Pagan/Witchcraft practicing Merfolk? Anyone?

[Mermaid Whisper]

I have been pagan for about 10 years now and am staff on a server of almost 1,000 witches.

My parents used to be super against it when I was growing up, but now that my mom has left, my dad says I can have an altar and all my tarot decks (he’s even let me read for him!) as long as I’m not doing spellwork in the house (I don’t do spells much anyway, just Sabbats).

I don’t believe we should be telling folks how their religion works, particularly when we don’t subscribe to that belief set any longer.


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[Merman Dylan Zalrian]

It's okay. It's like I said from the start. Many of my beliefs are Christian, but I'm more spiritual than devout.

As for healing, I don't think the things I find helpful are strictly of the Christian mind set. I was told that as long as you believe in God as I stated from the beginning you are Christian.

Anyways, I want to be respectful of this thread, so I don't want to talk about Christianity here unless I absolutely need to. I'm still hoping to learn anything that people might know about healing practices.

Are there links about Crystals anyone might recommend?

Does anyone know anything else aside from Crystals that they find healing in nature?

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[Merman Dylan Zalrian]

So, this seems close to something I think about with food. I'm not sure if it's 100% true.



However, cooking makes me think of potions. Is that strange?

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[mermanofdaveyjones]

I'm Wiccan and follow the Celtic deities.

[Mermaid Oracle]

Practicing pagan of 17 years here! (Waves fins)

[deepblue]

It's okay. It's like I said from the start. Many of my beliefs are Christian, but I'm more spiritual than devout.

As for healing, I don't think the things I find helpful are strictly of the Christian mind set. I was told that as long as you believe in God as I stated from the beginning you are Christian.

If you need to talk about the various forms of Christianity, and the way various Christians might incorporate natural healing (there is a huge movement of natural health Christians out there, you can Google it) there is another thread for Christians (the Christian Fellowship thread). There are also Christian Witches, a number of them are on the Sea Witches and Water Witches FB groups I mentioned earlier in the thread.

Many if not most of the pagans here deal with having to hide their path from people around them or are told this or that erroneous things about their beliefs, and this should not be a place where they have to worry about it also. So thank you for recognizing that this isn't the place for talking about the major religions as a focus.

So did anyone do any Samhain or similar rituals or ceremony? I usually do, and this year I didn't at all do the same as usual... for some reason, I'm missing my deceased friends so much more than usual this year. Next Saturday is the 8th anniversary of one of my best beloved's deaths, and it's hitting me harder this year because of other things that are going on. I know she'd understand. We'd talk about it, we'd laugh, we'd cry, and she's not here to do that anymore. And she hasn't visited in ages. I probably will honor the dead next year. And my friends Tim, Bob, Ash, Jesse... so many lost in just the past few years. Last year's altar held them all. This year I just didn't have it in me to set it up. Halloween itself was a blast, we have a haunt two doors down and holy cow, the line was long and went past our house, so we ran out of candy and I had to go out and get more. It was awesome, though, to have adults from the line trick or treating. lol Everyone gets candy at our house.

Meanwhile, Winter Solstice approaches, and I'm pretty sure I'll have an altar for that set up in our living room. I will walk to the water that day (it's like two minutes away from me), and I'm feeling very thoughtful about it all this year. We're putting up decor next week, the Yule tree, etc, but yeah, an altar also sounds really nice.

[Merman Dan]

Some time ago, I came across a news article and video describing the ease with which one could establish ones own church. The idea began to germinate. What about a "mermaid church"? The Roman Emperor Tiberius had his own natural Nymphaeum in the Blue Grotto of Capri. Others have been established in ancient cities elsewhere. Why not establish a small local congregation and an larger online following to honor Melusine, Poseidon, Oannes, and the like?

[PearlieMae]

Dan, the last thing Pagans needed to do is organize themselves. You know that.

[lotusauriel]

There are already established covens, churches, groups, casual meetings, whatever you want, worshiping whoever and whatever they want, however they want, everywhere. There are also solitaries that rather enjoy not being locked into some other human's vision.

[PearlieMae]

There are already established covens, churches, groups, casual meetings, whatever you want, worshiping whoever and whatever they want, however they want, everywhere. There are also solitaries that rather enjoy not being locked into some other human's vision.

That was my point.

[Merman Dan]

Perhaps a secret order, then? C'mon... who doesn't want their own sigil ring, password, and secret knock?

[lotusauriel]

Anyone, and I do mean ANYONE, can become a legally ordained minister. So if you want to set up your own mer-religion, you go right ahead. I'm just going to stay over here, on my rock, drowning pirates.

[MermaidSaph]

I'm not pagan/wiccan etc. myself, but I've always found it interesting. I'll have to go back through this thread on my laptop and check out some of the links/sources listed here!
However, I am an emotional energy/ elemental+nature energy/sanguinarian vampire. I also work with crystals and meditate when I can.

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Well whaddya know. I guess working with crystals n such was gonna eventually lead me to at least looking into witchcraft.
Since making the original post I researched witchcraft and things related to it, and it just kinda...made sense? I dunno. I don't really follow any specific paths or traditions, I just kinda do a little bit of everything.

[Mermaid Amanda]

I was raised catholic but as I have gotten older ive come into my own beliefs. I do believe in the spirit world and I don't just mean ghosts. I have a boyfriend that is spiritual and we live cross country from each other and 2 timezones. Hes in AZ and im in FL. When we first started talking and he started talking about it i thought he was a little nuts and thought i was crazy for believing him or that he was trying to pull something over on me. but then he had me close my eyes and he showed me and i could honestly feel him sitting right next to me on my couch. He had never seen my house but could accurately describe a few things about it. He studies things about projecting auras and projecting his spirit. Im definately fascinated by the spirit world and what lies within it.

[PearlieMae]

To boil it all down, here are the basics:

Paganism is the honoring of diety through Nature. Pagans recognize both the male and female aspects of diety.

'Witchcraft', and in this context, I'm talking mainly about divination and spellworking, is simply the manipulation of energy towards a goal.

That's it...the BIG SECRET of Paganism.

[BlueCorvidae]

I thought the modern definition Paganism was any religion that wasn't Abrahamic or Eastern. Historically it was simply any polytheistic faith, but we changed that these days because most priests of any Eastern faith take offense to the term.

[PearlieMae]

I was speaking in terms of Neo-Paganism, which are loosely associated with most Celtic/Druidic/Stregheria/Santeria (Western Europe/Mediteranean/North African) traditions. The overreaching 'pile them all into one bucket' definition of paganism is most likely found in Comparative Theology discussions. The 'Everything Not Judeo/Christian is Pagan' thinking is painfully shortsighted.

[Mermaid Whisper]

It certainly is. A lot of folks who follow those religions (under the supposed pagan catchall) really don’t appreciate being called so.


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[BlueCorvidae]

Ah. I've known a few witches that would object to the pagans worship through nature definition, since they don't really acknowledge nature, they worship a specific god. (I believe the ones I've talked to specifically were worshipers of Odin and Yemaja, respectively.) They didn't worship nature, or even claim to like all of nature. After all, cockroaches and mold on their showers still disgusted them, nature or not.

I might be getting things wrong though. I'm not pagan, I'm Christian. But I prefer discussing spirituality with self-identified pagans and witches. I get a lot less "you suffer because it's God's plan" or "have you been sinning a lot lately?" that way. (That and it's a lot more interesting to watch than a church service. Hope you guys don't mind.)

[PhaylennMurúch]

Some time ago, I came across a news article and video describing the ease with which one could establish ones own church. The idea began to germinate. What about a "mermaid church"? The Roman Emperor Tiberius had his own natural Nymphaeum in the Blue Grotto of Capri. Others have been established in ancient cities elsewhere. Why not establish a small local congregation and an larger online following to honor Melusine, Poseidon, Oannes, and the like?

You can’t run a damn convention right. Leave polytheism alone, Dan