| An Attempt To Explain My Beliefs.... |
| I suppose this page is just to allow me to try and explain my beliefs further. Not an easy task really as they have evolved over my years as a pagan. I feel its useful to sit down every so often and do something like this as it gets things clear in your mind - a problem I sometimes have due to the jumbles of thoughts bouncing around my head! I have thought about these things long and hard for a very long time now and I feel that I am finally at a point where I understand my beliefs and am comfortable with them. I chose to move away from the conventional revelatory religions due to the belief that spirituality is experential. Revelatory religions are based on the revelations of others and that to me is wrong. Revelations are "that which is revealed" and a book about someone elses revelations reveals nothing to the reader. I have come to be where I am today, not through reading a book, but through thinking and experiencing the spiritual. I believe I am a better person for it. When I first started out as a pagan, I had a more Wiccan world view of divinity. I believed in the Goddess and God as separate entities. However, I didn't have a pantheistic view of things - each diety was merely part of either the Goddess and God. Now, I find that my stance has changed somewhat and thats probably a lot to do with why I don't consider myself to be a Wiccan. Now, I see divinity as a power that both surrounds and permeates every natural thing, it has no sense of self, it just is. As Marion Weinstein so wonderfully put it "there is one power, which is goddess and god". Moreover, I believe that divinity is immanent ie within every natural thing not seperate. How can I justify this? Well, in most biological systems offspring retain a part of their "creator" eg dividing bacteria retain parts of the mother cell, eukaryotic cells contain a mother chromosome as well as a daughter chromosome, human babies carry the genes of their parents as well as the legacy of their mothers through mitochondrial DNA. Therefore, it makes sense to me that we retain a part of the original creator. In that case, why do I work with the Goddess and God? I work with them as aspects of divinity. They represent the polarity in all things - light/dark, good/evil, male/female etc. To me they are archetypes that I can use to get in touch with divinity and even just parts of my psyche. I find that my beliefs do not conflict with the rational, scientific side of me. Indeed, they work very well together. I think that once you understand yourself and your beliefs then everything seems to fit together removing any conflicts. Well, thats a summary of what I believe. I could write more but I don't want to put you to sleep! I hope you managed to follow it and see where I am coming from. Thistlewitch 11 January 2003 |