what is your faith?

[Cinder]

I was raised catholic, but I believe in more Pagan/Wiccan ways then Catholic ways, so to tell the truth, i'm not even sure!

[Cinder]

I was raised Christian. For the past 3 years I have been trying to decide what I believe for myself.... Not just what I was "taught". I still believe in some of my Christian beliefs, but I haven't fully decided on everything. I am still learning about Witchcraft, Wicca, and other forms of the Craft. I was raised it was all "wrong". Obviously I don't believe that anymore. My husband follows the Buddhism ways, and I agree with most of what he believes.

Honestly, I'm very open-minded and right now I am learning that I believe several different things from different religions.

Amy that's the same situation as me. Glad i'm not the only one

[Cinder]

It's not that I don't have a faith, it's just that I don't believe in one and one alone.

[Peregrine]

I keep typing things out and then erasing everything. It's an odd story. I was raised and indoctrinated in the ways of one particular form of Christianity since I was a small child. I had not even hit puberty yet when I went and got baptized out of fear for my mortal soul. I had been raised to know the Bible like the back of my hand and studied as best I could diligently. I had been told that everyone else is wrong, even people who follow doctrines of other forms of Christianity.

If that was not hard enough for me to swallow, knowing that our lovely neighbors or some poor guy's sweet but long-passed grandparents would not go to Heaven for being in the wrong church, it f'd me up a bit inside singing hymns and praises to His excellent greatness, eternal grace, and love unbounding right after another thorough study of war crimes commanded by this same deity.

Then I developed an interest in the sciences. That is when things got ugly, because I had been indoctrinated with a literal interpretation of Genesis. So as soon as I went away to graduate school, I decided to man up and leave this church, to find my own way.

It was not as easy as all that, because of they way they handle people who are trying to leave (especially when your whole family is also part of it), but that is another story. It was also hard on me emotionally, to leave the narrow confines of what I was taught and try to find things on my own. Scary and a bit traumatizing, too.

I decided to try other venues altogether, instead of trying other forms of Christianity. I frequented one particular New Age book store in particular, and my first "experiments" were in white witchcraft as outlined by author Al G. Manning. I had also experimented in mind power techniques, self hypnosis, meditation, superlearning, and lucid dreaming. I also studied a bit of UFOlogy here and there.

People often complain, "Oh it does not work!" when trying things for the first time. Welp, if you think will happen like it does in the movies, you are right. In my experience, things did happen but it was more subtle and I got scared. So I quit for a while and in a counter-intuitive move, I went atheist... or perhaps more properly defined as quasi-atheistic. Looking back, I think it served its purpose well as it reformatted the hard drive, so to speak. I had to "unlearn" the things that had been so indoctrinated so deeply.

Then around 1998, I developed a strange obsession with, of all characters, Orpheus. It was an enlightening experience to learn of ancient Orphism and it had its affects on me, expanding the "quasi" in my quasi-atheism. The historical significance infatuated me as did learning about psychomanteums and my newfound interest in music-healing and the power of sound.

Less than a year later, I got a letter from a group called Astara, inviting me to learn of their ways with their lesson books. I gave it a shot and loved it ever since. Still don't practice as much as I should, but I like them.

Still, I could not get past the genocidal warlord god of the Old Testament, something my Christian Mystic Astarian teachers did not seem to address. For a few years, I experimented with maltheism as a result (called dystheism by some people now) for a while, around 2002. Did not last, but still could not find answers.

Then I stumbled on this site and thought I'd try from square one again with solitary witchcraft. Did a few spells, but mostly I just went back to my old preferences from long ago (music healing, meditation, lucid dreams, etc).

Finally getting some of my disturbing questions answered as of late, as recently as today with a newfound discovery of David Icke and of Gnosticism. Now, I am still skeptical about the reptilian people literally, but it has sent me on some extremely insiteful findings as I research ancient history and the many various interpretations of old testament stories.

The whole time, I am certain my spirit guide has been with me all along somehow ever since I set foot away from my old indoctrinations. I cannot shake that feeling and don't want to anyway, but he does encourage thinking even skeptically, in a strange irony.

Okay you can wake up now.

[Sage50]

Iam Christian but I am Phsyic and have had a past life expence so Ihave alot of q2uestions about my faith.

[AutumnMaidens]

Wiccan, though I never really thought that one word/name would be able to sum up how I live my life or live my religion.

Bless

[Ula]

I consider myself a Gnostic Christian with a belief in the creator or Father and Sophia, the holy spirit who birthed all the things created. I believe Jesus was not to be worshiped. There are lots of types of beings, angles, demons, deities, etc. I found my family was of German decent on the sides I felt were crafty in nature though I have no family who practice and would never. I choose Frau Holda as my Patron Goddess as I felt overwhelmingly drawn to her and she represents my current status as wife and mother. I have in the past been a born again Christian and an agnostic. I wasn't raised Christian but both my Grandmother's were so I was exposed to it all my life. I have to keep my current beliefs very quiet as none of my family or friends would get it.

[mist]

I discovered Gnosticism a few years ago. I can't say that I'm practicing because there are no Gnostic churches near me.

Gnosticism is like Wicca, but it includes Jesus. Just the right combination for me.

[Raconteuse]

I follow traditional Welsh practice and pantheon. My hero is Boudicca and my main deity is Cerridewn

[Upaya_Path]

To put it shortly, my system of belief, my faith, is a syncretic combination of the spiritual paths that have consistently and profoundly spoken to me over the course of this and, one imagines, several other lifetimes. I've pulled from Buddhism (with a greater emphasis on the Tibetan/esoteric variety), Taoism, Wicca, and practices from both ceremonial and folk magic to flesh out my personal philosophy up to this point, and the resulting mix seems to be just what the doctor ordered in terms of my spiritual growth.

I work first and foremost from the conviction that at the heart of all existence, at the core of all phenomena, is what the Vajrayana Buddhists call dharmakaya, a term that is most easily translated as the "truth body." Dharmakaya is formless, without attribute, completely beyond conceptualization (even to speak of it is to misrepresent it by this logic) and in that sense unknowable by the mind. You might liken it to the Kabbalists and their concept of Ain, the No-Thing, the Void. If this is the core of reality, then the reality that we perceive is by my rationale its projection; thus, all things are extensions of the truth body from the subtlest to the most dense.

This is the point where you begin to see how Taoism plays a role in my life. The truth body itself could be considered the Tao, and, since reality stems from the Tao, then the principle of living one's Way doesn't at all lose its significance. Living the Tao for me is realizing the nature of reality and moving toward the enlightenment spoken of in the sutras. Wicca assists in this process as it helps one to align more closely with natural energies and various higher-level projections (read: Gods and Goddesses).

There's more detail to be had, but I just wanted to give a brief overview...although debates on the definition of brief are certainly welcome in this case .

[Victoria Mnemosyne]

My mother is a devout Roman Catholic and my father is a strong atheist (one of those people who kind of roll their eyes at people's beliefs or as he would say "superstitions"). I was never very religious but I liked going to church by myself, lighting one of the votive candles and just... thinking. Contemplating. Around the time I was 10 I read the book "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" and really liked it. I clicked in with a lot of the imagery, the moon goddess being interchangeable with the virgin mary, and I picked up on that for a while. I used to pray to the moon goddess every so often. Around the same time I had a close girlfriend who was dabbling in witchcraft. She gave it up after a month or so I believe. I became very interested in it and read up on it through the internet. Meanwhile, I was taking religion classes to make my confirmation. I got in a lot of trouble with the nun for interpreting stories symbolically instead of literally (the Adam and Eve story in particular, the talking serpent, the apple. blue_dozey )

I didn't come back to witchcraft until much later, I guess I just got caught up in friends and boys and teenage drama. I developed dysphoric depression after my first major depressive episode in May of 2009. I believe that's what restarted my faith. I found that it helps me feel less powerless, makes me more in tune with my environment and myself, and gives me a sense of community.

My path began as Wiccan but it never seemed like a good fit. I still identify as an Eclectic Witch/Pagan. I practice spellwork, I keep an altar but it deviates from the Wiccan model. I don't believe in duality of any kind, light-dark or male-female. I worship primarily the Greek pantheon, with a few Phrygian, Egyptian, and other Mediterranean deities. My primary focus is on Isis/Cybele as my mother Goddess, Astarte/Aphrodite/Inanna as my love Goddess, Apollo as the sun, prophecy, and civilized God, Dionysus as his opposite for revelry, chaos, catharsis, Diana as the triple moon Goddess Artemis-Selene-Nyx/Hekate (following the Streheria model), Persephone as my patroness and Queen of the Underworld, and finally Sabazios/Zeus as my Sky Father.

[Victoria Mnemosyne]

As for my beliefs, I do not believe in the Wiccan interpretation of Karma or the Rede. I believe magic is similar to any mundane action and the same rules apply. I am not sure what I believe about the afterlife if there is one. The best theory I have is that after we die, we live our lives over and over, with the ability to make different choices and experience different outcomes. We can't know it at the time or the way we choose would be false and cheap. When we have explored all the outcomes, I believe that is when we move on to the next stage of the afterlife. Maybe the first role is Tartarus- a gloomy waiting place. Maybe that's where you go when you're done reliving. I follow the Orphic tradition that Persephone will judge my soul when I die and decide where I am worthy to reside in the afterlife.

Right now, I am trying hard to find a balance between Reconstructionism (which I find far too restrictive) and the common eclectic "whatever feels right" view, which I find to be the opposite- too free form with so little guidance that it often results in faith systems that contradict themselves. I took a break for a while because I am trying to find where I am coming from on this issue.

[Ses]

Raised Roman Catholic, am now Lavayan Satanist

[stariebird11]

Kind of bringing this post back to life, I'm a mix of Christian, Wiccan, and some Celtic. I also believe in a Creativistic view point. So Creativistic Christo- Wiltic I suppose if you squish it all together?

[WolfWitch]

Mixes like that usually fall under the term "Eclectic". Yours is not the weirdest mix I've ever met, and that's okay. Remember, it's not what other people think of your path to the Divine that's important. It's that the path you take is honest and leads you there. If this mix works for you, Kudos. You found your path, happy traveling.

Blessed Be.