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September 18, 2024 • 27 mins

What if leaving organized religion could lead you to a deeper, more authentic spirituality? On this episode of "Leaving Religion," we explore the life-altering journey of stepping away from the confines of a church to embrace a path that aligns more closely with your true self. We dive into the profound courage it takes to be true to oneself, especially when it feels like you're standing out or risking relationships with friends and family. We discuss the rewarding wisdom and joy that come from this brave transition, stressing that authenticity is the cornerstone of enlightenment. True spirituality, we believe, is an inner journey that transcends the barriers of organized institutions.

Our episode also breaks down the crucial distinction between leaving the church and leaving God, helping you understand that this path doesn't mean abandoning your faith. We offer essential tips for those contemplating this transformative decision, emphasizing the importance of self-worth, confidence, and listening to your inner calling. Even if the path seems daunting, the Spirit guides and protects those who trust in their inner divinity. To better align with our mission, we also announce our podcast's name change to "Leaving Religion," reaffirming our identity as the "pagan preacher" and our dedication to guiding others on their spiritual journeys. Join us for an inspiring conversation about embracing individuality and finding true spiritual freedom.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone.
Welcome back to the new podcast.
This is Richard Ravenbrook andI am the pagan preacher.
This is Believing Religion.
You know, the podcasts havealways been about deconstruction

(00:20):
and about various everydaythings that go on in our life
everyday questions, spiritualquestions, questions that people
have when trying to get out ofthe box of religion, trying to

(00:43):
discover themselves, discovernew things.
Leaving religion isn't aboutleaving God.
It isn't about leaving faith.
It's about leaving organized,structured, labeled, organized,

(01:17):
structured, labeled, formalreligion that requires
membership and ties to thatfaith, to that religion.
Leaving religion is aboutspirituality.
It's about finding you, findingthe divinity within yourself,
learning to tune in to thespiritual world, learning to

(01:42):
connect to life on Mother Earth,learning to feel and see and
hear things that we can onlyphantom.

(02:04):
Getting out of the box, gettingout of physical, laying down
the book or the books andexperiencing life, experiencing
spirit and experiencing a truetouch of the divine.

(02:26):
Today, what I want to talk aboutit has been talked about before
, but I want to re-literate.
I want to talk about having thecourage to be who you are.
Having the courage to be whoyou are, you know, having the

(02:53):
courage in this world to bedifferent, to stand out as
different, to be something thatisn't considered the normal,
sometimes even to be consideredthe outcast, the black sheep.
It's not easy, whiledeconstructing from religion,

(03:18):
while leaving religion, learningto do these things to enhance
our spirituality and to findreal enlightenment.
We lose friends, sometimes welose family, we find ourselves
in a valley, in a desert.

(03:38):
A time of learning, a time ofexperiencing A time of learning,
a time of experiencing a timeof sorrow and, at the same time,
a time of wisdom and joy inthat wisdom.

(03:59):
That, though there be sorrow inwisdom, there is also joy to
know the truth for what it is.
Being who we are is the first,the first act of true intent,

(04:28):
trueness being real with theuniverse of the divine, of the
spirit, being real withourselves.
Who are you today?
Are you the person?

(04:49):
That dwells within you.
Is that person that walks aroundat your job, at the local
supermarket, at your church, atyour home local supermarket, at

(05:10):
your church, at your home?
Is that person that people see?
Is that the same person thatdwells within you?
If it's not, then we lie toourselves and we and we are in a
prison that only we can breakout of and we live a life that,

(05:32):
though we live, we had no lifebecause we didn't experience it
for what we were meant to be.
Being real, is that first act,that first step on that path of

(05:53):
enlightenment, when you arecalled to leave religion, when
you are called into a deeperspiritual walk, into a deeper
spirituality and a different,when you are led to get out of
that box and to walk onto thatpath, though it may be dark and

(06:18):
you can't see too much on thatpath at first, you can't see any
light at the end of the tunnel,but you know that you've got to
take that step forward and yougot to take another step forward
and you don't have to worryabout stumbling on the rocks,

(06:43):
you don't have to worry aboutenemies and things on the path
that may seek to hurt you,because the spirit puts you on
this path, spirit has alreadycleared the way and spirit will
protect you so long as yourintent is pure.

(07:10):
Be who it is that you are, nomatter who that person is, the
person within you.
Don't be afraid to voice yourthoughts.
To voice your thoughts, tovoice your opinions, to voice

(07:36):
your deepest emotions.
During this transformation,during this time of change, you
will change, your beliefs willchange, your beliefs will change
, your desires will change andpeople around you will change as
you change.

(07:56):
Don't be afraid of that change,because for every change is
another step forward in thatpath and another step forward
closer to path and another stepforward closer to the light at
the end of the tunnel, thatlight being truth, the answers

(08:17):
that we all seek, that we soughtwhen we first dove into
religion.
First dove into religion whenwe sought to have a connection
in a relationship with a creator, to know more than what our

(08:41):
physical eyes can see, to seedivinity in a real sense and a
real experience we can'texperience that we begin by
being real within ourselves.

(09:04):
It's not easy, is it?
Because when we start beingreal, many people around us will
have many different reactions,different emotions.
Some will say we betrayed ourfaith, our church, our God, our

(09:28):
family.
They'll say that we've walkedaway from what we know is right,
that we've fallen by thewayside.
We have to dig deep withinourself.
To dig deep within ourself, wehave to be ready to lose in

(09:51):
order to gain.
You're going to say well, thisseems like a very hard path, and
we know that the narrow way isa hard path.
The narrow way is the way thatmost people don't go down

(10:11):
Because they're all followingafter the path of all those
thousands of followers.
When you go down this path,sometimes you'll do it alone.
The Spirit will always find youa friend.
The Spirit will always find yousomeone and something to bring

(10:39):
you that peace and thatunderstanding as you seek that
truth.
But it'll feel dark, it'll seemdistant, because Spirit's
wanting you to connect to Spirit, trying to teach you to let go

(11:01):
of this physical and to diveinto the spiritual things.
And that's not easy, becausethe church hasn't taught us to
be spiritual.
It's taught us that we have tobe in a four-walled building to
experience God that we have toknow the 66 books put in a

(11:24):
man-made book in order toexperience divine actions.
And it's not true.
The kingdom of God is withinyou, spirit is within you and
truth is within you.
All the power in the world iswithin you and it comes from

(11:50):
intent.
It comes from believing in thatintent, believing in the words
that you say, that you speak,that the things that you feel
and think and believe manifestinto reality.

(12:14):
These things Spirit seeks toteach you.
And when we first pull awayfrom religion, and when we first
pull away from religion, it canbe some of the darkest times we
will ever experience.

(12:35):
We will experience traumas,feelings of depression, anxiety,
anxiety.
But don't let others tell youthat this is evil trying to
destroy you, because it's not.

(12:56):
It's simply the place, on thispath, that you will learn to
tune into spirit.
Getting out of this box, gettingout of corporate religion,

(13:16):
getting out of having to have aphysical experience in
everything rather than aspiritual experience has blinded
us, it's numbed us to where weneed this experience.

(13:37):
We feel we do anyway, andSpirit wants to tell you that
there's so much more, there's somuch more to experience that's
within than you could ever findin a four walled building or a
church.

(13:57):
God isn't in a four walledbuilding.
God, or the divine, the creator, whatever you choose to call it
, is within you and is withinall forms of life.

(14:19):
When we begin to tap in, when webegin to really feel and I know
sometimes I repeat myself whenI try to explain it, but
sometimes spirit has me go backthrough and over and over and
over, because he wants somebody,somebody out there that's

(14:42):
listening to hear, even if it'sthat one phrase, that one
sentence.
I need listening to hear, evenif it's that one phrase, that
one sentence.
I needed to hear that I neededto be validated.
I needed someone to tell methat what I'm going through is
okay, that it's natural, it'snormal.

(15:02):
It's natural, it's normal.
It's normal to feel down whenyou realize that everything that
you've been taught by thepeople you love the most is
wrong and that when you begin tofind the truth and see the
truth for what it is, and yourfamily won't listen to you and

(15:23):
your friends won't listen to you, your spirit is grieved and
when people begin to walk awayfrom you, betray you, it hurts.
You will feel these things andI know this isn't the most

(15:49):
upbeat podcast.
It's kind of sad in a way, butit's not sad.
It's merely letting you knowfor the one that's listening to
this that knows that they haveto leave religion because they
know that it's just not whatit's supposed to be Corporate

(16:15):
religion.
You know when Spirit calls usto do these things.
I know it took me years.
It took me years to build upthe courage and the bravery to

(16:35):
walk away from everything,because not only did I have to
admit to myself that I was wrong, that I wasted all those years,
but to all the lost people thatwere going to be around me and
that wouldn't listen and thatwouldn't listen, but that

(16:55):
somehow, someway, spirit calledout to me, as spirit calls out
to you and says come, my child,I have for you what you want the
truth.
I have what you need, you need,you need home.

(17:19):
You need to understand all thewhys and the hows of this
universe, this world and of life, the purpose of things, just
this universe, this world and oflife, the purpose of things,
and that Just you understandwhat I'm talking about.

(17:43):
Being who we are, who are youtoday?
I know there's many of us justlike me when I was ministering
in the church or wherever else,and I was trying to do my best,
and I would, you know I wouldwrite things in a way that was

(18:07):
more down to earth and moreunderstandable, you know, and.
But I knew that things justweren't right and what we were
teaching people just was not ahundred percent.
And it took me a while.

(18:29):
I had to be brave.
You have to be brave, you haveto be brave, you have to be
determined, you have to be bold,but you have to be ready.

(18:55):
Prepare yourself for the costof truth.
Be prepared, put on your armor,learn things like grounding and
blocking.
Learn things, meditate onthings, protect yourself, guide

(19:20):
yourself.
This will be about you In yourwalk, in your relationship with
spirit.
The church will teach you thatit's not about you, that it's
about the church.
It's about, about you.
That it's about the church it'sabout somebody else or it's
about something else.
No, your spiritual walk isabout you and it's about spirit.

(19:46):
And on such walk you have to beprepared to not necessarily
defend against evil, but youhave to be prepared to defend
yourself against yourself,against your doubts, against

(20:13):
your emotions that want to pullyou back into things Just
because it's easier.
It's easier just to believe orto follow, whatever they are,
whatever they do, because atleast you have friendship, at
least you have family.
The thing that you sacrifice isyourself, your, your, your.

(20:40):
Everything that's within youyou sacrifice.
You have to be prepared tofight that person in the mirror,
because that will be yourgreatest enemy on this walk.
It isn't evil and it isn't evenreligious people with good

(21:04):
intentions.
They will try and they willshoot their arrows, even in good
intention.
But the biggest enemy is us,our doubts, our confusions.

(21:25):
We have to keep moving forward,we have to keep conversating
with spirit, we have to keepmeditating deeper and deeper, we
have to have the spirit of awarrior that nothing, nothing

(21:51):
but death, will stop us, that wewill seek truth, that we will
seek truth and we will seek thedivine until we can no longer
take that last breath, and thatwe hope that, on the other side,

(22:11):
that we can experience even ingreater value the things that we
learn here on earth, that weare spirits having a physical
experience and we've been taughtto not be who we are, but just

(22:32):
to follow, to conform, to belike everybody else.
And spirit says no, not for you, my child.
I call you out from among them,I call you out From the

(22:59):
followers of man and offer younot gold or silver, but I offer
you the divine, a true touch ofspirit, god Life.

(23:23):
True touch of spirit, god life,the understanding of life, the
understanding of the purpose oflife, the understanding of the
beauty and everything that wesee understanding and being
connected to all life, no matterhow small, no matter how

(23:50):
different, that we can stillsomehow someway connect with
that life.
That, though we even be adifferent species, though we
have a completely differentlanguage, though we are designed
differently, built differently,we still can connect and

(24:17):
communicate in ways that ourphysical selves, our physical
minds can never even phantom.
That the things we see aroundus are only a portion of what
reality actually is.

(24:37):
If you take anything from thispodcast today about leaving
religion, just remember thatfirst thing when you first say
I'm going to leave the church orI'm going to leave religion,
you're not leaving God, you'releaving religion.
The very most important thing Onyour list of what to do's and

(25:05):
how to do's Is to know who youare and to be who you are, to
walk as you are.
Don't let anybody tell you thatyou are less than what you are,
that you're not worthy becauseyou are worthy.

(25:26):
Don't let anybody tell you thatyou're on the wrong path, that
you don't know what you'retalking about, because you don't
have to know everything,because when you first begin
this you won't know everything.
But you don't have to.

(25:47):
We don't have to knoweverything To begin to walk on
this path.
All we got to do is have thefaith and the courage to take
that first step forward, to knowwithin ourselves that we know
we're being called, we know this, we feel this, we don't doubt

(26:07):
this.
Thank you everybody, thank youfor taking the time to listen.
Remember, the name of thepodcast is changing to Leaving
Religion.
I am still the pagan preacher.
Be blessed everybody andblessed be.
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