Of course, the reason it is not that explanation is that I have changed, and am considering the issue of identification further (I should point out that this not an angst ridden consideration; it is now at the level where it is fun): I have changed (yet again), so if I tried to give the explanation I had in mind back then, I wouldn’t be being true to myself.
Basically, at the time of the Parliament I was experiencing considerable disillusionment with people who identified as one particular brand of Paganism or another – that disillusionment was largely over people big-noting themselves over other people’s adherence of a particular path (basically “You don’t do X, so I’m better than you ‘cos I’m doing it properly. So nyahh to you”, or “You do Y, which no-one who does it properly does so I’m better than you ‘cos I’m doing it properly. So nyahh to you”: think spoilt three year old brat when you hear those voices in your head and you’ll be pretty close to reality [Note 1]).
I’m not interested in being part of a faith which is populated by hypocrites:
- so-called “Sunday Christians” did a lot to put me off Christianity;
- one particularly narky person who thought that Buddhist monks and nuns should get special consideration and not respond to an invitation for papers to a conference that I was helping to organise, along with hypocritical Westerners who had lots of head knowledge but nil application of Buddhist principles, put me off Buddhism;
- the same sort of narky attitudes have put me off being part of the broader pagan community, although I was for a while.
This is one of the main reasons I decided, after thinking carefully about what I actually believed in and what I actually did, that I realised I should probably use my own description of my version of paganism. I do believe in pagan viewpoints on reality, which ties in with my personal experience based on decades of psychic perception, so I do consider that stating I am a pagan is a statement of reality. However:
- my earliest practices were based on the Qabbalah, but that doesn’t draw me innately the way other paths do
- I have some affinity with the intellectual rigour of high magick, but dislike "enslaving entities to do my bidding", as one author put it, and like the everyday-ness of “low” magic, but dislike the snobbery that goes with both
- I do have some affinity with shamanism, but not in a reconstructionist or fundamentalist way, and feel a little reluctant to identify myself as a shamanka (shamaness) as a result (I consider that the view that European religions are derived from forms of shamanism to have some validity – and possibly that applies to other forms as well)
- I don’t belief in only a dual polarity version of Deity (I accept a number of Goddesses and Gods, and know – from personal experience – that the binary (dipolar?) model of gender is complete and utter rubbish)
- I am drawn to the Northern Traditions, and am writing a review on a couple of books on this topic (Galina Krasskova and Raven Kaldera's book "Northern Tradition for the Soilitary Practitioner", published by New Page Books in 2009 (ISBN 978-1-60163-034-6), and Pagan Resurrection: A Force for Evil or the Future of Western Spirituality", by Richard Rudgley (ISBNs 0-7126-8096-9 and 978-0-712-68096-7, pub. Century, 2006)), but I
(a) have just had the misfortune of spending a weekend with a crowd of around 30 people which included some know-it-alls who were actively seeking to belittle others who professed to be connected with a Northern Tradition (it was a WONDERFUL weekend apart from that aspect - I've been hanging out to get some solitary time in trees for around nine months now ... and I was able to do a few shamanic practices while off in the trees on my own ... ahhhhh, bliss :) ... my enjoyment of those exercises is why I have also been rethinking whether or not I should, perhaps, "admit" to being a shamaness: maybe that "fits" what I do as well?), and
(b) have MAJOR concerns with those who have sought to subvert this faith for racist reasons (and will not identify as Asatru largely for that reason, but also because I rate the Vanir quite highly) - I do accept the notion of “Unverifiable Personal Gnosis” discussed in Krasskova and Kaldera's book, and reject some past pagan practices such as human and animal sacrifice, so I am drawn to some New Age practices, but I reject the wooliness and wishy-washiness that can be found there …
- I am very drawn to the tree reverence, honour and intellectual rigour of Druidry, but I have a personal problem accepting some versions of reparative justice [Note 2]
- I have been doing (spirit) rescue since the early 1980s, based on what I learned at spiritualist churches, but I don’t identify in any way whatsoever with the paternalistic, Christian-centric faith of Spiritualism (and there were some group dynamics issues [read: backbiting, sniping and gossiping] in some of the Spiritualist groups I have experience of, but that generally was less of a problem there than in other groups I’ve been in) – and I utterly reject their Christian-derived fear of Wicca/witchcraft (in fact, I have refined my application of spirit rescue by what I’ve learned since then through Wicca)
- in terms of what I actually do, a lot of it has been based on perceiving and working with energy – whether that is doing personal healing; spirit rescue; teaching others how to work with crystals, karma, past lives, psychism or spirituality; researching the Deities, correspondences, etc and planning a ritual or busting my guts to help larger situations ranging from human rights abuses overseas or human rights shortcomings at home to aiming for world peace or an end to world hunger: it is ALL about energy … to me.
So … I consider myself an energy psychic.
I actually wound up having a go at explaining that to someone recently. I stuffed it up, but next time I’ll do better (particularly after having written this post). It does have that advantage – no-one else has a clue about what I mean, so they can’t just automatically lump me in a box of their choosing, and they do have the option of – if they are interested – asking what the hell I mean. (They also have the option of ignoring me as an annoying eccentric, and that is PERFECTLY fine by me :D )
The other aspect of all this that I have been considering is one I wrote about once before (see also here), which is the evolution of a possible new, more universally based religion. I have several patron Deities: these come from a range of lifetimes, and I feel very much that it is not a case of me “choosing” a patron Deity, they choose me. However, I have also had lifetimes on other worlds – in fact, one of my parallels passed away not long after I discovered he was incarnated on another world (this was a couple of decades ago now). Given that, what patron Deities may I “belong to” on other worlds that I don’t know about now? How much of a claim do they have (or “should” they have) given that I am no longer living on “their” planet? What about Deities that are associated with (“own”) space, or life in a more universal, fundamental way?
Given all that, is there a fundamental, universal set of principles underlying all religions, or applicable to all life across the Universe?
As it happens, I consider there is, and that these, to some extent, underlay many of the religions that evolved as we evolved on this planet, and on other planets as life there also evolved. I just don’t what names and characteristics to ascribe to them …
I know this probably sounds a bit von Daniken to older readers, but I am actually asking about broader, more Universal aspects of religion, rather than simply looking for an “other-worldly” source as an explanation of what has happened on this planet. (See also here.)
I find the concept quite fascinating. I suspect I will never know, during this lifetime, what the underlying bases are, but I will continue searching …
As a final point, for another, slightly related point of view on searching for pantheons, have a lok at this Witchvox article.
Notes:
- What is wrong with people having a genuine interest in other people’s experience of a path or tradition? What is wrong with saying “Oh that’s interesting: I haven’t come across that before. Something I’ve found useful for me is X, which I heard about after a few years on that path. Have you heard of it? No? Well, here’s some info for you – you might find it useful: let me know, I’d like to know how you go with it, so I know whether I should pass it on to others or not” - which I have used despite knowing full well that X is how the person “should” be doing whatever it is being discussed. Or how about using “Oh that’s interesting, you’ve been able to get Y to work for you. I had problems P, Z and W when I tried that. Have you found anything like that? No? I’d like to know how you avoided those problems” (which I have used – and generally found that the people concerned weren’t noticing the problems, or hadn’t looked for them, or were so focused on needing Y to work that they wouldn’t associate the problem with what they were doing (“Oh, trying to prove your divinity by flying by jumping off a tall building seems to have caused you to stop breathing: that’s strange, I wonder why that happened?”), but by being non-threatening about it, I was more likely to get them to change: I was not threatening their sense of self esteem – allowing them to keep face, if you prefer. Of course, I suspect the reason people don’t do this is ego: trying to big note themselves so they can feel better about themselves. I’d say “how pathetic”, but I know how easy it is to do that, and I’m not going to guarantee that I don’t do that :D (have I mentioned my past post “Don’t overrate me”?)
- When I was at school, I experienced quite a bit of bullying. These days, there seems to be some attempts at managing this (which is, I consider, a massive improvement over what I had to go through), but one aspect of that I have is telling bullies the emotional damage the victim is receiving (i.e. “how you ‘make’ me feel”): I consider that to be giving the bully exactly what they want. That type of “justice” is something I am not interested in: if I want to feel better, I will talk to friends, or people I trust – not my enemy who has succeeded in harming me. Similarly, if someone has, say, damaged my car, I am not interested in having more of that person’s essence attached to my car: I am interested in them paying for someone competent and objective and trustworthy to me to fix the car (that is based on an actual event from my past). I do see that there may be an advantage in, say, having graffiti vandals clean off graffiti vandalism (some of it IS street art; a lot of it is scribbling rubbish). So, I have to say that I am not an unreserved supporter of reparative (“Brehon”) justice.
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr
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Tags: about me, attitudes, awareness, Buddhism, change, crystals, energy work, evolution, growth, pagan, parallels, past lives, purpose, religion, rescue, spiritualism, trees, syncretism, Energy Psychic, Christianity, northern tradition, Qabbalah, deities, Druid, spiritualism, von Daniken,
First published: Wednesday 16th June, 2010
Last edited: Thursday 5th August, 2010 (added more tags)
