Growing up in magic, Love and trials in the dramatic theater Options

I'm always keen to hear the experiences of people who grew up in a magical atmosphere, or even about what happened to people their first couple of years involved in the Work. This thread also is about the stereotypes that often portray magicians and the bunch as a bunch of sexually obsessed goat sacrificers.

It's all too natural I'm afraid for the youngsters growing up to be pressured not to believe in such things as the occult by their parents. Now I've always been involved in these kind of things and none of my immediately family have ever been upset by it, but at the same time they aren't all exactly open to the my ideas and beliefs either. This has often led to trouble, since there's really nothing more annoying than an unbelieving heathen to the teenage witch.

I'm in my mid twenties so I'm not that far removed from today's youth, but I realize things are way different as when I was a teenager no one owned a cell phone expect for a parent. So things are radically different, equally different are people from the generation before me, growing up in the 60's or 50's and living a magical lifestyle was really against the grain.

I'll stop myself before I write a short story but all in all I've found that jealousy, pride and overextravagance are the largest pitfalls for those who have started on the path whether they be young or old, however I think these things are often more intense if you start at that tweener age of 10-21, it's a little easier if you start before or after these ages.

I was stuck betweent two worlds. My mom taught me to read at 4 and my dad to research at age 6, It was his occult library I learned from, the same library my mother condemned and on more than one occasion threatened to burn. So my dad would hide them, he would tell me where there were so I could continue.
My mother is a full blooded hipanic Catholic, and it was always amusing that while all magickal practices were according to her 'evil and against god', she had no problem taking me to a curandera...(I know I spelt that wrong, Ive never had to spell it, only say it....) Which is a medicine women. It was rather enraging really, becuase effectively she was trusting a stranger over those she loved, and the hypocricy of it drove me mad to no end. On the other hand, my dad taught me to see the wind as my brother and the rain my sister, and it gave me an extra tool to make this world what I wanted of it, not unfailing, but it helped. One of the first things I remember learning was divination by candle, when the flame moves left no, right yes...and my first candle WAS flawless, never had any other serve me that well since. Being an only child, in an odd kind of way, the flame became part of my family, with the wind and rain. And while I've never exerted any form of control over either of them, when I make a serious request they answer, especially the rain. All she asks is when she visits I spend time with her.
As much as I hated having to hide my beliefs from my own mother, it taught me a valuable lesson. Silence is a virtue, abandon it and you challenge the worlds ignorance which as far as I can tell can be unending. I also have to say I've noticed cycles in my magickal/spirtitual growth, it comes in spurts, and in those spurts its almost as if anything I wish I can make a realty, and other times it ebbs and I find myself having problems with simple tasks...
I was lucky enough that my best friend since age 4 took an intrist in the subject to, so I had someone to talk to about it other than my father, who even today I take council from. I didn't stay on any particular magical practices. I studied general white witchcraft (I know it sounds vague, but I only remember it being a hardcover with the title "White Magic"), most of Scott Cunninghams works, which his refrences made impropt spell casting alot simpler than it would have otherwise been, and am endlessly grateful to the late author for all of his works, especially his encylopedias on everything to herbs, metals, minerals, stones, etc... though his 'Earth Power' and the sequal to it which name I can't fully recall taught me much more about the general practice of witchcraft, not the least of which was to feel the vibrations of stone, crystals, and herbs; and to cleanse and charge them. I studied Pictish witchcraft, which I loved to no end. It was a style I very much saw eye to eye with...while there wiccan brother further south were in covens and much more formal, the pict practiced Impromtu spell casting with minimal of tools, the only one I have yet to make is a Keek Stain, but I will eventually =). I also found the belief of Macht similiar to the way I viewed our inner power, and our ability to breath it into things.
That wasn't the least of it but I'm watching this post get longer and longer, and at this point, if I were someone else, I wouldn't read it... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
I do thank bb3 for the chance to share some of my childhood expierences with magick...
†Poetic Raven† the unofficial mascot--->:pope:
'And as you from your crimes would pardoned be, let your indulgence set me free..." W.S. - from the tempest. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wizard.gif)