Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Pagan
Book of Blackbirds: Teachers

Book of Blackbirds: Teachers

Last updated on: October 13, 2017 at 3:48 pm by Chloé Thorne

Book of Blackbirds: Teachers 2017-10-13T15:48:58+00:00 Chloé Thorne

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

“He who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions.”

~ Confucius

I am a pagan and a faerie, though I don’t necessarily believe in literal gods of any sort outside my own psyche. I do believe we all individually possess a higher consciousness, which might be considered a higher power. I also believe in real Magic, and this belief comes not from superstition or wishful thinking but from lifelong personal experience. I think that requiring Atheo-Paganism to be accompanied by the categorical denial of anything that anyone might even remotely consider supernatural (whether it is or not) is a mistake. This to me smacks of the same narrowly focused exclusivism I found in the Christian church of my youth.

“The Shepherd’s Dream” by John Henry Fuseli. From WikiMedia.

That is, you aren’t allowed to have your own beliefs, or even your own experiences, if they do not fall into line with the accepted dogma as expressed by the accepted vocabulary, period. Now I won’t deny my own experiences in order to fit in anywhere, though I will admit to having tried to do so in the past. I won’t even pretend any more that my interpretation of those experiences could be flawed or somehow mistaken to satisfy someone else’s inability to comprehend them, for doing so would be disingenuous. Our experiences, all of them, inform our life choices and help make us into who we are becoming, day by day.

I have had what would be termed psychic experiences since I was a child. I have dreamed of future events, I have had out-of-body experiences or OBE’s, I have while awake remembered things before they happened, and I have witnesses who can attest to at least some of these events. There have been times I have somehow been able to know things that were impossible for me to know, such as when I was visiting another country halfway around the world and dreamed in detail about my house burning, right down to the exact cause (faulty wiring at the junction box – in my dream I saw the flames come dancing down the wires and into my house).

I even dreamed the precise words that the insurance inventory person would say to me later while standing back in my destroyed kitchen when he handed me the exact item I saw him hand to me in my dream. At the time of my dream there was a +17 hour time zone difference between my house and where I was visiting, but accounting for this my dream occurred approximately one day before it happened. I remarked about it that morning to my friend at whose house I was staying, and so had a witness to this prescience when the dreadful news finally reached us the next day. As a side effect of these experiences I can no longer view time in the same way as most, but rather in a more holistic manner where concepts like cause and effect are merely two sides of the same whole coin.

For years growing up in a strict fundamentalist church environment I kept mostly silent about my psychic occurrences for fear of being labelled a witch (a moniker I now wear proudly), or worse. In short, I may now be a godless Taoist faerie pagan but would say to some strictly materialistic atheists I know that I can no longer be concerned about world views that will not allow themselves to be wrapped around those concepts I have described, even though I do understand the denial of them. To accept the existence of perceptions beyond the conventional senses challenges deeply held beliefs, but that is no more reason to dismiss them out of hand than it is to assume other, more nefarious explanations.

In younger days I often wrestled with the idea that perhaps I was demon possessed, fearing that what the particular church denomination I then belonged to had to say about such things was true and I was damned to eternal hellfire along with Satan and his Minions of Darkness for practicing these talents, though they were involuntary to me in any case. Thanks to my upbringing, as these unconventional abilities developed further and I considered their real world implications, this eventually began to frighten me quite profoundly. I worried that even if I weren’t somehow being controlled by demonic forces then at best I was just plain out and out bat$#!+ crazy. Either way, my prognosis seemed bleak.

“Demon Seated” by Mikhail Vrubel. From WikiMedia.

In a fit of anguish when I was in my late teens after one particularly disturbing excursion out beyond the hedge for which I had no conventional explanation, I reached out to a Christian psychologist whom I had sought out through a local church. I set up an appointment and tried to prepare how I was going to relate my fears and concerns in such a way as to not sound completely mad and so be institutionalized on the spot as a danger to myself and others. I got the man’s address and went to my appointment.

It was after dark when I arrived, and the office was situated in a side addition to an old Victorian style house in an older part of town. This occurred in Winter when the trees were bare, and a cold wind whistled through the naked limbs (creepy, right?) I almost turned away, but then gathered up my courage, pulled my coat collar up tight, and knocked on the outer door. I heard a weak voice asking me to come in.

When I walked into the smallish office there was a nice cheery fire going in the fireplace and it was quite warm inside. I met a frail looking older gentleman sitting in a rocking chair atop a well worn Persian rug on an otherwise bare wooden floor. A battered old desk and another mismatched chair rounded out the room’s meagre furnishings. The most striking part of the scene was the fact that this man was obviously completely blind, his bright open eyes nevertheless obscured by milky cataracts.

He sat with a Braille Bible opened in his lap, and invited me to sit down in the chair opposite him and tell him what was troubling me. I related my experiences to him, divulging to him my fears of demons and madness. It was like talking to a kindly grandfather figure and I began to open up more to him as I talked, though internally I was still sceptical of just how much help this old blind guy was actually going to be to my situation.

Rather than demanding that I immediately repent of my wickedness and denounce witchcraft in the name of Jesus however, his words surprised me by presenting a refreshingly alternative point of view. He explained that his Bible was full of such stories, and almost always these were good and used to the purpose of helping others. He suggested that rather than assuming my unconventional talents were demon-sourced or the result of a deranged mind, perhaps I should instead consider them as holy gifts.

“Braille” from Pixabay. CC0 License.

He then asked me if I had any desire to use my abilities to cause suffering or pain to others, and of course this was something I would never even remotely consider. After quoting from memory some relevant passages of scripture, the old man bowed his head and uttered a prayer to his God that I find peace in my heart and learn to not be fearful of my experiences but rather to cherish them as talents bestowed from on high. He asked for no money, but I thanked him and tipped him the little bit of cash I had brought with me and walked back out into the Winter night, now somehow less cold and frightening than it had been when I first arrived.

Although I have been pagan for many years since and don’t particularly care for what I perceive as the many evils historically perpetrated on humanity in the name of organized religion, neither will I limit the higher powers if you will to only working through specific, pagan-atheist, scientifically approved channels. We can learn as much from anywhere as long as our hearts are open to receive it, and to deny this fact is to miss out on so much more that this life has to offer us. Even if I don’t believe the gods are literally real there are those whom I admire and I study their stories, finding comfort and wisdom in their age-old tales. Gods it turns out, whether real or not, make excellent teachers.

So I know it is to my advantage to remember that teachers are everywhere, and to be mindful to recognize them when they appear. This elderly, blind Christian had given me a valuable lesson and ironically, a way of seeing psychic abilities in a different light. These abilities are not something to be fearful or ashamed of, but a true spiritual blessing. For this reason I will no longer deny my own heart in order to be liked or accepted into any group. If someone has a problem with this then it is their problem, not mine. I know what I have seen is real, maybe even more real than the mundane world within which so many seem to find such safe and plodding comfort, and these days I’m perfectly okay with that.

“Here is my secret. It is very simple. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

~ Antoine de Saint Exupery, The Little Prince

Politics

Previous Post

October 11, 2017

Hermes Resurrected: What Hermetic Literature Reveals to Contemporary Seekers

Next Post

October 16, 2017 The Crow's Nest: Honoring the Dead with Offerings at Samhain

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Lakeside Hearth Adventures in Wortcunning Alone In Her Presence Arts, Crafts & Cooking Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft Book of Blackbirds Book Reviews Born-Again Witch Cauldron, Sword, Spear, & Stone Cermony and Liturgy Columns Community Dandelion Seeds Dear Jasmine Druid Thoughts Editor's Picks Everyday Pagan Family & Household Practice Family Traditions Full Frontal Magic Gateway Goddess Guest Articles Happily Heathen Health and Wellness Hearth of Hellenism Heathen Woman Hills of the Horizon History Holidays Horse Goddesses Interfaith Interviews Irish-American Witchcraft Jewish Witch Lamp & Labyrinth Letters from Midgard Literature, Media, Film, Music Loop of Brighid Love, Sex & Relationships Magic or Magick Making Light Naturalistic Traditions Nature News Outside The Circle Pantheisticon Politics Prayers, Poems, Blessings & Stories Queer Femme Mystic Queer of Swords Recipes Ritual and Practice Science and Research Seekers and Guides Seeking the Grail Socially Responsible Magic Spear of Athena Star Made Witch Syncretic Electric Technology The Blooming Staff The Busy Witch The Cartomancer The Crow's Nest The Dance of Pagan Recovery The Hearth of Hellenism The Lady's Quill The Other Side of the Hedge The Path of She The Rantin' Raven The Witches Next Door The Zen Pagan Theology, Ethics, Philosophy Tree City Witch Urban Earthwitch Wayfaring Woman Witch on Fire Wyrd Words

Select a Month January 2026 March 2025 December 2024 June 2024 April 2024 March 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 August 2023 July 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What was the name of Bathsheba’s husband?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Nathan Abner Joab Uriah