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| “Its roots reach back to the open-air culture, friluftsliv, or free air life, seen as a way of life in Scandinavia where Forest School began.” Source |
If you seriously look at the sheer number of pagan rites, religions, philosophies and entities you can be opening your children up to, it should give you enough cause for concern for you to put on the breaks. Re-evaluate and move far away from this program. Surely you can see that there is a “hidden curriculum” here. The following articles, excerpts and videos are presented to show you the various spiritual paths, beliefs and practices you’re are introducing to your child when you participate in the Forest Way. The world has forgotten the horror connected with the worship of ancient entities. Particularly those of the Druids and Celts. Contrary to what you may believe, these entities are real. They were active in ancient times, they have maintained a low profile for a long time, now they are at work advancing their influence and collecting souls. BEWARE!
See the entire Series:
The Forest Way Part 1 – What is “THE FOREST WAY”?
The Forest Way Part 2 – The Roots Go Deep
The Forest Way Part 3 – A Look at The Actual Program in Action
The Forest Way Part 4 – Some Final Thoughts
Devilish Finds in the Forest
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WICCA A path to the Western Mystery Tradition
Introduction to the Wiccan Religion and Contemporary Paganism by Selena Fox
There are many forms of the Wiccan religion. Hereditary/Family Tradition, Shamanic, Gardnerian, Alexandrian, Celtic, British Traditionalist, Dianic, Faerie, Circle Craft and Eclectic are just some of the variety of Wiccan traditions or paths. In addition to Wiccans, Contemporary Paganism includes Pantheists, Goddess Spirituality folk, Druids, Heathens, Unitarian Universalist Pagans, Polytheist Reconstructionists, Animists, Ecofeminists, ChristoPagans, and other Nature Spirituality practitioners. Within most Wiccan and other Pagan traditions, there are a variety of types of groups as well as individual practitioners. Groups differ widely in size, structure, purpose, orientation, symbology, ritual practices, and other ways. There is even more variation among those practicing Wiccan/Pagan spirituality on their own without being part of a group that meets regularly. Some Wiccan and Pagan traditions are initiatory; others are not. Initiatory practices vary from tradition to tradition and include initiations by deities and spiritual helpers through dreams and vigils/vision quests, self-initiations, and initiations by teachers and groups.
Although there are many differences, there are also some spiritual practices and philosophies that Wiccans and other Pagans tend to have in common. They love and respect Nature and seek to live in harmony with the rest of the ecosphere. Many have personal communication and friendships with various animals, plants and other lifeforms. They honor the cycles of Nature. Many do rituals at New and Full Moon times and also at the eight seasonal Festivals, called Sabbats, spaced six to seven weeks apart throughout the year and coinciding with the Solstices, Equinoxes and midpoints between, usually called the “Cross Quarters.” Samhain, popularly known as Halloween, is the New Year in most Wiccan and many Pagan traditions.
The Wiccan religion and other forms of Paganism are pantheistic in that the Divine is seen as everywhere and in everything. They also are animistic in that every human, tree, animal, stream, rock, and other forms of Nature is seen to have a Divine Spirit within. Many traditions have a monotheistic dimension in that there is an honoring of Divine Unity. They also are polytheistic in that the Divine is honored in a variety of Divine forms, including Goddesses, Gods, and other spiritual forces.
Wiccans and other Pagans also honor the Elements of Nature — Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Spirit — and their associated directions — North, East, South, West, Center — in the sacred Circles where rituals are held. Rituals usually include a combination of meditation, invocations, movement, music, and the use of magical tools.
How to Become a Wiccan: A Guide for Beginner Wiccans
Connect with nature in all of its aspects…and in all of its elements: earth, air, fire, water. Go outside and just observe your surroundings. Nature is the basis for Wicca…and all earth religions.
Source: Nicole Canfield
EXPLOSIVE RISE OF WITCHCRAFT ACROSS THE GLOBE – PAUL MCGUIRE
“Pagan” is a catch-all term for a rainbow of mystical persuasions – mainly Druidry, witchcraft, shamanism, and Norse mythology. There is also a statistically elusive number of solitary witches – often called “hedge witches” – who fall outside the main categories.
We don’t go out and recruit people,” says Sorita. “What happens is that you find yourself drawn to a certain path – and if you’re drawn to it, you will eventually find people.”
“When the time is right,” proclaims David, “the teacher will appear.”
Children and teenagers will surf pagan websites after reading Harry Potter books, or watching television shows like Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Sorita and David receive countless entertainment-inspired emails asking for magical advice
Nevertheless, adults often say that it was youthful experiences that led them up the pagan path. Sorita’s introduction to wicca came in her teens, via an electrician who came to her mother’s house in South Africa. David says it began for him when he started precociously reading about world mythologies at the age of four.
The shamanic drummer Barbara Meiklejohn-Free, now 45, was a three-year-old girl living in Scotland when strange things started happening to her. “I saw a 7ft-tall Native American man standing at the bottom of my bed,” she recalls. “At first it was frightening, and I hid under the bedclothes. But he kept reappearing. He wouldn’t say anything – he was just a wonderful presence. I’d say to my parents, ‘Why is this happening?’, but they didn’t know. Many years later I went to America, and I saw these cards in a shop, and on one of them was the person I’d seen. His name was Touch the Clouds, and he worked with Crazy Horse.” Since then, Barbara has followed the Native American shamanic path, has learnt to heal people with drums, and has been given the “medicine name” of Morning Star Hawk Woman.
People come to paganism in less spectacular ways, too, through an interest in tarot cards, crystals, astrology, numerology, out-of-body experiences, or all manner of new-age subjects. “A lot of people come into wicca via the environmental movement,” says David, “because wicca is so eco-friendly. Or from feminism, because wicca is so feminine.”
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THE RETURN OF PAGANISM: Will Paganism Become The Main Religion of America?
The Smart Witch
Some Types of Magic
There are different types of magic, some common ones are:
- Folk Magic. Includes old superstitions and folk practices and continues to have power today. Examples include tossing salt over your shoulder or burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down in your yard to speed the sale of your house.
- Ceremonial Magic. Entails performing rituals using specific props and speaking elaborate words. This is also known as High Magic.
- Sympathetic Magic. The use of objects that represent your desired outcome. As part of a spell casting, you might, for example, turn on your shower to make it rain.
- Natural Magic. The use of herbs, crystals and candles to direct energy. This type of magic incorporates the Sun, Moon and planets.
Fundamental to the philosophy of these types of magic is the concept that anything occurring naturally on Earth – human, plant, animal, stone, metal or element – is alive according to magical definition. Anything that radiates magical power in any degree is perceived to be alive.
The manner in which different entities are alive, however, is not identical. A stone, for example, is alive in a different way than an animal. Those things that lack life – plastic bottles and mass-produced goods, for example – contain no power, and so are of little value in the practice of magic.
The Six Worldwide Courses of the Druid Forest School
Read (on their website) to see the details of the Druid Forest School’s powerful and healing worldwide courses of study into the Druid Path of the Ancient Irish
We are dedicated to using the spiritual tools of the ancient Irish to enable you to become the spark and essence you incarnated to be in this lifetime.
We are dedicated to help bring you through the fire of your inspiration to achieve your wonder.
We are dedicated to help achieve visionary contact find the Gods and the Goddess of the ancient Irish: magnificent beings of great healing and power with an exceptional message for the modern times.
The Festivals of the ancient Irish can connect us to the great rhythms of Land sea and sky, and at the same time, they can direct us to successful expression of our own true rhythms, cycles, and tides in our life.
Right: Druids preparing a wickerwork filled with live humans to be burned as a sacrifice.© Photos.com/Thinkstock Britannica
Exploring the School of Forest Medicine
WALKING THE GREEN PATH OF PLANT KNOWLEDGE: ILLUMINATING OURSELVES, ILLUMINATING THE BEINGS OF THE FOREST
The School of Forest Medicine provides many ways for you to deepen your relationships with the plants of the Pacific Northwest and to find your way on the green path of plant knowledge. Our classes and courses interweave direct spiritual experience with practical, hands-on participatory work. We offer you the opportunity to find and connect with your plant allies and to remember your living bond with the elemental forces of nature. Through meditation, ritual, and song you will learn to work with the spirits of the plants and with the spirits and ancestors of this land, learning to be a vessel of healing and a messenger for the teachings of the forest.
We call upon these divine beings to remind us how to find our way here on earth and to guide us on our long-term, multigenerational goal of establishing a center of learning and healing in the forests of Cascadia where we can remember how to live harmoniously with all beings. By working to restore authentic initiatory rites we will offer ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren the opportunity to live in an intact culture—fully attuned to the cultural and spiritual matrix of the earth, recognizing who we are, and knowing what we are here to do.
We recognize that we as humans are integral parts of Earth and of Wild Nature, that which gives birth to all.
We honor the wisdom of the living Earth and understand that this sacred knowledge permeates all of existence.
We honor the ways that more-than-human beings and elemental forces convey this wisdom and understand that by opening our perceptions beyond our rational minds we make ourselves available to receive this wisdom.
We recognize plants and other intelligent nonhuman beings as teachers, allies, and guides. As embodiments of archetypal wisdom, we welcome the ways that they accentuate who we are and help sing us into existence, and through practices of embodied animistic inquiry, we cultivate and participate in spaces of mutual learning as we reciprocally illuminate each other.
We understand that, without healthy and properly functioning ecosystems, it is not possible for us to live happy and healthy lives. Until we humbly acknowledge our role as humans and respect the myriad relationships that make our lives possible, we will continue to degrade the foundational bio-systems upon which all life depends.
We acknowledge that, without recognizing our inherent mutuality, we will never truly know who we are. Knowing this we accept our role as People of the Alder supporting the renewal and regeneration of ecologically integral cultures as we work to prepare the ground for the generations that will be.
on SoundCloud.
HOW CAN FOREST WAY ZEN HELP YOU?
The Forest Way Zen places emphasis on the ordinary moments of our life and encourages the members to take responsibility for their actions. Students are shown how to examine the relevance of Zen in the Twenty-First Century. The aim is to support students to find their own spiritual liberation leading to awakening. Forest Way Care is a special interest group interested in helping to alleviate the emotional suffering of people affected by cancer and other life-threatening illness through mindfulness meditation.
Every year, Plum Village welcomes thousands of meditation practitioners from all around the world who come to experience the art of mindful communal living. Over 40 nationalities are often represented at the festive four-week annual Summer Opening Retreat which offers special programs for children and teenagers.
The Forest Way is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to providing educational opportunities conducive to spiritual development. The Forest Way was so named to represent the age-old tradition of people going into the forest for extended periods of time to intensely practice meditation and other forms of contemplation.
To support this vision, Forest Way teachers lead retreats and training programs that focus on practicing meditation, cultivating the skillful emotions of love, compassion, and serenity, and on experiencing the mystical dimension of life. The Forest Way also engages in projects designed to support a unified vision of spirituality in the world.
About Forest Way Insight Meditation
The Forest Way Insight Meditation Center is a Theravada Buddhist Center offering retreats which focus on the practice of insight meditation, loving-kindness, and the application of mindfulness to everyday life
Other services near Ruckersville VA
He is Lord Annamalai,
whose broad slopes are covered by wooded groves over which clouds laden with raindrops crawl,
where the fan-tailed peacock dwells with his mate, and whose forest floor is liberally strewn with pearls shed by the ripe bamboo.
Thiru Jnanasambandar, 6th Century
from top left clockwise, view of town with temple towers in the centre and hills in the background , Sri Ramana Ashram entrance , Yogi ram surat kumar ashram , Tiruvannamalai Big chariot, view of Tiruvannamalai hill from outskrits, Tiruvannamalai at night.
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Temple town, Gateway of Deccan plateau
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The Forest Way is a Charitable Trust based in Thiruvannamalai,
in the state of Tamil Nadu, South India.
A group of people brought together by shared passions, our work is an expression of things that we hold dear, and are motivated to explore, to question and to bring into practical action. These core questions revolve around what we can do to restore wild lands, how we can live sustainably, how we grow our food, how our children learn, how we ourselves continue learning, and how we relate to both our fellow humans and all nonhuman life.
These explorations have manifest in our work to restore the forests of the sacred Arunachala Hill, the creation and ongoing maintenance of parks for people and nature, and to the opening of a small holistic school surrounded by organic farmland. We also take environmental outreach work into local schools and take local children out into nature. We are trying to learn to grow food according to nature’s ways and to build with as little impact on the land as possible. We are a work in progress.
Denmark’s Bestiality Problem: It’s Legal
Amazingly, the Danes, Finns, Hungarians, and Swedes currently say it’s legal to have sex with animals as long as the animals are not hurt. But … how would you know?
ROME, Italy — Soon there will be one less place in Europe where people can fornicate with animals—legally anyway. A new law on the table in Denmark proposes to make sex with animals, known as zoophilia, illegal. The Danish law currently states that humans can have sex with animals as long as the animal doesn’t suffer, which begs the question: how would one know if an animal enjoyed human sex?“I propose a change in the law on protection of animals to state explicitly that sexual relations with animals are no longer permitted, Denmark’s agriculture minister, Dan Jorgensen, said in a statement. “Animals have to be treated with respect and care and they have a right to special protection because they cannot say no.”
If the law passes in Denmark, only Finland, Hungary and Sweden will remain lawless when it comes to Lassie. A similar law was shelved several years ago by the Danish parliament, but Jorgensen hopes his country will adopt the animal cruelty measure this time around, especially considering Denmark’s controversial record on animal rights. The country recently was embroiled in an international scandal when zookeepers in Copenhagen slaughtered a baby giraffe named Marius that wasn’t compatible with the genetic makeup of other animals in the zoo. Despite offers from zoos around the world to take the animal, the Danes shot the giraffe with a bolt gun and fed it to the lions in front of zoo visitors, including children.
Jorgenson is apparently more concerned that by not reigning in Denmark’s animal sex laws, the country could become the wild west of animal sex tourism. A report in the Independent newspaper states that there has been “a rise in the underground animal sex tourism in Denmark,” which we assume does not mean underground animals such as gophers, moles, and prairie dogs.
Denmark already has a handful of animal brothels which, according to Ice News, a site specialized in Nordic reporting, charge between $85 and $170 depending on the animal of choice. “When the rules have been tightened in the rest of Europe, there’s a risk that Denmark will be considered a refuge for people with this proclivity,” the minister said, according to AFP. “That’s why I want to send a clear signal that Denmark is not a refuge for people who want to sexually exploit animals.”
Danish news sources have quoted a recent Gallup poll, which found that just 76 percent of the Danish population support the new law, which implies that 24 percent of the population would like freedom of movement when it comes to pursuing beasts for pleasure. In a Vice Video aptly called “Animal Fuckers” one unnamed man explains what turns him on in the animal kingdom. “I’m into human females. I’m into horse females,” he says. “I’m asexual towards rats. I’m a bit voyeuristic about dogs and women.”
According to a landmark study called “Characteristics of Juvenile Offenders Admitting to Sexual Activity With Nonhuman Animals”, there is often a correlation between sexual abuse against animals and sexual violence against humans. “Studies of adult sex offenders appear to support the co-occurrence of sexual offenses against humans and animals among some offenders,” the authors write. “The data suggests that juvenile animal offenders should be considered a sub-group of sex offenders in that 23 of 24 juveniles (96 percent) who admitted to bestiality also admitted to sexual offenses against humans.”
People who literally love their animals have been tied to a series of side crimes. In August, a woman in New Mexico tried to kill her roommates after they witnessed her having sex with a dog and admitting to having sex “multiple times” with both roommates’ dogs. In September, a priest who was convicted of 24 counts of pedophila against Inuit people in Nanavut, Canada, had a bestiality record as well.
The animal rights group Occupy for Animals, which has a collection of truly disturbing stories and photos about animal rape, is petitioning the European Union to require all European nations to adopt laws against all zoophilic behavior. With the exception of Denmark, Finland, Hungary and Sweden, all European Union countries have some sort of animal protection laws on their books, even if they stipulate that sex with animals is illegal only if there is injury to the animal.
“While the world looks upon Europe and especially upon the E.U. as a model in terms of civilization, a simple search on the internet about animal rape cases that had been reported in Europe—ranging from raped dogs to horses— brings many shocking search results,” the group says in an open letter to the European parliament. “Sexual abuse of animals is one of the most trivial and obscene expressions of human behavior, one of the sickest practices that can be thought of and we believe it is truly deplorable that there are no E.U.-laws in place that prohibit and severely punish such sadistic behavior in order to protect defenseless animals.”
And this is what happens when you worship nature and put no distinction between humans and animals. When you believe that we all are just a lump of cells that came together by accident. When you do not value human life… you do not value any life. When YOU are the GOD of your own life…you have no moral compass. And when you open yourself up to spiritual and inter-dimensional beings… you are asking for trouble.
The Pagan Wild Men of Europe more photos on this site
The ‘Wilder Mann’, as they are known in Germany, represent something more primal – something closer to nature’s rhythms. The men, who dress in elaborate costumes to hide their own true identities, often come out during Christian festival, but the rituals themselves often predate Christianity, harkening back to harvests and solstices and a fear of the winter. The pagan characters often represent death and the darker aspects of humanity. The most fascinating examples feature in Fréger’s book: ‘Wilder Mann: The Image Of The Savage’.
Earth religion is a term used mostly in the context of neopaganism.[citation needed]
Earth-centered religion or nature worship is a system of religion based on the veneration of natural phenomena.[1] It covers any religion that worships the earth, nature, or fertility gods and goddesses, such as the various forms of goddess worship or matriarchal religion. Some find a connection between earth-worship and the Gaia hypothesis. Earth religions are also formulated to allow one to utilize the knowledge of preserving the earth. Wikipedia
GAIA WORSHIP – THE NEW PAGAN RELIGION
More appealing to the New Agers and the interfaith movement is the mystical side of Gaia. They can easily relate to the belief that humans can have mystical experiences or a spiritual relationship with Gaia. A connectedness to nature and the belief that humans are a part of this collective consciousness called Gaia appeals to them. Gaia teaches that an “Earth spirit”, goddess, or planetary brain must be protected. It is this belief that fuels the environmental movement, sustainable development, and a global push for the return of industrialized nations to a more primitive way of life. Just as with the evolutionists, the humanists, and the other pagan religions of the world, Gaia has named Christianity as the obstacle to human evolution and our spiritual destiny. A document mandated by the U.N.-sponsored Convention on Biological Diversity, the Global Biodiversity Assessment, explicitly refers to Christianity as a faith that has set humans apart from nature and stripped nature of its sacred qualities. The document states:
Conversion to Christianity has therefore meant an abandonment of an affinity with the natural world for many forest dwellers, peasants, fishers all over the world …The northeastern hilly states of India bordering China and Myanmar supported small scale, largely autonomous shifting cultivator societies until the 1950’s. These people followed their own religious traditions that included setting apart between 10% and 30% of the landscape as sacred groves and ponds.1
While condemning Christianity as the root of all ecological evil, the document goes on to praise Buddhism and Hinduism as they “did not depart as drastically from the perspective of humans as members of a community of beings including other living and non-living elements”. Non-Christian religions are definitely favored by the global government as good stewards of Mother Earth.
Members of this “Green Religion” will all agree that the Earth is in a crisis state and this ecological emergency is the result of Christian traditions. They believe that the Judeo Christian belief that God assigned man to rule over the earth has caused us to exploit and abuse it. Monotheism, they assert, has separated humans from their ancient connection to the earth, and to reverse this trend; governments, the media, our education system, artists, and other areas of influence must revive earth-centered myth and reconnect us to Earth’s spirit. Al Gore, in his book Earth in the Balance, expounds on this view:
“The richness and diversity of our religious tradition throughout history is a spiritual resource long ignored by people of faith, who are often afraid to open their minds to teachings first offered outside their own systems of belief. But the emergence of a civilization in which knowledge moves freely and almost instantaneously through the world has spurred a renewed investigation of the wisdom distilled by all faiths. This panreligious perspective may prove especially important where our global civilization’s responsibility for the earth is concerned.” (pp. 258-259)
Gore praises the Eastern religions and new age spiritualism, while blaming Christianity for the elimination of the ancient goddess religion, and calls for a new spiritual relationship between man and earth.
CONTINUE TO THE FOREST WAY – PART 3