Expanding Horizons: A Journey into Religion and Magic

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This course has been a massive learning experience for me because I have never taken a course over a topic like this before. My previous knowledge of religion was only what I knew about my own religion, and my previous knowledge of magic and witchcraft was basically zero. My lack of background knowledge has made me really have to broaden my horizons and open my mind to what we have discussed, and I think this new found acceptance has enabled me to make the most out of this class. I found many of the topics we read about and discussed fascinating, and I am walking away with a new perspective on my own religious beliefs. First off, one of my favorite books that we read throughout the semester was the very first book, Eight Theories of Religion. …show more content…

I felt like I could actually learn about vodou while just sitting there and reading what seemed like typical stories. These stories really made the culture seem a lot more natural and logical to me because I was able to relate what was going on in the stories to my everyday life. This was really important because I had no problem accepting vodou and not thinking it was silly, but when it came to neopaganism, I just couldn 't quite wrap my head around it because I really couldn’t relate or understand why these people truly had faith in rituals and spirits that seemed so silly to me. I think this lack of acceptance is due to both the lack of relatable stories and history like those of vodou that I just discussed, and the fact that the typical demographic for neopaganism was people similar to myself. Other beliefs of religions and witchcraft like those of witchcraft in Africa and Europe seem distant and from a different time, but since neopaganism is here in America right now, I cannot explain it off by saying the bizarre beliefs are due to the massive difference in culture because I am a part of that same American culture. I still have not been able to psychologically or scientifically discover why my similarity to those who practice neopaganism caused such a big discrepancy with neopaganism for myself, but I had

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