Here’s how I transitioned from Christianity (the faith with which I was raised) to Atheism to Buddhism to the magical form of spirituality I currently practice.
But I thought today I’d write about how I transitioned from Christianity (the faith with which I was raised) to Atheism to Buddhism to the magical form of spirituality I currently practice. Ultimately, it’s my hope that this is also practical to some of you. While each of us has our own unique path to walk, perhaps reading about my experience will help you feel less alone, or provide ideas or resources that you’ll find applicable to your own spiritual evolution.
My parents were both raised Catholic, and I was baptized Catholic as a baby. When I was four, just before I started kindergarten, my parents divorced. My mom packed my brother and me in her station wagon and drove us to a brand new apartment in a brand new town, about a 40-minute drive away from our old house, where our dad stayed. Not long after that, my mom became a Baptist and we began attending a Baptist church on Wednesday nights. On the weekends, though, we were back with our dad, and while we didn’t go to church with him much, we still went to the Catholic church occasionally, and definitely on Easter.
It was around this time that my mom began warning me about Satan, and how I might do something that would cause me to become possessed by him, or by one of his demons. “But don’t think about Satan or worry too much about him,” she added, “it gives him power when you’re afraid of him: he likes it.”
Obviously, this was very confusing to an elementary-school-aged child. Satan (or a demon) might possess me: so be careful, but don’t be afraid. It was impossible to follow both those instructions at the same time. Naturally, I also became terrified of becoming possessed. I thought about it constantly (which I knew was wrong), and I had nightmares about it. I reasoned that the best defense against this terrible fate would be to pray regularly and imitate the adults in my life (like my mom) who were active in the Baptist church.
My dad, on the other hand, was another story. Even though he called himself a Catholic (and still does, I think), he regularly urged my brother and me to think for ourselves. When he drove us to and from his house along the two-lane country road that connected his town to our mom’s town, he would tell us about things like reincarnation and quantum physics, and would even encourage us to question the Bible. While I still harbored an intense fear of possession, I loved and respected my dad so much, I definitely gave all he said a lot of thought.
After going through another marriage (to someone in our church) and another divorce, my mom left the Baptist church and didn’t talk much about religion for a while. I was around fourteen at this time, and I had a new best friend at school who was raised by atheist parents. She introduced me to Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman, and inspired me to try on atheism for size…and I loved it! It felt so freeing, and so simple, and so eminently logical not to worry about being possessed anymore, or about going to hell, or being a bad person for not being a good enough Christian, and so on. When someone asked, “Do you believe in God?” I found it thrilling to say a clear and emphatic “No,” and to not feel sorry for it in the least.
A year or two after that, I discovered Jack Kerouac: specifically his books On the Road and The Dharma Bums. He had also been baptized Catholic, but somewhere along the way had discovered Buddhism, and wrote about it in the most mesmerizing and poetic of ways. Not long after I read his books, I discovered the Buddhist section of our local bookstore and began reading everything I could find on the subject. I read A Path with Heart, The Miracle of Mindfulness, Zen Mind Beginners Mind, and many more. I began meditating during my lunch break at school, and when I got home from school, I often moved my mattress outside of our apartment so I could stare up at the clouds and spend hours contemplating empty space.
I was still really into Buddhism when I moved to Pasadena to go to college. This was the first time I had access to larger and more metropolitan bookstores, and it was also the 90s, when Witchcraft was experiencing an upswing in popularity. When my girlfriend and I discovered the “Magic Studies” section at the neighborhood Barnes and Noble, it was a revelation to say the least. “Coincidentally,” it was around this time that I discovered my mysterious, waif-like downstairs neighbor was a Witch. She lent me Good Magic by Marina Medici (still one of my all time favorites) and some old Llewellyn Magical Almanacs, and it was like I had finally come home. It was as if I was reading something I already knew (or at least suspected), and just needed someone else to mirror back to me. I set up an altar, tried out some spells, and felt the entire natural world come to life with magic and meaning.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing from there, however.
I still had a lot to learn about the holistic nature of magic. In other words, I didn’t quite understand yet that the magical spiritual path wasn’t just about doing sparkly spells and having pretty altars: it was also about moving through old challenges, releasing old patterns, and consciously fine-tuning my energy in order to come into ever-greater levels of balance, harmony, and joy. But if you pay attention, magic has a way of showing you what you need to know. Eventually, I put it together that magic is like electricity: extremely powerful, and incredibly helpful once you understand and respect the way it works. (Incidentally, my journey to understanding magical dynamics is what inspired me to write You Are Magical, so other people could fast-forward to knowing what I learned over time.)
I also went through a period when my old terror of becoming possessed resurfaced. In my early twenties, my mom married one more time, once again to someone who was a full-fledged Christian. Her renewed commitment to her faith sparked questions in my mind about my diverging from the well-worn path of Christianity: What if she’s right? What if Christianity is the only true way? And most troublingly, what if my magical experimentation will eventually cause me to end up in hell?
Again, books played a pivotal role in adjusting my world view. There were three books I read around the same time that permanently released me from my twin fears of possession and damnation. The first book was Cosmos. The transcendent way Carl Sagan laid out the known facts about our Universe helped me regain the freedom I felt when I first proudly asserted that No, as a matter of fact I didn’t believe in God.
The second book was The Hero with a Thousand Faces. This book gave me a broader perspective on world spirituality than I’d ever had before. It helped me understand that it is in our nature as humans to tell stories about ourselves and our existence, and that none of these stories are precisely true, but none of them are false either. They are psychologically true: they are true in the sense that we can draw personal power and spiritual inspiration from them. And they are true in the sense that there are common threads running through all mythologies, which reveal the qualities (like universal love and personal transformation) that are sacred to us as a species.
And the third book that helped me become free from my Christianity-related fears was…The Bible. And believe it or not, The Bible was the most powerful one of the three. Why? Because when I finally read it in its entirety (I actually listened to it on CD, but I really did listen to all of it), I realized that it was just a book. Just a really old, really boring, really violent book, written by people. While I liked some parts of it, I had no transcendent experiences while I read it. I had several moments when I felt confused by the inconsistencies or disgusted by the prolific rape and murder. But I had zero moments when I felt exceptionally awed or inspired.
As I made my way through Los Angeles freeway traffic at night, the final CD of the Bible came to an end. When it ejected itself, U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For was playing on the radio. As I listened, tears ran down my face as I realized that – gloriously – none of us will ever find what we’re looking for. No one really knows what’s going on here. There is no one God, no one path, no one answer.
There is only one mystery. One sacred, beautiful, magical mystery. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
…Have you also found your way out of a religion you were raised with? Or are you finding your own path now? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.
Did you like this post? You may also enjoy reading these 5 Common Myths About Magical People.
Thank you for sharing this with us. You have no idea how much I needed to read it. I’m having a really difficult time with just accepting who I am compared to who I was taught I should be. And also separating those beliefs to what I actually believe. Ahh!! When I back away from this magical life I lose my spirit. I become dead inside.
But it’s so hard. I almost wish I was never raised with religion.
Anyways.. I don’t mean to word vomit all over over page. 🤣🤣 I just really appreciate you sharing your story. Thank you for being a part of my journey.
Mandy, it’s wonderful to hear this resonated with you. Thank you for reading and for letting me know.
Wonderful post Tess!!! I relate to this so much. Thank you for sharing your story 💖
I can relate to your story at some point. My parents were raised catholic but ironically they’re not religious, I attended to a catholic primary school, where the nuns told us many spooky stories about posessions and invoking demons by watching certain tv shows or reading certain books, at some point there I was obsessed with that topic too. I was scared and tried to be ‘good’. Then during the end of secondary school and first year of highschool I went through a very tough depression and therefore I became an atheist. I’ve always been profoundly curious or interested in the misteries of life. Later on, during my college years I became highly interested in buddhism, but I have found that I can not be a religious person but a spiritual one. And I’m still searching a path that brings joy to my soul, and Tess you’re being a part of my journey!
Thanks for sharing your story. Blessings!
This is so beautiful, Tess. It was so nice reading something so personal on your blog. Thank you so much for sharing your path. My mom introduced me to Wicca and paganism when I was around 11 years old, but she would go back and forth between magic and the fear-based Christianity her whole life. She still does. I love what you said at the end of your post, how none of us really know. I don’t know any more than anyone else, but I definitely feel a Truer and deeper love practicing magic and worshipping the goddess and celebrating the fae and spirits. Again thank you so much for sharing your story xoxo
This was wonderful, Tess, thank you so much for taking us down your path. I’m so interested in how people get where they are.
I was raised in a Christian household, though my parents were Presbyterian growing up. I think my mom’s church is now Southern Baptist but don’t hold me to that. Actually, they didn’t go to church for about 2 years up to my father’s death in late 2015. My mom still didn’t go to church after that because the pastor she wanted to go to moved 12 hours away. She did end up going back to church last year when a friend begged her to play the keyboard for a church he started going to.
They let my brother and I explore things, though they encouraged us to remain Christian. I’ve always had severe social anxiety and mental blocks in several areas of my life. I noticed meditation seemed to help quite a bit in clearing my mind. I started practicing meditation and looking into Wicca and witchcraft when I felt an affinity to it. I don’t consider myself religious now, though I do still believe in God and the universe. My outlook on the world around me has softened from the dire fear that Christianity instilled in me for so long.
Hi Lizzie, I loved the sentence with which you concluded your story. I completely resonate with that, only with another monotheistic religion: Islam. I come from a muslim household and since I was young my parents would randomly feed me fear-based stories and instructions: to fear the devil, to not eat with my left hand or otherwise the devil would also be able to have nutrition and therefore become stronger, to never flush hot water down the drain because then the evil spirits who lived there would become angry at me, stories of becoming possessed by angry spirits. I was such a fearful young girl, but at the same time I was really, really open-minded and curious. But fear was the main player in my head. My parents also filled our house with books, all types of books actually, but naturally, because of their stories, I took to the books about religion and people who were muslim. There was one book in which the main character experienced that in her sleep a ghost tried to choke her, by sitting atop her chest. This instilled such deep fear in me that I could not sleep in peace anymore. At the same time I was selected to go to one of most prestigious schools in our area (I am Dutch, living in the Netherlands). And you would think academia might have saved me from the fear of religion, but it took another decade, until I was 20/21 that I started to really actively doubt and reject everything that I had believed. But my parents did not accept it. It was extremely difficult to try to be free of the fear and depressive thoughts, while at the same time my parents with all their forceful emotions would keep reminding me and instilling me that I should follow their faith. Honestly, my whole life and my life experiences have made me deeply resentful towards the religion (islam) and its culture. I want nothing to do with it. Being spiritual however, and exploring the ‘magical’ side of religion has made me a much, much more peaceful, softer and accepting person (to myself and to others).
Thank you Tess for sharing your incredible journey on the Magical path! I feel blessed that my parents wern’t religious, more humanitarian and my mother was definitely a natural Wiccan although she did not realise as such. I found the Buddhist practice when I was in my early twenties and the world just opened up for me and I began studying astrology and healing. I feel that Buddhism and the Magical path go hand in hand, in a sense and by now I am more about the Magic of the Mystery!
Thank you so much for being such an ambassador of this path and lighting the way for many people in your loving and genuine way! xxx
Thank you for this blog post <3
I was lucky enough to be born in a place where Christianity has been taking a lot less space in people's lives and society for the couple past generations. I was baptized when I was a baby just because that's what everyone was doing, not because my parents really had the faith or anything.
Then at school we had catechism classes, but people of different religions or from atheist parents could choose to opt out and they had another class instead that could be translated to ''moral/ethics class'' I guess? In any case, I kinda liked the catechism classes and also started going to church on my own because none of my family was going anyway, except for Christmas. I was never super devoted or anything, but at that time (I was still a child/pre-teenager), I thought the Catholic religion was quite nice and peaceful, with the stories of Jesus being a nice person and all.
Then I grew up and eventually I learned of everything the Catholics/Christians did to people throughout the world and I was disgusted. Especially as a queer person engaged with another woman, I can feel how much this religion has tainted some people's common sense and empathy.
I don't mind people choosing the faith or path they want, but I expect them to do the same with everyone else and to stop blindly judging people because their church/leader says to do so.
I have to admit that I have trouble dealing with things like Angels, because of the psychological trauma I still have with the Catholic faith. I do believe Jesus probably existed and was a nice person, but for me the topic of Angels is still a bit mingled in my mind! I know you like to invoke the protection of some of them Tess and I find it really interesting, but my mind is not ready yet to embrace anything related to Christianity! How did you deal with that?
Carol Ann, thank you for sharing, and great question! I connect with angels as fields of energy, and they don’t feel related to Christianity to me exactly. They feel like their own thing. (But even Jesus, Mother Mary, and Mary Magdalene have their own sweet energies to me that feel independent of the stories many Christian churches have around them.) But I don’t think you need to work with Angels if it doesn’t feel right to you! We all just find what works best for us. It’s all the same divine energy anyway.
Thank you for your reply 🙂 You’re right, I guess I don’t need to include them in my magical work, I’m just a bit sad that I’m so close minded about these magical beings in particular, but not any other ones who are associated with other faiths. I’m the kind of person who hold grudges for a long time! But I guess I shouldn’t stress too much over that!
Something to consider – many cultures and religions other than Christianity revere, write about, experience Angels. Of course, as Tess says, you don’t have to embrace anything that doesn’t resonate with you. Wishing you peace and joy.✨✨✨
Such an honest and heartfelt post. Thank you for sharing your story with us. Your book “Magical Housekeeping” was my first dip into the arts back in 2010 and it is still one of my favorites. It opened my eyes and spirit, and led me home. Thank you for all the work you do in helping others find their way. You’re always an inspiration. ❤️
Very much appreciated this. I’m going through my own spiritual awakening and as I try to discern the next step on my path it’s very comforting to see it’s a path so many of us walk.
Thank you so much for sharing this! I can relate to so much of your story. After growing up in the tongue-talking, pew-jumping branch of Christianity to asking questions that eventually unraveled everything leaving me more or less atheist to finding Zen Buddhism and then meeting Hecate in a vivid dream, I’ve spent the better part of the past two decades learning to walk my own path without stressing as much about labels or about what other people believe about Spirit (or about me!) It seems that many of us have had a similar journey. It is good to know we aren’t alone. Blessed be!
I’m honored by all these lovely comments! It’s wonderful to see this post resonated. Thank you to everyone for sharing your heartfelt feelings and stories.
This is so beautiful Tess. Thank you for sharing your experience; it helps us all see that we are not alone in our questions and fears. I am currently about 3/4 of the way through your book “You are Magical” and absolutely love it. It’s practical and deeply inspiring at the same time. Thank you so much for shining your light for all to see.
Valerie, thank you! I’m so glad you’re enjoying the book.
Thanks for sharing, Tess. I enjoy reading about other people’s journeys. 🙂 I’ve never really been that religious; just loosely would have identified as a Protestant, I suppose, but didn’t go to church much. I feel more of an affinity with pagan and Wiccan beliefs.
Somehow I missed this post and am just finding it today. I know it’s NOT a coincidence because I was meant to find this blog at this moment of transition in my life. Thank you so much for sharing your journey. Your words never fail to inspire me and almost always leave me with a sense of awe, hope and sheer joy. The work you do is so important in the world and I feel blessed to have access to your wisdom and gentle spirit.
Heidi, thank you for your sweet words! I’m glad the post resonates with you. 🙂
I resonate with your story. When I started reading the Bible I didn’t really feel anything either. This is an interesting concept because the culture talks so much about how this feeling is impacting them to do what they do. When I read other books I can be taking pages of notes and go on and on about it.
Recently I came across this YouTube series called The Bible Project. The do short explainer videos (with beautiful animation) that really helped translate the 2,000+ year old culture and language into a modern form that I could understand and relate to. Through them, I also learned the genre of the book is meditation literature. I instantly connected with this because I would often get lost in long passages, but have great conversations over small ones.
I also really appreciate how they don’t push any particular tradition, but rather try to show the history, literary genius in a way I could appreciate, and let the authenticity of the Bible be seen for itself. If you or anyone would like to see what they’re about, my favorite series is “How to Read the Bible”
Hi Andrew! Thanks for this. There are definitely many beautiful passages in the Bible (as there are in many sacred texts), and it is obviously a huge influence in our culture, so there is value in being familiar with it. I really enjoy the work of Bible scholar Jonathan Kirsch, including his bestseller, The Harlot by the Side of the Road: Forbidden Tales of the Bible: https://amzn.to/2I0BQES
I was born into a Christian family also, but it never resonated with me, mostly because everything is shoved down your throat without getting a chance or even taught to think for yourself. In my teens I broke away from it, but didn’t care about spirituality at all. Then, in my twenties I came across Wicca. I dabbled in it for years, but broke away from that too for the same reasons. Next came Hinduism and Traditional Witchcraft. Move forward a few years and I started looking into my Native American culture and beliefs. One of the first things I discovered is that women’s power comes from her womb and a newer book out on witchcraft claims the same. And I am shattered. After my fourth child I agreed to undergo a hysterectomy. So what does this mean? I gave away my power. I really don’t know what to do right now.
Amanda, the power at your womb area is energetic and does not rely on your womb to be physically present. I suggest a book called Powerful and Feminine by Rachael Jayne Groover. It shows you how to work with the energy at your womb area, regardless of whether or not you still have a womb: https://amzn.to/2tMACTN
Thank you for this article! <3 It's SO well written, I loved it!! And I think you're right, this kind of story will certainly be helpful to many people, because it makes us realize how it's NEVER to late to change and to try to find our own 'true' way 🙂
Carol Ann, I’m so glad you think so! Thank you for connecting and for the encouraging words.