About this episode

This episode explores the complexities of navigating a broken spiritual inheritance, particularly within Christianity, and the responses of rejection and return to traditional beliefs.

A lot of us are walking around with religious trauma and a God-shaped hole. I was raised inside a version of Christianity, and I know what it can leave in the body. Shame, fear, sexual repression, homophobia, spiritual surveillance, and the feeling that your body itself was a problem. Leaving can honestly sometimes be the only answer. For some people, atheism feels better than trying to rescue anything with Jesus attached to it. Others move toward witchcraft, occultism, or a private spiritual life built from candles, books, rituals, and scraps. At the same time, plenty of people are running back to traditional Christianity because the modern world feels hollow, lonely, and stripped of beauty. Both responses make sense. Burning the whole thing down can feel like the only honest answer when religion harmed you. Returning to the old Church can make sense when the alternative looks like “buy things, optimize yourself, and die.” At least the Church has ritual, saints, feast days, candles, moral demands, and a story larger than the self. But neither response heals the wound on its own. This episode is about the broken spiritual inheritance of the West, especially Christianity, and why…

People in this episode

Host: Mollie Adler

Topics covered

• religious trauma
• spiritual inheritance
• Christianity
• atheism
• witchcraft
• personal spirituality

Keywords

• religious trauma
• spirituality
• Christianity
• witchcraft
• occultism
• shame
• fear
• body
• rituals

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Christianity, Church, witchcraft, occultism

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