Try and steer clear of new age shit when studying religion. There is nothing wrong with pagan, wiccan, feminist, etc. spins being put on organized religion, but I think new age interpretations need to be viewed for what they are, which is somebody else's opinion about a subject with which they often have an ax to grind.

I think this is a very good example of the difference between "religion" and "spirituality". And why I have an experience of the latter and choose to have nothing to do with the former. In organized religions, people seek to impose their will upon other people's experience of spirituality... "you should do this and you will burn in hell for that". When people do that sort of thing, I tend to suspect alterior motives. My own belief is that organized religion was created for and has always been maintained as a means of controlling behavior. Nothing more, nothing less.

What you experience as your connection to the divine or to 'spirit' is your own business, dianavan, and nobody else's.