Post No. 125 - A sense of genetic entitlement

In my travels through various spiritual and psychic paths in this lifetime, I've come across some people who think they are - or would be if they were - inherently more psychically gifted because they are the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, or have some gypsy blood in their veins, or maybe because they have some Celtic or Nordic heritage. As an example of the latter, in the Dutch occultist Freya Aswynn's otherwise excellent book "Northern Mysteries & Magic" (pub. Llewellyn, 1998, St. Paul, Minnesota, ISBN 1-56718-047-7; I particularly enjoyed the connection of the order of the runes to the Northern creation myth, and also the explanation of the difference between invertible and reversible runes), a revised edition of her evocatively titled "The Leaves of Yggdrasil", the author writes (on page 98):

A parallel can be drawn between runic divination and a system of divination and insight found in the Far East. Anybody can read the I Ching (an ancient and very accurate Chinese divination system) in English translation and derive some value from meditating on the hexagrams, but only a Chinese person working with the I Ching in his or her native language will manage to penetrate much more deeply and correctly into its mysteries, through an understanding of the subtleties and poetic expression of the Chinese language - which is an expression of the person's own folk-soul.

The same applies to the runes. Language is an expression of the soul of a nation, and the runes are indeed a language, one useful for communicating at all levels, from the straightforward written messages to focal points of concentration and communication with the gods, who are the guardians of the evolution of the Northern group-soul. Because the runes operate as a language, they communicate information about questions asked or readings done and allow the rune reader to make contact with the deeper layers of the querent's unconscious.

OK, so here are my reactions and comments to that passage:

• Firstly, what about someone who has, perhaps, had three or four lifetimes working actively with the runes, who then reincarnates in a different situation (perhaps Africa)? Are they going to lose the three or four lifetimes' worth of skills? No - in fact, one of the benefits of past life regression (see my workshop notes) is helping rediscover and bring to consciousness past life skills (although, hopefully, with suitable adaptations for improved circumstances - see here).
• There is an issue of talent vs. hard work here. In competitive sports such as football or sailing, that is discussed, with, in general, a consensus towards the view that someone who works hard is better than someone with talent who coasts along (although, to be fair, someone with talent who also works is best of all: such people may well be bringing through skills from previous lifetimes of hard work - as I did with my competitive sailing, where I drew on many past lifetimes at sea). I recall several successful sailors (world champions and Olympic gold medallists among them) who commented to the effect that others thought they were "lucky", and the harder they worked, the "luckier" they got ...
• There is also an issue that I can only think of as describing as self esteem/worth, or maybe it is an attempt to escape from oneself. There have been many times when people have seen something "other" as exotic and desirable because it is "other" - for example, a few centuries ago "the noble savage" ("nature's gentleman") was considered desirable because it was different to the European "civilisation" of that era (gotta tend to agree with that one, actually ...). More recently, Druids and Celts have been seen as good to have in your history: again, there is an element of truth to that, but then, they were also head hunters ... As another example, look at the number of people (in Western cultures) who have stereotypical North American Indians as guides [2]. You don't need to look outside yourself: YOU have a spark of the Divine in you: it is your essence - it IS enough for all that you wish to, or could, be. YOU can achieve mastery of whatever skill or attribute you wish to - you just may need to be prepared to work at it, and, rather than look outside yourself for the exotic, be all that you can be [3].

Of course, maybe I'm just p*ssed off 'cos I can't find any such clearcut reason to feel superior :) but truth is I find such a sense of genetic entitlement narcissistic (see also here). ALL people are entitled to be psychic. In fact, I agree with Lobsang Rampa that the coming new world religion will be open to all, and a key feature will be (in my words) that ALL people will understand that we can ALL be "masters" ...

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

Notes:

1. Just in case anyone should be inclined to draw the wrong conclusion about Freya Aswynn, have a look at her post Troth to the Aesir, which is an argument for inclusivity that I will be including in a post on some other views of the "Northern Traditions" (including another post by Aswynn on some problematic aspects). One key sentence from that post is "Being Asatru is open to every one, the Gods will accept the Troth of a sincere person of whatever genetic or cultural origin". The quote I have given above is about, in my words, "natural talent", which I am arguing is due to hard work in previous lifetimes - and I'm going to basically suggest that, if you want to have a "natural talent" for something, start working - HARD! - at it in this lifetime, now, as an investment in your future. After all, even if you don't accept reincarnation, perhaps you consider that you have an eternal Soul? :)
2. I have some stereotypical guides, including a North American: he was, in that lifetime (NOT on the Plains, it was up around the Great Lakes), I was responsible for his death ... which makes for some interesting dynamics :) I also have some more or less "everyday" people as guides - which basically means the image they present is of fairly ordinary people (from time in American history). The image guides present can and does change: in my case, the "North American Indian" guide chose an image which would make me feel that I owed to that entity to listen (oh stop chuckling, White Waters Fall!), but one of my teachers relayed a story of one of his guides, who initially chose to present as a Nun, thinking it would have an association of spirituality, but, when the guide found it didn't (because of some unpleasant experiences as a child in a [Christian] religious school), the guide chose another image (which, interestingly, was male this time - for those who get hung up on gender!) On that topic, one of my patron deities is Yemaya, who claims me from the time when I was incarnated in Africa ... yet I still work with runes: things can blend!
3. When I took a year off in the 80s to study alternative healing, and wound up at ASPECTS studying and learning both healing and many other skills (such as past life regressions, crystals, mediumship, etc), I - and others - spent up to 15 hours da day, seven days a week, studying and APPLYING these skills. Nothing I have now has come easily, or without effort - as another example, I have been studying the runes for around fifteen years now, under the tutelage of my friend "Venerable Rune Master from the Bush", and I still don't feel like "an expert", let alone a "master" - and I'm nowhere near being ready to move off the Elder Futhark onto the other futharks ... (and, as I mentioned, I learned some interesting things from Freya Aswynn's book). Then again, we are always learning ... I even learned some new and interesting things in my day job just yesterday, after three decades working as an engineer: learning never stops, and Lobsang Rampa often quotes a saying "the more you know, the more you know there is to know" (more or less - can't guarantee that that is word perfect!).

This post's photo is yet to be posted

Tags: about me, attitudes, courage, I Ching, Lobsang Rampa, mediumship, perceptions, personal responsibility, personal characteristics, religion, workshop notes, heritage,arrogance, genetics, heritage, psychism, spirituality, Northern Tradition,

First published: Saturday 26th June, 2010

Last edited: Thursday 5th August, 2010 (added more tags)

 

 

 

Post No. 038 - Giving oneself a kick up the backside [anger, interpersonal interactions, judging others, life lessons, personal characteristics, self criticism/knowledge]

When I was a teenager, the first Oracular system I worked with was the I Ching (using coins; you can find out more about the I Ching at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_ching, which has a note that, as of 24th February, 2008, the neutrality of that article is disputed - so read with your brains turned on, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagua_%28concept%29).

I enjoyed the "flow", the combining of energies (all the hexagrams come from eight trigrams), the insight - and the fact that it would occasionally tell me off (I would, from time to time, get readings which said, bluntly, "you are using the I Ching too much!" :) ). I still have of the earliest books that I bought on the topic: "I Ching: A new Interpretation for Modern Times", by Sam Reifler (pub. Bantam, 1977 [1st pub. 1974], ISBN 0-553-11789-0).

It is the aspect of "being told off" that I wish to write about. It is very easy, when one is starting off with personal growth/metaphysics/spiritual matters, to get carried away by the joys of whatever one is studying. This can make one vulnerable to sceptics, as one is so enamoured with what one is studying that one lacks a balanced perspective. One example I can recall from my high school days in the 70s (does one's distant memory get better as one ages at the expense of short term memory?) is of some (male) students making fun of a female student for saying everyone should love each other by deliberately misunderstanding her intent, and debasing he appeal for compassion into a mere request for casual sex. When I confronted them (I was far more outspoken in those days), they admitted they knew what she meant, but the damage to the young girl had been done -and those boys probably never even had the decency to apologise to her (if they ever argued that they were just having "fun", they should be aware that "humour" can and is used as a weapon to control others, a very vicious weapon - which is something shown by some research into engineering students by the National Centre for Gender and Cultural Diversity [see http://www.sisr.net/ncgcd/]). There was a similar incident when I was at uni: I can't recall the details, but I CAN, even now, 30 years later, recall the pain my friend went through.

Consider the following two scenarios.

Scenario 1:

A "I've been getting right into the Tarot lately, and it's absolutely wonderful"

B "What are you into that shit for!"

A "It's not shit!"

B "No sane person believes it"

Scenario 2:

A "I've been enjoying working on the Tarot lately, and I'm getting a lot out of it."

B "What are you into that shit for!"

A "Do you disagree with the Tarot?"

B "Of course I do! No sane person believes in it"

A "That's quite a sweeping generalisation. What do you know about the Tarot?"

B "I haven't touched that rubbish - why would I know anything about it?"

A "Then how can you criticise what you don't know?"

B "There's no scientific evidence for any of that crap?"

A "Isn't there? How much scientific literature do you read, then?"

I'll stop the example there, as there are quite a few responses possible (at each step, actually). The main point is, by not taking the critical (bigoted?) response to heart, which requires a certain amount of objectivity, one can respond more effectively. That's really a topic for another post (mostly on assertiveness, which is a crucial spiritual skill, in my opinion), although my post at http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2007/10/communication.html might be of some use. To return to the point of this post, if I felt I was either losing my objectivity too much, or getting complacent, or getting self indulgent (including emotionally and/or psychically - Carlos Castenada's writings [as usual, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castenada if you want to know more about Castenada - but keep your brain switched on, as this article also had a note warning that it's neutrality is disputed] include some tough comments from his teachers about being self indulgent rather than self disciplined about his shamanic practice) I would ask the I Ching for some criticism - for a metaphoric kick up the backside.

It takes a certain amount of objectivity to be able to do that. I'm not going to say it takes self esteem to be able to ask it, as the struggles I was going through at that time were associated - in part - with a very low self esteem, but it helps to act positively in response to the criticism if you have a good self esteem.

Interestingly, I've seen this at work. As an engineer, I am expected to actively seek independent checks of my work before it goes to the client - which applies to other engineers as well. Unfortunately, dealing with that isn't taught at uni, and some less experienced engineers don't always cope with that - particularly if there are personality clashes with the engineer doing the checking. There can be clashes also arising from a misplaced loyalty to the lead engineer of a team as well - which is a problem that particularly mars too many engineers' responses to criticism from members of the public, some of which is ill-informed and some of which is well-informed.

As another digression (it's that sort of lazy, "floaty" Sunday, with some welcome rain outside and relaxing Celtic music in the background), one of the things I dislike at work is the expectation that one will "blow one's own trumpet". I find that arrogant - it is the sort of characteristic which would exclude people from friendship with me. At times in the past I have blamed this on too much paternalism (male influence) in the workplace or too much American influence in the workplace. Now, as I have found out more about men and Americans as I grow older, I tend to say this behaviour is undesirable, and leave it at that (although there does need to be more of what is commonly attributed to females in business practice: the current emphasis on competition is unhealthy, and harmful to society - at least things like "alliances" [see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_alliance] and "public-private partnerships" [see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-private_partnership] are restoring the balance).

Going back to the point of this post, we all tend to get complacent, or overwhelmed by life. From time to time, however, it can be good to use whatever oracular methods we are using to ask for some objective criticism. If you're worried about this, you could also ask for guidance about using or responding constructively to such criticism.

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

This post's photo is from a work trip to Mallacoota (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallacoota) in about 2006. I liked the whimsical idea of the pelican possibly being a bit self reflective as a tie-in to this post.

Tags: about me, anger, communication, interpersonal interactions, judging others, life lessons, personal characteristics, prophecy, self knowledge, I Ching

First published: Sunday 24th February, 2008
Last edited: Sunday 24th February, 2008