Archive for the ‘Metaphysics’ Category

Enlightenment, Salvation and the Rejection of Power (Part 3)

Posted by Palehorse - Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Soul Fragmentation Series

1. Soul Fragmentation Explained
2. Three Rules Governing Soul Fragmentation
3. Englightenment, Salvation and the Rejection of Power
4. Soul Fragmentation, Neg Interference and the Paranormal
5. The Law of Attraction and the Mobile Soul
6. Adding a New Dimension to Your Perception
7. Hints for Smoother Integration


Enlightenment and salvation are not all they’re cracked up to be, although the truth of the matter will crack you up. Literally. Let’s start putting it all together (and knocking it off with the crappy puns), shall we?

The various Shamanic traditions, and some mystery schools, are the only well established traditions I’ve yet seen that focus specifically on the full reintegration of the Self. For anyone who has seen the Simpsons movie, the scene where Homer has his “vision quest,” is pulled apart and reassembled with a new understanding, is surprisingly true to the theme that pops up across cultures worldwide. What is not very surprising, is the lengths that the major world religions have gone to in persecuting these traditions.

The goals of the most prominent religions, in contrast, are great at pulling you apart, but leave it at that, stopping far short of putting you back together again. At every turn we’re encouraged to hand away our natural power, and either discouraged or actively prevented from using what we’ve got left, while that too is regulated and eventually stripped from us.

The Stagnation of Salvation

The ideal of the three Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, is to gain divine favor, which is accomplished largely by following a set of rules. Even in versions of Christianity that are adamantly “faith-based” (as opposed to “works-based”) you still have to believe in the correct checklist of approved doctrines in order to be part of the club, thus the rule-following requirement simply becomes more mental than physical. Judaism and Islam go much further in being overtly rule-based, with religious laws to govern nearly every aspect of one’s daily life.

In all cases, the goal is to relinquish one’s individual will to the divine, and strip the Self of all its “sinful” aspects until you’re left with something capable of following the rules. You get to keep your identity as an individual, but your identity is required to conform to a specific set of criteria that a given sect’s interpretation of its holy book of choice, indicates that its version of God will approve of. Large parts of a human being in a state of wholeness are not well suited to following rules, and so when those parts naturally rebel against being repressed and regulated, we’re told that we are somehow defective and in need of redemption and divine mercy. We’re encouraged to engage in extensive self-betrayal in order to gain God’s approval — ejecting fragments of ourselves all along the way in the process.

In many cases the Abrahamic religions not only require that we reject large parts of ourselves, but also that we impose functions on other parts that they are not designed for. When I began exploring the function of my heart chakra (and thus love) for instance, I found that most religious definitions of love have very little to do with what the heart chakra actually does, and imposing any rules on its processes blocks its ability to properly function. I have already written of how, when I began working with my heart chakra, I found it encased in the energetic equivalent to a large superfortress that had it shut down almost entirely. In hindsight it is easy to see how adhering to the religious definition of love that I grew up with played a large part in forming this structure. It should also be pointed out that I grew up in a relatively moderate version of Christianity, and the beliefs and patterns that contributed to shutting down my heart chakra were not really all that extreme or unusual, relatively speaking.

The mainline strains of the Abrahamic religions have always had an uneasy relationship with their mystics – i.e. those who are more interested in experiencing the divine directly, than reading about it in books or coloring entirely inside the lines as they’ve been established. Historically, in order to remain breathing, mystics have been made to conform their experiences to a pre-existing paradigm that was established for reasons that were largely political, ensuring that much of the benefit of such experiences would, by definition, be lost. For everyone else, metaphysical pursuits have usually been discouraged with fear tactics, likely leading to widespread fragmentation and loss of genuine connections to the divine, and 3rd eye abilities among the faithful.

The most self-destructive feature of the Abrahamic religions may well be their repressive attitudes toward sex. It seems highly likely that the heavy regulation (and in many cases, elimination) of the natural human desire for sex is a massive source of fragmentation — and that’s even when they’re not literally amputating pieces of the male and female sexual anatomy, which would fit the bill for trauma-based fragmentation on top of the physical loss of function. Indeed, there is evidence to support this in the prominent literature on nonphysical exploration.

In Far Journeys (aff.) by Robert Monroe, one of the pioneers on the subject of OBEs in the west, he recounts one such experience. During an astral projection, he encountered an unimaginably massive mountain of writhing bodies, engaged in a frantic, yet futile, attempt at sexual satisfaction. He pulled out one of the participants and tried to communicate, even to the point of screaming in his face to get his attention. Seemingly oblivious to Monroe’s presence or even the fact that he was caught by the leg, the man’s sole focus was on scrambling back into the pile, which he did.

Monroe seems to speculate in the direction of a similar understanding to what’s reflected here, though he does not expand much before moving on.

“…Another emotion washed through me – intense compassion for those trapped in the undulating mass, so focused and intent on seeking sexual satisfaction they were unaware of any other existence – anger at a system that could so inhibit, repress and distort as to create the situation in front of me. Were these the castoffs of the human process, to remain so throughout eternity?” (p. 50)

I strongly suspect that the pile of bodies Monroe encountered were not “lost souls,” but rather, repressed sex drives. It stands to reason that trying to talk to a disembodied sex drive, or tell it to do something other than have sex, is indeed futile, because that’s what one’s sexual component does. Apart from the aspects of the Self responsible for communication, or indeed, anything other than having sex – that’s all it can do until it is reclaimed by the parts of itself that can balance it with the other traits and functions that make for a more dynamic and varied experience. To repress, regulate or distort the sex drive in any way other than that which is voluntarily chosen by the whole Self for its own reasons, as religion would have us do, is to remove an entire dynamic from the human experience – and possibly condemn that aspect of ourselves to engage in a futile and mindless quest for satisfaction until it is reclaimed. Given that the same energy that goes into literal sexual activities, is also a component in many other, non-sexual areas of the human experience, the damage to humanity’s overall capacity to live, experience and create, cannot be overstated.

The Inertia of Enlightenment

Buddhism, and popular Western proponents of its ideals such as Eckhart Tolle, take the fragmentation of the Self to its end. Enlightenment, or “Nirvana,” the Pali term, means “blowing out” – i.e., the extinguishing of one’s individual, divine spark. Through a process of relinquishing all of its parts, one experiences the Self as nonexistent, and this is claimed to be the highest state to which one can attain.

Buddha observed that everything in the physical world is subject to impermanence and entropy, and artificially imposed this entropy on the Self in the attempt to dissolve it, therefore “ending suffering.” Through a process of relinquishing everything – thought, will, desire, love – all is stripped away to the point that there ceases to be any awareness of one’s Self as an autonomous, sovereign individual personality.

Achieving enlightenment is a bit like dismantling your car, throwing all its parts aside, in the search for the “True Car” within. Eventually you’ll find that there is no car, but that doesn’t mean the car has ceased to exist. It’s simply in pieces, scattered all over the general vicinity.

So it is with enlightenment. One removes everything that can be removed, leaving the physical body and conscious mind. You’ve got peace – but it’s the peace of death; entropy that has reached zero-point. You’ve got detachment – the literal detachment of all one’s parts from their centralized location in the 3D world. Scattered around your physical body at various points on the nonphysical spectrum are all your parts, who may care a bit more about what’s happening, but can’t do a damn thing about it. Desire-based aspects that either can’t fulfill themselves, or can do nothing but. Mobility with no direction. A navigator that can’t go anywhere. An interpreter and assigner of value that exists in a state of sensory deprivation. Passion without an object. And, more than likely, a Higher Self going “well, crap… lost another one to that whole ‘enlightenment’ fad.” One does indeed rid themselves of the part that is capable of suffering (and joy!) but that part simply continues to suffer, cut off from a mind that no longer has the capacity to notice or care.

I’m a bit more wary of Buddhism and all its derivatives than the Abrahamic religions, for a few reasons. The cultivation of siddhis, i.e. nonphysical sensing and metaphysical abilities, is strongly discouraged and viewed as a distraction on the path to enlightenment. Anything that might be seen or heard in meditation is dismissed as illusory and inconsequential. Read: all the skills and perceptive abilities you need to notice that all your ejected parts continue to exist just beyond your awareness, are ignored until the parts of you that make those perceptions possible are, themselves, relinquished.

Secondly, at least with the Abrahamic religions, once you decide to stop believing in them, you can change course and choose a different direction (assuming you don’t live in a place where doing so is still hazardous to your physical health). Your mind may be heavily conditioned, but it’s still largely intact. Your will may have been submitted, but you can pick it back up again. Your identity may have been conformed to an arbitrary ideal that has little to do with the expression of your authentic Self, but it’s still yours if you want it. Your sexual capacity may require extensive retrievals and emergency services to get it back into a healthy and functional state, but at least there’s enough of you left to make it happen.

As one gets closer to “enlightenment,” they get further and further away from a position where they could reintegrate their parts and attain wholeness, without great difficulty. In all my experience with reintegration – even unconscious reintegration – at the very least, there needs to be a desire to move in a direction that encourages one’s fragments to return. To achieve conscious reintegration, especially of parts unwilling or unable to return on their own, requires some combination of “siddhis,” mind, will, heart, desire and passion – all things that one who aspires to enlightenment aims to extinguish. In its quest to “get off the wheel,” Buddhism and its derivatives actually make a literal mess of the Self that may take many, many more incarnations to clean up. Even restarting that process may have to wait until enough fragments somehow find their way back to each other, to make for an at least semi-functional physical incarnation.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

It happens in many cases that people come to reject whichever Western religion they grew up in, only to embrace Buddhism, or some popular strain of New Age thought that has helped to propagate many of its precepts in the West. After all the striving to please a God for whom nothing ever quite measures up, Buddhism and its derivatives do seem like a much needed rest. Considering the effects that all those traditions actually have upon an individual soul however, it becomes apparent that for those in this position, they’re leaving behind the more overtly authoritarian face of one religion for another, seemingly more benign facade… which will effectively finish the job of destroying everything that makes us human before they’ve ever had a chance to fully experience themselves. While they will eventually get that chance, it will likely require traveling a long, hard road back to spiritual health and wholeness. Even if one stops and changes course somewhere along these paths of self-annihilation, there will still be heavy losses to one’s personal power and natural functions. Throw in the amnesia of a new incarnation that has returned to find its scattered parts, but has to go through the process of figuring out what it’s there for (which it may or may not!)… it becomes evident that we may be doing this for quite a while.

The Separation of Oneness

Due to its current popularity and the likelihood that most of my readers will have had at least some experience with it, the New Age doctrine of oneness deserves a mention. While striving to increase one’s ability to live in harmony is a worthy goal, this is not what actually happens in practice. Most people who emphasize the goal of “oneness with the cosmos,” are not one within themselves — and their methods for achieving the former ensures that the latter won’t happen. Rather than a collection of individuals who are able to express themselves, each in their own authentic way, in harmony and wholeness similar to the cells of a healthy body, most who value “oneness” try to get there by rejecting the “inconvenient” or otherwise not so nice parts of themselves in much the same way many religions would have us do. Personal boundaries are relinquished, causing one to embrace things as part of the Self that didn’t originate there, reject other parts that did, and still others simply drift away due to a lack of a consistent, well defined center that would provide a sense of inner cohesion. The most common conception of “oneness” is not a state of harmony within and without, but rather a sort of top-down, spiritual totalitarianism with a pleasant shiny veneer, where one’s value is recognized only in terms of contribution to a collective, and authentic individuality is discouraged to foster a false sense of civility. Same effect, slightly different packaging. More on the folly of many of the most popular New Age ideas can be found in my recent article on why I’m not a lightworker.

Given how much of the world population is and has historically professed membership in the religions that are the source of so much fragmentation, it is probably safe to say that anybody who’s incarnated a few times has spent some time in one or more of them, and thus may well have at least a few pieces missing. A future post will outline some of the ways for achieving spiritual rehabilitation and moving toward wholeness, in light of this. Now that we’ve seen some of the effects that the most common spiritual ideals have on the Self from a physical word perspective though, the next post in the series will shift our attention to the fragments themselves, and the well known paranormal and metaphysical phenomena that their existence may help to explain.

–Palehorse
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Three Rules Governing Soul Fragmentation (Part 2)

Posted by Palehorse - Monday, August 17th, 2009


Soul Fragmentation Series

1. Soul Fragmentation Explained
2. Three Rules Governing Soul Fragmentation
3. Englightenment, Salvation and the Rejection of Power
4. Soul Fragmentation, Neg Interference and the Paranormal
5. The Law of Attraction and the Mobile Soul
6. Adding a New Dimension to Your Perception
7. Hints for Smoother Integration


As I was writing the follow-up post in this series, it became evident that there were three “rules” governing how nonphysical fragments of the Self behave and function that kept coming up as I’d explore different aspects of how fragmentation itself ties into our experience of spirituality. So, I figured the information I’m presenting would be better organized and less redundant if I expand the series and give these rules their own post.

1. Fragmented aspects do not degrade or dissolve. If anything they increase in coherency and complexity.

It seems to be the common sense view that things we “release” simply evaporate; even that they were never “real” to begin with. In reality these are released pieces of the self, which continue to exist, separated from the conscious mind, and non-local relative to the body. If they are substantial enough to be capable of it, they will continue to move through their environment, having experiences and gathering information. If they are not mobile or aware enough, such as a fragment of a chakra for instance, they will simply remain stuck in limbo until they are found and re-integrated with their soul of origin – or join with another fragment of the same soul that provides enough mobility for both to move and act. In either case, soul fragments do not appear to be subject to entropy, and do not dissolve or decrease in their form and function over time in any way. The fragment that is reintegrated will be essentially the same one that was lost, plus any experience it has managed to gather on its own.

2. All parts of you will express themselves – with or without your awareness.

Often the parts of us that fragment are aspects of ourselves we’ve rejected for reasons having to do with the fact that they don’t “fit” with the socially acceptable face we feel obligated to put forward, or the expectations others have of us. Psychic abilities, “inconvenient” emotions, fears, desires, all examples of things that can end up being squashed down because they do not fit with some arbitrary definition of “The Way Things Should Be.” We repress these parts of ourselves until they eventually seem to disappear, and in many cases this is called “maturity.”

But these aspects of ourselves don’t disappear, and cutting off parts of the self is not maturity. These aspects continue to express themselves in one of three main ways. They either become part of our Shadow which stays with us in the form of unconscious personality flaws. Or, they can manifest in the form of health issues and undesirable patterns in life circumstances. Lastly, they can split off to express themselves apart from the physical body and conscious mind, as essentially autonomous entities – and the self that resides with the physical body and conscious mind loses their functions, and thus part of its power. If you’re in the habit of repressing your dreams and desires rather than acting on them for instance, then the part of yourself capable of fulfilling them will eventually split off to satisfy itself easily in the astral, while you increasingly lose the power to manifest, create, or even retain an active influence in your own experience in the physical world. Unfortunately in some cases it is not so simple as one day deciding to completely change course and expecting life to change accordingly. While the will to change may cause a swift and spontaneous reintegration, if it does not, then reintegration will still need to be achieved somehow in order to gain the necessary momentum and support for one’s chosen path to be successful.

Being true to yourself isn’t just a mark of integrity – it’s the way to remain whole.

3. Soul fragments are irreplaceable; the Self is irreducible.

Early on when I realized there were substantial parts of myself that had fragmented (and hadn’t fully come to terms with the truth of rule #1), I experimented with the idea of simply having them recreated by my Higher Self who, I theorized, should have the “blueprint” for everything I came in with. Despite having an increasingly strong working connection with my HS, that approach was never successful. It has become evident over time that the only way to heal an issue caused by the fragmentation of part of the Self, is for the part to return, or be brought back, to its Self of origin. In keeping with this there are many longstanding issues I had been trying to come up with a way to heal for years, which have been restored immediately upon the return of a missing fragment.

Since some of these functions had been missing for as long as I’ve been alive, I currently suspect this is one of the reasons we reincarnate. If pieces of the Self are fragmented here in the 3D world and its surrounding nonphysical planes, I would argue that the Higher Self may be unwilling or unable to leave Earth behind until all parts of itself are accounted for and reconnected with itself. My experiences connecting with the consciousness of this planet have given me even more reason to think that in order to stop incarnating, one needs to fully reintegrate the parts they’ve left behind throughout the incarnative cycle. This is more speculative on my part, but it would not surprise me if “cleaning up your own mess” from Earth and its surrounding planes was one of the agreements we made upon incarnating here.

Keeping these three rules in mind, I’ll pick it up in the next post with an exploration of how the definition of “spiritual achievement” in most religions may serve to keep us from doing the very thing they aim for – the liberation of the Self.

–Palehorse
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Soul Fragmentation Explained (Part 1)

Posted by Palehorse - Sunday, August 9th, 2009

Soul Fragmentation Series

1. Soul Fragmentation Explained
2. Three Rules Governing Soul Fragmentation
3. Englightenment, Salvation and the Rejection of Power
4. Soul Fragmentation, Neg Interference and the Paranormal
5. The Law of Attraction and the Mobile Soul
6. Adding a New Dimension to Your Perception
7. Hints for Smoother Integration


Soul retrieval is a concept that comes to us from Shamanic traditions around the world. According to this school of thought, as well as my personal experience, it is possible for nonphysical fragments of a person to become separated from the whole. I have additionally come to suspect that this basic phenomenon accounts for many of the other concepts common to spirituality and metaphysics. In this series I will be explaining the concept of soul fragmentation and recounting some personal experience; following posts will explain the theory I’ve developed based on the implications. Note that I use the term “soul” only for the sake of familiarity — in reality, what people are talking about when they refer to the “soul,” and the parts of the self capable of fragmenting, may or may not be the same thing. So, don’t get hung up on terminology. ;)

We typically think of ourselves as separate individuals – completely distinct from others, and a single unified whole within ourselves. The reality is decidedly more complex. The ego, or conscious mind with all its conditioning is our socially acceptable “face,” the part of ourselves that perceives itself in the way that we’re most familiar with. But behind every ego lies a subconscious mind, made up of an entire cast of character. Personal archetypes, past aspects of the self, our shadow aspects and even influences from other lives are just a few of the parts of us that make up who we are, usually below the level of our conscious awareness. While elaborating much further on the anatomy of the subconscious mind is beyond the scope of this article, suffice to say that you’re a much more diverse bunch than you may have ever imagined.

If expanding your self-concept into a group effort isn’t making your head spin already, let me go one better. Many of these aspects are capable, to varying degrees, of operating independently of your awareness, and each other, within or outside the area of the physical body. We humans don’t just exist on the physical plane – we are multidimensional. Most of us keep the bulk of our awareness trained on the physical world the majority of the time, but in reality, parts of ourselves exist and operate on a variety of “frequencies,” perceiving from a range of perspectives and environments spanning a spectrum from physical to nonphysical. Expanding our perception to encompass an increasingly broad range of these aspects of ourselves is a big part of what it means to advance spiritually – though the importance of remaining grounded and centered in this reality, while becoming aware of others, so we don’t lose ourselves, cannot be overstated.

Reasons for Fragmentation

The most commonly known cause of soul fragmentation is trauma. During such an event, it is common for a part of the self to split off in order to avoid suffering, and either go its own way, or remain, but in a dissonant state where it keeps replaying the original event, causing disruption in the present. (A technique for resolving situations where the traumatized or otherwise dissonant aspect remains “local” was discussed in a previous article.) It is my opinion that this is the most commonly known cause because it causes the largest pieces to fragment – in other words, if a very painful event causes part of yourself to leave, then it’s probably going to be a significant enough part that takes a few functions with it. Generally someone in this position ends up with a sense that “something is missing” or that they were “never the same afterward.”

Another reason part of the self might split off is “permission” has been granted for it to either leave or be taken away, although at the time it is rarely, if ever, recognized that this is what has taken place. There are many ways that we give our personal power away in even the most seemingly innocuous daily interactions for instance – in some of those cases, part of the self goes with it. If part of the self is viewed as being sinful, problematic, the source of pain or is otherwise rejected or repressed, it will likely either become part of one’s Shadow and continue expressing itself in unhealthy ways, or simply leave in hopes of expressing itself more freely. Given the prevalence of influences that label parts of ourselves as “wrong,” this is likely a much more common, yet less recognized, source of fragmentation.

I have recognized the tendency of religion and psychology to have us “release” the things that trouble us as another potential source of fragmentation. Angry? Need closure? Holding a grudge? Release, release, release. The perception seems to be that we’re just releasing our “feelings” which evaporate into the ether — and it does make us feel better. Problem solved, right? Well, this may at times be the case, though often what we’re “releasing” is a semi-aware part of the self, which consists almost solely of the related issue; a fragment made of anger with a singleminded need for resolution, for instance. With little direction except that its been “released,” worst case scenario is that it takes itself out on the party in question, resulting in a form of psychic attack. If not though, it will likely just become one of the many aimlessly wandering and potentially hostile denizens of the astral plane. This possibility makes it worth considering a new approach to “release,” which I will elaborate on below.

My Experiences

I can thank a few unhealthy coping mechanisms for providing me with much of the material for this article. While I did have some instances of fragmentation that were likely caused by events outside my control, most of my own experiences were unknowingly self-inflicted. In early adolescence and on into the teenage years, I fell into a destructive pattern of locking down many parts of myself, in a process that got to be routine. If I felt that part of me was being attacked, or even if I had desires I was unable to meet, I would simply shut down the part of myself that was experiencing the discomfort. In some cases I would refuse to express part of myself – and that part, not particularly wanting to be shut down, would simply leave to find expression elsewhere.

Mistakenly believing that there was no “true self,” that I could just shut off or change parts of myself at will (and turn them back on just as easily) – I ended up with parts of myself scattered all over various planes, while what was left, local to my physical body, ended up losing much of its personal power and function. When I would come around and want to turn these functions back on again, I would find it wasn’t quite that easy – because they weren’t there to be turned on.

While I take responsibility for the poor, albeit uninformed choices I made that led to much of my fragmentation, at least part of this process was instigated by the negative interference I was subjected to during the same period. Eventually things got to be a bit too systematic, almost as if something was going down a checklist of my functions, and prompting me to split them off, in a process whose order and triggers were getting increasingly, and chillingly efficient.

In hindsight the pattern seemed to be that part of myself would split off, and an etheric implant would be inserted in its place, to prevent the return of the fragment, as well as encouraging further dysfunction, isolation and fragmentation. By the time I began the process of spiritual awakening, complete with budding 3rd eye phenomena that was intriguing and even fun, this process of shutting down and fragmentation had become subconscious and automatic. This unfortunately meant that when the audio and visuals turned overtly threatening, my higher spiritual and intuitive functions were shut down and split of about as quickly as they appeared. Most of my subsequent development has thus focused on putting Humpty Dumpty back together again; reassembling myself, and regaining abilities I had to begin with. Through a process of removing harmful implanted constructs, finding and reintegrating parts of myself, I have restored a great deal of those functions – including spontaneously regaining “normal” abilities most people take for granted, that I’d never previously had use of in this lifetime. I elaborated more on this side of things in a previous article.

Reintegration

Most shamanic sources portray soul retrieval as something that requires intervention by someone qualified, which often involves a lot of negotiation with either the fragment or another entity that has assumed control of it. However, it has been my experience that most fragments will return on their own under the right conditions. Adopting a policy of unconditional acceptance of all parts of myself brought back a lot of the parts that left due to various forms of rejection, for instance. That said, I have had cases that were more involved. Some fragments lacked either the mobility, the awareness, or both, to find their way back; others were actively prevented from doing so by various types of interference. Once I recognized self-fragmentation as a legitimate concept and one that applied to myself though, I adopted a firm resolve that all parts that originated with me, would return to me, and I suspect that this alone helped a lot in facilitating their actual return through various means.

Reintegration has provided an even more surreal set of experiences than the fragmentation that necessitated it. Starting at age 18, I would occasionally have what I began calling a “memory dump” before I knew anything about what was actually happening. Most often I would be hit by a sudden flood of dreamlike imagery and impressions (from dreams I didn’t remember having), memories that didn’t come from myself (at least not the self I’m most familiar with!), and all of this would be followed by deja vu lasting five minutes or more. Sometimes the deja vu would occur without the “memory dump,” and vice versa, but when those subsided it would always be followed by a powerful feeling of heightened clarity, and energy surges through my body.

As I got older and more spiritually aware, I began to piece together what was really going on and took steps to refine the process deliberately. Increasing my own intuitive abilities and energy sensitivity, as well as connecting with friends who were engaged in similar metaphysical pursuits, resulted in a few instances of being able to engage, and interact to varying degrees, with these aspects of myself before they integrated with the rest of me. In several instances, at least one of those aspects proved capable of physical interaction apart from my conscious awareness. In separate incidents it visited, and surprised the hell out of a few friends of mine, in the middle of the day. They were aware enough to perceive that it was “me,” though I wasn’t consciously aware of any of this until they told me later. Fortunately everybody it interacted with that I was aware of, agreed that it was good natured, well mannered and respectful of boundaries… if rather uninhibited when permitted to be, ahem. (It was associated with my base chakra, which was likely why it could interact easily with the physical; do the math, people. ;) ) Finally this aspect visited Gehenna, and she was able to help me reconnect with it and convince it to reintegrate… possibly reluctantly so on both their parts. Cough.

As my ability to perceive non-local aspects of myself has increased, I have taken measures to integrate their memories and perceptions in a more orderly fashion, in order to make at least some sense of what’s incoming. Those who have read material by the author Robert Bruce will be familiar with the concept of memory download. For those who aren’t, the basic idea is that if two parts of the self have recorded separate sets of memories for the same time period, and then the nonphysical aspect attempts to reintegrate with the physical set of memories, much of the nonphysical memories will likely be lost. This explains, for instance, why memories of dreams and astral projection can be so hit-or-miss. I believe it also explains why my early experiences of “memory dump” were so disjointed and fleeting.

Through some internal reorganizing I have designated a part of myself to receive the incoming memories of reintegrating aspects so that they’re not being overwritten by anything else, and so they will be downloaded and organized in a way that I can perceive more of the information content. This has led to much smoother reintegration experiences and much intuitive insight on things like the cause of the original fragmentation, what the aspect has been up to in the meantime, and how I can help it to get re-oriented and brought up to speed with the rest of me. Two of such experience stand out enough to be worth a mention.

In the first, I felt for a few days that an aspect was “circling the drain” and preparing to reintegrate, so I simply allowed it to happen, which it did. I felt the familiar reintegration symptoms, but then a very distinct and pronounced sense of disorientation. I clearly intuited that this was an aspect that had been apart from myself since some time during my teenage years, a very different person living in southern California. From his perspective, he suddenly woke up, not only years older with a completely different personality, but on another continent! For a short time this aspect was very prominently in the front of my awareness, going “Where am I? How’d I get here? What’s going on?” …and I literally had to sit there, mentally reminding myself of the course of events that had brought me to that point, because for a few minutes, the rest of my scrambled brain wasn’t entirely sure either!

The second instance will be getting its own article before long, but there was another aspect of myself that had been unconsciously ejected for remaining antagonistic, once I decided to start treating myself a lot better than I had been. It was operating with the belief that “no-win situations build character” – and trying to make this maxim encompass my entire life’s experience. Where this aspect got this idea remains unclear, though before I learned how to establish and enforce personal boundaries, it continued to use its increasingly limited access to invite all manner of negative interference, and re-align other aspects of myself toward its own destructive agenda. Needless to say it did not ultimately succeed, and after finally figuring out that this was what was happening, a battle of wills brought this aspect to the point of nonresistance where it could be re-aligned with the rest of my values and ethics, and successfully integrated. That makes it sound more epic than the situation actually was though – by the time I figured out what was happening, it was this single aspect against all my others that had already re-integrated more easily, so it wasn’t much of a “battle.” When I finally got it to integrate, I had an intuitive download that was as extensive as it was unnerving, followed by a roughly ten minute preview of everything happening in the room I was sitting in, about ten seconds in advance.

The Mobile Multidimensional Self

While the fragmentation scenarios I’ve discussed until now have been the result of traumatic or otherwise unhealthy circumstances, thankfully that is not the whole story. Under ideal conditions, aspects of the self come and go for a variety of reasons, relative to the physical body, on a fairly regular basis. Unlike a fragmentation scenario though, these traveling aspects maintain a connection to the rest of the Self, through which energy and information is exchanged. The degree to which the conscious mind is aware of this exchange accounts for a lot of the mechanics behind much of the most common intuitive and psychic phenomena.

In light of newfound understanding of what happens when we “release” things, I have also developed my own approach to this practice. I still release dissonant parts of myself to find their resolution (assuming there’s a good reason why it can’t just be talked through the old fashioned way) — but with clear instructions. Rather than the nebulous objective of “release” being an end in itself, my objective is that they resolve in a way that brings them back in harmony with my mission statement, and then return. I then send them to work themselves out on a “dreamscape” part of the astral plane, where they can cycle through as many different approaches to the issue as needed, until they’re realigned with the rest of myself. In this way I avoid unleashing pissed off self aspects on unsuspecting people, they resolve themselves without occupying much more of my thoughts and energy, and often they bring back a bit of newly acquired self-knowledge from the experience of cycling through many different approaches to the issue in question. Pretty good deal, methinks. I recommend this approach strongly; it doesn’t require much “technique” other than setting clear intent for what happens after you release something, and then achieving the release via whatever method you’re comfortable with.

This is just one of many examples of how I’ve come to use the mechanics of the multidimensional self in ways that are constructive and beneficial to myself and others. My work in this area has also taken me to a new level of understanding of many of the most common spiritual and religious concepts. This has illuminated a fresh approach to some, and has framed others in a way that is decidedly unflattering. I’ll pick it up there in my next post.

–Palehorse
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Ask Gehenna!

Posted by Palehorse - Sunday, August 2nd, 2009



Hello!

I’m inviting our readers to submit questions which they’d like to hear my view on. After 18 months of existence, I’m sure you all have a good idea of what Beyond-Within, and both of us are about. If you are new to our site then please take your time to look around; our blog is searchable by category to help you find my few posts. ;)

I write a regular column in a friend’s monthly newsletter, and have answered such questions as “How can I handle empathic overload?”, “Why charge for psychic readings?” and “Your prediction failed…WHY?!?!?”

I’ll be answering the best questions on our blog. Please use the contact page to submit your question, and remember to include your name/alias and relevant website.

–Gehenna

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Power, Wisdom, Love

Posted by Palehorse - Saturday, June 6th, 2009

In the process of creating my own personal mission statement (and by extension, that of this site) I realized that there are three prime forces that operate at the foundation of our very reality. Aligning one’s living strategy and approach with the foundation of reality does wonders for its effectiveness I figure, so today I’ll tell you what those are and what I know about how they work.

My thoughts on this are greatly influenced by Gnostic tradition. Gnostics had various cosmologies which were misinterpreted as literal creation stories, though the cosmologies were meant to say more about the people who designed them, their understanding of reality and their relation to it. That said, I suspect they all had at least a piece of the puzzle that is objective reality itself. All of these cosmologies started with a single Source, from which emanated original primal forces, known as Aeons. The interaction of these forces were thought to make up the very fabric of existence, and give rise to everything else.

My own cosmology is much more complex than I’ll be going into here, but for the purpose of my Mission Statement, the primal forces I recognized at the foundation of all things are Power, Wisdom, Love and Mind. (What I’ve written on Mind is not as relevant for this article I’ve decided, so it will be expanded on and moved to a future post.) These four Prime Movers, as I understand them, are not dualistic; they have no opposites. They are fields of energy that permeate all things, and while we can be more or less attuned and aligned with their influence, even plug into them directly; all things exist in relation to them, and all virtues are various combinations and quantities of these. Recognizing and aligning with them gave me an extremely solid baseline by which to measure all other energies, entities, information, people, situations, desires and all other influences that make up my experience. So without further ado: here’s my statement of purpose, which I’ll then break down into its parts.

I intend and choose to keep growing, learning, experiencing and expanding in power, wisdom, love and service in the way that is most fun and enjoyable for myself.

Power: All Things in Motion

“Power” is a bad word for many people, especially spiritual people. We’re told not to seek power, because, as the saying goes, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I’m also reminded of the opening monologue in one of the Lord of the Rings movies, where the voiceover is talking about how Sauron’s rings were given to Elves, Dwarves and “Men… who above all things (music gets ominous; voice drops to a tone of obvious disapproval) desire power.” Strictly speaking, Galadriel’s got a point there – desiring to accumulate power above all things leads us into problems, and the only place it can take us is to a rocky end. The reason for this is not that the use of power is, in itself, bad – but rather, seeing it as something to accumulate and hold over others is a misuse of the way that the very laws of the universe operate. If “might makes right” is your game, then you’ll eventually have to come to terms with the fact that you’re up against an entire universe which is, in fact, a lot bigger than you. ;) The transformation of both Bilbo and Frodo into almost possessed, demonic versions of their former good-natured selves, is a pretty good picture of what Power can do without the balancing effect of the other two virtues. The condition of Gollum; obsessed, addicted, and completely divided against himself, possibly the most disempowered character in the storyline who ultimately chased power to his own death, shows what can happen when we desire power “above all things.”

Power, as a virtue, is not something to accumulate or hoard; in purest form it is a force that we exist in relation to. Everything in the universe is constantly moving, flowing and changing; forces are always acting on other forces. When we learn how to harness some of those forces and flow with the changes, starting with the forces operating from within ourselves, we have power. When we resist the natural flow (and likely get pretty bruised and battered in the process), when forces outside ourselves take control of our internal forces, we are disempowered. As a Spirit having a human experience, you are, by definition, a tremendous natural source of power and energy. In most cases though, our power is scattered in all directions, and being dumped into black holes that don’t serve us, rather than being put to its best use. It is also worth noting that most of what we think of as “power” is actually status – or the illusion of such – based on success within “The System” as it stands. This condition is, however, dependent on the system remaining as it is – which no system ever does — and as such is fleeting. True power, or rather, plugging into and harnessing the universal source of Power, is adaptable and not dependent on external conditions. For the truly powerful, the appearance of status and the ability to influence are not something to be sought for their own sake. Status is simply a useful tool for gaining greater visibility, and thus being able to speak your truth to a wider audience. Influence is one of the tools useful for navigating your own ship within the context of all the other forces it is subject to. Universal Power doesn’t make anybody inherently “special” because we’re all harnessing the same source, and are part of that source. Although harnessing it in your own unique, creative way, and getting more proficient at doing so, can have a way of putting you in awe of your own special place and purpose within All That Is. :)

Wisdom: All Is Information

Information is everywhere; much like the other two virtues, we’re swimming in a field of the stuff. I would define the virtue of Wisdom as an ability to tap into this information, process it into something you understand, putting it to use, and continually improving on your ability to do all three. For those who have seen the Matrix trilogy, it may help to think of Neo suddenly gaining the ability to view the code behind the Matrix itself in raw form. Everything in our reality is made up of information; Wisdom comes with being able to not only process information, but put it to creative use as well.

Most people are not efficient processers and users of information. This is not usually something inherent in the person, but rather, because they’re misusing their tools: namely, the conscious and subconscious minds. Expanding on this theme will be the subject of future articles. Suffice to say that most people use their conscious mind to do all the gathering, processing, analyzing and application… while the subconscious mind, a living creator with the abilities of a supercomputer that never sleeps, and is intricately networked with All That Is, goes mostly unused and unnoticed.

Wisdom Relates to Power in that along with tapping into the force of motion, tapping into the flow of information is also a source of Power; or as the saying goes “knowledge is power.” Those who are able to advance in the fields of business and politics are adept at combining wisdom with power; information with influence. The problem is that in many cases, they leave it at that – and as a result, it’s framed as “every man for himself”; every man an island, in a fierce, cutthroat competition with everyone else to hoard information and resources for the greatest personal gain, typically in terms of money and influence over others. What they leave out of the equation is the third virtue, which has a balancing and uplifting effect on the others.

Love: All Things Are Relational

I covered the subject of Love in depth in a previous article, so I’ll keep this part short and mostly leave it at “go read that one.” :P In the interest of covering ground that I haven’t already, I’ll say that as a virtue, Love keeps us ever-conscious of the fact that everything in the universe exists, moves, operates and maintains its being in relation to everything else. At a certain quantum level it has been said that “there are no objects, only relationships” – every Thing that exists, is defined in relation to Other Things.

When the self begins to realize the interconnected and interdependent nature of all things, it brings us to the awareness that the way to gain is not by taking away from other selves, but through cooperation within the forces in which we all exist, and with other selves who support our ambitions. Two selves in conflict will never accomplish as much as two selves sharing resources and pushing each other to ever greater heights of individual and collective achievement (which even leaves a place for friendly competition!). On a broader scale, when humanity learns how to share and pool resources and innovation rather than warring over them and restricting their use with legal code like dogs fighting over scraps, we will transcend the limit of our self-imposed doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, and enter into a paradigm of Mutually Assured Creation without limits. This is not some fluffy, hippie-dippy New Age sentiment, but rather a practical and objective observation of the very nature of the reality in which we find ourselves. By plugging in and orienting yourself toward the universal source of Love, especially with the forward-moving and informing influence of the other two virtues, you can get a taste of that reality right now.

Fun: Increasing What’s Enjoyable

While possibly more a personal value than a universal principle, I would argue that all things and people have a vested interest in either being enjoyed, or getting as much enjoyment as possible out of their experiences. While it’s not realistic or even desirable to have every minute filled with all sorts of fun and bliss, that’s not my aim here. What I have found is that by making “fun” part of my mission statement, it orients me in such a way that if there’s a way to make something more enjoyable for myself, I’m more likely to find it. Not only does holding this intention help me to make unavoidable tasks easier on myself; it also raises the chances of steering myself away from situations I’d rather not be in, and toward more of those that I would prefer. It also has a way of putting things in perspective such that I don’t take myself, or most other things, more seriously than they actually warrant. Aside of weaker areas I’m still working on, this has done wonders for my stress level, and even allowed me to design the “playing field” some of my own life lessons.

Paradoxically, I take fun very seriously, since realizing how important and beneficial it truly is. All too often fun and responsibility are seen as being at odds with each other – we do the “responsible adult” thing (which usually means “hand over control of our time and energy for someone else’s personal profit”) during the week, and have our fun on the weekends. Most peoples entire lives are structured this way: trudge through your “responsibilities” now, have fun later… maybe.

As with most things: I reject your reality, and substitute my own. ;)

I challenge myself and stretch my creativity by trying to bring as much fun and enjoyment as I can, into as many areas of my life as possible. This does not necessarily mean that I try to make things “easier” on myself; I do that as well in many cases, but that’s a separate concept. I enjoy struggle for the sake of a good challenge (and then there are times when I’d prefer to relax and be on autopilot)… but the important distinction I came to recognize is that we have a tremendous degree of choice in the matter of whether we make progress through painful struggle, or fun struggle (or, as some people prefer, dispensing with struggle entirely and simply “going with the flow”). Why should work have to be difficult or tedious, and fun reserved for playtime? Why not find ways to play for profit and work for fun? Whose life are we supposed to be living here, anyway?

Far from decreasing my productivity or turning me into someone who veges out and floats through life without accomplishing anything meaningful; when I’m enjoying myself, I learn better, have more motivation to keep challenging myself, produce more, and the product of my efforts radiates the energy of my enjoyment. That should probably go without saying, though a brief glance at the corporate world betrays the fact that most people would probably need to be grabbed by the ears and shaken vigorously for this concept to sink in. This, in turn, allows me to produce a greater amount of value for others, which segues nicely into…

Service: Broadening Your Perspective

As I said in a previous post, I have recognized great value in orienting all my systems toward the concept of service. In contrast to the way “service to others” is usually portrayed though, like most things, I spin it in my own way. While it pleases me very much to have others gain value from anything I’m able to offer, my direct focus is not on “serving all people at all times, indiscriminately.” I’m a big fan of the philosophy encapsulated by the airline safety rule “secure your own air mask first, and then help the person next to you.” My concept of service starts with myself, and works its way outward, first to my immediate family, then to what I call “extended family,” which includes some friends and others I have strong previous-incarnational ties with, and then to everyone else who can be served by what I’m able to offer. Simply put: service starts in my own house. I’m not saying there aren’t times when putting others before myself isn’t advisable, there definitely are. But as someone who has lived with my focus on “others first” for quite a few years, I find my current approach to be a much more sustainable and fulfilling use of my resources.

I proceed in this way because I find that it puts me in the strongest position to focus my energy and provide the greatest amount of service. When I’m careful to take care of myself, I’m more likely to be physically and mentally healthy and content, which makes me more productive. I serve my family next, not out of obligation to the concept of “family,” but because 1. I value the people that I call family, and 2. this small group provides me with a strong, mutual support network, from which everyone in it draws a degree of security and a boost to each individual’s ability to serve how they will. I realize that not everyone’s biological family members fit this definition, but I would recommend to anybody that you find a way to cultivate this sense of “home and family” in whatever way you can make it happen, no matter how far “outside the box,” before trying to be of service on a wider scale.

While I’ve said before that I reject the idea of “service to self vs. service to others” as a false dichotomy, I do make a distinction between service and gratification, or even personal security. I enjoy those things, same as anybody, but holding them as something to seek for their own sake is a dead end. Orienting your systems toward gratification and security, programs you to take in energy and focus it only on the self without putting any back out again. The universe likes to keep things flowing and doesn’t respond well to hoarders – so you end up trying to secure your foundation on this hoarded energy that’s being broken down by the universe trying to take it back out again. Orient all systems toward service of the self and others, as someone who takes in what they need in order to find new, better and more enjoyable ways to use it as well as hand it back out again, and you’ll find that personal gratification and security take care of themselves in abundance.

While I encourage everybody to create their own individual statement of purpose, I suspect that the strongest ones will be aligned with these elements in some form. When I began working with them myself, I also suggested them to my brother, who is very new to self-development and metaphysics. For privacy’s sake I won’t say much about his personal struggles at the time, though I will say he had tried a lot of things to overcome them already. Within about a week’s time after specifically focusing on Power, Wisdom and Love, he came back to excitedly report some pretty drastic, positive changes. So, try it, see what you come up with and share your results with us! :)

In my next post I’ll take a look at the three primal addictions the ego is conditioned with from birth, that obscure, distort and block us from aligning ourselves with Power, Wisdom and Love.

–Palehorse
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A Conversation with Gaia

Posted by Palehorse - Monday, May 11th, 2009


“Quick! Get this mess cleaned up! Mom’s waking up, and she’s gonna be *pissed*!”

Anyone else have moments like this during childhood? Maybe that’s just me. :P

This isn’t the topic I had planned to write on next, but I’ve just had a pretty cool experience and wanted to write it up while it’s still fresh in my mind. It involves a conversation with Gaia, the living spirit of planet Earth herself. Coolness aside, I almost hesitate to post this one, because the last thing I want is to be lumped in with the overwhelming volume of “channeled” fluffy gibberish posted online about what various entities have to say about the human condition; Gaia of course being a lightworker favorite. So let me preface this by saying that I’m not a channeler; for that matter I’m still working to regain clairvoyant and clairaudient abilities (i.e. audio and visual nonphysical sensing) that I lost a long time ago. I’m just someone who has figured a way to use the tools I do have, to gain some information, and it seems like info worth passing along for the discernment of my readers.

Although I’ve lost some of my original abilities due to negative interference and bad coping mechanisms, while working to regain them I’ve gained a high sensitivity to energy, and a degree of proficiency in working with my subconscious mind. I’ve further found that these two skills can be used to communicate with nonphysical entities. I feel around for the energy signature of someone I’m familiar with (sometimes because they’ve gotten in touch first), explain my current lack of audio/visual sensing, and ask that they give their side of the conversation to my subconscious mind, to be later turned over to my conscious awareness. Then I simply say what I have to say, thank them for their time and move on. Before long, their side of the conversation tends to show up, whether in synchronicity, a flood of insight or something similar, but it always manages to be unmistakeable for what it is. I’ve interacted with various intelligences in this way, but a few days ago, I was compelled to carry out an experiment along these lines, to see if 1. the planet has its own consciousness, and 2. if it could, and would, give me some information. I had attempted to connect with her energy in the past, and did get a strong sense of it. For those familiar with elemental energies, it felt like earth element (go figure) but with a strong sense of a very pleasant personality.

Background

For quite a while, I’ve been saying I’m done with this whole “Earth” experience. The dominant paradigm on this planet is one that makes very little sense to me, and makes it extremely difficult to accomplish and experience one’s desires. Religion has responded (to a problem it helped create) by faulting “desire” itself — but the real cause lies in our basic programming. The most guilty offender is what I call the “carrot on a stick programming.” This would be the one where most of our time, energy and effort is poured into things that we gain relatively little from — in order that someone else gains most of the profit. This single “meme” operates everywhere, from your schooling, onto your soul-sucking 9-5 job, to your religion, and beyond. I have seen evidence that this is going on at the energetic and spiritual levels as well. Does the donkey EVER get his carrot? Well… not until he stops being an ass (rimshot!), releases the programming that places the carrot off in the perpetual future, and stops diverting his energy into everything BUT enjoying it.

Thing is — good evidence seems to indicate this is not the case everywhere, and does not even have to be the case here for that matter. There’s a whole multiverse full of opportunities, and different ways to “play the game” — many of which make a lot more sense than the current one. From where I’m sitting, it’s starting to seem a lot easier just to find somewhere that runs on principles that make sense, than it would be to change a pattern that has been in play here for all of known history. So, all my spiritual work and preparation as of the past few years have been geared toward the intent to move on after this lifetime.

More recently though, I was reminded of the concept of this planetary spirit that I had briefly connected with before. I began to wonder — does she have a say in all this? Is anything going to be changing anytime soon in any way that I could get behind? Or does she condone the way things are as they stand? Are there any good reasons for me to hold off on writing this place off entirely while I’m still here? Maybe even a reason I’m here to begin with, that ties into her plans for the near future? Is the spirit of the planet itself, with all its powerful forces, unwilling or unable to have any influence over what goes on here, or is there another factor in play?

She Speaks!

I carried out the process I outlined above, to ask her these questions, and forgot about it. The next day I happened to think back to this, and promptly received a flood of information that surprised the hell out of me, both because of its content and the way it hit me like a VW bus full of hippies. The gist of it was:

“I’m awakening, same as you are.”

This was followed by a flood of impressions on the parallels between my own experience, and what might happen when a planetary spirit goes through the same process. I’ll summarize, but keep in mind that we’re getting into inherently speculative territory here.

My own process is one of self-becoming. The spirit is becoming conscious of all its parts; everything it’s currently operating with, and has previously been using in a largely unconscious and reactionary way. I have done a lot of work to question and purge all the programming I’ve been saddled with, and deliberately chosen what kind of self-designed programming I want to retain. I have created a “mission statement” and aligned with a set of basic principles. I have done a lot of work on personal boundaries, to define which energies, entities, influences and ideas are permitted into my space, and which are not.

So what does a planet do when she awakens? Well… anything she wants to, apparently. I got that like us, she goes through cycles of unconsciousness, and consciousness. In the unconscious phase, the earth’s processes were on autopilot, operating according to predictable scientific rules, and partly subject to the will of whoever were the most conscious beings here at the time. The shift in her case is toward all these processes “waking up” and being operated consciously, by a mind making its own choices. Don’t tell Al Gore, but all the weird and inexplicable weather patterns going on over the last few years may not be down to too many SUVs after all.

What will those choices be? That’s the fun part — free will is not something that can be predicted by any scientific computer model. ;) I am under the further impression that much like human spiritual awakening, she will be examining everything she’s been saddled with in her unconscious phase, and choosing what energies, entities and influences she does and does not wish to permit to remain in her space; maybe even changing a few of the rules by which her processes operate. For practical purposes though, this means that if she decides that she rejects the effect a given paradigm is having on her experience, then you’d better find yourself a new paradigm or a new planet, pronto.

This does of course contradict a view that’s common nowadays, where “mom” is patiently waiting around for us all to come to our senses while we completely trash her house in the meantime. Near as I can tell it would be more accurate to say that mom was asleep, and the house was overrun by a bunch of spiritual teenagers having a kegger with the money they found in her purse. But it’s not to say I believe in some sort of “nature’s revenge” doomsday scenario where she simply shakes everything living off like fleas, though that would certainly make for some good epic movie fodder. From connecting with this personality I get that she holds love as one of her values, which would of course influence any choices she makes in the near future. You can read my post on what “love” actually IS, and extrapolate from there. I can also say that as I go through my own awakening process, I feel a natural affinity for, and a strong desire to encourage others who are following their own. Would a planetary spirit share this affinity? That’s the impression I got.

I don’t want to engage in too much idle speculation on the implications of all this. I realize I’ve probably raised more questions than I’ve answered, but if you have questions, why don’t you figure out what tools you have, and use them to ask her yourself? :) In any case it seems that I have my reason for not writing off this ol’ rock just yet; there may be a show in progress that’s worth sticking around for. In the meantime, I’ll be writing a post on the subject of discernment, which is a crucial skill for anyone who wants to engage in any sort of nonphysical communication.

–Palehorse

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The Violet Flame

Posted by Palehorse - Wednesday, March 18th, 2009



The Violet Flame has become one of my favorite tools in my healing work on myself and others. Before more recently I actually hadn’t given it much thought, as I first thought it was just more of the same grandiose lightworker fluff. Much of the info to be found about it online came with those sorts of trappings, along with the usually suggested decrees and visualizations used to work with this energy, which didn’t really resonate with me. I’ll try anything once, but the rhyming affirmations only made me feel like a New Age Dr. Seuss, and didn’t seem particularly effective. These methods may work for some; it’s just not really my style. Using my own methods for working with energy had better results, though at the time I couldn’t verify whether there was anything to this Violet Flame beyond the effects of regular energy work.

Of course I wouldn’t be writing this article if the Violet Flame hadn’t been brought back to my attention in a very powerful way. A few years after setting it aside, my first significant experience happened around the same time as I was refining my dynamite method. In a long meditation session one night I was merrily working through my chakras, doing away with any energetic and subconscious structures that shouldn’t be there. I was about to start disposing of them by fire as was my usual approach at the time, when a sudden inspiration brought to mind things I had read about the Violet Flame from a trusted source more recently. I intuitively felt that it seemed well suited for this work, so I went with it. This impulse may have had some “prompting,” because once I decided to use it on my offending blockages, I had a brief vision of a large metal bowl on a pedestal burning with this purple fire; an ancient Greek style building in the background. I sort of mentally shrugged, formed a torch for myself and lit it in this bowl. When I went to stick the torch into the chakra I had been working on… WHOA! If there was any doubt that I had been imagining all this, it was quickly dispelled by the very intense sensations going through my torso. I could distinctly feel the shape of this torch as I moved it through my system, and I could feel cords, blockages and other structures falling to the flames like melting butter. At that point I knew I had stumbled (or been nudged, more likely) into something very potent.

After experimenting like this for a few days, the thought occurred to me that the Violet Flame might be something one could be attuned to, like Reiki. For those not familiar with the terminology, an attunement is an alteration to one’s energetic system that allows access to a specific type of energy, which can then be channeled and directed by the intent of the healer. I went into meditation and asked to receive an attunement – and got one. I know I got one partly from the immediate whooshing sensation that went through me, but mainly because it then spent a good three days kicking my ass. ;) Major symptoms of clearing, and energetically just completely wiped out; I had to stop all spiritual practice until I was sure that everything had stabilized. Compared to the relatively mild clearing after my reiki attunements, I’d guess that this was a matter of the Violet Flame doing what it does, i.e. cleaning me out – but doing a whole lot of it, at very deep levels, in a short period, as it was integrating itself into my system. After that was over, I felt phenomenal; my energy was in a state that it never has been before, and I had a great new tool to work with. That said, considering that I’ve been doing regular energy work, and clearing out my own baggage for years already, and was still knocked flat by this attunement for several days – I would not recommend getting too gung-ho about seeking this attunement for beginners, or those who have never done any internal work.

Speaking of what it does – what DOES it do?

Keep in mind that what I have to say about the Violet Flame is stated in my own words, and based strictly on my own personal experience since receiving my attunement. As such, it may or may not agree with what you might read from other sources online. In broad terms, the Violet Flame works by quickly raising energy that it comes up against, to a much higher rate of vibration. For practical purposes, this means that it gets blocked and stagnant energy moving, and it transmutes negative energy into positive. While it’s not literal fire, it behaves very similarly to how heat increases the vibration and changes physical matter from one state to another.

It is often said that the Violet Flame “dissolves karma.” Though I would agree with this, it should be noted that most sources that make this claim assume a view of “karma” that I strongly disagree with. What it does do, is change what you attract by changing you. As is often explained in this blog, your habitual thoughts, emotions and deeply held beliefs all shape the experiences you attract – and all are made up of energy at their most basic level. The transmuting properties of the Violet Flame work on these structures and patterns within your subconscious mind, and chakras, to transform them into a state that is beneficial to you. Of course, it can’t change your beliefs or habits for you – you have to do that yourself. If there’s a lesson that needs to be learned, the learning still needs to take place. Although in such cases, the Violet Flame literally “brings issues to light” – I often find that after a healing session, things like inspiration and awareness of things I should address is heightened, and I am inspired with the best means to do so, which can prevent instances of having to learn things the hard way. In this sense, the Violet Flame can prevent undesirable events by removing internal structures that would have attracted them, before they happen.

From the standpoint of an energy healer, compared to Reiki, the Violet Flame is a much more active modality. While it also seems to be a “smart energy” that possesses its own consciousness in a sense, it is much more suited to being consciously used and directed by the healer. This works well for me, as it’s something I can adapt, innovate and get creative with. In addition to the torch that I first used on my chakras, I also created a pit of fire to push undesirable internal structures into after I demolish ‘em. One of my favorite things to I came up with to do with the Violet Flame is to use it as a banishment of sorts, to clear a room of any negative entities or energy that are hanging around. To do this I vividly imagine and intend soaking the room with oil, and then tossing out a violet fireball to ignite it. Any troublesome entities in the vicinity tend to leave quickly, and others have attested to the atmosphere improving quickly without knowing exactly what I did. Alternately, a Violet Flamethrower works well too. :D For less epic but no less practical day to day use, it’s great for dissolving any fear, anxiety, or lingering “icky” vibes quickly by sending a blast of it through my system. I frequently find myself using it throughout the day as an easy pick-me-up to improve how I’m feeling. As for deeper work, nowadays it’s rare that I do any healing or repatterning on myself without the Violet Flame being involved. My experimentation to find creative new applications is ongoing, and I have no doubt that this awesome energy still has a few new things to show me.

After spending some time working on myself and other guinea pigs volunteers to familiarize myself with this tool and its capabilities, I am now confident and comfortable enough to begin offering Violet Flame sessions to those who would like to experience it directly, as well as attunements for those who feel drawn to incorporate this powerful tool into their healing practice. For more information, check out our energy healing section, and then get in touch to experience it for yourself!

–Palehorse

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The Adventures of Love 'n Shove

Posted by Palehorse - Thursday, November 6th, 2008


Walk softly and carry a big stick.
–West African Proverb

Coming to a general understanding of how one’s energetic system functions is the first step toward working with it effectively. On that note, allow me to introduce you to your two best friends and most reliable support system on the path to fulfilling your highest potential, as the wise and benevolent ruler of your experience. You may know them as your heart and solar plexus chakras, or energy centers. I call ‘em “Love ‘n Shove.” ;)

Love

In my estimation, the heart chakra may well be the most talked about, romanticized, and least understood part of the human energy body. I will be elaborating a lot more on what it is, and what it does, in my follow-up to the What Is Love reader-participation exercise. While we’re waiting for enough feedback to make for an engaging compilation (HINT HINT! :P ), I will say that this is where you’ll find the means to smooth out any passive resistance on your path. At its best your heart chakra reaches out and forms connections that are mutually beneficial for both parties. The cool thing is that simply connecting in this way is a benefit for both parties in itself — it strengthens your heart chakra, makes you feel good and gives others who are receptive to it a shot of positive, loving energy. The “stuff” of the heart chakra is in such high demand that it acts as the force that puts the right people in the right places at the right times, exactly as you need it to be. This is the invisible foundation of your visible earthly support network, and where the “magic” of things like positive synchronicities happens.

Where the heart chakra often runs into trouble, is due to the fact that its only natural defense is passive. Which is to say that some people (and entities) will be of such an orientation that they find its energy distasteful. There has been a tendency in New-Age circles to view love energy as the only necessary defense against active negative interference, but unfortunately this doesn’t always work in reality.

Imagine you’ve got a plate of food in front of you that isn’t your favorite. Whether you go ahead and eat it anyway will depend on a number of factors, such as availability of alternate options, how hungry you are and otherwise whether you have a good enough reason to disregard the taste. Similarly, the heart chakra’s energy does have the effect of repelling some things that aren’t compatible with it — but if the source of interference is determined, and sees a way in, or if one habitually allows their good will to be taken advantage of — then your path will present obstacles that waltz straight over your passive defense.

Anyone who has lived on planet earth for a while will know the feeling of a wounded heart chakra, which could come about via misunderstanding, rejection, betrayal or even deliberate maliciousness. The most common mistake at this point is to try and defend the heart using the mind. After a painful experience, people have a tendency to shut the heart down, and take on negative beliefs about themselves and others. These beliefs are like mercenaries, hired to build a fortress — they’ll do what you tell ‘em and take your focus and energy as payment, but they care little about the condition of the heart itself. The heart thus ends up inaccessible to you or anyone else, unable to form its connections, and eventually shuts down. A stone fortress is a good description of the literal energetic construct many people build around the heart chakra; I know this because I’ve found and demolished mine directly. ;) Not knowing that this is what’s really happening, but still valuing the concept of love — one then may try to substitute other things in its place: money, sex, control, approval and so on… meanwhile wondering why they continue to feel so isolated. Obviously, these things are no real substitute. What the heart chakra needs is a separate security system that lets it do its work freely, yet selectively allows some influences to pass through and engage with it directly, and keeps others out — by force if necessary. Such a security force is readily available, willing and more than capable of doing its job. Which brings us to…

Shove

Say hi to your solar plexus chakra. (Altogether now: “hiiii Shoooove!”) Whereas the heart “walks softly” — the solar plexus is where you’ll find your proverbial big stick. (I said stick! STICK!!) Ahem.

The SP is your center of personal power and will; at its best, it is where healthy boundaries are created — and enforced. When the energy here is integrated in itself, and balanced with the heart chakra, you’re much more likely to know what “healthy boundaries” are for you, and how much force is necessary to keep them from being crossed in a given situation. The great thing about working at the energetic level is that ideally you won’t often need to enforce those boundaries directly — your solar plexus chakra and the boundaries you’ve tasked it with will do that for you. This happens at a subconscious level that is picked up on by anyone you encounter (and even those you haven’t yet!). Ideally, solar plexus energy acts as a deterrent much like carrying a visible weapon — you could use it if you had to, but just having it visible makes it a lot less likely that you’d need to. The solar plexus is also a processor of sorts, where raw bio-energy is converted into things like motivation, direct action and effort. It is the “oomph” that works to convert one’s desire to create their environment in their own image, into physical reality.

Those who have a longstanding habit of either using too much or too little force in their daily interactions will still need to find their own balance through practice and personal experience. If you have been conditioned to believe that all use of force is “sinful”, you’ll need to challenge those beliefs before being able to take personal responsibility for creating your personal reality. Think happy thoughts, make plans and move to carry them out by all means — but know that it’s your solar plexus chakra that contains the driving force which largely determines whether you’re an effective creator, a leaf blown around by every passing breeze, or somewhere in between.

Putting It All Together

When the heart and solar plexus chakras are functioning together and working in balance, they form a unit very reminiscent of the yin yang symbol shown above. The correctly functioning solar plexus is the security system the heart needs to form its connections, boldly and freely. When the heart reaches out, the SP keeps an eye on things, and sends out a warning when it senses an unacceptable amount of risk. When boundaries are crossed and our good will is taken advantage of, the solar plexus steps in to see that the offense is resolved and not repeated, so that the heart is not wounded beyond its ability to remain healthy and open.

In turn, a properly functioning heart chakra is equally important to ensure that the solar plexus chakra performs its functions in the most beneficial way possible. The energy of the solar plexus is pure force — which, by itself, runs the serious risk of being misdirected. Willpower alone only encounters increasing resistance, and results in frustration and isolation. When informed by the heart chakra’s energy, the solar plexus’ drive to press onward is one of passion and inspiration. It naturally directs you toward your most fulfilling possible path, resistance is minimized and the effort required feels effortless — and fun!

The next post will begin to explore how I’ve been working with my heart chakra to dramatically improve my daily experience. For those who are interested in exploring their own chakras and energy system, I highly recommend Robert Bruce’s New Energy Ways. This is the foundation of my own energy work, for being both extremely effective and easy to use. NEW can be found online, as well as elaborated on in the following two books.

New Energy Ways (Online tutorial)
Energy Work: The Secret of Healing and Spiritual Development
(aff.)
Astral Dynamics: A New Approach to Out-of-Body Experiences
(aff.)

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A Paradigm-Shifting Encounter With The Divine

Posted by Palehorse - Friday, May 23rd, 2008


‘elloooo all! Some technical difficulties with my laptop significantly cut down on my site-updating ability for a while, but hark, for I hath returnethed!

My break from writing may have been just as well, as this recent period has certainly been one of those times when a lot of my beliefs and general approach went through a major overhaul. I’ve recently been reading a lot about the idea of “complex adaptive systems,” which I first discovered on the Divine Cosmos site. For the purpose of this entry, one of the main premises is that some systems posess a sort of system-wide intelligence. If pushed far enough toward instability, rather than collapsing, the system will instead spontaneously and quickly restructure itself into a new sort of order, the outcome of which is inherently unpredictable. This is apparently a relatively new science that focuses on the study of complexity, and much like David Wilcock of Divine Cosmos, I believe it has major implications for a lot of things that affect our lives.

Now, science is not my area of expertise (I’ll leave the science geekdom to Gehenna :D ) but it’s interesting that I would come upon this concept at this time. It definitely rings true in my experience of what’s been happening to much of my paradigm lately! I debated whether to post about this experience, but after all the material I’ve covered about negative entities, I figure discussing the positive stuff thats been going on will balance things out a bit and hopefully give my readers a new perspective on what’s possible.

As I said in the post Create Your Own Reality Check, with all the experience with negs that I’ve had, I’ve often wondered — where is the “higher help” in all this, and what is their place in our lives? For the past few months I’ve been heavily focused on trying to make a connection with something positive. I’ve had my fill of the whole neg thing and then some; I’ve long wanted a change of pace.

More specifically, I’ve had plenty of experience with “adversaries”; I want to know, from direct personal experience, that there are also allies out there. Almost all of my efforts have been about trying to connect with my higher self… but as usually happens with me, I seem to have ended up with something completely different from my actual efforts; go figure. Not that that’s a bad thing; it’s never boring in any case!

Recently a friend suggested I check out the band Therion. As I’ve found out, most of their lyrics consist of various mythological and metaphysical references. My delight over this was matched by my suspicion that the fact that I actually understand most of the lyrics probably means I need to get out more. My undisputed geek status nonwithstanding, one of the songs on their latest album is called “The Perennial Sophia” and comes off almost like a hymn of sorts. For anyone who doesn’t know (gno?), in Gnostic thought, Sophia is the personification of divine wisdom.

Now, my concept of the divine is pretty fluid; I’ll talk to and try to connect with different “faces” that I have an affinity for depending on why I’m actually doing so at the time. And, while I don’t go as far as to call myself a Gnostic, I definitely take a lot of my influence from there. Sophia is a personal favorite aspect of the divine to connect with; there have been a few times when I’ve tried to do so and did feel something back, usually in the form of love and comfort. This has always been relatively subtle; enough so that I couldn’t completely rule out wishful thinking, and would only last for as long as I was reaching for it.

So, one night I’ve got that song on and am singing along, getting pretty absorbed in the music… when I suddenly start feeling waves of that same vibe that I associate with Sophia herself, except in a much more powerful and undeniable way. Oooo. I let the intensity of all this keep building until there seems to be a sort of cycle going on between myself, the music and this energy… it’s pouring into me through my crown, and I’m sending my own back while still singing and having fun. I got the distinct impression that whoever’s on the other end was enjoying it too. Very cool feeling. :D When the song was over I was still feeling this energy very strongly and thought to ask for a bit of extra protection from negative interference. I seem to have gotten it, judging by the way things have improved on that front pretty noticeably in the past few weeks. Later on, still feeling it, a friend suggested I try asking for an attunement to this energy in order to hopefully establish a more permanent connection that I can tap into as needed. That seems to have worked out well, as now I can do so pretty easily whenever I feel the need. Often I also feel the occasional random wave of it throughout the day; feels like she’s saying hi. :)

I’m still exploring the possibilities of this connection, but it has definitely produced a lot of changes for the better. For about three days after the first experience the flow of this energy was near continuous, and I was almost completely non-irritable. Even before I’d had my coffee. :D Issues and problems that seemed pressing a month ago now seem far away and a lot less relevant, and I feel much more well equipped to face them head on, but from a more emotionally detached perspective. I’ve always been a pretty laid back person, but now my relationships with other people and life in general feel much more harmonious. Most importantly, I’ve written before about previous difficulty feeling truly connected with other people and the divine — at this point I feel both, much more intensely than I ever have. And I’m likin’ it a lot. :D Something tells me this is only the beginning, and I’m excited to see where these new developments are headed…

To bring the discussion full circle — this has definitely been another one of those times where my complex adaptive (belief) system and perception was shaken, stirred and spontaneously rearranged itself into something even better. The key to being able to have these experiences though, is in the word “adaptive.” Systems, especially belief systems that are rigid, are also stagnant, and do not hold up well in the face of inevitable change. They strain, and eventually they break. This concept can be applied just as well to our internal processes, as well as external human institutions. As I’ve learned, reading about the divine in various forms is one thing — the subjective personal experience is a whole other story. I had long suspected that all the study was just an intro, and if I ever was to have an experience like this, I would have to unlearn most of what I thought I knew in order to avoid reading my own biases and distortions into it. This has held to be very true. One of the most striking revelation so far has been that these interactions don’t evoke in me any need for formality or even “reverence” per se. Love ‘n respect, sure, but if anything I’m just as irreverent as I always was. It has felt a lot like (re?) connecting with a friend; just one with a much more expansive perspective than I currently have.

The other major revelation was that I’m not sure I would’ve pegged Sophia as a metal fan, but well… you heard it here first, folks. ;)

–Palehorse

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Thoughts on Self Healing

Posted by Palehorse - Saturday, March 29th, 2008


One of my biggest interests has long been the mind-body connection, specifically as far as it relates to self-healing. It’s something I’ve theorized about and experimented with quite a bit, often with good results. Yesterday I talked about an early experience where I meditated and sent my intentions into a glass of water, which I then drank. I also made the point that if water is able to record and respond to intent, and our bodies are largely made up of the stuff, then there should be major implications for our physical healing. Another early experience seems to illustrate that this is indeed the case.

One evening a few years back, I cut my lip shaving. And for whatever reason, it would not. Stop. BLEEDING. For four hours. It kept soaking through bandaids, toilet paper and whatever else I put over it, and putting pressure on it would only stop it while the pressure was applied. I had to miss class that night, because I couldn’t very well go in looking like I had tried to make out with a piranha. Besides, if there were any vampires hanging around, I’d only make myself a target, and we just couldn’t have THAT. Err… Ahem.

At some point I came up with an impulse I wished I would’ve had a few hours earlier. I bounced some energy around the site of my battle wound until I felt it tingling, and then tried to heal the spot with a technique I came up with on the fly. For a visual I used, of all things, the rapid self-healing scenes with Wolverine from the X-Men films, and Eric Draven from The Crow. Amusing, yes — but the idea was that modern CGI special effects have advanced to the point where if someone really could heal instantly that way, that’s exactly what it would look like. Thus it seemed to work as a good way to communicate to my subconscious, which understands symbolism and concepts more readily than words, what I wanted. What I did was more than visualizing though; I really tried to feel it as well, to pull the wound closed and feel it sealing up. Those familiar with Robert Bruce’s method of energy work known as “tactile imaging” will be familiar with what I’m talking about here. Literally thirty seconds later, the bleeding had stopped completely.

I have had many similar experiences since. In some cases I’ve noticed that I could make a nagging long term problem or old injury that never healed right feel better for a short period, but it would soon go back to the way it was. In those cases I would often find an underlying energy block in the affected area. Once cleared, the physical issue would heal more permanently. I can’t help but draw a parallel to the western medical paradigm’s tendency to mask symptoms rather than looking for the root cause of an issue, but that’s a whole other post. ;)

My experiences have confirmed to my satisfaction what mystics have been saying for ages and modern medicine is just beginning to admit: the mind has a very powerful ability to change the physical state of the body. My million dollar question is: if I can heal something like a cut, an old injury or the flu, shouldn’t healing something “bigger” be every bit as possible based on the very same principle? Consider the fact that the body’s cells are constantly dying and being replaced; indeed, that the body you have today is not the same body you had several years ago. Consider also the research that is currently learning how stem cells can be triggered to develop into any kind of tissue in the body. If the “stuff” we’re made of is constantly replacing itself, why does it regenerate things like scars, injuries, disease, instead of reverting to its original healthy state? Is there an underlying “blueprint” for our bodies that can be altered by sickness and trauma? If this is the case and it were possible to access this blueprint, could it be reverted to a previous state just as we can solve many computer problems by restoring a previous save? Could deliberate changes to the blueprint be made? Why do our bodies age if the cells are new?

Do we have to stick with the reality that we’ve always taken for granted, or is reality a bit more customizable than we thought?

–Palehorse

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