Harmony Between Faiths: A Spiritual Journey

On this episode of Pagan Coffee Talk, we keep the regions of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia close to our hearts after the recent devastation. Then, we pivot to a thought-provoking discussion on reconciling new pagan faiths with traditional family religions. You’ll hear about the delicate balance of spirituality that doesn’t demand an all-or-nothing approach, reflecting on how pagan and Christian practices can coexist and enrich our spiritual journeys.

Join us as we share personal stories and explore the rising trend of Christians embracing witchcraft, a practice with roots deep in history. From the initial shock of leaving the church due to conflicting teachings to finding a new path, we discuss the blending of faith and folk magic. Through cultural examples like Haitian voodoo and Appalachian folk magic, we highlight the historical and modern intersections of spirituality. This episode is a call for open dialogue, encouraging you to separate personal grievances from core religious tenets and embrace the diverse aspects of different deities for a fuller spiritual understanding.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:16

Welcome to Peg and Coffee Talk. If you enjoy our content, please consider donating and following our socials. Now here are your hosts, lady Abba and Lord Knight Hi.

Speaker 3 0:28

Lord Oswin.

Speaker 1 0:29

Hi, how are you, Lady Abba?

Speaker 3 0:31

This is weird.

Speaker 1 0:33

It is weird, isn't it?

Speaker 3 0:37

So, just so everybody's aware, north Carolina is currently underwater. It's pretty bad, it's pretty freaking bad. We are seeing katrina level destruction, um, just in the mountain towns and no, uh, it's not good guys. Um, we don't know what the the. We don't know, like nobody knows right now. What we do know is that there are many, many, many mountain towns that are probably all of our big tourist attraction places that are, um, completely cut off. Um, roadways are washed out, wiped out, towns have been washed away. This is gonna get a lot worse before it gets better. The water, you know, it's got to go somewhere and it's seeking its way to the ocean right now and it is causing a wake of destruction after this hurricane. So currently, lord Knight has no internet, power, has been super spotty and we're limping along. Fortunately, all of us are, you know, safe, but please keep the rest of the state in your prayers because it, like I said, it's going to get a whole lot worse, I think, before it gets better for people.

Speaker 1 1:50

Yep Tennessee got hit hard too.

Speaker 3 1:52

Yeah, yeah, it did, I don't know.

Speaker 1 1:55

There's not a whole lot coming out about them, but I know they got hit hard.

Speaker 3 2:00

And I'm sure it's got to be the town where Dollywood is, because that's very close to the North Carolina border.

Speaker 1 2:09

Yeah, gatlinburg, pigeon Forge, gatlinburg. Thank, you. Yeah, they all got hit pretty hard.

Speaker 3 2:13

Yeah, and these are all like literally, it's like they're. I mean I don't know what it is, like humans, I mean we got to learn at some point, Like we like see a body of water and go excellent, let's build right there. Let's just, let's put things right at its edge. One of these days, uh, we will, we will learn that she is not to be trifled with and, um, stop doing that, because maybe maybe?

Speaker 3 2:38

yeah, because literally every single one of these towns blowing rock, gatlin, gatlinburg, asheville, chimney Rock, lake, lure, boone they're all built next to either these giant lakes or these raging rivers and, yes, they're beautiful. But Chimney Rock, the town of Chimney Rock, you could walk outside of and I've done it many times. You could walk outside of these businesses and just go like we're talking within 10 feet and be, in a river.

Speaker 1 3:12

Yep.

Speaker 3 3:12

And so, yeah, so we're going to be, you know, a little limpy for for a bit, as we get this um figured, lord Oswin and I are here to, yeah, to kind of cover a few episodes and talk all things pagan, as we always do, right, yeah, so we talked a little bit about discussing how to reconcile a new faith, pagan faith, with the tradition you were raised in, family faith and also incorporation, because I think a lot of people, when it comes to religion, and I think parts of Christianity have something to do do with this. The seed is very all or nothing, right, it's?

Speaker 3 4:07

right, it really is yeah, you believe in this or you believe in this and there's zero in between, and that's kind of bullshit.

Speaker 1 4:15

So well, I'm seeing I'm. It's interesting that you bring this up because I'm actually seeing in a lot of the forums there's, there seems to be it's not a lot of people, but it seems to be cropping up a little more and more where people are saying well, I'm a christian, but I practice witchcraft yeah, I think the first thing to understand is that has been going on a long time well sure it has.

Speaker 3 4:43

Just not many people admit to it no, and I do think we're seeing more and more of that. I think in the old days it was also viewed more as like a superstitious thing, like it wasn't. It was separate from right, like I had my faith, but then I also had some mysticism or, you know, some folk magic or something right kind of mixed in there. But it also makes you go well, where did that come from? That may very well have predated the family religion or it may have been remnants of a prior faith that existed and it's just how it survived. But for a long time, like for our generation, yeah, it was very all or nothing, like you were, yeah, and I mean a lot of that does stem from other faiths. You know, having a belief in, you know, false idols and right, exactly, yeah yeah, you know, it's almost like it's a funny thing.

Speaker 3 5:38

It's almost like you're not supposed to divide your time when it comes to right, those you know, your uh, what do you call it? Your, your, your faith and your belief system. But then, at the same time, haven't we always kind of I think we have yeah yeah, like we're not. You know, I think people get. I don't want to say bored, Cause I mean I do. I do kind of want to say bored. I feel like that's, that's fun.

Speaker 1 6:07

We're all a little ADD you know, and I think we yeah we all acknowledge, you know, one deity doesn't always cut it.

Speaker 3 6:14

So I do always get a giggle out of that. When we look at the Christian faith and we talk about you know father, son and Holy spirit, and then you know about you know father, son and holy spirit, and then you know right, firstly maiden, mother and crone, it's like, well, yeah, at different points in our life we relate to different aspects of deities, so why wouldn't that exist? But what about? Can we talk a little bit about your journey and kind of you know how you were raised and then coming into paganism and I mean, like I, I've always found it fascinating and I've always found your grace in in reconciling some of these things to be kind of beautiful.

Speaker 1 6:56

So yeah, oh well, thank you. Yeah, so I was brought up, I was born and raised in a Southern Baptist church. You don't say Yep, Yep, Good old South. You know pretty much the way it goes. But yeah, I mean, if my mom had had her way, I probably would have actually been born inside the church, you know.

Speaker 3 7:17

Oh, oh, my God, how cute.

Speaker 1 7:19

Yeah, and I know it's so funny, isn't it?

Exploring Spiritual Syncretism

Speaker 1 7:23

But I mean, I remember your mom and she was so freaking cute she was I love mama she was so adorable so I grew up in the church and I was very active, mama was very active, daddy was a deacon in the church. I had a lot of strong beliefs that I had grown up with and, you know, come to cling to during the hard times of my life, sure, you know. And then I left the church for various reasons, one being I no longer could agree with some of the teachings and, you know, a lot of the people weren't willing to talk to me about it and weren't willing to open up about these things, and so I was like, okay, I got to look elsewhere. And so for many years I just kind of wandered around on my own and didn't really do anything, still kind of held to my Christian beliefs but didn't really look at anything else right and uh, then I'm.

Speaker 1 8:29

I met lord knight, and at the time he wasn't even studying, he was just he was who he is, you know right and he had been practicing at that time for probably 10 years.

Speaker 3 8:44

Oh, wow I don't know.

Speaker 1 8:45

Yeah, close to it anyway, I guess.

Speaker 3 8:48

Okay.

Speaker 1 8:50

And you know, when I first met him and I went over to his house for the first time, he had an altar sitting over on the side and it had this big ass pentagram on it and I'm like, okay, we need to talk, because I can't.

Speaker 1 9:04

you know, I can't deal with no, with no satanists oh my god, how funny and so I started learning from him at that point right, and that kind of started my journey, because then I started understanding a little bit more about what he was doing, about what it stood for. You know, he would take me to the park and you know kind of I don't know just explain things about nature and deity and things like that. And it felt right. But I couldn't completely let go of my Christian roots. It didn't feel right to me to let go of that.

Speaker 3 9:39

OK.

Speaker 1 9:41

So I had to find a way to reconcile with that and incorporate it into what I was learning.

Speaker 3 9:49

Right.

Speaker 1 9:51

It took some time and a lot of trial and error, but I guess the biggest thing was coming to terms with that. Deity is just deity and you can call it whatever you want, whatever you want, yeah. It's still the same thing, right, it still comes from the same source. And that was the biggest thing for me, because then I was like, okay, I don't have to let go of my Christian background.

Speaker 3 10:19

Okay, and I remember. For me, upon meeting you, that was wild. Yeah time we considered you, or I think now we, you know like neophytes, first degree students of lord knights, you know, because we're now fast forwarding right many, many years oh yeah, but for a long time, like we all kind of considered you a christian witch, which was like mind-blowing to me. I was like mind blowing to me. I was like well, it wasn't.

Speaker 1 11:00

It's not something you really heard about back in the day either.

Speaker 3 11:02

So but it, but at the same time, and I don't know why, right, I wasn't really putting the connections together at that point of going. Well, sure, you know my, my grandmother, was a devout Catholicolic who also believed in you know, a number of again, folklore, magic things and you look at, like the Haitians, and you look at aspects of voodoo and where they're. It's all intermingled with christianity and I'm like oh yeah, appalachian folk magic.

Speaker 1 11:35

I mean even Mama, who was staunch Southern Baptist. She veered off from the typical Southern Baptist beliefs because she believed in the gifts of the Spirit.

Speaker 3 11:48

What does that mean?

Speaker 1 11:50

Okay, it's not something that's really talked about too much in the Southern Baptist Church, but the gifts of the Spirit are things like speaking in tongues, healing dreams. I'm going to say it and it's not really the word I'm looking for, but it's more like being a prophet to an extent.

Speaker 3 12:14

Okay, but I get what you're saying, because I mean, prophets come in a lot of different forms, right, okay, but I get what you're saying because I mean profits come in a lot of different forms, Right?

Speaker 1 12:21

Yeah, I mean like mama. It's a perfect example. Mama was, she was a dreamer, what I call a dreamer. So before I was even conceived, she had and I'm sure you've heard this story a thousand times she had this dream, right? I used to have a brother. He was two years older than me. So before I was even conceived, she had a dream that she was going to have a second son who would outlive the first. Oh wow. And when I was three years old, he passed away.

Speaker 3 12:55

Wow, so that's the kinds of things that mama would see in her dreams, okay, okay, but for her, that gift, that insight, whatever you want to call it, it came from it came from god right and it came and and for that was very much Christian, it was just it was. It was Jesus or his daddy.

Speaker 1 13:19

Right, she didn't right. It was not seen as any type of witchcraft or anything like that. I mean, they used to. They used to have um um sessions at the house. Mama and her friends would come over and it would be a group of ladies. Somebody was, you know, sick or had an ailment of some kind. They would anoint her head with oil and then they would lay hands on her and just and just pray for like 30 minutes. Wow, right. And usually somebody in the group would get filled with the spirit and start speaking in tongues.

Speaker 3 13:56

And I hate to say it, but if that ain't craft, I don't know what is.

Speaker 1 13:59

See.

Speaker 3 14:00

I mean.

Speaker 1 14:01

So these are the kinds of things that I grew up with and kind of things that I started questioning, but nobody was willing to talk about it.

Speaker 3 14:10

But you saw the connection and it kind of opened the door. Yes, okay, okay, and yeah, I think you, you know, and then, okay, so fast forward again, we're gonna skip a number of years. One of the things that we do at life temple is there is a particular movie that we, uh, we have. We have movie day with the fights right.

Speaker 1 14:36

We love movie day popcorn.

Speaker 3 14:37

We have movie day and one of the things that we have everybody watch is the mists of avalon which is a mini series. Technically. I guess it wasn't even a movie, it was like a multi-part, you know thing and um, really great cast, by the way. Uh, but it's older now. I guess it was probably shot in the 90s, I don't even know.

Speaker 3 15:01

I think I'm not sure so it was originally like a bbc piece, it wasn't even you know, I don't even think it was domestic, but anyway, obviously it's based on the very famous book the mists of avalon. And at the very very end, right spoiler alerts, um, at the very very end, there is this incredible scene connection where a woman who is basically supposed to be a celtic seer and someone who we can't call her a priestess. We can't call her like. It was just their, their way.

Speaker 3 15:40

It was just that time in history and how they viewed spirituality right anyway, she was heavily invested, obviously, in the celtic, what we think of as the celtic tradition and at the very, very end, the movie talks about the conversion process and how you you know the Christians came to the aisles and how they effectively started influencing the culture and the people and ultimately she becomes a nun and she becomes a devotee to Mary. Right devotee to mary right. She literally says how, and I'm paraphrasing but ultimately right, my goddess just took on a new form and I went ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Speaker 3 16:26

Fuck, I'm an idiot and it all sort of clicked and I was like but people have been doing this for eons. There's a reason why many of the branches of the Christian faith still venerate Mary tremendously. Because, they're still, in a way, tapping into people who need that female spiritual component inside of their christian faith and they are honoring what we think of as the mother, father, male, female dynamic.

Speaker 1 17:04

Just just slightly differently, but yeah, it's, it works but it's there, it's absolutely there.

Speaker 3 17:12

We can't see that it's not, and so that even got me on a bit of a kick and I remember going down and I still kind of do. Whenever I see a book on it or something, I kind of pause and, you know, give it my attention. The, uh, greek orthodox church actually has this really fascinating insight and history into Mary. Mary is in.

Speaker 3 17:41

They view her, I think, a little differently than other aspects, and there's whole books that are written just about her, not from the standpoint of being Jesus's mother, even though of course that's part of it right but all of this other lore and stories and things about her that maybe aren't explored in other aspects of christianity, and so that is fascinating to me because I and you know and figures like Eve and you know, other women from the Bible, and I'm like she's here, she's here, and so again, it was kind of an eye opener for me. It was just realizing, kind of like you said, I had to look elsewhere.

Speaker 1 18:28

Right.

Speaker 3 18:28

I had to look elsewhere, and it's ironic because I wonder I really do right. If my life had gone slightly differently, if there had been just a bend in the road, would I have gone down that path?

Speaker 1 18:45

What being a devotee of Mary?

Speaker 3 18:47

Yeah, yeah, probably Absolutely where had the conversations been more open, like you're talking about, had it been? A little less taboo. That sure I could have very easily seen myself going in a direction where she would be my goddess figure and I would still effectively be a Christian.

Speaker 1 19:12

Well and see, that kind of makes sense, especially for people who feel comfortable with the Christian religion and don't really don't want to veer away from it. That would make sense. You know what I mean. And for years, you know, Mary's always been referred to as the queen of heaven. So yes, and there's hello, Hello.

Speaker 3 19:33

And that's. But that's my point. But I think there's been a lot of jumbling. Hello. Right back in the day, nuns used to actually wear wedding dresses and have a wedding ring on their finger because they were married to Jesus. That and like that blows my mind. That is about as pagan as it gets.

Speaker 1 20:07

You think?

Speaker 3 20:08

Yeah, and I mean or at least that's how I equate it, but I think about those things and you know stories of the Holy Spirit and the burning bush and I mean, right, there's no man. We've just been circling around this dance. We have thousands and thousands of years, yes, and I think now educated, open-minded pagans will go. It's all the same thing.

Speaker 3 20:36

It's all the same thing. It doesn't matter, it really doesn't. And I laugh because you know, for a long time, as you know, oh, I didn't step foot in a church. Oh, I was so mad.

Speaker 1 20:50

I know I was so mad when you came to us you had such a grudge against the church oh yeah, I mean there was so much of that like animosity and just you know, oh and.

Speaker 3 21:04

And then I started doing it partially because I mean, let's be if you're, if you're a socialized adult, I don't think you're going to avoid it, right? Somebody's getting married, somebody's dying. There's good. You're going to have to get your ass in a church for something, whether you want to Exactly.

Speaker 3 21:24

And I really started going okay, okay, it became a game where I would go find them. Okay, okay, it became a game where I would go find them. Funny, find them, find your deity, find your right, find it because if it's here, if what you're being taught and what you're being exposed it's here, and I remember this is terrible right because it's. It's like I was very much not focused on the uh, the task at hand, but I went to a funeral of a friend. Uh, it wasn't a friend that, it was a friend's family member had passed away and I went to the service in support and it was even for her.

Speaker 3 22:08

It was kind of a distant relative, so it wasn't, like you know, the saddest of affairs, but still I was in a lutheran church and I was like, basically, while everyone else was paying attention to what was happening, I was enamored with the building and between the windows, the artwork, the banners on the altar. I was like, oh shit, right, it's all here, it's all here, and and that I remember, um, you know, of course they had, you know, communion, and I and I literally remember looking at the, this giant you know bannered, you know, I don't know what you call it, but banner of the grapes and the chalice.

Speaker 1 22:57

And.

Speaker 3 22:58

I'm like come on, it's been here the whole time.

Speaker 1 23:04

Yeah, I mean people don't realize how integrated it is and how similar the religions really are.

Embracing Diversity in Pagan Beliefs

Speaker 3 23:10

Yeah, yeah it is, and how similar the religions really are, yeah, yeah. And then I have, uh, you know, a close friend who we have taken to calling him uh, just just out of you know shits and giggles the lutherist, meaning a lutheran buddhist nice because it's sort of combined those two for himself and I and I go, but yet right, so yet. So here we are, right we're, we're talking about this, but yet there's still so much of that anger.

Speaker 3 23:44

There's still so many people, especially younger people, who have not gotten to this place yet and they're just like I was back in the bright. They're just pissed and we're constantly having to remind them. You're angry with the ideals of the people, not the faith itself. If you look past the people. It was there all along it really was.

Speaker 1 24:09

I was going to say you really have to. You really have to separate the people from the religion Absolutely, Because that's something that I had to do. My beef was not with Christianity, my beef was with the people.

Speaker 3 24:23

Yep.

Speaker 1 24:24

And I learned that early on and that enabled me to kind of still hang on to my Christian roots.

Speaker 3 24:30

Right. Until I was ready to let go oh yeah me to kind of still hang on to my Christian roots until I was ready to let go. Oh yeah, and in many ways it's the people and the groups of people that will take an ideal and twist it right. Yes. Or maybe twist is the wrong word. They will use it for their agenda, and their agenda only right, like we always hear. You know the blood is thicker than water, right, and we know if you, if you really look at, that's not the phrase.

Speaker 1 24:59

No, it's not.

Speaker 3 25:00

No, which again that one in particular always cause I go the blood of the covenant, Really, folks.

Speaker 1 25:08

Yeah, right.

Speaker 3 25:09

Thicker than the water of the womb. What?

Speaker 1 25:12

Yep.

Speaker 3 25:13

A single most pagan phrase, possibly in all the Bible. I'm probably wrong. There are probably many others.

Speaker 1 25:20

Probably.

Speaker 3 25:21

But that is. It's incredible. And now, okay, now you just said something I'm going to call you out on, though. Okay, until I was ready to let go, but did you?

Speaker 1 25:32

um, I think in a way, yes, I did. I've come to the point, and it took many, many years. I've come to the point where I'm not really I'm not really comfortable calling any particular deity interesting okay that it's like I see it all as the same thing, so it's like I can't separate it anymore.

Speaker 3 25:56

Right, okay.

Speaker 1 25:57

You know, there there are some that I feel have called to me and I have worked with, but for the most part it's I don't. I don't separate it when we like, when we call the God and goddess and ritual.

Speaker 3 26:16

If I'm the one doing that, I don't separate it when we like, when we call the god and goddess and ritual, if I'm the one doing that.

Speaker 1 26:20

I don't, I don't see a separation. Yeah, yeah, I'm, it's like I'm. I'm calling the yin and the yang, so to speak yeah, you.

Speaker 3 26:26

You probably more so than a lot of people in our group represent someone who really is the polytheistic or, sorry, the monotheistic you know of paganism, because you yeah, you're just seeing it as one all around yeah um, yeah, which is funny because you know, we, we say that, we tell we go, look we're, we're technically monotheistic, but a lot of people don't believe that, of course. No, no, they're like, you're poly, you have 8 000 deities, but but that boil it down, right, keep adding and it's all the same thing um, but that's, that's really interesting.

Speaker 3 27:06

but yeah, I see what you're saying because I know, having worked with Lord Knight as long as I have. I mean, you know, we, we all know that in his mind, right, he's, it's the dog. He's got very specific deities in his head Most of the time.

Speaker 1 27:21

He does. So that's, that's interesting and I know there's, there's nothing wrong with that and I, I, you know it works for so many people. Oh yeah, and you know, and I think that's the beautiful part of this is that you can customize it to relate to whatever you need to relate to.

Speaker 3 27:41

You can, you can. I do try to warn, though, that I think pagans are in danger of sometimes following the same. I don't want to say mistakes, but but narrow-mindedness in that. You know, I saw something not that long ago about someone who's who's getting ready to do an entire series on hecatech okay, yeah, okay I'm like that's, that's fantastic, all right, you're gonna, you're gonna do a course and and you're gonna, but then you go, at least from.

Speaker 3 28:15

From my standpoint, there's a reason why we have so many different aspects and so many different forms of god and goddess. If we are only ever focused exclusively on one what are we missing? Right yeah, what are? What are you denying yourself the, the, the ability to connect with or to find out about yourself? Because you can. You can become so consumed in one aspect that you just forget about everything else, and I mean that's not, that's not well-rounded.

Speaker 1 28:55

It's not, but it is easy to fall into, and I think that's that's got to do with the comfort zone. You find something that's comfortable and you stick with it. But part of the core of paganism, in my belief, is stepping out of that comfort zone and learning something new. Yeah, no matter how hard it might be.

Speaker 3 29:18

Yeah, you know, yeah.

Speaker 1 29:21

And when you start and you're absolutely right when you start looking at all the different gods and goddesses, they all have different aspects, they all have different virtues, if you will. What are you denying yourself? Yeah, Just by focusing on the ones.

Speaker 3 29:39

Yeah, yeah, there's, there's. There's good reasons why many of the ancient cultures, and even some of the modern ones. If we look at Hinduism not that it's modern, but you know what I mean- You're right.

Speaker 3 29:50

It's still regularly practiced. I almost see it as you're hiding behind, right, you're latching on to an aspect of something in your own personality, something that's familiar, and because, yes, it's in your comfort zone, you're just going this is it, I'm good. But that may not always hold true. And then we see people with you know crisis of faith and and we see you know other problems arise. Yet you have to kind of go beyond it at some point and open yourself up to what else you have to gain internally from exposure to other.

Speaker 1 30:32

Yeah, Like Lord.

Speaker 3 30:38

Knight. You know he almost exclusively uses the dog. Dog Tear Bridget.

Speaker 1 30:41

Yeah, but he also understands, yes, and he and he knows that if he needs something else, he can call on that. Oh yeah, absolutely Like we did. We on that. We went to go do a hand fasting for a couple in Charlotte Well, not really a hand fasting, but they called it a hand fasting.

Speaker 3 31:00

Okay, fair.

Speaker 1 31:01

They wanted to use brace yourself, Effie. They wanted to use Hecate For a wedding. Yeah, he's like why, why, why do you want to use her? And after talking to I know, and after talking to them, he was like okay, if this is what you want, this is what we will do, right, and yeah, so, yeah, that was. That was an experience in and of itself I hope he still has his penis. That's all I can really say to that, as far as I know, he does.

Speaker 3 31:37

Yeah so, but yeah, so I mean it's it's understanding that there are other aspects that you can call on yeah, interesting, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I and I just I think, uh, you know, to kind of wrap this up, I think getting to this place is curiosity, it is open mindedness, it is the willingness to be a student to just look to just, you know, see what else is out there, to not be judgmental about it, but also, um, it is letting go of guilt and preconceived notions, and those are the hard, those are the hard ones oh, you just hit it on the nail, yeah those are the hard ones, without a doubt, like, like the exploration part.

Speaker 3 32:28

That's easy, it's there, it's out, it's very easy to explore. But the guilt and the preconceptions, man, those are. Those are rough. But but many, many people have walked this path, many.

Speaker 1 32:43

Right and many more will.

Speaker 3 32:46

Absolutely. I don't know about you, but I think I need more coffee.

Speaker 1 32:51

I certainly do.

Speaker 3 32:51

Okay.

Speaker 1 32:54

Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Pagan Coffee Talk is brought to you by Life Temple and Seminary. Please visit us at lifetempelseminaryorg for more information, as well as links to our social media.

Speaker 2 33:36

Facebook, discord, twitter, youtube and Reddit. 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.