Welcome to /r/Pagan's weekly Ask Us Anything thread!

​

The purpose of this thread is give posters the opportunity to ask the community questions that they may not wish to dedicate a full thread for. If you have any questions that you do not justify making a dedicated thread, please ask here! Although do not be afraid to start one of those, too.

​

If you feel like asking about stuff not directly related to Paganism, you can ask here, too!

​

New Readers and Newcomers to Paganism

​

Are you new or just getting started? Please read our sidebar to orient yourself to this community, our definition of Contemporary Paganism, and the expectations of this subreddit.

​

Do you still have questions?

​

• Check our FAQ page first!

​

• Join us on the Discord server

​

• Still have questions? Seeking: First Pagan Steps and Tools is a great tool for beginners and interested persons reading about Contemporary Paganism.

​

• Other questions? Ask below!

mythology aside (i have gotten over this by 90% notion already), i am more interested in the upgs or the accepted general consensus about deities who 'don't get along' or 'have beef'.

and i have questions myself (that a beginner such as i may NEED HELP answering. i am not well versed in divination yet; this inquiry can be answered as vaguely or as detailed you'd like, i simply need a coherent answer) MAINLY such as:

1. can lady athena and lord lucifer work together? (because i am heavily drawn to them)

2. what are the views of lord hades on the infernals?

also bcs, if the circumstance ever happens, where i worship two 'opposing' energies (which i know i can, i just need advice on how i can work around it and discernment), i don't have much room to make altars to offer bcs i live with my christian parents.

Okay so I live in the southern USA. Here everyone is either Christian Baptist, Methodist, or catholic. If you aren’t that you basically are shunned by family and peers. I have never really believed in Christianity and struggled with identity most my life. My family was never church goers but my parents were Christian. I’m 29 now. My parents recently joined in the last two years this Baptist church run out of someone’s home and have become really judgmental and basically tell me I’m going to hell if I don’t “follow Jesus”.

I have been lucky to work for a company where a few pagans have guided me but with my work closing down after the hurricane I have less ways to learn and grow.

I was referred to read Bucklands complete book of witchcraft as my first book. Can someone tell me where to go from here?

I have had one of my former coworkers do a reading on deity’s I’m connected to and I matched with Cerridwen. Is there anything I must do from here? I feel more drawn to witchcraft and all things related than I have ever felt to Christianity. I’ve never believed in it at all.

I’m moving to England next year to be with my fiancé. Are there groups over there that I can link up with to learn from?

How can I help myself heal from parental trauma through deity work and witchcraft? What sub name in paganism do I identify as?

I’m really lost and confused right now.

So far on my altar I have a little stack of wooden cubes and I can turn the top one over to reveal the horned god symbol. Then I have a white mom letter board (one of the felt ones with the plastic letters) that has la tin on out that translates to maiden mother crone. And then there’s a glass jar for the chalice.,

In my case, sometimes there are things that I undeniably recognize as not coming from me and they come without difficulty, other times after thinking about it a little and using my intuition I know that they were not mine.

I have a super active mind, meditation helps me quiet it when I need to in order to communicate with spirits, although sometimes it remains silent 80% of 100% and because of that 20% I doubt if it's really mine or theirs.

Other times the information comes to me while I am not meditating and instead doing things in my daily life, that is when it's even more difficult for me to identify it.

And sometimes there is a situation where even my intuition is not sure.

How do you identify your thoughts from what the spirits are telling you? Any advice?

For context, I'm a polyfragmented system of over 100+ "headmates"/alters, discovering more and more parts of my system over the span of the past year. I usually have only been a devotee of Loki and Freyja, but have lately been seeing signs of Hermes just about everywhere.

I wanted to see the opinions and perspectives of other pagan systems, do trickster deities often disguise themselves as alters within your system? Is that possible? And when communicating with said deities, how can you separate them with the internal communication of the members of your system? What advice would you have to systems who are being reached out to by these deities?

I have thins question about how Im dressed when I do offering. It is okay if I dont wear any bra (because Im usually at home and im in pijama all day) or should I start to dress nice?

I apologize for the topic of hunting if it upsets some. Please know I hunt as ethically, sustainably and fairly as possible.

So I invoked Artemis and asked Apollo for sunshine for the Hunt yesterday. I poured out a simmer pot in a circle thrice while doing so.

This morning I completed my altar, asked Artemis again for her blessing and I gave apples and minerals as sustinace for her deer in exchange for them providing sustinace for me.

I gave an offering to the Forrest wights and thanked them for their stewardship of the land.

Without a word of a lie. This behemoth showed up on our trail cameras today with more deer reported by nearby hunters.

Thanks to the land for providing. I pray I have the opportunity to harvest some meat.

I never really posted here before, but here I go. Paganism just... feels more natural to me. Comforting even.

Christianity honestly has given me so much anxiety I'm suprised that my hair hasn't turned grey. Even with my research as to why Christianity isn't true, the anxiety is still there. I know how the abrahamic religions came to be, but... I'm still scared at times.

But paganism just feels so much more natural to me, like I don't have to fear a Pantheon. I'm not told I'm a piece of shit just for being born, or that I have to follow a man who was very much likely a cult leader.

Like I feel more of a connection to prometheus, even as an athiest. He feels like he had a bigger sacrifice than jesus. Not to mention he actually seemed to care and didn't just say to abandon and hate your family.

I'm not sure how to describe how I feel, I'm new to all this stuff.

Like I can just let go of my fear of the abrahamic god existing. Even as an athiest, paganism just makes more sense to me.

Hello! I just joined this sub and wanted to share with you a self-portrait I did for the celebration of Dziady (Forefathers Eve).

Here you can see a mask called kraboszka that was traditionally used by Slavic people during those rituals to protect themself from evil spirits

I’m researching the different gods and goddesses and I’m wondering if the general consensus is that they are actual present beings in our reality that are actual gods, energies, or maybe just energies from a different reality or universe?

What do you guys think?

Cause then I was like ok if one god is real…are they all real??

Hi!! im just studying right now and was wondering if anyone has any favourite small pagan youtubers for me to watch well i study :)

Are there any pagans who struggle with paranoid thoughts of being judged or hated, or being left by their deities for calling them out? Or see them in a extremely different light sometimes (for instance, you love them more than life one day, and then the next they are unfair liars and you harbor burning hatred for them), or other extreme things like this? Tantrums, rage, distrust?

How'd I do? For Artemis/Apollo and the Forrest wights.

I read that half moon shaped offerings are pleasing to Artemis but was warned by a witch that mixing certain crystals or stones can have a negative effect.

Can anyone Identify this and tell me If it's not a good idea to add it to my altar?

(Invoking Artemis for the Hunt)

Im not a very religious person but i want to start turning towards it to help with my depression. Because of it i often struggle with being motivated, getting up in the mornings, falling into bad habits, and just actually enjoying and living life yk?

Are there any deities in Paganism (im leaning towards Hellenism) that i could turn to?

(I also still have to do a lot of research about paganism but i started looking into the gods and was wondering if there was a specific one id be able to honor first)

Not a pagan myself but I love mythologies, love reading about them, and I follow lots of mythology related accounts on social media. Facebook, twitter, instagram, tiktok, and such. I'm not sure if it's just twitter thing, but whenever I like or repost something related to mythology stuffs I get a lot of recommendations from the so-called pagan accounts that seem to harbor really unsavory ideological views. Other social media platforms are not without their own share of racists but Twitter seems to be the worst. I heard from somewhere that racist pagans are just nothing more than vocal minorities, even among the Norse paganism, so I really want to know if this is true or not.

So I've very recently become interested in Paganism, specifically the freedom it has with worship of deities of all different religions since it's very different from what I'm used to with going to a Catholic school lol, and it feels much more right for me in my spiritual life. I've been doing research, looking at nature, and meditating to figure out which deities I connect with. I know I love and feel something with water, the ocean in particular, so I want to find a deity that I feel like represents this. However, I've looked into many water/ocean deities and almost every one has been masculine. Water and the sea just feels much more feminine to me, and the few I've found that are feminine have always been like "wife of sea god" instead. Does anyone know of any that I could read about to see if it fits what I'm searching for?

Hi! I'm wanting to reach out to aphrodite soon but I've read that she can be pretty picky. I have a very curious cat who likes to see new things in my room and sniff them, she never does any damage but I don't want to potentially upset aphrodite if she's not okay with my cat being around her space. I like to view my cat as another part of myself and as a spiritual being and she's always been very drawn to areas where i do my practice. Do any cat owners work with aphrodite and if so how has she been with them?

I’m looking for songs about Pan, to try and connected with him more

Hi! I just went to my first ritual with my dad and stepmum today and we read some oracle cards it has opened my mind to looking into paganism. My dad and stepmum are both druids and my stepmum has been a big part in the Pagan Federation in our area for years. She's happy to teach me and support me on my journy into druidry and says I'm of age to help out at rituals but I'm just wondering if there are any tips or things that are necessary/helpful to know for someone trying to get into druidry and paganism as a whole. Any help at all is appreciated! :3

Hi everyone. About two weeks ago I set up and Altar and started worshipping Apollo. For some reason the past few days i’ve been getting a feeling that he won’t be here for long. I’m not exactly sure what this means or if it’s any true. I thought i’d ask others what they thought.

I recently started doing stuff with the pendulum and Loki has been talking to me through that-- (not fully sure that it's actually Loki, but it feels like it is?...) I told him to leave me alone because I'm not ready to work with him, but he's oddly persistent? I randomly asked Loki if he wanted to work with any of my family members and oddly enough he said yeah-- he wanted to talk to one of my brothers I think. But still, he's been giving me super unclear answers and I'm so confused and I just want to talk to Apollon but he's not really letting me? I have asked if there was something wrong and he said yes, I think. I believe I've been able to speak to Aphrodite, though. HELP PLEASE if clarification is needed I will happily provide it. I'm not good with my words

Hello all, I became interested lately in paganism and I want to see what it is like, mostly just for the sense of community religion can provide. Personally I've always been an earthly kind of individual. I was raised catholic but I became disenchanted with religion at a really young age because of how nonsensical it all felt. The ideas of morality being black and white, sinning and repenting, the holy trinity, all of it. I just disliked how oppressive it felt and I never really got along with my supposed to be community...

Especially after all of the religious trauma and shame inflicted on me because of their extremely outdated conservative views on gender, sexuality and the subservience of women. I became disgusted with their dogmatic way of thinking. Because of that I decided I did not want to have anything to do with religion. But I've met some people in my life who I became really close to. And both of them were Pagan. And we're all heavily steeped in trauma but they can find comfort and community because of their religion and I admire that.

I see the strength it gives them, the foresight, the courage and wisdom. I want that in my life. And what's happening in my personal life isn't something I would wish for. I can't escape Catholicism at least yet and I'm closeted towards my family. And since everyday is a battle for my will to stay alive. I want another pillar to support me beyond just my friends. I am also autistic, so I'm just not really suited for the "standard" way of living. And I just find paganism really cool and something different to try.

I'm currently not tied to any spiritual/religious beliefs, but I do have some. I would like to do some research on Panganism and it's practices to see if it's right for me, but I'm not sure where to start. Could someone offer some advise/resources?

Hi, I'm new to the Norse way of creating talismans. I wanted to ask u something. I wanted to write a bindrune in a traditional way, but writing it with my blood is to be excluded for some personal reasons. Beside that, there is something (like an offering to the gods) that I can do to offer the talisman to the gods? Thanks