Religion:

A set of beliefs, including rituals and theological doctrines propounding the glory of the Supremme Spirit (God). 'The opium of the masses' according to Karl Marx.

(See also: Religion, Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary)

OLD RELIGION: Another name for the Craft.

(See also: OLD RELIGION, Paganism, Pagan, Pagan Dictionary)

NEW RELIGION: Pagan term used in reference to Christianity.

(See also: NEW RELIGION, Paganism, Pagan, Pagan Dictionary)

OLD RELIGION: A name for Paganism.

(See also: OLD RELIGION, Paganism, Pagan, Pagan Dictionary)

OLD RELIGION - Witchcraft or Paganism that continued into the Middle Age. (NAD)

(See also: OLD RELIGION, Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

religion

1.    Way or ways that people orient themselves in the world with reference to both ordinary and extraordinary powers, meanings and values.

2.     (Jung) Institution whose function is to protect us from an experience of God

(See also: Religion, Body Mind and Soul)

EARTH RELIGION - A religion wherein the wroshipper strives to be in harmony with the Earth & with all life forms. These religions are opposed to the Christian view that the world is a resource to be subdued & exploited or the humans have the right to dominate and/or subjugate other life-forms.

(See also: EARTH RELIGION, Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

OLD RELIGION (The): Italian Witchcraft, founded in the mid-14th century with the teachings of Aradia, the Holy Strega, and based upon the pre-Estruscian Italian belief system. The Old Religion is a worship of the "Source of All Things", through the personification of the Goddess and God. Also known as Strega, Stregheria, and La Vecchia Religione.

(See also: OLD RELIGION, Pagan Organisations, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary, Wicca, )

EARTH RELIGION: Any religion which reveres the Earth, and Nature, as the manifestation of the Divine, and calls for harmony with Nature and all life and for ecology. Many pagan traditions are Earth religions.

(See also: EARTH RELIGION, Magickal Traditions, Magickal Paths, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

NATURE RELIGION - a symbolic center and the cluster of beliefs, behaviors and values that encircles it based on wilderness identification as well as a passionate concern for place and easterly in society. (Catherine Albanese) (NAD)

(See also: NATURE RELIGION, Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Religion:

(1) The body of institutionalized expressions of sacred beliefs, observances and practices found within a given cultural context.

(2) A magical system combined with a philosophical and ethical system, usually oriented towards “supernatural” beings.

(3) A psychic structure composed of the shared beliefs, experiences and related habits of all members (not just the theologians) of any group calling itself “a religion.”

(See also: Religion, Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

RELIGION (from religare, to bind book, Latin) 1. way or ways that people orient themselves in the world with reference to both ordinary and extraordinary powers, meaning and values. (Catherine Albanese)

2. institution whose function is to protect us from an experience of God. (Jung) (NAD)

(See also: RELIGION, Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Religion [from Latin religare to bind back, implying obligation; or from relegere to select, distinguish among various elements for the choosing of the best; ponder]

In theosophy individual religion of conduct means faith in his own essential divinity as a source of wisdom and an unerring and infallible guide in conduct; an ever-growing realization of that truth, an ever-growing consciousness of one's spiritual identity with the divine in nature; and constant devotion to the ideals thus inspired. Religion means a self-sacrificing devotion to truth, a resolve to live in harmony with all other lives, a sacrificing of the personal self to the greater self.

In theosophy there is no divorce between the devotional and speculative functions of the mind; science and philosophy do not conflict with the innate sense of rectitude. Ethics are not based on expediency, a social compact, or a special revelation, but are inherent in the laws of the universe.

The ancient wisdom is the quintessence of all religions, the universal parent-source of all faiths; and in proportion as each great world religion rises to the height of its own possibilities, so will the external divergences among the different faiths of mankind blend into the original fundamental unity.

(See also: Religion, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

RELIGION

The word "religion" derives from the Latin prefix, re (an intensive) + ligio, "to tie, to bind," hence "a practice designed to tie down tightly, as though by a spell-binding force." If religions were not impervious to change, they would quickly dissolve into the chaos of the occult.

Religion is worship. It is based on the strict separation of divinity and humanity. Magic, on the contrary, is the invocation or evocation of spirits or divinity based on kinship or identity with them.

Living religions begin by being as creative, spontaneous and iconoclastic as the arts. But that creative fire quickly damps down to immutable dogma and robot-priests. Worship for its own sake amounts to little more than useless idolatry. It is utterly infra dig for any intelligent human being. The sole purpose of ritual is the arousal of consciousness in the participant. When such awakening fails to take place, it is time to throw the ikons to the dogs. The universe is self-created and everything in it created itself and goes on creating itself. There are higher beings, to be sure, but it is a perilous mistake to worship "The Creator" who is as far from perfect as you can get and still live on this side of Nothing. Nor should we consider humanity, in its present condition, to be anything but imperfect. Along with Nietzsche, we should see man as capable of infinite improvement. But Nietzsche's so-called "superman" will never evolve without struggle -- and not be the easy struggle of fascistic tyranny over material forms, but by the infinitely more difficult way of universal internal enlightenment.

Since there are infinite levels of enlightenment the majority of people are incapable of consensus or agreement, hence any idea of a religious "congregation" is absurd. As for the profane multitudes... unaware that omniscience, omnipotence and immortality comprise the deepest foundation of existence, they consider their own confusion to be the highest expression of consciousness. The ultimate purpose of creation is to know itself through the experience of eternal expansion of the mind. It is physical or fiscal expansion, however, that is of primary interest to homo vulgaris.

The mission of the magician isn't necessarily to bring down the traditional houses of religion -- especially the monoliths: Islam, Christendom or Judaism. But neither can he support them. For it is a truism that there is wisdom in the individual and it is difference that we should value, not sameness. For the magician, far more acceptable alternatives to monotheism can be found in India, Egypt, Tibet, etc. with their practices of Lamaism, Tantrism, Yoga and so on, or in the atheistic systems of the Tao and Buddhism. But always -- though he understands and honors tradition, the magus creates his own rituals and observances, tailored to his own needs. He does not serve established orders. As Madame Blavatsky so hopefully put it, "There is no religion higher than truth."

RING-PASS-NOT

As the magician draws his circle to keep the demons from entering his world, so other monads draw their own circles to keep out the magician. The ring-pass-not is that Level of attainment beyond which you cannot go. In occult literature, according to Alice Bailey, it is a term used "to denote the periphery of the sphere of influence of any central life force, and is applied equally to all atoms, from the atom of matter as dealt with by the physicist or chemist through the human planetary atoms up to the great atom of a solar system. The ring- pass-not of the average person is the spheroidal form of his mental body which extends considerably beyond the physical and enables him to function on the lower levels of the mental plane."

HPB (The Secret Doctrine) defines the RPN as: "The circumference of the sphere of influence of any center of positive life. This includes the fire sphere of magnetic work of the solar orb, viewing it as the body of manifestation of a Solar Logos or to a planetary scheme and could equally well be applied to the sphere of activity of the human Ego."

(See also: RELIGION, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

VECCHIA RELIGIONE (La): IItalian Witchcraft, founded in the mid -14th century with the teachings of Aradia, the Holy Strega, and based upon the pre-Estruscian Italian belief system. La Vecchia Religione  is a worship of the "Source of All Things", through the personification of the Goddess and God.  Also known as The Old Religion, Strega and Stregheria.

(See also: VECCHIA RELIGIONE, Pagan Organisations, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary, Wicca, )

OLD RELIGION (The): Italian Witchcraft, founded in the mid-14th century with the teachings of Aradia, the Holy Strega, and based upon the pre-Estruscian Italian belief system. The Old Religion is a worship of the "Source of All Things", through the personification of the Goddess and God. Also known as Strega, Stregheria, and La Vecchia Religione.

(See also: OLD RELIGION, Magickal Traditions, Magickal Paths, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

VECCHIA RELIGIONE (La): Italian Witchcraft, founded in the mid -14th century with the teachings of Aradia, the Holy Strega, and based upon the pre-Etruscan Italian belief system. La Vecchia Religione is a worship of the "Source of All Things", through the personification of the Goddess and God. Also known as The Old Religion, Strega and Stregheria.

(See also: VECCHIA RELIGIONE, Magickal Traditions, Magickal Paths, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Religion: Derived from the Latin word religio, meaning to bind or bring together. Religion is that which brings people together.

 (See also: Religion, Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

OLD RELIGION:

1)    Witchcraft and Paganism; so called because they are either by lineage or spiritually, a system of beliefs which existed long before the Judeo-Christian religions

2)    another 'Craft' term, which fits that song, "Give me that Old Time Religion' much better than the Christian use of it!

(See also: OLD RELIGION, Witchcraft, Wicca, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

A Christian theological definition of Religion according to CARM - The Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry:

"

Religion

See also: Religion, Christianity, Body Mind and Soul)