kimberlysteele | Some Notes on Psychic Self-Defense

I have always been oversensitive. At nearly half a century old, my hearing is still good enough to require earplugs when I sleep. When I was a child, I was plagued by oversensitivity. Overstimulation with too much loud noise or stress causes me to break down or have a panic attack. This happened reliably in episodes throughout school and young adulthood. When I am in crowds, I am bombarded by the moods and thoughts of those around me. I cannot read them exactly, but I can get a fair enough idea. This phenomenon used to make any public school or crowded shopping center into a living hell, depending on the day. I say "used to" because approximately six years ago, I took up the Sphere of Protection as a daily practice. At the time of this writing, I have missed doing the SoP only one day, and that was the day I rescued my deceased aunt's cats from her home. I have no problem with commitment; if anything, my tendency is to overcommit, which is why I refused to have children in this lifetime.

A Dime a Dozen

Oversensitivity may make me sound as if I am a special snowflake but actually it is as common as dirt. Lots of people dress up their oversensitivity by calling themselves empaths, star children, sensitives, or psychics. The only difference between a self-professed empath and the average Jane is awareness of the condition. Many people refuse to acknowledge their own psychic tendencies as a matter of pride: there are plenty of religious people who close themselves to any messaging from the subtle planes with the enthusiasm of a hack plastic surgeon wielding a liposuction cannula. They do this so they can practice idolatry and stuff themselves to the gills with holy book quotes to use in imaginary and real debates. Even more common are the people who embrace addiction in order to escape awareness of the spirit worlds. The resulting imbalance is a shift from the pole of oversensitivity to the equally bad opposite of undersensitivity. Lepers are undersensitive. The nerve damage caused by the mycobacterium leprae dulls the senses until the extremities such as fingers and nose become useless and fall off. To be psychically oversensitive is like having no skin and to be psychically undersensitive is like having leprosy.

The Age of Ick

For me, the Sphere of Protection, along with discursive meditation and daily divination, creates a thick and formidable barrier between me and the psychic onslaught of our demonic age. As I have mentioned in a previous essay, we live in an era that Incans tried to deliberately take an incarnation hiatus from. Our materialist era is ruled by demons and overrun by them: they're having a field day. There are an uncanny number of leaders from major religions who give lip service to fighting demons while taking every action to be exactly like them, from Joel Osteen in his mega-mansions shutting out the flood victims from his mega church to the local Buddhist center that forces little kids to wear Satanic symbols on their faces so adults can soothe themselves with fear porn fairy tales that MRNA clot shots are safe and effective.

The Physical

The first line of psychic self-defense is physical. Psychic balance is often dependent on a stable blood sugar level. Just as I become hangry (portmanteau of the words hungry and angry) and lightheaded when I skip meals, my oversensitivity gets out of whack. I am much more likely to have an overstimulation panic attack if I have not eaten well or if my blood sugar is too high or too low. For this reason, becoming a vegan in 2010 helped me balance out much of my oversensitivity because it stabilized my digestion and regulated my blood sugar. When I was a child, I often went without eating until I was lightheaded and dizzy, especially in the mornings because my body does not do well with breakfast. I get nauseous if I eat a large meal within two hours of getting up and I become ravenous by 1pm regardless of whether or not I have eaten breakfast. My blood sugar was a roller coaster ride by the time I was sixteen, so it is no wonder I was suicidally depressed by that point. The cure for me was regular small meals and loads of fiber from fruit and vegetables.

Physical surroundings absolutely affect your psychic state. If your living space is cluttered and trashed, your brain just might reflect the same conditions. Making my bed and straightening my living quarters goes a long way in pushing the chaos of modern life to a distant periphery. At least once a week I try to spend some time at the forest preserve. The Japanese call this practice shirin-yoku or forest bathing. Just as the term would imply, forest bathing removes lots of psychic gunk and gives you a fresh, clean astral body. As a native Midwesterner, I find great solace from prairies and woodlands. The spirit of the land here is among my greatest comforts. For others, the best places on earth may be mountains, lake shores, or oceans.

The Astral

At the risk of being too obvious, I'll make mention that the people around you affect your psychic state. If you have no choice but to be around toxic people -- say you live with your parents and they're awful but you love them because they're your mother and father after all -- the next best alternative to moving out is to refuse to react to any drama they throw at you. Relentless positivity and humor is kryptonite to narcissists and drama queens. If they cannot get a rise out of you, they soon implode because it forces them to look at themselves instead of fixating on what you are doing wrong.

There is great power in shutting up. You are the ruler of the kingdom yourself; don't abuse your power. Gossip is entertaining, I get it. It can feel like medication when you're wounded. Schadenfreude is addictive -- if it wasn't, tabloid magazines would not be a thing. But here's the thing: people who have active and meaningful lives do not gossip. It's a weird aspect of having meaning in your life that the urge to gossip just falls away.

When I say you do not owe anyone anything, I mean it. It's not my fault if someone is looking for advice that I don't feel fit to give. I no longer make conversation because someone else might feel silence is awkward. My company is pleasant enough I think, and if it isn't, I don't give a rat's derriere. I know I have the ability to make conversation: I have conversations with trees, for Pete's sake! But it isn't my job.

Another thing I no longer do is explain. Less is more. People don't need to know why all the time. It's not their circus and not their monkeys. People usually have more than enough to worry about without being burdened of a detailed explanation of my modus operandi. The easiest way to win friends and get people to like and respect you is by shutting up and asking them something about themselves.

There are things that my closest family members will never know about me. I like my secrets. I am taking them to the grave.

The Mental

The final wall of psychic self-defense is the creation of magical shapes inside and outside of the mind. If the average, ignorant media slave's signature is a hot mess of violent crayon scribbles, the well-defended psychic's trademark is a complex symphony of beautiful and symmetrical shapes not unlike an unfolding kaleidoscope. In my case, the Sphere of Protection, musical Orphic hymns, and geometric gardens provide an intensive shield against modern manias and agendas that would otherwise warp and twist my efforts. Of course there are other ways to eke out one's own magical shapes -- in the old days, that's why churches were so beautifully and carefully designed and took centuries to build.

I realize these notes may raise more questions than they answer. That's both good and bad, I suppose.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

kimberlysteele

Thanks for this deep dive! I remember quite a few of my past lives at this point going pretty far back and the bottom line is I don't think I was ever a fae. I've had my own encounters with them as a teenager. They are scary as hell and there are entire orders of them who absolutely despise humans. Some of them (from my limited understanding and of course I could be wrong) are in league with demons with the agenda of corrupting or damaging humans. Some of this is revenge for what we've done to them and the environment and some of it is just plain malice. I agree with you that many are seeking incarnation because their souls are roaming free with nowhere else to go. Of course flesh incarnation is only one choice in a buffet, so it's anyone's guess how those free souls will end up.

Yes, I am naturally nocturnal. I do have a choice, so I hit the sack at about 1-2am and get up at 9 or 10. My temperament is very fiery. It took many years to control my temper -- discursive meditation was the ultimate key to understanding what that was about. My main issue is that I am an astral and etheric energy geyser. My giant hair is a physical symptom of that non-physical phenomenon. It's both good and bad.

From: (Anonymous)

Yeah, as I say, it's only speculation - it could be something else entirely, or just an archetype which a sub-set of the population falls into. But that's interesting that you are also nocturnal and with a short temper. Have you ever done one of those Myers Briggs personality tests? I'd be interested to know the results if so (go on 16personalities if you're interested), but if that's too private to share, that's absolutely fine.

I also used to have untameable hair (as does my mum), before it decided to leave me... As you say, I think I actually just generate too much of my own etheric and astral energy (so being in sunlight really does overcharge me) and I have to discharge it regularly through physical labour or some mad project or other, or else it shorts out and I do something self-destructive like stay up until sunrise reading about lizard people, whilst writing pages of crazed, barely-comprehensible notes and theories and eating nachos.

I've never encountered any Fae, but I am well aware they aren't all sweetness and light (well, they might be light, but in the same way a 10 kilowatt laser beam is 'just' light). Much like humans, I'm sure they come in many flavours, including some which actively hate humans, but most of them appear to just have the moral compass of a crocodile rather than being explicitly evil (in the Buddhist sense of deliberately causing suffering for the sake of suffering). I get the feeling many of them just want to be left alone in their forest homes though, which may explain why some then hunt humans in National Parks (I posted a while back about the Missing 411 phenomenon in National Parks - I think a lot of disappearances can be explained by Fae).

I've been listening to a really interesting podcast on Japanese folklore and supernatural Yokai creatures recently (It's called "Uncanny Japan", if you're interested) and there was one episode about Tengu. Tengu seem to have a remarkable similarity to Western Fae - the name of the Studio Ghibli film "Spirited Away" actually refers to a Japanese phrase for being taken to the world of the Tengu, where time passes at a different rate (sometimes faster, sometimes slower), just like the land of the Fae. I was already aware of the long-nosed red kind of Tengu, but not the blue type, which are known as... Crow Tengu! I laughed when I heard that - they seem pretty cool, and are more just trickster-ish than their fearsome red cousins.

I forgot to reply the other week as well, but you mentioned about a future sentient raccoon species - have you seen the Studio Ghibli film "Pom Poko"? I think you'd like it - it's about the raccoon Yokai known as Tanuki!

Mr. Crow

From: (Anonymous)

Hmm, I was just thinking, and re-read my original comment - from what I know of JMG (and from reading his blogs for about 9 years, I think I could say I have a reasonable insight into his psychology), he would also fit most of those trait descriptors, and (assuming he's telling the truth), he remembers having quite a few previous (human) lives, which would somewhat put paid to the Fae theory. He's also a gemini, like me, for whatever that's worth.

I think this may be an archetype after all. I mentioned Myers Briggs above - I don't mind saying that I'm an INTJ, which is described as "The Mastermind" or, less egotistically, "The Architect", who are apparently the most independent-minded of the types, and practically immune to peer pressure. I remember on the corona open posts a while back (before Christmas, I think?) someone mentioned Myers Briggs and there were a LOT of INTJs, and none of them got the jab. INTJ is apparently only about 4-5% of the population, so to have it so over-represented in the forum was quite interesting.

As I said above, I have a dog, but personality-wise, I'm actually much more like a cat.

Mr. Crow

From:

methylethyl

I usually map either INTJ or ISTJ on those (Sometimes INTP), but don't find the descriptions particularly useful because I score right down the middle on everything but the "I", so one question more or less decides the other letters, and it changes with how cranky I'm feeling-- none of those profiles are a really good fit. It is like those "what gender is your brain" psych profile quizzes, where I always fall just to the "male" side of center. Like... ok, but what bearing does this have on *anything*? I'm still a straight, married, middle-aged mother of three.

IIRC a similar survey was carried out on Slate Star Codex, back before it was disbanded and reconfigured, with similar results: INTJs everywhere! One does wonder if that's simply the most common profile of people who enjoy intellectually-stimulating internet forums with strictly-enforced etiquette and no dogmatic viewpoints.

From: (Anonymous)

Sorry, me again. I don't know how I missed this before, but someone mapped the Myers Briggs onto Jungian archetypes, and guess what they put INTJ as..?

The Magician!

https://tr.pinterest.com/pin/594756694546011656/

Mr. Crow

From:

kimberlysteele

The test thing is calling me an "Architect" or an INTJ-A. Here is the breakdown:

Mind
This trait determines how we interact with our environment.
48% Extraverted
52% Introverted

Energy
This trait shows where we direct our mental energy.
72% Intuitive
28% Observant

Nature
This trait determines how we make decisions and cope with emotions.
53% Thinking
47% Feeling

Tactics
This trait reflects our approach to work, planning and decision-making.
54% Judging
46% Prospecting

Identity
This trait underpins all others, showing how confident we are in our abilities and decisions.
60% Assertive
40% Turbulent

I don't think this test reveals very much. I have an artistic/philosophical streak and I tend to be the typical assertive Leo but otherwise it's nearly 50/50. My birth chart is much more smoking gun and tell all.

I agree with you that the fae are probably abducting people in national parks. There are plenty of fairy stories where a person is carted off to fairyland, either never to return or to return long after all the people they knew have grown old and died. I wonder if the people who disappeared will be plopped back down in Yellowstone or Denali or whatever in the year 2122, asking themselves "What happened?"

That podcast sounds very cool! Thank you for the recommendation. I have not seen Pom Poko. It sounds very cute.

From:

methylethyl

Pom Poko: "Talk to your kids about Buddhist dancing cults. Before someone else does."

That's all I'm gonna say about that. More surreal than cute, TBH.