Not too long ago I was at a celebration of life for a friend who passed away, and a mutual friend led the prayer.  As I watched and listened to him, I started thinking about how we interact with our personal deities. Do we have a religion, or have we built a relationship and how many people are happy to just claim a religion and call it a day? Suffice it to say that this thought kept running through my mind and nested in there for a while, always coming out to entice me with its importance and relevance.

When I was going to a traditional church, I can say that when I was younger, I had a religion. Catechism classes taught the fear approach that is so common in mainstream faiths, not the importance of building a connection to the Divine. Maybe that is one reason why I started to stray at a very young age and distance myself internally from a belief system built on my not only needing to go through someone else to commune with Divinity, but to fear the contact itself.

When I am teaching Pre-Initiate students, I look to see if they are simply surface skimming and focusing on being a Daemonolater  for the shock value or to be different from their friends or are they taking their studies seriously and trying to build relationships with the Daemonic Divine.

Yes, it takes time and dedication to build these relationships, but any relationship takes time and effort to become strong and life-long. Why should our relationship with the Daemonic be any different?

Having a relationship rather than a religion is a choice that each person must make. There is no wrong or right answer, but in faiths, such as ours; where taking personal responsibility for our choices and path is expected how can we settle for a title?