http://www.paganfederation.org/what-is-paganism/


According to this psychedelics for the most part make all people pagans.


Agree or disagree?

They turned me into a newt!










(I got better.)

Well of course they can. They show you that there's some kind of mind in nature, that all is one.

Psychedelics cured me of religion altogether, by showing me real spirituality. It wasn't easy...

I would never call myself "pagan". As a label it is both nondescriptive and loaded with connotations.

I dunno about this one... DMT_Tom is a self described "Christian bro" here on the nexus.

Paganism is acutely and chronically splintered, each coven doing different while trying to follow some roots. And then there are different roots, go figure.

So no way to think of it like this or that, and sure when it comes down to real plant usage.

In the pagan circles (where I live) the covens have little to non, even some show aversion, to psychedelic plant use. Their thing is "cake and wine" to close each event or gathering and the booze paints the scenery.

TBH I was surprised they took so little interest in the potentials of plants. But as said, I am sure there are other covens having a totally other take on.

Dude, all paths lead to the light. At least as far as mystism goes, it doesn't matter if it's Christian, Sufism, peaganism, Buddhist, whatever. They all lead to the same exact place. Only thing that matters is what's real to you.

Dude , I was not criticizing paganism if you think I was, just factual describing paganism in what I know of it.

Been to several of them open circles for years (had one few weeks back actually), lots of nightly walks in the woods, doing little ceremonies, singing, dancing, gathering, pagan festivals, drags a lot of people of several strokes, I think they do just fine. But all in all not my cup of tea to commit the vast studies and time invest that come with apprenticing in a coven. For that I love too much working with the plants as a focus.

Peace

Didn't intend it to sound like that

The pitfalls of forum communication
Sometimes it's hard to interpret wordings.

After caring of the roots, he vast splintering of pagan religion is also its advantage like each coven being so different that one can pick point the one that resonate most. There is such a liberty in how the roots are filled in by each coven. Quite the opposite from the typical inflexible top-down strategy that most religions do. There is a pagan pattern and then liberty on top of that, very unique.

Exactly.

Googled the definition of "pagan": "a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions."

Seems pretty vague and non-descriptive. Since hundreds of different religions get classified as pagan, calling yourself pagan doesnt really identify you very well. Many of the "pagan" religions are so different from each other that is seems overly simplistic to classify them together and I think kinda degrades the religions classified that way.

Personally, psychedelics led me to a similar view as pantheists. I think this is more accurate to describe myself as then pagan, partly because pagan is too vague, and partly because I do not believe in any traditional pagan Gods or holidays or religions ect....

the closest i get to religion is pokemon.
( im serious about this)
i consider it shinto for psychonauts.

This too! Paganism was once a major world religion, so it comes with it's own baggage.


I've considered church for my future children being something like watching Dragonball.

The word pagan originates from the Latin paganus meaning roughly peasant or villager, derived from pagus meaning roughly country district or village. The word was adopted by Christians to apply to civilians, literally those who were not soldiers in the army of Christ, and equated with heathenism around the 14th century coming to be defined as "worshipper of false gods". It's also interesting to note that the word heathen dates back to a Christianized German adjective meaning "inhabiting open country" making the terms nearly identical.

In this day and age we have expanded the definitions of both pagan and heathen to mean anyone who doesn't follow a major religion.

Ironically enough, Paganism itself has become a religion, even to the point that it is now officially recognized by the US military.

You have to make a distinction between paganism/neo-paganism as the umbrella term for a large and diverse movement of groups loosely affiliated by a foundational belief in nature worship, which encompasses all earth-based traditions; and paganism as witchcraft, as it is practised by those who actually call themselves pagans. The latter is generally what you will think of when you hear pagan: naked rituals in the moonlight, invoking the magickal forces of nature, and calling the names of the olde gods. Even in the specialized witchcrafting definition of paganism you have extensive divisions: Ceremonial Magickians and Wiccans, Gardnerians and Alexandrians, Eclecticists and Traditionalists, on and on...

I think psychedelics do catalyse something of a new found respect for nature, if not a slightly more animistic outlook, at least a deeper sense of the interconnected nature of our universe. In that sense I do think that psychedelics tend to at least make their users moar sympathetic to pagan values. Psychedelics also represent a strong threat to the orthodoxy and power structures of major religions, and in that way I'd also suggest psychedelic users are probably going to end more sympathetic to pagan values, if not full converts to "religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions."

I guess it all depends on how you define it, but realistically the path of working with the plants is tapping a direct gnosis that pre-dates all these silly religious ideas and associations and I think that is exactly the state of conciousness the neo-pagan movement has been looking to revive all along.

I was pagan before psychedelics, and still they only inspired me to more closely examine my beliefs and ontological assumptions. While I must say that being raised in a non-christian way certainly helped me to integrate the experience, I certainly cannot say that psychedelics re-affirmed any of my beliefs. They shook every single one.

I would say that for those of us in particular who have encountered Egyptian/Hindu/Aztec/Mayan deities, and believe those interactions to be genuine at some level, are enacting a pagan mindset.

Weird, you switched up who said what quote lol

Thanks for pointing that out! Good catch. I fixed it...kinda.

The psychedelic experience is very subjective, what I believe it does do (for the most part) is create a respect for different belief systems and what they have to teach.

What it did for me is brought me closer to God, whom I was very angry at and hadn't gone to church in years. I believe people are put off, not only Christianity, but other mainstream faiths because of a confusion between what the 'organisation' teaches and what that religion really is.

IMO paganism has appeal because of a lack of real structure and doctrine and therefore has more freedom.