Wanting to learn about paganism

[Austin_Bear-Sky]

Having been raised in a cult in my childhood I found all forms of religion to be offputting. Not too many years ago, my now wife has suggested me looking into my pagan roots more, but I don't know who to talk to about such things, I'd prefer it to be from someone I trust who would be willing to teach me more about my ancestral pagan Roots

[Jazzy Vidalia]

I am not so much into "tradition" as much as I am theology, philosophy, and carving my own path, but Paganism can be fun and there's many different courses your can take with it to develop your spirituality. My Pagan path led me to Hinduism, Buddhism, and eventually to Gnosticism. It's okay to not be committed to a path forward when you find that path blocked. It happens to the best of us. Especially in these times where faith has shown us its limits and the old dogmas have been exposed for what they are.

Indeed as Marx said "all that is solid melts into the air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind." And what an accurate description of the current state of things under late capitalism where it feels like humanity is walking into a collective dark night of the soul.

As we look longingly at pagan traditions and question our humanity and nature through movements such as critical theory and alterhuman thought we begin to develop new ideas and memes that will one day change this world. Our acts of introspection are also acts of chaos magic which have a profound effect both not only on ourselves, but our society as we slowly develop these ideas and develop into them.

As for pagan roots, I still feel it has a place even in a technological, post-modern society. Or rather, especially in one. We have become detached from nature and those severed ties only serve to make us believe the environment is an abstract thing and not something we exist fully within and whose forces we are subject to. Pagan beliefs give us culture and stories binding us not just with nature but with each other and allow us to use stories and folklore to foster ideas about community and create communal identities—something that today is missing in our bland suburban world which alienates us from both nature and each other.

I really recommend looking at various traditions. Wikipedia is a great place to start. Find a deity that interests you and learn their stories. YouTube these days has a lot of good videos on pagan and other ancient traditions including magic and esoterism from the basics all the way up to doctorate level discussions of dissertations. On top of all that: read. Don't be afraid to pick up a scholarly book on a topic even if it is dense. You'll pick things up with time.

So, what traditions are you looking into?

[Austin_Bear-Sky]

This was a good insight. In terms of deities I find Bephamet to be very interesting and I even have a incense shaped like them. In terms of traditions I'm mostly Irish/Scottish in terms of heritage so I imagine I'd likely find those traditions to be what I'd want to look into. Recovering something that was lost long ago