My personal outlook on paganism is this. Celebrate life, what I call magic is a practice of putting energy into the universe towards a goal and putting all of my intent behind that goal. By performing a spell I am making a commitment to myself and the universe that I will do what I can to achieve that goal. When a spell works for me it is because it was able to help me achieve my Alpha State, an actual state that your brain enters when you perform certain actions, this state allows me to communicate with all the individual parts of my psyche.

I thank you for your opinion, Usdom. Every interaction with those around me have a lesson that I, or they, need to learn. i acknowledge that you have certain beliefs as well as things that you are trying to understand. The only thing that I can think to say to possibly help you is this, magic is what you want it to be. It is powered by belief, if you believe that it is a mystical power that cannot be studied then that is what it is. But also there are those, like me, who believe that magic is a scientific system that functions on the Quantum Theory and therefore works on the sub-atomic connection that bind all that is contained within the universe together.

I hope I was able to clear up, at the least, my own views on magic. May your path in this life be filled with Love, Light, Happiness, and Peace.

If you are a polytheist — if you consider the Gods to be distinct, individual entities, completely separate from mortal life — perhaps you might agree that using their names is inappropriate.

But if you are a pantheist — if you believe that the Divine is in all things, making us all essentially ‘divine beings’ — then choosing the name of a God or Goddess might be seen as not just acceptable, but suitable and respectful.