Many teenagers who become pagan are living in a christian household. Most of those people have parents who forbid the practice of witchcraft in their homes. Although this may be seen as a denial of the human right of religion, they do have the legal right due to the fact that you are living under their roof. So you are stuck with a decision to make; wait until you can buy your own house, break their rules and practice witchcraft, or find another place to do it. to many people some of these choices are less realistic than others. So how do you continue your journey through the craft? Well here are some options.
- Find a special place in the woods or somewhere that is not in the house and where your parents wont see you. This place should be walking distance from your house but far enough where you wont be distracted from noisy neighbors, barking dogs or street/security lights. Once you choose a place, you should do a little landscaping to make it a good sacred space. for instructions see "how to make a sacred space" in projects. Just make sure you arent on anybodies land or else you could be sued or something. When I first made mine, it was on my neighbors land and he had found it one day and I had to move it. Theres no more of an awkward time than being caught dancing around a fire in nothing but your shoes!
- Meet other pagan teens in your area and make a teen coven. there are always people who are going through similar situations and when you make friends with them, it will open many new opportunities. As it may be a very beneficial solution, it is not always possible due to spiritual isolation. For many pagans, finding local pagans can be a hassle because they dont just have a sign above their heads saying "I'm a Pagan." You need to get to know the person which is a hit or miss thing. So many people practice what is known as "Webweaving" which basically means to network with other like minded individuals and it is usually done through online sites such as Twitter, Facebook, SpellsofMagic.com, and many other sites that have specific "groups" just for pagans.
- Create a Blog! Do what I did! I made a pagan blog (WiccanSupport). It may sound irrelevant to the situation at hand but from my experience, being able to express my thought about society, pagan pride and various pagan topics, has really allowed me to meet other like minded individuals who read my posts and contact me. Many of my readers ask for emotional support or just want a friend to help them grow in a spiritual sense and I love to help them and get to know them. Having a where people can really see who you are and what you believe can really get your name out as well. I haven't expected so many people to have noticed me from this blog until this summer when I had spent two weeks in Jacksonville NC and I met this guy names Levi who was wiccan and we were talking about wicca and I mentioned that I made WiccanSupport, and he was amazed! It feels so great to find out how much you can help others just by speaking your mind.
- Convince your parents to allow you to practice paganism in the house! While the other tips in this post are good short fixes, this one is absolutely best for the long term but is also the most strategic one and may take years to complete at best. Parents try to be rigid and forceful but they are also human and can be "trained" to approve of things. The best way to train ones brain to do something that the person is against is to train the subconcious mind. This is because when we are aware of the will of somebody else, we automatically shut down due to our own predispositions but we arent aware, we think with an open mind. think of it like this, if somebody came up to your door and said "We are selling this $40,000 car. It has no insurance but it has 40MPG. Will you buy it?", you will automatically say no but if the person starts talking of how bad gas prices are and has a conversation with you about something that is distantly related and drops little hints like "Yeah my cars great on gas.", you wont be thinking of how you really dont need a car but instead you will be thinking of how cool his car is. This will actually build up a trust between that person and it tells the mind that this person is a really cool guy and you start to want to buy his car. This is actually used by door-to-door salespeople because it is proven to work with costumers and it also works with parents. It is kind of simple in the fact that all you have to do is drop little statements about the benefits of paganism but dont actually say paganism as this will be too obvious. Instead, call it liberal arts, free thinking, open mindedness or simply refer to things that are often victim of bigotry such as gay rights, abortion, stem cell research or evolution. Just have little casual conversations with your parents about controversial topics or things that are against their beliefs and talk about them from the point of view opposite of your parents. This will not directly teach your parents that you want to be pagan but it will teach them to think about things with an open mind. The most important thing to remember is to keep it casual. Its usually pretty awkward to tell a police officer that you told your mom that "theres a special place in hell for no good for nothing bitches like her" over a casual conversation about the new curtains in the kitchen. Trust me, I should know *hint hint*. Drop hints as much as you can without being too obvious. The more often you drop hints, the more effective your hints will be but just be careful because its a real gamble if things go wrong. If they know what you are trying to do, its game over. Good luck!