I have been hanging around the edges of the Pagan community since around 1992 and have been a member of the Pagan Federation for much of that time. I have tended to feel comfortable around Pagans and it was in this group that I was most likely to find the discussions and ideas that ‘made me tick’. It is only in the last three months or so, however, that I have felt entirely comfortable calling myself a Pagan.

There are a number of reasons for this. One (and it was an important one) was that there was no one system of Pagan thought that was a clear match for me. I am not a Wiccan, or a witch of any description. I am a member of OBOD but am still exploring my affinity with Druidry. I like the idea of the link to my own land and my own ancestry but there are things that do not sit quite right with me as well. I am not a Heathen, although I have a friend (you know who you are) to tends to assume I am because of my background in historical re-enactment. In fact, my entire life life has been a very slow journey of spiritual self discovery, I suppose. I cannot remember a time when I was not interested in religion and mythology in some form or another and I first started reading Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths when I was nine. Weather or not this fact in itself could be seen as some sort of evidence for reincarnation is something that I have yet to reach a conclusion on after around 30 years of pondering. I was raised in an agnostic but intellectually stimulating household and went to a very Christian school where I was duly ‘born again’ and did the ‘Evangelical Christianity Thing’. Emotionally this was very good…it gave me somewhere to belong, a ‘tribe’ I suppose. Unfortunately I am also a rationalist and something of a skeptic and by the time I was eighteen I was in serious trouble. I desperately wanted to believe…but I couldn’t.

I read Theology at university, much to the bewilderment of my parents, I think, partially because it was what I was most interested in and partially because I was hoping it would restore my spiritual sense of direction. From the latter viewpoint it was a disaster. I experimented with increasingly ‘fuzzy’ versions of Christianity which, by the time I had been teaching Religious Education and Philosophy for about 20 years left me a very unwilling and depressed atheist. In the meantime, due to a moment of boredom and a Key Stage 3 text book (it was possible for teachers very occasionally to be bored when I first started teaching) I had developed an interest in Hinduism which eventually led to my becoming a senior examiner in Eastern Religion for a major awarding body. This was a whole new way of looking at God, the Universe and Everything and I was hooked. In particular, the more I read about Shiva the more hooked I became. This eventually, and by a highly unlikely route, led to my taking a Master’s Degree in World Religion which gave me a chance to have a good long look at Eastern Religions and various approaches to Death and the Afterlife…my other major concern. This may well have saved my life. It certainly opened all sorts of doors, including the possibility of a spirituality that made sense to me. I also gave up teaching and went into business with my (new) partner running a new sort of funeral business based on compassion, transparency and honour. Values that are in no way inconsistent with Paganism. So how would I describe myself at this moment? The closest I have found to what I believe is an obscure sort of Hinduism called Kashmiri Shaivism which derives from the Samnkhya philosophy. I would not describe myself as Hindu because I am not culturally a Hindu and Hindusim is far more than a set of religious beliefs. Furthermore, the sort of Hinduism I relate to is fairly obscure and little known even among Hindus. However, the beliefs I hold have enough in common with many Pagan values to make me feel most at home within the Pagan ‘tribe’.

The other reason I have hesitated to place myself firmly within a Pagan context is, perhaps, more important. I am, fundamentally, an academic. That’s what I do. My first approach to something new is to read about it. What I am not good at is ‘experiencing’. Taking part in rituals has little effect on me and its not something I do in private (except for twice, both of which immediately preceded life changing events of epic proportions. As a friend of mine says, I don’t have religious experiences, except when I do). I have tried meditation, shamanic ‘journeying’ and the like over a large number of years with pretty much no effect. It just doesn’t work for me. This has led me to feel a bit like an outsider who is ‘play acting’ rather than someone with a bonafide right to call themselves a Pagan. In short, I felt like a fraud with nothing to contribute.

Since Christmas two things have happened which have caused me to re-think this position. Firstly, I have read two blog posts by Nimue Brown, to whom much thanks, on the subject of chakras and shamanism. It turns out that I am not so much of a freak as I have assumed. On reflection, it occurred to me that the original shamans, in most indigenous cultures, are few and far between. It is not something to which all, or indeed many, are called and the shaman tends to operate, often at great personal cost, for the benefit of the community to which they belong and not for their own personal or spiritual development. If I found that I was not a shaman, it was not that big a deal. Most people are not. ‘Religious Experience’ is, by and large, something that happens to other people; I don’t ‘do’ it. What I do do is think, remember and connect.

The other thing I did, again on a tip off from Nimue Brown’s fantastic Druidry and the Ancestors, was to read Brendan Myers’ The Earth, The Gods and the Soul: A History of Pagan Philosophy from the Iron Age to the 21st Century. As a teacher of Ethics and Philosophy much of the contents and methodology of this book were familiar to me, but it was a bit like looking at a familiar landscape from an unfamiliar angle. I enjoyed it immensely, but it also reminded me that at one time and in one Pagan culture at least, philosophy was seen as a spiritual practice in its own right and philosophers as well as mystics had a valued place in society. It is hard for me to overestimate the effect that this had on me. I had found a ‘place to be’. Paganism needs both its mystics and its philosophers and thinkers. Both are valid and legitimate and I don’t feel like I am ‘play acting’ anymore, at last I have something to give. Neither do I feel I need to force things that just do not come naturally to me. What I am is what I am and it has a value. So finally, after about twenty years, I feel comfortable saying “I am a Pagan’. Its a bit like coming home.