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Born Again Witch: Witches at a Pentecostal Church – Sensing the Energy
This is the second part of a three part series on what happened when my coven visited a “spirit-filled” Christian church. In the first part I wrote about what prompted us to visit the church and together with Autumn, who has no background in Christianity, we shared our initial reactions. In this second part Autumn and I compare notes on our experience, how we sensed and saw the flow of energy. We also look at how we both understood the sermon, and how together we were able to make sense of our experiences.
Autumn: One of the big questions I had for how Christians do magic is, how can they possibly balance the energy of large groups like the one in Bethel? If you’re going to move energy for healing or for whatever purpose, it’s my understanding that the energy has to be contained, focused, and directed, requiring large-scale coordination. You have a large number of people who haven’t really studied any of the prerequisites I have found necessary to create a solid container. There are no anchors, there is no circle cast. With essentially random people coming in without even a basic briefing on what to do at the beginning, how could they achieve the various forms of divination and healing work that Annika described to me? I think Christians would say that Jesus does it, but my experience suggests that divine influence on these things is only one part of the equation. How does what they are doing create the space for that?
Annika: When Autumn asked me about how charismatic Christians create a container, her question didn’t really make sense to me. In the past I had always perceived the energy during worship as ecstatic, beautiful, and completely safe. It was such a comfortable experience to just lose myself in worship, so this whole idea of containment, which I came to appreciate in Pagan rituals, seemed irrelevant with respect to Christian worship.
Autumn: One of the big questions I had for how Christians do magic is, how can they possibly balance the energy of large groups like the one in Bethel? If you’re going to move energy for healing or for whatever purpose, it’s my understanding that the energy has to be contained, focused, and directed, requiring large-scale coordination. You have a large number of people who haven’t really studied any of the prerequisites I have found necessary to create a solid container. There are no anchors, there is no circle cast. With essentially random people coming in without even a basic briefing on what to do at the beginning, how could they achieve the various forms of divination and healing work that Annika described to me? I think Christians would say that Jesus does it, but my experience suggests that divine influence on these things is only one part of the equation. How does what they are doing create the space for that?
Annika: When Autumn asked me about how charismatic Christians create a container, her question didn’t really make sense to me. In the past I had always perceived the energy during worship as ecstatic, beautiful, and completely safe. It was such a comfortable experience to just lose myself in worship, so this whole idea of containment, which I came to appreciate in Pagan rituals, seemed irrelevant with respect to Christian worship.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/agora/2015/07/born-again-witch-witches-at-a-pentecostal-church-sensing-the-energy/?ref_widget=gr_popular&ref_blog=grails&ref_post=pagan
Very good descriptions of observing energy in this article. Also, in 1990 I was fired from a bakery job for the great offense of being 'religiously immoral' by the Pentecostal (he wore the religion on his sleeve) grocery store manager! One of my last memories of him was watching him preach about the 'evils of alcohol' while standing in front of the hard spirits aisle that he sells. Made me wish I had a camera.