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In my own experience, what reincarnates is memory and a certain energetic frequency that remains the same from life to life. I can't offer a clearer visual than a mystical experience I had in which I realized that I was a particular sound within a very complex song, which was the unfolding of...

Hi, Thomas- I didn't feel it was directed at me so much as you might be operating off some stereotypes of Pagans that were inaccurate and/or incomplete. Please know I thought your writing was totally polite. That's what I was trying to elaborate on toward the end there... for example, the...

Hi, Thomas- I'm sorry I couldn't read it earlier that this was becoming a negative conversation for you. I would have stopped sooner. For my part, I was not challenging Christianity so much as exploring how different doctrinal views impact practice. Underneath it, I really find both paths...

Care to share? :) More appropriately, I think secularism believes religion is the cause of the problem. This would be much harder for them to think if religions were not used as excuses to divide, harm, and kill people. It'd be harder for secularism to take root if religious people...

I hope you do not take offense when I say that I think the problem is that you haven't enough exposure to Pagans. It seems you base a good deal of your assumptions on a relatively limited pool of people. On the other hand, I do tend to pick events and groups that are rather intellectual, so I...

I love it when I feel connected, and the moment comes into sharp focus... and every little thing is so precious and sacred. The cup of tea, the crackling fire, the warmth of my home, the snow outdoors. The feeling of the soles of my feet against my wool socks. The realization of the...

Every time I run across one of your posts once more, dear friend, I miss you again. Thank you for all your thoughts over the years.

In its most recent forms, yes, I think so. Icelandic Heathenism seems to be quite old- perhaps 1000 years. It isn't my area of expertise, but some of the Nordic traditions are less new. Modern Druidry goes back to the 1700s-ish. That's "the fact," eh? Can you explain how you came to this...

That's a non-answer, Thomas, and you know it. You must realize I am not inquiring as a rhetorical question, but a real one. I am asking you to define how you can reliably distinguish between the two- and challenging you to do so in a way that is not subjective and serves your own belief...

No. But like almost all religions throughout time, it is related to politics. This is nothing new. The barrier we might posit between politics and religion is largely an artificial construction from the first world scholars. Well, no one can really know what will happen in the future. It...

A few of my thoughts... I entirely concur. However, this is also a problem one sees frequently in other religions as well. For example, many Christians seem to escape from the reality of life's problems (and particularly facing death and serious social and environmental problems) by...

Well, yes, in a way. But all religion is somewhat utilitarian when viewed from a scholarly perspective. It is only people within religions that refuse to look at themselves from an "outside" point of view that fail to see religion's usefulness. I think it is fairly self-evident that usefulness...

I think they usually do, but they're still cults of personality-- centered around a single (usually) founder. While traditions and offshoots of traditions are often based on a single founder in Paganism, the umbrella holds a bunch of partly-related, partly-independent stuff. Some are wholly...

Lovely, and so true. That's about how I see it. The danger of identity is that it makes something fluid into something falsely solid. It causes a risk of stagnation, which of course is the opposite of what Paganism is all about. But without it, can there be community? Can there be equality...

The thing is, most Pagans are agnostic in terms of belief. Belief is a very personal thing in Paganism and generally speaking, one doesn't think their beliefs are "right" or "straight" but rather "useful," "accurate to one's experience," and "the best one can do given limitations." As one of...

It works, but then again, it works to define what might be termed religious traditions within the larger umbrella. Each of these dimensions is somewhat to extremely different for each tradition within the umbrella. For example, ritual differences range from minor (casting spheres vs. circles...

Hi, Jenn- what a beautiful, well-written discussion. It pretty much summed up my own thoughts from that part of the conference and the difficulty I have with defining Paganism in the first place- particularly the concerns I have for what that could cause. I was also- and like you, I've been...

What seemed to be a defining difference between religions like Christianity and Pagan religions is that Pagans largely don't seem to have orthodoxy. Rather, there is more an emphasis on practice. For example, in my little Druid group of ten or so, we have at least six substantially different...

I loved that. LOL Too true. And many individuals go back and forth depending on taste and occasion. :) I myself am corp goth, Victorian goth, and Steampunk... depending on mood and opportunity. :p That is actually brilliant- that it is about core/periphery rather than boundary. I have no idea...

Interesting comments, one and all. Initially, my thought process on day one of the conference was "Why do we care about definitions? What's the point?" Which is what I asked someone who had been in the community a long time during a break. The general explanation is that even though it is...