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To Syncretics: how did you come to blend multiple belief systems?

SabahTheLoner

Master of the Art of Couch Potato Cuddles
Did you like both religions and decided to incorporate what you would see as the best of both? Did you always believe in something that didn't fit your original faith?

I'm asking because I'm considering blending a couple of different things together. I like Western and Middle-Eastern polytheism/paganism, but I don't believe the deities in as literal beings, as I am atheist. I also have been resonating stronger and stronger with atheistic Satanism the more I read about it. I may become a syncretic in this respect but I would like to hear your stories.
 
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Desert Snake

Veteran Member
I'm asking because I'm considering blending a couple of different things together. I like Western and Middle-Eastern polytheism/paganism, but I don't believe the deities in as literal beings, as I am atheist. I also have been resonating stronger and stronger with atheistic Satanism the more I read about it. I may become a syncretic in this respect but I would like to hear your stories.
This doesnt seem like a problem, because you are atheistic. In theistic Syncreticism, it would be different, as the nature of gods or beings has to be considered in a more literal sense. Now, the nature of a god is not always considered the "same", as some others might consider, so there is a variance there, as well. This is an example that there can be a difference between Syncretic religious paradigm, /when considering "gods", and simply practicing different religions, or merely combining religions.
 

EverChanging

Well-Known Member
Did you like both religions and decided to incorporate what you would see as the best of both? Did you always believe in something that didn't fit your original faith?

I'm asking because I'm considering blending a couple of different things together. I like Western and Middle-Eastern polytheism/paganism, but I don't believe the deities in as literal beings, as I am atheist. I also have been resonating stronger and stronger with atheistic Satanism the more I read about it. I may become a syncretic in this respect but I would like to hear your stories.

I believed in things that are not accepted within orthodox Christianity, so I found a way of blending such elements into a system incorporating both Christian symbols, pantheism, and other beliefs, the result being a mystically oriented Christo-pantheism or Christopaganism if you will.

There are also ideas I have drawn on that helped me "meet" new gods for the system. I can talk more about this in PM, but would rather not go into it here.

I am also basically an atheist metaphysically, though I don't often use that term to describe myself. I relate much more to a pantheistic mindset.
 

Samantha Rinne

Resident Genderfluid Writer/Artist
Grew up Christian. At around 14, my sister had a bf with a copy of the Tao te Ching. Then I read of other religions in World Religions class.
 

tayla

My dog's name is Tayla
Did you like both religions and decided to incorporate what you would see as the best of both? Did you always believe in something that didn't fit your original faith?

I'm asking because I'm considering blending a couple of different things together.
I have blended together science with the observation that certain things are outside of the physical realm. These I consider to be within the spiritual realm.
 

VoidoftheSun

Necessary Heretical, Fundamentally Orthodox
Did you like both religions and decided to incorporate what you would see as the best of both? Did you always believe in something that didn't fit your original faith?

I'm asking because I'm considering blending a couple of different things together. I like Western and Middle-Eastern polytheism/paganism, but I don't believe the deities in as literal beings, as I am atheist. I also have been resonating stronger and stronger with atheistic Satanism the more I read about it. I may become a syncretic in this respect but I would like to hear your stories.

Short story:



I grew up Christian (Protestant, place with loose evangelical and baptist kinds of Christians, my parents didn’t identify with a denomination but they basically took on those kinds of views) my experiences with Christianity weren’t really negative though but I was very frustrated and infuriated by Christian doctrine as a teenager and spent a lot of time reading on the subject and basically disowned myself from religion entirely for about a decade.

For that decade I was an atheist and had quite anti-theist, anti-religious views.

Then I started exploring mysticism, meditation as well.

I explored several systems, I was quite a Gurdjieffian at one point with the fourth way, also a big fan of Zen Buddhism.

My real adulthood though began with Thelema which revolutionized myself and to which I never turned back. I was still an atheist when I started practising Thelema. Doing some very intense forms of Yoga however, aiming at samadhi, really teared away my prior materialist view of reality though.

I should also add that as an artist and composer, I was also prior quite a big afficionado of Surrealism, Absurdism and 20th century Classical music, as well as Progressive Metal, and Avant garde music in general.

Anyway, practising Yoga and various forms of Ceremonial Magic flipped off the lid for me, I had very intense experiences of altered consciousness that destroyed everything I had thought reality could be prior. I somewhat also realized the human margin of error in our dogmatic assertion of materialism.

As much as I liked Thelema at the time, I started becoming quite unsatisfied with the Thelemic community and I had also become a strong Monotheist at the time. I was also reading the Corpus Hermeticum a lot too, and the Emerald Tablet.

Over the course of months I had started reading the Qur’an and was again and again profoundly affected by it’s deep metaphysical and mystical wisdom. The Meccan surahs in particular effected my like nothing I had and still haven’t read.

I basically from Thelema converted to Islam.

However after a few months as a Sunni I became very dissatisfied with that too and found many many problems with it’s ideology and it’s view over the succession of Prophet Muhammad (A.S.)

I started reading some of the Shi’i sources and learning about Shi’ism. Reading the sayings of Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib (pbuh) in particular literally brought tears to my eyes.

I became a Twelver (Ithna Ashari) and fell in love with the Ahlulbayt, the Twelve Imams and their oceans of esoteric wisdom.

At the same time I also studied bits of Ismailism on the side, which is even more esoteric-bent than regular Twelverism.

Then at the same time, being now a Muslim, having debates and all kinds of things both with Christians (usually Protestants, sometimes fundi evangelicals too) and with Sunnis, caused me to take quite a subversive approach.

Christians calling me a Satanist, saying the Qur’an was written by Satan and saying that Allah (God in arabic) is “Satan” - and the hilarity and irony involved in such a notion, also drew me to start appreciating Satanism for the first time.

Prior I had seen Satanism as merely just some kind of edgy rebellious kind of thing, but I started seeing a lot of irony there.

My studies of lots of the esoteric/occult orders and secret societies – in conjunction with the tinfoil hat conspiracy theories about them – all led me to quite an anti-dualism view, total opposition to even the hint of dualism.

Just as Christians basically consider “Satan” as a ‘second deity’, I have come to unify Satan back with God. They are one.

I’m a person who realizes the irony everywhere and revels in it, I love absurdism in that sense.

Anyway some examples are – Jesus is the antichrist to Jews, Yahweh is “Satan” to Marcion and later Gnostic sects like the Sethians, Jews and Muslims worship “Satan” according to Protestant Christians. According to Islamic eschatology Jesus will destroy the cross when he returns. According to Christians Muslims are Satanists. According to Satanists, such a notion is offensive. I want to unify all of these absurdities because they are beautifully absurd.

As Athanasius famously said “God became man so that man could become God”.

As Jesus said “I and the Father are one”.

As Muhammad said “he who knows his self knows his lord”, and according to Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq “he who dies without knowing the Imam (Hidden Imam/Imam of One’s Being etc – higher self) of his time dies the death of Jahl (ignorance)”

According to Mansur al-Hallaj “I am the truth”.

As a famous movie quote goes “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.” same applies with God.

God = Satan.

Satan = God.

There is only one Ultimate Reality (la ilaha illa'llah) and it is that transcendent, formless, unbegotten, not-begetting, IT which is not like anything, which no likeness can be given but which is the totality, the Absolute, the All. That which all depend on.



This is my new praxis.



The eye in the triangle represents the Atman, everyone is ignorant. The only secret societies are the ones that are open and not secret. I love Christian tinfoilhat conspiracy theorists who can validate my views too.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Short answer. I don't believe in any traditional religion as such. I came to religion through philosophical skepticism and in fact I am a weird mix of atheist and religious.
 

EsonauticSage

Between extremes
I routinely flip between the Abraham traditions (Islam priority, but sometimes Judaism and Gnostic Christianity), Dharmic traditions (split between Shaivism, and Vajrayana Buddhism) and the LHP (non-mainstream Satanism). I have grown accustom to this on a regular basis, I am not sure why. At heart I'm very much always gonna be an Occultist, so perhaps something there is where the union rests.
 

Marcion

gopa of humanity's controversial Taraka Brahma
I'm asking because I'm considering blending a couple of different things together.
I didn't have to, the founder of my movement had already blended Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Islam and five types of Tantra for me, so it was 'ready made' so to say.

People seem to be unaware that most paths originated by blending elements from other paths. And as we enter the age of information, less people have a problem with syncretism and religious boundaries dissolving more and more.

You would think that syncretism can lead to confusion or loss of clarity but if you stick to the essence (which is not difficult in the case of Tantra) this need not be the case at all.
Sarkar stripped away all the superfluousness that usually clings to religions and picked only the bare stuff that really matters in spiritual and social life.

Still, in a way for myself I blended scientific thought with the acceptance of a spiritual dimension and spiritual development which must have brought me to this path.
 
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Did you like both religions and decided to incorporate what you would see as the best of both? Did you always believe in something that didn't fit your original faith?

I'm asking because I'm considering blending a couple of different things together. I like Western and Middle-Eastern polytheism/paganism, but I don't believe the deities in as literal beings, as I am atheist. I also have been resonating stronger and stronger with atheistic Satanism the more I read about it. I may become a syncretic in this respect but I would like to hear your stories.
Merry Meet Sabah, I hope you're doing well. I am a Christian, Wiccan, Shaman Witch that found peace within my Syncretism. I am Wiccan from my Irish Celtic roots, Christian from my Spaniard heritage, and Shamanistic from my Native American ancestors. I am a full solitary practitioner of Witchcraft which is not a religion but frowned upon by several Faith's.

These contradictions seem impossible to blend but they work very well for me and I'll tell you why.

It is my personal relationship with my Divine that matters the most to me so outside influences such as people or religious organizations is irrelevant to me because they have no right to interfere with my personal religion just as I have no right to interfere with theirs.

When you look at your personal religious beliefs, you should feel at peace in what you believe in. I'm grounded In what I believe in. I carefully observed myself, my connection to people, our World, the Cosmos and although I value people's opinions, I am the one that has to live my religion and not them.

The only problem I encountered with Syncretism did not come from me, but from people using their Dogma to try and invalidate my religion which I find very strange. Why is my religion such a threat to theirs? Are they so afraid that if they accept my religion it will somehow crumble theirs?


Also, When I look at religion, it's important for me to see the person first, I don't look at their religion. When I see a person, instead of their religion, I see a human being standing next to me, trying to seek the same answers I'm seeking about life, where I came from and why I'm here. When I see the human behind the religion I can't demonize them simply because they see religion differently from me and they should do the same.

Another thing about Syncretism that most people misunderstand is their assumption I want to be a member of their Christian, Wiccan or Shaman faith.

I don't want to be part of their Faith, but the only reason I say I am a Christian Wiccan Shaman, is to let people know what I follow when they ask me what religion I'm from.

The problem with organized religion is the group mentality of it's leaders and followers that place restrictions on it's members before they can join their Faith. You have to blend in to their interpretations of the Divine, or you won't be accepted by them, so is it right to lose your individual faith just to fit in?

Since I have no intention of joining their organized religion they can't place restrictions on what I believe in and that is the most comforting part of my religion.

In conclusion, I accept everyone for who they are, as long as they harm none. I am not going to demonize a person simply because of their religious beliefs and they shouldn't demonize me either.

I accept Christ in my life, I see the life forces in our Cosmos both Physically and Spiritually, I see the Shamanistic connection of all the Sacred things in our universe from Father Sun to Sister Moon, to Mother Earth, to Sacred you and me. We all fit in with the great Divine above that created us from love, and although these are my individual beliefs, I just can't see how this can cause conflict with people of other Faiths.
 
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