Pagan Coffee Talk
We will discuss topics related to the Pagan community. All views are from a traditionalist's point of view. The conversations are unscripted (no preparations have been made ahead of time). A special thanks to Darkest Era for the use of their songs: Intro- The Morrigan, Exit - Poem to the Gael. Check them out at http://darkestera.net/.
Pagan Coffee Talk
Exploring Relationships With Deity
Ever wondered about the nuances of the human-deity relationship and the concept of souls? Ready to challenge your understanding of your place in the universe? Strap in as we shed light on a unique perspective that regards humans as mere reflections of deity, not the divine sources.
Shifting gears, we also explore the crux of symbolism and devotion in witchcraft. Listen in as we stress the value of nurturing personal intuition and decoding the energies that engulf us, rather than relying on books and external sources. We discuss the crucial commitment our spiritual practice demands and the challenges that accompany elevated spiritual growth. We embark on a thought-provoking discussion about the formation of souls and the potential of all beings amalgamating into a unified super soul.
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Welcome to Peg and Coffee Talk. Here are your hosts, azuan and Lord Knight. Let's discuss the topic. We Are Not Gods.
Speaker 2:Oh God, no, we're not. I hear this a lot.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say we've been seeing this over and over.
Speaker 2:And again, yes, we hear this more from other religions than our own, right. Oh, they think they're gods and blah, blah, blah and all this other stuff. But that's not actually what we believe. The relationship between humanity and deity. We sort of take the same stances, like the Christians to a certain extent, except we don't believe our bodies are a reflection of deity, our physical bodies. Okay, that's gonna be confusing to some.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean in Christianity, okay, the concept goes, we were mating in God's image, right, right. And which they're talking about? The physical body, the two arms, the two legs, the torso, the head, blah, blah, blah, right Right. In paganism, we sort of look at it like we see ourselves along the lines of we are the spot of light on the wall, but we're not the source of the light. Okay, all right, that we are basically a reflection of the deity and our connection to it is that spark of life that we have, that soul, that thing that gives us that little extra. All right, it's hard to explain that, that spark, that divine that's in everybody. Right, that spark of life is what we're talking about. We're not talking about something oh hey, no, I'm a God and you have. No, that's not what we're talking about. Because, again, our thought here is that the God's relationship to us is sort of like our opinion has about as much weight as the opinion that you have of a cell that just died on your hand. All right.
Speaker 2:That makes sense. All right, that's sort of deity's thought with us. I mean, yes, we are a part of it, but we're such a small part.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's kind of like saying you're a piece of sand on the beach, You're still part of the beach, but you're just a tiny little crane.
Speaker 2:Well, again, as this is where in the world you keep on hearing us talk about, where we refer to ourselves as the NAD on the ass end of a whale, right, you know that whale don't even know we exist, right, and this is the way we see the source. The source doesn't I don't want to say it doesn't recognize that we exist, but it's thought to us is very limited.
Speaker 1:So then, in that case, what is it we're interacting with when we have ritual, when we do our meditations and we interact with deity? What is it we're interacting with?
Speaker 2:Well, we're interacting with what we got. Okay, there's the source, and then there's deity, and deity is the way we've referred to the source.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Because the source is so far beyond us our comprehension of it is impossible, so we're using deity to break down the source to a level we can understand.
Speaker 2:Right, if you think about it this way for the geeks out there is sort of like buying a skin for a video game. Okay, I mean, literally, you know, no, no, no, no. I want the dog into a skin. All right, that's the one we're going to work with. This is literally what we're doing, and our belief in this and our connection to it literally is as the way we think of our hair or stuff like this. I guess we are a part of it, but we have no divine right, or I don't know how to put that.
Speaker 2:We don't see ourselves as special Right. We still have to work inside this realm.
Speaker 1:All right, we still have our limitations.
Speaker 2:Right. Again we're back to. This whole entire concept is, if you go around telling everybody that they're special, nobody's special.
Speaker 1:Right. I mean, I know, that sounds weird, but again it does, but it makes sense, because I mean, you're right, If you're telling everybody oh, you're so special, you're so special, then nobody's special, nobody's special.
Speaker 2:Again, this is what we're saying about our connection with theity. I'll have it. We all have that connection. We're all you're born with it, it's not something to be achieved.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know we have that connection just through sheer being born, do you think?
Speaker 1:it's kind of like the whole? Like years ago they used to say we are made out of stardust, right? So therefore we are part of whatever makes up the universe itself.
Speaker 2:Yes, we are made up of star stuff.
Speaker 1:So, therefore, we all have that spark of deity within us.
Speaker 2:Right, that spark of that divine, that which makes us alive, that gives us that little bit of something else, something that separates us, or certain souls, from not souls. Wow, Well, again we've discussed this before you know again, I don't believe a sea sponge or a sea snail or something like that actually have souls in them.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:All right. So they're just living things. There's not that extra spark of something there.
Speaker 1:Okay, but what about your view on reincarnation, where you said we go up the chain?
Speaker 2:What we do.
Speaker 1:We're starting as something. So if we start as a starfish or sea sponge, wouldn't we?
Speaker 2:still be a soul. Well again, but you got to remember, our concept of a soul is nothing more than organized thought. It's nothing more than a form of organized energy and a particular pattern.
Speaker 1:Okay, so something like a sea sponge is just like random energy random energy, random thoughts.
Speaker 2:They may have, for the lack of a better word some sort of proto soul? Okay, where it's just a single thought, is just survival.
Speaker 1:All right, I can get on board with that.
Speaker 2:We're still back to. Souls have to be created, souls have to fall apart. And again, if we believe that there are thoughts, energy, right, that souls are nothing more than energy and a particular pattern we refer to as thought, right. It has to start somewhere, there has to be a concept, there has to be something for things to start hanging on to.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:If we look at it this way, it's sort of like in the same way I see us the way we describe how planets are made. First of all, there's one big rock or something that's heavier than the other, and it starts pulling in all these other things. This is how, I think, souls are created there's a thought that becomes strong enough that it starts to pull other thoughts to it.
Speaker 1:So it becomes a magnet.
Speaker 2:So it becomes like a magnet and eventually grows over time. But there's a point to where it starts to become less of a thought and more of a soul. It seems to be able to start manipulating its own energy, its own thoughts and creating new things out of that.
Speaker 1:Okay, makes sense. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2:But again, our connection to deity is believe this is the same path that the source may have started. I'm paying billion, trillion.
Speaker 1:So you think this is possibly something, but I mean, there's only one source. So is this something that we are on a path to becoming?
Speaker 2:the source? I believe so, but it would be more of a group thing. Does that make sense? So it would be like we were the Borg, basically, that humanity or something, when we get to the other side. Well, one day maybe get to the point where in the world it fuses together to become one gigantic new source in another self. The source broke itself apart to create itself.
Speaker 1:Oh, now you're talking physics Right.
Speaker 2:Literally, this is how the idea goes is that there is a source and that the source was lonely and it created all of this to recreate a being just like itself that it can associate with. And yes, it might be the emerging of all these souls into one gigantic super soul one day in the far off future. But we I mean personally I simply believe we got a lot to learn as individuals.
Speaker 1:That's definitely.
Speaker 2:We got to get our spirituality back because we've were seriously losing that over the years We've been down the truth. Does any of this help with the connection? Because it's a very odd thing we never actually believe ourselves to be deity Right Now. Yes, we do have incarnation, which we believe that the energy of our deity controls us or possesses us temporarily Right Now. Don't get me wrong. Does it take a few days to get off that high? Yes, does it fuck up your thoughts? Yes, it's easy to sit there and hurt yourself because you're kind of like oh, what does it really matter if I pass through fire?
Speaker 3:Oh, wait a minute.
Speaker 2:That ain't really my thoughts. It's my connection with deity.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So I could understand where people might get confused on this subject. Because of the incarnation, because, right then and there, yes, we are representing a physical body inhabited by a deity.
Speaker 1:Well, I was going to say, I mean, even when we are in ritual, we are the representative of deity. Right, the priestess is the representative of the goddess we are, the priests are the representative of the god.
Speaker 2:Right, and again we still have this whole entire. We have this whole entire thing here. Which a lot of people don't seem to always grasp is that we all have spirituality. We all have it. We're not going to run out of it. It's not something, it's not some commodity on a shelf, right, all right. So anybody sitting there going oh, no, no, no, we need to go get it out, before all these other people that thought that line of thinking isn't real. I don't believe in it. It's bullshit, it's a lie. I believe it's something that each person actually has. We are born with that connection.
Speaker 2:The only problem is what we do with it after what we do with it.
Speaker 1:That's a different story.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, and again I mean, this happened over the years. We we've had a few people that have been initiated first degree and then they go off through their own life and be solitary. Some of them stop doing their practices and their meditations and when we talk to them now, even though sit there and tell you no, I don't feel that connection quite as much. I don't feel that spirituality Right, Because this is a muscle, just like anything else we do. If we don't use it, we'll lose it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know. So, again, when we're sitting here, when I'm sitting here and like going going through YouTube to try to find subjects and stuff you might be interested, in and talk to and yet you know I I'll, you see, I mean, and again, I'm doing searches like traditional witchcraft, witchcraft, wick, paganism, right as broad as I can, so I can get as much as I can, and every time I do this, all I see are fucking more goddamn fucking spells.
Speaker 2:Or more freaking card readings. How many freaking card readings do you need? Where is your spirituality? Where is your worship of the deity? Nowhere to be found. Because you're not religious. Y'all are just magicians. And so you're telling yourselves that this is a wonderful gift that the gods have given us, and if you don't take advantage of it, I I Well, I mean, if you don't take advantage of it, that's your business, but don't sit there and complain.
Speaker 1:And don't sit there and whine and sit there and try to, because you're not feeling anything.
Speaker 2:And try to blow smoke up my butt, trying to explain to me oh, no, no, no, this is spiritual. No, this the last time you worshiped the gods, the last time you communicated with them or anything, were years ago, and I don't see people talking about stuff like this. What is our connection, what is our relationship with deity?
Speaker 1:All right, Well, I was going to say along those lines what can we do to increase that connection?
Speaker 2:Well, you hear a lot of people oh no, you got to work with the deity. Ok, y'all, stop this whole working with the deity and crap. That's not what you're really doing. You're doing research. Working with deity is sitting down, going into your safe space, summoning deity into your safe space and sitting there talking to them, building an actual relationship with them, asking them questions and trying your best to hear the answers back. You can sit there and read all the books you want on the dog duh or this God or that goddess and all that, but until you start to sit down and start looking at the myth and the legend going, what are you trying to teach me? What are you trying to show me in this myth? Right, what do I need to learn?
Speaker 2:One of the prayers I particularly do every morning is you know, oh, great mother, goddess, great father, god bless me as I walk through this day. Open up my heart, my mind, my soul, my spirit, my body, fill me with your love, your wisdom, your knowledge and your strength, revealing to me your mysteries, past, present, future. And in the names of the great mother goddess and the great father, god bless and be. You know. And in that moment, when I'm doing that in the morning. Trust me, I'm filled with something Right.
Speaker 2:Might not be the thing that you think I'm full of. How can you deny yourself these connections?
Speaker 1:That's a good question.
Speaker 2:I mean really, how many books do you have to read? How many myths and legends do you have to read? How many correspondences do you really need to know?
Speaker 1:Well, I think it. I think it comes down to being book smart and being street smart. Well, essentially and I don't mean like street smart is in gangster and all that, I'm talking useful knowledge.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Things that you've done on a daily basis, that you've, that you've experimented with, that you know work. Things that you know work.
Speaker 2:Right. I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't mind the correspondences, but when I hear people sit there talk about these correspondences with deity and stuff like that, there's more to it than that. There is a mystical connection here and I hear people talk about this, but I don't hear them talk about that connection. Right, and again, it's easier to sit on your couch.
Speaker 1:It's easier not to do it. You know it's easier to sit here and play games all day or, you know, binge watch Hulu or Netflix or whatever. It's a lot easier to do that, for sure.
Speaker 2:Then to sit down and meditate and ask yourself OK, I keep on meditating on hack a tape. Every time I meditate on hack a tape, I keep on seeing this big red wall. Why?
Speaker 1:Hmm.
Speaker 2:You know, I've looked it up through symbols and blah, blah, blah. There's nothing like that, because it's for you, you have to interpret it.
Speaker 1:What's the mean to you?
Speaker 2:What does it mean to you? Because that's not what we do anymore For crying out loud. I was watching again a YouTube woman with doing card readings for crying out loud. She pulled open a freaking book and started to read out of it. That's not fucking card reading. You haven't internalized this stuff. You haven't learned how to divine things for yourself. You're using someone else to do it for you. All right, that's like all these correspondences stuff you need to do you.
Speaker 1:What makes your motor run Right. I've got an Oracle deck that I've been working with and it's a new deck. I'll go through the book and I'll see what's there and I'll see if it relates to anything that I felt when I pulled a card for something.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But I'm trying to find how the cards relate to me.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I mean I use the Crowley deck Right, which most people.
Speaker 2:I know a beautiful deck and all this and most people I know look at my deck and go you're freaking insane. But again, when I do the readings though you've seen me do readings Typically I wind up with a slack jaw at some point. Yep, Like how the hell? That's because, again, I'm using an into. I've only ever done intuition readings Right. I mean, I threw that book out a long time ago and trying to get people to understand that there's more there. There is an intuition, there is a, there is a leap of faith here for us, but yet nobody takes that leap Nobody wants to go beyond.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, it's not all written down, it's not all. Follow this step, follow that step, do this, do that, in this order. It's not always that, sometimes that it, like you said, it's that leap of faith you got to take it at some point or another.
Speaker 2:I mean, not everything's written in a book for Crown Island state, not everything's on a podcast. Not every elder knows everything. Oh my God, please, I'm going to state this and I might get in trouble later for it, but you got to remember the way I've seen most traditional witchcraft people see. The books and stuff that are out there are only first degree level. I have never seen them refer to any of that information, of any of the books or information out there in the public to be anything higher than that. Now you tell me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1:I was going to say even then, I think it's kind of debatable Because, again, not all the information's out there, you still got to find it. You still got to find it, you still got to define it yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, to this day, I have never seen a second degree book. No, I've never seen a third degree book. I've seen hints, I've seen mysteries in books that refer to these degrees and stuff like that here and there, but not an actual second degree book. Everything's first degree, all right, I'm sure I've just pissed off a lot of people. Probably Won't be the first one.
Speaker 2:Won't be the last. I'm sure somebody at one of our listeners out there would like to keep it a score. Yep, that's going to be right there, my long list of karma.
Speaker 1:coming back to you, if you believe in that.
Speaker 2:The relationship there between humanity and deity is important, and I'm going to regret this later, because let's look at some of the stories we hear in literature.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I'm more modern day literature. When you like, read books like American Gods and other things. There is this relationship, the symbiotic relationship between humanity and deity. This is not a concept that is new or anything like that, but the less we worship them, the less pronounced they are in the world. Okay, the less we pray to them, the less they're pronounced in this world. We're not talking about the prayers that are lip service. Okay, you know that, you do. You know, let us thank you for your food. Oh yeah, you know, not that lip service, but an actual prayer. Something from the heart, from the mind, seems to create this relationship and this energy that's given to the deity, which eventually comes back to us through nature.
Speaker 1:So it's actual devotion.
Speaker 2:Right. They need our prayers and our worship to survive, just like we need them. Okay so yeah, that makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1:We're back to that connection, that divine connection that we have.
Speaker 2:What we have to watch out for is and I understand this 100% especially when you're a third degree and you're incarnating. Yes, it messes with your head. Yes, you do need to take time away to bring yourself back down to everybody else's level, because we're not all that a bag of chips, right? What uses us is Right. You know you spend your whole time, you spend your whole entire life to become a meat suit. I won.
Speaker 1:Hi, everybody's got to have goals, right? I think that pretty well covers it.
Speaker 2:I think it does too.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Peg and Coffee Talk is brought to you by Lifetime and Seminary. Please visit us at lifetimepleseminaryorg for more information, as well as links to our social media Facebook, Discord, Twitter, YouTube and Reddit.
Speaker 3:We travel down this trodden path, the maze of stone and mire. Just hold my hand as we pass by, see your blazing fires. And so it is the end of our day, so walk with me till morning breaks. And so it is the end of our day. So walk with me till morning.
