Daily Archive for Wednesday, February 20th, 2002

I have commented in the past about my quuest to find a spiritual path. I have made it clear, I believe, that I am not looking for the “right” path, but rather the path that is right for me. In fact, I disdain anyone who believes that their spiritual path is the only way.

I found Wicca to be a good starting point because it is a highly decentralized (in terms of authority structure) Earth-centered religion that is based on seeing the energy in all things. Similar to Buddhism and other religions that keep meditation as a central tenant, Wicca calls on the individual to get in touch with his or her own inner spirit and emotions.

Every descriptioin I read of Wicca, however, gives a different account of what it means to believe in the Goddess, to cast spells, to practice “magick.” Today I found a very good overview of the Craft that I find very satisfying.

My chief concerns with Wicca are that:
a) The role of technology and progress within the belief system is unclear to me. Some people who are concerned about nature and life cycles see technology as alienating and destructive, while I do not. I see technology, in fact, as a great unifying force, and as a reflection of the human values put into it by its human creators.
b) The role of extraterrestrial living is not adequately expressed. I have not found any Wicca literature that deals with worship and practice when living on, say, the moon. As the religion is very Earth-centered, it focuses on the “Sabbats,” days of seasonal significance. The same Sabbats do not hold true on, say, Mars. Does Wicca require that believers, who believe in the power of Nature and the Earth, stay here? Because I would like to leave if given the opportunity. How does Wicca deal with other worlds?

Of course this problem exists for all religions. Many of the ancient and modern laws of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, to name the big three, require certain Earth-bound objects, symbols, and events to be recognized. It might be hard to find Mecca, or to bow to it, in the zero-gravity conditions of space. How can you take a day off from work on the Sabbath when there is no Sabbath, there is, in fact, no system of time, of days, of weeks?

The only religious system I have found that relates to what I am interested in and also takes into account some of these views in technopaganism, a belief set that is quite ill-defined and very rare. So I am at a bit of a loss. I can declare myself a Wicca with technopagan tendancies, and practice the Craft as I believe it should be, which would certainly not be untraditional (err…would be perfectly all right and normal), or I can keep searching for what I really am. Or, of course, I could just invent my own belief system. Or follow Bokononism.