Alex Mar > Quotes

“history teaches us that visions come most quickly to lone obsessives.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“the movement is not anti-men—it’s simply not about men.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“It actually takes a lot of strength of character to accept that who you are is not dependent on who other people see you as.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“The concept of a female god has very little clout in this culture, and it’s worth asking why that might be.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“A religion might best be measured not by its myths but by its impact.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“When a religion does not designate you a sinner from birth, when a religion assumes you’re already in decent standing with your god (or gods), leaving no reason for penance, then the object of its rituals is left wide open.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“I now have enough of a sense of this landscape that I’m narrowing down what I’m looking for, where my fascination lies. I’m looking for something transcendent, something you can only get at through a great deal of deliberate, specific work and privacy and conviction—and this is not something you stumble across in community-friendly ceremonies that require only a temporary commitment.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“magic works primarily through nonphysical means that we can only observe in subjective ways. And that means that its manifestations can almost always be explained away,”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“there is a long-standing tradition, across several cultures, of people worshipping something they desperately fear—you can find this in Christianity, at least the fiery brand. For many, fear goes hand in hand with the awesomeness of God.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“God is self and self is God and God is a person like myself.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“In other words: most humans, once they get in deep enough, will dig in their heels and commit to the value of an experience, because to change their minds and become, instead, openly critical involves a cutting off, a loss, that’s more than most of us want to bear.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“The sabbats mark the Wheel of the Year, the turning of the seasons. For Wiccans and Pagans of some other traditions, these are the spine of the Craft, and some fall on dates that are closely aligned with those of major Christian holidays: Yule, the winter festival from which we get the Twelve Days of Christmas; Ostara, the spring equinox and the source of Easter’s fertility symbols (the rabbit, the egg); Samhain,3 the time of communion with the dead, dressed up in mainstream culture as Halloween.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“I am becoming increasingly aware that initiation into Feri, and practicing any serious form of witchcraft or ceremonial magic, requires a lot of work. You can’t simply wake up one day, have a revelation, and be baptized into this.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“there’s power in silence. If you bring this into the part of you that thinks and rationalizes things, then it loses power.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“Although some have called this “the lesbian religion,” Dianics as a group, like the women in our circle this evening, are a mix of straight, lesbian, and bi. (Ruth herself divorced her husband and is now in a long-term partnership with a fellow Dianic, but she says that most Dianics are not gay.) Its rituals may be separatist, but the movement is not anti-men—it’s simply not about men.7 And so, even in the midst of this back-to-nature Pagan gathering, the Dianics feel a need to guard their space apart. Not out of physical fear—not in this setting—but in fear of having their territory taken away from them, of losing the right to gather separately, speak freely and privately, find ways to become stronger independent of the other sex. This is what women fought for in the seventies, and what we pretend we no longer need today.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“A common agreement exists that the further back a religion can trace its roots, the more legitimate it must be. American nonbelievers like to bring up Mormonism’s relatively recent founding as reason to dismiss its doctrines. As if the angel Moroni guiding Joseph Smith to a box of divine gold plates buried in the ground were so much stranger than Jesus’ resurrection from his tomb. Or Muhammad’s ascension to heaven to speak to Allah. Then again, Joseph Smith’s revelation came in 1823, more than a thousand years later, making it easier for us to imagine the very human life of the prophet, to talk to his living descendants, only a few generations removed, and to judge them as we’d judge our contemporaries—to whom we don’t attribute miracles freely. In this way, the origin story of any younger belief system is sketchier (in both senses of the word), that much easier to brush aside as just another story written down and passed around by humans.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“When you have that feeling, of an encounter with something greater than yourself—however subtle, whatever form it takes—trust it. It is evidence enough.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“To have a legitimate, unpretended connection to God or Goddess or an entire army of godlike forms—to have sincere religious beliefs at all—you have to connect on a level that is more than intellectual, and rooted in more than guilt.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America

“And so, even though I was raised quite secular, the license and prerogative to choose your own gods and goddesses—or to allow them to choose you—remains a foreign thing for me, for most of us. There is no pantheon in America, there are no American gods, only versions of the One God—at least, that’s what the majority would have us think. Our witches disagree; our witches have choices.”
― Alex Mar, Witches of America