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I haven’t posted in awhile but I was just hit with a stroke of inspiration. I literally just finished reading the intro to the second edition of Psychology and Alchemy by C.G. Jung. This quote struck me as particularly meaningful in current times:

“It [Gnosticism] was founded on the perception of symbols thrown up by the unconscious individuation process which always sets in when the collective dominants of human life fall into decay. At such a time there is bound to be a considerable number of individuals who are possessed by archetypes of a numinous nature that force their way to the surface in order to form new dominants (Jung, C.G. 1953. Psychology and Alchemy. Oxfordshire, England: Routledge)”.

From this quote, I’m getting the take away that the loss of efficacy in religions leads to the triggering of the individuation process in those whose tempestuous unconsciouses the dying religion can not temper. In other words, religions aren’t working, so the ripe among us seek alternatives.

Christianity stopped working long ago. The problem is most people who reject Christianity turn to the religion of Progess to fill that void. To truly wake up, one must reject the myth of Progress and allow the unconscious to produce new urgings, callings, and images which then must be integrated if one is to individuate.

On my last post tamanous2020 (I don’t know how to tag users on here) hinted that the Lovers tarot card was about intuition. I did some bare minimum thinking on this - my official meditations are booked solid - and a week or so later I began to consciously recognize a process that has been unfolding for awhile. This is the process of intuitions trickling into consciousness from the Divine. I believe as soon as one forges even a sliver of connection to the divine they will start experiencing this on some level.

So the way this works for me is a thought will pop up in the background of consciousness suggesting I do something or another. It’s often as simple as sitting in the grass, going for a walk, or reading from an already read book to freshen up on some concept. Following up on these intuitions leads to what I think of as reality lubrication; every aspect of consciousness and reality becomes more pleasant and synchronized. I’m to the point now where if I get one of these minor intuitions I always follow up on it ASAP because I know it’s only going to benefit me. In the past I would get these and sit on them for weeks. Often some problem would arise that following up on the intuition would have avoided.

When the intuitions are “bigger” I use divination to verify them which seems to work well.

This strongly reminds me of the book Demian by Herman Hesse where the main character does his best to follow the promptings of his unconscious which eventually leads to his awakening.

Last year I made a move in living location based on such an urge and for awhile I rationalized it as being unrational - a common manuever of intellect for materialists and those with remnants of their programming - for the longest time. Eventually I came up with higher level rationalizations that led to my pulling the trigger on the move. While this was going on those around me played the role of the Dweller on the Threshold by insisting I was making the wrong decision. If I could have contextualized their behavior and my unconscious urge the way I could now the process would have been a lot easier.

Eventually on the spiritual path free will must be surrendered to God’s will which is a lot of what path 15 and 17 are about.

A few days after writing my post on regression tests (https://youngelephant.dreamwidth.org/1222.html) I had a realization. The tarot card of The Devil depicts a “regression test” as I described it. If we examine the placement of this card on the Tree of Life a lot more becomes clear. I’ll just write about my conclusions and leave out the details so I don’t spoil too much fun for anyone who reads this.
The Devil appears to tempt us away from our Higher Selves. Giving into these temptations puts us into “rationality” based consciousness of our lower selves; not the good kind, but the justify our conclusions no matter what no matter how debased kind. At least for me, any temptation of the lower self I give into is followed or preceded by a rationalization of why it’s okay to give into said temptation.
The Devil’s placement on the tree again gives us a clue of how to sublimate these temptations into our higher selves - reason based in truth. Now the key question here is how do we know the truth. Some of us may have some kind of idea of the actions we would take if aligned with our higher selves; this can be our truth in dealing with temptations. All we have to do is reason about the temptation based in the truth of our higher selves, and act based on this reason. If we do this enough, we pass the test of the Devil and move into a more evolved state of consciousness. The Devil will always be there to tempt us, but rejecting him becomes easier and easier with time.
I don’t if anyone actually reads this posts, but just having this forum helps a lot. My last post on this topic, which probably seemed super angsty, led to eventually passing the tests of The Devil.

One of Violet’s posts lately (https://violetcabra.dreamwidth.org/136381.html?thread=560573#cmt563645) gave rise to a question in my mind: What makes people unwilling to make the leap from conformity to non-conformity? I dedicated a walking meditation session to this today and I have some thoughts.

Jordan Peterson’s lobsters in a bucket metaphor popped in my mind first. Peterson often talks about how when lobsters in the bottom of a bucket will pull down the lobsters that make it to the top of the bucket and almost escape. Though much maligned by the mainstream left, I see a lot of truth in this metaphor.

As JMG has said, most people reside on the astral level of consciousness. Emotions rule this level of consciousness, and the stasis or equilibrium of emotions in a group of people at this level of consciousness reinforce each other. In other words, every person who conforms to some group makes the others feel good and stable. When some individual begins the process of differentiating themselves from the group, the other members of the group not participating in this process feel bad about themselves. They subconsciously react to the individuating soul to try to bring them down to the level of the group, eg. lobsters pulling each other down before they can escape from the bucket.

Why don’t the puller downs individuate themselves? They reside in the astral level of consciousness and don’t want to miss out on the reassuring, comforting incoming astral matter of their fellow conformers. In other words, fear keeps them in the bucket.

This association to fear led me to make a comparison with the Dweller on Threshold. For those of us who start off as completely undifferentiated herd dwellers, we quite literally reside in our lower selves. It’s only when we start making moves to differentiate/individuate ourselves from the herd do we start to identify with aspects of our higher self. At that point, our lower self takes life as the Dweller. Therefore, those of us who start off as herd dwellers (as I certainly did) have a sort of collective Dweller on the Threshold in the herd consciousness of society. Overcoming this collective Dweller seems like what the Jesus Christ mythos represents, at least to me.

Society has a lot of demons to offer to those on the spiritual path: drugs, pornography, casual sex, gluttony, consumerism, partying, and the emotional feel-goodiness of herd consciousness. I feel quite certain I’ve only touched on a few of these demons.

I think this makes a good first start in answering the topical question. If I had to write a TLDR I would simply say “fear”.

Software engineers often utilize a principle called regression tests. I think of this concept as verifying the previously existing code still works after a change of a certain magnitude. This ensures that the basic functional characteristics of code still work after making a change to it and reduces the risk in making said change. Engineers routinely find bugs or errors after testing and I can vouch for the usefulness of this practice.

For those on the spiritual path, life throws us karmic regression tests. If we make an improvement in some aspect of our lives, we should rest sound assured that the Cosmos will test us to see if the improvement is truly embedded in our characters. This happens in accordance with the spiral model of self actualization and, in my experience, the cosmos will test us time and time again until we have ingrained the change in consciousness into our characters.

For example, I used to be addicted to cannabis. I have had opportunity after opportunity to smoke cannabis again for the last couple of years and have no problem turning it down. This habit, or function of my soul, has ingrained itself in my consciousness.

After initially quitting cannabis, I turned to vaping nicotine. I eventually quit that too. I have a certain sensitivity of my aura, and the nicotine made it increasingly turbulent the more I did it. The Cosmos continues to give me opportunities to vape nicotine, and I can’t say I have had as much success passing this regression test and incorporating nicotine abstinence in my character.

I go for long periods of time without it, and then soon enough, someone around me will offer it up and I’ll take a couple hits. This occurs most reliably when I travel with my family. I won’t bore you all with the details, but I do this around twice a year in recent history. Siblings and family friends always have their vapes on them, and the stagnant portion of my astral body will at some point possess me to ask for a hit or two. After that I usually snowball the rest of the trip and do it regularly until we part ways. I don’t regress into buying the stuff myself though.
When regular life resumes I can get back to normal and stop the habit.

Each time this occurs I suffer more acutely while I partake. My perception of my higher self frowns at me, and my internal monologue will wrestle with itself of whether to ask for another hit at a later time or quit. It brings about a certain degree of suffering.

I know several public occultists talk about tobacco and nicotine use, but I still think this is a gross manifestation of my lower self, and I need to quit the stuff to evolve further. Nicotine increases the sensitivity to my own aura due to increased turbulence and decreases sensitivity to the energies of the outside world, which is something I want to cultivate.

One of these days I strive to “just say no” enough times to the point where I no longer feel the temptation. At the moment, I’ll just say the regression tests continue to get the better of me. Until I can pass the tests, this hungry ghost mentality will incorporate itself into my character and cause me to suffer. AE Powell does not speak of good things happening in the afterlife for those addicted to nicotine. I must beat this. My soul, my character, my destiny offer themselves up as the stakes.

Afterthoughts: I originally thought I would write here more often after my first post. All of the ecosophia commentariat who write here on dreamwidth inspire me greatly. It seems like the ideal social media. I did create a document where I write up posts but something got in my head where I became afraid to publish them. I wrote up several that I think demonstrated some decent thinking. I honestly have a paranoid relationship with “to be silent”. I don’t know how much I should say or shouldn’t say, and that virtue gives me a constant struggle.

I don’t think I have ever entered into an official student-teacher relationship in a 1 on 1 setting, at least in adulthood. The best thing about the internet is that it allows humans to learn from lots of different teachers in an informal setting. The act of a student learning from someone they admire is called mimesis.

I seem to stumble on informal internet teachers at the proper stage of my development for them. I stumbled on Culadasa and his work when I desperately needed to learn how to sit still, and in silence for long periods of time. I stumbled on Dhammarato (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjxg5GJFsRqnS-YLTzyrjLQ/videos), materialist that he is, when I needed to learn that I could choose how I felt whenever I felt like it. Wim Hof jumped into my life when I was ready to learn that we could consciously choose our reactions to stimuli, and do things far beyond what the establishment teaches is possible. I started avidly reading John Michael Greer when I was ready for the more serious occult teachings, and when a desire burned in me to embrace my intellectual side.

Even if a teacher isn’t permanent, a student can be successful if they form an understanding of what is being taught to them, and integrate it into their life. The teachers essentially program the mental bodies of their students. The student’s mental body will differ from the teacher’s because no person is exactly the same, and therefore everyone forms different understandings of reality.

Teacher’s resonate and enter a student’s life when the student has some degree of wanting to be like the teacher (mimesis). The student will never be exactly like said teacher; the best they can do is integrate understanding of the teachings into their own life.

As the old platitude says, “like attracts like”, and teachers will enter a student’s life when there’s a certain degree of readiness and resonance.

I think I discovered The Archdruid Report (if my memory is correct) back when I was a curious college burn out, and only read one post. I find it interesting that I discovered JMG back then, but didn’t start reading him seriously until 4-5 years later.

If the student teacher relationship is done right, the teacher initiates the student into their understanding of the taught subject, which as said earlier, is basically a consented programming of the mental body by the teacher to the student.

One way to look at the ecosophia blogosphere is that JMG is initiating the readers into his understanding of spirituality, politics, the humanities, and reality itself.

I suspect that I’ll be initiated into new understandings in addition to JMG’s in the future, but I also suspect I’ll be reading JMG until the unfortunate day where he can no longer write, or I can no longer read.

I'm noticing the 5 Tibetan Rites stimulate energy vortexes in the lower left and upper right part of my brain. These are slightly different locations than JMG gave, which was the front/middle, and back part of the brain.

The Rites have been a great boon in the 2 days I've done them. I'll keep observing.

I’m in the mood to post to dreamwidth tonight. I dabble in writing now and again, and after two glasses of wine - I’m in the mood. Don’t worry it will be short.

One thing I’ve been noticing lately is the interaction of my chakras and energy body with my surroundings. It became too obvious to ignore when I was in an environment with a lot of attractive women, and I could feel the various centers stimulated when they walked by. A few times, I could feel energy (probably astral energy) tendrils leaving my chakras and meeting up with the women.

Then I started to notice it when a family member directed negative energy at me. I sensed their tendrils hitting my solar plexus, and contracting that center.

When I got home, I decided to talk to my solar plexus. I told it “I respect you” and “May you be blessed” (BTW, when I saw "talked", I mean I thought at it) These phrases resulted in complete loosening of the tension, and unification of the energy there, which expanded outwards into my surrounding energy body.

I then experimented with visualizing a red sphere of light in my throat, and being conscious from it (thanks d_mekel for the Mark Stavish video recommendation). This resulted similarly to the languaged thought.

The first time I experimented with blessing my solar plexus a year or so ago, inspired by Joe Dispenza, the whole center bursted in an explosion of pleasant energy.

So at least in my experience - TSW.