The Power of "I Don't Do That Anymore"
Sep. 22nd, 2020 11:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kimberlysteeleOnce upon a time, my husband and I were yuppies with yuppie aspirations. He had an executive job and spent his weekends golfing. I planned on owning a large house and going full throttle entrepreneur. Meanwhile, at my husband's work, there was a mentally handicapped guy who my husband's evil coworkers liked to torment. Let's call him Mikey. Mikey was a janitor. My husband was the only male person in the place who refrained from grade-school level bullying of Mikey. The cretins and literal whoremongers (while married with children) my husband worked with played pranks on Mikey, for instance, by glueing coins to the floor.
If there is a hell, my husband's coworkers will be burning in it for a not-short amount of time, and I don't think this is a simple matter of me being humorless. They also liked to torture Mikey by accusing him in a roundabout fashion of "funny" habits, such as compulsive masturbation. Mikey's odd reply to their taunts was "I don't do that anymore." This, of course, was as good as an admission of guilt in their small minds, and would set them into hysterical laughter.
My husband's executive job went away through no fault of his own -- the company went under because of bad business decisions and two or three terrible managers. My aspirations to own a large house and expand my business became deflated by reality as I struggled to support us during nearly three years of my mate's intermittent unemployment. The phrase "I don't do that anymore", however, stuck in my mind as something important.
The Trouble With Christian Repentance
The problem I have always had with the Christian notion of repentance is this idea of living a wholly awful life, perhaps one similar to the pathetic managers and salesmen at my husband's former job, and then being able to suddenly repent at the end of one's life and go to heaven. The concept of Christian repentance was repugnant enough to make me an atheist for many years, as other religions were just as baffling in different ways. Christians like my in-laws (RIP) were brimming with hatred and fear. The Apocalypse for them was always two weeks off into the future. God would come and sweep them away to a bliss they had done nothing to earn while on this plane. My in-laws were Bible bangers who believed the Earth was created in one short week around six thousand years ago. My father-in-law's Biblical literalism, his misogyny, death fetish, plus the unfortunate time when he openly tried to hex my husband's car tires so they would blow out on the road and force us to believe in his God, motivated me to completely avoid him for the last five years of his life. He convinced himself he was going to heaven because he was right with God. His life wasn't easy, but in my opinion, it wasn't an excuse for the way he treated others. It struck me that if those were the people who were convinced they would go to heaven, it made perfect sense that heaven did not exist.
I always was a bit of a freak: long before I believed in reincarnation, I stopped fearing death. I have imagined myself dead, thought about the ways it could happen, plus I love horror movies. As an atheist, I imagined being swallowed into the great black void of space from whence I had come. I never imagined an entire spiritual ecosystem where my current incarnation as Kimberly Steele was one of many. I never anticipated past life memories of being a widow on a yacht or a singing court jester. Yet the funny thing is I had these memories long before I dived into the occult four years ago. I had memories of the yacht when I was a suicidally depressed twelve year old and the court jester came to me at age fifteen. I didn't know who these people were at the time. Now I know.
There is no black void. There is an ecosystem, and because our human brains are not that big or great, we barely have the faintest clue about how it all works. No wonder it seems unfair! The one thing I have gleaned is that it is a great big school or testing ground, and at every single moment we are being proofed. Every second of our lives on the material plane is an opportunity to make the best out of what we are given, and no, I don't mean taking all of our energy and dumping it into getting a bigger house. To a huge degree, spending one's time chasing the McMansion lifestyle equals failure.
The cold fires of my depression were fueled by regret. My young life was filled with regret and guilt for the stupid and awful things I had done, yet it rarely helped me to become a better person. Instead, I wallowed in my misery.
To pull myself out, I had to do a few things. One was ceasing to care what others thought of me. Another was learning to be kind and gentle with myself -- I am the sort who gladly works herself to death and nearly died at the age of 27 because of it. The third, and arguably the most important of all, was to say "I don't do that anymore" when confronted with a regret.
Christian repentance is hollow because the resolution to be a better person is weak. Christianity has been plagued with this issue almost since it began. Martin Luther's Reformation had its roots in outrage over the Catholic doctrine of Indulgences, which was a way of buying one's way out of being punished for one's sins. Protestant hypocrisy one-upped its Catholic counterpart in the form of Calvinism, which pushed that certain people were chosen by God to be saved and the rest were damned if they did, damned if they didn't. In far too many stripes of Christianity, there was every reason to go back to one's old ways. The rich could buy their way out of hell and anyone who subscribed to Calvin's way of thinking didn't have a choice one way or the other. This, plus a convenient Satan readily available to blame for one's own mischief, began the legacy of slipping and sliding around the heavy, onerous burden of responsibility for one's sins.
To make amends, Christian repentance involves plenty of beating oneself up for being such a stupid sinner; the Flagellants spring to mind. There's lots of room for self-harm and self-destruction as one grovels in front of an angry God. What is missing is responsibility and being willing to accept the consequences of one's actions. Repentance without responsibility isn't repentance at all. It's a temporary distraction so the sinner can go back to sinning and still believe she will win whatever game she thinks she's playing in the bitter end.
No More Games
"I don't do that anymore" is far more potent because it isn't an excuse. Instead, "I don't do that anymore" is an affirmation. It does not wallow in regret. It makes a bold statement: I did that behavior, I am sorry I did it, but I will never do it again because I DON'T DO THAT ANYMORE. It creates a new track in space. Though it acknowledges the old one, it does not return to it, because it burns the path of a new and better trajectory. Instead of backsliding and expecting rewards despite continuing an unexamined life of bad behavior, it wholly rejects bad behavior and moves on towards the path of goodness. "I don't do that anymore" is true repentance. It takes Occam's razor to the faux repentances of various religions and strips away the bullcrap of ego-stroking and wish fulfillment. It forces one to keep the original promise.
I used to spend a decent chunk of my time marinating in hatred over real and imagined wrongs people did to me. Years ago, I had a boss who did a bunch of stupid, unjust things as bosses tend to do. Being fairly stupid myself, I threw a curse at this person. I have always been good enough at cursing that if the government had somehow been able to find out how successful I was, they would have sent CIA goons to my door in order to kidnap me and enslave me as their political weapon. Bad things reliably happened to the boss as they often did when I threw curses. I did not put together my own life disasters and misery at the time (blowback) with the hexes I threw at other people, all the while being atheist and a non-believer in the entities behind curses. Here is the secret I learned about curses when I was actively throwing them: for some of us, they are easy. They work. Stuff you would not believe is possible happens to your enemies. Cursing people in this way is the way to commit the perfect crime: no fingerprints, no hired guns, just ice-cold revenge. The problem with curses is their cost. I thought I could throw a curse without suffering for it, but that isn't how it works. Many would be witches and mages think they can throw a curse (usually against Trump and his followers) and come away with their hands clean. Nope. They can carry on with their curses and as long as they believe they are free from karma, they hilariously don't connect their depression, health problems, and the disasters that befall their families as related to their Nightly Hex Amateur Hour.
The reason cursing doesn't help the curser is because it places the curser on a lower realm of the astral plane. Cursing demotes you by a few astral neighborhoods every time you do it even if you live in Chelsea or Echo Park on the material plane. When I was cursing and hexing on a regular basis, my dreams were plagued by entities that chased and harassed me. What did I expect? There's an old Chinese proverb about going to bed with dogs and waking up with fleas...
Only now that I don't do that anymore am I happy and free, because I don't wish for my enemies to be cursed. I wish for them to be blessed, because not only do I want the good to ricochet back in my direction... they need it!
If there is a hell, my husband's coworkers will be burning in it for a not-short amount of time, and I don't think this is a simple matter of me being humorless. They also liked to torture Mikey by accusing him in a roundabout fashion of "funny" habits, such as compulsive masturbation. Mikey's odd reply to their taunts was "I don't do that anymore." This, of course, was as good as an admission of guilt in their small minds, and would set them into hysterical laughter.
My husband's executive job went away through no fault of his own -- the company went under because of bad business decisions and two or three terrible managers. My aspirations to own a large house and expand my business became deflated by reality as I struggled to support us during nearly three years of my mate's intermittent unemployment. The phrase "I don't do that anymore", however, stuck in my mind as something important.
The Trouble With Christian Repentance
The problem I have always had with the Christian notion of repentance is this idea of living a wholly awful life, perhaps one similar to the pathetic managers and salesmen at my husband's former job, and then being able to suddenly repent at the end of one's life and go to heaven. The concept of Christian repentance was repugnant enough to make me an atheist for many years, as other religions were just as baffling in different ways. Christians like my in-laws (RIP) were brimming with hatred and fear. The Apocalypse for them was always two weeks off into the future. God would come and sweep them away to a bliss they had done nothing to earn while on this plane. My in-laws were Bible bangers who believed the Earth was created in one short week around six thousand years ago. My father-in-law's Biblical literalism, his misogyny, death fetish, plus the unfortunate time when he openly tried to hex my husband's car tires so they would blow out on the road and force us to believe in his God, motivated me to completely avoid him for the last five years of his life. He convinced himself he was going to heaven because he was right with God. His life wasn't easy, but in my opinion, it wasn't an excuse for the way he treated others. It struck me that if those were the people who were convinced they would go to heaven, it made perfect sense that heaven did not exist.
I always was a bit of a freak: long before I believed in reincarnation, I stopped fearing death. I have imagined myself dead, thought about the ways it could happen, plus I love horror movies. As an atheist, I imagined being swallowed into the great black void of space from whence I had come. I never imagined an entire spiritual ecosystem where my current incarnation as Kimberly Steele was one of many. I never anticipated past life memories of being a widow on a yacht or a singing court jester. Yet the funny thing is I had these memories long before I dived into the occult four years ago. I had memories of the yacht when I was a suicidally depressed twelve year old and the court jester came to me at age fifteen. I didn't know who these people were at the time. Now I know.
There is no black void. There is an ecosystem, and because our human brains are not that big or great, we barely have the faintest clue about how it all works. No wonder it seems unfair! The one thing I have gleaned is that it is a great big school or testing ground, and at every single moment we are being proofed. Every second of our lives on the material plane is an opportunity to make the best out of what we are given, and no, I don't mean taking all of our energy and dumping it into getting a bigger house. To a huge degree, spending one's time chasing the McMansion lifestyle equals failure.
The cold fires of my depression were fueled by regret. My young life was filled with regret and guilt for the stupid and awful things I had done, yet it rarely helped me to become a better person. Instead, I wallowed in my misery.
To pull myself out, I had to do a few things. One was ceasing to care what others thought of me. Another was learning to be kind and gentle with myself -- I am the sort who gladly works herself to death and nearly died at the age of 27 because of it. The third, and arguably the most important of all, was to say "I don't do that anymore" when confronted with a regret.
Christian repentance is hollow because the resolution to be a better person is weak. Christianity has been plagued with this issue almost since it began. Martin Luther's Reformation had its roots in outrage over the Catholic doctrine of Indulgences, which was a way of buying one's way out of being punished for one's sins. Protestant hypocrisy one-upped its Catholic counterpart in the form of Calvinism, which pushed that certain people were chosen by God to be saved and the rest were damned if they did, damned if they didn't. In far too many stripes of Christianity, there was every reason to go back to one's old ways. The rich could buy their way out of hell and anyone who subscribed to Calvin's way of thinking didn't have a choice one way or the other. This, plus a convenient Satan readily available to blame for one's own mischief, began the legacy of slipping and sliding around the heavy, onerous burden of responsibility for one's sins.
To make amends, Christian repentance involves plenty of beating oneself up for being such a stupid sinner; the Flagellants spring to mind. There's lots of room for self-harm and self-destruction as one grovels in front of an angry God. What is missing is responsibility and being willing to accept the consequences of one's actions. Repentance without responsibility isn't repentance at all. It's a temporary distraction so the sinner can go back to sinning and still believe she will win whatever game she thinks she's playing in the bitter end.
No More Games
"I don't do that anymore" is far more potent because it isn't an excuse. Instead, "I don't do that anymore" is an affirmation. It does not wallow in regret. It makes a bold statement: I did that behavior, I am sorry I did it, but I will never do it again because I DON'T DO THAT ANYMORE. It creates a new track in space. Though it acknowledges the old one, it does not return to it, because it burns the path of a new and better trajectory. Instead of backsliding and expecting rewards despite continuing an unexamined life of bad behavior, it wholly rejects bad behavior and moves on towards the path of goodness. "I don't do that anymore" is true repentance. It takes Occam's razor to the faux repentances of various religions and strips away the bullcrap of ego-stroking and wish fulfillment. It forces one to keep the original promise.
I used to spend a decent chunk of my time marinating in hatred over real and imagined wrongs people did to me. Years ago, I had a boss who did a bunch of stupid, unjust things as bosses tend to do. Being fairly stupid myself, I threw a curse at this person. I have always been good enough at cursing that if the government had somehow been able to find out how successful I was, they would have sent CIA goons to my door in order to kidnap me and enslave me as their political weapon. Bad things reliably happened to the boss as they often did when I threw curses. I did not put together my own life disasters and misery at the time (blowback) with the hexes I threw at other people, all the while being atheist and a non-believer in the entities behind curses. Here is the secret I learned about curses when I was actively throwing them: for some of us, they are easy. They work. Stuff you would not believe is possible happens to your enemies. Cursing people in this way is the way to commit the perfect crime: no fingerprints, no hired guns, just ice-cold revenge. The problem with curses is their cost. I thought I could throw a curse without suffering for it, but that isn't how it works. Many would be witches and mages think they can throw a curse (usually against Trump and his followers) and come away with their hands clean. Nope. They can carry on with their curses and as long as they believe they are free from karma, they hilariously don't connect their depression, health problems, and the disasters that befall their families as related to their Nightly Hex Amateur Hour.
The reason cursing doesn't help the curser is because it places the curser on a lower realm of the astral plane. Cursing demotes you by a few astral neighborhoods every time you do it even if you live in Chelsea or Echo Park on the material plane. When I was cursing and hexing on a regular basis, my dreams were plagued by entities that chased and harassed me. What did I expect? There's an old Chinese proverb about going to bed with dogs and waking up with fleas...
Only now that I don't do that anymore am I happy and free, because I don't wish for my enemies to be cursed. I wish for them to be blessed, because not only do I want the good to ricochet back in my direction... they need it!
no subject
Date: 2020-09-23 01:21 pm (UTC)It was really surprising to me how quickly this worked. Just a handful of repetitions, of interrupting that angry thought pattern, and it was gone! I rarely think of them anymore, and when I do, it's without anger.
---
There is a funny thing, reading your posts and others, about Christianity. I grew up very much in that milieu, and know it well. I have at no point stopped being Christian. But after being Orthodox for a decade, it all sounds so... strange and foreign. And it's not like some of those things haven't existed in Orthodoxy either! The old Byzantine emperors (Constantine included) used to delay baptism until they were on their deathbeds, regarding it as a way to wash away the sins of their whole life in one go: whoosh!
To be fair, even the protestants I grew up with regarded the idea of "do whatever you want, and then repent at the last minute" as cheating. There was mutinous grumbling about the boss who "got saved" every other week, but still treated his employees in the same crappy way.
The Orthodox view repentance and salvation very differently. We don't believe it is possible to know for sure if you, or anyone else, is going to heaven. You could be a wonderworking saint, and still screw it up, turn your back on God, and indulge your very worst impulses. Salvation isn't an altar-call. It's a lifelong process of using the tools the church puts at our disposal-- prayer and fasting, confession, spiritual advisors who can give you extra homework, liturgy, the eucharist-- to overcome the passions to which we are naturally inclined. Any priest who takes confessions (not all do-- it's a separate authorization) will tell you that confessions are the most boring, tedious things. People come in and confess the same things over and over. It's like tripping over the same rock in the same path every morning. The practices of the church, if you follow them, help you see where the rock is, and find a way to step around it, or take a different path entirely. Sometimes it's as easy as seeing it for what it is "Oh, all along it was a rock-- I thought it was my foot!" And sometimes it's a much more entrenched habit, and takes a long time and a lot of hard work to overcome. But it's possible. It is all a process of aligning our souls-- of attuning ourselves to the will of God. Not "I am saved" but "I am being saved."
It took me a long time to figure out what seemed so wrong about the rapture/apocalypse fantasies, beyond the very obvious part where Jesus Himself says "you will not know the day or the hour" but everyone's running around like they know anyway. It's that they take the essential Christian virtue of humility, and trample on it. Few things are less humble than "God's gonna wipe you all out soon (and good riddance!), but I'll be swept up to heaven without you first! So long suckers!"
no subject
Date: 2020-09-23 03:30 pm (UTC)I remember wanting to rise above the ugliness, absurd competitions, and general awfulness of school and being dragged down with the tide. Without a protection/banishing ritual, I was not able to keep the astral gunk from swamping me. Without discursive meditation, my thoughts were a train wreck of conflicting intentions and cognitive dissonance. Without divination, I had no idea how to make wise decisions. Parents can only help their teenage children so much.
I think that's the situation my peers are in, but since they still don't have a protection ritual, meditation, or divination, they're still down in the swamp. They think they're oppressed by the Patriarchy or the deplorable conservative Trump voters, but the truth is they're oppressed by all their astral muck. Atheism pretends to triumph over this state, but the most brilliant atheists can't think their way around being emotionally impaired. Christopher Hitchens, as amazing as he was, was an alcoholic who was half in the bag every time he gave a lecture.
One would think that a religion of Jesus would not go off the rails like it has. Christianity has a great framework of traditions to help people connect with God. Personally, I would like to see a Christianity that incorporates the metaphysics of reincarnation from the Western occultist's purview.
I don't know if I'll ever get around to a set of articles expounding on my limited knowledge of human energy structures and exchanges. Parties, for instance birthdays and holiday parties, form etheric hills which in turn beget astral hierarchies, both in pyramid form. The larger the party, the larger the ziggurat. This is why thousands of pyramids were built in the ancient world, but of course a building doesn't need to be a pyramid to get God's attention. It's just helpful. When people create corrupted pyramids (again, the pyramid is a metaphor, not necessarily a material building) especially extremely large ones and presume they have curried favor with God/the gods, it's likely to offend God/the gods. The whole civilization pays the price for this offense. Romans and Mayans both resorted to increasingly desperate, large-scale, mass gathering spectacles at the ends of their respective empires and were punished by the gods ignoring their pleas or smiting them with plagues and famines. People love to think "it's different this time" but I think we are seeing the exact same thing with Christianity. The churches have gotten out of control large while the rest of society flocks to other forms of circuses like the football stadium (or at least we used to pre-COVID) and the gods are displeased with both and cut us down to size. It's the Tower of Babel all over again. We make a big Coliseum, pour untold amounts of energy into it, and the gods get tired of our frenetic displays and annoying whining, so they smite us.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-23 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-23 11:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-23 04:12 pm (UTC)Origen and others in the early church believed in reincarnation. Three hundred years later Origen was condemned for heresy, and that was the end of that. Still, the doctrine existed in the early church.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-23 04:29 pm (UTC)I think some Christians are so convinced that they are right with God and therefore going to Heaven FOREVER that they are terrified at the prospect of reincarnation. If they were comfortable with their humble status of not knowing for sure what happens after death -- that old chestnut "I could be wrong"-- then they would just shrug off Origen's testimony and calmly dismiss it. Reincarnation implies a long, long chain of responsibility (karma) that some people would rather avoid thinking about at any cost.
I'll keep the etheric/astral pyramid articles in mind. I have been meaning to write essays on my thoughts on that for about two years now... nobody ever accurately accused me of working hastily!
no subject
Date: 2020-09-23 10:25 pm (UTC)The church does not teach or endorse reincarnation. I'm not absolutely certain that's because it's ruled out. It's that the focus of Christian practice is on this life: we seek theosis. That is quite enough! We draw a stark line at death: what happens beyond that point is God's business, and not for us to know at this time. This seems reasonable, given the sort of trouble people get into by not respecting that line (necromancy, trying to communicate with the dead...).
no subject
Date: 2020-09-23 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 12:34 am (UTC)But I think it's one of those "proof of the pudding is in the eating" things. In theory, I have no trouble with belief in reincarnation. It seems reasonable to me-- I see no reason why it couldn't be part of God's grand plan. But in practice, it does tend to lead to caste systems. Not always, but I expect that's cold comfort to all the millions born somewhere into an inescapable low estate.
Meanwhile, the beliefs and practices we've inherited, sans reincarnation, are demonstrably adequate to mold saints. We have many examples of it. So it is not necessary to add anything.
Orthodoxy is nothing if not conservative. If you have a system that works, why experiment? That is the trap Protestants are constantly falling into: innovate, change, adapt, get with the times... until you have nothing left that even resembles Christianity, and you cease to be a functioning church... just a lecture-hall where people gather to... uh... feel better about themselves? It really confuses me what the modern megachurches exist for.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 03:03 am (UTC)Speaking of "fixing" what isn't broken, I have begun to wonder what kind of collapse we are looking at now that the Professional Managerial Class has made the fatal mistake of thinking almost all business transactions can be done online? There are many businesses, including my own as a music educator, that don't quite work if the services are not in person.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 03:32 pm (UTC)It really does beat all why anyone would want their church to look like a hotel convention center. I think it hints at what they're worshipping (same thing as the hotel convention center).
I'm still trying to figure out how massages, oil changes, plumbing, construction, hairdressing, physical therapy, home health care, housecleaning, window-washing, car repair, yardwork, HVAC, and appliance repair, can be done online. Good luck with that...
no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 06:07 pm (UTC)I don't like having my hair done, my eyes checked, my teeth fiddled with by a dentist, or massages because of the etheric intimacy with people I'm not sure about. I don't like giving my time to certain organizations and I don't worship at Christian churches because the etheric "vibes" aren't right there and I don't want to lend them any of my power. I used to strongly dislike holidays at my ex-boyfriend's relatives house (back when he was still my boyfriend) because his family, although very nice, would leave me feeling completely drained via unintentional etheric vampirism. I didn't know what the phenomenon was at the time I was experiencing it, of course, as I was only 20. Now I understand it a bit better. It's the same reason people feel drained after attending holiday gatherings.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 07:45 pm (UTC)Would you perhaps classify introverts and extroverts as people whose balance of energy give-and-take is skewed to one side or the other?
no subject
Date: 2020-09-25 01:20 am (UTC)Is introversion or extroversion the result of a personal energetic imbalance? Hard to say. I think it depends on the individual.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 09:04 pm (UTC)I don't think they are thinking that. What I think instead is that they really are THAT scared of Covid, and the reason they're that scared of Covid is because it's forced them to confront something they don't want to confront (plus etheric influences, of course).
no subject
Date: 2020-09-25 01:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-23 11:47 pm (UTC)xoxo K
no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 03:19 am (UTC)I tend to be very hard on Christians because they at least are willing to entertain opposing views. I have yet to meet a Muslim who can handle the kind of scrutiny I dish out to Christians on a regular basis, and sadly, the Quran condones both lying and violence to non-believers. Just as I won't talk to BLM supporters -- they don't get the time of day from me and I cancelled a vegan group I ran for nearly 10 years to avoid them -- I won't talk to Muslims about religious matters. I don't parlay with terrorists. I am not saying all Muslims are terrorists, however, I know the Quran well enough to know their only goal for me is assimilation/conversion. This to me is unacceptable, and it's also a reason that I draw a hard line with Christians when they convince themselves that I "would be better off" if I devoted my life to their specific version of God.
I cut off my father-in-law for the last five years of his life because of his pathetic attempt at black magic on his own son's car in which I was the passenger. I also don't associate with black magicians. There's some great advice in Robert Greene's book The 50 Laws of Power. "Avoid the unhappy and the unlucky."
I'm so sorry to hear that your parents have been taken in by a guy like that. Those sorts of people are dangerous.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 03:30 am (UTC)I'll try to get to those astral/etheric pyramid articles soon.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 01:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 03:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 11:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 04:25 pm (UTC)I don't like churches for the most part because the second God shows up, the church leader often does something dumb like quoting Bible verses about sin and hell and God promptly departs due to the gobsmacking hypocrisy of whomever is speaking. This happened the last time I went into a Christian church -- there were some lovely group songs which brought down a benevolent influence, and then the preacher started sermonizing in an awkward Erma Bombeck style and the good entities rapidly vacated the building to be replaced with the usual assortment of lower astral bottom feeders. I could not wait to get out of there.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-24 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-25 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-25 11:29 pm (UTC)Poor Mikey! As a vegan, do you feel that magic has a stronger impact on you, whether it is negative as in cursing or positive like the sphere of protection?
no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 04:26 am (UTC)I've always been hypersensitive and it was far, far worse when I was a child. I was raised eating meat. I went ova-lacto vegetarian at age 16 and during that time, I had night terrors almost every night, which is why I turned to magic the first time. I was still hypersensitive when I was on tricyclic antidepressants from age 17 - 22. I originally sought magic as self-defense, but it only made matters worse because I had no idea what I was doing. As for cursing, I was always exceptionally gifted at it. I won't divulge the nature of my successes I had as I do not think that is a good idea. Let's just say they were uncanny.
I went vegan at age 37 in 2010. I'm 47 now. At that point I had been atheist since the age of 22 and I dismissed my rare out-of-body experiences as "trans-dimensional bleed" and curses as lucky coincidence. Any night terror or nightmare strong enough to get my attention got written into one of my horror novels. Becoming vegan did not increase my sensitivity. It did increase my stamina and my attention span, probably because it improved my digestion.
I started doing the Sphere of Protection almost three years ago. I have not missed a day since I started. I am still sensitive, but the ways in which I am sensitive have changed. For instance, I can talk to trees -- I was just in the forest doing that today -- and there's no static or fog. Talking to a tree is almost like talking to another person now, except it is silent. It's as clear as a bell. I don't feel frayed and raw like I used to as a child and young adult. If this is what magical "oversensitivity" consists of while I am coincidentally not eating animals, I'll gladly take it.
I do notice that if I have low blood sugar, which plagued me as a meat-eater and vegetarian and almost never as a vegan, that my natural sensitivity goes into hyperdrive. Meaning if I'm "hangry", I get defensive and edgy because I feel like I'm under attack. I think psychic oversensitivity might have to do with not eating enough food and not eating enough fat, at least that is my personal experience.
Sorry for the novel, hope this makes sense.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 08:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 11:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-27 03:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-01 08:11 pm (UTC)I think feminism is a good cause that was taken over by its lunatic fringe. That seems to be true of a lot of institutions these days.
—Lady Cutekitten
Was this comment meant for the other post?
Date: 2020-10-01 09:33 pm (UTC)Was this comment meant for this post or the more recent one?
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Date: 2021-05-18 07:02 am (UTC)I missed this posting and wandered into it from your Magic Monday link on 17 May 2021-- This is truly excellent! I wish I could make it required reading for everyone I knew at the Calvinist Presbyterian Church I attended from about 1990 to 2000.
While a lot could be said about _that_ experience, I think the general paths are:
1) If a person is trying to develop a relationship with a living god, this will eventually happen. The living god will meet them where they live and bring them into some sort of spiritual maturity. I believe this is where the little old ladies come from who radiate the goodness of god and seem to have a word of encouragement for everyone they meet.
From my observations of your online demeanor, your good works and your passion for the support of the community in which you live, it is very apparent that such a transformation continues to happen in your life (particularly with the history you gave in this post).
Indeed, I find myself thanking Aphrodite for the good you continue to do, and asking her to lend strength and direction to your efforts--And this is odd, because I don't actually consider myself to be a follower of Aphrodite!
On the other hand;
2) If a person observes the rules of a business, church, political party or other organization, and decides to use those rules as a ladder to self-promotion, wealth or the acquisition of power for its own sake, this too will happen, to the sorrow of all involved.--A left-hand path for sure!
Many of the problems of the Protestant and modernized Catholic churches are rooted in the absorption of Enlightenment philosophies, aggravated by guys like John Calvin and (ecch) Charles G Finney. I am glad that you have been able to escape their influences. ;-)
--EG
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Date: 2021-05-19 04:51 am (UTC)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxXozoOwZ9A
Yes, on No. 2, Joel Osteen springs to mind... He is the epitome of Left Hand Path types, along with Benny Hinn and Kenneth Coleman.
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Date: 2024-09-02 12:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-03 06:07 pm (UTC)