Welcome to Gaia! ::

I'm sorry to say but the only way to get your mom to stop bothering you is to lie to her face. It may not be what you want to do, but there are many people that will keep their hearts hardened and will not accept you if you stray from what they think is "best". Your mother is a brainwashed Catholic. She will always be like that. You are going to have to practice at night, in secret. If you research online, delete your internet history. If you wish to buy books, give the money to your friends and have them buy the books for you. I am in a simialr predicament, where my family is against all religion. It sucks. Just hide your practice well, and if your mother asks you about it, pretend like you have stopped and be sincere about being "sorry".

Oh, Oh, Oh. NO. Nooooooo. No. Not a good idea, no. Trust me, the WORST thing that you could possibly do in a situation that is supposed to decide the path of your soul is to lie about its direction. First off, deciet, I don't think, is a virtue in any religion or spiritual ideal. Life is wayy to short for you to make the road to whatever desitnation you believe is set out for your soul full of cracks, crevices, and rattlesnakes. Because trust me, that will happen. Its hard to focus on doing one thing properly when youre worrying about how you promised youd do it another.

Secondly, whatever-god/dess-you-worship-forbid that the mother finds out what on earth youre doing. At that point you will have offically put yourself in handcuffs and a muzzle with Satan whipping you in flaming manties and a raging erection at this point in your mothers eyes. That's pretty much not going to get better ever, and it will mostly end up with you having about $200+ worth of magickal supplies turned to ash and solitary confinement with the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob as your sole roomate looking at you with utter dissappoinment matched only by his "undying love" for you.

Now of course Im not saying that she shouldnt persue magickal endevors, I am saying that what she should practice should not stray beyond mainstream practices with no obvious effects, supplies, etc etc and so forth. Because I near promise you any researching done at home, any sort of anything that has the slight aroma of magick will end up in a lot of burning, screaming, and praying with an old guy who smells like pretty smoke in a Roman Catholic head-stuck-up-your-a** family.

Did you miss that entire thing? The point is that there is always a chance that the parentals will find out. It doesnt matter what you prefer, you could prefer to be a Satanic anarchist for all I care, that sort of thing is something that doesn't stay quiet for long, especially if youre a minor. If your or her parents found out, Whatever-God/dess-you-worship forbid that they should find out. Whether or not your parents are Catholic, Atheiest, Agnostic or Pansexual Transindental Buddhists, if there is enough devotion to the chosen path, they will not, will not, WILL NOT let it go, no more than a gay child would in a homophobic family.

The point is, she and you are minors. Therefore, your parents have legal access to every nuance of your existance. Delete your history? Trust me when I say that your parents can find out your history even if your history is deleted. Don't ask me how, but they can. Mine have done it. It was not a happy afternoon. Bokks are by far easier to find, especially if you have the kind of parents that make regular inspecions for drugs or other "non-kosher" activity.

What I'm saying is, better not to risk outward PRACTICE. PRACTICE. Key word here being PRACTICE. As I said, she can BELIEVE what she wants when she wants to, but to practice it or research it in the home is dancing with the devil, no joke intended.

On the one hand, it is best not to lie if you can. On the other, hand, it's just... dumb, to say 'don't practice until you are 18'. In fact, some covens *will* initiated people under 18- with written permission from the parents. If your friends are also doing this, you can do things with them (assuming you're allowed to meet with them). 15, 16, 17 year olds CAN and DO have real spiritual experiences. They CAN and DO find and practice religion at that age- and it can be very important to them. Also, 3 years isn't much to a 60 year old- but for a 15 year old, that's 20% of her life up to that point. It's a long time. And it's a time when she won't have much freedom- what she studies, where she goes, what she eats, when she sleeps- Even what kind of undies and socks are controlled entirely by parents. At the very least the ability to worship what gods she will can help her get through the rest of it. I'm guessing that a parent that will burn books in front of their child will not be terribly lenient in other matters.

I'm always kind of amazed when people say 'just tell your parents, they'll understand'. I find it difficult to imagine having parents so accepting that you can tell them you believe something different than they do, and they wouldn't go berserk. Of course, I know that parents like that are out there- I just don't meet them very often. *grins*

You have to decide what is more important here- telling the truth to your parents, or following your chosen spiritual beliefs. Think about what kind of people your parents are- are they old-school Christian? Were they just caught by surprise on this? I don't know them, and you didn't specify if they were angry and if they are ever violent, but if your parents are ever violent towards you, I would recommend NOT telling them anything that would upset them until you are in a safer place, for your own safety. No decent God would want you to do something that would only hurt you. I have known too many people with parents that hurt them, and religion is something that people can go rather insane over.

Obviously you can't trust your mom to simply accept this. She shouldn't be keeping you under such tight wraps- even if she WAS right about this being evil (which she isn't), it would not do any good to control your every move. She can't control your mind, and if you can't choose to do the 'right' thing by now, she certainly isn't going to be able to force you to. What she doesn't understand is that it isn't the action that matters, it's where the heart is. What she SHOULD have done when you told her was to explain that she believes it is wrong, and that she doesn't want you to practice that in her house, and let you get rid of the materials as you saw fit. She should have you tell her where you're going, but still let you out. You're not doing drugs. You're not selling your body for money or breaking into stores. You're not toting a gun to school, planning to blow anything up, trying to poison her, failing high school, or killing small animals. (I assume. And if you are, that's a much bigger concern.) She is overreacting, and it is NOT your fault. You trusted her, and that's what you should have done.

Good luck.

So... um... Oh! We should eat cake for magic! It all makes sense now~!

Was that sarcasm or randomness?

As for parents taking control of children minds et cetera, which it is their legal right to do...

What about methods of coercion and Stockholm syndrome?


you say to your parents "I'm pagan!" They say to you "Summer Camp!"

And it all goes downhill from there...

And who could live like that? I mean... come on... it's cake!