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.
Devir says
Hi tess, I’m from another world jajaja my history same like you nut I never feel my path was christian always inside me say you are not the person and I was atheist for long but one day open my eyes and star practice my religion now I can say I feel free from all shit my parents and the religion say
Tess Whitehurst says
Devir, I’m so glad you feel free. 🙂
Justin Stone says
This is GREAT information that resonates well with me.
I grew up going to church because that’s what my family did and made me do, being southern Baptist/Christian as they were. As a young kid, and for years, until middle school aged, I followed my faith and was really good and active and known in our church as the good christian boy who knew so much and had such strong faith. Yeah, that was me, good ol’ ‘bible thumper’, empowered with their translations and text exerts desired.
Once past 6th grade, my curiosities stretched further and further, and I started reading the bible in full, in multiple versions. I started seeing all the inconsistencies between versions and even in the same version, throughout the pages. Then, I started asking questions, started bringing up these issues, got myself into the class with all the college students that were going to school to be pastors, theologians and other religious fields who studied the bible more than anyone (though OI was still only in middle school at this time). I was very ill met, and after only a few Sundays of having more interpretations and questionings of the texts than they could come up with, the other members of the class approached the teacher to have me removed and sent back to the younger group with only middle school and high school students.
It was not long after this, that I branched out and found wicca/witchcraft/pagan/spiritual ways. Yes, that’s a lot of ways of saying it, but realistically, there’s no one set label that truly classifies it. I became very much a spiritualist and naturalist and combined many different things into my belief system and , for a time, was great. I felt more confident, felt more myself, and felt more connected with life and nature than I ever felt before, everything seemed to be as it should, so much energy and life all around and magic was everywhere.
Unfortunately, life happens, and i have sense lost connections my my spiritual side due to stopping my studies and practices. This is where I came across this page and this story you shared, when I was out looking for assistance getting my spiritual connections and being back on track. I look forward to the information I will find on your site that will help me and thank you so much for sharing this part of your journey, and for reading this excerpt of mine, if you made it this far through my long-winded typing.
Tess Whitehurst says
Thank you for sharing your journey. I’m so glad this post resonates with you.
Carol Ann says
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 🙂
Tess Whitehurst says
Carol Ann, I’m so glad you think so! Thank you for connecting and for the encouraging words.
Amanda Black says
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.
Tess Whitehurst says
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
Andrew C says
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”
Tess Whitehurst says
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