Have you ever considered the profound connection between personal freedom and spirituality, and how it shapes us as individuals? Our episode today paints a vivid picture of this bond, inspired by a young woman who left an indelible imprint on my life. Her story underscores the power of free will and the right to choose our spiritual journey without any manipulation or control. As we traverse the landscape of different religions, we reflect on the universal truths within them, emphasizing the need for spiritual growth.
We also dive into the dark side of religious manipulation - praying against someone's will. This practice, often rooted in good intention, can have harmful consequences, infringing upon personal freedom and causing unnecessary suffering. The focus shifts towards fostering courage and allowing individuals the freedom to be authentic. This episode is a call to respect individuality, encourage personal freedom and promote spiritual growth. Join us as we explore these dynamic aspects of spiritual life, and learn to value the delicate balance between individuality and religion.
Have you ever considered the profound connection between personal freedom and spirituality, and how it shapes us as individuals? Our episode today paints a vivid picture of this bond, inspired by a young woman who left an indelible imprint on my life. Her story underscores the power of free will and the right to choose our spiritual journey without any manipulation or control. As we traverse the landscape of different religions, we reflect on the universal truths within them, emphasizing the need for spiritual growth.
We also dive into the dark side of religious manipulation - praying against someone's will. This practice, often rooted in good intention, can have harmful consequences, infringing upon personal freedom and causing unnecessary suffering. The focus shifts towards fostering courage and allowing individuals the freedom to be authentic. This episode is a call to respect individuality, encourage personal freedom and promote spiritual growth. Join us as we explore these dynamic aspects of spiritual life, and learn to value the delicate balance between individuality and religion.
Speak your mind on the show - Message Richard Ravenbrook
Speaker 1:
Welcome everyone, welcome to the Peg and Pratia podcast, welcome to another spiritual message. Today I want to talk about something that I probably know that I've spoken of before, but we're going to try to say it just slightly different today. Many people out there know, besides being a minister of sorts, a teacher, that I've also worked as a professional psychic advisor for different people, different companies, and here recently I have heard a word from a young lady that passed on a little over a year ago due to suicide. This girl used to come into our shop all the time, used to make things for our shop, had many, many issues, physically and emotionally, but I heard, and I know beyond the doubt that it was her, and that she said that I didn't want to die, I wanted to live. But I wanted to live my way and according to what my heart called to. But I knew that I couldn't do that without judgment, without condemnation, that I never could be what it was that called within me and not lose that which I already loved my family. And you know that really grieved my spirit, because it seems like I've seen this so many times over the course of my life, my ministry, my teaching experience, and you know because many people know. Obviously you know the title the pagan preacher. They know that.
Speaker 1:
You know I have done many different things in my life. I've been a minister in the church. I've been a minister of what I left the church. I taught in everything from paganism to the craft to magic, to what you know, just whatever it was the spirit laid on my heart to teach to whatever particular crowd that I was teaching or speaking to. Because, you know, the truth doesn't have labels. The truth, no one owns truth. Truth is what it is, what it always has been and what it will always be. If I can spit that out, you can't say well, and that's why I tell people all the time, you know, to let go of labels. We need to define ourselves. We need to. You know, people want to know what you believe, what you are, what path you walk. Well, I'm a seeker and I seek the truth wherever that might be. I believe that many things aren't necessarily learned, but only remembered that there's nothing done that hasn't already been done. We just need to remember who we are, why we're here.
Speaker 1:
But getting back to what I was saying, this young lady and many, many others, victims of sorrow and grief due to religion, or should I say more religious people, people that believe so deep heartily that their religion, their path, is the truth, that they will do anything to try to keep everyone that they love on that path. And you know, you say, well, that's. That is great intention and it can be to a degree, but what we have to remember is free will. We have to remember that, as individuals and creations with free will, that we have to be free to choose. This podcast is about let me be free, let you be free.
Speaker 1:
You know many, even when my past, my past life as a Christian, within the Christian church, you know we were taught that our children had to follow that same path and that we should try to get our grandchildren to follow that same path, that we should pray for those that refuse to follow that path. Not understanding that to pray against someone else's will is dark craft, it is manipulation within the spiritual world, it is going against the very thing that our Creator said, that he gave us. And I know there are many people out there that get confused on how I teach it. How I teach it, because they say, well, but you say you're not necessarily a Christian anymore, but yet you speak like a Christian sometimes and you even use scripture as a guiding or blueprint at times and, like I tell people, the truth has no label. There is a truth within Christianity, just as there is truth within Buddhists, hindu, and eventually I will get to each and every one of these. You will hear different aspects of different religions when I speak, but these podcasts are more centered right now around those people that are deconstructing from corporate religion, those people that are trying to understand why they feel the way they do, why that going to church doesn't fulfill them anymore, that the things they see the church doing aren't right within them.
Speaker 1:
This podcast, or these spiritual messages, are for those people that are seeking true spiritual truth and understanding of divinity within themselves, understanding truth for what it is, learning to dive in and discern the truths in all these different religions. To claim that, no, I am not a corporate Christian, but I do believe in the man that we call Jesus, that he walked on this earth as a teacher and a prophet. But I also believe many other things, many things that the normal, everyday corporate church would say or would hear say. Not hear say, but heresy. But you know, they also said that Jesus did the same thing, that he spoke from the devil, that his messages were evil. We have to understand that sometimes we use our religion and we use it in a way that hurts people, even with good intention and spirit tries to teach us, and we'll begin to learn about things like magic and miracles and inner power and manifestation. We have to understand that our intention, our focus, our thoughts, our words have great power when we as any religion and I'm going to use the young lady as an example her family was devout Christians.
Speaker 1:
This young lady, I do not believe, held those same beliefs. Her beliefs were somewhat like ours Very ominous, very spiritual. She loved crystals, she loved deep spiritual truth, but I don't think that that aspect of her life was acceptable. Her family tried in some aspects to accept it, to accept her, but I think she knew that she could never truly be what it was that called to her without hurting her family.
Speaker 1:
And how do we get to that point? Where do we, when we put ourself into a prison or our family, even in love, put someone they love in prison, a mental, emotional prison, when they are forced to live out their entire life being something that they aren't Trying to live a life that is pleasing to those that love them and that they love, but never reaching the plateau of what they would choose in their life. In their life I've seen so much wrong in the corporate church. I've seen people or should I say I know of people that have taken their life because they just simply couldn't walk the way that corporate church people were telling them that they had to walk. They gave up and they took their life. And I look back and it's like but that's not spirit, that's not the spirit of truth.
Speaker 1:
We don't have to teach in a way that harms, that hurts emotionally. We can guide, we can support, we can empower. We cannot go against someone's will, even in good intentions. Don't people understand, even within the church, that when you pray and I just said this, but I'm going to go a little bit deeper that when you pray against someone's will just think of it slowly, against someone's will, you are actively and you're going to say, well, it's for their own good, but it's against someone's will. And who, in your opinion, in your thoughts and in your faith, gave them that free will? And what power? What right do you have as a person that has their free will. What right do you have to even attempt to remove someone else's free will Because you feel that that person is wrong, that that person is on the wrong path, but yet at the same time we'll say God is in control. But I think I need to fix this because they're just not listening and we've got to understand that we don't always know what spirit has for each person. Sometimes we walk down the wrong path for the right reasons. Other times it's just simply because whatever is on that path is in our destiny, but you don't know what's going on within the spirit of someone, within the mind and heart of someone as they're walking that path.
Speaker 1:
How many people do we know that has a history of crime and drugs and abuse, whatever it may be, that later on in life turned their life around and began to help people that were going through many of the same things? They could relate, they understood, they knew the feelings of those people, they knew how to help those people. Things that go into college and school and reading books can't do. There's some things in life that it takes experience, that it takes someone that has actually been on that road and understands that road to help people that are on that road, but many, many, many times we have to play the role of the gods. We want to be the person that saves someone, because we know what's right and they don't. Rather than just focusing on our own, our own future, our own path, our own destiny, focusing on are we doing what's right in our life and for our purpose?
Speaker 1:
I know one gentleman that took his life because he was a homosexual and he went to his minister to a church that he used to attend several times, and he asked the minister is this his sin? My lifestyle, is this his sin? Can I live this way and still go to heaven? And you know, in good intention, the minister said that, well, I have to speak the truth. But sadly, the truth that he held was not the truth, it was merely what was talked to him and that what was brainwashed into him. But he told the gentleman that no, you can't live this way, that if you live this way, you will face eternity in eternal torment. And it doesn't matter how good of a person you are, it doesn't matter what good you do on this earth, it doesn't matter how much you love the Creator, it doesn't matter how good you treat Mother Earth, if you live this way, you will be punished, and the gentleman took his life, gave up.
Speaker 1:
The minister had good intentions but didn't have an idea of what he was truly doing. He didn't know, because he wasn't confirmed within him in spirit, that there was far better ways to address what this gentleman was asking. That you know, we don't all know everything, we don't know all spiritual truth. But what I know personally is that love conquers all things and that God is love and I don't care what someone does in their life as long as it's not hurting another unwillingly. Let them have that free will, let them have that free choice and let the gods do the rest. You know, if you were born a certain way, I don't believe the Creator makes mistakes.
Speaker 1:
I believe there's a lot of people on this earth that just hate and just can't accept anything that's different, anything outside of what they consider the norm. They label those things as bad and evil and they try hard to get others to see it as evil. You know, just like the young lady, that I know the things that she faced. I know the things that were in her heart. Her family wanted the best for her, did things in great intention, teaching her and guiding her, but in all the wrong ways. Some things take spirit, some things take the inner workings of spirit, some things that we consider wrong are not wrong and the paths that people are on are the paths that they are supposed to be on. We, as flawed human beings, can intervene and cause great issues, great deterrents, hindrances, obstacles in those people's lives that normally wouldn't be there if we just lived on. The standard of God is in control.
Speaker 1:
You know, many people that listen to this are, as I said, deconstructing from corporate religion and they've seen all this themselves. They've seen the hate that people say. That isn't hate, it's love, because we're just trying to teach, we're trying to convince people to do what's right. Though it's hate, it's bigotry, it's taking something that you claim that your God created, a perfect God, that created an imperfect being, flawed and messed up, and that will punish people for being exactly the way he created them to be. That's just not the truth. The truth is that all of us, every single one of us, have a purpose on this earth. Each one of us have an essence of divinity within us. We all have that purpose, and things like lifestyle, sexuality and things like that have no bearing on spirit and I kind of I don't know where this kind of went, but I guess because the whole focus is on free will and letting people have free will and not just saying that we give people free will and then going back in the closet and praying against that person's will, because that is dark magic. That is the very thing that many people say they are against. It's definitely against what the church says they stand for, but yet they do it all the time.
Speaker 1:
I knew of a past job or my supervisor would tell me that well, when I have an issue with somebody, I just pray that they'll get fired or that something will happen and you know they'll just be taken out of this job and you know that grieved my spirit, because this was a pastor of a church and it's like you are praying that this person lose their job, lose their ability to take care of their family and their home, because you don't agree with them spiritually and you don't see an issue with that. To me, that is evil, that is darkness, a negativity that is. That is just, it's cruel, but in his heart, in his eyes, he's seen that as acceptable. We have to understand Deep within us our intentions, why we do. The things we do are, in essence and a part of magic and miracles. Don't try to convert anyone. Don't try in dark ways to change someone's will. I've heard other people say well, I'm going to pray that they sleep on a bed of nails until they come back to the church. And it's like do you not understand how evil that is? That those people left because they were following what spirit was telling them, following what their heart was telling them, but yet you, in all of your wisdom, want them to be miserable until they come back and surrender to what you feel is right. Ladies and gentlemen, that's just not right. It's not divine, it's not godly, it's not acceptable.
Speaker 1:
People are dying out there. Many people are taking their lives. But I ask you this If they take their lives due to these reasons, will one day we be judged? We did things in good intention, but bad things happened. Will you be judged for that bad thing? I believe we will.
Speaker 1:
Some things are done by accident, some things are done by lack of wisdom, some things are just done because we just didn't understand, because we're like children, sometimes until we learn, we may be 60 years old and still spiritual children, because we don't know everything, but when we do know, when we do understand and we do agree that freedom, free will, spiritual free will is probably the most important aspect in any individual's life, because if they are in any kind of spiritual bondage against their will, they will not be happy. No matter what comes in their life, no matter how many blessings they get, how many good things happen, they won't be happy because they are not on the path that is called to them. They have to be able to listen to that spirit within them and have the courage to follow it and not have people surrounding them, even with good intention, using intention and manifesting the things around that person that are negative to that person. But we need to be empowering people to make right choices, good choices, proper choices, choices that will benefit them, not hurt them. What that is, we don't know, but we can guide, we can support, we can empower and if they fall down, we can just be a friend and just help them, guide them on the path that is real for them. And if they choose to follow the path that is for us, then great. We have a friend, we have a partner.
Speaker 1:
But we can't force anyone to do that. We have to allow every individual to be who it is that they are, and we need to promote courage for them to be who they are, whatever that may be, whether that be in their physical life, their sexual life, their spiritual life, their emotional life, whatever it may be. We need to promote courage to live the way that you choose to live, the courage to be you, to be free to express yourself, to express your feelings, to express your heart and to do the things that Spirit has called you to do on this earth. You can't do that unless you are free. Be blessed everybody, and blessed be. Please subscribe to the Pagan Preacher Podcast, consider even sponsoring the podcast, but most of all, just spread the word about what it is that we do at the Ravensbrook, in the Ravensbrook Sanctuary. Thank you, everybody. Have a great evening.