I was raised a C of E christian, went to church and Sunday school, joined the campanologists (the only time I've ever been a member of a musical group) and rang the church bells every Sunday and at weddings and funerals, but never "got" that institutionalised form of worship - to me it seemed that "church" should be vehicle and not the be all and end all of a religion. So when I was 16 I joined an evangelical church, and regularly visited other baptist and pentecostal churches, (I even joined a catholic youth club), and went to prayer meetings, bible readings, joined discussion groups (that never really seemed to discuss anything) in several of those churches and read teenage pulp christian literature like "The cross and the switchblade". Through all that I got into christian rock, (which to a 16 year old seemed the perfect solution - god getting down with the kids), and attended several Greenbelt christian rock festivals. And I have to admit I was taken in by the whole thing - I saw the light and was born again, I was one of the chosen, speaking in tongues, laying on of hands, the works.

 

During this time I was approached by some members of a fundamentalist christian commune who invited me to stay with them for the a while, I had heard rumours of them before, but curiosity got the better of me - I wanted to experience first hand what they were about, so I went along. Now, as I said, no real epiphany - I was affected by what I saw there, so much so that if they had told me there and then that I could stay forever I would have done in an instant, except for two small events that planted the seed of doubt in my mind: the first occurred during a communal sing-a-long, we were sat around singing christian songs (even carols in the middle of summer) when one lad picked up a guitar that someone had left in an non-standard tuning and played a few bars of blues - everyone stopped and glared at him, he flushed an embarrassed look and quickly re-tuned the guitar; the second was the following day when another guy took me to one side and asked me about Pink Floyd and The Moody Blues as he as a big fan before joining the commune - I told him that Floyd had just released a new album (WYWH) that was dedicated to Syd Barrett and it was the most beautiful music I'd ever heard - his face was one of pure joy at this news, but his eyes told a different story - they were brimming with a deep sadness and loss. At that moment I knew I could never give up secular music, so I just walked away.

 

From then on I lost my faith - my overriding desire to question everything was not being answered to my satisfaction, 'speaking in tongues' was gibberish, creation was a being bent into a lie, no one was ever healed by the 'laying on of hands', 'prayers' were selfish, 'man in god's image' was a reflection of man's arogance, the bible was not "the word" but a bad translation... in the end I just walked away.

 

Later in life I tried Wiccian but could not reconcile the fact that it wasn't a real pagan religion, but a romantic victorian idea of what the true ancient religion may have been like. And I have read Le Vey's Satanic Bible and Satansism was not for me.

 

 

Its a load of bollocks.