The Changing Paths challenge for May 2023. Feel free to skip a day or post something different from the topic of the day, but if you do the whole thing, I think you’ll arrive at a new perspective on your path.
Continue readingother people’s journeys
“I won’t kneel for their god anymore”
James Gardner Davis has written an amazing reflection on changing paths in response to my guest appearance on the Missing Witches podcast.
Their candid discussion of how religious trauma is a catalyst for people to seek out more inclusive spaces, typically outside of Christianity, is so useful for so many people who are seeking out alternatives. I just felt so viscerally connected to that experience, having left the church due to it’s complicity in colonization, sexual abuse, and the truly incredible amounts of homophobic and patriarchal views. I, too, was taught liberation theology, but I really just want to be liberated from the dominant christian culture I am surrounded by.
James Gardner Davis, I won’t kneel for their god anymore
Do check out the whole post, it’s amazing.
Changing Paths is published by 1000Volt Press and is available from all the usual online stores. Ask your local bookseller or library to stock it!
The goal of the book is to help you decide your own path by guiding you through the perils and pitfalls of the terrain, and asking questions to help you deepen your understanding of the reasons for your desire to change paths.
Review by Steve Dee
Rise of the Nones
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”
“a little bit of a weird outcome”
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
Leaving the Mormons
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.
Old Maps No Longer Work
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 readingEscape from Scientology
TW: 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)
Repost: My spiritual journey
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)
A change of perspective
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
Changing Paths 