Although finding a pagan in Murray is difficult, clarifying misconceptions about the faith is even harder.
Michelle Dowell, junior from Louisville, Ky., said discovering her pagan faith was a process.
"In high school I started out being atheist, not knowing where I was going," she said.
A little research led her to Wicca, a division of Paganism, but she didn't restrict herself to that subset.
"I like elements of other pagan religions, so I kind of meshed them all together," she said.
Allaboutspirituality.org, a site devoted to explaining various religions, defines pagans as "anyone involved in any religious act, practice or ceremony, which is not Christian." Some define it simply as having no religion. Paganism celebrates the Earth, living creatures and nature, the site said.
While most modern-day pagans believe in more than one god, others are atheistic. Dowell said she is polytheistic and believes in rebirth.
"As far as heaven and hell, I don't believe in it," she said. "How can you really say that there's one supremely good thing and one supreme bad thing?"
She and her fiancé, Jordan Couture, sophomore from Louisville, Ky., plan to take part in the pagan tradition of hand-fasting, a ceremony in which a couple tie their hands together and pledge to be together romantically for a year and day. She said there are various ranks of the ceremony and after that year and day a couple can pledge to be together for a longer period of time. Pagans do not have specific places of worship and the ceremony is typically outdoors.
"We've done this once beforehand and our friends officiated the ceremony," Dowell said.
One misconception people have about pagans is that the faith has connections with the occult, Dowell said. She said a Murray State student once approached her during a photography lab with a supposed intervention from God.
"At the time I wore a pentacle everywhere and he came over and said, 'God wants me to talk to you and tell you that he loves you and he wants you to come back and go to church,'" she said. "I was like 'I'm glad he told you to talk to me, but I think I'm going to go now.'
"We need to have a little bit more understanding toward other religions and other cultures," Dowell said.
For those who question their religious faith, Dowell recommended carefully reading spiritual literature.
"I don't think anyone should be afraid to experiment with their religion," she said. "They should keep an open mind and see all the sides to things." Zack Welhouse, junior at North Michigan University, created a Facebook group titled "Get On the Pagan Wagon" that encourages members to share stories and discuss rites and rituals.
"(I started the group) originally to have more recognition out there because a lot of pagans practice in solitary and there's just not a whole lot of communication between them," he said.
The 56-member group has members from across the United States, Canada and England.
Welhouse said he was raised Catholic but became pagan in 2005.
"I always liked being out in nature," he said. "I'm from a hunting family, so being out in the woods was no stranger to me."
His college roommate's druid practices increased his interest. Welhouse soon realized that the pagan faith fit him better than his Catholic upbringing.
He said that the diversity in college could motivate people to break from their prior religion.
"At college more people are open and you meet more people and learn a lot," he said. "More kids decide to change or reconfirm their religion on their own research not just to rebel."
He noted that pagans are not Satanists, contrary to the popular misconception.
"There's a bad karma aspect to it," he said. "If you do something bad it will return to get you later but there's no hell or worshiping the devil or things like that."
Welhouse's roommate, senior Dan Gausden, tried to get a pagan group started on Northern's campus but posters were torn down by those who opposed the group and the religion.
"There is almost a universal shunning (of paganism) because people just don't know anything about it," he said. "They don't know the truth … about what the pagan traditions are about and what they actually practice."
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