Tag Archives: meditation

Occultism and Esoterism, Spirituality and Psychology, Uncategorized

“I Do X But I Am Still Miserable”

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I keep coming across people on the Internet who dabble either in magic or spirituality (generally alternative spirituality) who lament that after a while they still feel miserable. Although my heart breaks for them, I think there is great confusion surrounding the place of spirituality and, let’s say, alternative practices.

One of the very few perks of rigid orthodoxy is that it exists beyond individual’s will, so that each practitioner needs to adapt to it rather than adapting it to themselves.

Once the idea of orthodoxy crumbled, at least in the West, spiritual and other practices became a supermaket of parts that each person could adapt to their own whim, picking and choosing what currently fit their mental narrative.

Although with some discernment this power of personal choice  can yield great results, what in practice often ends up happening is that spirituality is reduced to a crutch for personal prejudices about oneself, others and the world.

In the end, each individual flavor of postmodern spirituality is more an inkblot test of what the person would be better off discussing with a therapist than a workable spiritual path.

What’s more, the expectation of finding a definitive cure for life is always dangerous: firstly, because life is not an illness; secondly, because spirituality is not a good substitute for therapy or other forms of support; and thirdly, and most importantly, because anything that promises to turn our life into happy trip is always to be looked at with skepticism. No serious spiritual or magical doctrine can promise that.

The life of someone who always smiles and is always happy is not balanced. If anything, it’s creepy. There is a time for happiness and there is a time for sorrow. A balanced person is someone who responds to life in an adequate manner depending on the concrete situation. Look at the traditional descriptions of wisdom in Daoism or ancient Western philosophy, and you’ll always note that the wise person is the one who always reacts in the adequate manner, with as little influence from their personal demons as possible.

It is unfortunate that these practices are often the go-to for people who would benefit from other types of help. Sometimes they simply cannot afford official help, and this is another conversation, so they simply look for something they can afford and promises them miracles.

MQS

Occultism and Esoterism, Philosophy, Spirituality and Psychology

On The Esoteric Meaning of Meditation (and Where Magic Power Comes From)

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Often people associate meditation with the quest for aha-moments. There is more than one kind of meditation. While realizations can come from any kind, the one that tends to produce them is discursive meditation, where attention is fixed on a symbol, image, phrase, prayer or problem.

Meditation, understood as simply sitting somewhere, catching one’s attention in the act of wandering off and bringing it back, does not necessarily entail the reaching of any conclusion on any particular subject, although it can foster clarity, which is conducive of finding solutions.

Many occult schools and spiritual organizations recommend meditation, and even though I am no longer part of any of them at the current stage, I think it is for good reason. The stilling of the “monkey mind” before ritual work is only the most obvious of the benefits of meditating.

Deeper than that is the fact that meditation is not a state we get into. It is a state we get out of and must return to consciously. Our attention’s natural place is here, next to us. Our attention is like a blade: it belongs sheathed on our belt, ready for action when needed. Instead, we spend our time swinging it about maniacally, blunting it by hitting it against anything that crosses our path.

There is tremendous power in keeping our attention by ourselves, in the present moment. Here and now, being and changing coincide one with the other, and together they coincide the the state of initial void from which the power needed for magic comes.

All too often I hear phrases like “you are the magic” or “the power comes from you.” Although these are supposed to be empowering statements and they mean well, they are founded on an egocentric misunderstanding typical of our age, where old ideas that would otherwise be dismissed as superstitions, like magic, seek to survive by psychologizing themselves.1

But Magic is the art of creating vessels for spiritual forces to dwell in. We, too, are vessels. Magic comes through us, not from us. In meditation, with our attention sheathed by our side, we slowly make room from something other than our ego to incarnate through us.

MQS

  1. This is not meant to discredit psychological work, which can and often is necessary in our line of work. But psychology is not spirituality or occultism. ↩︎
Card Reading, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Reading Example, Tarot

A Tarot Reading is like a Movie (Example)

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The astounding thing about all oracular forms is that they reflect the real world in the same way a recording of a scene does. This reading is from five or six months back, and it was partially confirmed a couple of weeks later, but the final feedback came only very recently.

I friend of ours was dating a new man. She’d been out of the dating scene for a while due to focusing on other things in her life. But she noticed that the guy was acting weird, as if he was looking for any excuse to cause a fight that would end the (still budding) relationship. We asked the cards and this is what happened:

Relationship reading with the tarot (Tarocchi di Layla, by Elisa Scerrato)

The cards of the cut are the Fool and Justice. Justice usually represents a solid union, not one that has just started and where the partners don’t even live together. The instability caused by the fool was already an alarm bell.

Then we have a full scene playing out: the Tower breaks up the relationship between her (Empress) and him (Emperor), but there is an obscure (Moon) influence next to him. Another woman (Popess / High Priestess). This is not even a new girl he met. The Popess has the World card next to her, showing a solid family, and the Hanged Men indicates being bound to someone, a serious commitment. I told our friends that I didn’t think the relationship had much of a future, and that she should be careful that there wasn’t any other woman around the dude.

A couple of weeks later he left her abruptly via text message. A couple of days ago, we met with our friend and she confirmed the guy was married all along, although he has an on again, off again relationship with his wife and, due to his cultural background, he doesn’t see it as strange to date multiple women, even without them knowing.

Notice how the readings flows from one card to the next in true cinematic fanshion. This ability of divination to act as a mirror is partly why I don’t believe in asking the cards for advice. This would be like asking a map for advice on where to go. The map gives you a larger picture, but the advice doesn’t come from the map: it comes from checking your plans against the available options.

MQS