Communication, its lack, and miscommunication, plague people who won’t learn to be uncomfortable.
One of the hardest things for people learning the witches triangle is silence.
Then there is cast not pearls to swine.
And in many cases, all the words in the world will never help someone to understand something when they don’t have a common frame of reference.
Spiritual societies, initiatory traditions, and coming of age type of rituals, are designed to impart what is ineffable. But once experienced, the brotherhood now has a common frame of reference where the nuances of each other’s experiences can be understood.
People have a need to be accepted by others, and too often when they speak they parrot back their cultural programming, expecting to hear it from everyone around them. This indicates whether or not you are part of that group.
Some people have a need to be right. They can be all sorts of wrong, but the identity of self with their world view is so strong, their ego can’t handle any other information, facts or ways of looking at things.
This is an addiction.
An excellent article came out a while ago describing addiction as an addiction to a perception of self. Granted chemical addiction is horrible, mind altering, and a detriment to a person’s health. If a person gets free of the effects of the drug, the physical addiction, they still have a psychological addiction. Why is that? The metabolism that a person has had as an addict, they have learned how to function as a functional addict, accessing memories and behavioral faculties. Without the chemical crutch, the metabolism necessary to achieve the state of mind where all of one’s memories and faculties isn’t available. This is an addiction to one’s sense of self. Behavioral addiction of expecting to light up a cigarette or smoke on queue from situations, is a matter of breaking habits. But the metabolism and feelings, where one is at their peak efficiency of being themselves is off. In other words, people’s proficiencies are at a peak with their metabolism establish by drugs of choice.
This feeling and self assessment of how we function is a consciousness of and the feelings of knowing and being comfortable with who you are. This makes them feel comfortable. Not being yourself, you are not comfortable. This theory of addiction to self, with chemical addictions is called state dependent behavior. Our behaviors are based on the metabolic dependent state where we know and control our behaviors. Our behaviors confirm a comfort of what we are use to. This is ego, and the support of that ego is Maya.
So how does “State Dependent Behavior” affect the average person. People have 7 – 12 standard sets of emotions, give or take. Each emotional state is like an operating system where they access memories and their faculties/programming. Each emotion is its own operating system. People may share memories between these operating systems or metabolic states that represent in person a feeling. Memories may have been shared, and faculties and reasoning may be shared between these metabolisms, if a person is coherent. Incoherent people, may have inconsistent emotions, memories and faculties from one emotional state to another. Either way they are addicted to their sense and awareness of the flow of feelings and information, in a comfort of who they are regardless of what they are feeling. Consciousness is less about awareness it is about the feeling of connectedness of the various aspects of self, throughout any of their accepted emotions. People can be addicted to being miserable. They are comfortable with who they are and can function in that state. They are addicted to their state dependent behaviors. This is ego and its support is Maya. Chemical addicts, have a chemical that just skews this emotional baseline. It is still the same.
It is this idea of self, ego, and sense of comfort of knowing who one is by the feelings and reaction to information and the world around them, is an addiction. There are people who more adaptable to being uncomfortable and embracing the feelings of others through empathy, relearning to access memories and faculties from a different metabolism.
Case in point, I am a member of Toastmasters. One of our member’s project she chose was what to do about about bullying. I have been bullied a lot in school, and in many ways since. I being a white male, don’t look like I should be at the receiving end of bullying. If you work in America, you experienced varying degrees of it. I spoke about it, and have very well thought out views on what to do, what steps needed to change the culture, etc. and responding to people whose responses were to much like victim blaming, and rape culture mentality. I was emotional. From every member from a disenfranchised group, they liked what I had to say, and enjoyed the passion or emotions I brought to speaking. The white male conservative, told me flat out I needed to calm down, that I was being too emotional.
Social Privilege expects to be comfortable. In this case it was a white conservative male. A previous democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean in celebrating a victory made a guttural “Arrrr”. Subsequent primaries he was canned, panned and turned out for being outwardly emotional. Many studies in the United States, leaders were people that people could feel emotionally safe. In this past election of 45, it was someone played on reflecting the emotions, of a segment of society, where they could feel themselves reflected in this now president. Two edges of the same sword, taking advantage of people’s own addiction to the comfort of themselves.
I have always been the odd man out. I was too smart as a child, too big, too active, too intellectual. I was a child. I was not listened to. Whether I was being bullied, telling the truth, or just trying to explain the bullying I was receiving. I couldn’t be related to. I made people uncomfortable. It was easier to not believe me. I got older, my opinions and views didn’t matter because I was a white male, not a father, not old enough, not from this clique, this group or banter sports, cars or sexual exploits. I did not fit and no matter what I said, how I said it, I didn’t fit. I made people uncomfortable. Fortunately in IT being odd, and intelligent I had a better purchase on this playing field. However, I was not, testosterone poisoned emotional misfit, where most relearn their social queues in a stunted brain, in a more juvenile construct of society, where I had to learn to suck up to the chief troglodyte of any other group. A repeated rendition of the same level of institutional abuse in a new venue.
What I found out sadly disenfranchised groups of people, if deprived of social conditioning in their teen years, develop it in their disenfranchised niche, and repeat the same high school level of unsophisticated control and manipulation. Along with the learned behaviors of sociopaths and narcissists that they have been victimised from.
Victims who work toward being empowered, get to be victims again or trusted sycophants and enablers. The new abusers learn to be experts at their new social venue. And some of the repeat victims learn to fight back.
Those who fight abuse, end up reflecting some of the characteristics of abusers. There is a fine line where victims either learn to stay victims, become abusers themselves or “counter-dependents” Counter-dependence was described in another psychological journal. People fight not to be victims, and standing up for victims, have traits that look like the unsophisticated abusers of the past. So they are dismissed and victimized yet again at whole new level.
Silence and retreat is left for those who won’t fit in the template of society, abuser or victim. Silence and retreat, is left for those who learn to be uncomfortable and learn to hold on to truth regardless of the situation. They certainly were never accepted to be part of a cultural milieu to reinforce comfortable rationalizations, true or not, of ways of being, thinking and information fit for that groups survival. In other words, truth isn’t necessary. As long as the information used between the group that created the effecting controls of reality to keep them alive, truth is irrelevant. Another scientific study showing people use information fit for survival.
I am a pagan, in the late 70’s and 80’s, being a white male was an anathema for all those who were fighting the male patriarchy. Not that I was, I fit the symbols and handles. 30 years later, I got to a ecumenical convention for pagans, the experiences spiritually and studies I have had, there was a consensus amongst the elders of many traditions, I was elder in my own right. These were special interfaith pagan elders, most of them.
A convention I was at last month, again, reinforced that I need to be silent and retreat. I see warm loving people who are all about love, light and liberty. Their approach is to educate, love and share to bridge the gaps in groups and in humanity. I don’t have that this implicit or explicit viewpoint. It works to degrees where people want to grow and change. If any of what I wrote above has impressed on you, and made painfully aware to me, a vast majority of people are unwilling and incapable of changing. They will fight to retain their comfort, their privileged positions. The level of empathy only extends to those closer to them than anyone outside of their comfort level. Even disenfranchised people, people who are liberal empathic, loving and caring, they can’t see how I can be hard, speak hard and want people to survive the evils that exist and are yet to come.
One third of the United States voted for, and maintain an affiliation with people who hate. They choose philosophies that are devoid of empathy for any living being or people other than themselves and their own. They have betrayed the constitution, their faiths in Christianity, and lock step with the goose stepping fascist of this country and pre World War II Germany. I lived in an exit community in the suburbs. People fighting to get out of the ghettos, and those through their unfitness for society or bad luck were falling back into ghettos. My neighborhood had 2 drug gangs based on age, and prostitute house mismanaged by the neighborhood girls all who were under 18. I survived them and their parents who were sociopaths, addicts and narcissists. I can recognize these type of people in all sectors of society. I work very hard not to be a victim.
The one thing I know for sure, sociopaths and psychopaths, don’t have empathy. They never apologize and they never can change. The only time they apologize is when they see a threat of pain, discomfort or death. Then it is a convenient lie to get to the next game. They can only be managed by a constant threat of pain, or death. This is a cold hard fact that makes everyone uncomfortable. People can’t imagine that is true, and the abusers will go out of their way to get enablers to act against anyone who tells the truth and can see them for what they are.
Now people may be victimized by these individuals on rare occasions. Rape culture, sealioning, gas lighting, perpetuates a victimology. For others, it is so outside of their comfort level to recognize this evil in other people. It is easier to believe the liar and abuser than the victim.
I went to a pagan gathering. I tried to explain that the growing threat in our country of embolden sociopaths, that we need to be prepared. Love and light, and you are out and don’t fit. My language is too hard. And, “who hurt you”. Now at first, I thought that this is a legitimate thing to think of that a person has been so unlucky to be in the minds of being so hard and adamant. Okay, this is true. But I don’t deny, education, love, empathy and any means and methods to make bridges and establish communication between people. The Pagan communities are just starting to do this more than ever. The past 30 – 40 years, ego, and control of ones own empowerment, dealing all of the low level abusers, and cleaning them out of the community, there is this light, love and sense of maturity. Good, they have earned it.
Silence and retreat. “Who Hurt You”, not only made plain I was on the outside again, it presented me as a damaged person to the group and made what ever truth or value I had to offer null and void. Next verse same as the first. Silence and retreat.
My teacher called me a “white hat”. Everyone else was shopkeepers. We aren’t in the old west, and it isn’t evident to these good folk of the town, what it takes to protect them from the “black hats”. They may invite a white hat to dinner, but they will never be part of their social group or invited to play pinochle. A White Hat has to love these shopkeepers and what they stand for. But what shopkeepers see is someone harder, faster and meaner than the black hats, no matter how kind and caring they are in town.
The West African stories of the Oriesha and Loa from Ile’ Ifa or Voodou, don’t speak to this. All of the Oriesha and Loa fit the village except one or three. Ile’ Ifa or Voodou is a religion and its magic is supernatural dealing with these venerate ancestors and the supreme being Oludumare. The one who doesn’t fit is Ochossi. Ochossi is called the king of the witches. Witches are hated, they don’t venerate or work with the Loa or Oriesha. Their magic deals with power, the dead and power of the land. Usually they act selfishly because they are on the fringe of society. The African beliefs encouraged community, working with each other, in their beliefs, divination systems and stories. It took Abrahamic religions to destroy that.
All of the Oriesha and Loa have “roads” lessons to be learned or paths, that reflect in their adherents lives who have the influence or head of the Loa or Oriesha. The one Exception is Ochossi. His roads are hidden. He is respected by the old King Obatala or Damballah. But he is still not part of the village unless called upon to serve justice. He is part of the woods, and his other function is to find new places for new villages.
There comes a time when the old villages die or get murdered or the people destroy themselves. Ochossi helps them build that new village. Obatala is the new king for a short time and put to pasture.
He has experiences and insights that the village people will not and can not hear. They have no common frame of reference. The religion, and the Oriesha and Loa fit in the standard sets of emotions and experience expected out of a community and a culture. They make things comfortable. Ochossi isn’t allowed to feel comfortable. Thanks for having me as fifth wheel, I’ll go back to the woods, again. Silence and retreat.
There is one story that is hidden, that I learned. It is a side story for when the world was new, and the souls of the dead were wandering around, It was getting to be noisy and unhealthy for the living and the Oriesha and Loa. Yemaya the mother of the Loa and Oriesha was tasked of managing the souls. They are said to become fish. In other stories the fish went to the horizon and became stars, and returned to the earth to be reincarnated. The Sub-Saharan pre-Sumerian script that has elements going all the way across Asia the symbol for fish and star were very similar. It shows up in Egyptian cosmology and motifs. For this to happen, the Oriesha and Loa had to accept the touch of Iku or Death. Here is the hidden story, Ochossi chose to touch death or Iku himself. Ode was a hunter who had no name who loved Yemaya in some stories that bore the Oriesha. Ochossi was an ode, a hunter. His son, Er-Inle was a hunter and fisherman. Oshun didn’t keep her son, when Chango was around. Ode knew old magic, and old truth. He was one with the forest and the trees. Where did Iroko come from? Who did he learn what he taught Orunmila/Orunla? Ochossi had his magics. Er-Inle learned the ancient magics of Yemaya, and his tongue was cut out. He went to live in the swamp, a place for outcasts, with another Snake Oriesha/Loa Abata.
They can not teach people the truth, the magics, or their insights. They have carried it from lifetime to lifetime. Iku was an old old friend. Embracing Iku, they would find themselves as themselves in the next lifetime, under new circumstances. It is the hunter that helps build the new village, establishes its justice, and protects it from the bad influences. He is a leader for a very short while. He returns to the home that loves him and embraces him, the universe. He can travel back and forth from Obatala and Oludumare. Elegua knows of his travels, but hasn’t lived his experiences.
I can not speak the truth that people are not ready to learn to live with. We have to be there to build what is no more. Repair what no one thinks to fix. To work old and ancient magics that none are prepared to deal with. Self Sacrifice and embrace Iku, to make it work. The story of Aslan in Narnia, he knew of the deeper magic, that the ice queen didn’t. Self sacrifice brought him back to life.
This is why the roads are hidden. Not because they can’t be learned or experienced. It is because most people even spiritual ones are not prepared to do the sacrifices of the self to learn this path of ordeals and trials.
I freely chose this. Silence and retreat, is not my nature, but it is required, when you are not accepted in the village, even though you love the people and are willing to fight the evils that they can’t conceive of.
John here is this little book, eat it up, tarry till I come. Occasionally a rogue star will pulls stars to a new constellation. Heaven and Earth shall roll away, and a new Heaven and Earth shall unfold. Many mysteries. Each ineffable. Spoken and unheard are true nevertheless.
There will come a time where people will have to trust people who traversed hells and survived it versus the people who drag people into a hell and leave them there.
How to know yourself and preparation of managing of being uncomfortable.
How to develop skills to deal with being uncomfortable.
Side note: The apocalypse, when will it come? It will come as a thief in the night.
This biblical sidebar exemplifies the blindness and absolute complicitness of this age, the people of the United States, it’s Christians who pray and actively work toward the nihilism of the end of times. They have brought it upon themselves and are the very evil agents that have engendered it through their nascience.
Ancient numerology, Greek and Hebrew, do not reveal it. It is only revealed in modern numerology, that same number of the Sun 666. The beast is known as 666, is a thief in the night, a FOX. F = 6, O = 6 + 9 (remove the nines), and X = 6 + 9 + 9 (remove the nines) is 666. The whore of Babylon is known by the same number her name is Alec. ALEC; (A = 1) + (E = 5) = 6; (L = 3) + (C = 3) = 6. Modern numerology of a name takes the vowels and consonants separately. Together it adds up to a 3. Where is the last 6? ALEC is short for American Legislative Exchange Council which reduces to a 33 or a 6. Blind and complicit in its creation.
The Sun whose number is 666 was a metaphor for the Golden Emperor Constantine. The off gold 45 and love of gold, is but a servant.
Not speaking for the OTO and being a Thelemite, Babalon vs Babylon, and Baphomet are not of this biblical currents and metaphors. Like the yin yang symbol there is always a seed of the opposite embedded in a time and a place. Will it flower fully, only to those who keep the secret. What secret, ones that are published openly. Again the truth is there. Psalms 82 …. know ye not ye are gods…. and in the NT, you can become brothers and sisters of Christ. Not his children, but full siblings. There is no part of me that is not of the Gods.
I love this country, I served as a Marine, I do not love the government. The constitution was flawed and had the opportunity to be amended to fulfill its charter for Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Rome died. Various iterations of France’s revolutions died. Monarchies come and go. Greece who created the first Democratic experiment, died. Evolution comes with growing pains. And the old must give way to the new. The Brave and the Free will hold on to what this country was meant to be, while the rest, abandon Life, Love and Liberty, who are traitors and will succumb to their nihilism. May the Brave and the Free who hold sacred, Life, Love and Liberty survive to restore a people to a land to do what is right and good.
As a spiritual person, I don’t believe, I pursue to know. I do have one irrational belief. I believe in the inherent goodness of mankind. Sometimes I am justified in this belief, other times I am severely disappointed. This belief is not what one expects to exist, it is a belief as a prayer and internal work of Love to desire it to exist. In this hard exterior, is Love. That appears to be hidden and unseen except by those who share in the path and the work. The proof shall be in the work and its success.
Life, Love and Truth in harmony begets integrity. That is one half of the seed.
Archonstone, thoughts and musings. 