An exploration of alternative spirituality and fringe culture
A listener asked if we would discuss our Catholic background, and how it has affected our current practices. We do that, plus a little more.
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Shadowdance by Michelle Belanger and Chris Miller is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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October 16th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Talk about one that hits close to home. I was also raised Catholic and for better or ill we stopped attending mass when the Father started hopping on money during the same period the Holy See was the #1 asset holder in the world. Big Kudos on bringing up Dark Matter/ Dark Energy. From my engineering schooling, that’s what I call a “fudge factor.”
Personally, I am a wisdom junkie, and I’ll take it where I find it. Also, if one accepts divinity as infinite, attempts to define it definition reduces it in size and scope.
Here’s a favorite Tom Robbins quote of mine ”
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I Like this quote I dislike this quote“Now tequila may be the favoured beverage of outlaws but that doesn’t mean it gives them preferential treatment. In fact, tequila probably has betrayed as many outlaws as has the central nervous system and dissatisfied wives. Tequila, scorpion honey, harsh dew of the doglands, essence of Aztec, crema de cacti; tequila, oily and thermal like the sun in solution; tequila, liquid geometry of passion; Tequila, the buzzard god who copulates in midair with the ascending souls of dying virgins; tequila, firebug in the house of good taste; O tequila, savage water of sorcery, what confusion and mischief your sly, rebellious drops do generate!”
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I Like this quote I dislike this quote“The afternoon passed more slowly than a walnut-sized kidney stone.”
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I Like this quote I dislike this quote“In order to be respected, authority has got to be respectable.”
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I Like this quote I dislike this quote“To be or not to be isn’t the question. The question is how to prolong being.”
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I Like this quote I dislike this quote“That’s for God sure. People write memoirs because they lack the imagination to make things up.”
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I Like this quote I dislike this quote“Wild Ducks Flying Backward.”
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I Like this quote I dislike this quote“We’re proposing some stakes increases and more significant increases than the prior year. If the TOC agrees to those, that will take up some of that money. I think we will take a more aggressive approach to our overnights.”
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I Like this quote I dislike this quote“We had a lot of young players this season. I thought they have improved over the course of the year. Overall, I have been pleased. As far as the sectional goes, I like our draw and I feel like we are playing our best basketball right now.”
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I Like this quote I dislike this quote“Ideas are mallable and unstable; they not only can be misused, they invite misuse—and the better the idea the more volatile it is. That’s because only the better ideas turn into dogma, and it is by this process whereby a fresh, stimulating, humanly helpful idea is changed into robot dogma that is deadly. The problem starts at the secondary level, not with the originator or developer of the idea, but with the people who are attracted to it, until the last nail breaks, and who invariably lack the overview, flexibility, imagination, and, most importantly, sense of humor to maintain it in the spirit in which it was hatched. Ideas are made by masters, dogmas by disciples, and the Buddha is always killed on the road.””
October 16th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
note I didn’t mean to give the whole damn page, the one at the bottom is what I was getting at. EDIT function, my kingdom for EDIT. hehe
October 17th, 2007 at 3:29 am
I kind of figured … I think Chris of the all-powerful techie whammy can fix it as soon as it comes to his attention.
–M
October 17th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
I often feel the odd one out in pagan circles, coming from a protestant background with my dad as my pastor (Presbyterian). He’s quite liberal and even took us to other kinds of churches (including a synagogue and mosque) for confirmation.
I really admire my dad’s devotion and intellectualism regarding Christianity. We’ve never really had a talk about anything beyond that, and I’m not even sure he knows that I’m not Christian anymore. Personally I don’t think I really made any connection with God until I was in college when I suddenly had to ask whether life was worth living, and whatever Divine power spoke to me through the wind told me I could be who I wanted to be and would still be loved.
Now I too live beyond the constrictions of deitic dependence, still understanding that there is a “higher power,” and umbrella Divinity of all things that is beyond human or deitic entities.
I’d actually be interested in hearing from Protestant Christians who are now pagan or something else like that. Were they attracted to Chaos Magick like I was? Did they find paganism surprisingly over-structured when they first encountered Wicca like I did? Or am I just hard to satisfy?
Regarding Chris’s final comment, I’m the youngest of three kids (two older brothers). I have probably gone the farthest afield of anyone in my family, but I have an inkling that neither of my brothers are that religiously inclined in any direction. They’re not atheist, but don’t take a lot of stock in organized religions these days.
We’ve seen multiple dying churches crucify our dad for trying to tell them they need to change in order to revitalize their church.
October 18th, 2007 at 2:50 am
This was a great podcast…and I had to comment on this because for a long time, my mom stopped going to church because she was mad and still is in some respects (even tho she is a more devout Catholic now) about some of the rules the Church was mandating…and ironically, at the time I was attending a Catholic high school….
One thing you guys touched on and I’m glad you did was about how you can combine certain other beliefs with Catholicism. Thats something I’ve always belived in doing…because I still go to church on Sunday for the ritual and mystical aspect…but at home, I’ll add some other elements from the wiccan philosophy or white magic, etc that work for me, and I have found that it doesnt matter the belief system as long as within yourself you feel spiritually whole and comfortable with yourself and within the world.
I honestly think that a lot has been lost over the years within Christianity not only in the Catholic but especially within the Protestant realm, and since I’ve gone a bit deeper into my own energy work, I can definitely feel the difference between the genuine and the hypocrite.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:41 pm
I WENT TO A CATHOLIC SCHOOL WHEN I WAS YOUNG, I AM PROUD OF BEING A CATHOLIC BECAUSE THAT IS THE WAY I CAN EARN MY WAY TO HEAVEN SO I DO NOT WANT TO GAMBLE BY SOUL TO MUCH. THE CROSS KEEPS AWAY EVIL SPIRITS SO I HAVE TO KEEP JESUS IN MY BACK POCKET
October 24th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
i was primarily raised, by family, unitarian universalist, i:e, not anything specific. But in my social life there was an enormous christian, and often catholic, biase. i found this episode interesting if for no other reason than i find that however much i try to escape it, somehow, christianity comes back and bites me. it biting me is usually in the form of some friend or another trying to convert me, or me looking at christianity one second and saying “why don’t i…” and then the next second i think about what i am thinking, and i think “why?” and that leads me in a circle. my point is, in all forms of paganism, particularly the more… particular and ceremonialist forms thereof, are very closely tied to christianity through their practices and their Dualism, western religions cannot escape their roots.
October 31st, 2007 at 11:33 pm
I really resonated with this episode. I was raised Irish Catholic in NYC and was a eldest child. My brother was the one they hoped would be the priest, instead they got a priestess. (In fact I am the first one who signed the New York County clergy registry as priestess. didn’t know it would be shock to anyone but the rabbi that signed after me.)
I always thought that the mass was kept one beat off from being transendent ritual. It probably would send too many people off the deep end if anything “really happened”. Although Christmas at St. Patrick’s Cathedral was the closest to magick I have seen them get to.
And I wanted to believe. I knew the rituals better than the Catholic School kids, even tried post-confirmation study. But I always felt like a tourist with good manners, welcome but not a part of the family.
Since now I am as equally appalled at the bulk of the pagan/wiccan community esp. my own lineage, I can feel Chris’ loss of extended family. I still kind of miss the busybodies of my mother’s old parish. I had good press with them.
And Chris, it is no better in NYC. Considering many covens I know, (eclectic, Gardnerian or Alexandrian) I wouldn’t take any kid of mine to their circles.
The only rituals I am really a part of now are Tibetan Buddhist empowerments and elevations and whatever shamanic-style rituals I get inspired or guided (read: ordered by the godz)to do.
December 14th, 2007 at 11:23 am
I recently downloaded all your podcasts and have been listening in no particular order. I just finished hearing this one on your Catholic backgrounds today, and there’s a lot that came to my mind that I don’t have time to put down right now. I’ll just say that in general your podcast is my favorite thing to listen to. When you guys talk, I feel such a kinship. The way you think and express about religion and science, for example, resonates so closely with my own thoughts and feelings. Somehow, it just means a lot to hear your reasonable and inspiring discussions articulated with such clarity. Thanks so much.
December 26th, 2007 at 11:28 am
This episode probably spoke the most to me next to the Tolerance episode.
I was raised Mormon in the deep south, and if that doesn’t cause some kind of mental trauma… well you get the point. Repression and sheltered childhood just about covers everything I went through till I reached the age of 16.
I never went through the Wiccan phase, in fact I did not touch any spiritual path until my twenties. I was guided, pulled, and basically told in no uncertain terms that I was Called by the Lwa. Little Molly Mormon is now beginning to practice as a Ceremonial Magician who also has altars to Papa Legba, my Met-Tet, and a couple other Vodoun Lwa and soon an Orisha.
I still find myself sometimes having to think my way out of the Mormon box. It is a very hard indoctrination to throw off.
December 29th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
I am not Christian however, I think my experience is similar. I am Hindu and was constantly told that I was going to hell unless I became a Christian. I wanted to be a Hindu priest but there was no way to do that. As I grew up and the first Hindu temples opened in our area, I felt the same thing… it is all about money. So… While I still call myself a Hindu, I am find that people that are in the New Age movement to be far closer to what a “True” Hindu is supposed to be than most of the Hindus in the Temple. Hinduism’s main calling is to learn about everything and find your path. Most Hindu’s think that the path they have defined is the only path.
By the way, thanks for having this broadcast. It is really nice to hear that people are not really that different.
January 7th, 2008 at 2:49 am
Hey, I guess right now, I’m leaving christianity but not really catholicism. I think were a bit more mystical about the faith. If I refer to God in this I mean Yahweh / Jehovah the God of Abraham.
We seem to have people that heal using the holy spirit -try doing that after learning to sense energy, so wierd! We have people that talk to spirits / God and you have to analyse what they say to figure out is they are demons or angels no acceptance of neuter spirits and other wierd stuff goes on.
I was kinda seduced by magick and well after a while of kheperu style energy work I was told by a lady that I needed to stay away from something occult that was like reiki. I was a bit freaked out because I don’t consider Reiki occult but I do consider energy work to be of that kinda style. I recon that she understood energy work but because she didn’t have a name for it she sort of presented it in symbols she understood. Reiki (energy) occult (kheperu). Well as she didn’t know anything about this I was shoked. I believed in God and stuff but I didn’t think he would do something like that! I stopped learning energy work and I took up kungfu. Soon she told me God wanted me to stop kungfu and I began to get angry. I always wanted to learn and it seemed God was trying to hold me back. The bible starts with God getting all mad because man had learnt something (does anyone see a connection to Zeus getting made because promethius had taught man fire or something…) anyway later on in the torah / early bible the hebrews destroy loads of people because they are pagans, witches and DIVINERs. God hates people that can get information (diviners) and one of the speculations about the flood was it happened after the angels taught enoch stuff. Enoch was taken up and most of the planet was flooded… (God got rid of the evidence possibly) I don’t want to blaspheme but it seems God is trying to hide something. I used this as an excuse to walk away and relearn magick but now I’m stuck and I don’t want to go back but I still fear the idea of hell. Even though Reincarnation makes more sense. Why a God would make someone put them miles away from a christian person and then when they die say you should have known better burn for the rest of eternity… but just because it sounds horrible doesn’t mean it is false. There is a lot of truth out there that is nasty but that doesn’t make it any less true.
- Joshua
February 6th, 2008 at 1:38 am
This podcast echoes some of the thoughts I have had about my relationship with Yahweh, Christ and the Holy Spirit. Being a Catholic since the cradle, till around four years ago, I relate very much in ritual to Deity.
However, over the years, I have learned to connect to Deity, not just through prayer, which, given I was raised in a devoutly Catholic home generally followed a ‘ritual’ format, but also through spontaneous inner-dialogue or thought-connection. I will have Catholic DNA inherent in my workings as a Pagan; I have come to accept this. There are certain things ingrained in me that could be considered uniquely Catholic and I have learned to simply let those things flow, and come into my experience as an Eclectic Pagan.
However, I do echo on many thing with both Michelle and Chris, and seem to follow a path that lies somewhere between both of your perspectives: I no longer look at Deity as something to be feared, but respected, if for nothing else than that Deity may be further along in Their development than I and if not that, then we are equals as we are all ultimately part of The One, The Unknowable, the Ineffable, etc. It is interesting and comforting to hear former Catholics’ viewpoints not only similar, but different to my own. Thank you.
February 7th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
I was raised a Reform Jew and I proudly still am. I love how at one youth group programme at a camp i was at for leadership training type stuff. the title of the programme was “God Shopping” and it entaled going around the room and picking quotes about God that resonated with you and then pasted them on a sheet of paper. no one had the same quotes in the same order. thats the main thing i love about Reform Judaism, you do not have to follow a prescribed view of God. the main mantra-type thingy is “informed desicion making” (kinda paraphrased there) which essentially says that before you go blindly following a tradition, read up about it first, then deciede if its right for you.
Here are the quotes I chose (stuff in brackets are little comments i added which helps eleborate how tehy work for me as i’m rather scientific):
God gave human beings free will
God is teh constant breath of the universe (breath being dark energy/matter)
God is “no thing” (nothing?)
God allows bad things to happen to good people
God has reasons for doing things that we will never unserstand
God helps us to hold ourselves up in times of trouble
I can argue with God
God is in all scientific truths (”black holes are where God divided by zero” - unknown)
God is our dream for a united humanity
God is a role model for perfection
also if i recall correctly, one translation/meaning of the word “Israel” is “to struggle/argue/fight with God”
March 25th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
On the whole Mary statues being similar to or identical to depictions of Isis and the infant Horus -
Funny thing, there! The House of Netjer bought a 100-year-old convent that the nuns there had to sell because their order was dying out; they wanted to sell it only to another religious order, and apparently an Egyptian one was good enough. There was a statue of Mary in the back (I think they kept it) with her arms upraised in a certain way that was *exactly* like the “henu” gesture depicted in Egypt - the praise/honor/worship gesture, so to speak (which is distinct from the typical “worship/praise” gesture used in Christian symbology). The House was tickled, a bit - “Mary’s doing henu!” - but there’s another example that might have echoes of Egyptian symbol.