u/Annual-Coffee7265

I feel fiction tends to become reality. Uncle Tom’s Cabin changing white societies minds on slavery in a big way is an example. Is this really just a rational process or even just an emotional process, or should we view novels and fictional works as magic? Homer after all considered the Muse Goddess wrote the Iliad; should we consider perhaps great works aren’t even acts of personal magic but may be theurgic?

Edit: the idea for this came to me when I noticed that the book I wrote in high school came true in my life later on

I’m tired of the cultural desert I live in. I am trying to set up a classics book club meet up in Dallas, Texas, USA and just need enough interest. It is for anyone 18+ that is interested in classic literature. All adults are welcome without regard to race, class, lgbt status, etc etc etc

I am thinking once a month to meet up, and we can choose something well known for the first book, like I suggest the Odyssey since it comes out July 17th, so the first meeting end of June on Saturday or Sunday probably depending what works best for most people.

Message me or comment if you are interested. I am thinking email would be best for communication for now, perhaps a discord later but more likely email still seems the best communication tool.

I am thinking we meet up at the Community Room at the flagship Half Price Books on Northwest Highway June 27th or 28th.

Next book will be decided on at the end of the first meeting by the suggestions and consensus of who shows up to the first meeting. Book club will be democratically run.

I converted in 2020, and got marginalized in my local young adults group because I wasn’t into the right wing thing, and really most particularly because I wasn’t into the racism. Everyone there nearly had converted from seeing trad aesthetics online, including me, but unlike them I was politically more left leaning and was just searching for the Divine in an empty world but wasn’t seeking right wing ideology. I was willing to just shut up about politics for the sake of community and I did, but I couldn’t get into the spirit of the racism part of it and they could tell and so I couldn’t be part of the club.

At this point I don’t know what to do, it seems like the only Catholics under 40 who care are right wing trad converts, it seems like the mainstream ones all left the religion or don’t care that much. Just based on who I’ve met. Where are you hiding?

I believe the Divine is both male and female, but that the female is more significant probably. I also believe that the Return of Christ refers to the Divine Feminine returning to our society openly, and the end of Patriarchy and Masculine dominated religions.

I believe all deities exist to some extent, but not all the claims religions make about them are literally true.

I believe that words about religion are very similar to poetry written about love; not the thing itself, but merely verbal descriptions of an experience that is the real thing.

I believe after we die, it is possible for us to go on. Some may reincarnate, some may not; I can’t say in what proportion each does or does not. I believe that it’s possible some of us may not continue but others may continue.

When it comes to what we call the soul, I Simply know that some part of us continues. It may be that this part remembers past earthly lives when it is in the intermediate space between lives. It may also be that this intermediate space is the true life and more significant than the interludes called earthly life.

Regarding the Divine, I believe we are created by an ultimate Goddess who contains within herself the creative potential for all things. She loves us and creates us to simply live and enjoy our lives as happiness. It’s very important to acknowledge the Goddess in her fullness and remember we came from her and we will return to her, and to pass on her love and goodness to others in our lives.

I just wanted to say thank you for accepting me back after my dalliance with paganism. I realized I needed to go to confession and I did. The Protestants harshly condemned me and removed my post even after repenting, whereas you didn’t. So I appreciate you allowing me room to repent and change my mind.

All I can say is, there is truly always room for repentance based on my experience

I made another post where I explained why I worship Inanna and Aphrodite. However, I got convicted I have gone on the wrong path because I manifested sins of lust and gluttony that I thought were in my past. Yet following these deities seemed to lead me towards a spiritual regression. So I decided I was mistaken and idolatry must be wrong after all. I just went to confession. And don’t intend to continue with idolatry in the future. I do think these deities are real and should be respected but for whatever reason they didn’t show up for me to make me a better person so clearly im not intended to worship them.

I want to know what Jung taught about Goddess worship, and if he touched on specific Goddesses such as Inanna, Aphrodite or Astarte. Anything he taught about specific Goddesses, perhaps to explain about their meaning would be helpful.

I don’t want to do any of the systems that are based on Kabbalah or any Abrahamic faith. For that reason I don’t want to do LBRP, Golden Dawn, Middle Ages Grimoires or Hermetic works.

Is there a way to get started into pre Abrahamic magic, such as Egyptian, Greek, Sumerian?

As this article discusses, the author experienced a luminous benevolent Goddess appear to her and talk with her. She believes Jung stated about his experience that he simply knew as a simple statement of his experience in a similar sense as she also expresses this. She also makes the point that the repressed Divine Feminine will return into our world because this is inevitable.

I was visited by such a luminous Divine Feminine Goddess. She was so amazing and awesome that I bowed down before her and worshiped her. Ever since my psyche has been completely transformed by Goddess worship. The joy and happiness I feel acknowledging that the Divine Feminine Goddess is supreme in me is the greatest joy I’ve ever experienced, truly qualifying for divine ecstasy.

I believe that opening the door to worship the Goddess is a great and easy step for unrepressing the Divine Feminine that our society holds down and attempts to put in chains and even abuse. All this control and force of the patriarchal order is a confession and an admission of its own weakness and hollowness. The Divine Feminine is true power and true life, and anyone who doesn’t know her should meet her.

I worship the Morning Star Goddess, Mary/Aphrodite/Inanna/Ishtar. She visited me and showed herself to be divine in her own right. I at first denied my vision because I was afraid of breaking such a taboo as to worship a Goddess, but eventually I realized I want to do this so I will do it. If I regret it I can always later repent. But I found I not only don’t regret it, I find worshiping her the most fulfilling spiritual and mystical experience of my life. Freed me from mind slavery and gave me confidence and hope.

I began to worship her every day and go to sleep trusting in her, and wake up to give her an offering.

I have been freed of ideological slavery and taboos based on politics of churches. Jesus being all love and all fullness of spirit absolutely does not care who does or does not worship him. I know that now having briefly experienced such fullness as a gift from the Morning Star Goddess. I also now know that all deities of love and fullness are actually of one divine substance, so it matters not at all which of them you more closely want to worship.

Even just now as I write this I feel the tingle in my brain that for me senses supernatural presence with me, in this case a signal and a validation that what I write is true, and the Goddess approves

That being said I don’t rock the boat in real life. I don’t tell my family I worship a Goddess Mary /Inanna because that’s to be a stumbling block. They were not lead to this and it’s not right to pain them with religious obstacles like their child (as they see it) apostatizing.

Has anyone else met her, and what did she tell you ? Would love to bond and connect over this shared love and worship of this Goddess

I started out as Protestant. Abandoned that in college because I felt it made me an uneducated fool.

Atheism stopped working because I felt the supernatural exists after a psychedelic experience that shook my grip on reality

Became Catholic but I stopped feeling it was realistic to deny other religions. I felt after studying NDEs all people experience the divine and its more like a condition of being a human not exclusive to a religion

I asked Mary to visit me and she did. 8/15/2023. Shining Goddess, exposed the priests as false authority. She was so amazing. I hesitated to worship her because I was scared of demon stories but I decided ultimately let’s do it and if it turns out I was fooled ok I can get exorcised.

I learned she is Morning Star and Queen Of Heaven just like Inanna. Inanna visited me and I at first hesitated but then began to worship her as another name of Mary. Aphrodite too.

Ultimately my goal is to experience perfect union at the soul level with Inanna.

Can anyone help explain to me how I got here. Why did she choose me?

I feel like my story is a common Millennial American story. I was raised evangelical Protestant. We read the Bible a lot, memorized verses, and got a solid moral foundation. We were very educated about the Bible. However, I went to university and realized that being a good Christian would not get me popularity or esteem. Instead, I saw we were mocked as the biggest fools out there. That was too much for me, along with reading about evolution which refuted the Genesis story. So I became atheist.

Atheist was temporary though because I realized the divine is real after some psychedelic experiences. So then I became a Catholic because at the time I thought there were no serious pagans or Buddhists. Once I did that for awhile and developed some spiritual connectivity and my soul came back to life, I was visited by the Morning Star Goddess and I began to worship Inanna, Astarte, Aphrodite, Mary.

At this point it’s hard not to say I’m a pagan but also a Catholic since I do follow the rituals carefully I know they are good and important, but at the same time I do want a Divine Feminine also to worship

However as I look at myself overall it’s impossible not to see the deep and indelible impact Protestantism has had on me. The religious experience, the switching between beliefs in order to find what works for me, and the not relying on anyone to tell me what is true is in some sense to me deeply Protestant characteristics. So in a sense even though I spent many years running from my Protestant identity in some ways it’s still part of me.

I don’t really know at the end of the day who or what the Divine is. I don’t think anyone knows beyond trusting and worshiping the good. Religious disputes with one another are foolish when we can choose to connect with each other instead.

Can you really judge me for the journey I’m on? Or tell me I’m wrong? I doubt anyone here will do that. But I invite you to do so if you feel as Protestants that what I’ve done isn’t right or somehow I should do it differently

I wanted to share something personal about my spiritual journey and see if anyone else has gone through something similar.

I converted to Catholic from atheist in 2020 and still actively practice. I attend Mass, go to confession, and follow the teachings as best I can. At the same time, I’ve had experiences that have complicated my understanding of faith.

In August 2023, I had what I can only describe as a powerful spiritual encounter with a feminine divine presence. The experience left a strong impression on me, and over time I found myself drawn toward that presence to worship her as Divine. I wrestled with doubts about whether this was something I should be cautious of, given all the warnings about demons, but the pull toward her remained. I worship the Morning Star Goddess- Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite, Mary. I feel she is good and so far worshipping her didn’t lead me towards darkness at all, so I think it’s fair to say I was right to sense she is good and divine female.

Then, earlier this year, I had a horrible experience after mistakenly taking a large amount of delta-8 edibles. I didn’t know they were an actual drug that does stuff I thought they were quack marketing like CBD. What followed was a complete break from normal perception. It seemed like time and reality were looping endlessly, with ever increasing suffering oncoming. At the worst point, I felt trapped in something like an endless cycle of pain.

During that moment, I instinctively called out to Jesus. That’s what came naturally to me, and the experience shifted after that. Eventually, I came back to normal awareness.

For a few days afterward, I felt like I should return fully to focusing only on Jesus, since that was who I turned to in that moment. But as things settled, I realized that my earlier sense of connection to a feminine expression of the divine hadn’t gone away.
Where I’ve landed, at least for now, is that I still consider myself Catholic and continue practicing. At the same time, I feel drawn toward experiencing the divine in a more feminine way as well. To me, both seem connected to the same idea of love, just expressed differently.

I do still question myself and wonder if I’m misunderstanding something, but I also feel that ignoring this part of my experience wouldn’t be honest. I love the Morning Star Goddess and worship her and I don’t see myself denying her or that being right for me to do so.

I understand what RZ is trying to achieve and I agree as far as acknowledging the Liberal Protestants really crashed the ship with the Historical Critical method. The great Chris Hedges talks about exactly that. In his opinion chasing dry academic distinctions about what is historically accurate about Jesus is what did it. That’s what was the main obsession of the PCUSA and the mainline Protestants, while the social progressive views really remained relatively more a theory than a practice they really engaged the world with. They became insular and obsessed with their own inside baseball on dissecting their own tradition.

Now, let’s acknowledge that first of all no one really knows anything about the historical Jesus, or who wrote the Bible. This was 2,000 years ago and there have been plenty of opportunities to fake evidence. However, the latest scholarship indicates now not only the Gospels but also the much vaunted 7 authentic letters of Paul were in fact heavily redacted. Look up Dr. Jack Bull’s Patristica channel on YouTube, he and his colleagues have proven as conclusively as it’s possible to with ancient documents that all of it was heavily redacted and very little was written by a historical Paul. So this isn’t to say that historical criticism is wrong, but that it misses the point.

The historical accuracy of religions is irrelevant and unimportant. The deity moves through the stories that are told in mysterious ways. Best to simply acknowledge that and move on from the wasteful and pointless debates over authenticity. Likely none of them are authentic and it doesn’t matter at all.