by Tapestry
Part One of Two

This article is an attempt to explain why I have left Christianity in which I was raised, for a belief in Witchcraft. I will try to start at the beginning; but time, when one looks back, does not run linearly. Instead, it seems to have a mind of its own and jump around, seemingly, willy-nilly.

It all started about 30 years ago. I was in the hospital for what was then major, but routine surgery. I developed an infection underneath the cast, and a very high fever which persisted for several days. During that time, I had a continuous duty nurse. One night - it must have been 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, I was on my back, asleep in the bed. The nurse was in a chair in the corner of the room. A floor lamp was placed at her side, and she was reading a paperback book. Even though I was asleep, I saw all this. I felt "secretive" as if I was "spying" on the nurse. I then started to rise straight up toward the ceiling. I remember wondering to myself "What will happen when I reach the ceiling?" As I approached the ceiling, I went through it, and as I did so, I heard this sound like tearing paper. I also remember saying to myself, "Oh no, not again." Suddenly, I was surrounded by a very bright light and extreme LOVE. Complete, unconditional LOVE. It sounds trite now, but it was WONDERFUL, and even now when I talk about it, tears come unbidden; as if in remembrance. At the same time, I was also receiving information on a "zillion" different levels. Most of the information was coming much too fast and intense for me to understand or even recognize. It was like "trying to take a drink out of a firehose." Some of it I understood at the time, the rest, just whooshed past. Like several audio tapes running on fast forward all at the same time. I was much more interested in the light and the incredible love. The light finally coalesced into a single, non-glaring point from which a voice came. It was not spoken, but rather, impressed into my brain's audio center, sort of like clairaudience. "ARE YOU READY?" it asked. "No, I still have things to do," I replied.

Instantly, I was back in my bed at the hospital, and the nurse hadn't moved. The whole thing couldn't have taken more than 30 seconds. Needless to say, I was a little non-plussed by the experience.

At first, I didn't think much about it, or say anything because I didn't understand what had happened. I couldn't even explain it, and I didn't want to frighten anybody, nor did I want them to think I was crazy. I even thought that maybe I WAS crazy and didn't want others to find about it. In retrospect, my extremely low self-esteem probably accounted for finally putting it out of my mind. Even though I didn't say, or do anything about my experience, it remained in my subconscious, locked away for years.

Still without thinking, realizing, or even connecting my bizarre experience with what was to happen next, I began to become more and more aware that my life was lacking something which I interpreted as "religion." Actually, it was more of a concern for "The meaning of life." I guess it was a lot of the usual trivial questions of: "Where did I come from?" "Where am I going?" "What Is The Purpose Of Life And My Place In It?"

Originally raised in the Congregational denomination of the Protestant Church, I started there, but couldn't find any answers, so I decided to try the Episcopal Church. I seemed to get some better answers, but they also generated other questions, and the priest patronizingly used the usual "canned" answers and seemed rather miffed that I had the audacity to question the teachings of the Church.

I thought I understood, and so, participated in as many of the services I could, but couldn't quite get the feelings that I was told that I was supposed to feel. I read the Bible. I couldn't find the answers to my questions (the ones that the priest couldn't answer.) Maybe if I learned Hebrew, I could get closer to the answers to my questions. After all, Jesus spoke Aramaic, a dialect of Hebrew. Perhaps if I could read his teachings in his native tongue, with all its nuances, I could understand better.

So, I learned Hebrew. And one night, while reading the Hebrew Bible, I found myself paging through it, apparently looking for some passage which I couldn't find. I also realized that I kept saying to myself "It's not here!" It was as if part of me was looking for something, and was annoyed that whatever was supposed to be there, wasn't. I felt increasingly annoyed and angry. I don't know why. (Actually, I later learned that many passages, indeed whole books, were edited out of it, especially those which referred to reincarnation, and it was those sections that I was, apparently, looking for.)

Okay, the bible search yielded nothing but frustration. What if I completely lose myself into the ritual which is supposed to invoke incredible feelings into really devout people? Just look at all those saints. Well, I really dove into the services. I joined the choir (I've always loved the music anyway - still do.) I did extra things for the priest as a way of "penance" for self imposed trivial offenses against God. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. "Well, maybe I'm not trying hard enough" I thought to myself. So I tried even harder. I tithed. I didn't take communion until a week after I had sex with my boyfriend. I went on retreats. Still nothing. Nothing even close to the feelings I was supposed to feel.

The final disappointment was when I went to the priest after having an abortion. I was comfortable in my decision to terminate the pregnancy, but I really went to him as a form of "confession," and for a lot of comfort. After all, post-partum depression occurs after an abortion too. He gave me some advice which at the time seemed to fit the situation - sort of, and I left rather more confused than I arrived. I didn't think anything more about it until Sunday morning. The asshole had simply rehearsed his sermon on the first poor sucker to darken his office door! After that, it was all downhill. I still went to church regularly, even on the obscure holidays. I got married in the Episcopal Church, even though my mother would have preferred that I marry in the "prettier, more colonial" Congregational Church in which I was raised, and where they were still members.

After I was married, I started reading some of the Eastern scriptures: The Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads; The Vedas, the writings of Confucius and Lao-Tsu. The Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead to name some of the more prominent. Later, I picked up a book about a young man who had become a well respected Guru in India, and began to attend services in New Haven. His teachings touched something in me which I seemed to remember or "know" about unconditional love, and trust. His devotees were sincere and genuinely oozed the feelings for which I was searching. There was nothing artificial or patronizing about them. Once I was initiated into the "secrets" of the Guru, I realized that I had reached a turning point in my quest. I still hadn't found "IT," but I was definitely much closer. Part of the reason seemed to be the "secret" of meditation. A total emptying of the mind of thought and the continual "chatter" of everyday life. The "meditation" taught by the Church was to fill your thoughts with one of the aspects of God, or a Bible verse; not emptying. The secret was the EMPTYING of the mind and the stilling of the thoughts.

By this time, my children were filling all my waking hours, and I was unable to continue the meditation, but I kept reading. In time I discovered the teachings of the Rosicrucian Fellowship, and enrolled in their teachings. They based their ideas upon the books of Max Heindel, and in Astrology. I seemed to intuitively understand many of their esoteric ideas about the physical and psychic worlds. Moreover, I seemed to get the same type of "canned" patronizing answers that I got from the Church. They got very upset when I began questioning some of THEIR most sacred ideas. In fact, the fellow who was trying to answer my questions even realized that I deserved better answers, and started to write me from his home where his answers wouldn't be screened by the "supervisors." He and his wife eventually also realized, as did I, that while many of Max's teachings were valid, a rigid interpretation of any one person's teachings becomes just a dogmatic as those we were trying to avoid. I later heard that they had both left the Fellowship because they too were unhappy with the way that the "organization" was handling things. It was as if we were back in the same dogmatic "organization" we were trying to escape.

I got "into" electronics at this point. Not philosophy or religion, but something that was completely foreign to my formal training. Throughout my elementary school days, my math was deplorable even though my science grades were rather good. I guess that I'm good with concepts, but the actual work was too tedious. Anyway, I re-taught myself the math involved. Some of it was more advanced than when I attended High School. It included "complex numbers" and transitions from "Cartesian" to "Polar" graph plots. My husband (now ex-husband) laughed at me, saying that I would never be able to get my Amateur Radio License. That taunt was taken up as a challenge, and I not only got my license, but I received the highest license offered in the Amateur Radio community, the Amateur Extra Class. The next day, I went on to get my Commercial license which entitles me to operate and repair transmitters and receivers of fire departments, police stations, and commercial radio stations.

All through my marriage, my husband abused me. He beat me - even when I was pregnant. He humiliated me, he took me for granted, and he repeatedly subjected me to marital rape. The rape wasn't violent, but it was humiliating none-the-less. He simply "took" me; never asking if I was "in the mood." Many times I wasn't. Other times, he got his satisfaction in a short time, but refused to recognize that I was entitled to some satisfaction as well, blamed me for "my inability" and made me wait until next week. Of course, it was always on HIS terms, never mine. In other words, he consistently refused to respond to my overtures.

That was just the "juicy" part of the marriage. The other parts were equally sordid. He was parsimonious to a fault. He clipped coupons and studied the flyers. When I went out to get some groceries, he grilled me as to where I got the milk, and where I bought the eggs, and why didn't I use the coupon for the bread or why didn't I go to the supermarket on the other side of town for the bananas. So, I had him do the shopping. Well, that was a real mistake because then he never gave me any money unless I begged for it. And then he would take out this enormous roll of bills and peel off about 10 dollars; honestly appalled when I needed more for the occasional gallon of milk, dozen eggs or kids school lunches. He rummaged through the Goodwill drop-off bins, and the dumps of some of the more prestigious towns for clothes for us to wear. When I made something for dinner that he didn't like, he insisted that I cook him something more to his liking, and it had better be quick because he was hungry.

When we were first married, he had me keep the checkbook, except he would write checks and never tell me about them, or "forget" to make a deposit, so when checks started bouncing, he took over that job because I "couldn't even balance the checkbook."

Anyway, he was the ultimate patriarchal "controller." Everything that HE said or did was right, and anything that I said or did was stupid, dumb, ridiculous or crazy, and so were all my friends.

His abuse was equivalent to that of my mother who insisted that I grow up in HER concept of what HER daughter should be. No matter that I wanted to be a veterinarian, or be able to select my OWN friends even if their fathers weren't rich and influential. I was going to marry someone who would take care of me and I should study art so I could do that in my spare time. There would be no need for me to learn to support myself. That control grew worse as we both grew older because her "social drinking" became solitary drinking. Years after my brother died, she would tell me "Well, dear, you're the only one we have left." I know that she meant well, but she always had to include the last word - left. As if I were the "leavings," the second-class citizen, that the son was preferred over the daughter. When I asked her about it, she was livid; started throwing things around, and wouldn't speak to me for several days as if it were MY fault. I'm not even allowed to express my rather liberal political opinions in her ultra-conservative home: "I don't want to argue about that now." Who's arguing? I'm entitled to express an opinion. It's guaranteed in the Constitution I think.

This is exactly what I meant by time going "non-linear" in an historical context.

Okay, so I divorced the asshole, bought my own house, and started all over again. Mom was pleased that I got rid of him, she said that she had hated him all along, but refused to understand why I can't keep a job, or that I don't get a good salary. No matter how many times I try to explain the serious discrepancy in male vs. female salaries, or the glass ceiling, she just doesn't get it. Similarly, she doesn't understand that I don't have a real good opinion of myself - enough to keep a job, or get a good salary.

About this time, with the increased publicity about it, I realized that I had had the "near-death" experience. I read about them, and the memories came rushing back. I was even able to grasp and comprehend some of the information that had been "whooshing" past the first time. I have no explanation for understanding what I wasn't even aware of the first time, except that it was able to extend roots, grow and flower unhindered within my brain during the 25 years that I ignored it.

I started reading again. This time, my interest started with the Native American tribes, and expanded to the myths of the Australian Aborigine. I realized that their cosmology was not very different from that of the early Hindus and Buddhists. Of course, there were some major differences and exceptions, but I was able to easily grasp the more complex concepts. This time, the complex concepts were there "all along." I simply needed to read the outline, and my mind filled in the gaps. The experience of "learning" was remarkable. I read voraciously. Each time, in reading the legends, myths, and histories, it was as if I knew it all along, and could even question some of the conclusions of the anthropologists or ethnologists. Many of my questions were later validated in my later reading. I felt vindicated about my questioning.

Best of all, the shamanic religion and cosmology of the Indians was so very similar to the feelings, concepts and ideas that I had become aware of "on the Other Side." I read more and more about shamanism. I wrote to some of the white people "Wannabees" who were trying to establish their own "Tribes" with Native American roots. Sun Bear, a Choctaw shaman is doing just that by establishing the "Bear Tribe" a loose group of mostly white people who are living as Indians. They have several excellent books and records out - even a video tape.

During one of my more mundane retail jobs, I was talking to a customer about my Native American and ecological interests. She listened carefully and asked intelligent questions. After some little while, she asked if I had ever read anything about Wicca. I had heard nothing about it and told her so. She suggested that I look into it.