One of the main reasons I lambast "spirituality" and "those kinds of people" here is the consistent stream of data that suggests spirituality is a more or less a sinister cloak for personality problems. In my opinion, spiritual practice cannot fix these things; instead, it compounds them.
The problem is if one happens to be a nutter, or depressed, or unhappy, or possessing unresolved personality problems-usually evidenced by an inability to effectively act in the real world or being a loathsome bore (there's nothing wrong with the "real" world, by the way, this sentiment is an instant tell) - any course of real spiritual work is going to make these disorders far, far worse. Because they’re going to be used by the wicked chimp to obfuscate the core of their issue, not confront it.
This has been consistently proven to me over the years. It was proven to me in my own experience when I was younger and on all manner of hilariously named paths as a seeker. Such lofty, mystical, poetic paths can easily be misused by desperate or unstable individuals for sneaky purposes. The human animal is the great conspirator, most of all against itself. It’s great desire is control, and it would rather have a it badly than have to acknowledge it has none at all.
For this reason, I've removed myself from these kinds of circles—and circles they are, you better believe it. Here, I've tried to provide a truly solid and uncompromising grounding for much of this work, which definitely has some value. Some of these practices had an origin in medieval or ancient spirituality, so there’s no way to avoid crossovers. And the unseemly confrontation with the mysterious secret king.
When is a Question not a Question?
Kevin and I have decided to do a deep dive into this phenomenon, so I won't go too deeply into it here.
The first time I decided to question much of spirituality was after reading Israel Regardie in an interview. It's very important to note (particularly for the young and impressionable) that none of this spirituality or esoteric fantasy crap is new, nor is the phenomena of the spiritual-nut new.
This is what did it for me all those years ago:
CH: Does this explain why you don't bother with most people in the occult and psychology fields (not psychology, not just spirituality)?
IR: In a very large measure. As soon as they begin to talk, it is offensive to me.
CH: In Which way?
IR: Cosmic foo-foo. Flying saucers, star seeds, or whatever kind of crazy nonsense. All the stuff that's pure projection of their own need structures. Occasionally, I will go into an occult bookstore here or there and browse around…I don't say anything. Sometimes I may strike up a conversation to get them going… I'll prod them and just listen to the crap that follows (ed - does this ring any bells for any of you)…
...I would call them lazy and infantile. They give the field a bad reputation. For them there is no evil, no lust, there is no nothing…Everything changes just by wishing. Everything is nice, pure and holy, which is au fond but not in their sense of the words…
…Many of them are dilettantes, many of them are somewhat unbalanced people, and many of them are highly neurotic people. Some of them are just plain escapists, using occultism and magic (ed - spirituality or internet) as a means of escaping from their own personal, emotional and neurotic problems…"
The typical reaction to this kind of assertion is offence. Regardie knew this and constantly referred to how this line of questioning would "get him in trouble".
You may be surprised to know that my musings also get me in trouble. None of this is new. All of it is expected. A side effect of inducing discomfort in people. Exposing pretty lies.
I note there are two kinds of readers: the offended kind, whom are unsurprisingly typically the most outspoken, and the kind that gets it and uses practice to get it more. Before I created content, I only really understood these tendencies in myself or occasionally on anonymous forums. After I began publishing my thoughts to pay it forward, the stuff Regardie and others were discussing became completely and abundantly clear.
Typical reactions run according to this kind of line of thinking and script, as far as I can tell:
"How could this possibly be me, the problem must be his problem".
"He's just not spiritually evolved like me".
"Maybe you've not ascended enough on the enlightenment vibration spiral cycle."
Despite their outrageous and unjustified claims, many of them go on to act in the most compulsive, reactive, petty, obsessive and insane ways imaginable. Many of the ways they behave are quite feminine, a bit like a jaded single mother. Hyatt used to say that these kinds of people often inherit the worst traits of their mothers. one thing is for sure: there is seemingly not even a skerrick of awareness of the enormous divergence between their mental models or self-conceptions and reality as it is.
I have seen some cases over the years that are truly astonishing. Anyone who has had enough of their behaviour and cuts them off is classified officially as unenlightened or of a "low vibration". Or whatever unspecific cosmic foo-foo nonsense term gets employed in the sinister cover-up operation.
So Regardie was right; many of these people are completely insane and not spiritually enlightened at all. Highly neurotic and all-too-common, in diametric opposition to their claims. It’s always unbelievably petty - there’s very often nothing at stake except for their self-importance. Why would a well-adjusted, powerful person even need to pursue things like this?
Again, the problem is straightforward—nothing they say or the achievements they tout, like being spiritually or morally superior, even remotely reflect the reality of their personalities, lives, and achievements. They often lie to make a point.
Fortunately, all those years ago, I had the good fortune to read Regardie’s words and even better luck to truly hear them. I understand many people don't have such good luck, so I try to do my part here.
The Shock of Reality
I remember reading the above sections from Regardie pretty clearly. Ironically (given it's me), it all happened while I was standing in a secondhand bookstore (do they still have them?). I found a very old volume from the 80’s collecting dust. I was very young at the time, maybe about 19. Regardie's words hit me like a tonne of bricks.
I had no choice but to take a proverbial look around the place. For all my foibles, an ability to cop a brutal self-assessment right in the kisser was fortunately not one of them. Insensitivity is heavily underrated. A bit like anger.
I've never looked back and am immensely grateful for it. Granted, it took some pain and time to realise I was exactly the person he was referring to. Typically true self-knowledge, which I consider understanding and confrontation with the character, is met with resistance. The body and mind don't want to change. It has its little psycho-physical homeostasis that we think is just so special, and just so long as you stick around long enough to pump out some units, the great it doesn’t really care all that much about whatever else it is you get up to.
Fortunately for some of us, such jarring, shaking truths take root like genital warts. And try as you might to cover it up. It's always there, lurking beneath the surface.
I realised I was covering things up. I was living in a world of total fiction. I was not a good person at all despite creating these stories about how I was just so wonderful and unique. I was wise. That’s actually what I thought. As the comfortable fictions I’d created to avoid looking at myself fell away, I was forced to contemplate the fact that I was not elite at all. Not in any way. I was not the cool kid in the playground.
It became clear to me then that what is called spirituality in the West and probably everywhere else appeals mainly to people with no real-world power, trying to grasp something to cover up their basic resentments and fears.
There's no denying Nietzsche.
Some may not like to hear this. You may say, "Well, that's just you."
Others here have got in touch and let me know that they also had revelations like this, and they’re sick of all the nonsense (we have a group for such people).
"This in no way reflects me; I'm different. I’m special. I’m rising in the planes. Even though I live in poverty, the invisible secret order knows this. I’m better than this guy who seems better on the outside, this materialistic egotistical guy, because I’m spiritual."
Such a person may be right? Everyone is free to do whatever they like, afterall - or so they think. You, know, all this free will and stuff. Anyway.
We here who are interested in tangible and robust results, about living a good life as we define it thought the use of hard discipline, have no such luxury.
Those of us who desire true insight and even a modicum spiritual enlightenment perhaps, must necessarily see such self-delusions as the barrier they are. Something that needs to necessarily be overcome if we are to make any genuine progress.
Traits
Over the years, I've noticed interesting personality attributes that these kinds share. These are worth considering for a moment.
They are word-mad, using language and metaphor to cover up their true purpose: self-aggrandizement.
They are time-wasters. They will never refer to what you're talking about when they communicate with you. Their primary Trojan Horse is to pose insincere questions, which they use clandestinely to exhibit superiority or pull rank. The "questions" or comments are almost always irrelevant to the discussion to the discussion at hand.
They're profoundly lazy. They very don't create their own content. They usually, or always in fact can’t be bothered to understand the content their commenting on. They rarely practice anything; they prefer reading and commenting to reify their sense of superiority and other infantile drivers. They're not really there for practice. Nor conversation. They're already superior, right? They're already kings.
What do they want?
They sure are superior to you or I, if only we could see it.
If you're lucky, they may also like to morally castigate your delivery, again as your teacher and superior. As morally superior.
I’m mortally superior to you in every single way, in fact.
You see, they're doing you a favour here.
Despite your lowly, peasant-like, unenlightened station, they'll continue reading or watching or listening to you as a gracious gift. And bestowing your lowly personage with important lessons. Your lordship is most gracious for doing this, don’t you understand?
You've been imparted with a kingly gift!
The real message in the content, it’s purpose, doesn't really matter because I’m already superior to you, as is my path and way. You just need to listen, ok.
As your lord and saviour, they demand you spend a lot of time reading and responding to their insincere questions. This is your duty. Explain yourself! How dare you.
You see, they’re sticking around here for you—not for them—but for your own good. “I thought about leaving, but I realised you need me; you need to hear my superior message”.
You need to do what they say. You need it to make sure that you understand they're better than you, know more than you and have done far better than you have.
They are the kings of a shabby, secret little castle and kingdom. And can't even believe you are unable to see that; that's how stupid you are, right?
Real Work
This kind of person is being lived out by an unfortunate fate, a sad self-fulfilling prophecy.
Any real self-work would bring them into contact with the reality of themselves, and if this is even possible for such a person, I have no doubt they’d stiffen back up almost immediately.
In my experience, many people cannot be saved or improved. They're too far gone. They lack the basic intelligence—or "the stuff," as Regardie used to say—required for self-assessment and true self-transcendence. Indeed, many of them have real and legitimate mental problems.
The saccharine certainties of poetic spiritual musings are truly seductive for such people. It allows them to lash out without facing themselves. To mask their essential hostility towards others, maybe also a lack of control that they can’t stand the feeling of. That they express as frustration cloaked in appeals to decency, morality or virtue. They can’t allow themselves to hate or to become angry, that’s unenlightened.
To cover the stinking heap of frazzled, competing drives in a blanket of spiritual virtue and vocabulary. It allows them to make claims of superiority with no evidence. To feel good. To ignore the pain, and to feel good about themselves.
Much of what I say here is so obvious it's difficult to comprehend there's a need to even say it. But at least to ourselves, what we are might not be so obvious. We’re very much not able to see ourselves easily, that’s for sure.
So how do you know if you may be a secret king?
If one asserts that they are financially superior, the metric for this is obvious. The same would go for anything tangible in this world. That’s pretty simple.
Spirituality or otherworldliness on the other hand offers humans an easy out. There isn't any real objective measure to what they claim, at least not with much of it, so they're free to fantasise and imagine. It’s easy to stake an undeserved title. Again - the real purpose is fairly simple in a way: to pursue feeling good about themselves.
If anyone should interrupt that, then they are the problem.
Many of these behaviours are leftovers from childhood that weren’t fulfilled. To be recognised. To be seen as special or unique. It’s quite easy to use poetic musings of various paths as a cynical cloak for these all-too-common traits.
These days, it isn't just spiritual types who are affected by such a mind virus. I focus on them because my part-time vocation, psycho-physiological practice, unfortunately, tends to overlap. So, I often end up talking about them as good examples of what not to do as bio-individuals. This is not just me slagging them off, this is a cautionary tale.
In general humankind seems strangely afflicted by a kind of capacity for hyper-imagination.
This is driven by both its incompetent use, and a lack of understanding of its language and symbol-using abilities.
These abilities are relatively new evolutionary adaptions. This explains why these capacities lead to such confusion. Confusion and situations that are really so silly to more or less comedic. Language tends to scramble all the lower circuits and their messaging, and vice versa. It’s almost as if it’s a new part that doesn’t work in the way the instruction manual we have on hand is telling us it does. Like the factory didn’t produce a manual, and we’ve been badly reverse engineering the functionality of this beast for as long as we’ve been able.
Vast swathes of youth are pro-imagination - another relevant and crucial example. Having been seduced by people with agendas into taking the reins of unjustified superiority, based on what they type out on their phones, think in their heads, or images they consume.
While I understand the political and propagandistic angle for those whose games the youth play into, it’s also true that as an animal with inertia, a lazy monkey, fantasy is just so much easier. so much easier than the pain of action and courage.
Fantasy-superiority provides an easy out. It has many sneaky purposes.
Again, it's obvious why nothing ever happens with things people profess to care about. Passively commenting or thinking or speaking is the path of least resistance.
And being a secret king is more accessible than facing up to oneself.
Final Words
In summary, I know many disagree, but promoting or conducting the exercise of thinking yourself superior without any real evidence is a poisoned chalice. It’s a refuge of weakness.
True self-overcoming results solely at not being this way. Literature or practices that create spiritual or poetic effects (which, again, no one even gets to this level. They just authoritatively quote from books they read as if they have) should be handled with a considerable degree of skepticism.
My contention is simple: the human propensity for dishonesty, the infantile desire to show off, word-madness, an inability to parse out words from reality, and a drive towards fantasy-dream life nonsense with no real-world "back-end", this neuters potentially powerful people, and offers undue virtue to those who use it all only as an escape.
I only write here to try to reach the ones that get it! To everyone else - it's ok to not read me. This is not for you.
Keep rising on the planes, Kings! Whatever that means!
“Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.” - Robert Anton Wilson
Woah there chud, you clearly haven’t yet ascended to tHe NeW eArTh!