The Path Ministry

  Topic: Irrational Fears and Phobias Many of us are afflicted with irrational fears or phobias. The things we are afraid of, and the way we react when exposed to those things, vary wildly from person to person. Today we’re going to talk about some common fears, and I will be sharing my own list of phobias and my rational-but-irrational justification for them. You will all be invited to share your own list of phobias, and we can all talk about where these fears come from and how we deal with them. One of the most common and well-known phobias is arachnophobia, the fear of spiders. It makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, as our ancestors did not have the medical technology to deal with a spider bite, making a fear of spiders rational. While the vast majority of spider species are harmless to humans, and we know what the dangerous ones look like and where they live, a lot of people are still terrified of spiders. Some people are able to overcome this fear by educating ...

  Topic: Sympathy for the Devil Let me start by saying that I do not believe in the Devil as an independent entity. The only thing more irrational than an imaginary friend is an imaginary enemy. Evil is within the hearts of humankind, and the only hell is what we create for ourselves here on Earth. That being said, it seems to me that the Devil character in Christian mythology is at least an equal to the God character, if not more powerful. God seems incapable of just blinking the Devil out of existence and eliminating “evil” from the world for all time.   Devils and demons can possess people and make them do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do, violating their free will, which God apparently cannot do. In some ways, Satan is nicer to humanity than God is. The God character in the Christian Old Testament commits genocide, wipes entire cities from the face of the Earth, and strikes people down for breaking the pettiest rules, even if they don’t actually know what rules they ...

  Topic: The Path Compatibility with Other Belief Systems The practice of the Path is compatible with many other belief systems. For example, I am also a practicing Wiccan. It is easy to reconcile the two, as the Path is partly based on some Wiccan principles. The Wiccan Rede says: “Bide the Wiccan Law ye must In perfect love and perfect trust Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill: An harm ye none, do what ye will. Lest in thy self-defense it be, Ever mind the Rule of Three. And follow this in mind and heart And merry meet, and merry part!” The most important aspect of witchcraft is doing no harm; it is the cornerstone of modern Wicca. This applies not only to hexes and curses, but also spell-work or rituals intended to impose your will upon the free will of another, such as certain love spells. The practical reason for this proscription is the Rule of Three; basically, you get back whatever you release into the world, times three. This is the Wiccan equivale...

    Topic: Gandhi and Ka You may have heard the paraphrased Gandhi quote: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” What he actually said was: “We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.” This puts our Ka in our own hands, at least to some degree; while we may not always be able to control what happens to us, we can control how we react to it and how we choose to go about solving our problems. And we’ve spoken before about how the energy you release into the Universe is what comes back to you. Gandhi is telling us to first change ourselves, and then we may see a change in the world around us, which is how w...

  Topic: Living With Integrity While a great deal of social media is sensationalism and fake news, occasionally you find something moving and profound. Browsing Facebook one day, I found this gem of a quote from Fyodor Dostoevsky: “A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal. And it all comes from lying – lying to others and to yourself.” This is an exercise in living with Integrity. Speak and seek the Truth at all times and in all things, and you will learn to trust, and then to respect, and then to love. But if all you know is deception, you will never be able to trust the words or even actions of others. You will constantl...