The Path of a Christian Witch Read Online Free PDF

death by burning or drowning. A whole manual was written by the church on the method of investigating a Witch. It was an optional reading for class, but I could not stomach it.
    I was very aware that this was a shameful part of my heritage. I had joined Pagan circles to celebrate femininity; my church had spent centuries trying to eradicate it. The people in this room had full rights to hate everything I represented. Maybe I could give some reparation for what had been done. Until this moment, the atrocities of the unholy Inquisition had had nothing to do with me. They were merely a page in a history book. As I became involved with Paganism and Witchcraft, they became part of my story. It was just another reason to really make a split in my head between the political institution and the spiritual heritage that is Christianity. It strengthened my resolve to discard whatever bigotry was diffused by the church and to focus on the core of what it meant to be Christian. I was here to meet the Goddess and celebrate her mysteries through ritual and magic. Christianity would have to wait.
    Working the Magic
    “Pair up with someone. We are going to work on sensing energy fields and on shielding today. You will get the chance to work with everyone, so you can see how different people have different ways of manipulating energy. First off, sit in front of your partner. Simply sense their energy. What images, feelings do you get from them?”
    We were a month into our study of Witchcraft and Paganism, and this was our second class in energy work. We had practiced the basics: centering, grounding, and sensing our own energy fields. We had expanded and shrunk our energy fields and felt each other’s fields. I now sat in front of Karen. I centered and grounded. Then I opened my center to her field. My head was filled with a bright fuchsia-pink color. I smiled. A big Easter egg.
    “All right, everyone. Now, you will shield yourselves. Each person is responsible for half the shield. You are to connect your shields in the middle. Make sure the seams are tightly secured and that there are no energy leaks.”
    I sat in front of Nina this time. We knew each other well, and we had similar energy signatures. We slowly set up our ends of the shields. I could feel the energy moving toward the center, dancing back and forth, not knowing what to do. I could sense different colors waving back and forth. Steadily. Slowly. We adjusted our speed and size of shields so that they covered us completely. Great!
    “Last task: you will combine your energies to create a uniform shield.”
    I was standing in front of Eva. She had a knack for manipulating energy. She was a natural. You could almost feel a breeze in your hair when she set up to cast a circle, moved her energy field, or even just grounded and centered. She took me up by storm. I could hear her in my head, saying, “Come on now, don’t be shy. Just do it. Give me what you’ve got.” I awkwardly got myself together and gave her what I could muster. She really didn’t need very much. She did a perfectly good job in shielding both of us at once.
    It was all very new to me. I had joined the Crescent Moon School of Magic and Paganism mostly for the religious aspect, to rediscover the feminine aspect of the Divine and to celebrate nature in its diverse forms. Yes, I’d had experiences with energy and some strange unexplained occurrences, and I believed in the concept of energy. But . . .
    I was perplexed. I could stretch out my hand and say someone’s energy field ended there. I had impressions of color and some vague synchronicities at times with people. Who could say what it all meant? I could live on faith alone, but wasn’t this stretching it a little bit?
    Joyce, one of our teachers, looked up from the front of the room. I looked back at her and shook my head. “What is it?” she asked.
    “I don’t know about all this, Joyce. I want to believe it, but who’s to say it’s not all in my