When the movie The Craft came out in 1996 I was 13. This movie opened my eyes to Wiccan, a natural religion with magic- what person wouldn’t be intrigued! Especially a teenager; with childhood wonder dying out but not gone, hormones flaring & moving us in all directions, and a growing consciousness to make our own life decisions. (Side Note- I tried the binding spell that was used in The Craft on a nasty girl in middle school. –The binding spell is where you have a picture of the person & wrap their picture in ribbon, I believe, and repeatedly say, “I bind you (name of person) from doing harm; harm against other people and harm against yourself” …it didn’t work, she was still horrible to me.) I wasn’t able to commit myself to the religion of Wiccan, and decided that committing to a religion was too much work, and so I gave up. (Another Side Note- The Craft did teach me a principal which I held true and feared- that whatever you send out, you get back to you threefold. I didn’t want to fuck around with it and I also didn’t want to do something like make someone love me, if it wasn’t them loving me on their own accord.) Of course I also tried the Wuji Board and ‘Light as a feather, stiff as a board’. Neither worked. It’s always someone moving the Wuji guider & thinking it’s funny.
Somewhere around the age of 13 or earlier, I also learned of trances. I don’t remember who taught me, but I do remember many a sleepover where I would be conducting the trances. To put someone in a trance, you sit Indian style and lay a pillow in your lap which the trancee lays their head on. You rub their temples and have the person count backwards from 100. Once they get to 0, or even before they get to 0 if they start to really lose track of the numbers you ask them to stop and then ask if they see anything. Once they see something, it becomes a guidance of asking them what they would like to do, encouraging them to move forward, and keeping them safe from danger. More times than not the person was truly in a trance, sometimes not remembering anything that happened. I had been taught that the people you meet in a trance were good or possibly evil, based on their eye color. People with blue or green eyes were safe, brown eyes you had to be very cautious and keep away from, and of course red eyed people were severely scary and evil and you had to run from them if you saw one. One time I had someone deeply in a trance & something frightened her & she was not responding to me at first when I told her to wake up. Finally, she did wake up, & after that experience I believe I may have stopped doing trances since I realized that I am not qualified to do these things.
A lot seemed to happen at my age of 13, though I don’t think I realized it at the time. I had my palm read by a skin doctor for a school project. My step-dad knew I had interests in other things that were considered ‘different’. He is a photographer for the local news station & was doing a story on skin & got to chatting with a skin doctor. Somehow in their conversation she told him that she could read palms, that it was a natural ability that was in her family. When my step-dad told me about this, I got very excited & wanted to get my palm read & learn about it, for an upcoming school presentation where we could teach the class anything we wanted. Thom contacted Dr. Robyn Gershon & we went to her house one night where she taught me about the lines & read my palm. It was extremely interesting & I have carried a small portion of the knowledge with me to this day.
I believe I discovered that I had a pleasurable spot by accident around the age of 8 or 9. Masturbation started sometime in middle school. I don’t believe it was too much longer before the guilt started as well. Perhaps it was my catholic upbringing & perhaps it was also that I felt people were watching me. You are taught that God is watching you, that Angels are watching you… I felt the guilt from them (or actually what I have been told about them), but then I also thought that my dead relatives were watching me. I don’t know if this idea was instilled by religion, or someone else, or just my own idea. I would dance in front of my mirror & do other crazy things, in thinking I had an audience of people that had passed. I was quite entertaining. Haha. But maybe I was somewhat enlightened at the time…since now I have been told that our past relatives really are with us.
I was never Confirmed. At the end of our religion classes & before we are confirmed, we all sat down with our Youth Group Leader where he would ask us questions, one being, if we want to be confirmed. I told him that I did not & that my parents were making me do it. So, he told me & my parents that if I did not want to that I should take some time & come back when it is my choice. Needless to say my parents were very upset! From their point of view they had tried to instill something good in my life & I turned it away. They accused me numerous times in my life & asked if I worshipped the devil?, what’s wrong with me?, why do I dress the way I do?, etc. Some days I wore every color, the other days I wore all black, & they thought I was extremely strange for it. I also listened to Marilyn Manson which they thought was horrible, devil music. My mom even stole my CD from me & told me she threw it away (Funny enough she never did, & over 10 years later she found it in one of her drawers & my sister gave it back to me a few years back). I was a creative kid discovering my outlets, depressed & uneasy with my body adjusting & being picked on by a mean group of girls. My time in Middle School was one of the worst times in my life. …Sorry I dress weird. Ha. Angst!
Sometime around 16 they finally stopped trying to force me to go to church, but boy did I still get the guilt! My father (“real” dad) would always say he was Methodist. The only time he probably went to a Methodist Church in his adult years was when he took me once to expose me to ‘his (non- practicing) religion’, since I was amerced in Catholicism in my youth. I think that was the one & only time he went following.
After my Dad & Stepmother split when I was 13/14 (& boy the way that went down was the last straw that led me to therapy) I saw her again after many months or even a year passed. I never liked my Stepmother. They married when I was 7 & not long after she turned into the wicked stepmother. The only contention I recall is that I was a very picky eater & she made things that I didn’t always like. If I refused to eat something she made she would make me sit at the dinner table all night, for hours. My Dad allowed this to go on (otherwise my Father was always in charge, but he liked the instilling of discipline & was also of the mind-set of breaking kids in to adulthood). Many nights I faked headaches & laid on the couch without eating dinner or having to deal with her bullshit. But my point- she wanted to see me after they split & even though I couldn’t stand her as my step-mother, I felt bad for her (the way the divorce went down, from the perspective that I saw). She is Native American & she told me in this later conversation, that she thought I was an Old-Soul. This was interesting & new information to me… to be discovered later I think.
At some point in my youth I bought a set of starter Tarot cards. The cards have all the meanings written, on the top & in the reverse so that you don’t need a corresponding book. I liked things easy. I gave myself & some of my friend’s readings at the time. I still have the deck & it’s the only set of spiritual cards I have yet to buy for myself.
In later High School my friend Jeff took me & my other close girlfriends down into the city (Baltimore) where we attended a Reiki class. It was a class for people learning how to practice Reiki & we were their people to practice on. This was really interesting & of course all new to me. I don’t remember if I felt anything or not, but I think the person felt where I had had some pains.
After High School my two friends lived together in a tent outside of the home/classroom of a couple who practiced & taught Tantra, Belly Dancing, & other spiritual type classes. It was interesting to hear of their Tantric experiences, I still have never tried it to this day. I did take a Belly Dancing class there where I learned that we all should love our bodies & we are all Goddesses. At this age of 18 I wasn’t yet comfortable in my own skin & did feel a bit silly & self-conscious.
Eventually when all the Catholic Priest molesting accusations were abounding in the media, my Mom, disgusted, stopped going to Church. My brother & sister didn’t have to go anymore either, & only my Step-Dad continues to go on occasion. He was brought up in the Church his whole life & his parents both worked in the church. I do believe they are twice a year holiday goer’s now- Christmas & Easter… the people they used to get annoyed with that crowded the churches on holidays. …At some point, I think we all hypocrite most of what we say.
