If You’re Pagan, Why Don’t I Like You?
Kerri Connor
As Pagans, we’re told that we need to be more tolerant and enlightened than others. Some traditions encourage “harm none” or the rule of three (what you send out comes back times three), but you may come across someone, or several people, whom you simply cannot stand. Being around them, reading their comments, or hearing their voice might make your skin crawl.
Chances are this has happened to you. You may have hidden it, because you felt guilty. You may have tried to justify your feelings. You may even have felt confused and wondered if you were being tested by a higher power.
Perhaps it happened at a large festival or in a small, private group, or perhaps it happened online, on a Facebook page, or in an e-mail group. Maybe it hasn’t happened to you yet, but chances are it will someday: you will find yourself wondering about someone, “If you’re Pagan, why don’t I like you?”
If someone makes you uncomfortable and you don’t feel right around them, stay away from them. Your body is telling you what your mind is trying to deny.
You really don’t have to force yourself to like everybody, and there are probably plenty of people out there whom you shouldn’t like. If someone makes you uncomfortable and you don’t feel right around them, stay away from them. Your body is telling you what your mind is trying to deny.
I was once friends with a woman and her husband who owned a local shop. A few months after we met, the shop owners’ coven stopped meeting and several of the members began practicing with my grove—the owners as well.
When they suddenly decided to sell the shop, I looked into buying it, but it didn’t feel right. Though I had always dreamed of owning a shop, I took a pass, and thank the Goddess I did. Turned out the store needed a good bailing out, which would have bankrupted my family.
By this time, I was starting to look more deeply at this friendship. Some things just didn’t seem right to me, but I thought I was being too picky.
Our friendship continued until one night when I had a party at my house and things got way out of hand. Items were broken and stolen, and though it was my home and property, these people made me feel as though it was all my fault. After several months, I ended up being the one to apologize, even though I knew I really had been the victim. We began talking again, but things quickly went downhill.
Election time was coming, and suddenly this couple, who previously had shown no interest in politics, became very political. They joined the ranks of the Tea Party, and didn’t see the irony. One of their own coven members, who had been openly gay for years, was now being publicly bashed by the wife. The wife would post terrible things on Facebook and then delete them so her husband wouldn’t know, and then would claim she had never done it. We were shocked that they believed our (future) president was not an American and that minorities and gays should have no rights. Their previous attitude of “coexist” became one of hatred against Muslims, and money became a major topic of conversation. All the time they still claimed they were Pagans who practiced “harm none.”
Someone I had seen as a spiritual person turned into someone who drank and smoked all the time, appeared to like taking advantage of people, showed no respect for those with different beliefs, and became downright aggressive toward those with different political and sexual views and those with a different racial background. She couldn’t have become more of my opposite. I knew that with her beliefs, we were too far apart on the spectrum ever to be friends again. I simply did not like her anymore. She could call herself Pagan all she wanted, but in all my years I had never met a Pagan who acted in this manner. I felt it was an insult to my faith and to all the Pagans I knew. Yet to her, she was still a Pagan.
After I told her I didn’t want her in my life, things started going wrong: lost work, lost items, unexplainable illnesses, and a bizarre letter from a mutual friend telling me we couldn’t be friends because of my radical political beliefs (apparently being a Democrat is highly radical these days, and this letter seemed even more odd due to the fact that it was written months after the election). Friends who had told me before they didn’t like her were suddenly her fans, though they couldn’t explain why. It was as if a giant mass of negativity was following me around and some of my friends were becoming brainwashed!
Since I seldom do readings for myself, I turned to five friends who didn’t know this woman for help. All five psychics said that not only was she very angry at me, but they believed she had done some sort of hex or spell against me. An aura photo showed what looked like arrows attacking the right side of my body. The psychics all stated that I had definitely had encounters with this woman in a past life.
It’s been a long process, but I believe she is now about 98 percent out of my life. I removed not only anything she ever gave to me, but also anything I bought in her store and still had. I did protection spell after protection spell and went through a lot of salt and moon water.
There are people who have told me, “Oh, you just need to forgive and forget, and give her love and light.” Well, I did that, several times, and only ended up getting burned worse. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is not the definition of love, it’s the definition of insanity.
Besides, why should I be forced to like someone who has completely different morals and ideals than I do? I don’t judge people based on their race or sexual orientation, but, I admit, I will judge the people that do, and my verdict is that I don’t want people like that in my life. Pagan or not, if you treat people badly, I don’t want you around me.
While my experience with this person may seem like an extreme example, you may encounter someone who simply rubs you the wrong way and makes you feel uncomfortable. Listen to that signal!
There were many issues in my relationship with this woman that didn’t work. There was what I saw as her hypocrisy—telling others how to live but not living that way herself. There was the sneakiness of hiding what she said to others on Facebook by deleting comments quickly so she could deny ever posting them. There was the bigotry shown against minority races and gays. There was the public abuse and betrayal of her own family and supposed friends. There was the belief that this woman and I had had poor relationships in our past lives. Now, even if I wasn’t Pagan and I found myself having these same issues with someone else, I still wouldn’t like the person and I wouldn’t feel like I should have to. Being Pagan doesn’t mean I have to like every single person I meet. We teach coexistence, but coexistence doesn’t mean you have to allow yourself to be a doormat.
Being Pagan doesn’t mean I have to like every single person I meet. We teach coexistence, but coexistence doesn’t mean you have to allow yourself to be a doormat.
“Coexist” simply means we need to exist within the same time and space as others in peace. That peace may come in the form of friendship, but it doesn’t have to. It doesn’t mean we have to love everyone else, but we do have to tolerate them to an extent. Sometimes living in peace with someone requires nothing more than ignoring them.
On the other side of the fence, for years I had thought of attending some of the larger local festivals. I joined Facebook groups where I could connect with others who were looking to attend and many who had already attended for years. I had come to understand that one particular event I was interested in had a camping area that was reserved for those who preferred nudity all the time. While it’s not my thing, I figured since they were off in their own area and not walking around nude in front of children (knowing full well how the state authorities would see that!), it didn’t really concern me.
But then I found out I was wrong. I had been given the wrong information: nudity was allowed anywhere on the grounds except by the gates, where someone outside of the campground might see and report it. I voiced my concerns about the law, about the fact that no one wanted outsiders to know, and about children seeing people they don’t know wandering around naked, and was immediately told that I couldn’t be a real Pagan if I wasn’t willing to back them up. Almost thirty years of practicing, and people who didn’t know me told me I couldn’t be a real Pagan because I didn’t want to expose my naked body to children or be a part of allowing others to. I was also told that this festival, which was supposed to be “welcoming to all,” wasn’t for me. They got that part right.
However, not wanting to expose my naked body to someone else’s children does not make me less of a Pagan. It does make me a law-abiding adult. I suppose some people have an issue with that, but that is their problem, not mine. Being Pagan does not make me above the laws of my state. It also doesn’t mean that I think young kids should be exposed to the nudity of strangers. And it certainly does not make me any less Pagan to believe these things.
Being Pagan doesn’t mean you must like all other Pagans, just as being a certain race doesn’t mean you have to like all other members of that race. “Pagan” is only part of who we are, and it varies from person to person.
These people had made up their minds about me knowing only one piece of information about me—the fact that I didn’t think children should be exposed to the nudity of strangers. So whether they realize it or not, they also judge people on their beliefs, and I’m okay with that. I would have been far more upset if I had spent the hundreds of dollars to go to this event only to find out once I got there that it definitely was not the place for me.
It is getting to the point that we are being told we can’t be Pagan and disagree with one another, and that is ridiculous. When someone runs around saying that all the things you believe in are bad, there really is no law requiring you to like that person, whether they are Pagan or not. You don’t have to feel guilt. You just need to understand what you want in your life and what you don’t and realize you have the right to decide. Being Pagan doesn’t mean you must like all other Pagans, just as being a certain race doesn’t mean you have to like all other members of that race. “Pagan” is only part of who we are, and it varies from person to person. Pagan means many things to many people these days, and to very few does it mean its original definition of being a country dweller (which I am). Dictionaries don’t even agree on the definition of Pagan anymore.
Because “Pagan” means so many different things, we have to look at the actions of the person instead, not their “title” of Pagan. If those actions give you a bad vibe, that’s all you really need to know. Follow what your heart is telling you, and you will find yourself surrounded by people you not only like but genuinely love.
Kerri Connor is the author of The Pocket Spell Creator, The Pocket Guide to Rituals, The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Potions, Goodbye Grandmother, and Spells for Tough Times and is the former editor of The Circle of Stones Journal. Kerri is the High Priestess of The Gathering Grove and has been practicing her craft for twenty-six years. She dances under the moon in rural Illinois.
Illustrator: Christa Marquez