Welcome to the "portal page" of
The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum's message board. The Cauldron has been fostering discussion and debate between Pagans (of all the many different Pagan religions) and their friends since December of 1997 (on several earlier message board incarnations:
here,
here, and
here). As of October 9, 2008, The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum is hosted on a
Linode Virtual Private Server.
The current incarnation of our message board uses the popular SMF message board software, somewhat modified for the way we do things. We'd love to have you register and join us, but please read the messages in the
Rules and Regulations board before you post, particularly these posts:
About Our Members
Our members come from a wide variety of backgrounds, religions, and experience levels. You will find many different religions and magical traditions: Traditional Wiccans, Eclectic Wiccans, Ceremonial Mages, Reconstructionists from different cultures, Christians, and many more can be found on our message board. You will find some members have been on their path for 20 or 30 years and others who are just starting down the road. You will find teens, college students, young adults, older adults, and retired people from many different countries on our board.
Unlike many Pagan message boards, our target membership is more experienced Pagans. As our board has many experienced Pagan members and many discussions are intended for those who are no longer beginners, our message board can seem somewhat intimidating for those who are new to Pagan religions. Therefore we have special boards set aside in our Pagan and Magic categories that are specially set aside as "Beginner Friendly": the
Pagan Religions for Beginners board where people new to Pagan religions can post their questions and concerns; the
Magic and the Occult for Beginners board for people new to Magic, and the
Books and Other Resources board where you can discover if a book or web site is worth your time or not. If you choose to post on these boards, our more experienced members will realize you are a beginner and try to provide help accordingly. Note that this does not mean that fluff and incorrect information will not be bluntly corrected on these boards. Bad information, no matter how commonly accepted, does not help anyone...beginner or experienced.
About Our Discussions
Our message board is oriented toward more serious (and often somewhat scholarly) discussion and debate than many Pagan discussion areas. Members need not agree with you or with the staff, or otherwise automatically be "politically correct" here -- just be polite and follow our message board rules. Disagreements and actual discussion of beliefs and ideas presented is the norm here, unlike some Pagan message boards where everyone is require to pretend to always agree to "make nice." (As one of our members said, "I much prefer discussions with real people with whom I don't always agree, rather than to pretend to be something I'm not in order to 'make nice'. The former is fellowship, the latter is just social lying.") You will find that each and every member of The Cauldron has personal opinions and biases on religion and other issues -- and you will probably not like all of them. Please be adult enough to cope with the fact that some members will have opinions that upset or annoy you.
Due to the wide variety of our members backgrounds and religions, you will often find views and opinions you normally do not come in contact with on other Pagan discussion areas on our message board. Those who dislike seeing any disagreement in discussions, having members of non-Pagan religions involved in discussions, or being asked to support odd-sounding things they claim to be fact may not be as comfortable on our message board as they might be on others. Because of the nature of the discussions on our message board, we often make clear distinctions between supportable fact and personal beliefs. In addition, posters are often asked to provided sources or a factual basis for claims being made. Being asked for sources does not necessarily mean that you are not believed, many members ask for sources simply because they are interested in finding out more details "direct from the horse's mouth."
This forum welcomes friendly non-Pagan members and has a Christian theologian on staff. If you think non-Pagan religions are evil, do not wish to see Christian and other non-Pagan views, or simply object to not being able to say nasty things about Christians and other non-Pagans, you probably need to find another forum as such behavior is not tolerated here.
Other Features
The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum has other features our members and readers may find interesting:
- A large monthly email newsletter: Cauldron and Candle.
- Flashchat - Flash-based chat integrated with our message board and available to all message board members via the "Chat" button in the top menu line.
- CauldronMUX - a social MUX (a text-based programmable chat environment). Anyone can join in as a guest. Members can obtain a character with the ability to create locations and items in CauldronMUX. See How to Obtain a CauldronMUX Account.
- Member Blogs - members can create their own blog associated with their profile. Others members can leave comments in reply to your blog posts.
- TCN - The Cauldron Network (a Ning-hosted Social Network just for members of The Cauldron).
Randall and Lyric
Co-Hosts, The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum
Total Members: 3274
