It took years for me to overcome the religious trauma of a literal, dogmatic interpretation of the Bible. Now, I feel like the Bible was unintentionally encoded via multilayer doctrines of spiritual attainment. It was written in esoteric allegory.
Personal, direct experience of spirituality is a difficult thing to describe. The English language is not equipped to handle the task, and American materialist society is averse to it, mislabeling it "imagination". We convey in terms relative to logic, while inner worlds happen upon us in terms of the imaginal. Translating it is a poetic task. The imaginal realm requires a degree of spiritual attainment that churches do not provide, so learning it is obscured. Those caught in the middle are left adrift, as their discernment senses there is something more to spirituality than the dogmatic approach to the Bible. Oftentimes, people cleave from the church and never return to the spirit due to trauma. We are left with vague, uneasy feelings about what is untrue. But it leaves us with the ever-increasing problem: How do we know what is true?
The Biblical translation that I have seen for discernment is “discrimination,” and it is labeled as a “gift of the Holy Spirit.” Discernment is a spiritual gift because it is an intuitive knowingness.
Gut-feeling inklings are whispers, and whispers drown out in a culture of constant mental activity. Sometimes I watch them try to break through in a person. It is fascinating to behold. But in my experience, those who have been through the emotional wringer and come out on the other side still flexible in all the painful spots achieve it.
Truth as a concept can be felt, but only if we can get through fear.
If a truthful concept floats up within us, we have a moment’s chance to grasp it or it is pushed back down into the repository of our issues.
What occurs in this moment is what weaves our timelines.
We choose with our attention; our energy.
Typically, it comes up as an idea that triggers fear and pain. If we are in aversion mode, we push the idea away with the pain. If we are tender, still fresh from the open wounds of self-examination and awareness, we have the capacity to push through the fear/pain body and into the deeper concept. This is where truth lies. This is what discernment is.
In ancient times, people relied more on fate or karma, as discernment was less necessary except for those already entrenched in the spiritual. If someone had vivid dreams and saw spirits, discernment became a necessity, and they were usually singled out due to it.
Those who showed a predilection for spirituality were directed into mystery schools and sacred priestess/priesthoods that helped foster a supported spiritual life. There were checks and balances in place to protect the ego, and when the ego was overcome due to enough self-awareness, only then was the initiate given a painful truth about the world.
Now, painful truths about the world bombard us daily on the evening news and can be found anywhere on the internet.
Humans are not only numbed out by it, but they have become resonant with it: the pain in the world exists and is maintained by the same walls they have built within themselves. And who can blame them? It is truly overwhelming.
Then you have conspiracy theories: a term created by those who wished to hide what was coming out via the same intuitive discernment vehicle. When Top Secret information leaked, as it does, into the consciousness of the people either by intuition or word of mouth, it had to be gaslit in order to protect the secrets. The cult of secrecy devolved into a culture of gaslighting. And of course it did: the secrets were held in place under the guise of protection, a form of fear.
We must take care navigating this new culture of conspiracy theories. Now, the “uninitiated,” or those incapable of pushing through the haze of fear into the realm of truth, are being given these alternative narratives, and are either accepting everything or denying everything. Black and white dogma that is taught by the church and by authoritarian society dictates an all or nothing mentality. Denying everything creates a house of cards; a tentative world paradoxical in its rigidity. But accepting everything is equally as dangerous because the faculty of discernment is being bypassed completely. It is easy to read a hypnotically-charged article on the internet. I see NLP tactics used right and left (pun intended).
The danger of conspiracy theories is that those newly awakened to the them can fall into a trap of overwhelm, where the alternative stream is so shocking that it feels all-consuming. Essentially, researching deep, hidden truth can be remote-viewing demons and expecting them not to lash out. Strongly psychic people often don’t realize how natural remote viewing is, as it pings along with the material read that they resonate with. This can be a beautiful ability. But remote viewing works both ways, and looking deeply into evil things is, in my experience, often noticed. The mystery schools would have never left us so ill-prepared! A person who subscribes to conspiracy theories is, essentially, calling out evil forces trying to hide in the world. Doing this should be loving - not behaving in the same manner they object to in their theories. A person who talks a lot about being more awake than others is missing the deep spiritual direction that used to be built-in to this deep calling. Exorcists are not listed in the phonebook for a reason.
When psychic attack occurs, it magnifies issues that already exist within us. Fears and addictions become magnified or brought back up to be dealt with in addition to the information overload. This is when you see the “conspiracy theorist” trope, like in the show Stranger Things: vodka and all other manner of coping mechanisms become necessary to deal with the emotional weight of feeling alone in your worldview. This spiritual isolation is when those who are overwhelmed by an alternative worldview can go a little crazy. They rant angrily, lashing out as all their unresolved issues are being projected onto the world when these deep truths were only ever supposed to bring them closer to center.
We live in a world where we have agreed to be initiated into ourselves.
We seek to reach the center of the circle, the Middle Path, Enlightenment, or Salvation, depending on the culture or religion. Salvation was only ever supposed to come from us -- it was an achievement due to personal work, not an outside being or accepting an outside truth ("belief") that would do the work for us.
Truth turns into mere belief if it is just told to us from the outside and not grasped, seen, felt on a spiritual level. Deep, hidden truths were meant to be arrows pointing the way deeper into ourselves, not end games in themselves. They were never meant to be distractions, or to be used by the ego to puff up a sense of entitlement or self-righteousness. They were never meant to suck up all of our precious time and life-energy.
Believing in things others don't and claiming to be "more" than someone else is an ego trap. It is the misuse of the discernment capacity. This misuse damages both the capacity and other people who may not be looking as deeply.
Other people out there who choose not to look as deeply or who choose to interpret differently is okay. In fact, this difference is necessary. It crystallizes our own truth and keeps us out of the ego trap of people-pleasing or self-righteousness.
In the mystery schools, it was our duty to protect those who could not yet see as deeply, and to gently steer them via example toward their own truth-seeking devices. Our “example” was the simplicity and happiness of our own lives, not the words out of our mouths. We lived and breathed truth. We transcended the trap of only focusing on the dark truths. We kept the balance by being focused on the light ones: that we are never alone, that we go beyond time, that we are innately powerful, that we have all the tools we need to discover our passion.
A barometer of how centered and balanced you are is to examine all areas of your life. Look at the happiness and peacefulness of your relationships, work life, hobbies. Is there a relative balance? Perfection isn’t what I mean. Since ancient time, going against the grain was frowned upon by those in power. Every measure was taken to make those uncomfortable who did so. At this juncture, it is imperative that we build the firm foundation necessary to handle deep discernment. With the spiritual life naturally comes a deeper grasp of truth both within and without, as the threshold of sight reaches higher.
We have to push through our fears in order to “see" more clearly and develop the spiritual ability of discernment. Psychic development is always blocked, at first, by fear. Spiritual development and shamanic training is always about facing the fears of the shadow in order to grow in strength and ability. In ancient days they would practice this via fighting or martial arts.
But then we have to balance this in all the other areas of our lives, and resist temptations to share or speak out before we can do so from a neutral place. This is what the mystery schools taught us. Reach neutrality with your truth, and find beauty again in your life as it is. Only then will you be able to “wake up” anyone else, and by then, you won't need to.
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