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As Oct. 31st is rapidly approaching I wanted to wish everyone a HAPPY HALLOWE'EN and BLESSED SAMHAIN! I hope the little ghosts and goblins are friendly to everyone this year.

I hope everyone has a blessed Samhain this year. My group will be getting together tomorrow night (the night before Halloween) to have a silent supper. We will have extra places set at the table, and will serve food at those places along with our own, so that the spirits of our dearly departed...

What do you think about the "dark side" and how it is dealt with in your and other spiritual paths? By "dark side" I mean things like death, decay, the messy and sometimes painful parts of existence that are there whether we want to acknowledge them or not. Does your spiritual philosophy...

Hi everyone. I was just wondering what the gender balance was like here on Comparative-Religion, so I thought I'd do a quick informal poll to find out. Please cast your vote to indicate if you are male or female. (If you are transgendered, please select the gender you self-identify with.)...

InLove asked: I think those are excellent questions -- and they deserve a whole thread just for them, so I hope you don't mind that I set one up. You've asked a few questions in your post so I'll break them down a bit and try and provide some answers. These are just what I understand and...

As an eclectic Wiccan who doesn't follow an established tradition, I consider the following things to be the core of my spiritual path. Everything else is just elaboration or interpretation. - the Wiccan Rede: "An it harm none, do what you will." - the Charge of the Goddess. - the...

Has anyone else here read any of Franz Bardon's work? He is often compared to Crowley in his importance. I find Bardon's work is much easier to grasp than Crowley's. It's too bad he didn't write more than he did.

I'd love to hear people's thought about where they think the information comes from in divination. Does the information come from different places depending on the type of divination tool you're using? Is the info you get through the tarot different in source than the info you get from the...

Many modern Pagans consider their religion to the "Earth-honouring" and express this through involvement in environmental activism. Do you think that it is a good thing to mix politics and religion like this? Do you think that we should be encouraging separation of the two, or more intermixing?

Many modern Pagan religions such as Wicca are based on a rural or agricultural calendar. Yet many of us actually live in urban areas and have little direct contact with rural or agricultural life. Is there a place for urban-focussed Paganism today? Why or why not? What ancient Pagan...

I'm just curious what people think about if and how animals and animal qualities might be incorporated into your various spiritual paths. Some spiritual traditions (such as Native American ones) talk about "totem animals" where a specific animal is considered to be essentially family. I...

In my occult studies I've seen quite a diverse number of theories describing energy believed to be the source behind magick, health, and vitality. This energy is called Qi, Ki, mana, Odic energy, prana, kundalini, and other things but seems to describe basically the same thing. I'm most...

I thought I'd start up a new thread on magickal wands and their history since it came up in another thread on another topic. The question was raised whether there was any evidence that wands were used by witches prior to Gerald Gardner, who got started in British witchcraft in the mid to...

It seems to be in vogue at the moment, at least among many Wiccans, to talk down about magick as though it were disagreeable. There are apparently a growing number of Wiccans who insist they don't practice magick at all, for instance, and get upset at the suggestion that magick might have a...

It's quite common, particularly in modern Pagan books, to see people promote their ideas as being "traditional." What do people think about this? Do they find the label "traditional" makes them more interested in the things being said, or does it make you suspicious? I've seen the label...

Are some sources considered less worthy as inspiration for a spiritual path? Are only historical (nonfictional) sources valid for study in a religious framework? Some might argue that all religions are essentially founded on fictions. Myths, in many cases, are merely stories that were...

Some writers on spiritual paths, such as Evelyn Underwood in her classic text "Mysticism," describe mystical and magickal spiritual paths as being in conflict. The way Underhill describes it, the mystic wants to transcend the normal human condition to a state of union with the Divine. The...

In Wicca, there are eight seasonal holidays (or sabbats) pretty evenly spread through the year. Some of them, like Yule, coincide pretty closely with mainstream Christian holiday timing and symbolism. I'm wondering if people could share their thoughts about how they celebrate the holidays...

Personally I'm glad to see our fearless moderator has stepped in and clarified some issues regarding copyright and the nature of discussion here. I for one appreciate the mature discussion that takes place here, without the descent into "flame wars" which happens so often on internet discussion...