An Open Letter To Witches:

By Dr. Robert A. Morley

I see from the pentagram you wear and all your magical charms that you believe in the power of magic. Perhaps you have attended a Wiccan gathering or you have participated in some magic rituals. I don't know. But so many questions fill my mind. Have you "drawn down the moon" yet? Have you ever felt a power come upon you? Do you worship a par- ticular goddess? Have you been initiated? Do you have a Wiccan name? Have you gone skyclading? Are you in the outer or inner circle? Have you used blood in your rituals? Have you ever called forth a familiar spirit? The reason I am writing you is that I have studied the occult for thirty years and I have come to certain conclusions. Now, I know that you will disagree with some of my conclusions because we have traveled different paths. But I have added the benefit of the testimonies of those who used magic in the highest levels possible such as the Golden Dawn and the O.T.O. and then have come to faith in Christ and now have renounced magic. All I ask is that you have an open mind and give serious attention to the things I now bring up. Remember an unexamined faith is a worthless faith.

I. The fact that magic does not work.

After all the talk about the "power" that people can get from magic, I have never known a more powerless group of people.

Many of those who use magic are sick all the time. They go through mulitple marriages. They have money problems. Their cars get flat tires. They get their share of flus and colds.

Even more seriously, they cannot beat their own drug or sex addiction. They are usually in bondage and totally powerless to change their life for the better.

If magic really worked, they would never be sick. They would win every horse race in town! They would own Wall Street by now! They would be able to maintain a successful marriage. But the fact is, you waste a lot of money and time on magic and are no better off. In fact, you will end up worse off.

If magic worked, witches would be picking up the winning lottery numbers every week. But the fact is that when the "rubber meets the road" magic simply does not work.

II. Their lame duck excuses as to why they are sick or why they can't keep their marriage together or why they aren't rich, are weak and feeble. One psychic "healer" (a relative of mine) is sick all the time. Her husband is dying of cancer!

When she boasted to me of her magical powers, I confronted her with the rather obvious fact that her magic did not work for her or her ex-husband. She replied that her magic will not work for herself.

But who says that you cannot heal yourself by magic? Where is it written down? And who says that your husband or wife cannot use magic to heal you? If her magic cannot help herself orher husband, then what good is it?

I could not help but point out that she was always crying about money problems. What use is her magic if it cannot make her rich?

III. A magical world view is internally contradictory and hypocritical.

A. To say, "there are no moral absolutes" is to give an absolute.

B. To say, "Do what thou wilt, this is the whole of the law" has been used to justify everything from black magic to human sacrifice. If there are no standards, then on what grounds can they condemn child abuse, Hitler, murder, etc.? They can't.

C. To say, "everything is relative" and "there is no evil," and then to turn around and say that Christianity is "evil" is contradictory.

D. To say, "Everyone has the right to believe what they want" and then condemn Christians for what they believe is contra- dictory.

E. To say, "Do what thou wilt" and then tell Christians NOT to do what they wilt is hypocritical.

F. To say, "that it is wrong to judge/condemn others," and then to judge/condemn Christians is contradictory.

IV. A magical view of life does not correspond to reality.

G. No magic is going to make you thin if you do not stop eating. No magic will make you rich if you do not get up and go to work.

H. The claim of modern witches that they are reviving pre- Christian paganism is not true historically. The rituals and beliefs of modern day magic are of recent origin.

I. My brother in law who is in the occult told me he was going to use magic to get himself a parking space in N.Y.C. I in turn told him that I would ask Jesus to get me a space. He drove around for four hours before finding a place while I found one immediately and did not have to go around the block even once! His magic was not even good enough to find him a parking space!

J. A magical view of life is a cop out and it breeds irrespons- ibility . Instead of taking responsibility for their life, those who use magic always blame "bad luck" or claim that someone is using black magic against them. The truth is that YOU are responsible for the choices you make in life - not magic.

K. It attracts people with mental problems. Sad but true. I have seen this many, many times. The State Mental Hospitals are filled with people who were users of magic. It appeals to people with those kind of people.

L. They live in constant fear of the powers they draw down. Hence they need the occult protection of the circles, towers, shields, charms, etc.. What a terrible religion of fear!

M. If you depend upon trinkets such as pentagrams to protect you, you do not have any real power. To think that a stupid piece of metal or glass is going to protect you from a demon you summon is absurd.

N. The lust for blood is evil. It has led to horrible crimes. Killing animals and people for their "energy" is wicked as well as criminal.

O. Sex magic is filthy and gross beyond words and involves child abuse, bestiality, sodomy, etc. You will never have a normal satisfying sex life once you debase yourself in sex magic.

P. Magic is for losers. The greatest magicians always end up broke, alone, and miserable. Check to see what happend to people like Crowley. They were all losers. Whenever a true Christian challenges them, the magicians always lose.

I have challenged occultist to take their best shot and they always failed. On one occasion, a coven sent demons to kill me but I didn't even get a headache!

Q. While there is a lot of hate and lust in magic, there is no love. If you leave or reveal the secrets, they will try to kill you. I helped to move a girl from Philadelphia to Florida to escape her former occult friends. If they really loved her, why did they try to kill her? If she wanted to leave the group, why did they object to her doing what she wilt?

R. There is no forgiveness, comfort or salvation in magic. It has no Savior or God who loves and cares for you.

The occult is lonely, sad, cold and sterile.

S. The Bible says that true power behind the magical arts is satanic. Those who deny this are dupes of the devil.

These are just a few things that came to mind as I thought about what I have seen in thirty years of research in the occult.

The Lord Jesus Christ has broken the power of magic and has brought life, love and immortality to light through the Gospel. Jesus is Victor! The occult has nothing to offer that compares with the love of Jesus. Turn to Him in repentance. Renounce your witchcraft and the works of the devil. Burn your magic books and mash your altars. Turn or burn. Repent or perish! Jesus is the answer. John 3:36.

My Reply:

Dear Dr. Morley,

I feel compelled to reply to your "Letter To Witches" document that I read recently. Firstly let me just say that I do not wish to engage in any arguement with you and may I ask that you treat my comments with the open mindedness with which you asked me to treat your own and which I feel I have done more than justice to - as you quite rightly say "An unexamined faith is a worthless faith".

I think it would be helpful to put in context my own background: I am not a witch or Wiccan, I have not been initiated into a coven. Neither have I ever been a member of a magickal lodge though I have studied with several well known exponents of the arts. I am English and I have a keen interest in anthropology and am considered among my contemporaries as something of an amateur expert in British mythology and celtic traditions. I have no vested interest in either refuting your views or supporting them but I think you may find some of my comments helpful in discovering a more informed way of putting your points across as I found it quite disconcerting that for someone who has studied the occult for thirty years there are some rather alarming gaps in your knowledge. As I say, I hope you will treat my comments in the same spirit of open mindedness I have treated yours.

The first thing that struck me about your letter was your lack of distinction between Wicca and witchcraft and the practice of magick. It is certainly true that magick is a part of the Wiccan ceremonies and celebrations but if you take a look at any religion it would be fair to say magic is a part of all of them in its strictest definition - the Catholic Mass involves an act of magick during the consecration of the wafer and subsequent visualisation of it as the Body Of Christ which is nothing so much as symbolic, sympathetic magic.

Having said this I have to point out that magick does play a greater role in Wicca than in Catholicism but the main point is that you appear not to have realised that magic is not in itself a religion but a descriptive term for certain parts of religious ceremonies. I don't wish to patronise you but I always describe magic in religion as identical to music in religion. By which I mean that you can write a hymn but if you go away and write a piece of music that has no religious content it doesn't make either that piece of music or music as a whole evil or anti-religious. Exactly the same goes for magic.

Your discussion of power in magic is something of a misnomer. It is true that many are drawn (wrongly I might add) to the practice of magic for gain of personal power and in this respect you are absolutely right that magic does not work. However the study and practice of magic is not a selfish persuit of personal power and I take great exception to anyone who says so, particularly a magickal group who claim to be offering such power, there are too many charlatans in the world for my liking. The point is of course that few magickal organisations make such claims and the Wiccan religion certainly doesn't.

You are also quite wrong in your summary of practitioners of magic as habitually suffering from illness, money troubles, multiple marriages and sex/drug addiction. Apart from that being simply unfounded in fact I'm afraid you appear (so your letter reads) to be saying that if you accept Jesus as your lord and embrace christianity you will not suffer from any of these afflictions! The trials and tribulations of life - yes, including flat tyres! - are not a product or symptom of ones religious beliefs or practices. The struggle of life happens to us all and many take great fortitude and comfort in their religion. No religion does (or even claims) to remove the obstacles of life, religion's function is to help us to see that through our faith we can overcome our trials. There are no shortcuts, no easy ways round, not in magic, not in Wicca and not in Christianity either. So I think your comments are ill advised if you think that if magic really worked we'd all be winning every horse race and pulling winning lottery numbers up all the time - you could just as easily say the same about christianity or that if christianity really worked we would never be ill or suffer unsuccessful marriages - neither magic, Wicca or christianity promises its followers any of those things.

Your example of your psychic healer friend is an interesting one, are you really suggesting that if she was christian her husband would not have cancer? Come along, this is plainly preposterous. Magic cannot make you rich? Well can christianity? Your answer is no doubt that christianity will not save you from cancer or make you rich either but that christianity does not claim to do so - well neither does magic or Wicca!

Worldview - since you seem not to be able to describe a magical worldview your remarks about it's contradictory nature and hypocrisy are left straggling somewhat, you don't actually cite anything about a magical worldview and therefore you have nothing to point at when you claim contradiction, it's rather like holding up a blank canvas and saying "There, Picasso was a bad artist!"

Sadly I have to agree with you about "Do what thou wilt", it has indeed been held up as an excuse for some dreadful wrongs and although two wrongs don't make a right you might equally agree that God's will been used (not by god but by men) as an appaling excuse for some dreadful monstrosities, I'm sure you wouldn't lay claim to the inquisition committing torture and abuse upon so many innocent and ignorant peasants in the name of God as being right . . . or would you? In the end there is a difference between a religious belief, the people who practice the religion and the acts that are perpetrated in its name - the same goes for Wicca as it does for christianity, there are indeed some wicked and pernicious people who practice both, that doesn't make either doctrine wrong. On top of that "Do what thou wilt" requires an understanding of the concept of what that old fraud Crowley called "true will". In light of Crowley's description and definition of "true will" the statement seems wholly acceptable on theological, moral and ethical grounds. However one might defend the doctrine it is worrying that very many of the people who practice Crowley's magick don't understand either the concept of true will or the statement about Do What Thou Wilt . . . but perhaps not to the extent that you misunderstand and misinterpret it as being the instruction "Don't have any standards" as you clearly state. This begs the question that if you have spent 30 years studying the occult, why haven't you understood such a basic premise as the meaning of "Do what thou wilt" in context of Crowley and Thelema? Your further accusation that Wicca and magicians do not (or cannot) condemn the horrors of child abuse, Hitler, murder etc is entirely foolish of you. When you are addressing people whom you perceive as being in danger from the occult or even more informed opinion you need to be more careful about how open you leave yourself to (well deserved) ridicule.

Yes, you are initially correct that to say "everything is relative" and "there is no evil" then call christianity evil is indeed contadictory but you are wrong to hold those statements up as the views of other than individuals, it is not a part of Wicca or magick to view christianity as evil even if an individual or individuals who are Wiccan or magicians have done so. In the same way it would be wrong to blame christianity as a whole for the christians who have done wrong or said foolish things.

All your remarks about denying rights to religious practices and judgements on them are completely right, but I'm sure Wicca is, as a whole, not denying or trying to deny anyone the right to be a christian or practice christianity and once again you need to be careful that you are not sounding like you advocate denial of freedom to anyone who does not agree with you. There is a good case for re-stating that old quote - "I do not agree with your point, sir, but I will defend to the death your right to make it!".

It could of course be pointed out also that christianity has a less than blameless history of repression (witch burnings in the middle ages, the inquisition, the crusades) but again that is more a judgement on the people who did this in (so they said) God's name than on the theology and the religion of christianity itself.

In your point H you refute the claims of a revival of pre-christian paganism (which I agree may well be deserving of refute) but immediately you shoot yourself in the foot by confusing pre-christian paganism with magic again. In fact you will find the magic you go on to describe first appeared in the victorian era in the occult lodges (and never claimed otherwise) and is entirely based deep in (ironically) christian mysticism and theology! Organisations like the Golden Dawn believe in hosts of angels and archangels to be summoned, heirarchies of demons to be evoked, none of which has anything whatsoever to do with Wicca or the practices of witches either pre-christian, modern or future! 30 years of study? Have you really not grasped yet that Wiccans do not believe in angels and demons and that victorian temple magick is as close to Wicca as Islamic fundamentalism is to greek Orthodox Christianity??

Point J - No, those who practice magick do not ALWAYS blame bad luck but you are absolutely spot on with your final sentence - YOU (the individual) are responsible for the choices you make in life, not magic . . . or Wicca or Christianity for that matter. In christian terms God gave us free will to choose our paths and be responsible for the consequences though he is ever there to lend aid if one asks for help in choosing their life-path. Perhaps you should be telling witches this instead of appearing (though I know you don't mean to) to offer up god as someone who will take on your responsibilities and burdens for you.

In your next point you are correct again, magick sadly does appeal to people with emotional and mental difficulties, too many are drawn by the irresponsible promise of magic as a short cut to wealth, health and success, but I urge you to consider for a moment who is making these promises about magic? I wonder if it isn't people like yourself who are telling everyone that magic promises all these worldly things then doesn't deliver. Magicians do not make such promises as they know magic cannot deliver them. MAGIC DOES NOT PROMISE ANY SHORTCUTS IN LIFE BECAUSE IT DOESN'T THINK THERE ARE ANY SHORTCUTS!!!

Regarding "living in fear of the powers they draw down": Not so, any more than you live in fear of God's wrath. And to call Wicca a "terrible religion of fear" when the prime principle in the practice of your own religion is that you are unavoidably a sinner but you should not sin because if you do you will go to hell is somewhat hypocritical of you, Dr Morley! I'm afraid the practice (note: not the theory!) of christianity all too often seems to be to frighten its followers into good with tales of the recrimination of evil. Once again it appears to be an example of the way the religion is practiced rather than it's underlying doctrines.

You need again to be careful about your remarks on pentagrams, talismans and so on. Your comments on a "stupid piece of metal" could very easily be levelled back at your own crucifix. you must understand that pentagrams have symbolic meaning to Wiccans in the same way crucifixes do to christians. You may think that pentagrams cannot have any symbolic meaning which a Wiccan can only reply "Well I believe so" and thus you have left yourself open to an obvious throwing back of the same question at yourself to which you can only answer in kind.

"The lust for blood" - would you like to point me to anywhere in Wicca that mention is made of the "Lust for blood". Wicca considers this notion (and that of animal torture etc) equally abhorent and disgusting as you do. In fact you could say that Wicca considers this more evil than christianity does since Wicca is primarily a religion dedicated to the nurturing, protection and reverence of nature unlike christianity which is a more intellectual and scholarly religion orientated to abstract moralisation - not that I wish to criticise either religion for these things!

Sex Magick: Well now we have come to a very difficult area indeed. I do not and have never practiced tantric magic or indeed any other form of sex magick. That said I am well acquainted with the theory behind it and I have to say, as far as it relates to the success of a ritual it certainly has a great deal of efficacy. However, and it is a big "however", there is a moral and ethical issue here that needs extremely careful consideration and on balance, without going into the whys and wherefores I have concluded that sex magick is not for me, the ritual purpose can be achieved just as effectively with other methods of concentration and consciousness raising and there is no need to complicate the issue with sex. The same goes for the use of drugs in magic, it seems wholly unreasonable to me to risk hallucination (or indeed eventual addiction) when dealing with something so tenuous and delicate as one's consciousness or will. All that said I find your comments once again to be appallingly and dangerously ill informed, tantric sex magick, even in its highest or purest form does not involve child abuse, bestiality or sodomy or indeed anything else morally or legally contentious. There are certainly documented incidents of these practices masquerading as magick but to tar all practitioners of sex magick with the brush of child abusers is as unfounded as it it reprehensible. Its like pointing at a christian who has committed such acts (and there are plenty of cases of child abuse amongst even the ministry) and saying that the acts represent the religion. Perhaps you'd find it more helpful to point out that sex magic (and in particular the sex act in Wiccan rites) is dangerous in that it can be mentally and emotionaly unbalancing to anyone who does not fully understand its significance or purpose. Regarding the use of sex in magickal ritual I agree with you in essence on this subject but I feel you do not put over your point very well.

Crowley was indeed a loser, no question. He died a penniless heroin addict in relative squalour. But so did a great number of other great people in history, Van Gogh, Picasso, Ghandi etc. and no one suggested that this detracted in any way from the validity of their life-works or was a reason for anyone to give up their own persuit of the same things as such men, for example painting. Crowley was undoubtably mad and dangerous but his principles and theories represent the works of a great thinker if a somewhat flawed genius and do deserve the scrutiny of anyone seeking a path to spiritual maturity even if in the final analysis they serve only as a caution.

This business of true christians callenging occultists: well this statement sounds like you are saying christian magick is more powerful than any other magick, you need to be careful you don't play into the hands of anyone wishing to make you look foolish - perhaps in this case it would take no more than a re-writing of your sentence.

I think it must have been a very strange coven (for that is a Wiccan / witchcraft word) if they "sent demons to kill you". Most likely some flawed theology on their part or perhaps an accidental slip of nomenclature on yours. People who "send demons to kill" have no place in serious magick and certainly no place in Wicca, Wicca does not believe in demons, demons are a christian (and victorian occult / Golden Dawn) concept and again you are treading the thin line of demonstrating your ignorance . . . but then so is anyone purporting to be a Wiccan coven but who deals in terms of "demons"!

Hate and lust in magick? There is, sadly, hate and lust in mankind - period. You need again to be very careful when you accuse an organisation of such things, beware who you sound like you are setting up as being beyond hate and lust, someone could easily point to the numerous examples of hateful and lusty people who are supposed to be or claim to be christians.

I'd like you to think very carefully and cite a case of someone leaving either a magickal lodge or a Wiccan circle and then being killed by the lodge's sleighted members. Certainly there are teachings in both Wicca and in magick that are reserved for those who are deigned to be of sufficient understanding to study them but I think you need to be less sweeping in your comments about death threats to those who leave or reaveal. As for cults or organisations who do make such threats, they are definitely not Wiccan - Refer to my remarks at the end of this letter about satanism.

As for there being no love in Wicca, that is complete nonsense, at the heart of Wicca is the doctrine of "Perfect love" - if you had studied Wicca and the occult for 30 years you would surely understand this concept - even if you thought it was flawed.

No, quite right, there is no salvation or forgiveness in magick, once again I am obliged to point out that magick is not a religion and does not promise such things. As for lacking comfort, I guess you could level that at any activity outside of religion but many find comfort in all sorts of non-religious activities: music, art, literature and magick. As for Wicca (which IS a religion), well there is a completely different conception of "forgiveness" or "salvation". Wicca puts the responsibilty on the individual to make up his or her own mind about themselves. The individual is the one who can redeem him or herself from the wrongs they do, Wiccans do not believe it is right to let divinity in any form (including the christian God and the Wiccan Goddess) take away the responsibility for a person's actions. Forgiveness lies at the heart of perfect love and perfect trust in Wicca (ie. within the individual to judge him or herself and forgive as appropriate) and salvation is completely personal, forgiveness or salvation by any outside agency (including any percption of divinity) is not a concept Wicca recognises. Wiccans believe that life is eternal and perpetual and that ones actions in this material world have repercussions and consequences in the next world whether that be a return to human incarnation or a move on to a more sophisticated spiritual existence. It is christians who believe that your single life on earth elevates you to heaven or condemns you to hell when it is over and this by the hand of God's judgement. It seems to Wiccans that the christian belief in a forgiving God is effectively a licence to do wrong all your life in the knowledge that forgiveness is at hand before the end. I know that this is not what true chrisatianity is all about but so many christians seems to behave as though this is ok, take a look at catholics who sin all week and go to confession then repeat the same sin all the next week safe in the knowledge that their burden of responsiblilty will be lifted once more next confession. Again an example of the flaws of the people in the religion and not the religion itself.

The occult is not lonely, sad, cold or sterile, this is once more a reflection on some of the people rather than the thing itself and I am afraid there are also christians who lead sad, cold, lonely or sterile lives though this does not mean that christianity as a whole is any of those things.

Your point S: Very good, at last you have managed to use a catch 22 situation, a "heads I win, tails you lose" comment. The magical arts are not at all satanic, magick is a part of many (if not all religions). But, as you so cleverly worded your point, by denying that magick is the work of the devil I must surely be being duped by him. The way you have made it impossible to answer (or attempt to answer) this question by stating that any answer given will be the work of the devil and therefore lies says much for your supposed support of open minded debate and I refer you to your own remarks about an unexamined faith being a worthless one - you have tried to make it worthless by default by preventing any examination.

_____________________________________

As an aside: I'd be very interested in your comments about magick in christianity, the communion act for example which, as I pointed out earlier, is in fact a magickal act in that it conforms to the accepted definition of magick i.e. "Magick is the art of bring about changes in consciouness in conformity with will". The consecration of the bread and wine fits this definition perfectly, the will being that of God and the change in consciousness being the change from viewing a wafer as a wafer to viewing it as the body of Christ.

_____________________________________

Finally I just wonder if the things you say are true - that "magic does not work", "Jesus is victor", christianity is superior to either magick or Wicca or any other pagan religion (remembering that magick is NOT a religion itself) - why you feel so compelled to devote so much of your energy to something so negative as attacking such a cold, sterile, powerless, ineffective and feeble thing. If magick, Wiccan, the occult et al is so weak then why bother to keep attacking it and claiming it is so dangerous - a contradiction here somewhere, don't you think?

Can I just finish by making a few comments about satanism?:

Satanism is a cult exclusively populated by people with little imagination and without exception wicked, hateful, spiteful character and low morality. That said most of its practitioners are ignorant in the extreme of what satanism is supposed to be really about, these idiots are full of silly and pointless threats to people such as yourself (and me who they fear might expose such ignorance) and I think you should treat their remarks as I do: with the derision and scorn they deserve! Its very commendable of you to talk with them but there does come a point where debate is futile on the grounds that one side will not listen to the other or is at such a lower level of understanding that it is not worth debating with them. I'd also like to point out that "true" satanism is very minority and that most of the acts and words supposedly in the name of Satan are from the bubbling mouths of fools who are trying to impress, trying to be noticed or are intent on nothing more than sensationalism, cheap thrills or simply rebelling and thumbing their nose at authority - typically disturbed adolescent behaviour (which is all that many of them are) I'm afraid. As for the "Church Of Satan" and Mr LaVey, that creature is definitely loathesome, perverted and despicable. Besides that he doesn't just fit into the category of the unimaginitive and ignorant charlatans I have described in the last paragraph, oh no, he all but defines it!

Most importantly I direct your attention to the differences between satanism (farcical, futile and superficial though it undoubtledly is) and other forms of what you term the occult as well as other religions in their own right. Wicca as a religion and magick as an art both strongly dissassociate themselves from satanism, satanism is founded in (admitedly suspect and misinterpreted) christian theology, Satan being a part of christianity, and Wicca does not recognise Satan as a force, power, aspect or archetype. Neither does Wicca share the view common to both christianity and satanism that life is a struggle between good and evil, between God and the devil. Please bear this in mind when you are talking with Wiccans, otherwise you (quite rightly) leave yourself open to the valid accusation of (once again) ignorance.

I think a lot of your remarks should be directed at those who claim to be satanists (bearing in mind that very few of them really are no more than fantasists of the stupid and vile practices they claim to be doing, claims they make solely to annoy or bait the devout or impress the more informed. I also think you could try to be a little more respectful of the intelligence and knowledge of many pagans, Wiccans, Witches and magicians, that way I strongly believe your views are more likely to get the fair hearing from those people that they undoubtledly deserve. After all you would object most strongly if I referred to you a Jewish on the ignorant basis that christianity and Jesus first came to mankind among Jews and that is just how a witch feels when you accuse him of being either a prectitioner of black magick or a worshipper of the devil. It is also how a magician feels when accused of being a witch or a Wiccan. What people object to most, be they christian, Wiccan, or a mere magician is ignorance, bigotry and narrow mindedness. (More importantly people object to what they perceive as these things, to get someone to consider your point at all you have to SEEM to them to be willing to listen to their point of view even if you are not doing so.)

Ok, I hope that you will view my remarks in the open minded and open handed way in which they are intended, we are both clearly intelligent, ethical and articulate people and our discussions should be a source of enlightenment and progress to us both. I think you make your points in such a way sometimes that leaves you open to derision though I firmly believe you are acting in a manner calculated to be positive and to do good generally. You do speak from a good heart and your intentions I believe are highly honourable, I hope you treat my intentions the same way as that is surely how they are meant.

I'm sorry if I've been long winded but I hope I've at the very least stimulated some thoughts for you, as you so rightly say - an unexamined faith is indeed worthless.