The greatest questions for many are what is the meaning and purpose of life and what is beyond death.
Some of what I am about to tell you may appear a little OTT to start, but if you read it through a few times I think you will find it makes sense.
We believe that we have a spiral of existences, spending a spell between in what we call the Summerland's, which I suppose is a little like the Christian concept of heaven. That we come here, and undergo each of our cycles of life so as to gain experience and wisdom, and to serve as instruments of the supreme power. Ultimately when you have progressed to be wise, kind, honorable and tolerant you are merged with the supreme power and may become one of the faces some can communicate with.
Therefore the ultimate purpose of life is to become one with god, by whatever name you know him or her.
We also know that your consciousness is not limited to the area you normally occupy, and while some including drug addicts and some including some Christian groups may use drugs to gain a wider consciousness we have other means that allow us to explore other territory.
Can we show multiple existences or that peoples experience is available to others?
In part we can, in that some children have memories of a past life, which is in such detail that they are able to explain and can when visiting the other relations show where things are, and fill in details unknown by outsiders. This is best documented in cultures more open to the concept as in India. Independent studies have shown thousands of children to have these abilities.
Under hypnotic re-regression people can using their sub-conscious as opposed to conscious memory be taken back to a past life or series of past lives. on occasions will talk in a language unknown to their current self and give the greatest detail of strong or major events, which when checked out can be shown to be true. In some cases information will be given that is not available to anyone at this time and only further investigation will find a missing room, or other information that is disclosed.
Can we show that there is anything beyond death?
Again in part we can, from a number of situations.
It is very common when a person dies for a loved one, relation or friend to see them, shortly after, within say a week or so. As this also occurs on occasions when a person was not aware that the other had died would indicate that this is not a psychological result of suffering the bereavement.
There are a number of published collections of near death experience, this is where a person has died but then been revived, and the accounts they tell later. These accounts are very consistent, involve going into a light, to a pleasant place, to seeing others who have gone before, again including on occasions people they had not realized was dead. Some accounts also give details of out of body experiences, this is where the persons consciousness is floating above the body, and is able to see things that was not visible from the position of the body, indicating that the visions seen are not a result of oxygen starvation of the brain or other chemical result of the situation.
We also know that the brain is not a blank book at birth as we in common with all other creatures start with at least a range of instincts, that are in the simplest analysis inherited memory or access to the general memory pool of our species.
Under re-regression coming forward it is possible for most people to go through the death of one existence and report on some of the time between life times and to gain insight into the lessons of that life time and some others. Again their is published information by medical experts of this happing on many occasions.
From all this we discover that we live many lifetimes although information is only available on around 10 or 12 from this lifetime, and that we are reincarnated as groups of entities, sometimes male and sometimes female, so come across others around us and who we come into contact with in other lifetimes, but often in different relationships or roles. All this allowing us to learn new lessons and become over time wiser.
Deducing the meaning of life.
We have problems and we overcome them getting considerable satisfaction in doing so. If we don't have a problem then we go looking for one, as with the child of a wealthy person who has everything but is very unhappy and feels the need to create problem within their life in some form or other, or the successful and very much in love man, who is irrationally drawn into an affair with a person who they should have seen is going to create nothing but problems for them, or the businessman who has a safe and profitable business who has to gamble it all on some new adventure.
Successful societies where food is plentiful, warm comfortable housing is available for everyone and there is sufficient income and work for all those who want it, you would expect to give you happy and contented people yet these societies report record levels of depression and that the majority of people are not happy. Older members of the society remember with pleasure times of war and depravation, food shortages and loss of life, in many ways representing this as a far happier time.
Those who do have job satisfaction get it not from doing good things, doing something that is necessary, or respected, but more often from having a job that allows them to explore and solve problems.
We all seek knowledge beyond what we need for existence, be it a craft skill or knowledge of a sport or the life details of celebrities.
Politicians know that when they are in difficulty the ultimate answerer is not to solve problems but to create them, people in difficulties, under attack, or sanctions, or at war, whatever the reason are more supportive of their leaders than at time of peace and when everything is going well.
The benefit of this knowledge
Those who have understood the meaning of life, their role and the cycle of lifetimes behind and in front of us, are more contented, no longer fear death, and are able to not only fulfill their primary purpose here but to put out a hand to help others along the way. They tend to loose the drive to collect wealth and material property or outdo others, and be more inclined to work with others towards greater understanding.
We could go on ant develop a whole web site based on this page alone, but here the objective has just been to show our philosophy and give you sufficient to think about, and to give the logic behind a great deal of our magic.
Remember however that within pagan beliefs, including water witches, you do not have to pretend to accept everything, all are what we would call 'pic and mix' religions, you pick those parts that you can accept and reject those parts that you cannot or require further thought.