The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

It feels as though my skepticism is winning, although I know different thoughts can only either be ahead or behind at the time - nothing ever truly wins or loses.

Anyway, I've always been a skeptic but I do believe in some kind of soul or at least a deeper connection to something which humans are inexplicitly drawn towards... as I am drawn back to this site, reading about the same stuff I was reading 5-6 years ago, but with significantly less seriousness.
The thing is, I dont want to be overly skeptical. I want to be more open minded, because I'll probably be able to achieve so much more.

I've tried "Asatru", reconstructionism, I've tried general neo-paganism, and I always drift away over time. I'm not even drawn to that side of paganism anymore. I was probably enticed by the glamour of it all.

What I need before the fancy rituals and the fluff is a total viewpoint overhaul.
I need "spirituality for idiots" so whatever advice you can give a failed pagan (I dont even like the term pagan) back at square one, I am open to it.

Any books/blogs/whatever?
Personal advice?
Info about different factions?

PM or comment with any questions, please dont hesitate!

Thank you

It feels as though my skepticism is winning, although I know different thoughts can only either be ahead or behind at the time - nothing ever truly wins or loses.

Anyway, I've always been a skeptic but I do believe in some kind of soul or at least a deeper connection to something which humans are inexplicitly drawn towards... as I am drawn back to this site, reading about the same stuff I was reading 5-6 years ago, but with significantly less seriousness.
The thing is, I dont want to be overly skeptical. I want to be more open minded, because I'll probably be able to achieve so much more.

I've tried "Asatru", reconstructionism, I've tried general neo-paganism, and I always drift away over time. I'm not even drawn to that side of paganism anymore. I was probably enticed by the glamour of it all.

What I need before the fancy rituals and the fluff is a total viewpoint overhaul.
I need "spirituality for idiots" so whatever advice you can give a failed pagan (I dont even like the term pagan) back at square one, I am open to it.

Any books/blogs/whatever?
Personal advice?
Info about different factions?

PM or comment with any questions, please dont hesitate!

Thank you

 
Err...why? You don't have to be a believer. As you probably should not force yourself anyway. There is nothing inherently wrong with selective disbelief, and its something that everyone does to some extent. Skepticism can be healthy too, even in Contemporary Polytheism. In fact, it is probably quite healthy to be so.

And in truth, you don't have to choose one or the other. It is even possible to be an atheist or an agnostic, and still remain a 'pagan'. There are schools of thought that view the theology as purely metaphorical, the gods are regarded as symbols and archetypes, and the rituals are about community building. All these are a part of polytheism anyway, so there's no real conflict.

Any books/blogs/whatever?
Personal advice?
Info about different factions?

 
This is a hard one for me to give advice about, because it sounds like what you want is experience of the numinous, and then to figure out how to find that a bit more often, to start with.

I think there's a difference between that which is numinous (which is out there, whether we go looking for it, or embrace it, or not, sort of like the colour brown or the night sky is out there, whether or not we pay attention to it) and what we do about that numinousness.

Human religion is about a lot of things. For some people, it's about community, support in hard times and celebration in the good ones. For some people, it's about cultural connections, sharing traditions that have been part of their family for many years, even if they don't believe strongly in all the pieces anymore (or never have.) For some people it's about making sense of a complicated world and finding guidance on how to be more of the kind of person they want to be. For some people, it's about other things.

And for a lot of people, it's about more than one of these things at a time, though maybe in different proportions at different times in their lives.

But one of the other things religion is about is giving us a technology to help us reach for the numinous, the sense of the sacred. These ritual methods don't work for everyone, or don't work the same for everyone all the time - we're human, we have good days and bad days, and times the thing works well, and the times we're so caught up in our own heads we'd fall off a cliff if it didn't come with warning signs.

What things bring us to numinousness vary a lot.
Here's some stuff that might be worth trying. Stuff on this list is stuff that shows up in a lot of people's conversations about this stuff, or has worked for me (or both) and I'm sure other people can contribute other lists. This is just a sampling.

• Find music that sends shivers down your spine. Listen to it. Once a day. On repeat for hours. Whatever helps you keep that sense of openness to the possible.
• Seek out books - fiction or non-fiction - that expand your sense of wonder or magic or possibility. (Some ideas below)
• Find spaces in which you feel like there's something more out there. For some people this is in a field, or a forest, or under a starry sky, or swimming in a pool, or dancing. All those things and many more. If you're not sure what to try, see below.
• Talk to someone who knows you well (and is on your side!) about what they like about you, what they've noticed makes you light up, or be awesome.
• Cook your favourite meal, or one that is a favourite of someone you love. How does it make you feel? Spend time with the experience rather than just getting the food made.
• Go to a place that makes you feel happy, or even better, that awed happy could be there for hours feeling. If you can't go there in person, go there in your memory. What do you like so much about it? What's important to you about how it feels? Are there other places that have parts of that for you?
• Many people find mindfulness meditation or other forms of meditation helpful here, but enough people find meditation tricky (especially to get started) that it's hard to recommend it directly. That said, if you try the other things above and don't find anything that works, committing to spend 10-15 minutes sitting quietly every day with your thoughts won't hurt: see what comes up.
• If you do divination, try some of it about this. (If you don't, don't worry about it.)

What if you need ideas?
Take some time to just explore ideas without judgement or commitment. Read through back posts here, and see what things draw your attention, seem even a little intriguing. Read The Wild Hunt, and see what paths, groups, people, event descriptions, or whatever have bits that make you sit up and go "Huh, that sounds sort of interesting." Wander around the Pagan blogosphere and do the same thing.

Do searches on Pinterest and Google Image, and see what things make you go "oooh". Do the same thing on YouTube with music streaming or videos. Wander down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. Go to your local library and wander around the stacks and see what book titles  or subjects leap out at you, or what area makes you feel more comfortable, more like the self you'd like to be.

Don't linger, necessarily, don't study. Just pay attention (and make a note or two) about what sparks interest. And keep moving towards the things that make you feel curious, intrigued, engaged, more open. What made you feel good? What was a light going on over your head? Is that a thing you want more of?

Try that for a month or longer (long enough that it's not just about your mood right now, or feeling overwhelmed with a particular thing in your life) and see what things you kept coming back to.

This might also be a good time to step away from things that make you feel more closed off. (This is *really* hard in the current US political cycle for a lot of people, but there's ways around some oft it: I keep my political news brief, and from sources that are as much about questions and deeper understanding, not soundbites and sniping. Advertising, in general, tends to shut down a lot of openness to the world: avoiding stuff with ads can do a lot to change overall outlook for some people.

You might also want to try very loosely framed journalling: some people like the 'daily pages' idea from Julia Cameron's Artists Way books a lot, where you sit down and write 3 pages handwritten (people who do it online do 750 words). No editing, and if what you write is "I don't know what to write" over and over, that's fine. Lots of people fnd that over the course of days or weeks, it shakes something loose in them, and helps them get a better grasp on things they do want to look at.

Things to read
I find making reading suggestions like this really hard despite being a librarian (because if I were doing them *as* a librarian, we'd be having a slightly different kind of conversation, and I'd be asking different kinds of questions.

I find a lot of numinousness in speculative fiction. Right now I'm reading a collection of short stories that just came out, called The Starlit Wood, which are retellings of fairy tales. Some are bright and some are darker, and some I like and some I'm not sure about, but they're basically all making me think, and some of them have that spark of numinous potential for me.

Other books or authors who do that for me pretty reliably: Lois McMaster Bujold (especially her Chalion books, but basically everything somewhere.) Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and American Gods. Rosemary Edghill's Bast novels and stories. Pamela Dean's Tam Lin.

Not all of them are SF: the Amelia Peabody series of mysteries, or some of the Mary Russell series, for example. A lot are harder to explain or pick out, or there are books I was mostly reading for escapist pleasure, but they have that one moment where I sat up, and went "OH" at it a lot. My books are different than your books will be. (or your music, or your movies or your whatever other media.) But finding those things, seeking them out, that has never been a disappointment to me.

Oh my god, I'm actually going to save what you said and refer to it as often as I need.
It makes sense 100%, and I can totally relate with everything.
Thank you!

Interestingly enough, my belief in a soul was how I talked myself into accepting my pagan beliefs as well. If I believe in souls, which are inherently something that is beyond physical existence, beyond anything that can be scientifically measured or rationalized, then other things that are beyond the physical world must be considered as potentially real. Since I believe animals have souls, that raises the question of what creates a soul or determines the existence of a soul - if mammals, birds, and fish have souls, do insects have souls? Is there something about an insect that would make it more worthy of having a soul than a plant? And if plants have souls, why would the idea of nature spirits be unreasonable?

Amazing advice! Thank you.
I'll consider a lot of this.

 
There has been a lot of great advice in this thread. I hope you are able to figure something out.

I used to be a devout skeptic and non- believer in everything. Studying philosophy helped me to overcome this, however. You said that you need a worldview overhaul, so maybe reading up on philosophy to discover what you truly think about the world would be a worthwhile task. Wikipedia is good for brief overviews of different philosophical fields, but I am sure there are good blogs out there somewhere. I will need to dig out my old textbooks.

This helped me overcome my skepticism. Specifically the Myth of Sisyphus by absurdist Albert Camus. Figuring out how you feel about the world will help decide what is important to you. Then you might find you fit better with a particular belief.

It was recommended on a pagan blog - I'll try and find the link and post it later.

http://gleewood.org/seeking/

http://bean-chaointe.tumblr.com/resources

http://thepaganstudygroupresourcepage.tumblr.com/paganism

This article on spiritual addiction by Adyashanti really made me sit up and think about how I was approaching spirituality. I bought the book, haven't read it yet, though. (My TBR pile is huge...) http://www.ofspirit.com/adyashanti1.htm