four, mainly because it lets each person focus on one element during the cleansing portion of the ritual. More is good, although too many makes it hard to move around rooms.

Your team need not all be practicing witches or Pagans. Ordinary people can help just fine, and this is a good way to involve children (older children, anyway) if you have any. You don’t have to all be in religious agreement, but it’s best to exclude anyone who would actively criticize the process (again, Baptists and atheists, or at least the more militant versions of them). Magic works based on action and not on belief, but active skepticism can put a damper on the whole thing.

Opening ritual

You don’t need a lot of formal ritual here. You do need to get yourself and everyone else focused on the work at hand. An opening bell, a cleansing of the participants (a quick ceremonial hand-washing is fine), a declaration of intent, and a prayer for divine assistance is adequate. If you share a tradition of grounding and centering, do that also.

As always, I recommend calling on the assistance of deities you know and are in relationship with, rather than picking Someone you don’t know based on an assumed function.

Cleansing

This is the hard work of the ritual. There are many techniques – most of them are good. You need not do them all, but use at least one technique designed to break up spiritual residue and one to clear it out of the house.

Move in one direction. If possible, start at the top of the house and move downward, moving widdershins (counterclockwise) through the rooms and through the floors. If you have an upstairs and a basement and there’s no basement door, do the upstairs, then the basement, then the main floor.

Sound and smoke are best for breaking up spiritual residue. I prefer to have the person leading the procession ringing a bell or striking a chime. Burn astringent plants or incense (not sweet incense) and waft the smoke throughout the rooms (but if you set off the smoke detectors, you’re using too much smoke).

Open all the closets and cabinets. Pay particular attention to any hot or cold spots you noticed during your listening work, or that appear during the ritual. Pay particular attention to mirrors and other reflective surfaces.

Sense what’s going on. See and feel the sound and smoke breaking up the negative energy. Use a wand or an athame to add your own energy to the process – like using a knife to scrape a particularly dirty cooking pot.

Continue the cleansing by sprinkling salt water. Give the last person in the procession a broom (ideally a besom, but an ordinary broom works fine) to sweep everything clean.

Some traditions say to sweep the residue out the front door, or the back door. Others say to sweep it into the hearth and up the chimney. I use whatever is most accessible. The main thing is to get it out of the house.

Blessing

Now your house is clean, but it’s a sterile hospital clean, not a friendly and welcoming clean. Make a second pass through the house, this time moving deosil (clockwise). Asperse it with clean fresh water (magically charged if possible) and cense it with sweet incense. In each room, say words of blessing, something like:

This room is clean and pure, safe and welcoming for those who live here and for our guests. May it remain so in the days and weeks to come.

Pay special attention to your altars and shrines. Clean and cleanse them well, and then ask for the blessings of the Gods and ancestors who are honored there.

Warding

You can clean your house until it’s spotless, but if you leave the doors and windows open it won’t be long before things you don’t want blow in – or walk in.

Make a third pass through the house. The direction isn’t critical, but I prefer to move deosil. Stop at each door and window. Draw a pentagram or other symbol of protection over it using a wand, athame, or your finger. See them glowing (mine glow blue). Do the chimney too.

When you’re done, ask any deities with whom you have a relationship to ward and protect your house and all within it.

You can combine blessing and warding into one pass through the house, particularly if you have a team and can make one person responsible for setting the wards. I prefer to do them separately, to make sure nothing distracts me from protecting the house once it’s clean and blessed.

Yes, this is a photo manipulation. No, you will not see this with your physical eyes. Yes, you should see this with your “other” eyes.

Review, monitor, and repeat

No matter how clean your house is, it’s not going to stay clean forever. Ordinary living tracks in dirt, gets food stains on counters, and produces dirty clothes. Among other things. Sooner or later you’re going to have to clean house again.

The same is true for magical and spiritual cleansings. If your ordinary life and the lives of your housemates are going well, if you’re only interacting with spirits who mean you well (good luck with that), and if your wards are strong, your house may stay clean for many months. If not, you may find yourself living in a dirty house again in a few weeks.

Monitor your wards. Are they still glowing or are they covered in grime? Keep listening. If you feel your house getting dirty again, cleanse it again. As with mundane cleaning, regular small cleansings are a lot easier than infrequent big cleansings.

If the cleansing doesn’t work

The vast majority of times this ritual or some variant of it is all you need. Honestly, a lot of times a good mundane cleaning is all you need. But sometimes – about 5% of the time, by my estimation – something more is involved.

Something really nasty happened in the house and the stains won’t come out. A malevolent spirit has moved in… or perhaps, just an annoyingly mischievous spirit. Magical attacks are rare (most people with the desire to magically attack you don’t have the skills to do it, and vice versa) but they do happen.

This is when you call in help. Call your local witch or Druid or priest. Call someone with more experience than you, someone with the magical skills to handle something you can’t. Mainly, someone who knows what to look for so they can figure out exactly what (or who) you’re dealing with.

If you call for help, expect to pay for help. Now, I occasionally see criminal cases where a fraudulent magician (who is more fraud than magician to begin with) charges a naïve person thousands of dollars to remove a curse that isn’t there. That’s a crime, and rightly so. On the other hand, if you want the benefit of someone’s time and training, you should expect to pay for it, just as you would expect to pay a skilled tradesperson like a plumber or an electrician.

A word on sage

Lots of people use sage for cleansing. As I explained last year, burning sage is not cultural appropriation. Burning sage in Native American ceremonies when you’re not Native American is. There is some disagreement on whether or not white sage is currently being overharvested. I’ve seen arguments both ways and I can’t find an on-line source I trust enough to say for sure.

Here’s what I do know: people around the world have used smoke for cleansing for thousands of years. White sage is native to a rather limited area in the western United States and Mexico. That means the vast majority of people have been cleansing with something other than sage. So while sage is particularly well-suited for cleansing, there are many other perfectly adequate choices.

Do a bit of research and find something native to where you live. Or grow your own. Then you know it’s been ethically harvested.

Before you ask me to cleanse your house

If you’re a member of one of my local groups and you need my help, give me a call. I’ll be glad to help you cleanse your house. There will be no charge because we’re family, and I’m sure you’ll do something for me sooner or later (if you haven’t already).

If you’re not a member of one of my groups but you’re still local to me, I’ll do it, but expect to pay my usual consulting rates.

If you’re not local to me, then I can’t help you. Even if you pay all my expenses, I don’t have the time to travel to you.

More than that, though, there’s no reason to call me in for a house cleansing. In most cases you can do it yourself. If you can’t, or if you really want a professional to do it for you, there are almost certainly people local to you who are just as good or better than I am.

Honestly, while I’m good at this, I’m nothing special. I’m not even the best in my local groups (that would be Cynthia Talbot).

Cleansing, blessing, and warding your house (or apartment, or dorm room, or where ever you live) is a skill almost everyone can learn. Give it a try – now, before things get bad – and see how it helps.

When You Have To Be A Spiritual Emergency Room

September 3, 2019 By John Beckett

If you’re a leader in a Pagan group or if you have a public presence as a Pagan, sooner or later you’re going to get an e-mail, a phone call, or an in-person visit from someone in distress. Someone who’s God-bothered, or who had a magical working go badly, or whose atheo-materialist worldview was shattered when someone parted the Veil and they saw something they can’t unsee. They’re hurting, and they’re looking to you for help.

Why you? You gave somebody the impression you know what you’re doing. You seem like you’d be receptive and understanding. Or one of the Gods decided you needed to up your game. How and why isn’t all that important. What’s important is that someone is having a spiritual crisis and they’ve got nowhere else to go, so they came to you.

At the very least, you owe these people basic hospitality: a welcoming hand, a listening ear, and a reassuring voice. You may feel like you’re unqualified to help them beyond that, and that’s entirely possible. It’s also entirely possible that despite your very real shortcomings, you’re the best they’re going to find.

What do you do when you have to be the spiritual emergency room?

Listen

Once you’re past the basic hospitality, shut up and listen. Don’t offer advice, don’t ask clarifying questions, don’t start trying to figure it out in your head. Let them talk. Let them tell their story in their own way. Make notes – mentally or on paper – if necessary, but give them your full and undivided attention.

When they’re done talking, then you can go back and ask questions. But at this point, you need to be asking to learn, not to lead them to a conclusion. You don’t know enough yet to come to a conclusion.

Listen.

Do not assume mental illness

Religious and magical professionals are not mental health professionals. Do not try to diagnose mental illness.

My mental health professional friends tell me that delusions can only be measured by how much they match shared consensus reality within a person’s culture. If you think someone is deluded, remember that what’s normal for Wiccans isn’t normal for Presbyterians, and vice versa.

Pagans regularly report experiences ranging from ordinary phenomena with unexplained causes to total possession by deities. We have experiences of every type of spiritual or Otherworldly being known to humanity. We work magic and we get results – sometimes unexpected results. None of these things indicate mental illness.

If they tell you about religious experiences that fit into the “normal for Pagans” category then you should not assume they’re mentally ill, even if you’ve never had those particular experiences yourself. You shouldn’t assume that even if you think those experiences aren’t possible.

There’s a reason why they came to you instead of a psychologist. They’re looking for religious or magical help… and they’re probably afraid a psychologist is going to jump to a conclusion of mental illness (although it can be both). They need you to reassure them that what they’re experiencing isn’t out of the realm of possibility. They need you do tell them they’re not going crazy.

If your best judgement is to refer them to a mental health professional, then do it. But if what you hear is normal for Pagans – even if it’s not exactly typical – tell them they’re not going crazy and start looking for religious and/or magical answers.

People in spiritual distress may not have the vocabulary to precisely describe what’s happening

As we practice longer and deeper, and as we talk with others doing the same, we start to develop our own religious and magical jargon – language those who come to us in distress may not understand.

“Ground and center? What does that mean?”

“What’s the difference between an amulet and a talisman?”

“What do you mean ‘banshee’? I saw a screaming ghost.”

As you’re listening, understand they may not have the vocabulary to precisely describe what’s happening. So they grab familiar words that are close. Your job is to translate, not to interject with a lesson on modern Pagan terminology.

Remember that experiences are always real, but interpretations may be more or less accurate. Listen for the facts of the story, and try to separate them from places where your guest may have jumped to a conclusion – no matter which words they’re using to describe it.

Provide spiritual first aid

If the core of the person’s request is “make it stop” or “how do I turn it down?” there are a few basic things you can do, or teach your guest how to do.

Most Pagans’ first suggestion is “ground and center.” That’s a good and helpful thing that should be part of everyone’s daily spiritual practice. Regular grounding and centering can help you develop the strength you need to handle strong spiritual encounters. But in the moment that’s probably not the best first aid.

Cover your head. Use a scarf, pull up your hood, put on a baseball cap. Sometimes religious headcovering is cultural, but other times it’s to put a barrier between you and the rest of the world… or I should say, worlds.

Wear protective amulets. In this case, an amulet is simply any physical object that provides protection. Some materials have that as a natural property (such as iron or garlic), while others have been magically charged to provide it.

Practice shielding. There are numerous ways to shield. I draw power up from the Earth and down from the Sky, gather it in my core, and then project it around me like an energetic eggshell. I do this every morning, and again during the day if things get rough. It helps. A lot.

There are other things that can be helpful, including creating wards and calling spiritual allies for assistance. But those tend be a little more involved. If you need to provide magical first aid, help the person cover their head, give them a protective object to wear, and walk them through basic shielding.

Practice good discernment

You practiced good hospitality, you were a good listener, and you provided magical first aid. If all has gone well, you’ve stopped the metaphysical bleeding. So far so good.

Now it’s time start addressing the core issues. And that begins with figuring out what the core issues actually are.

Is a God claiming someone and won’t take no for an answer? Is an angry ancestor inserting themselves into someone’s life? Perhaps someone broke the old clichéd rule about not summoning what you can’t banish? Curses are rare, but they do happen. The possibilities are endless.

There is no diagnostic flowchart for spiritual emergencies. You’ve got to walk through the discernment process on your own. Listen to your guest. Figure out what they’re trying to tell you even if they don’t have the words to describe it. Consider every possibility – including the possibility of mundane causes. Decide what’s most likely, but don’t rule out other possibilities until you can rule them out with certainty.

Only when you can figure out what’s going on can you start to think about what to do about it.

Listen for matters out of your area of expertise

There are two main ways you can do a disservice to someone who comes to you for spiritual emergency care. The first is to turn them away because you don’t think you could possibly know enough to help them. The second is to assume you can handle anything, whether it’s in your area of expertise or not.

If a God has claimed you I can probably help, depending on how well I know the particular deity and Their pantheon. If you’re trying to clean up a spell gone wrong, I’m not the best but I’ll do. But if you’re being harassed by a folkloric being (for lack of a better word) from Southeast Asia, I’m probably not going to be a lot of help.

Call in more knowledgeable practitioners as necessary. If you don’t know who to call, ask around.

This especially true if what you’re dealing with is culturally sensitive. I’m not talking about cultural appropriation. But some cultures have established ways of dealing with certain magics and spirits, and if you operate within that system things will go much better than trying to power through with techniques foreign to that culture. If somebody comes to me with a problem that has roots in Vodun, I’m going to call one of my friends who are practitioners in that tradition. Not because “white people shouldn’t do Vodun” but because I don’t know much of anything about Vodun and I’m not going to pretend that I do.

The limits of our obligations

If you’re a Pagan leader or a public Pagan of any kind, people in need will find you. Or they’ll be sent to you. You are of course free to disagree with me, but I believe we have an obligation similar to an emergency room: to provide urgent spiritual and magical care to the limits of our expertise and resources.

We are not, however, automatically obligated to provide on-going counseling, teaching, or magical interventions. And we are certainly not obligated to provide it free of charge.

What you do after providing first aid is up to you. If it’s in your area of expertise and if you make a connection with the person in question, perhaps you continue working with them. If it’s not something you do well, if your plate is already full, or if the person is difficult to work with, point them in a good direction and wish them well. Your life, your service, your call.

But never forget that while you can provide guidance, you cannot “fix” anybody’s spiritual problems for them. They will fix them for themselves, or they won’t be fixed. Medical doctors are infamous for acting like they’re Gods – we know we’re not.

Can you do this? If not, learn now

Does reading this post scare you? Are you in a position where people are likely to come to you for help, even if they haven’t yet? Do you think you probably couldn’t handle it?

Better start studying. Better start practicing. Better start building a network of priests, witches, diviners, and other magical folks who can help you learn – and who you can refer people to when necessary. It would help if you found a couple Pagan-friendly mental health professionals too – sooner or later you’re going to need to refer someone to them.

Emergency room doctors have medical training, internship, and residency. By the time they’re working on their own they’re confident they know what they’re doing. Christian priests and ministers have their own training, including pastoral care.

Pagan religious experts and specialists rarely have anywhere close to this level of training. Perhaps someday we will. But the spiritual emergencies won’t wait for that day. Let’s prepare as best we can, and then do our best to help those who come to us now.

Spiritual Experiences – Separating Reality From Illusion

August 18, 2019 By John Beckett

I’ve long argued that our spiritual and religious experiences are unquestionably real. We see, hear, and feel what we see, hear, and feel and we should never allow anyone to gaslight our experiences.

But things get complicated when we start the process of interpretation – when we decide what those sights, sounds, and feelings mean and what we should do with them.

Last year I wrote Discernment: Distilling the Truth from our Pagan Experiences. It outlines a process for interpreting our experiences based on context, knowledge, observation, analysis, and synthesis. That process allows us to make a decision as to what we think they mean and how we should respond.

Hearth of Hellenism blogger Angelo Nasios pointed me to a Hindu site with an interesting piece titled The Illusion of Experiences. It’s a short essay – I encourage you to read it for yourself. Here’s a key quote:

To be alive is to have experiences.

But the only test of the authenticity or otherwise of an experience is the impact it leaves. Very often in spirituality experiences are nothing more than a projection of one’s own deepest desires.

This is true. As it’s happening, you’re sure a God is speaking directly to you. Later on you start wondering “am I making this up?” One of the ways to determine that is to ask yourself if it’s telling you something you really want to be true… or conversely, something you’re terrified might be true.

Figuring that out requires self-knowledge, something most of us are lacking to one degree or another.

Because I practice an ecstatic polytheist religion and because I write about it publicly, I hear a lot of stories about peoples’ experiences of the Gods. Most of them strike me as genuine encounters with Otherworldly persons, though I often question specific interpretations. But occasionally I hear someone whose story sounds like the product of an overactive imagination filtered through a currently popular movie or TV show.

As sure as I am that many experiences of Gods and other spirits are absolutely genuine, I’m equally sure that some are projections of human desires.

The Hindu blogger (if their name is on the website I couldn’t find it) made another point I hadn’t given much thought.

There are often people who claim to have visions of deities or saints or other holy characters with all conviction and sanguinity and yet there is not one inch of change in their attitude, lifestyle or behaviour pattern. How is it possible to have such ‘powerful’ encounters with deities and things like that, yet remain the same old flawed individual all through?

… a lot of people who sincerely believe that they get visions or such from deities and other powerful ethereal entities, still lead a life that is joyless, cribbing about things they did not get, bitching about all and sundry, just like any average person. Which means not one of their so-called experiences triggered any innate or genuine transformation.

I need to say a few things before I get into my response. First, I’m not a Hindu and I have only a basic knowledge of Hinduism. This is not a critique of the Hindu blogger’s ideas. Rather, it’s an exploration of how a plain reading of their words can be helpful to us as Pagans and polytheists.

Secondly, I’m reluctant to say that personal growth and transformation is the ultimate goal of spirituality, as their post implies. I’m not saying the author is wrong, but this is a difference between their religion and my religion.

With that understood, however, I think the author has a very good point. If our experiences really are experiences of the Gods, there should be some noticeable change in our lives.

My own experiences

I don’t know which God or Gods was involved in my first Pagan initiation – it wasn’t done in a polytheist context. What I do know is that during the initiation, a connection was made, and it felt right. I was committed to this path and I was happy about it. 16 years later I’m still going strong.

My first direct experiences of a deity were of Cernunnos. The first one was rather mild – the second one was not. He screamed at/through me “be my priest!” And so I am.

My experiences of the Morrigan have led me to write things She wanted written, and to get off my butt and get my first book finished. Eventually they led me to take an oath to Her and to serve as Her Druid for the rest of this life.

Other experiences are less dramatic but no less important. They haven’t changed the core of who I am, but they have changed my life, very much for the better.

There is no Pagan version of the Damascus Road

In the particular form of Evangelical Christianity where I grew up, the conversion of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus was presented as the model for “coming to Jesus” – sudden, overwhelming, and permanent. It was supposed to change your life in an instant.

The fact that I had no such dramatic experience was a cause for concern… as were the numerous conversions that seemed to last a week or two before the person in question was back to their old “sinful” ways. It was only when I became a Methodist that I learned this model was not normative for most of Christianity.

If this was a bad model for Christianity, it’s a worse model for Paganism. We have roads, but they are long, hilly, and winding – and there are precious few maps.

There are times when a deity will claim a person suddenly and even violently. Ordeals can be transformative. These experiences can turn you upside down, but they will only change your life over time.

Our ecstatic experiences of the Gods are powerful – sometimes overwhelmingly so. But ultimately they are less about flipping a switch and more about planting a seed.

Set your expectations accordingly.

Transformation is best gauged in retrospect

I noticed my first gray hair at 27. Then one day I looked in the mirror and there was more gray than brown.

Because transformation is mostly slow and gradual, it’s hard to notice. This is one of the reasons I recommend journaling as a spiritual practice. Writing out your thoughts and feelings on a regular basis not only helps you better understand them now, it provides a record you can review months or years in the future.

That doesn’t help you decide if your experience was authentic or not right now. But over time it can serve as a check on your interpretations, which will give you confidence for your future experiences… or let you know you need to get better at discernment.

More transformed than thou

Different Gods call different people to worship and work with Them in different ways. Established polytheist religions develop traditions and norms, but modern Western Paganism mostly isn’t there yet – we’re heavily focused on the individual. Even in established traditions, some are called to mysticism, some are called to religious service, and some are called to honor the Gods and live ordinary lives.

Being judgmental isn’t limited to Christians. It’s all too easy to say “you aren’t as devout as I am, so your experience of the Gods must not have been real.”

We have no business doing that.

If someone asks for my opinion, I’ll give it to them… although I rarely attempt to interpret other peoples’ experiences. If someone publishes theological opinions I think are wrong, I’ll rebut them. But it is not my place to tell anyone “your life isn’t sufficiently transformed, so you made it all up.”

Beware of doing this to yourself. Just because your life hasn’t been changed in the same way someone else’s has doesn’t mean you didn’t really have an experience of a God. You’re responsible for doing what you’re called to do, no matter how seemingly-small that may be.

A divine encounter is never a trivial thing

While it is dangerous to make general statements about the Gods, I have never known a deity to contact a human to say “everything is great just the way it is – you don’t need to do anything.” It’s always – always – a call to change something in your life. Maybe something small, maybe something huge, but there is always something They want us to do.

If there was no call to change something, I encourage you to revisit your interpretation of your experience. If there was a call and you haven’t responded, I encourage you to reconsider. It is unlikely to make your life easier. It will almost certainly make it deeper and more meaningful.

And that’s about as real as you can get.

Moving From Raw Spiritual Experience to Religion

May 9, 2019 By John Beckett

In the last post we discussed how it’s a big step from religious experiences to actual religion, and a further step from there to institutional religion. Given the excesses and abuses of formal religion, some question whether we should take that step. The rise of the “spiritual but not religious” crowd shows that many people are choosing not to take it.

But what I do is proudly and unabashedly religion. It is, in the words of Frans de Waal “the shared reverence for the supernatural, sacred, or spiritual as well as the symbols, rituals, and worship that are associated with it.” It is the structured process of building and maintaining relationships with other persons, some of whom are living humans and some of whom are not.

You must choose your own path. This is the path I’ve chosen. For most of us, practicing religion is far more beneficial than simply responding to religious experiences.

Religion provides context for our experiences

Extreme spiritual experiences are sometimes called “ineffable,” meaning they cannot be described in words. This isn’t because talking about them is forbidden (although sometimes that is the case) but because words alone cannot fairly and accurately describe them. And yet we still have to figure out what they mean.

You hear a voice that sounds like no voice you’ve ever heard. You have thoughts and feeling you know aren’t your own. You are moved to tears by the beauty of Nature. Maybe you encounter something that cannot be, and yet there it is.

Discernment is the process of figuring out what these things mean and how we should respond to them. But discernment requires context. Religion provides that context, a framework for interpretation: these beings are Gods, those are ancestors, these others are Nature spirits. Perhaps more importantly, religion tells us that Gods are wise and virtuous, but our ancestors often have the same human foibles they had in life – make your own decisions for your own reasons.

Without religion, we will inevitably interpret our experiences in the context of the mainstream culture, and that is rarely a good thing.

Religion lets us build on the experiences of others

Why has technological advancement grown steadily since the Renaissance and exponentially in our lifetime? Scientific inquiry and discovery, for one thing. But more than that, the sharing of knowledge allows each generation to build on the work of those who preceded them.

The same is true in philosophy, theology, and religion. In The Earth, The Gods and The Soul, Brendan Myers shows that while Pagan philosophy didn’t disappear with the rise of Christianity, it stagnated due to the absence of Pagan institutions to promote its advancement. It began to move forward again in the middle of the 20^th century with the re-emergence of Pagan religions and the gatherings and publications that supported them.

There are some lessons we all have to learn on our journey to becoming active, compassionate, responsible adults. But we don’t have to learn them all by trial and error. Some things we can learn from other people’s mistakes, or from other people’s successes. We can draw on the wisdom of those who came before us, and those who are walking this path alongside us.

And in doing so, we can go farther and deeper than we could if we had to do it all on our own.

Religion provides cookbooks and mileposts

All of us enjoy a good dinner. Some of us find pleasure in exotic food and drink. And a few of us are so intrigued by the tools and technique of preparing a fine meal we study and practice to become the best chefs we can be.

Good religion provides cookbooks for those who are trying to get started. We can read books, attend classes, and learn how to begin a devotional practice. We can learn how to lead rituals and work magic. We can contemplate the nature of the Gods and what it means to follow Them. Religion – the beliefs and practices of those who came before us and of those who follow a similar path – shows us how.

Maybe you’re happy to eat what’s on the menu at the restaurant on the corner, or whatever happens to be in your refrigerator. Those are perfectly valid choices. But for those of us who want to learn to cook the best meals we possibly can, religion helps us learn how to do it, and gives us a way to gauge our progress.

Religion keeps our values at the forefront of our lives

What are your highest values? Honesty? Compassion? Hospitality? Reciprocity?

How do you make sure you always live out those values, especially when things get difficult and the pressure to do what’s easy instead of what’s right begins to grow? If we never think about virtues, values, and ethics, it’s easy to continue not thinking about them when we’re pressured to do what’s expedient. But if we meditate on these values, and if we pray and make offerings to the Gods who personify them, then we’re far more likely to respond the way we’d really like to respond.

Ethics do not require religion – the existence of many highly ethical atheists shows how this common belief is nonsensical fundamentalist propaganda. And the lack of ethics by some superficially religious people shows that religion alone guarantees nothing. But for those of us who are religious and who work on our religion consistently, our beliefs and practices help us keep our ethics in the forefront of our lives.

Religion lets us be part of something bigger than ourselves

In the grand scheme of things, an individual human life is fleetingly brief. The ability for any one of us to influence the tides of humanity is minimal. We are simply too small and too brief.

Alone, that is.

Together, we can reform human society, or at least parts of it. We can participate in traditions that were thriving long before we were born and will still be going long after we’ve left this world. We can build temples that will last millennia.

Immortality takes many forms. I believe the essence of who we are survives death and lives on afterward in one way or another, though I freely admit I might be wrong. But it takes no belief in anything remotely supernatural to see that part of us will live on in the traditions and institutions we build and in which we actively participate.

That immortality requires another kind of faith – not the faith of believing without overwhelming proof, but the faith of being faithful to who and what we’re called to be, and of putting our trust in that which we can clearly see is greater than ourselves.

the Standing Stones of Stenness, Orkney, Scotland – over 5000 years old

Experiences come in their own time – religion is always with us

How many ineffable spiritual experiences have you had? As meaningful, powerful, and important as they are, they don’t happen often – and they rarely happen with any regularity. This is a good thing – people who have regular and frequent spiritual experiences usually have great difficulty in navigating the ordinary world. They’re the mystics of the world, and as much as we rightly look at them with awe and admiration, their lives are not easy.

But you can pray every day. You can meditate every day. You can make offerings every day. Over time, the presence of the Gods, ancestors, and spirits can become more constant… in a manageable way. That doesn’t happen for everyone, but it has happened for me, and for quite a few of the more dedicated Pagans and polytheists I know.

You must choose your own path. If you decide to focus solely on spirituality and the spiritual experiences you have, so be it. But religion provides context and structure, it helps us live the way we want to live every day, and it helps us become a part of something bigger than ourselves.

I cherish my raw, unfiltered, ineffable spiritual experiences.

Religion helps me to put them into context and make them a part of my daily life.

187 Signs You’re Trying To Avoid Doing Your Own Spiritual Work

March 17, 2019 By John Beckett

6 Signs You’re A Natural Witch!

7 Signs You’re A Born Healer!

8 Signs You’re A Light Bringer!

9 Signs You’re Going To Click On This Link Because You’re Hoping Someone Else Will Do Your Spiritual Work For You!

Maybe I’m just in a cynical mood. Maybe Mercury Retrograde is making me miss the point of all these “signs” posts. Maybe this is going to end up being one of those pieces I work on for hours and then decide “nope, not going to post it” (but if you’re reading this, it wasn’t).

But I’m pretty sure I’ve seen one too many “signs you’re really something special but you just don’t know it” clickbait listicles and I need to vent.

And I’m also pretty sure that somebody out there is searching desperately for their calling in life and they need better guidance than “match a handful of vague traits and discover your superpower.”

Finding your true calling takes research

I remember taking “aptitude tests” in high school (are they still a thing?). They gauge your skills and interests and tell you which careers you should consider. I still occasionally hear rumors about the “secret questions” in the SAT that will get you a recruiting visit from the CIA – or from the Men In Black. So I understand the lure of these tests.

But all an aptitude test can do is make suggestions. You’ve still got to do the research on just what a particular career or craft or path involves. Read books, talk to experienced practitioners, and try things out yourself.

And just as importantly, you’ve got do decide if you’re willing to do what that takes. Do you really want to be a spiritual healer? You’ve got a lot of work to do… starting with getting your own house in order… and in the process, figuring out that you can’t heal anyone. You can only point them in the right direction, and then love and support them as they do their own work to recover, to learn, and to grow.

You’re going to make some wrong turns

And it may not be fair to call them “wrong turns.” Unless you’re happy and fulfilled in the tradition of your childhood, you’re going to need to explore different spiritual paths. For some of them, all you have to do is read a Wikipedia description to realize “no, this one’s not for me.” Sometimes it takes reading a book, or working with a local group for a few months to cross it off your list.

Sometimes you think you’ve got it, only to later realize you don’t. I really really wanted to be a witch. I tried for years and it didn’t work. When I discovered Druidry I knew I was onto something. That’s worked out rather well, but I still had to do five years of formal training – only to later realize my true calling is to be a Druid in a the context of a polytheist religion, not in a Druid order (although I happily remain a member of both OBOD and ADF).

If I had done my foundational work sooner it wouldn’t have taken me eight years to figure out that witchcraft and Wicca weren’t my calling.

You’re going to make some wrong turns. The sooner you get moving, the sooner you can make those wrong turns, recover from them, and then find the path where you belong.

Almost everyone can work magic

Back in December I wrote My Biggest Complaint With Magical Fiction, which is

the idea that magic is hereditary. People are either born witches or they’re not. Or worse still, witches aren’t entirely human, and they live in their own world – Harry Potter, I’m looking at you. If it was one or two or even half the stories I’d be fine with it. But it seems like it’s every single one.

This idea from fiction has made its way into spirituality and magic. And it’s as false in reality as it is annoying in fiction.

Like all abilities, magical ability isn’t evenly distributed throughout the population. Some people have a greater aptitude for math than others, some have a greater aptitude for art, and some have a greater aptitude for magic. But almost all of us can balance a checkbook, or express ourselves through drawing or music or photography or something.

And almost all of us can work magic.

If you feel drawn to magic you can work magic. Find some Witchcraft 101 or basic chaos magic books and get started. You’ll have some successes and you’ll learn from them. You’ll have some failures – you’ll learn from those even more.

You don’t need a magical aptitude test to figure out if you can pursue the spiritual path you want. You can.

You just have to get started.

Spiritual orientation is real

Last year I wrote Paganism as an Orientation, where I looked at the very long odds of me ending up Pagan and not Christian or atheist. That post was a response to Heron Michelle’s Witchery as an Orientation and Sacred Mission where she said “witchery isn’t a choice for me.” And at last year’s Mystic South, the Anomalous Thracian presented a paper titled “Theistic Orientation” where he looked at religious orientation as an expression of identity, especially in response to oppression.

Orientation is a real thing, and identities are necessary and helpful. One of the reasons so many of us – particularly here in the United States – search desperately for spiritual identity is that the culture we grew up in is so bland and commercial it doesn’t satisfy us.

But discovering a non-mainstream orientation takes time and effort. Nurturing that orientation takes even more.

And at the end of the day, religion is a choice.

Spiritual and religious orientation, identity, and affiliation are deep, serious matters. Trying to reduce them to “6 Signs You’re Really A Hellenic Polytheist” is at best naïve and disrespectful. It trivializes the sacred.

What you are is human – what you become is up to you

I think this is what annoys me so much about the “17 Signs You’re Something Special” articles – they take away human agency and replace it with the luck of the draw.

The luck of the draw is already huge – your family circumstances at birth have a tremendous impact on your life. But you can follow almost any spiritual path that calls to you. You can become a witch, or a Druid, or even a light bringer (whatever that is). You may be better suited to one or the other, but the choice is yours… as is the obligation.

Anybody can call themselves a witch, but if you don’t actually practice witchcraft, all you’re doing is adopting an aesthetic.

Explore, then choose, then become…

Sorry there aren’t 187 signs in this post

I originally titled this “9 Signs You’re Trying To Avoid Doing Your Own Spiritual Work.” But I was afraid some people might not recognize the sarcasm and get mad when there was no bright and cheery listicle to tell them they’re special. If you missed the sarcasm in “187 Signs” I can’t help you.

I don’t mean to be a killjoy. I click on these silly listicles too sometimes, if only to silently make fun of them. And if they occasionally point someone in the right direction, that’s a good thing. There are certainly worse things on the internet.

But our world needs more magical people. It needs more spiritual people. It needs more people who are deeply and authentically following Pagan, polytheist, and other non-fundamentalist religious traditions. Trying to reduce any of that down to a list of a dozen or less “signs” isn’t helpful.

Finding your true calling takes work, and it usually takes a lot of trial and error. Getting good at it takes even more work. Those of us who’ve made this journey (or rather, those of us who are making this journey – you’re never there, or at least, I’m not) can draw maps for you, but you have to walk the path yourself.

Would you have it any other way?

Now get off my lawn!