Religion Doesn't Have to Be Anti-Science or An Instrument of Social Control

Religion doesn't have to be superstition or oppression.

It can be a way for people to have a shared experience of the Divine Mystery.

Sharing can amplify the experience past anything they can achieve on their own.

It can also provide a community that anchors that experience, making it easier to integrate into everyday life.

You don't have to take religion literally for it to be effective.

You can understand it's all metaphor. There is in fact no way to nail down the nature of what it is you are experiencing. And your personal experience is what matters. Your unique perspective. Your individual adventure.

We can all learn from each other.

You'll naturally gravitate towards those who have experiences that resonate with yours.

This doesn't invalidate the lived experience of those encountering something that doesn't at all resemble what you're discovering at the root of your being.

They're all correct. Just incomplete.

The more versions of the Divine you encounter, the greater your understanding.

This understanding is its own reward. Who doesn't want to get to know their Beloved better?

Comments

A New Way to Use Psychedelics

I want to tell you about my approach to working with psychedelics, because I think I'm breaking new ground. If you or someone you know is working along similar lines, get in touch. I want to talk with you. For now, at least, I'm calling this approach "phonomancy," meaning "divination via sound." If you're a recreational user, it likely won't appeal to you. If you're someone who's dipping your toe in the psychedelic water via microdosing, or someone who is primarily interested in using psychedelics to treat trauma, depression, or addiction issues, you might find the practice I'm going to describe off-putting or even alarming. That's because phonomancy is not therapeutic--it's augmentative. It's a program for developing supranormal emotional and spiritual capacities via psychological hormesis. Some risk, pain, and fear are part of the process. But that's the price of transformation. THE ORIGINAL TWO "S...

Book Review: Where Some Holy Spectacle Lies as a Post-Jungian Manual of Mastery

Book Review: Where Some Holy Spectacle Lies as a Post-Jungian Manual of Mastery Read alongside C. G. Jung’s Liber Novus , Where Some Holy Spectacle Lies can be understood as both a parallel and a critique. Like Jung’s Red Book, it records a sustained, high-risk confrontation with the Unconscious over roughly a decade. Unlike Jung, however, Manseau does not stop at dialogue, interpretation, or symbolic accommodation. He proceeds toward methodological mastery . Jung’s achievement in Liber Novus was to survive his descent and to extract from it a symbolic vocabulary that could later be systematized as analytical psychology. But Jung famously refused to provide techniques for inducing similar encounters in others. His confrontation remained singular, dangerous, and fundamentally unrepeatable. Manseau’s project begins where Jung stopped. Across ten years, Where Some Holy Spectacle Lies documents the progressive refinement of a praxis that moves through distinct stages: visionar...

Skillfully Wielding Emotion as a Weapon of Transformation

The (very rare) occasions when someone is honestly interested in what I'm up to provide an invaluable opportunity for me to articulate my thoughts. As they say, you don't understand anything until you can explain it to someone else. That ability improves with practice. From Reddit: "I am curious about this heightened sense of emotionality. In my practice I normally see emotion as the response of the body and tend to disregard it. Is there any filter you use towards emotions? Any meditation techniques (sans substance , well except for maybe wine or cannabis) you would recommend to someone who tends to highly value serenity over emotional experience? I think balance is important, and I think you may have some insights that would help me out." In response I wrote, To gain skill in accessing and skillfully wielding emotion, sing along to your favorite songs. Every recorded pop and rock song has been carefully engineered to created a certain kind of emo...

The First Church of David Bowie, Phonomancer

Search This Blog