What inspired you to follow the wiccan/pagan path?

Like you I ws raised Catholic but it never felt right to me. I always felt uncomfortable with it. Then in my twenties I began to look at different religions, first protestant and then I discovered the pagan path. The more I learned about Paganism the more I felt like I had known about it already. That it had always been a part of me. Now I feel very comfortable with my faith and my beliefs. I feel like they are fully within me and about me. That I do embrace them with all my heart and soul. With paganism I just felt as if it welcomed and completed me unlike any other had before.

both my mother and grandmother were sisters in craft as were my aunties, on my mothers side at least. I was born to it and have practiced from an early age . I dont choose a label but have a collection of beliefs that suit me well blessed be

I was raised in a non-practicing Christian home and pretty regularly attended church from about 3rd grade until about 8th or 9th grade. From early on there were things that I didn't agree with and didn't feel right to be about Christianity and the Bible. When I was in the 11th grade I knew that I wanted to start searching 'out side of the box' so to speak. I didn't actually start my quest until not after I graduated high school. I happened to start watching Montel and his guest that day was Sylvia Browne. There was something extremely real about her - I believed her. I am skeptical when it comes to psychics because they're a lot out there who pretending to be and taking advantage of people (and their pocket books). Sylvia opened up a whole new world to me. She made me feel so much better about God, the afterlife, and my self. She also introduced me to the Goddess which eventually lead me into Wicca about 3 or 4 years ago. I had always been interested in Wicca but I had been to held back by the fear (of God - now how silly is that?) of exploring it. And I feel I'm just scratching the surface on Wicca - and my spiritually exploration. I have/do study Christianity and it's history still. There are certain aspects of it that I connect with - like Jesus and his actually teachings of loving God and one another. I believe that Jesus was a great teacher like many others through out history. And I also still celebrate most of the Christian holidays. And there are many, many other religions I hope to explore yet. There is something that Sylvia says and that I firmly believe - "When your spirit hears the truth - it knows it". I basically take what resonates with me and I leave the rest. I love learning about different religions. I read a lot. I've learned a lot about Christianity's history and I wonder what some Christians would think if they learned the same things as I did. When I was in the 8th grade (I think) my mom was heavily trying to become labeled an Native American and to get her eagles feather. She went to a lot of meetings with other Native Americans. She took some of my poems for this one lady to read and she told my mother that I was a medicine woman. I was shocked and I felt honored that she thought that much of me just by reading my poems. Then when I was a senior in high school I had befriended a witch who told me that I was a natural white witch too. I had no idea what that meant but I it was a very nice feeling :)

I was raised under christianity -- but not under any particular sect of it. None of my family ever fit into anything lol. I dunno..I heard about it, and even though I at the time had beliefs just like everyone else about it..felt drawn to it. Like I was supposed to read and learn almost. And the more I learned about it, the more I was amazed at how beautiful it was. How many of the beliefs were so much like my own. I was thirteen lol. One of the things which called to me the most was divination -- astrology and tarot specifically, and wicca and paganism were one of the few paths I could find which said it was okay if used wisely. And in the begining there it tended to repeat nearly the same message over and over again. With tarot the card from the Major Arcana, the Moon showed up in the future position -- which I knew could typically mean magick. And astrology said that I was supposed to be something when I grew up, not like I was going to be a firemen or some other normal kind of career..something out of he ordinary -- and though I'm not all grown up just yet, being a witch..I think classifies as out of the ordinary. Anyway, I was all "Yeah..right" *laughs* But once I decided that I was going to follow this path -- be pagan, I don't know how to describe it exactly. It was like finding I did belong someplace, like knowing exactly who I was and why I was here (even though none of us do truly know that lol). And slowly..I've just grown to be..I don't know, a happier person than I was without my faith. As the years go by, the more comfortable with myself I am -- that's the only way I know how to describe it. With christianity I wasn't comfortable with myself or happy at all because I was being constantly told I was bad or a sinner -- not by my parents, mind..but by our church's teachings. So here I am..lol.

I was raised in a Pagan family, and although I always had the freedom to look elsewhere for spiritual fulfillment I never needed to. I've always had an interest in other religions, but I always felt a real sense of truth and fulfillment in Paganism.

Much like yourself, I was born into Catholicism. My parents even had me attend Catholic school from kindergarten through to eighth grade. The nine years I spent there were a very rough time for me. For example, I was taught about starving children in the world one afternoon during lunch. I had only eaten half of the sandwich my mother had prepared for me that morning and didn't really want the rest, so, being the seven-year-old that I was, I threw it in the trash, right in front of the mother superior. She had me fish it out, sit down and eat it, lecturing me all the while. When I was done, as further punishment, I was made to sit in the lunchroom while my friends played outside for recess. I could go on and on about all the horrors that I had to endure, but I'm sure you've heard it before. Needless to say, I felt that there was something a bit . . . off about the whole experience, which led me to question it in its entirety. When I was a teenager, I happened upon a copy of Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft and the rest, as they say, is history.