The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

Hi everyone. I recently had a bit of a spiritual crisis that has left me feeling pretty lost, and questioning basically everything I've been doing over the past year.

I declared myself a pagan and polytheist just about a year ago. Prior to that, I called myself agnostic for over 6 years while I studied and occasionally dabbled in a variety of religions. I would say that I was happy being agnostic, but deep down I always felt like there was a hole in my life where my spirituality should have been. Finding a pagan path felt like finding the missing piece of my personal puzzle.

I was able to "convert" from agnosticism to polytheism because I was able to choose which deities I wanted to worship, what beliefs I wanted to have, what ethical teachings I wanted to follow, what practices I wanted to keep, and so forth. That element of choice was exactly what the other religions I dabbled in lacked.

This worked well for me for a while, despite the fact that I received very little response from the goddesses I chose to worship, but eventually my daily practices stopped because I felt like I was going nowhere. I didn't know what else to do at the time since worship hadn't produced very satisfying results. So I was a non-practicing pagan for a few months. Then, in the midst of a very difficult semester, I decided that I needed some spiritual support again. I started meditating again and the last god I would have expected - Loki - reached out to me, and I finally started getting the contact I wanted when I first started a year ago.

But despite the fact that my spiritual life seems to be going exactly the way I wanted it to, I recently experienced a major setback of doubt and uncertainty that made me feel like I've been talking to an imaginary friend and wasting my time and money on woo-woo bullshit. It feels like my agnostic history is coming back to haunt me in a major way, and no matter what I do, I can't shake that doubt that the gods (including Loki) aren't really there and I've been attributing divine guidance to coincidences, a lifeless tarot deck, a randomly-swinging pendulum, and my own spotty intuition.

The worst part is that it feels like the logical part of my brain is tearing itself apart over this. My agnosticism was always based in logic; since there was no objective proof that any god existed or didn't exist, I firmly believed that it was impossible to know for sure until proof was found - and I didn't think we would EVER find proof. Currently, I believe that the gods are very personal and probably not proveable; the gods are real to those who believe in them, and unreal to those who don't. On top of that, I've been in pretty close communication with a god for several weeks now, so there's no reason for me to question whether he's really there or not.

So, to sum that up, my logic is punching itself in the face over two beliefs: a) nobody can ever prove that the gods are real or not real, and b) I've been in contact with a god for weeks so I know that at least one god is real. The fact that I've encountered a god should dispel all of my doubts... but it doesn't. I still have this powerful, insistent feeling of uncertainty and fear that everything I'm doing is wrong and false and not what I think it is.

Hopefully at least someone understands the problem I'm having here. I don't know how to reconcile this feeling of agnostic uncertainty with my real experiences - which I didn't feel the need to question and second-guess until now. This is causing me a surprising amount of distress, too; the feeling of connection to a deity brought me a sense of peace that I've never felt before, and now I feel like I've lost that peace - and that's incredibly terrifying to me.

This might be a manifestation of generalized anxiety disorder (which I have been able to control very well for several years now) because these are the same kind of fearful, repeating, spiraling, negative thoughts I always had when I had an anxiety attack over something. But unlike, for example, the anxiety I used to have about academic issues, I can't step back and look at my good grades to assure myself that I'm worrying about nothing. I have always been able to calm myself down with a change in perspective; but how do you take a different perspective on something you're not sure is even there?

Has anyone else experienced something like this? How did you overcome your doubts and uncertainties? How did you reassure yourself that you weren't just taking to yourself, that the gods were really there and communicating with you?

What you're going through is normal and healthy. Take the time you need to sort through your feelings, and don't rush it. Even though you have doubts, try connecting to Loki through meditation or divination. Perhaps some Cauldronites that work with him will be able to give you some insight.

And you're right; the actual existence of any deity cannot be proven. If you feel that these feelings are related to anxiety issues, then seeking counsel would likely help you to examine these emotions.

I can relate to how you feel, though. I tend to be on the more logical side of things  as well, but after a while, I have to take a step back and let things happen. Same goes for anxiety. Some analyzing is good, and it allows for you to discern what works and what doesn't. Take things in stride and reflect. I hope I was able to help you with your questions.

 
I actually tried working through this with Loki's help for a couple days, and unfortunately all I got in return was confusing answers and snark - which just made me feel even more lost and uncertain. I got the impression that Loki thought it was ridiculous to question whether he existed or not, so he had no constructive advice for me. I felt like I couldn't continue to work with him or even worship him while I was stuck in limbo about his existence, and he insisted that I just had to trust him. I'm not one for blind trust - especially not a trickster like Loki - and especially when I felt like he was just laughing off my spiritual crisis.

Long story short, we both got extremely frustrated with each other and agreed to take a break from working together for a while while I sort through this. I actually got extremely emotional about that, but we parted on good terms with the agreement that we might be able to work better together in the future. I still have a major problem with blindly trusting a god, especially Loki, and I don't think he took that too kindly. So I'm not sure he and I will work together again any time soon. But his "last word" for me (via tarot) was The Sun card, so I took that as a very positive sign.

Anyway, I agree that counseling is a good idea when facing serious anxiety. However, this is the first major bout of anxiety I've had in literally years, so I think jumping back into counseling would be jumping the gun a bit. And this anxiety isn't severe enough to disrupt my daily functioning; it's just troubling because it came completely out of the blue and upset my spiritual life right when it was going so well. Besides, since this is a spiritual issue, I don't know how much help a regular counselor would be. (Hence why I came here for advice first.)

I've been re-evaluating some of my beliefs since this anxiety came along, and that has been helping somewhat. I never really put my beliefs on paper, and writing always soothes my nerves, so I'm going to continue to work on that. I've also been working more with my animal guide, the Bear, over the past few days, and she was tremendously helpful at calming me down when this anxiety first cropped up. (Apparently since Bear isn't a deity, I have no problem believing that she's still with me? The human brain is a strange thing.)

Thank you for your advice!

It shouldn't have to get straightjacket bad for you to just sort of touch base with your psyche with a professional's help. By my experience, it's also helped a lot that my therapist is Jungian, so when I talk about my spiritual experiences, they might not be considered as true facts as in some being with a greater perspective knows what's going to happen or world events will conform to a dedicant, but they are considered as true meaning in how, like, Loki might have come to me because it was around the first time I wouldn't even try to conform anymore to the expectations of my abusive family, and my psyche turned him into a symbol for that.

On that level, whether that was theophany or symbolism, it doesn't make a difference. The effect on myself and the world (through my actions, through my newfound attitude, from my experience whether imagined or not) was the same.


I've also heard that Sam Harris' book Waking Up is pretty good about his quite unique (to me, at least) viewpoint about how there is actually an intellectually defensible way to contain existential hopes and fears and explain transformative experiences without this infatuation with mythology.

I tried some of his meditation exercises, and they were interesting. But since I just do happen to have an infatuation with mythology, I still go along with that.

Agnosticism and doubt doesn't have to be a tightrope. It can be pretty cozy, especially if it's somewhere you're just authentically at right now.

 
I agree that counseling shouldn't have to be just a "last resort," but that's definitely not a direction I intend to head in right now. I don't have the money for it and I don't currently see the need for it when I feel psychologically healthy. I want to use other resources to deal with this particular problem right now; if it persists or escalates, I would be more likely to look at professional help. I'm not dismissing the value of counseling, I just don't think it's necessarily the go-to solution to my problem.

That's a good point. On a non-logical level I suppose it doesn't really matter whether something is "real" as long as it helps. ...which makes me think of one of my favorite Dumbledore quotes: "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

Hmm. I might have to think about that one for a while. Maybe it'll help.

I'll have to look into Waking Up. I feel like having an intellectual base to support my beliefs would make me feel more secure. For that same reason, I've been taking a second look at a few paths that I passed over when I started a year ago. My practice has been eclectic because there didn't seem to be any one structured path that fit what I believed, but now I think I should reconsider some of them. Some structure might be helpful right now.

I agree that feeling agnostic shouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but it's never been a comfortable place for me personally. Intellectually, I accept that we (the general "we") can probably never prove the existence of any god, and I'm okay with that because I've done the research to back that statement up. But it's harder to be comfortable with agnosticism when it interferes with your emotional connection to something that gave you a lot of comfort and security.

Hopefully at least someone understands the problem I'm having here. I don't know how to reconcile this feeling of agnostic uncertainty with my real experiences - which I didn't feel the need to question and second-guess until now.

Has anyone else experienced something like this? How did you overcome your doubts and uncertainties? How did you reassure yourself that you weren't just taking to yourself, that the gods were really there and communicating with you?

 
I don't perceive agnosticism to be a position of doubt-and-uncertainty, and I haven't felt a need to overcome it.  It's a simple fact: when those of us who have numinous experiences have numinous experiences, we don't have any particular means of knowing precisely what those experiences are in some kind of objective sense.

Fundamentally, I can't see that it matters.  If my experiences of the numinous lead to me being a better person, who cares whether they're Factual Entities Doing Factual Things or Things My Mind Made Up?  (If there is a meaningful distinction to be accessed there at all?)  At the worst I spend a little more money on booze, food, and house decorations that I find pleasant.

The gods are the gods.  The nature of them is not something I know, not something I can know, and not something I spend a whole lot of time concerned with?

Has anyone else experienced something like this? How did you overcome your doubts and uncertainties? How did you reassure yourself that you weren't just taking to yourself, that the gods were really there and communicating with you?

Oh, I definitely experienced something like this for the longest time. From about middle school to my sophomore year in college I identified with atheism because I figured that absence of proof meant absence of existence. When I first discovered paganism, I completely dismissed a lot of what I found because of reasons like "you can't ~prove~ this shit," especially in terms of high rituals and interacting with gods.

I think the problem stems from science being taught as very no-nonsense and completely dismissive of anything that can't be outright proven. While there are areas when that very much needs to be the case, it doesn't apply so much to everyday life. It just ends with a lot of unnecessary second guessing and doubts that are extremely unhealthy at the end of the day. I spent a lot of my early pagan days wondering if I was just going schizo or if what I was experiencing was real.

Personally, what pushed me past all that was reading a book on neuropsychology (as you do), specifically about what goes on in the brain while people meditate, and the sort of attitudes that are the most helpful in mindful meditation. At the same time, I was reading a few self-help and witchcraft books that addressed the same issue, but from a spiritual-ish standpoint. Both sides were using the same techniques for the same ends, but one side was completely scientific where the other was absolutely not. It was sort of like, "Hey, maybe you don't need cold, hard facts to figure out what's right. It doesn't matter if it's real if it's for your own good in the end."

I still don't connect with any particular gods or goddesses, but I've completely fallen in love with fairies and folk magic. If there are gods out there, power to them and their followers, but I haven't really found any that I connect with the way I have with "lower" magic.

Oh, I definitely experienced something like this for the longest time. From about middle school to my sophomore year in college I identified with atheism because I figured that absence of proof meant absence of existence. When I first discovered paganism, I completely dismissed a lot of what I found because of reasons like "you can't ~prove~ this shit," especially in terms of high rituals and interacting with gods.

I think the problem stems from science being taught as very no-nonsense and completely dismissive of anything that can't be outright proven. While there are areas when that very much needs to be the case, it doesn't apply so much to everyday life. It just ends with a lot of unnecessary second guessing and doubts that are extremely unhealthy at the end of the day. I spent a lot of my early pagan days wondering if I was just going schizo or if what I was experiencing was real.

Personally, what pushed me past all that was reading a book on neuropsychology (as you do), specifically about what goes on in the brain while people meditate, and the sort of attitudes that are the most helpful in mindful meditation. At the same time, I was reading a few self-help and witchcraft books that addressed the same issue, but from a spiritual-ish standpoint. Both sides were using the same techniques for the same ends, but one side was completely scientific where the other was absolutely not. It was sort of like, "Hey, maybe you don't need cold, hard facts to figure out what's right. It doesn't matter if it's real if it's for your own good in the end."

I still don't connect with any particular gods or goddesses, but I've completely fallen in love with fairies and folk magic. If there are gods out there, power to them and their followers, but I haven't really found any that I connect with the way I have with "lower" magic.

 
The main things that stand out for me in this are as follows:

1. Religion and science answer two different sets of questions. How something works and how it relates to the experience of being human are two very different things, as are literal fact and symbolic truth.

2. The phrase "going schizo," in this case, is pretty problematic. Schizophrenia and schizotype disorders are a real thing, but the term "schizo" is a slur, not a diagnosis.

Hi everyone. I recently had a bit of a spiritual crisis that has left me feeling pretty lost, and questioning basically everything I've been doing over the past year.

...

But despite the fact that my spiritual life seems to be going exactly the way I wanted it to, I recently experienced a major setback of doubt and uncertainty that made me feel like I've been talking to an imaginary friend and wasting my time and money on woo-woo bullshit. It feels like my agnostic history is coming back to haunt me in a major way, and no matter what I do, I can't shake that doubt that the gods (including Loki) aren't really there and I've been attributing divine guidance to coincidences, a lifeless tarot deck, a randomly-swinging pendulum, and my own spotty intuition.
...
Has anyone else experienced something like this? How did you overcome your doubts and uncertainties? How did you reassure yourself that you weren't just taking to yourself, that the gods were really there and communicating with you?

 
Oh, the woo-woo bullshit.  Yep.  Been there.  I'm glad you've already found the agnostic theism term-- when you're feeling a bit more grounded, poke into Chaos Magick if you haven't already had the pleasure.  

In the meantime... a few people have been pretty clear about how you don't actually have to reconcile 'belief' with 'knowledge'.  My godmother (yes, really) reminds me that your 'heart-knowing' and your 'head-knowing' aren't always on the same page, but your 'head-knowing' isn't really that smart and usually just screws up all your happy.  I think this works really, really well for her... and is hard for me.  I live in my head.  When I first figured out this thing called Paganism kinda worked for me, I actually tried to codify all of my beliefs into a single book (no, not kidding).  Needless to say, it was a disaster (schwertlilie, do you remember that crazy first "book of EVERYTHING"??).  

It isn't going to be easy to remind your head that you're making a different kind of choice, but if you can find a pattern/thing/'logic' that allows you to reconcile it (ie: agnostic theism, chaos magick, something) it'll help.  In my case... I had a total meltdown that led to a very memorable experience with a particular entity that I 'patterned' into one phrase.  I use that phrase like a mantra whenever my head gets caught up in being doubtful.  The memory of that experience, and the phrase I use to recall that, completely blow away any doubt.  

... Of course, I don't actually share any of my woo-woo weird crap with people off-boards, unless they're very pagan and share their own woo-woo weird crap first, but hey.  It works for me.  

Hi everyone. I recently had a bit of a spiritual crisis that has left me feeling pretty lost, and questioning basically everything I've been doing over the past year.

I declared myself a pagan and polytheist just about a year ago. Prior to that, I called myself agnostic for over 6 years while I studied and occasionally dabbled in a variety of religions. I would say that I was happy being agnostic, but deep down I always felt like there was a hole in my life where my spirituality should have been. Finding a pagan path felt like finding the missing piece of my personal puzzle.

I was able to "convert" from agnosticism to polytheism because I was able to choose which deities I wanted to worship, what beliefs I wanted to have, what ethical teachings I wanted to follow, what practices I wanted to keep, and so forth. That element of choice was exactly what the other religions I dabbled in lacked.

This worked well for me for a while, despite the fact that I received very little response from the goddesses I chose to worship, but eventually my daily practices stopped because I felt like I was going nowhere. I didn't know what else to do at the time since worship hadn't produced very satisfying results. So I was a non-practicing pagan for a few months. Then, in the midst of a very difficult semester, I decided that I needed some spiritual support again. I started meditating again and the last god I would have expected - Loki - reached out to me, and I finally started getting the contact I wanted when I first started a year ago.

But despite the fact that my spiritual life seems to be going exactly the way I wanted it to, I recently experienced a major setback of doubt and uncertainty that made me feel like I've been talking to an imaginary friend and wasting my time and money on woo-woo bullshit. It feels like my agnostic history is coming back to haunt me in a major way, and no matter what I do, I can't shake that doubt that the gods (including Loki) aren't really there and I've been attributing divine guidance to coincidences, a lifeless tarot deck, a randomly-swinging pendulum, and my own spotty intuition.

The worst part is that it feels like the logical part of my brain is tearing itself apart over this. My agnosticism was always based in logic; since there was no objective proof that any god existed or didn't exist, I firmly believed that it was impossible to know for sure until proof was found - and I didn't think we would EVER find proof. Currently, I believe that the gods are very personal and probably not proveable; the gods are real to those who believe in them, and unreal to those who don't. On top of that, I've been in pretty close communication with a god for several weeks now, so there's no reason for me to question whether he's really there or not.

So, to sum that up, my logic is punching itself in the face over two beliefs: a) nobody can ever prove that the gods are real or not real, and b) I've been in contact with a god for weeks so I know that at least one god is real. The fact that I've encountered a god should dispel all of my doubts... but it doesn't. I still have this powerful, insistent feeling of uncertainty and fear that everything I'm doing is wrong and false and not what I think it is.

Hopefully at least someone understands the problem I'm having here. I don't know how to reconcile this feeling of agnostic uncertainty with my real experiences - which I didn't feel the need to question and second-guess until now. This is causing me a surprising amount of distress, too; the feeling of connection to a deity brought me a sense of peace that I've never felt before, and now I feel like I've lost that peace - and that's incredibly terrifying to me.

This might be a manifestation of generalized anxiety disorder (which I have been able to control very well for several years now) because these are the same kind of fearful, repeating, spiraling, negative thoughts I always had when I had an anxiety attack over something. But unlike, for example, the anxiety I used to have about academic issues, I can't step back and look at my good grades to assure myself that I'm worrying about nothing. I have always been able to calm myself down with a change in perspective; but how do you take a different perspective on something you're not sure is even there?

Has anyone else experienced something like this? How did you overcome your doubts and uncertainties? How did you reassure yourself that you weren't just taking to yourself, that the gods were really there and communicating with you?

Hi sea-salt. Sounds like you've found some support and already started to work your way through this, but I just wanted to say I have gone through these sorts of feelings too. You say you are from a Catholic family, and I am from a Christian family as well. As a Christian, I had a LOT of anxiety about whether I really believed enough to not be sent to hell. Because that's a big emphasis of Christianity, at least the way I learned it. When I converted to paganism, I was so happy to have found a religion that isn't about fear and punishment and proving how good you are... Only to find I had brought my anxiety about "real" faith with me, despite it not being appropriate it necessary anymore. Recognizing this world view and realizing that it's not the only world view out there really helped me to overcome it.

You're definitely not the only one to struggle with doubts that come back again and again. One thing that has helped me in the past is to take a more lighthearted attitude for a while - to tell myself, I'm having fun doing this, it doesn't matter if I do it right or if it's real, I'm just going to have fun. Also, I've found that I'm much happier and more comfortable focusing on why I want to practice rather than what I actually believe. Being pagan - at least a solitary eclectic pagan like I am, and I think you said you are too - means that you don't have to decide what you believe right away, and you are never required to believe anything! As you practice, you can start to explore and understand what you believe - but you are always allowed to change your mind.