Post No. 2,690 - Some interesting reading/viewing [Note: Content Warning - links to distressing reports on some topics. Reader discretion is advised]

Note: CONTENT WARNING - some of this content is about upsetting, disturbing or triggering events & attitudes. Seek competent help - including professional - if you need it. READER CAUTION IS RECOMMENDED! For anyone distressed by anything in this post, or for any other reason considering seeking support, resources are available in Australia here, here, and here. In other nations, you will have to do an Internet search using terms such as “mental health support - <your nation>” (which, for instance, may lead to this, this, and this, in the USA, or this, this, and this, in France [biased towards English-language - my apologies]), or perhaps try https://www.befrienders.org/. 

Here are some llinks that might of interest or value:

• “How do you bring your spiritual self to your job and make sure you are doing more good than harm?”   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/07/how-do-you-bring-your-spiritual-self-to-your-job-and-make-sure-you-are-doing-more-good-than-harm   “Mindful work is one of the four paths to enlightenment in Hinduism; karma yoga and Zen Buddhists consider every action a means of mujodo no taigen – actualising the Way. In Islam, finding moral and ethical ways of making a living is seen as part of worship”   Very interesting   

• “Why Your Outrage About Cultural Appropriation Is a Sad Waste of Time”   https://medium.com/the-point-of-view/why-your-outrage-about-cultural-appropriation-is-a-sad-waste-of-time-eb275f6441c3   “You’re being distracted from real issues. If you want change, focus your righteous efforts on global exploitation   ...   I grew up in a time when people wore insignias of other cultures to show their appreciation or (emotional) closeness to that culture.   My father is Nigerian. Much to his delight, my mum, who is Austrian, wore traditional Nigerian clothes on important occasions”   Excellent commentary on the difference between appreciation/closeness vs. appropriation   

• “For Those Who’ve Had Enough Tough Love | John Beckett”   https://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/2024/01/for-those-whove-had-enough-tough-love.html  

• ““Pagan” Has A Meaning | John Beckett”   https://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/2024/01/pagan-has-a-meaning.html   This is on the misappropriation of the term Pagan by bigots who are angry at others to use as a cheap insult   

• “Newly discovered cosmic megastructure challenges theories of the universe | Space | The Guardian”   https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/jan/11/newly-discovered-cosmic-megastructure-challenges-theories-of-the-universe  
  

• this week’s “afterlife report” by the  Zammits (see here for zoom meeting opportunities):  https://www.victorzammit.com/January12th2024/  
  

• my recent posts on my political blog:  
• From the news on   society,   the climate crisis, environmental issues, and nuclear threats/issues,   human rights and humanitarian aid,   the war in West Asia,   politics in the USA,   and   politics & democracy, and international affairs;  
  
  
• “The NEED to keep ("unconscious") bigots OUT of governance”   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-need-to-keep-unconscious-bigots-out.html  
  
  
• “Paid employment”   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2024/01/paid-employment.html  
  
  
• “Low quality elected representatives in the USA [Content Warning - links to immature and abusive behaviour]”   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2024/01/low-quality-elected-representatives-in.html  
  

• from Medium and similar:
  

• “Everyone Wants to Quit, but They Can't”   https://www.okdoomer.io/what-happens-when-you/   Starting with [CW - animal] research into nociception, calls for decency (e.g., living wages, affordable homes, etc)   “The western world has gotten it backward for hundreds of years, treating our minds as things that exists apart from our bodies and environments. They don't. Our brains are things that emit chemicals in response to our realities. Our thoughts and feelings are the result of things in the real world that happen. You can't trick yourself into happiness”  
  
  
• “Stop Telling Kids What To Do With Their Lives”   https://medium.com/the-point-of-view/stop-telling-kids-what-to-do-with-their-lives-fc2fcd041a3a   “Our actions take away their agency in life”   Well said 

• from YouTube:

• “How to debunk deceptive emotions | Kristen Lindquist”   https://youtu.be/4mPZC8QQXCo?si=2oSkhSFsOggjljED   Covers differing cultural contexts etc  
  
  
• “Are you here to please others? Well, I’m not”   https://youtu.be/_rJPilWR4bo?si=J7OZ8O9MQsPved-R  
  
  
• ““Witchcraft Without Activism is Cosplay””   https://youtu.be/JkjQio7kB7Y?si=MfHe01FlczSzaGdK   I agree with this sentiment - but note that I have not looked at the full interview 
  
  
• on neurodivergence: 
• not from YouTube: 
  - “I Know Why There Are More Women Autistic Self-Advocates Than Men”   https://medium.com/blue-notes-to-myself/i-know-why-there-are-more-women-autistic-self-advocates-than-men-8e7544f89367   “Toxic masculinity has infected this space and keeps away male advocates.   ...   I start with this baseline premise because it’s long been true of depression, where men are reluctant to talk about it”  
  - “Me and Billie  Eilish Have Something in Common”   https://medium.com/counterarts/me-and-billie-eilish-have-something-in-common-c256c9955c2f   This is an informative reflection (including some surprising stats) on Tourette's Syndrome (which one of my nephews has):   “There are some advantages for people with the syndrome: it can contribute to greater creativity, as well as raising self-awareness and empathy.   ...   While Tourette’s can be tiring, painful, and embarrassing, it hasn’t stopped Ms. Eilish from writing hits, touring, and talking openly about her condition.   ... It’s no longer a source of shame”  
  - “I Am Autistic — I Do Not “Have” Autism”   https://medium.com/@markpalmer_81150/i-am-autistic-i-do-not-have-autism-fd536c98cfaf   
  
  
• from  Autistic AF-ter 40:
  - “Did you know this about PDA? | Pathological Demand Avoidance”   https://youtu.be/RytCqrg6IEE?si=YxTGbcCDO7-hTiRo   This is excellent - especially the discussion around saying no for moral reasons. I also quite like the proposed alternative association for the initialisation PDA: Persistent Demand for Autonomy   (By the way, I recently found out that an acronym is pronounced like a word - e.g., NATO, where as the letters in an initialisation are pronounced one at a time - like CSIRO. See, for instance, https://www.grammarbook.com/blog/abbreviations/abbreviations-acronyms-and-initialisms-revisited/)   I am finding this channel quite good and am following it:   Autistic AF-ter 40   https://www.youtube.com/@Autistic_After_40  
  
  
• from other channels: 
  - “Why you should NOT plan out all your time”   https://youtu.be/QNpqFsU4QOg?si=FOfmukPUb17kA1NC   I actually consider this self evident  
  

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below, and there’s also Instagram.

Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk.

 

Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/   

 

 

 

Post No. 613 - Levels of Consciousness

I'm going to begin this post by noting that my dream work, that is, my work when I am active in that form of consciousness that we, here in the "conscious",  label "dreams", is going well. I wasn't quite lucid, but I was actively taking control of what was happening, and trying to make it better. This is discussed in my post on banning the dream interpretation industry, and it is worth quoting the key paragraphs from that post here:

The ubiquitous view that dreams are not that actively ROBS us of so much of our birthright -  not just the chance to sensibly use precognition (which I have written about elsewhere  see here, here), but also the chance to develop lucid dreaming (see here and here: it basically means becoming aware of the fact that you are dreaming while you are dreaming, and thus being able to direct your "dream"), and thus exercise and develop a key part of our psychic potential, the part that will be most directly used when we pass over. And how stupid it is to pass that opportunity over.
Naropa talks of what can be done here in one of his yoga's (see here [2] and here), as does Joan Grant in her books (particularly "Winged Pharaoh"), but also Katherine  Kerr's book "The Black Raven", which I am currently reading, hints at the work required to master working with your dreams.

So, last night was a useful reminder of my plans to do this post :)

Before I get into the post, I would like point out that quite a few people have talked of humans being largely asleep. I'll come back to that later.

Now, let's set the scene a little.

I found a diagram of levels of consciousness from a Wikipedia article, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Structural-Iceberg.svg, and I am copying it here as the copyright owner says specifically that it has been released into the public domain, for which I thank the copyright owner. It is also available in some other languages at the link I have given:

This diagram is apparently based on Freud's work, which makes it inherently flawed in my view, but I've come across similar views in other sources (textbooks and popular books that I've read, etc). It basically shows the individual to be a fairly contained unit, with the conscious the small part at "the top", and thus "best".

OK, so now let's turn to how I consider consciousness can best be portrayed.

It's a fairly conventional diagram, and thus quite flawed. In my view, the Higher Self should actually be shown as our innermost being, with our consciousness wrapped around that like the skin of an orange (or the crust of a planet :) ), but then I run into problems with how to depict the subconscious part of the unconscious without showing it as a filter between us and our Higher Self, which it is not, or us and reality, which it is partly. I need more dimensions on my pieces of paper.

Oh - I apologise in these diagrams for two things in particular:

1. the distortion. I use my digital camera and the best place I conveniently can find to get digital images of my hand sketches (working with software slows me, and I find it incredibly clumsy and lacking in subtlety - which some others clearly do not - or maybe they just have more time than I do?), but limitations - including my back problems - mean I can't quite get over the sketches properly. I will buy a scanner one day, but there are many, many higher priorities for my family that come first; and 
2. I should have labelled that part of the unconscious which is not the Higher Self the "subconscious".

Now, let's look at the first diagram.

In this diagram, I show the labels of "superego", "ego", and "id" as the filters (drawn as cross sections of lenses) by which we interpret some of our interactions with the subconscious (there are other filters, and other ways of viewing such filters), and religion/spirituality/metaphysics/etc as those filters by which we filter some of our interactions with the Higher Self.

Fortunately for us, both our Higher Self and our subconscious have ways of getting around such filters :)

I have also shown the Higher Self where it should: as out Highest, "best" part.

Now, that diagram's not too bad, but there is a VERY important part of this consideration which it hasn't shown: soul parts, or parallels. I've touched on this in other posts (for instance, here, when I  was describing one of the reasons change is so difficult), and it basically boils down to the fact that our Higher Self operates not just us, but other entities who are also part of our "Soul", as some people term the Higher Self. Now, these other aspects of ourself are sometimes the reason for people using the (so simplistic that it is flawed and to be avoided, in my view) concept "Soul Mate", but more importantly, these are other people who are, effectively, closer to us than any family or friends: what they go through, and try to do or not do, has the potential to impact on us.

As an example, art of my drive to learn to play music is attributable to a parallel of mine who was a professional musician in Austria. He died around twenty years ago, and my musical drive has declined since then. When he was alive, the struggles he and I had with depression and ways to overcome that would sometimes weaken, sometimes reinforce us - which is the point I was making with the post I linked to in a preceding paragraph.

If I go back to around the 1100s/1200s, I had an incarnation in England at the same time that another part of me, another parallel or Soul Part, was also incarnated, but as a warrior fighting for Chinggis Khan. That gives me a sense of connection to Chinggis Khan that fascinates me, but that I can't quite explain. I suspect that one of my parallels (I'll use that term, as I consider "Soul Part" too loaded with gushy guff :) ) had an incarnation on the Western Front of World War Part One. I didn't: I was on a British submarine which went down, bvut didn't come back up - leaving my current partner, who then my girlfriend, as a grieving young woman.

Oh, incidentally, parallels are not all the same gender. I've had lives as a mother in the "Old West" in the USA, and am aware that my parallels were incarnated as males elsewhere.

Parallels are also not necessarily incarnated on the same planet, or in the same dimension ...

So let's have a look at the diagram that I prepared to illustrate that.

Don't feel resentful about your parallels. There can be a tendency to think "oh gosh darn it  I could be so evolved if it wasn't for those other parts of me slowing me down or holding me back". And yet, quite frequently, it is those other parts of us that can give us resilience, sudden burst of joy for no reason that we can discern (it may be that something good has happened to one of our parallels), and a sense of connection when we would otherwise be isolated.

Also, when we're up or down, we may be contributing the same to them, so don't be too hasty to blame others for what you yourself may be doing.

How strong this interaction is depends on how psychic we are at the subconscious level. Some people's blocks can go deep into their subconscious, and leave them isolated from this interaction, which is a great shame, and a great hindrance.

Our subconscious psychism also gives us a way to tap into that portion of subconsciousness which is shared with the rest of humanity, leading to things like empathy and (intuitive) insight, and some of Jung's concepts.

Now, on being largely asleep. I touched on this in one of my early posts, when I wrote about Ouspensky, who taught that humanity was mostly asleep, and believed that exercises such as focusing on senses more intently (e.g., what sounds can you hear as you read this? What is furthest away? Now keep listening to the sounds that are closer, until you get in to your body? Can you hear your breathing? The blood rushing through your veins? Can you hear your heart beat? [I can’t, but when I do this exercise I have some sort of awareness of it.] Next, what are you feeling [as in, sense of touch, not emotions]? Where do you feel your clothes, and which layers? Where do you feel your chair [if you are on one]? What do your fingertips feel? Can you feel you hair? OK, now: do both exercises at the same time. In it’s full extent, you gradually add in all the five physical senses [including sight, but looking more intently – e.g., how many colours can you see?]) would help to increase our awareness * . I certainly found those exercises of benefit to me, but I've also found other exercises, such as meditation, of benefit as well - perhaps more so, in many cases.

Another matter that has been of benefit to me is becoming aware of issues such as those that I have covered in this post.

I'll leave this post at that, and wish you, Dear Reader, "Good Wakefulness, even when you are asleep" :)


 * I have also recently come across a William  James quotation (from here) which is relevant:

•  "Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake."

I like some of his other quotations as well:

• "A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."
• "Common sense and a sense of humour are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing." (I've also come across that mis-attributed to Clive James)
• "Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice."
• "We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause."

[1] BPLF = Balanced Positive (spiritual) Light Forces. See here and here for more on this.

[2] Please see here and my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy").

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr, Wéofodthegn 

(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix Lux … aka Morinehtar … Would-be drýicgan or maga ... )

My "blogiography" (list of all posts and guide as to how to best use this site) is here, and my glossary/index is here.

I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here and here), and it grew ... See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "Pagans for Peace" project (and join me at 9 PM on Sunday, wherever you are, to meditate for peace), and here for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend learning how to flame, ground and shield, do alternate nostril breathing, work with colour, and see also here and be flexible. 

I am a Walker upon the Path of Balanced Positivity, seeking Spiritual Maturity.

• Gnwmythr's Stropping Strap: Occam's Razor only works if  the simplest solution is actually recognised as being the simplest, rather than the one that best fits one's bigotries being labelled 'simplest'.
• Our entire life experience, with all the many wondrous and varied people, places and events in it, is too small a sample for statistical reliability about Life.
• May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
• Being accustomed to interacting via certain rules makes those rules neither right nor universal.
• Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master.
• The means shape the end.
• As words can kill, the right to freedom of speech comes with a DUTY to be as well-informed, objective and balanced as you can be.
• My favourite action movie of all time is "Gandhi", although I've recently come across "Invictus" and might put that one in to that category. However, I loathe the stereotypical action movie - and, for similar reasons, I loathe many dramas, which are often emotionally violent, more so in some cases than many war films.
• All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ...

Human dignity is the inherently cumulative holistic combination of human rights, wellbeing and potential, and all actions or interaction which promote, realise or facilitate same. The converse also applies: whatever degrades, diminishes or robs humans of dignity, is inherently undignified.

Gnwmythr

The “purpose” of spiritual evolution is not the attainment of “spiritual perfection” - not in the sense of not having to evolve further, at any rate, since there is no such thing. We need to evolve in order to grow - but we can take rest breaks (hopefully well earned :) ) along the way. No, the “purpose” of evolution is, rather, to perfect our ability to learn, and thus grow.

Gnwmythr

Jesus loves you. Odin wants you to grow up.

(Facebook meme, according to John  Beckett)

We make our decisions. And then our decisions turn around and make us.

F.W. Boreham

Females, get over 'cute'. Get competent. Get trained. Get capable. Get over 'cute'. And those of you who are called Patty and Debby and Suzy, get over that. Because we use those names to infantalise females – we keep females in their 'little girl' state by the names we use for them. Get over it. If you want to be taken seriously, get serious.

Jane Elliott

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing.

(based on writing by) Edmund Burke

We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children

Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.

John F. Kennedy

Tags: alertness, awareness, consciousness, Higher Self, Ouspensky, parallels, psychism, Soul, soul parts, subconscious, unconscious, wakefulness, William James,

First published: Manadagr, 10^th November, 2014

Last edited (excluding fixing typo's and other minor matters): Monday, 10^th November, 2014

Post No. 440 - The Magical Battle of Melbourne, Australia and Humanity

By the way, for those who would like to contribute to this project by lighting on-line candles, I have created shrines over at the nshrine site: 

• http://nshrine.com/shrine/Group_Mind_of_Humanity; 
• http://nshrine.com/shrine/Group_Mind_of_Australia; 
• http://nshrine.com/shrine/Group_Mind_of_Melbourne.

Some time ago, I reviewed  Dion Fortune's book "The Magical Battle of Britain". I'm now rereading that, and it is prompting some thought, which has crystallised a little after a dream last night.

First, let me "define" a few terms/concepts:

• much as we are more than just a physical, we are also more than consciousness: we also have our unconscious (or subconscious, if you prefer: I understand shrinks also talk about preconscious), which I consider is likely to be those parts of our self that are our parallels or soul parts, our Higher Self, and so on and so forth [3];
• there is a concept that we are all one: this is actually fairly complex, as we are also - at this level - also all truly individual and unique, but we share a string of connections to Higher Selves and ultimately to the Goddess: one of the ways that connectedness is realised on our level of reality is through what Jung refers to as "the collective unconscious"; another is through the mind and soul of various groups we are members of (see here [2] );
• the group soul, which could arguably be considered to be akin to the unconscious of a group, and is more difficult to change;
• group mind, which is more changeable, and equates more to the social mood of a group; 
• we can have an effect through non-physical means - i.e., through psychic means, which can be either beneficial or harmful (and I chose to interpret those terms as the BPF [1] do, in a spiritually mature manner).

What Dion Fortune describes is using psychic means to bring spiritual forces down from higher frequency levels of reality to the astral and etheric levels (or planes) of reality (or existence). The energy being channelled was aimed at giving those in Britain (not just the British) and her allies the strength of character, morale and spiritual backing necessary to resist and then defeat the evils of Nazi Germany.

Where I got to last night, Dion Fortune was discussing the effects of loss of morale in those nations invaded by Germany, and describes how it was determined that this was due to harmful psychic influences. It all brought to mind the evils of John Howard [2] playing up the fears of Australians, particularly around asylum seekers/refuges, in the 90s. that evil is something I am still working against, physically (letters to politicians, mostly) and non-physically - using techniques a little similar, in principle to What Dion Fortune and her group were doing (and see also here, and here).

Then we come to last night's dream, which was of working on the foundations of a massive building. As an engineer, I know that the foundations of a building can take as much effort as what is above the ground, and that's the sense I had. It explains (again, I'll admit) that I'm acting partly (our life's purpose is a manifold thing) to help do the behind-the-scenes changes that will lead to a better world down the track. (It also explains that I'm also helping to bring ideas from the astral into the physical, which can take a certain amount of effort to overcome the resistance of those who don't want change - and the masters of those people, in some cases [4]. I've  had half a dozen potentially patentable ideas, and have had to watch as others did patent them in a couple of cases. My frustration at that led me to "give up" and create a blog where I could post my ideas, but I don't have the time to keep up with what keeps coming through :) ) 

So ... what am I going to do now?

Well, I'm going to continue with all the other goals, such as writing ideas and concepts that I know others - possibly with more time and resources than I - are also working on, with my teaching and healing, with my personal development ... and I'm going to modify what I loosely call "my meditation work" to include projecting images to various group minds.

Now, when I started working with psychic matters, as a teenager back in the 70s (Goddess - I was a teenager last century!), I didn't know about visualisation, so I used to just will peace, love and joy to the world, as I did Lobsang Rampa's alternate nostril breathing exercises. It was actually great practice for me at developing the use of my will, but I was very relieved to find out how to use visualisation - it made what I was trying to do much easier. In exactly the same way, finding out how Dion Fortune's group used visualisation has given me a direction on how to improve work on changing group minds: use symbols.

Of course, I'm a pagan, not a Christian, as Dion Fortune effectively was, so I'm going to use the technique I am most familiar and comfortable with: runes - specifically, bind runes. I will create a bind rune for each purpose, then after I've done my colour breathing etc, I'll combine part of my breathing work with projecting these images to the various group minds I can work with.

In case any others would like to be part of this work (invoking Yesod can help, if you know how to work with the Qabbalah), I'll post the designs as I complete them on this post. They might even be part of the next batch of tattoos I get ... if I can work out where I'm going to fit them :)

To the group mind of all humanity:
self reliance (which is a marvellous source of growth and personal development, apart from being a brilliant manifestation of true spirituality), responsibility (which is also a nice practical and real application of spirituality - especially around the lessons of agape, compassion, which I decided not to include as so many others are focused on them ... albeit possibly in an immature way ... ) and maturity (my first design for this project, which has been subsequently revised; peace was also a strong contender ... see here, for instance) 

To the group mind of all Australians:
perspicacity, self discipline (too much focusing on partying and being drunk here - see this post, for instance) and welcoming (which is to overcome our xenophobia and racism, although anything which would counter the fear that Howard engendered would be useful; see also here)

To the group mind of all Melbournites / Sydneyites:
spirituality, slowing (I think cities are too crowded for wellbeing, and the pace of our life is, in general excessive - see, for instance, here, and here, here) and civility (which is partly inspired by the problems I encounter when travelling on the roads, especially at this time of the year - see, for instance, here) 

PS - I stopped reading Dion Fortune's book when she started rabbiting on about how the struggle was between nice Christianity and nasty paganism. What utter rubbish.

PPS - my next Group Mind and bindrune project is about the Australian Parliaments, based on the use of the following - more to come :)

[3] This also could lead into another topic we were discussing in the development group I am a sitter in: projections from people who are incarnate, such as perhaps former family members who have subsequently reincarnated yet still come back to greet former family members who pass over. How? 
    Confused? Let me explain :)
    Let's say person A dies in 1985, and is reincarnated in 1995. In 2010, person B, who was related to A in A's former incarnation that ended in 1985, dies. Person A can still appear to Person B in the image they had when they were Person A. This can occur as: 

• the astral is very malleable, and basically follows our thought, so people tend to appear as they wish to (or, if they forget to think of clothes, without clothes - and hence the uncomfortable dreams some have when they forget to think of being clothed while in the astral :) Others aren't bothered by such trivialities). Thus, the astral of Person separates -or, more accurately, likely, part of the astral of Person A separates - from where Person A's physical body is, perhaps at the request of a BPF Guide, and travels to where Person B is dying. Thinking of the life in which Person A knew person B, Person A will resume the image by which Person B knew them. 
• this is termed bilocation, and can be done consciously (it is a part of the Wiccan training I had, which began with "exteriorisation of the chakras"). Ever feel distracted, or wonder what happens when you're day dreaming? One answer is (that it could be) bilocation (there are other possibilities). This is something that grounding, or more properly, centering and grounding, aims to get under control when it is not deliberate - which is often known by the term "doppelganger", although that may also involve a degree of manifestation [2]. 

     (I'll also thank my Cariad for giving me the example to express all that *mwa ) 

[4] Look up the topic "control" on this blog - for instance, here, here and here. And maybe here, and here, here, here, here, here, and here, which are all relevant to this post anyway.

[1] BPF = Balanced Positive (spiritual) Forces. See here and here for more on this.

[2] Please see my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy").

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear")

My "blogiography" is here.  

I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here and here), and it grew ...  See here for my group mind project, and here & here for my "pagans for peace" project.

• May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
• A home is for living in, not feeling, becoming or being rich or a “better” class than others.
• Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master. 
• Armageddon is alive and well and happening right now: it is a battle between the indolence of "I only ..." and/or "I just ..." and what Bruce Schneier [2] calls "security theatre" on one side, and perspicacity and the understanding that the means shape the end on the other. 
• The means shape the end. 
• Spiritual love is far more than just an emotion - it is a concept, thoughts, actions and a way of living.

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger [people]. JOHN F. KENNEDY 

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing. (based on writing by) EDMUND BURKE

Your children are not your children. ... They come through you but ... they belong not to you ... for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow KAHLIL GIBRAN

We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Those whom we cannot stand are usually those who we cannot understand P.K.SHAW

Tags: about me, attitudes, connectedness, control, Dion Fortune, Group Mind, Higher Self, Jung, levels, parallels, planes of existence, psychic work, runes, society, Soul, soul parts, subconscious, unconscious, visualisation,

First published: Fryrsdagr, 29th March, 2013

Last edited: Saturday 20th April, 2013 (added PS and all sigils, tweaked signature block plus link to nshrine shrines; added next project) 

Post No. 239 - Random thoughts ...

Just a few more random thoughts - on asceticism, art, getting to know one's parallels/subconscious, forgiveness, the benefits of passing over, change vs. learning, and leavening civilisations ...

Asceticism
One of the things which used to be portrayed about Eastern spirituality when I was growing up was that it allegedly favoured asceticism - "denial of the body" through discipline, and forcing the body to endure rigours such as protracted fasting, and living with very little. Well, I now know better - there are those who choose to practise austerity and a rigorous asceticism (e.g. saddhus) - and possibly that is exactly what they need, but they are not the be-all and end-all of the matter: many Eastern people genuinely practise a spiritual life whilst living their equivalent of a "normal" lifestyle.

Where I think a relative form of asceticism has a place is in the lifestyles of us in the West, in the First World. Many of us seem to want "things", and our houses are now much bigger than those of our grandparents, and all of us consumes the limited resources that the Earth has. My opinion is that, as part of being a spiritual being, we should seek to live as materially simple a life as we can. That shows respect and caring (dare I say "love") for the world we live on.

In the four years I was at University, I moved 33 times. As a result, for some decades I had a rule that I would only own enough to fit into a single trailer so I could move easily and readily. That is a rule which is harder to follow here in Victoria, as in Queensland many places are rented furnished, which is not so in Victoria (so I also have to fit fridge and bed, for example, on the trailer). It is also harder with a family, cats, reference books, and my crystals and other magical tools ... but I still try to follow the principle of not consuming unnecessarily out of love for this planet as a spiritual act.

Also, there is an element of choice here: if asceticism is forced because one is living in poverty, then it will not be of any spiritual value. See Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs, which I have mentioned in previous posts (here, and in here).

Art
This speculation was spurred by watching The L-Word. What is the purpose of art? I've heard in recent years the view that the purpose of art is to provoke a response. I disagree - especially musical art.

I used to think that art is about appreciating beauty more - not in the sense of portraying those who the media claim are beautiful people, but things like being able to portray the beauty in everyday people, or the beauty of spirit inside one who has been disfigured (perhaps by an explosion, for instance).

Now, I tend to phrase it a little more broadly, and say that art is about increasing our appreciation of life. To me, much of that is about being shown a beauty I had not seen before, but it may, from time to time, also include something which is challenging or provocative.

I also consider that the opinion of what is art to be subjective, not objective. That means something may be considered by most of the billions of other people on this planet but not by me, and we are both right :)

Getting to know one's parallels/unconscious
It might be useful to describe how to go about this from the point of view of being a totally raw novice, with little experience or development of skill. If I found myself back in that situation, I would probably do something along the lines of the following:

1. Ask, every night before going to sleep for at least a month, to practise in sleep state for the exercises I was about to try (this request goes to your Guides/Higher Self (Overself)/Patron Deities).
2. For the last week of that month, add to the request by also lighting a candle where it will not cause a fire (make sure there are no candles, that it is on/in fireproof containers, is a small candle, etc).
3. In the first fortnight after the month of preparation, begin by focusing my attention on all the sensations, emotions and thoughts I was encountering, with a view to developing my awareness and sensitivity (see this post). I would increase this from an initial 5 minutes to an hour, gradually.
4. During the second fortnight, I would set up a protective circle before doing this, and open the circle at the end. In the second week, I would also add doing a ritual to invoke the energies of the Qabbalistic Sphere of Yesod.
5. During the third fortnight, I would add to the ritual, invocation of Yesod and a shortened check of awareness (say 10 to 20 minutes) by then playing various guided meditation tapes (that I had pre-listened to in a normal state of consciousness so I knew what they contained, to make sure there were no suggestion that were disharmonious to me or my principles), again aiming to get this up to around an hour long session. In the second week of this fortnight, I would also experiment with various incenses to see which ones seemed to me to be giving a heightened state of awareness or increased sensitivity. (All the while during these fortnights I would be continuing the request and candle when going to bed.)
6. Finally, I would aim to either meditate, or pre-tape a guided meditation, with a view to changing my awareness and becoming aware of influences and interactions from my subconscious/my parallels.

Of course, for that to be meaningful I also need to post more about the invocation rituals and guided meditation - which doesn't fit into this post. The Qabbalistic ritual is an adaptation of the fuller version of the "Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram" which I posted here (for simplicity, I left out the visualisation of the Archangels).

Finding out more about your parallels can be useful, as many past lives that we look at may actually be of our parallels, who are, effectively, another part of us and, via our shared unconscious, influence us as we influence them.

Lobsang Rampa has some good comments on the unconscious in "Candlelight".

Forgiveness
Further to my recent post on this, the film "Red Dust", which covers the Truth and Reconcialiation Commission in South Africa, is worth looking at.

Dying can lead to resolution of mysteries ...
One of the things about dying is that one views one's life. In the course of this, and by dint of the greater psychic awareness one has inherently as a result of being in the astral, it may be quite possible for one to find out what is behind mysteries that one was plagued by in the physical. Say, for instance, someone lost their child to a violent crime and the criminal was never found, nor the body found (as has happened in one case here in the 80s): when the grieving parents die, they will be reunited with the child, and they will have a chance to resolve the mystery (unless they have some truly extraordinarily bad karmic debt).

So .. if you find yourself thinking "it's a shame so-and-so didn't find out about X before she/he/ze died", don't - they will find out :)

Is change a better word than learning?
In the field of spirituality, one often is told that one's purpose here is to learn: could a better word be "change" - as in, "change for the better"?

If I think about something such as ... say, helping to organise an LGBTIQ spirituality conference (as I have done in the past, and hope to do so again for MidSumma 2013), I can say that I guess I have learned things like trusting myself more, I have acquired more experience, etc - but if I was to try writing a list of what I had learned, I would struggle. If, on the other hand, I was to try writing a list of how I had changed, I would fly through it - I am stronger, I am more experienced at X, Y and Z, I know more about A, B and C, etc, etc, etc.

So ... is "change for the better" more appropriate than "learning"?

I think it is for me - how about you, dear Reader? :)

One other thought comes to mind here: the issue of balance. Often this is thought of in terms of karmic balance, but there is also the issue of seeing "both sides of the coin", so to speak. You MUST have lives as male and female, for example, to enable you to evolve; you must also have lives of poverty and riches, before you can evolve.

There are other personal sequences where people often try to seek a balance by, more or less, going from one form of extremism to another. Hence, for instance, I have read (and don't actually agree with) a suggestion that Hitler would come back as a vehement preacher in the next life ...

In my case, I have tended to try to balance a life in the military by a life in a religious order. I have tried to balance out a hedonistic lifestyles in one century and piratical life the century before with a disciplined British navy life in the 1800s (I was no-one known or famous, by the way). I tried to balance some lives where I was a compliant, obediant female in the 1700s with a more wilful life in the early 1900s - a bit like teenagers as they are stereotypically thought of today, perhaps :) Unfortunately, going against my father's wishes led to a path that I regret and am still paying for to this day [1] ... so, there is a time, a place and a way to seek to ba;ance things out: better yet, do not fall into the trap of being extremist in the first place :)

Leavening civilisations
Something I am thinking about at the moment is Rampa's comments (in "The Hermit" and "Tibetan Sage") that the "Gardeners of the Earth" (i.e. benevolent aliens seeking to help the evolution of spiritual life on Earth - see the notes in this post) occasionally try to "leaven" the quality of sentient life on the Earth by introducing new civilisations. I have not reached any conclusions about this yet, just mentioning that it is something I am cogitating upon - especially when I see people like an ex's son have six kids, who he is raising in an alcoholic, criminal (well, formerly criminal - I don't know if he still is), violent (again - formerly) environment. The last time I had contact with him, he had a new girlfriend who appeared to be sorting him out ...

but then I compare this with the people who are wonderful parents, and note that they inevitably have fewer kids. Will the world evolve to be a better place under these circumstances? Maybe that depends on whether or not the education system will pick up the slack ...

As I said, I don't know one way or the other ... it is just one of the things currently occupying my mind and my meditations - along with things such as should I try to improve my ability to channel names, which I tend to block because of the expectations that get put on mediums to channel such details instead of the person being helped getting metaphorically off their backside and sharing the responsibility for a good reading by doing their part (such as preparing ... ).

Greed = glamour
One of the main ills of the world, in my opinion, is greed - wanting more than one needs. This is something I also refer to as materialism or being materialistic (probably the more precise reference!), or consumerism. One aspect of this is being sucked in by advertising (including the portrayal of lifestyles on TV), which Alice Bailey refers to as "glamour", being caught like a moth to the glitzy lights of what appears glamorous. (Bailey even wrote a book about the problem ... )

Control through phone messages
Something which struck me as my partner and I continued watching the L Word (which I posted some initial impressions of - not changed as yet! - here) was the control exerted over people by leaving short, useless messages.

A couple of times towards the end of Season One Tina left messages for Bette where she was clearly upset asking here to call, but not saying what could have happened. That left Bette the potential to think Tina could have miscarried, which could have caused Bette to panic or have unnecessary stress. A better approach would have been to say something along the lines of "I have been threatened by a sperm donor's current girlfriend" - which is something Tina didn't do even when Bette did ring. It is important to get emotions out and expressed, yes, but it is also important to have consideration for partners. Did Tina fear Bette would not interrupt her work to call her? Given the unbalanced attitudes Bette had, that could have been the case - but better to know that and deal with it, than to try to exert a form of control over one's partner.

This sort of consideration applies more broadly: I detest getting short, useless messages "call me" from work colleagues, when if they said something useful such as "call me about a potential bid X", I can assess that against my other work priorities, and call it in the order that is best for the company - which is not necessarily best for the ego of the person leaving the message. They think that, by being vague, I will call to find out what it is all about, whereas I generally choose to ignore such messages or put them down at the bottom of the pile. It doesn't take much effort to have some basic manners and consideration.

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

Notes:

1. An ex-partner and my current partner were on the opposite side to me in the Second World War, by the way: there are some interesting dynamics in these situations, as well some - in these cases - karmic balancing, as well as love and continuation of relationships from past lives.

This post's photo is yet to be posted.

Tags: lifestyles, asceticism, art, Qabbalah, Yesod, unconscious, forgiveness, death, growth, evolution, greed, glamour, materialism, consumerism, Alice A Bailey, Maslow,

First published: Thorsdagr, 3rd March, 2011

Last edited: Sunday, 6th March, 2011