For My Mother and My Massage Therapist

I am not Wiccan. At this point, I'm also no longer Christian in that I don't believe Jesus is or was divine, although I do count him among the Ascended Masters such as Buddha, Elijah, Moses, Muhammad, etc.

My massage therapist is correct that I'm on a spiritual journey, however I feel I need to lay out just what I believe and the rules I find governing me at this time so that those who love me can understand that I'm not in danger or what have you.

First: I believe in God as the one divine energy. I believe God is both male and female and can be referred to as God, Goddess, Lord, Lady, or any other name that helps the individual connect with the divine. I believe that all good-natured religions worship the same divine energy. I believe Christians are in contact with the same divine source as Hindus as Hare Krishnas as Muslims and so on. I believe God does not discriminate between religions and that if the fruit of your actions is the same as others it comes from the same source. A rose by any other name is still a rose.

I also believe in religious extremism (that it exists). Just as there are crazy fundamentalist Christians out there that burn Qurans and think everyone that doesn't believe what they believe is going to hell, there are crazy Muslims who think they are doing God's work by hijacking planes and flying them into buildings to kill "the infidels". Every religion has their wackos. There are Wiccans who think they can play with dark energies and use them to their own ends; this is not true Wicca. There are Pagans who judge the religions that judge them out of spite or hate or hurt; this is not what paganism was meant to be. The Earth Religions, the Pagan Religions, are religions of love and light and acceptance. They are religions of the pursuit of divine knowledge and understanding.

Second: I do not believe in Hell. I do believe in an afterlife, however I also believe in reincarnation. I believe our souls are on a journey of learning, and that our souls can't possibly learn everything there is to know in one lifetime from one perspective. I'm not done figuring out what I believe about the details of reincarnation and death and the afterlife, but what I've written so far are the basics of my belief right now.

Third: I believe in evil as the duality of good, however I do not believe in the Devil or any one being that is powerful enough to compete with the divine energy of God. I believe there are dark or shadow energies that are in competition with the frequency of divine energy. I believe an individual can empower dark energies, whether by accident or on purpose. I believe that just as we can choose to channel divine/light energy, we can also channel dark/shadow/evil energy. I believe the individual ultimately has the power to channel whatever energy he or she wills if they are aware of it and if they choose it.


Core tenets of my spirituality:

"An it harm none, do what ye will." This means you can do what you wish as long as you are not harming yourself or anyone else. Harming can (but doesn't always) include offending someone. This means if you would like to pray for someone or you'd like to send healing energy to someone, you should ask their permission first. If they do not wish for you to help them in that way, don't. However, don't worry about offending those who don't agree with your religious choices. Wear your cross or your pentagram or your Star of David and be strong in your religious beliefs.

"The Threefold Law." The threefold law says that the energy you release into the world, you will receive back threefold. If you send loving energy out, you will get three times the loving energy back, perhaps in many different ways. On the other hand, if you send out negative or hateful energy, you will receive it back threefold as well. This also goes hand in hand with my next tenet.

"Treat Others As You Would Have Them Treat You." Yes, the Golden Rule is one I believe in. Another way it is written in the Bible is "treat your neighbor as yourself."


On the Bible:

In the words of my childhood Priest: "The Bible contains the word of God; it also contains a lot of other stuff." I do not believe that a book written by men is infallible. The Quran probably also contains words of God, as probably does the Bhagavad Gita, the Nag Hammadi Library, and other religious scriptures.


About the Pentagram/Pentacle:

The pentagram is an upright 5-pointed star, and according to Wikipedia, the pentacle is the 5-pointed star placed inside a circle. Because of Hollywood or some personal experience or someone giving themselves a false title, there can be fear and confusion surrounding the 5-pointed star.

Christianity once used the pentagram as a symbol of the 5 wounds of Jesus, though it is not as commonly associated with Christianity anymore. To me, and to many Neo-Pagans, the pentagram symbolizes the 4 elements of air, fire, water, and earth, with the addition of spirit (or God) as the top point of the star.

Unfortunately, Satanism also uses the pentagram, although Satanism inverts the star with the point facing downward and the head of a goat drawn inside. Some Satanists identify the 3 downward points of their inverted pentagram as rejecting the Christian Trinity.
In the Golden Dawn movement, the inverted pentagram was sometimes seen as a representation of evil, or physical matter overcoming spirit.

The circle surrounding the pentagram in Neo-Paganism represents oneness. If you take into account what the symbol is meant to represent, it is a loving nature symbol, not a symbol of hexes or curses or dark energy. The upright pentacle is not an evil symbol and should not be viewed as such.

All of this information was gathered from the Wikipedia article on pentagrams, along with other sources I do not remember entirely but that agree with what Wikipedia says.

For now, that's all I can think of to explain and I hope this post gives both my mom and my massage therapist some relief/insight to my spirituality. I am not blind and I have common sense; I am not running into a horrible dangerous cult or anything like that.