A group of bloggers, most linked to this blog, decided to post on the Myth of Guilt. Many of them put quite a lot of work into the project and wrote well. I simply have too much to do at this time but I will throw up a few comments for general consideration.Our emotions are tools of self-discovery. Some of them we experience in positive ways others negative. Humans being what they are tend to learn from the negative. Guilt is one such negative emotion, anger (you didn't live up to my expectations), jealousy (you slept with X but you BELONG to me) and fear (I won't get x or I will die) are other examples of such things.
The trick is to not pass them off as some creepy bogey man or creation of the church. The trick is to learn from them. Got Guilt? Find out how you failed in your expectations of yourself. You can blame anything else you want but a magician will turn inward sooner or later. And when they do, they will learn how they failed themselves.
The myth is that guilt has no purpose.
The reality is that it is used against you by outside forces like your mother and the church.
The truth is the third thing. Guilt's purpose is showing you how you harmed yourself.
(pic from: http://1jeff.com/nggallery/page-5/album-1/gallery-9/images/)
6 comments:
If you join my church - I promise to serve you guilt for breakfast, lunch & dinner. You only get dessert if you eat your vegetables though. Thos who don't eat vegetables go to hades.
I believe that all things have a measure and purpose. The guilt thing has become just a cancerous growth on the soul of humanity.
I can see that course corrections can be useful, but not as a tool of for self loathing. It is a temporary thing, not a life long commitment!
I agree. Guilt is not and should to be a tool of self-loathing. Like anything else, once it has served its purpose it should be immediately discarded.
Hi BH,
Thought I would follow this little discussion over from Josh's blog.
I don't agree.
And think that "Whoever therefore shall know himself, shall know all things in himself; especially he shall know God, according to whose image he was made; he shall know the world, the resemblance of which he beareth; he shall know all creatures with whom he symbolizeth; and what comfort he can have and obtain from stones, plants, animals, elements, heavens, from spirits, angels and every thing, and how all things should be fitted for all things in there time, place, order, measure, proportion and harmony, and can draw and bring to himself, even as a loadstone Iron."~Agrippa What you discard you are lacking in. There is an acceptance of what is that is necessary to the process of the whole. You should not "need" to discard it. Change your understanding maybe through deeper knowledge of yourself and the situation. Maybe dont make the same mistake if given the opportunity again if it was not what you want.
Magic is about owning what you do. "Guilt and all"....
Intention. And using it.
But anyway "Do what thou wilt"
That is my 2c on the matter FWIW
Love Kathy
I think that in some ways guilt is similar to anger in both form and function. Anger is a defense tool we use when hurt or afraid, mostly. There are times when anger is just righteous anger. Guilt is like that, its a tool we can learn from, its a tool we can be used by, but sometimes guilt is just guilt. Not to be so easily discarded. Wounds to ones souls are never the same and when you have caused those wounds to yourself it is something you will carry with you forever. Even when you know why you feel as you do, even when you dedicate yourself to not repeating the same wounds, and even when you work daily at releasing that guilt, its a scar on your soul you continue to carry.
So in my mind it depends on the source of the guilt. Feeling guilty because you are not living up to what you feel is your full poential and feeling guilt because you commited crimes against your own soul are two extremes of the same emotion, and nothing fixes everything
I think that in some ways guilt is similar to anger in both form and function. Anger is a defense tool we use when hurt or afraid, mostly. There are times when anger is just righteous anger. Guilt is like that, its a tool we can learn from, its a tool we can be used by, but sometimes guilt is just guilt. Not to be so easily discarded. Wounds to ones souls are never the same and when you have caused those wounds to yourself it is something you will carry with you forever. Even when you know why you feel as you do, even when you dedicate yourself to not repeating the same wounds, and even when you work daily at releasing that guilt, its a scar on your soul you continue to carry.
So in my mind it depends on the source of the guilt. Feeling guilty because you are not living up to what you feel is your full poential and feeling guilt because you commited crimes against your own soul are two extremes of the same emotion, and nothing fixes everything
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