A brief history of my path, where it has been and where it seems to be going, seemed to be an appropriate first post.

How I Came To My Path

When I was still very young my mother dabbled a little in The Craft, and I also used to get taken to visit the local witchcraft store with one of my close friends. My fascination with witchcraft was born back then.

I continued to visit that magical store with my friend until it sadly closed down.

From there it was mostly playing around with herbs and spices, chants and rhyming. There was a heavy influence from movies and shows such as “The Craft”, “Charmed”, and the mini-series “Merlin” in our witchcraft half-games.

I had also grown up with my grandmother telling me stories of the Greek and Roman gods. And I have loved classical mythology ever since.

I had strong love of all things Egyptian for some time in my early teens, but as that has faded to a side interest, my love of the classical gods, and the tales of their deeds stays strong.

Around the age of twelve I discovered the all knowingness of the internet. And that’s when things really got started!

I threw my self into studying any information I could get my hands on. I read through pagan forums for hours at a time.

This is when I first started to truly study neo-paganism.

Since then I have met people, read books, practiced (some times more than others), and generally done the normal ‘neo-pagan thing’.

Dionysos first became of interest to me about a year and a half ago when I was having my first agnostic or atheistic doubts about the literal reality of magic and gods.

Being tapped on the shoulder by ‘Old Wino’ was an odd experience when in a questioning and atheistic head space- though very fitting for a god of paradox!

Recent Developments

When I first started to have doubts about the literal existence of magic and gods- that was when, as I mentioned just before, Dionysos first seemed to try and grab my attention.
And so because of Him I stayed strong in my literalist faith a little longer. But I began to swing between the two extremes of literalist polytheism and atheistic thoughts that it was “all rather silly”.

I was stuck in this uncomfortable flip-flopping between belief and not. Picking up my pagan practices and dropping them again in and awkward dance.

I somehow eventually found my way to the Humanistic Paganism website earlier this year. Which really opened the door, for me, to the idea that pagan practices could be useful and fulfilling even from an atheistic viewpoint.

I had always intuitively felt strongly that this was the case, but had never thought deeply enough about the idea to truly figure out the mechanics of how it could work.

My thinking became heavily influenced by the ideas I found on that site, and it felt comforting that I could keep my practices even in the face of doubt.

However I still had a slight niggling of discomfort. I decided that this was due to the fact that I have had strange and weird things happen to me, and am unwilling to accept that they can only be coincidence!
Sure they might be, but I refuse to claim or believe that that is all that they are or could be.

I think I am now coming back from the atheistic extremes of the Humanistic Paganism thought, and am beginning to settle down into an area of strong skepticism while maintaining an agnostic and open view of the world.
Simplification has also become of interest to me, and is something I like to keep in mind when rethinking my practices.

Of course this is just a snapshot outline of my thoughts and practices as they are currently. They will almost certainly continue to expand and evolve, and possibly change completely from time to time. Which, although a bit confusing and intimidating at times, is also very exciting and beautiful.