Is it Live or is it Memorex?

[air_n_darkness]

A friend has posed multiple questions to me of late that essentially amount to the same question, that being "How do I (we, you) know the gods and/or magic is real and I'm (we're, you're) not crazy? It is a hard question to answer, for such a question is distinctly personal and the answer is specific to each person. More accurately, how a person

Comments

[wood_artist]

Not being schooled in the "Pagan" ways, I pretend to know nothing of what it espouses nor do I have any opinion regarding whatever "mystical" thoughts it entails. I was raised a Methodist, by parents who were very active in the church. My father came close to becoming a Minister, and was a CO during WWII, a difficult time to take that position. He served his alternative service fighting forest fires, and was even involved in extinguishing the one fire started by a Japanese incendiary balloon landing. After my parents married, he became a lay paster for the church, preaching from time to time as a "fill in" in various churches in the area. Later, after my father's death, my mother followed that tradition herself

[air_n_darkness]

You say "see more below" and yet, I see no additional commentary. :(

[wood_artist]

LJ wouldn't let me post the rest of it, and although I thought I saved it somewhere, I guess I didn't, or at least I can't find it. I don't think it was anything particularly profound.

[dragoness_e]

I was raised Christian, so I tend to call what has spoken to me in times of trouble and occasionally tapped me on the shoulder to say "Yer doin' it wrong, turn around and fix it", God and angels. Were I pagan, no doubt I would number them among my gods and spirits. In my opinion, some aspects of religion are just frames and handles to grasp the ineffable, not absolute taxonomies.

Some say that if one does not claim genetic heritage to a region, one should not claim that regions pantheon, but on that idea I call shenanigans.

Only someone who has not had a kami or angel or other spirit land in their head could say such foolishness. One doesn't claim a region's pantheon; they make themselves known to you if they choose.