Christine has asked me to share her story second hand. She’s a marvelous writer but the timing of this book caught her tied up with a lot of her own moral responsibilities. What makes her story important for us is what keeps her from telling it herself.
Most children have a nascent ability to learn how to live by their heart-mind, but we’ve already noted how typical Western upbringing smothers the spark. Christine had the good fortune to live in proximity to some horses as her close friends and this peculiar setting fostered her awareness of Creation as a whole. I note in passing that those of us who live by the heart don’t merely carry a sensitivity to flora and fauna, but we sense that Creation at large seems to be aware of us. This is wholly consistent with Paul’s comment about Creation crying out to commune with us when we restore the full range of moral awareness. We should not be surprised that horses will foster a child’s moral development on that level.
Meanwhile, her family was deeply engaged in mainstream Christianity, same as I was. However, mine was not such a big hindrance as her situation was for her. She remembers it as one of the less salutary expressions of such religion. What she describes was a religion deeply stained with perverted Western mythology, not to mention a measure of hypocrisy, and quite confusing to her. It served to drive her away from Christianity. Instead, she undertook a study of various religious expressions because she couldn’t simply turn off the longing for a moral frame of reference.
Of course, what she found made better sense to her. She felt more at home with the pagan religions’ acknowledgment of a spiritual reality inherent in nature. However, what she found did not answer all the questions. She was still haunted by ghosts of her difficult childhood.
Here it becomes necessary to interject something editorially. It is a strange thing, indeed, that Western Christianity is notorious for a heathen fear of pagan religion. Typical Christian parents and church leaders panic at the idea that their kids might read something by Aleister Crowley, for example, and have built up a vast lore of confused nonsense about what he actually taught. Crowley didn’t like the church as he knew it, but it would seem all of his experience was with mainstream Western Christianity. He genuinely aimed at heart-led religion. Had he encountered a genuine heart-led Christian faith, he might not have chased so many external sources with such ardor.
The superstition against such outside sources is not from the Bible; it is a peculiar Western bias. Where it shows up in Judaism is due to Hellenized legalism. Old Testament religion did require some care to remain faithful to the Covenant, but the danger was confusing Jehovah with lesser deities, not in simply knowing about pagan beliefs. They couldn’t avoid knowing.
We have two major examples here: Joseph and Daniel. Both of them were obliged by their calling from God to expose themselves to a very massive lore of pagan religious materials. This was not from some special dispensation from God; such thoughts are alien to Scripture. These men weren’t harmed by their exposure to such stuff because it had no power on its own to pull them off track. While people do find themselves intrigued by some of the things written by the likes of Crowley, since he seems to have some awareness of certain spiritual factors in human nature, his stuff has no real power to destroy your Christian faith.
So instead of panicky restrictions on, say, your teenager’s exploration of such things, make sure you know enough to guide them through a natural period of curiosity. Not with the fearful prejudice common in mainstream Christianity, but trusting God to guide those who belong to Him. If your child departs from your particular brand of religion, it’s not because you somehow failed to enforce things, but because God had other plans for them.
Thus, while Christine found some sense in pagan religions, what really mattered for her was the open door to explore her vivid connection to Creation. Pagan religion is far more amenable to heart-mind living, something Western Christianity forgot entirely. She was able to develop a talent for discerning what God intended with all the vast quantity of natural provision on this earth. Provided you live in a place that sustains human life in the first place, she discovered that God had already granted within that ecosystem virtually everything needed to survive and prosper in good health. With a properly tuned awareness of Creation’s million voices of joy, you can expect to find growing on your doorstep what God knows you need. This is the way God created things to work.
When your heart is allowed to work the way God intended, He cuts His own path through your soul. His truth registers on your awareness as a moral necessity. Once Christine encountered a genuine Christian faith stripped of confusing Western mythology, it called her name. It wasn’t necessary to dump everything she had learned, but following Christ rearranged everything and brought His priorities to life in the complex of resources in her soul. All truth is God’s truth, and His divine Presence settles all questions.
