The Pagan Path

As a young person I, as were many others, was taught that Paganism was a form of 

Satanism or Devil Worship.  For many years this was the conception I had. Much later 

in life I was surprised to find out that this wasn't the case at all!  I had met some people

who claimed to be Pagan and they seemed very nice and not the type of folks who 

would do bad things.  One, with whom I had become close friends, explained that it

was an umbrella term for the ancient Earth Religions that had been practiced for more

than 30 thousand years!  That's way way before the dawn of Christianity and the other

Abrahamic religions.  These religions were based on the Solstices, Equinoxes and the

Cycles of Fertility, Planting and Harvesting of the crops.  Paganism has many forms such

as Norse, Druid, Celtic and Native American, to name a few.  And though these religions

held on to the concepts of good and evil,  most of them, to my great surprise and shock,

have no concept at all of the Devil or Satan, which was actually a concept that originated

with the Early Christian faith.  After this revelation, I began to explore some of the ancient

and new Pagan traditions and was pleasantly surprised at learning about the customs and

rituals that are practiced.  The video below is a gives a great introduction to Paganism for

beginners who wish to pursue this path and also to those who are merely curious.  I've  had

the opportunity to observe and even participate in rituals in my community and found them

to have a certain beauty and spirit that I hadn't known before.  The video below gives a

good explanation of what Pagans are and what they believe.