Druidry/Alternative spiritual practice and why Christianity despises it

LoneGunMan

I had been into the left hand crooked path for many many years. I was a Tarot reader, practiced in the craft and owned a very well known metaphysical bookstore. I taught Tarot classes did reads professionally all across the state of Michigan. I was raised by an atheist father and a new age mother. I never went to church and felt the same way about Christians as you.

LoneGunMan, I have a question for you...

If you are well-versed in the left-hand path, you obviously understand that it is not 'evil' forces that are at work, but rather that it is the desired outcome that makes magick either white, grey or black.

I am interested to know if that has changed, and if you now consider magick evil?

Cuervo

As far as decks, if it resonates with you, it's for you. The Wild Wood deck has been on my list to get for a long while but I keep passing it up for other decks on whims. It's a beautiful deck for sure.

I know what you mean. I always come back to my Golden Dawn deck, and it's really the only one I ever use. Others just aren't close to being as effective.

Rockpuck
reply to post by Bayy007

 

My wife asked me once why I like "pagan" ritual, stories etc yet seem to despise Christian texts. I came to the conclusion (my own opinion of course) that Christian text is void of any real emotion, it's a flat text explained in an almost scientific way. On a spiritual level I also cannot connect to an entire religious text contained within a desert environment, using customs, dress, speech and logic that is alien to me. My people came from northern Europe, not a desert (at least not for many tens of thousands of years). Stories of trees, the sea and mountains speak more to me than wandering a desert. Just my opinion.

Oh and yes my wife did, as usual, roll her eyes at my answer.

Why don't wives ever understand...

Druid42

reply to post by lostgirl

 

God does not live in the Bible...He lives in the heart. To truly be a Christian, one must live from the heart of Christ's teachings of: non-judgement, forgiveness, and Love for all peoples…

I'm still reading, but I caught that comment. The Christian definition of God in that aspect relates directly to what most pagans believe. Non-judgement, forgiveness, and Love. Are we so different?

I see one group claiming a moniker to rally behind, and one, finding it within themselves.

Back to reading.....

It's a little of both, honestly.

My feeling is the man cannot fully know or comprehend the mind of God so we've done the best we can to translate what He's told us. That is why if you believe in Christ and believe Him to be the son of God, and thus God, you believe Him to be the best source you can have. He was God. Then the problem comes with the remove from Christ's word to you.

The other source of God is when God is in you as the Holy Spirit. That requires that you truly trust yourself and have faith because it could mean going against what your faith community might be telling you - that group using God as a moniker to rally behind. I'm guessing most of us here are the ones with an extraordinary amount of faith in ourselves and our connection to God.

We're trusting our instincts/heart as much as we trust gospel and more than we trust our peers in church.

As for the judgment, that's always the sticky wicket. I feel that to a certain extent we are to judge. We have to be able to judge right and wrong, good and evil, for ourselves and see it in others in order to keep ourselves free of temptations and out of trouble. I would never tell someone they're going to Hell, though. That's not my job to determine no matter what kind of life they might be living. Only they and God know what's in their hearts at the end of the day. And that's what I think it means to be non-judgmental. However, I'm not going to go out of my way to hang out with people doing bad things just to prove how non-judgmental I am in this life.

Bayy007
So basically I've been looking into Druids and the Christian religion and why they despise them. I can't find any legitimate reason as to why. This all starts with a story though so I may as well lead with that

This might put some light on the issue. It concerns orders that Yahushua gave to Moses.

Ex 34:13 But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves.

So it seems the elite (Luciferians/Satanists) who wrote the Bible in the dark ages to keep the masses under control, have controlled the masses to destroy druid groves as well.

i have a question:
Is the 'burning man' actually the 'green man' during Autumn ?
Is the 'green man' in any way linked to Pan (Roman myth) / Silvanus (Celtic myth) ?
Who exactly worships the 'burning man' ?

So which ever way you look at it, your pagan god isn't going to give a crap when the Christian brigade come along and 'cut down your grove'.

Oh and before the predictable programmed anti-Christian flak starts from certain ATS members, maybe understand what a rapha truly is and how the flak is nothing when compared to a 30 day lunar cycle 4th generation curse.

Rapha

So which ever way you look at it, your pagan god isn't going to give a crap when the Christian brigade come along and 'cut down your grove'.

What makes you think that a pagan's god is any different from your own? There is one god, no more no less.

The religions of the world are, in part, psychological conditioning. We create our own reality through our perceptions and expectations. This is why people of different religions are 100% sure that they themselves are right, and everyone else is wrong. This is why most people stay with the religion that they were born in, and were raised in. Very few people actually question why they believe the way they do.

There is and can be only one Creator of the Universe. The error we humans make is in letting our egos insist to the outside world that He pays attention only to us (and not the other children) because our song and dance is the most pleasing to Him. Then we then turn around and mock the others because Daddy likes us best (in our minds anyway).

A great film to watch the focusses loosely on this topic is Valhalla Rising.

reply to post by Saurus


How completely lovely!
Such a shame I could only give you one star

Saurus

Cuervo

As far as decks, if it resonates with you, it's for you. The Wild Wood deck has been on my list to get for a long while but I keep passing it up for other decks on whims. It's a beautiful deck for sure.

I know what you mean. I always come back to my Golden Dawn deck, and it's really the only one I ever use. Others just aren't close to being as effective.

Wow... that's the second deck brought up in this thread that I've always felt a little ashamed for not owning. The Golden Dawn deck not being in my collection is something I have admitted to very very very very few people. I'll take your post as a sign to just not buy any other deck until I get that one.

It's ironic (not in a hipster way). It's like one of those things that is such a staple so you take it for granted, knowing you won't ever forget to get it but then you never get it precisely because it's so important.

reply to post by EllaMarina

You gotta love silly taboos.

reply to post by littled16


I actually quoted Fitzgibbon in the post. I forgot to mention that, and the next time I read my post and noticed, it was too late to edit.

Really? Is this that hard to understand. Concerning pagan religios practices I refer to the writings of Paul,

1 Cor. 10.19-22: 19 What do I imply then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. 22 Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

God does not want humans to degrade themselves with false worship. That is the essence of idolatry. Since it is a sin before God, demons inhabit the practice. Thus you will be demonized if you are engaged in pagan practices. Tht is why christians are so against druidism or any other form of modern paganism. It inevitibly leads to that person becoming an agent of satan and thus an agent of the enemy of our souls. You do not have to seek the "dark path" to actually become demonized. Simply practicing any form of sin such as witchcraft, does the job.

SevenThunders
Really? Is this that hard to understand. Concerning pagan religios practices I refer to the writings of Paul,

God does not want...

How can you say you know what God wants based on the opinion of Paul? The passage you quoted was Paul's opinion. Even if I was Christian, when did Jesus ever say we should listen to Paul?

Jesus said we must listen to His own teachings! The books that came after the Gospels were opinions of people. Who said we should listen to them? The church, not Jesus!

My personal feelings on the matter come from the practice of magic.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a fantasy buff and love the thought of magic. It's a lot of fun to think about. I even dabbled with Tarot for a time in my own past. I have the Scapini Medieval deck, myself. Today I use it mainly as an idea generator when I'm planning for my writing.

However, I feel like if God created the universe, then he authored the natural rules whereby the universe operates (i.e. Natural Law). Magical practices that attempt to subvert or outright break natural law are IMO an attempt to break God's Law and go against God. We should not seek to do so. Even science cannot break natural law only seek to understand it and use it to our own ends.

But YMMV and in the case of religion and religious/spiritual practice, it often does.

reply to post by ketsuko


But if we have the power to do something, then it is part of the natural law. The fact that it is not understood by modern science does not mean that it is not natural law!

It simply means that humans are still dumb on the matter, which is probably only because it has not been researched well, due to peer-pressure/laws/religious resistance throughout history, and hence it is not a science yet. Every other part of science took hundreds of years to understand.

I don't think you can say it isn't natural law just because it is not understood by science. Magick is part of natural law, because it can easily be done by anyone! Most people just don't want to.

reply to post by Bayy007


Just a couple of points (Which might have been brought up, I am jumping in from the OP, sometimes a bad idea).

(1) Celtic is a bit of a useless term. The Gaelic (Irish, Scots, Manx) culture is quite different than the Brythionic (Bretton, British, Cornish, Cymric (Welsh)) and those are somewhat different to the various continental tribes (Gauls (trans and cis alpine), Iberian etc). All that said, today people sometimes just say "Celtic" as they are either a mix of several (I've cornish, Welsh, Scots and Irish ancestry). It is not a mistake, so much as a rather general term.

(2) Druidry, Druidism, Druidical are all slightly different terms. Druidry is the philosophy, druidism is the spiritual side, and druidical is a catch all when you are not sure.

(3) There are two main streams of practice in the world of Neopagan druidry/druidism. Revivalist (OBOD is the most promenant) reconstructionist (ADF is the largest). OBOD allows people of all faiths to join, this includes many christians. OBOD formed from an old Druid Lodge (very masonic) and those lodges were 'secret societies', which in turn were very Christian. OBoD however has evolved a lot, and is very much more neopagan than it was. Reconstructive Druid groups are very much Neopagan, and not even vaguely christian.

(4) Druids were a class of the various Celtic tribes, and only in the last century or two has the idea of a "Druidic religion" come about. While it's stuck, it is like talking about preistism ie a religon based on the various catholic priests. Does not make much sense, but we have no idea what our ancestors called their religious ideas.... if anything.

(5) Modern Druid groups (except the lodge ones as mentioned) are not a secret society. As shown by you finding the OBOD website (and you could find ADF just as easily, or Henge of Keltria etc).

Ok why those points? Well OBOD in the UK anyhow seldom has issues with Christians, it's seen by many as a philosophy akin to Buddhism of the west. Sad to say not all neopagan paths have had this luck, ADF in the early 2000's had a well known born again type (Kirk Cameron) infiltrate a high day, record it, and then lie his arse off (apparently some druids tried to "beat him with branches" when he was discovered, but he refused to press charges ... ie he thought Druids worshiped trees ... no we do not). Now remember Kirk Cameron is the idiot who has challenged scientists to produce the 'crocoduck" to prove evolution.

Christians are a varied bunch, many are turn the other cheek, and let others make their own choices, but a small group are very much all about "spiritual war" for your soul. These are the ones who have an issue with Pagans, or jews, or Muslims, or Buddhists, or atheists.