Search results

Sag - It's also common to help lost spirits by sitting quietly and visualizing a pure light welcoming them to the afterlife. You might want to think of it as a door opening, which you can encourage the lost spirit to go through and find peace.

I made a mistake too in that post... Nancy B. Watson's book is called "Practical Solitary Magic."

There's a saying that if you ask a dozen Wiccans a question, you're likely to get fifteen different answers. With no central authority structure you'll find that there are always disagreements and exceptions to any statement that starts "Wiccans believe..." or "Wiccans do..." There are some...

Different Pagan religious groups have had varying degrees of success being legally recognized in a number of places around the world. I know there are a surprising number in the United States, for instance. It's usually just a matter of registering the group as a tax-exempt religious group for...

Witchcraft has been around forever but Wicca, which is a specific religion drawing on witchcraft lore, is relatively new. Some people claim Wicca is an ancient religion but so far the historical record hasn't backed that up. If you're interested in new religious systems or groups you don't...

Wicca is a modern religion that was first promoted (and perhaps invented) by an Englishman named Gerald Gardner as early as the 1940s. It's based on English witchcraft lore with generous borrowings from ceremonial magick, freemasonry, and classical Pagan sources. Worship usually focusses on...

There are some Pagans who incorporate a lot of Christian material in their specific philosophies. Despite that, I think it is a bit of a contradiction in terms to say that one is a Christian Pagan or a Pagan Christian. Just like Wiccans who draw heavily on Egyptian myth are not really...

Impqueen's link is to one of the modern Pagan community's shining lights: Isaac Bonewits. Bonewits is the founder of the popular Druid group ADF (Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship) which has its official website at http://www.adf.org I understand that Bonewits has stepped aside as...

You're not alone in wondering this, bananabrain.

Why would they need to do "test" circles first? And what's to say that some of the crop circles done previously and also assumed to be supernatural weren't the "test" ones? (The literature on crop circles actually comments pretty regularly how the circles seem to be getting more complex. In...

Apparent changes to the plants at the cellular level found in crop circles are not exactly undisputed proof that crop circles are of supernatural or extraterrestrial origin. There are some skeptical articles on precisely this point at Special Crop Circles which should be read if you are serious...

For me, the whole thing boils down to what I commented before: polarity is just one intellectual "map" of reality, among many. And it is dangerous for us to mistake the map for the landscape itself. Tools should help us to understand things. When they act as blinders or straitjackets then...

I'm with JM -- I still fail to understand how playing semantic games and blurring the lines between science and spirituality clears up whatever the point was supposed to be in this thread.

I'm not sure how playing semantics and blurring the lines between science and spirituality clears the topic up. But maybe that's just me.

Some cultures teach that homosexuals are not crippled humans but especially blessed humans. While a heterosexual has but one soul, the homosexual has two in one body -- both male and female. That's why some cultures refer to homosexuals as "two spirited."

Actually, what Impqueen has pointed out is that heat and light are both scientific qualities which can be measured. Cold and dark, on the other hand, are semantic and only exist in relation to the scientific qualities of heat and light. Good and evil on the other hand are not scientifically...

I think AndrewX was asking what the point was supposed to be.

There are actually quite a few books, articles, and opinions floating around on the always controversial Crowley. Like with most controversial figures I expect that you'd need to read a lot of differing opinions to get a glimpse of the real man behind the myth -- and then it would be nothing...

Re: ~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~ Matter (at the atomic or galactic scales) don't "suddenly" go anti-entropic. The forces of gravitation, atomic bonding, and all the others are in a constant dance of change which result in things (molecules...

Re: ~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~ The problem with this interpretation of natural forces is that we're imposing a linear view on what is not necessarily something that has a definite start and definite end. If we compare how galactic objects...