Anyone that knows me in person, knows I used to be a regular face at conventions: Glastonbury… London… Cardiff… even Cleveland, Ohio and probably in Feb 2022 or so, Detroit, Michigan. I was involved in multiple OTO bodies, I gave an IOT group a try and I did other things which I really can’t talk about. As time went on I realised I had my spiritual path mapped out in front of me. Often as I went to conventions I felt like people were worrying about promoting the new book or idea rather than focusing on the fundamentals of magickal practice. They like to present themselves as if they were someone who had already done all those prerequisites.
Often I got annoyed with myself because I felt like I was falling short of what I was supposed to be doing because everyone else seemed to have a daily practice of Resh, LBRP, Bornless Ritual, Deity devotional and I was lucky if I made it to work on time. It had a good effect on me because it pushed me to make sure I had a daily practice and years down the line I’m still not sure what the benefits of doing Resh, 4 times a day for years actually were meant to be, but I actually felt more aggressive and had high blood pressure when I was doing it, so that’s not necessarily good. I am glad to have checked many of those boxes and nowadays I tend to focus on quality ritual rather than box ticking.
The worst people I came across were the New Agers. They live their life in total denial of anything bad. Have a look at Doreen Virtue’s angel decks and you will see no angels for negative experiences. This means that when a person has a negative experience and perhaps want to talk about then they don’t even have the tools to discuss it. They will often shut a person down with comments like “you need to clear out that negative energy, but not around people like me I need to keep my energy totally clear”. Often sending a grieving person to go hug a tree or sob into a pillow rather than give them the space to open up. Now to be completely honest… having someone rehash all their painful memories over and over in my experience is actually not good either. There needs to be a middle ground where they can actually talk to someone, but also not go round like a broken record. When you shut someone down because you don’t want to listen to them cry you should then present it as if it is this deep spiritual thing. I’m keeping my energy extremely heightened … are you? FFS! What really bakes my noodles is when you present your lack of patience and total apathy as if it is related to some spiritual state. Never before have the words “don’t veil your vices in virtuous words” ever been more apt.
Relationships are hard enough, but groups which do deep eye-gazing connections often trigger hormones which we experience like loving connections, but without the hard work of maintaining the relationships. Too quickly are people ready to dump their girlfriend for someone they stared at for 10 minutes and don’t know anything about. Yeah it’s easier to have a relationship where you don’t actually interact much, but is it actually worth while? It is damaging to the people around us.
The New Age community encourages people to remove negative influences from their life. People who just drop all connection with person and move on like there was never any connection like a psychopath are praised as people who purged their lives of negativity. When the truth is they just cut and run. A person that does this is not a person I can invest in. Those left behind are often questioning what they did wrong, but really in comparison they were just telling someone to take the rubbish out once in a while. It is rarely something that warrants the cut and run action.
New Age groups often present the work they do like it is therapeutic and spiritually progressing a person. But the focus on technique is often more of a distraction than a focus on our lives. Especially when you deny whole aspects of the human experience. You can’t seem to stop trying to please your apathy boss, well why don’t you drum about it ecstatically. That will sort it.
Identity is a big issue too. I’ve been guilty of this before. We often grow up thinking there is something wrong with ourselves. We look at other people saying why are these people so much more well-adjusted than us. Well there must be something wrong an then we leap at the chance to have a special label that tells us why something we can sort out and control. Or the opposite, we don’t want to deal with why we feel shit about ourselves so we want a new label to cover up that shit feeling and not deal with it. A mantra for the rest of our lives “I am a warrior goddess”. The worst part is when people take these too far… “I am a warrior goddess why would I clean?” I should have man slaves for that.
Research is really beginning to show that the New Age community is surrounded with narcissism and superiority complexes. In fact I frequently bump up against this when someone who has no knowledge of my spiritual path or my personal life decides to start dictating a spiritual future for me to perform. Now narcissism is fine. I’m not judging people who are narcissistic, but when you are narcissistic and refuse to recognise that it doesn’t make you a deeply spiritual person. That’s what you need to recognise. Here is link for some research https://www.psychnewsdaily.com/study-links-mindfulness-meditation-to-narcissism-and-spiritual-superiority/
One of the worst things that often comes up with friends is the soul contract. This is the idea that there was an agreement as to what a person was going to experience before they were born into this life. Like a person agreed to experience a certain amount of pain in this life-time. Now I can sort of get behind an idea like this. It ends up making a person take responsibility for their lives and their pain. That can be empowering and helpful. In the most painful experiences in my life, I ended up asking myself, “what am I supposed to learn from this?” I walked away a better man as a result. But when someone else says “I’m experiencing such pain right now.” you can’t respond with “well that was your fault so I’m not going to listen to you whine or do anything to help you”. If you do, you’re a fucking arsehole. Did you ever question whether it was in your soul contract to help them? Such a philosophy does make us ask difficult questions of ourselves. ***trigger warning*** My friend reminds me of a conspiracy theory that AIDS could be ridded by sleeping with a virgin and the result was babies who had been raped and their faces showed they had checked out. To conclude that they soul contracted for that experience of life, is a cop out from dealing with it. It results in conclusions that we as humans must surely agree are totally unfair and devoid of human idea’s of decency. I should warn however that the universe has never given me any indication that is complied with human ideas of decency.
You would think that 2020, the year of isolation would help New Age people who claim to be trying to look inwards. They would benefit from the additional time in self-reflection. Maybe they wouldn’t want to come out because they would getting so much self-work done. But no. That’s not how this year has gone.
Instead New Agers have taken to expressing themselves on social media more aggressively than usual and focused on conspiracy theories.
Firstly the social media thing is much like this blog. It is an attempt to gain approval of others. I can’t avoid that… perhaps Mum and Dad were bad at only showing conditional love in my children and I still seek parental approval even if it is through other people these days. Also my focus is making material accessible and relatable. Something the occult community so often fails to do. The problem? Well it becomes like a keeping up with the Joneses for spirituality; a form of spiritual materialism. When other people read about it they are jealous and want to match up. A bit like me trying to match up with a daily practices and journaling. For more information I suggest Cutting through Spiritual Materialism by Chogyam Trungpa. A book I still have a lot of learning from. I have this on audible and like to listen to it at night. Make sure to set it to switch off after 30 mins or so, I often wake up in the middle of the night to find it is still going. Anyway this website is essentially not trying to guide other people, but to make genuine techniques accessible while debunking all the diluted piss that passes for teaching these days. I should make it clear that I don’t push people to my website. This is something they need to find because they are looking for it. Nothing should be spoon fed, but it should be accessible to the seeker.
Conspiracies are another issue. Covid is always part of some massive plan… it’s the Chinese, or the Satanists or 5G or illuminati. I lost track of the crazy shit I heard this year. You might believe in some of it, but I doubt I would find your beliefs out of place with some of the other things I have heard. Yeah it is difficult deal with the scary chaos of not-knowing, but it reflects reality. Assuming some 5G conspiracy is the truth tends to suggest that there is a plan and everything it is in control even if it’s not in the control of people who have good aims, the fact it is seemingly under control provides some comfort when compared to reality. In reality the politicians have no idea what they are doing and more concerned with their own aims than the benefit of the entire population. They have no clue and the virus keeps making unexpected turns … for example the current new strain crisis.
If New Agers would look within they might be aware of this and then they would stop it in order to deal with their issues but they’re not doing so.
It is more fun to think of yourselves as if you’re participating in a good v evil epic with clear righteous paths. You don’t need to question yourself and deal with the anxiety of not knowing, if you’re doing the right thing. This is really just narcissism and superiority. It’s easier to be narcissistic and superior if you you’re also self-righteous. Here is an extreme example of why that sort of thinking should be avoided! ***Trigger warning*** just prior to the Second world war Nazis told everyone that they were in a spiritual battle for their lives against demons. Those demons however were humans who happened to have Jewish heritage. This us v them, good v evil narrative allowed horrific crimes against humanity. This was all because people wanted a simple scape goat to blame for the difficulties in their lives. So this should illustrate how important it is that we as a society rise above our need for a simple truth and face complicated reality. I know it is difficult to accept yourself for being the flawed human being that you are, but it’s better than being a Nazi!
What becomes really shocking is that the people who participate in these spiritual practices often have a very high opinion of themselves. Research into Reiki practitioners shows that they are convinced that they can heal people who are distant from them. This is a miraculous feat. If miracles were this easy then surely we would see more of them happening. If you don’t really face up to who you really are, warts and all then you’re never going to accept your flaws and you’re only ever going to be punching with half your weight. If you’re doing that, how are you going to achieve the impossible? I’m not saying it will never happen, but it’s not exactly common place.
All these issues can be resolved by regularly really questioning if you did the right thing whether you are doing the right thing and not present your spirituality to other people. Also practice it solo. When you have a powerful self guided work, you’d be surprised how irritating it is to be around other people who think they know better than you. Also face reality. If you don’t do these things you’re just going to be avoiding conversations with people and saying it was because you’re being spiritually called to be elsewhere. Just say “I’m going to the bar” like everyone else. Acknowledge that the only thing that is calling you is a McDonalds breakfast. Start engaging with people. Try to cultivate REAL interest in them. If someone is showing signs they might cut and run on a person, or brags about how they just did it to a “negative influence”, then negative influence them out of your life. You don’t want to invest in someone that is just going to run and the sooner they learn that the soon they will force themselves to be able to have an adult relationship which involves more than just staring into each others’ eyes.