Blest is the happy man
Who knows the Mysteries the gods ordain (Euripides)

It is a mystery – that we can be One and also separate, and likewise the gods.

I’ve been studying Wicca, and it really appeals to me. But I was raised Christian. Can I practice both at the same time?

First off, you should know that this is a very loaded question, and you might receive different answers from different Wiccans, Pagans, and Christians. This is my two cents, but I don’t pretend to speak for everyone in these communities.

Can It Be Done?

I think it’s not impossible to practice Wicca or Paganism and Christianity fully at the same time, but it’s difficult, because there's a fundamental conflict over deity. Christianity asks Christians to accept Jesus as their savior, and the Bible makes it pretty clear that the Christian god is the only god for Christians. Pagans, however, usually worship gods other than or in addition to the Christian god. So it’s challenging to be a fully practicing Christian and a fully practicing Pagan at the same time, while still being true to both traditions.

Awake in beauty - rsi m nfr
Awake in peace - rsi m htp
Awake my soul in beauty and peace
Awake in beauty and peace, Great Ones in the Boat of a Million Years
Awake in beauty and peace, ancestors, guides, spirit friends and elements
Dua!  Iti m htp - Hail and welcome!

This is the beginning of my daily morning devotional, based on an ancient Egyptian prayer. As I light a candle* while offering this prayer, I imagine myself in my wholeness as if my soul is waking to a renewed awareness of its immortality.  I remember the great continuous thread of existence of which I am a part.  I rebirth myself into the present moment, ready to bring the gifts of the past and future into my day.

I belong to a local, Pan-Pagan group.  I was a member of it about seven or eight years ago, but it was a bit too chaotic and "fluffy" for my tastes.  I didn't end up sticking around for long as a result, but it did good work in the community and meant well, so it's existence didn't really bother me either.  It just wasn't for me, but it served it's purpose.  Recently, the organization went under a fair amount of upheaval and was in danger of breaking apart due to infighting and disagreements. 

It had managed to achieve non-profit status about three or four years ago, so people came forward to try and help repair the damage and keep it alive.  While not the most conservative state in the union, Pennsylvania is hardly what I'd call progressive either.  As such, having a Pagan organization with non-profit status is something worthy of celebrating and definitely provokes some consideration.  Some of the local Heathens were part of the initial efforts to rebuild the organization from the ground up, and informed me of the issues at hand.  I decided I wanted to help as well, which brings us to the moment where I found myself in a county owned recreational center, sitting in on one of the meetings.

At one point, the conversation turned to the subject of how to make events and rituals mutually inclusive and respectful to all people who might be in attendance.  Towards the end of the discussion, an elderly woman of an amicable nature said "We should all stop arguing, and just worship the Earth."  She said this while wearing an expression that suggested she felt that this was so universal of a truth there could be no way that anyone who called themselves Witch, Pagan, or Polytheist could possibly disagree.  It wasn't an opinion, to her; it was fact.

Most of the people in attendance were Wiccans and/or Monists of various philosophies, so she didn't seem to actually offend anyone.  Even my fellow Heathens and I were sort of used to these statement from her, so we didn't really see the point in working ourselves up over the issue.  Getting angry at this sort of person is like yelling at a cloud; it does nothing, and they didn't come from someone who was particularly polarizing.  She's just the typical representation of someone who thinks they're so inclusive that couldn't possibly make an excluding statement.

The thing is, however, that I've seen so many theological arguments come from this exact scenario; someone makes some sort of presumption for all of Paganism, and than they come across someone who believes the exact opposite.  The next step is that the disagreeing Pagan will point out, often times with great offense, that the person is very wrong.  Typically, the person who made the faux-inclusive statement gets defensive, because they aren't bigoted and/or privileged so of COURSE the other person is just being too sensitive, and than an argument breaks out.

We've all seen his exact scenario play out a lot, especially over the last year or two.  I stay out of these fights because, to be quite simple about it, I don't recognize the authority of some fool sitting off on the sideline making proclamations that are less authoritative on a given religion than the content of a Wikipedia article.  Some people, however, don't go by that standard and I can't blame them; when you practice a minority religion, you find yourself bombarded with a rather alarming amount of social faux pas. 

That's putting it very diplomatically to be sure, but it cuts to the core nicely.  Being the target of so many social and diplomatic mistakes, you expect people who also practices minority religions to be more mindful and considerate.  After all, regardless of whether you are a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Gardenerian Wiccan, a solitary practitioner, or what have you...in many circles within North America and (I suspect) Europe, you are going to be the targets of some similar acts of ignorance, privilege*, and stupidity.  You expect that anyone who is in a similar situation would take equal effort in being mindful of the theology and philosophy of others.

So when that expectation is let down, it's easy to get extremely angry about it.

I am Heathen.  I do respect the Earth, no doubt; there are spirits both animist and ancestral that reside on it and within it, and I do my best to show them the respect and thankfulness my tradition says that they are due.  I do not, however, worship the Earth; that's a word that I direct towards divine figures almost exclusively.  Even with ancestors, the term "worship" is used differently than I use it when I talk about Gods.  That is my path, and no one gets to tell me what it's about or what I should or should not be worshiping.**

You are...well, whatever you are.  Whatever your tradition, path, or philosophy, it is up to you to define your worldview as best as you are able.  In the meantime, for the sake of the Ancestors, Gods, the Earth,or even the Flying Spaghetti Monster, don't act like your path is mine.  At least, not before we've talked and discovered that together.  Not until you truly know, rather than feel you can  reasonably presume.  Your path does not represent the whole spectrum of non-Abrhamic and/or non-Islamic belief,*** so don't pretend that it does.

You have the right to your beliefs, but that right ends at the beginning of every other person's belief.  No matter then intention, someone trying to unify all faiths across the world into a single thread is going to end up insulting someone.  Probably a lot of someones.  No matter the intentions, it becomes exactly like being told that you are a Satanist because you're not Christian.  Improperly worded or poorly thought out statements about religious unity contain a very similar message; they involve telling someone what their faith is, without their consent or consideration of their person.  Should we be surprised that such statements end poorly when the presume so many things that, in many case, trip over many of our own psychological wounds? 

No matter what you wish to say when it comes to religion, you'll find someone who disagrees.  That is wonderful!  After decades and centuries of religious thought having been homogenized, by legal mandate in some cases, we have the opportunity to form our religious standards, philosophies, and concepts.  In many places in the world, such processes even have legal protection.  We get to disagree on religion, and have that not be a big deal.  We can identify, build, and form spiritual relationships in ways that were unthinkable a few generations ago.  Savor that! 

This statement even applies to my Monist friends; even if you feel all paths are one, the wondrous permutations of that one idea are split into thousands of ideas like the light of one sun traveling through a prism.  This isn't a cause for contention.  It is a cause to rejoice!

Even this statement that I am making now will find some who disagree with it, and I'm okay with that.  The person who disagrees with probably will be as well, because I'm about to say one thing; this is how I see things.  I speak for no one else but myself, because I'm the only person I have the authority to speak for.  Everyone else needs to speak for themselves.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Different kinds of knowing, each having their own veracity and value, are to be cultivated and used appropriately. However, there is one kind of knowing we should avoid as much as possible: belief.

Book of the Dead, Book of the Amduat, Book of Caverns, Coffin Texts, Book of the Night, Book of the Earth, Book of Gates - these and more comprise a group of ancient Egyptian texts which describe the journey of Ra through the night world and, by extension, that of the dead soul following his pattern. First discovered by Champollion in the Valley of the Kings in 1829, they were pretty much dismissed as priestly fantasies by subsequent Egyptologists, though Maspero and Lefébure worked on deciphering some of the books in the 19th century. Only in the 20th century did scholars like Piankoff and Hornung begin to really study this rich material.

But I can understand why some were initially put off. I even found myself commenting last week to a friend, “The ancient Egyptians were in their own way just as nutty as the early Christians!” (If you’ve read all the lately-translated apocryphal texts you’ll know what I mean.) Hornung’s The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife is a blow-by-blow description of what you see in the accompanying drawings. Page after page of embellishments, fantastical netherworld characters, and attempts to graphically illustrate esoteric concepts begin to make me a bit dizzy. I start to wonder just how much artistic license the different priest-artist-scribes employed while creating their masterpieces.

But I’ve reconsidered. Some say that pre-industrial people did not distinguish between the physical and the realm of the soul, as we do now. Certainly, the written record indicates that Egyptians viewed every part of existence as infused with meaning and spirit. The books of the afterlife predominantly depict and describe these ideas, illustrated with a seemingly-endless pantheon of otherworldly deities and characters. Hence, a human figure with the head of an cobra can stand for the motherly protection for which the cobra was noted.  A floating pair of arms may denote protection, or the reverential passing of the sun disk from one place to another. Mummies are shown which have waked from the dead and turned over in their coffin, the implication being that they are about to rise and walk into a new life. And snakes - there are a lot of snakes, some of them a protective coil or ourobouros, and others represent the sinister Apep (or Apophis).

Egyptian culture was one that valued dreams and the numinous. The Duat was nothing if not liminal, poised as it was on the edges between life and death and new life, between conscious and subconscious, between this world and the next. I can imagine that priests who were truly devoted to their practice and craft would birth fresh ideas in the course of temple life. No doubt, some also wanted to impress the client with elaborate products that might be perceived as better than the last client’s - though most of these works were found in tombs of pharaohs. The texts also span many centuries and several locales; given how different English communications now are radically different from only 400 years ago, I would likewise expect Egyptian texts to show some evolution.

The afterlife books also remind me of the value of personal gnosis. Our scientific era has made this a dicey subject - how can gnosis replace so-called verifiable fact? But ancient Egyptians understood the importance of those insights which can only emerge from within, from the dark waters of the Duat, or from the watery interior of Nut’s body (through which the sun also passed during the night). Pondering the mysteries of the afterlife texts is like stepping into those waters and exploring, one foot in the conscious world and one in that of the soul.

Though my people are Methodists on one side and Baptists on the other, I was not raised in either church. I got formal religious training from a parochial Lutheran elementary school and my own intellectual curiosity. Friends and neighbors invited me to visit their churches with them and I sometimes did--giving me an interesting smattering of all kinds of ceremonies and observances.  My grandmother sang in the choir of a small Methodist church and I sometimes went to church with her and my grandfather. I sat in the second row between him and a former mayor of our little town and I was very well-behaved. Of course.

I have never been christened or baptized because I grew up "unchurched," as we say in the South. One of the best parts of that sort of upbringing is that I don't carry around a load of anger or fear or resentment for my treatment at the hands of a monolithic institution like The Church. And I got to make macaroni picture frames in vacation bible school and I was a sure winner at the Sword Drill.