How It Turned Out

Assuming there is anyone left to look at this old dead blog, I thought I would share something of a struggle, now resolved.

You may recall that I was quite angry, unable to restrain an immediate thought of dissent and was more than direct. All these things I fought and failed to defeat, until now.

It has taken some time of filtering back through my memories to find each time I got worse.

At 16, having spent most of my youth either being picked on, fought, or feeling like one of those would happen at any moment, I realized that the one day I was angry, no one bothered me. I learned to fake it. Then, it became a minor habit.

In 1994, I started working for the County. Soon after, it jumped another level. All the way until I retired, my spirit kept telling me that I was in the wrong place. As always, spirit was correct. There are situations and people that can make it worse.

Around 2000, I joined a group that was bad for me.

After some time, I purged most of the last one’s damage, but I still had strong symptoms of the problem. Sometimes severe. By severe, I mean out of control but non-violent anger. I began to see the triggers and slowly succeeded in tamping down the behavior in certain situations. This was a sheer act of will. Now that I know the cause, I am quite proud of making any progress at all.

Before, I get to the cause, I did try mental health counseling. I went because I was so angry/frustrated at work. I saw four, count them, four, mental health professionals. All of them listened to my story and immediately told me to quit my job at the mental health department. That place was so backward and toxic that it would drive anyone nuts. Two of them had previously worked there. Two of them had not. I had thought the place toxic and they just confirmed what I knew. Much later I learned that many of my perceptions were more than correct, my reactions were not. Even when my reactions were perfectly acceptable, no progress can be made within dysfunctional dynamics.

By the time I figured it out, I had two main symptoms anger and forgetfulness. I could set my keys down and within a few seconds have no idea where they were. It should be noted that all anger was really frustration but that does not matter overmuch, except where it does.

One day, I was speaking with my daughter-in-law and mentioned that in a month I wrote 15,000 words of a book. Then, I had nasal surgery. I was unable to do much for a week. After that, I could not get back to it. That book is on the scrap heap of so many others. She said, “That is a symptom of ADHD.” She said that once the dopamine of the drive to accomplish is interrupted, it cannot come back. I made a mental note.

Over the course of a couple of months, she pointed out more and more symptoms. I took an on-line test and checked off 90% of the boxes. I gave a blank form to my wife. She checked off the same boxes. All of them. The only differences were that I had some marked as more severe than she and she had some more severe than myself.

I called my doctor. I was instantly cured with this first dose of medication.

The only frustration/anger I feel is when I get so busy that I fail to take the medication, which is not often. The difference is marked. It made me realize that my brain was so active that I was in a constant state of being overwhelmed. I can only describe it as being awash with so much electrical brain activity that it literally feels like my brain is on fire, minus the heat. Looking at it objectively is fascinating.

I could have magicked and meditated away on that forever and not succeeded.

Has my attitude or perspective changed? Not really. Unless I have had some sort of experience or input than not at all. I am still rather controversial at times in my ideas. Yet, they are expressed without any anger at all.

At any rate, no more frustration/anger. I am no longer forgetful. The downside is that I am not quite as driven as I used to be. Though, that may be due to age. I do not know.

So, my advice is that if you have an issue that your spiritual work is not helping, seek other methods.

Judgement

Many who read the following will feel somewhat shocked about a certain portion of what is said below. Spirit conveyed no shock, no judgement. Spirit simply related what is. Seeing the world in a similar way aids the manifestation of spirit. This does not denote approval or disapproval.

Not long ago, I was successful at reducing my Facebook time. The political events of January 6 changed that. Last night, I decided to once again make the effort of reducing my posts. During my morning meditation I heard this from Spirit.

In this case, I am not sure how to define what part of Spirit told me this. My angel was not involved or at least not as I understood the input. This seemed to be a more transpersonal authority.

Items in brackets were implied in the conversation.

Spirit:     You need to stop posting political opinions on Facebook. This does not serve the task before you.

Myself:  I understand. Regardless, are those opinions correct?

Spirit:     No. You do not have enough information to be correct. Neither does anyone else. People do not have enough information, even about those around them, to make correct decisions [hold opinons]. Around you are people that have sex with animals, that engage in [what you would call] depravity, that are thieves etc. You do not know those around you. [Most people do not.] No one has enough information about politics to be correct.

At this point, I am thinking of poor media coverage.

Spirit: So, it has always been.

So, much for blaming the media as well.

Judgement is always putting ourself at odds with others instead of simple seeing what is. Living in that judgement-free place is exceedingly difficult. At the extreme, how can you not judge those about to kill you, as Jesus is said to have done? How can you not judge the person trying to seduce your spouse? While judgement is certainly an understandable response from a human perspective, it does not serve as well as we think. Judgement is a detriment to peace.

Discernment is different. Discernment is the ability to wisely determine compatibility. A person may need to keep her circle filled only with others of her religion, until such time as she is sufficiently emersed to have gained a certain level of understanding. This is discernment. When she reaches a point where that is no longer necessary and branches out, this too is discernment. When a person refrains from spending time with someone who is a physical, mental or emotional threat, this is discernment. Placing a value on that person, is judgement. Discernment does not judge.

The ego is very good at masking judgement as discernment. The ego may see a person as a threat, which he is but that threat is purely to the ego, not the person and certainly not to the spirit of the person sitting in judgement. Still, the ego will rise up in judgement and tell the person they are wisely discerning.

The point is peace. As long as we sit in judgement, we sit apart from that which is. We sit in conflict. Conflict destroys peace. Peace relaxes the mind to hear Spirit at deeper and deeper levels. Therefore, judgement restrains us from Spirit.

The Expression of The Ego

Our behavior, words and actions, is not intelligent. By that I mean the vehicle of expression is mechanical in nature.

The Ego has control over these mechanics using them to express itself. Said ego is always at war, fighting something, convincing, controlling (even in a negative way), game playing, and the like.

As we begin to grow spiritually, the ego is softened because the energy that circulates through it is slowly is purified. The wallflower slowly speaks. The boisterous become less noisy. The crowd pleaser becomes genuine. The ego, still expressing itself, finds there is less to express.

When the higher faculties become active, and having witnessed the proceeding the ego expresses itself in reverse. Internally, it begins to control by stating that anything expressed is of itself and therefore of little consequence, a failure of the spirit to supersede the lower nature. This attempt to control is a final gasp.

Eventually, one learns the following.

The ego expresses itself.

The less ego there is, the less the expression.

The soul overwhelms the ego when the ego has been sufficiently lessoned.

The soul expresses itself then through the vehicle of the ego.

The ego either uses the energy of life or becomes a conduit for it. It’s desire always the former, its true function the latter.  

Spiritual Bypassing

I made a comment on Lon DuQuette’s page and was immediately accused of spiritual bypassing. I had to look it up before I remembered what that meant. So, for those of you that do not know, spiritual bypassing is using spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep personal, emotional ‘unfinished business,’ to shore up a shaky sense of self, or to belittle basic needs, feelings, and developmental tasks.” The goal of such practices, he claimed, was enlightenment.

This is absolutely true. People use all kinds of things to avoid doing deep spiritual work and to continue to live in denial. Spiritual bypassing is like putting a bandage on a broken leg. The leg is not harmed by the bandage but it may be harmed by the lack of needed medical care.

I have seen people dress in a manner they deem ‘spiritual’ and claim initiatory titles they have not earned*. This may be bypassing the internal darkness they cannot face and pretending to some level of spirituality they have not obtained. Or it may be the unconscious stating of goals and aspiration, which is a good thing.

The problem with immediately accusing someone of spiritual bypassing is that spiritual knowledge can sound like bypassing to those that have not progressed past a certain point.

If a person experiences a tragedy and says, “Well, everything happens for a reason,” and suppresses their emotional reactions by glossing over their pain, the denial is usually pretty obvious to onlookers. The person is usually fooling themself. To reiterate, the problem is the statement is true but the speaker does not know that at a deep level. They use the words as a soothing balm and are not expressing spiritual knowledge or experience.

The same statement can be made by a more actualized individual who may feel and be willing to express the loss and at the same time, having seen the machinery of the universe, knows that everything happens to unfold the soul.

If you do not know the speakers or a bit removed from them, it may be hard to tell which is which. The best way to handle that is to not handle it. Simply be there for the person in question in anyway they need. Those on the path refrain from such judgements as often as they are able.

To quote myself, "I have learned that my judgements of other people's spirituality are just as invalid as everyone else's."**

All that said, there may be people that have evolved to a point where the deepest tragedy does not create a sense of loss at all. I have never met one but I am sure that they exist.

*This can be very detrimental to one’s growth. Claiming an unearned title a problematic. Often the lessons associated with that title hit all at once to the point one cannot recover. Other times, it just builds a wall that stops all progress until you drop the title. This is doubly true of very manifest magickal traditions. For example, claiming to be a wandering bishop when you are not may not have a detrimental effect as the benefits of that evolve quite slowly. On the other hand, claiming to be a third degree British Traditional Wiccan when you are not even a first can manifest almost immediately.

** Still very difficult to avoid as you can tell by a statement above.

 

 

Wards - Protecting Yourself and Your Home

A ward is simply a protection or guardian. This post is in response to a question about household wards but it basically applies to everything.

What do wards protect you from?

1.      Your own fears: Most people that I know had some fear of attracting evil with their magick when they were first getting started. That fear in and off itself can stop your practice before it starts. Having some protection in place just may ease a person’s mind long enough to take a few steps along the magickal path.

2.      Random people: A decent household protection can ward off door-to-door salesman and criminals that have no reason to burglarize your particular home. The former doesn’t appear to be much of a problem any more but at one time salesman were an annoyance.  As for the later, the ward is basically a lock they cannot see. Your home may simply look less attractive to them or they just may make a random decision to keep moving.

3.      Random spirits: Spirits move about just like people. Often, they are not barred by locked doors and the like and will just pass through your home. Most of the time, they go unnoticed. Yet, in a magician’s home, they just may hang around for the ambient energy. Who likes uninvited unknown house guests?

4.      Magickal Attacks: I was taught that no one that knows how to attack you will because they are too spiritual to do so. Well well-meaning and something that can be taught to tamp down any suspicions within a group. This is likely the most harmful thing I was ever taught. Magick users are humans and so are you. Eventually, someone will get angry with you whether you deserve it or not. Sooner or later, someone will throw some negative magick in your direction. Such things can result in problems ranging from annoyance to the quite serious.

5.      Not-So-Random People: Some people have enemies that are willing to be criminally physical. A strong ward can deflect, distract or even harm these people before they get into your home. Such a word may also get the police there faster as well.

6.      Your Own Mistakes: Sometimes practitioners call a spirit and do not dismiss it correctly. Other times, something gets out of hand. Some wards can fight these things off for you or at least weaken their impact.

I am sure that is not an exhaustive list but that should be a good start.

There are several types of wards energetic, physical, natural, spirit and spiritual.

Energetic wards are by far the easiest to put up. Beginners simply use their active imagination and visualize energies at appropriate places in the home such as doors, windows, entry gates and the like. When I was at this stage, I preferred red crosses and spider web forms on the windows. Doors require a lot of maintenance because they get a lot of normal use. Very few people enter and leave their house through windows.

My problem is that I could not see my own work. So, I had friends that had the ability look for me. The were able to describe the shape of my wards to my satisfaction. Then they could tell me if they had been tampered with, broken or had weakened over time. Obviously, these did not protect me from things that broke through but likely did for random passersby.

While these can be the weakest form of protection do not underestimate their utility. This type of ward can easily discourage random spirits and people that have no real personal interest in you or your property. They can also be extremely effective against people that are very sensitive to energy, such as empaths.

Try this experiment. Go to a public place with a lot of foot traffic that has some sort of physical barrier like the image. Create an energy ward between two of the bollards. Then watch how many people choose to walk between the unguarded bollards and those you warded. Then, take down your wards and move them to the opposite space and see if the traffic flows differently. If you can change the traffic flow you are pretty good. If you completely stop it, you are damn good. If you do not have any effect, keep practicing. This is a skill that can be learned by almost anyone. Doing this exercise well will develop skills that can be used in a variety of magickal tasks that appear to have nothing in common with warding.

Physical wards at their non-magickal level are locks, closed doors, burglar alarms and the like. There are also other forms of wards with a physical basis. Perhaps you energies a sword you have hanging on a wall facing an entrance. Maybe it is a statue of your deity to which you have cared for, kept dust free and made offerings before. This can also be a talisman or other item created for the purpose. These types of things can become more sentient and active than a passive energy ward.

Natural wards are live plants, herbs, stones, minerals and crystals that have protective properties. These can simply be placed near doors and windows. You do not need to do much magick for these. I simply tell them what I want them to do but you may not even need that.

Spirit wards are defenses supplied by spirits one conjures or creates (servitors). These can be extremely strong against pretty much everything. Spirits from the Lesser Key of Solomon can be extremely effective. The problem is they can come off as a bit creepy as well. Their energy signature can be unpleasant. Angels and the like can enforce some pretty rigid thinking. So, you need a bit of experience to make these work effectively.

If you are up against strong practitioners, here is a little trick. Make several servitors. Instructions on how to do this are outside the scope of this post. Using creative instructions can confuse the heck out of your attackers. For example, Spirit A protects the home on odd calendar days, Spirit B on even days and Spirit C augments on Fridays and Saturdays when most people have the time to get up to no good. Since most people do not attack every day, each time they come to your home they get a different guardian. They may come prepared for the first one they encounter and find something else. Yikes!

Spirits can also advise you and unique techniques to ward your home. The most effective ward I ever made came from this sort of advice. This is one I keep in my secret bag of tricks not because I am all that secretive but when it comes to protection it is wise to have some surprises.

Spiritual wards are just that. A deity that you work with or worship consistently combined with a physical anchor can be very effective. Your soul, properly aligned and actively energized can be impenetrable. Again, how to do that is beyond the scope of this post.

See this post about my favorite protective strategy.

If you do magick, heck, even if you do not do magick, you need some warding. Hopefully, this post will get you started. 

 

 

 

Do Acts of Magick or Intuitions Attract Evil?

This is the last post in the series to my step daughter.*

Sometimes, people that are new to magickal practices come into the shop, buy a fixed candle or other item, and ask me if just doing something like that is dangerous. Will evil things find me? I always answer no. On the rare cases when I see a danger, I tell the person.

I am never comfortable with a yes or no answer to that question.

The short answer is no. A single act of magick is very unlikely to attract anything that isn’t already there. Sometimes, a single or frequent acts of magick can create the illusion of attracting something negative. The illusion is hard to explain without scaring the daylights out of people. They only hear the first few words and their fears drown out the rest. So, take a breath and relax.

An effective act of magick, at the very least, opens the veils between worlds a little bit. It is technically possible for some lower-level astral creature to take notice and get up to something. This is not the norm. More often than not, people become aware of something that has always existed and blame the magick for creating the problem. The problem was always there. Magick simply expanded the person’s awareness.

Hypothetical Example: A person does magick to get some money. Suddenly, they are in a car accident. The damage is less than their $1,000 deductible. Something happens at work and they lose a few hours a week causing a financial squeeze. People blame the magick for ‘bad luck’. In reality, they had a large deductible before they even thought about magick. Large deductibles can be a good financial move if you have the deductible amount in savings. As far as losing some hours at work, they were already financially on the edge. That is why they did magick in the first place. Sometimes, magick teaches us what we need to fix.

We could blame the magick or think that perhaps taking a weekend job for six month to put some money in savings which is a buffer against losing hours and the deductible. Magickal lessons are often life lessons. If you do those things and then realize you are less stressed. Perhaps you get the bug and start reading about money and how to handle it.

Hypothetical Example: A person does love magick to bolster their relationship. Suddenly, a series of arguments break out and the relationship ends. If the practitioner looks back, the subject of the arguments was nothing new. Years later, she may look back and realize she dodged a bullet when that man left. All that happened was the magick added passion to an already shaky situation. The emotions boiled over. Better sooner than later.

Hypothetical Example. The same scenario but now glimpses of a mean face are seen out the corner of the eyes. Some things go bump in the night. Holy cow! The magick opened the door to some dark force! Well, that cannot be eliminated. On the other hand, that force may be the reason the magick was needed in your love life in the first place. Perhaps, the mean man has been there for a lot longer than you realized. The magick revealed the problem. Isn’t that a good thing? Now, you know what you need to deal with.

It is possible for totally random ‘things’ to drop on you from the astral when you do magick. A regular practitioner does need protection from these things.  On a one-off act of magick, usually, that is not the case.

When it comes to intuitives there is a greater danger. Intuitives live between the worlds anyway. That is why their intuitions work. When you spend a lot of time between the worlds, the chances of negative forces attaching increase. Why? Because most of the time people live like this live just above the surface of this world. Which, is the bottom of the next world. Gravity still applies. Muck descends.

The best protection is to stay out of low-vibe places like bars, adult book stores, drug infested neighborhoods, and dance-clubs that are mostly meat markets.

The next level of protection is the wearing of certain stones, smudging oneself and the home and keeping cleansing stones and herbs around the house.

The last level is learning to do some basic defensive magick.

Magick can create some problems but those problems are usually already existing and thus simply revealed by magick. While not always the case, that is a better place to start looking than some scary evil force. Intuitives, often quite afraid of magick, need protective magick more than the occasional magick user

*She is actually my step-daughter. I even get undeserved but appreciated Father’s Day cards. Sometimes, I am just oblivious and think of things like being related by marriage as in in-law.

 

Is Being a Psychic or Intuitive Dangerous to Self or Other?

I may not be the most qualified person to write this. I cannot claim to being an empath or psychic. With rare exception, my psychic insights occur when I am focused on the person I am reading for. A couple months ago, I was able to describe a scene from my client’s childhood in great detail. Things like that are rarely a problem because I am seeking to have that experience and pass it on to another. I am not usually hit with an intuition or feel someone else’s emotions while walking down the street.  Empaths or Psychics are not asking. They just see, hear, feel or receive input that usually has deep emotional connections.

Simply receiving information cannot possibly harm another. That is the good news.

The biggest issues with psychics/intuitives doing harm falls into two categories, hurting themselves and others.

Psychics, especially new ones, often have a trouble distinguishing their intuition from their emotions. This turns an insecurity that could be dealt with to an externalized ‘fact’. The person on the other end of that fact has no chance of disproving the ‘intuition’. This can destroy relationships that otherwise would have worked out fine. Thus, harming both parties.

The way to prevent this is to follow the advice of the Oracle at Delphi, Know Thyself. Knowing what your insecurities are, how you normally feel and the like goes a long way to help judge between feelings and intuitions. If you are normally insecure when speaking while eating and you feel insecure on a dinner date, it may be best to chalk that up to yourself rather than an intuition about your date. If you do not normally feel that way and you suddenly do, chalk it up to intuition.

You are going to be wrong once in a while until you really figure things out. So, record your intuitions in writing along with the circumstances you were in when you felt them. Later go a back and figure out which intuitions were correct.

So, act on your own intuitions first. Carefully assess the results and slowly build confidence. Do not foist them on others until you have good reason to be confident in yourself.

You can harm others in the same way. By insisting your intuition is correct, you can cause people to break up, become medically paranoid or who knows what. Don’t share until you have a handle on it. When I pray, I pray that my teachings land light as a feather on the hearts and minds of others. Cultivate that attitude when revealing them.

I am amazed how willing people are to change their lives around when I give a psychic reading. I am equally amazed when the absolutely know I am right and others have told them the same thing and they refuse to change. Once you share an intuition you cannot own other people’s response. Let them live without your interference.

Intuitives/empaths and the like do have personal issues. They can feel other people’s emotions so strongly that it messes with their heads. I have walked by and felt a human predator once. The emotion and my response to it were disconcerting and it lasted for a day and a half. I feel for those that go through that on the regular.

The trick is to learn how to shield and psychically protect yourself. Even learning a little protection magick is a help. You cannot harm people with protection magick unless they are trying to harm you.  

People in this category at their worst are much less dangerous than magick users. So, I wouldn’t worry about doing harm overmuch but it is good to keep the above in mind. That last little bit out shielding and protecting is important. I highly recommend becoming proficient in those skills.