Seeker Email, Part Deaux

My newest reply to the seeker, J, who replied with relief regarding her (not his, oops) fears and stated she wanted to find an “old” religion…

Hi J,

I’m very glad I was able to help you understand your fears and how they were affecting you. That is an important step.

Christianity never sat well with me, either, and when I was your age a friend of mine was killed while robbing a McDonald’s – something that was completely out of character for him, and my friends all said he was going to hell. I was unable to accept that a good person could be damned for eternity for one youthful mistake, and that was the end of my already tenuous relationship with Christianity.

The interesting thing about “neo” Wicca or “neo” paganism is this – everything old is new again, and we have no way of knowing for certain what deeply spiritual people felt or believed thousands of years ago, other than what we can extrapolate from writings or, in the case of ancient Egypt, hieroglyphs found in archeological excavations. Many people believe that Wicca predates Christianity, but that’s false. Many other people believe that the early humans were a goddess-worshipping people, but there is no extensive evidence of this and most of the books written by pagan researchers on this matter are wrong.

However, it’s not important what people thought then or how old a religion is (in my opinion, anyway), because we are always evolving, and that includes our ability to reason and articulate our thoughts – if science can progress as it learns new things, why can’t religion? We have the unique ability to look at what our forefathers believed and weight those beliefs against the new information that we’ve discovered in the interim – but if you look back then, the great philosophers such as Plato and Socrates had some very deep messages for those willing to hear them. No one ever has all the truths, or we wouldn’t be here to learn them, yet every religion and every human being that’s ever existed has known some truths. Truth is found in all religions, if we know how to see past the labels and terminology that seems to separate religions from each other. Taoism, for instance, one of the world’s oldest religions, sees “God” as ineffable, something that permeates yet transcends reality and everything in it. They don’t worship a God, so much as they strive to imbue truth itself, and the truth is always impossible to articulate – they call this truth “the Tao” (sounds like “the dow”) and two of my favorite quotes from the Tao Te Ching are:

“The Tao which can be spoken is not the true Tao.” and “The Tao is that which never acts, yet leaves nothing undone.”

This is some seriously deep sh*t, and deeply profound messages such as these are found in every faith. They’re all worth learning about if only to see the beauty inherent in each one.

Paganism encompasses many, many faiths from Wicca at the “white light” extreme to Satanism (not the kind you’re thinking of) at the other extreme. Most fall in between, of course. Magic(k) is used in the majority of these faiths – some of which are more accurately called practices than faiths. However, as with the religions of the past, they all contain their nuggets of wisdom and truth. And every time a new person considers their beliefs like you are doing now, and seeks to articulate a true-to-self expression of their beliefs, they create something new in religion. So the age of a faith is really irrelevant and is not a sign of quality. When Gerald Gardner created Wicca, it’s true that he had certain ulterior motives (he was into BDSM and it was a good way to get naked people around him all the time, spanking each other – lol!), but for the most part, people creating new religions – by accident or on purpose – deserve better than “something made up by people looking for an out.” They didn’t just make it up for shits and giggles (pardon my language); they “made it up” because they searched themselves for their honest beliefs and then discovered others who felt the same way – and eventually so many identified with those beliefs that a new religion was created. It’s just evolution.

The truth is indeed ancient, it is timeless – but not every expression of that was possible way back when.

Regarding balance – I agree with you. I see balance everywhere, but balance is not static, it is not held in the middle of two extremes. Balance is a dynamic, living thing that by its very nature requires those extremes to thrive.

Enough of my preaching.

I don’t know what books to recommend to you because I don’t have enough information to judge what would be most suitable. As far as websites… you might try the ones in my signature but otherwise, I’m afraid I’m clueless. I’d be happy to check out any sites you find, though, and tell you if the information on them is accurate.

take care,
Sheta