Interesting article by Adam Gabbatt in The Guardian exploring how the pandemic has accelerated a trend of church closures in the US:
Losing their religion: why US churches are on the decline
“As the US adjusts to an increasingly non-religious population, thousands of churches are closing each year – probably accelerated by Covid”
From six-year-old Tibetan monk to teenage Ibiza raver: a Spanish boy’s incredible journey. Osel Hita Torres joined a monastery after the Dalai Lama declared him a reincarnated spiritual leader, but at 18 he broke free and moved to Ibiza. A new TV series tells his story.
Ashifa Kassam
An in-depth resource on leaving the Mormons: Recovering Agency: Lifting the veil of Mormon mind control.
Luna Lindsey Corbden was born into the LDS Church and left the faith in 2001, at age 26. They live in Washington State and write about topics of interest, including psychology, mind control, culture, and autism. They also write science fiction and fantasy. When they’re not busy traveling to improbable worlds, or thinking hard about this improbable world, they’re probably snuggled with their cat and an iPad.
A poem about maps and paths and stars that was shared in a thread on Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s Substack, Life is a sacred text.
Continue readingTW: Scientology, religious trauma. ‘At 52, I abandoned everything, every friend, every family member’: the top official who escaped Scientology (The Guardian)
When he was certain that he wasn’t being followed, he caught the tube to the National Portrait Gallery, where he sat on the grass outside and let his heart rate slow to its regular beat. “I went OK, now what? What am I going to do? For the first time that I could remember, I wasn’t answerable to anyone.”
‘At 52, I abandoned everything, every friend, every family member’: the top official who escaped Scientology (The Guardian)
I came to terms with being gay in 1996. At the time I was an evangelical Christian and tried to keep my faith for two and a half years. It didn’t work. I realized that even if I accepted I was gay, my upbringing had taught me to hate myself and see myself as worthless so I needed a change.
Part 2: My First Witchcraft Book
I made many new friends to support me. The friend group I got involved with consisted of a lot of witches and Pagans. I asked one of them for a book recommendation. They recommended Cunningham’s book. I fell in love. Magic resonated with me. And the God and Goddess were full of love and acceptance.
From a series of Mastodon toots by Jarred the Wyrd-Worker detailing his spiritual journey. (Read the rest on Mastodon)
There was a guy in one of my classes — let’s call him Jonathan — who was openly gay. I had never knowingly interacted with, or even seen, anyone gay before. … He just stood and sang, a capella. It was honestly beautiful in its own right — Jonathan has a great voice. But, as he sang, all my feelings coalesced into an understanding. He was singing about what Black folks experienced and still experience in America — something I had never been taught. He was also, I think, singing about his own experience as a gay man — something I had also never been taught.
— Read more at Rochelle, “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child”. NonNumberChar, Medium
A really nice post about discovering that you can enjoy the cycles of the seasons without needing to believe in the gods: you can be an AtheoPagan.
I realized I could do anything that I wanted to do. For someone raised in an oppressive religion, this thought is life changing. And what did I want to do? Two things topped my agenda. First, I wanted to read anything and everything I’d missed in all those years. That project is still ongoing. And second, I wanted to mark the passage of time through the seasons.
GUEST POST: A Memorable Mabon on the AtheoPaganism blog
Fascinating article in The Guardian about two guys who started out atheist comedians and ended up becoming Christians with a priestly vocation. I’m including it here because it shows how changing paths is a very gradual process, not usually a sudden change, and that sometimes these changes are quite insidious and hard to resist.
I like the metaphor of rooms in your life that change when the Divine enters them.
Content warning for people who have recently left Christianity: you may find the article distressing.
Continue reading
Changing Paths 