My grandmother believed in ancient aliens a little, loved Edgar
Cayce (American Prophet of early 20th century), got me into
Doctor Who and Star Trek. I was born in 1972, so which would be
starting 1980 or so (when I was 8). My mother fed us yogurt
throughout our childhood. We had our own garden. She was a
devout reader of Mother Earth News before it was a glossy thing
with ads. Yet, I also was sent to Sunday School at the most
non-commital Christian thing around (Methodist) which I happened
to enjoy. She married a Muslim man she fell in love with when I
was 12 and was married to him for a few years. I learned a
little Arabic for fun. My sister became Wiccan - which she is to
this day. And this is all back in the early/mid 1980s. I
explored New Age stuff between 12-14 yrs old (ancient aliens
stuff, purple plates, candles, crystals and stuff)... then put
it aside after that and looked at the bigger ones. Teacher
started getting me into Bahai a little. Then I discovered
Unitarian Universalism. Then Quaker. Then Vipissana Meditation.
Fell in love with Episcopal stuff somewhere in there, and got a
job at a Roman Catholic University doing data entry when I was
24. (Seton Hall University in New jersey, USA). I used to hang
around the priests and chat with them. I'd see them sitting
there in all black and I thought, "I could do that". Learned a
little Theraputic Touch through some eclectic Catholic workshops
for nurses I snuck in to, and learned about Cell churches and
alt.church organization methodologies. Even drew up my first
religion (among many I have notes on). Then, one day at lunch at
work (at the catholic university), I asked myself, "Ok. I might
as well convert to Roman Catholic. Seems authentic enough. But
let's see if I'm missing anybody". So, I flipped through the
yellow pages when nobody was looking. I found this thing called
"Eastern Orthodox Christian". I called. They hit all the right
notes at the time. Priest's wife answered. [priests get married?
cool] "Oh Father is out blessing houses right now". [BLESSING
HOUSES!? Somebody still does that!? Wow!] and after a few more
questions, I scheduled an appt at the church, an ethnic one -
"Carpatho-Rusyn" . They weren't used to converts... like.. not
at all. Added to authenticity for me. Ended up getting hooked.
Made a lot of Orthodox friends irl and online. (this was
1994/1995 by now) I ended up spending about 5-6 yrs into it,
learning about Greek and Russian history, teaching myself
Russian, staying a little at a monastery and getting prepared to
go to a seminary in New York State that required me to know how
to speak at least a LITTLE Russian. I loved the challenge, and I
got to feed my linguistics interest at the time. Anyway, by the
time I was 30, suddenly found myself in Florida, less interested
in it by then (but no hard feelings) and it was around the year
2000. I read through Osho - ate up ALL the books of his I could
find that I could get from Amazon. After that, got super into
Science stuff. Hit 40ish, decided I'd had enough quantum stuff
'cause the people on the Science channel started spouting New
Atheist rhetoric as if it was factual... REALLY screwing up
history .. and it bothered me because these guys were becoming
my heros. So, I finally had to declare it: Agnostic. I simply
don't know. But I love and embrace all the mystical traditions
that are available within just about EVERY religion in the
world, if you just look for it.
