@nyx
now I'm imagining this being a mandatory test for workers :/

@georgia consider that there is nascent scientific proof that energy work involves manipulating a real thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrodermal_activity

@nyx ive felt significant energy sensations while doing "magick", one time they were so strong the person I was holding hands with got a rash on her hand (after saying it felt like energy was coming out of my hand) and another time I was transferring energy to the same person, there was energy streaming up my spine and exiting via my eyeholes so forcefully I got a rash on its path. we also both got crazy visuals from that. ive had other magical/spiritual experiences but those are the most potent energy work related ones.

@georgia I've been wanting to try to get into doing energy work but it seems like a thing that doesn't really exist in the context of western occultism. I didn't start thinking about it until getting interested in Daoism and finding out about neidan and qigong and stuff

@nyx tbh my spiritual experiences have made me reject western occultism altogether even thought I started with practical magick. now im a vaishnavite hindu but i view the Supreme God as having many and any forms. on that note the presence of God Herself feels to me often like a blissful heat, like the sun but inside you and very euphoric and loving. I'm very interested in tunmo and in energy healing. I kind of have a knack for it tbh.

@georgia I can see why you'd come to that conclusion because I think a lot of western occultism and esotericism is either 1). useless woo garbage, 2). Become a Living God edgelordism, or 3). various things in the Hermetic tradition that are real and useful but really complex to work with if you don't have a decent working knowledge of the non-esoteric side of western thought (i.e. philosophy)

I happen to be a weird instance of someone who fits into #3 but is also a practicioner and not an academic, and I also think that the most useful stuff in western "occultism" is witchcraft because it's all meant to be very practical since it originates in folk magickal practices, and I do think this stuff works and that my goddess/es are very real. but that being said I also think that the eastern religions are more consistently enlightened. discovering and getting into Daoism was a game changer for me in a lot of ways because it also gives an ancient mystical poetic foundation to the lines of philosophy that I'm influenced most by (the Daoism scholar/translator Brook Ziporyn wrote a book on this called Godless Epiphanies that I've been meaning to read), and even just my basic knowledge so far of Shaktism helped a lot with me forming a deeper connection with my goddess/es because the idea of having a loving and passionate relationship with a deity rather than obedience was such a revolutionary concept to me. but yeah they figured out shit over there a long time ago and meanwhile in the west we've just had centuries of really neurotic and narrowminded ways of thinking that have been ruining the world

@nyx @georgia I was raised Buddhist so my big realization with the esoteric and mystical was learning what Gnosticism was . It was also rlly good for the whole problem of growing up hating myself for desiring things . I think that like with all of that there’s a tiny bit of truth in all of it and it’s up to the practitioner to decide what they want to take from it ^^

@nyx omg youre a Skakta?? that is so cool waowww. check out the serpent power by Arthur Avalon. youll learn a lot about kundalini Shakti and Maha Maya Herself!

@georgia ooh thanks I've been wanting to read more stuff on it but had no idea what to start with because I have an instinctive mistrust of most books on eastern religions that make it over to the west. though I'm also not really a Shakta lol ^^; I just have had a peripheral interest in it for a bit and some superficial knowledge of it that informs me being a devotee of Hekate and Lilith. though I had recently also been feeling drawn towards Kali @_@ serially polyamorous with the goddesses I work with

@OneRatOneVerySmallTrenchCoat @georgia I think there's also a lot of biases that inform these sorts of things where it helps to get outside your head by engaging with religions that you haven't been raised in, and the complex reality of all these different religions both in how they're practiced today in the real world and their histories are often filtered out by someone who is choosing to seek it out

@nyx Kali maa is a form of the Supreme Goddess just like Shakti/Parvati/Durga. she also represents the aspect of true ultimate reality that is pure chaos.

@nyx @georgia for sure . I think one of the main reasons why we have such a repressed culture is the design of the ruling class creating an insular western culture. They don’t want you to think outside the confines of the box they would rather you become a WASP

@georgia oh yeah I'm aware that she's very significant in Shaktism. I generally vibe with it but Kali is the part of it I feel personally connected with enough for it to be an entry into trying to engage with that tradition

@nyx @georgia I think we should teach about faith and spirituality in primary schooling so that more ppl can walk away with a more complete understanding of the universe . But maybe that would be theocratic and bad

@georgia @nyx also not just western faith!!!

@OneRatOneVerySmallTrenchCoat @georgia this is also what creates the whiplash effect of hippie orientalism (or white third worldism), which is part of how the system continues to work even when it seems to be losing appeal lol

@OneRatOneVerySmallTrenchCoat @georgia I think it would be pretty sick if primary schools had theology classes where every world religion was given equal coverage but it would be almost impossible to do this justice without leaving out all sorts of interesting periphery and minority religions

@nyx @georgia hippies not understanding faith and finding ways to make it conform to the capitalist culture and life ruined like 3 generations of ppl learning about spirituality

@nyx @georgia I rlly think secularism and refusing to allow any theological basis or whatever into the political and educational sphere also stunted a lot of ppl ^^ I um… think it might be possible but developing an entire new curriculum for that would be hellish esp because you want be unbiased when presenting those ideas to kids or whatever

@nyx @georgia nyx serial cheating on godesses and dressing it up under the umbrella of polyamory (shes pursuing the other goddesses without their divine communication and awareness). we love to see it.

@nyx @georgia Nyx Land really be the type of mfer to pull off religious NTR through ruthless experimentation

@Erato_Heti @georgia I'm gonna get HAL'd in the Akashic Records

@nyx @Erato_Heti I know what HAL is and what the akashic records purport to be but your post still eludes me

@Erato_Heti @nyx @georgia nyx land puts the poly in polytheism

@georgia @Erato_Heti @nyx some of the most worth looking up shit ive thought about today

@georgia @nyx I love Kali, but I think for my own sanity I need to focus on Shiva and practices that are more grounding before I approach her in earnest again. at least if i decide to go the shaiva route anyway. idk lol I wish I could just jump straight into Kali worship though

@georgia @nyx it's kinda like when I was a Dionysus worshiper but all it got me was alcoholism and madness without liberation. although maybe it would be different this time if I sought liberation through Kali in earnest instead because back when I worshiped Dionysus I was definitely in the vein of "I want my life to get worse" in more of a sick, self-will way than a "trusting God to break me down so I can be built back up" way

@tamamizu @georgia if you want things to get bad they will probably get bad

@nyx @georgia it's in my basic nature to want things to get worse unfortunately. i've been trying to meter that with a total acceptance of Maa's will, but that's really hard. it's hard to accept things going poorly but even harder to accept things going well lol

@tamamizu @nyx Kali is definitely a liberator Goddess if youre looking for moksha.