Were you a Pantheist first? Or a Pagan first?

[ravenscape]

Maybe this is a false assumption, reasoning from my own winding path, but I surmise that many Pantheist Pagans don't spring full-blown into the world as Pantheist Pagans.

For me, Pantheism came first, born years later from the cold ashes of my childhood Abrahamic faith. It's hard to say when disillusioned agnosticism tipped gently over into something more alive and joyful, but it happened.

And then I accompanied a friend on her own long journey. She's had psychic flashes all her life, and a few years ago decided to stop ignoring her senses. She spent a lot of time weighing the terms "Wiccan" and "Witch" before deciding that the latter term was more a comfortable fit. I've lost track of my friend, but our long discussions started my own fumbling efforts to define an outlet - a way to express and practice what I perceive as a pantheist.

Or, as I've said elsewhere:

Pantheist is what I am, what I believe.
Pagan is what I do.

[Eleisawolf]

I was raised a Catholic, but I always had a sense of Pantheism, I think, even from when I was a young child.

I just didn't know that's what it was called.

I tried to make it work with Catholicism, and couldn't because of other things I believed.

I tried to make it work with Wicca, but that didn't work either.

I refused to try to make it work with the world religions I had admired from afar but couldn't lay claim to either from biology or tradition.

I then started calling it a sort of Eclectic Paganism. That worked better because it's so strange to define to begin with.

Then I discovered Deism and Pantheism. Both fit better than anything had before them. I decided that Mystical Pantheism was a closer fit than traditional Deism.

So, in some ways I was always a Pantheist, first. In others, I had to go through a lot of permutations before I finally figured out what it really was and what to call it.

Peace

[SpiralDancing]

I was definitely a Pantheist before a pagan.
However, I did not call it that, or recognize it as such, until I had become a pagan, if that makes any sense at all!

I was raised on a 30 acre bush block in a beautiful part of New Zealand, and was taught wonder and reverence of the natural world at a very very young age by my hippy parents.

Only began my pagan journey when I was about 17, then a few years later realised I was a pantheist, and pretty much had been most of my life.

[Agaliha]

I believe I was a Pantheist before I was Pagan-- I just didn't know it.
I was too busy trying to be theistic and find a religion and path and all that that I missed all the road signs (for years). Plus I didn't know there was a name for the belief of Pantheism. It wasn't until I happened upon some sites and read that it all made sense. And made sense in a big way!
Then I went though the phase of knowing I was a Pantheist, but still trying to be theistic...and that caused issues. I'm done with that. Heh.
I don't really consider myself Pagan anymore. If anyone asks I'm spiritual and an agnostic (as opposed to atheistic) and a Pantheist and maybe in the future a Taoist (which is a Pantheistic path)-- I'm still learning about it (Taoism).

[cheddarsox]

I echo the posts above. I've always been a pantheist, and experienced the Divine in a pantheistic way...but I didn't realize it. I lived under the guise of other faiths (raised Catholic), left because...well, lots of reasons...was a non demon Christian for awhile...began to practice what I referred to as my "religion of authenticity"..basically, I began to practice what I'd always believed and experienced as a religion...which led me into contact with pagans.

Then...I happened across some other pantheists and thought...hey..that's what I believe...never knew there was a name for it!

Now...I've let the other trappings of past religions fall away, and just practice my religion of authenticity...what I really believe, what really motivates me, moves me, demands the best of me.

I've never fully clicked with the pagan community..because down deep, I never saw the point of replacing one God with lots of them, which is how paganism initially appeared to me. Now I understand and appreciate much more of many pagan faiths, but they don't address what I believe anybetter than Christianity did.

I do celebrate the eight solar holidays, but that is because I am way sensitive to the cycles of the seasons, not because of any tradition.

I'm a pantheist through and through.

[Windsmith]

Wow! I'm not sure how much point there is to my answering this, since my story is so similar to so many other people's! :lol:

I wasn't always a pantheist. I once believed what they taught me in Sunday school, but I believed as a child believes, without question or thought. Once I got old enough to question, I questioned like mad, and everything that had held my view of the Universe together started to unravel. I went through periods of secret atheism followed by periods of ostentatious devotion, as atonement for my doubt.

When I was halfway through college, I was done with Christianity. A Wiccan friend invited me to her Beltane ritual, and I had a magical experience. I threw myself into studying Paganism and within a year had declared myself a practicing Pagan. But there I was discarding the one God I didn't believe in and replacing Him with a hundred gods and goddesses I didn't believe in.

So, for years I had this terrible secret: I practiced as a Pagan, but I didn't believe as a Pagan - or as I understood Pagans believed. Heck; I didn't know what I believed! During that time, if I recall, I encountered pantheism and rejected it because it struck me as too similar to atheism, which had never appealed to me, even when I was calling myself an atheist!

Only in the past few months, as I've encountered pantheism and pantheists here at MysticWicks and discovered that there are people out here who hold pantheism as a spirituality, rather than a philosophy, who celebrate the human need for ritual and spiritual connection, and who appreciate the beauty of Pagan practice and symbology without embracing its beliefs wholecloth, have I realized that this was what I've been looking for all along.

So I was a Pagan first, and then a Pantheist, but your description totally resonates with me, ravenscape. Pantheism is what I believe. Paganism is what I do.

[Julea]

I definitely called myself a pagan before I called myself a pantheist. I think it was more of a question of realization, as several people have already said. I had been a pantheist for a while, but not realized that there was a name for it.

[peggyelizabeth]

I think I'va always been both, but I self identified as a pagan first.

Actually, I'm not even sure if I'm really a [eclectic] pantheist or a panentheist, but that's another story.

[equinox2]

My path sounds like Ravenscape's.

Raised Catholic, believed it all.

Got old enough to question, and soon my abrahamic "faith" collapsed like a house of cards. I guess it's because I kept looking even after they told me to "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!!!" . (Oz reference)

Had no spirituality for years, then decided to start celebrating our earth by watching the sun rise on the winter solstice. Later added the summer solstice, then the equinoxes, then the thermstices/equitherms (the cross quarters), then later found out about Paganism.

So I was a Pantheist (had a naturalistic worldview) before I had the Pagan practices (in fact, I had Pagan practices before I ever heard of Paganism).

The term "Naturalistic Pagan" describes this approach - a worldview without the supernatural, coupled with Pagan celebrations. It's just what Ravenscape said:

Pantheist is what I am, what I believe.
Pagan is what I do.

So I keep one foot in the Pantheist/Naturalist country (though practices vary, most aren't Pagan), and the other foot in Pagan country (where the practice is Pagan - like the wheel of the year - but the beliefs vary). It's cool to see places like this forum, and the yahoo group in my .sig, where others are like us.

May the stars light your path-

[Birdy]

Pantheist first. I think I always was one but I didn't know there was a name for it.

We seem to have created a cliche here.

[equinox2]

Birdy-

You mean "clique", right?

[ravenscape]

A cliched clique? :D

Not!

I've garnered a good deal of food for thought in the threads in this subforum.

I put up a poll in Just Pagan the other day called "Are you a polytheist?" I tried to construct it so that people who don't fit nicely in the usual categories would have a chance self-identify and to interact in the discussion. It's been more successful than I had imagined, so far.

I think that many people - not only Pagans, but most religions - vary a great deal in how they think about the Divine and about their own spirituality. Our language tends to normalize a wide spectrum of beliefs into a few relatively narrow sounding categories. It's actually when people start trying to define their spirituality in non-religious language that I get a glimpse of the foundation of their beliefs.

[Marcasite]

Until I was about 12 or 13 I was a half-hearted Christian. Truthfully, I never thought about religion much at all. Around 14 I became an atheist for a long time. After I met Andrew, I lived with him and a bunch of Wiccans for a while. I tried to adopt Wicca, but it didn't work at all for me. I read many books on the subject but never really adopted it because it didn't fit. After that I described myself as an agnostic with pagan tendencies for a while while really having more of a pantheistic worldview. I didn't label myself a pantheist until a few weeks ago because I didn't know it had a name.