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Aug. 9th, 2006 06:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badstarJust read the book Being A Pagan by Ellen Evert Hopman and Lawrence Bond. It's a collection of interviews with a bunch of pagans, mostly "pagan celebrities".
My main thought in response to the book:
The ask nearly every interviewee "How did you first discover that you were a pagan?" or "when did you discover that you were a witch?"
It's like asking someone when they were first diagnosed with an astigmatism, or how they found out that they had a learning disability.
It's not a diagnosis. You can't be a witch and not know it. You may have beliefs that you don't realize could be considered pagan, but that doesn't automatically make you so unbeknownst to you.
That and...
"paganism is one of the Earth religions." (pg. 264)
Oh really? What are the other "Earth religions"? Are there Neptune and Jupiter and Pluto religions too?
Oh yeah... "paganism" isn't a religion.
Interesting enough book. No plans to run out and snap up my own copy though.
My main thought in response to the book:
The ask nearly every interviewee "How did you first discover that you were a pagan?" or "when did you discover that you were a witch?"
It's like asking someone when they were first diagnosed with an astigmatism, or how they found out that they had a learning disability.
It's not a diagnosis. You can't be a witch and not know it. You may have beliefs that you don't realize could be considered pagan, but that doesn't automatically make you so unbeknownst to you.
That and...
"paganism is one of the Earth religions." (pg. 264)
Oh really? What are the other "Earth religions"? Are there Neptune and Jupiter and Pluto religions too?
Oh yeah... "paganism" isn't a religion.
Interesting enough book. No plans to run out and snap up my own copy though.
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Date: 2006-08-09 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-10 03:01 pm (UTC)I've often described the typical "Pagan Conversion Experience" as being either "Other people think this way too?" or "There's a name for my beliefs?", as opposed to the typical "Praise Jesus! I have seen the Light!"
For many people, the "Conversion Experience" is real, meaningful, and of significant impact in their life. I suspect that the most common answer to the question as phrased is something like "I guess I always was pagan/a witch, but I didn't consider myself pagan/a witch until...."