Neo-paganism sees growth in numbers

Originally Posted by Elspode

I wish I had a buck for every Pagan I know who was brought up Catholic. I swear that Catholicism is the largest single source of Pagans. I think it is because it is very nearly goddess worship to begin with, and the ritual and outrageous clothing is already comfortable to them.

I have two close friends who are Wiccan. He was raised high church episcopalian, and she, Catholic. There DOES seem to be something to THAT correlation.

The ignorance and prejudice of some people, especially fundamentalists is just appalling. I live in a smaller town which has acquired a reputation for being an artists' community and a haven for "witches." As soon as I'll tell someone where I live, they're likely to roll their eyes and say, "So, you're one of THEM?" or "You live up with the WITCHES?!?"

Yeah, you wanna make something of it, buddy? Even though I'm not a Pagan, I enjoy life among the "witches." There is NO violent crime in my community. I feel perfectly safe walking the streets alone at 2:00 am. The Jehovah's Witchness'es don't show up at my door at 9:00am on Saturday mornings trying to make me repent and bring me back into the fold of "the Goddess." "Witches" seem to be a very tidy bunch with a great love of plants and flowers because every yard around here is ablaze with flowers all summer long. "Witches" put on the best halloween festivities around. Right before Halloween my town had one of those big highway department flashing road signs posted on the main road coming in. "WARNING!" it read, "COFFIN RACES SAT A.M./ GHOULS' MASQUERADE SAT P.M.

I'd rather be a Buddhist among the Pagans than a Buddhist among the Fundamentalists any time!

[Elspode]

No Pagan will ever knock on your door at 8:00 AM on a Saturday morning...unless your house is on fire, and they happened to still be up from the previous night's frolics and noticed it, and were trying to save your life.

Pagans have their own particular sets of irritating characteristics, but most of them do not affect you unless you are actually personally involved with them in some way. We make good neighbors for the most part, unless you are a fanatic about tidiness.