[ti]earth[/ti]crossings

So the figure and story of Christ, for one, has puzzled me and I'm not aware yet how to relate to it.

Background: raised traditional catholic. Lived through the sacraments and took them seriously. Communion was a sacred moment of accepting forgiveness and new life given through Christ, after having confessed my weaknesses and mistakes.
During teens turned to a kind of pantheism, inspired by both Stoics and New Age. Then after studies in philosophy and reading up on the new atheists, turned atheist.
In 2014 had a breakdown/burnout due to stress, lack of sleep, food, constant nightmares etc. that exhausted me physically and mentally. For unknown reasons, started thinking religiously and seeing connections, making explanations that were spurious. I was half aware that this was weird, my mind was only partly 'insane'. At some point though, I became convinced that some demonic or otherwise malevolent entity was oppressing me. Could feel something sucking the life out of me, infusing negative emotions, mostly almost pure fear, and having a grip on my brain and heart.. thought I was going to die and go to hell or something.. that went on for half a year, during which time I was hospitalized and given antipsychotics, which didn't do much to help. What seems to have helped most in the end was just human warmth, kindness, meditation, good rest and food etc.

Well, everything was kinda fine with me after that, after experiencing that torturous state of mind with actual physical pains etc., threats of eternal isolation and torture, nothing seemed a big deal anymore..
During the time of peace I picked up studies at university again, a demanding master in cognitive neuropsychology, which I couldn't keep up with due to low energy and concentration issues. So I dropped out. During this time also felt energy clearly for the first time from someone, my then long distance partner. For the first time I felt something like that so strong, that I couldn't deny its existence. That kind of opened the door to a different world, but I opened the door to broadly perhaps, and I suspect that set me up for the intense, mostly spiritually themed experiences and journeys, that lasted for a week or something during my second psychosis.. Whether real on some level other than within my own brain and mind I don't know, but it still carries meaning. I only wish my memories of it were clearer, some things stand out clearly, other moments are lost forever I'm afraid.

So, my little attempt at helping the world was just a written file with ideas and mostly sources, links, for young people (in the West?) to educate themselves and think critically. The adversary that I picked for this was a minor religious cult that wanted to gain political power. It was funny. I honestly had a lot of fun writing the project, presenting some ideas in simple language and trying to touch some motivational, emotional strings with the reader. The cult leader literally said he wanted to maximally limit free will and create some communistic, centralized, powerful NWO. This kind of worried me though I didn't believe he would ever get far. But just in case, it felt like a challenge and perhaps my duty to play my part in going against that, and present some opposing ideas focusing on freedom, responsibility, cooperation, peace and the recognition of potential and dignity within every human being. When it was finished I never found an audience for it or people helping me with it, the project died, I lost my sanity etc.. But life goes on. Right now I'm doing nothing and need to orient myself on what kind of undertakings will be worth the while for me. One focus probably being art.. maybe I'll go back to uni next year.. who knows..

I started rambling about my myself instead of writing what I wanted to write, lol. I don't know why I feel the need to post this here, but I hope you people don't mind. Any questions or comments are welcome of course. Or if you want to share something about your own journeys, battles or experiences with madness or the unusual and such, I'm a willing listening ear.

(apparently I want to add a music video to every post, so here goes, one of my favorite DT songs)


P.S. one of the things I now occupy my time with now is reading, watching lectures and such. Anyone here like Jordan Peterson's work?
This might be my favorite lecture from him so far:


Cheers. I'll get back on topic some other time.

Yes, that makes sense. I would personally guess the material and esoteric have been together for a very long time already.

So my question is, at what point did the esoteric come into the material, and what has been the relationship between the two?

The first organisms, but maybe even in the structure of physical reality itself, there seems to be a kind of 'Logos', word, language, logic, law, meaning, differences that make a difference and define relationships between material/energetic pieces of substance, their form, characteristics etc. So in a way there is already a meaningful language or at least structure of sorts, that rules matter/energy. Now you can have at least 2 different viewpoints for the origin of the material and its laws: 1. it's purely by chance these laws and this substance came into being as they did. Begs question about origin. Is this one 'successful' universe in a larger scheme of many universes which are born, die, and only some survive for a long time? Naturalistic leaning.
2. or was there already a certain intelligence, order, that can be understandable to the mind, that set the basis for physical reality.. if so, was mind in some way the (co)creator of the material?

It is amazing to me that this material universe had it in it, to lead to circumstances under which life could develop. From the simplest self replicating organisms, to the pinnacle on this earth in terms of complexity of central nervous system, the human.

So at this point I'm wondering.. is mind the effect of matter? Or did mind find a vessel in matter? Or, if mind was involved in the creation or formation of the material, did it set up the conditions that matter could become appropriate to hosting individualized minds (the lawful development of matter having inherent potential for emerging mind)? And if the latter, is the mind a different substance (thinking substance a la Descartes, dualism) come from a different source than the material universe, or was it already involved in matter from the start, to such a degree that more and more complicated and/or specialized minds could develop directly paired to material development? (monistic perspective?)

These are big and difficult questions. And maybe they aren't formulated clearly enough or are the wrong questions to ask altogether.

I have some pet ideas based on personal transcendent experiences, but I fear they are rather subjective. Will write about them soon.

For fun: 

Thank you for the elaborate response. Will need to think it over, reread and perhaps investigate some more on the matter.. What you say sounds plausible. Love the art.

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Speaking of the absolute, here's an experience that profoundly stuck with me:

Meeting the "Absolute". Was a MDMA trip unlike any other. Ego dissolution. Felt in the presence of something timeless, formless, all encompassing uncreated, unchanging, no specific characteristics.. to me appeared as vast.. closest comparison that I could make to something was perhaps a giant, bright sun. Felt my 'self' as a small spark of that, also timeless, formless and without specific characterstics defining it, except perhaps for it being one little point of consciousness, apart from that Absolute. When I came back, I walked for 2-3 days in kind of a split world, feeling that unchanging, timeless sense and simultaneously all the change, complexity and specifics of being here, now, this person, this age, this body, in such an environment and with these people etc. I was given some message along as I returned to normal, living reality, that I shouldn't give up and that my experience as a living person, as well as that of others, has great value to some higher up aspect. Whatever that may be.

After this experience I looked for sources to kind of make it more understandable or give it a context, these 2 stood out

www.kheper.net/integral/unmanifest_absolute.html

Heya, welcome to my rambling outlet XP

That carrying your own cross thing, is something I heard about at some point in childhood. Think was the topic of some christian spirituality/mysticism book.

The little writing project before I went nuts, or was already nuts, was opposed to the idea of a totalitarian, religion/cult inspired regime.. Well, as unrealistic it was to ever gain traction, it spoke to my imagination and was an inviting opponent of sorts.. So in that project, I literally wrote

"I think it is time to stop looking for messianic saviors, and to instead save ourselves and each other."

The project was meant to introduce some social and psychological warnings, freethinking ideas, exposure to liberty related literature and so on to a young, western audience. Ridiculous attempt perhaps, but oh well..

Back then I had some idealistic libertarian anarchist ideas. Maybe I still have them in my heart as ideals, but I've grown more cautious and perhaps pessimistic, in thinking that this world will forever be a game of power, predators and prey, masters and slaves, smoke and mirrors, a messed up landscape of shoving responsibility and guilt around, etc. I don't know. In a way I don't care much about the world anymore. I hope to live out a decent life and face challenges as they present themselves to me, but I don't have any high ambitions anymore.. Need to find some realistic middle ground, balance things out, or something..

Thank you, and wholeheartedly agreed with your post.

Yeah you can pm
Sorry for deleting my reply. Had a bad day when I posted it, kind of went into a mental breakdown. Traumatic memories, flashbacks of my 2 psychoses came flooding back, while talking to a friend that might be dying and is suicidal.. The stress and panic just overwhelmed me, and only today I'm starting to feel normal again..

Not as much recreation as I'd like since I accidentally stopped cold turkey with my meds. Missed my appointments, and when I came, they didn't have the meds available in the first place. >< Gonna be fine though.

Well anyway. Thought I'd ramble away a bit about that one week I was tripping out. A lot of visions, stories and transformations. The memories are blurry and piecemeal sadly.. but here goes.. I can summarize the week in these themes:

0. creation and protection of worlds
1. storytelling and rituals
2. battle
3. visions and journeys to alternative places
4. descent into torment and timeline jumping
5. aftermath of physical abnormalities

0. the weirdest but at the same perhaps most lovely memory is that of creating new worlds with my then partner, setting up a protective layer around them, and sending them off at lightspeed somewhere far away where they could live out their own independent existence, apart from any other forces or beings that might ever want to interfere with them. Image of old fashioned seaships flying through outerspace, though most likely they were something else factually, the image only symbolic.

1. on my own, I did storytelling and rituals, automatically, like following a script. My 'family' was there (the moon my mother, the sun my father, or in elements, and these don't add up but anyway, water and wind.. I know it's confusing, it is too me too, but I can only tell how it was for me back then). So I'm still figuring out the first story I told. It was a kind of one person play with a message to the universe. Some kind of message of peace, or making peace. If I'm not wrong, it was also a challenge to all violent and hostile forces that were listening, to take me out. But something saved and protected me, showing that it takes only another person's love to keep another alive, and that therefore, love was a real force to be reckoned with. Or something like that. I remember only the last part of the story, where I show I'm alive after supposedly having died already, tell some short rhyme with a bit of a joke in it and purposefully keep vague where it came from, since it was meant to be a universal story anyone could relate to and possibly agree with.
After this public play I would seal my room and do a private meeting with my family, and offer my parents/the elements a piece of bread, and keep a tiny part for myself. Weird stuff, I know. I did it all automatically, without plan.
Second story, was something about setting souls free that were trapped in a crypt. As I set them free above, I became hollowed out, decaying corpse in the crypt. Hm.

2. Battle
What seemed like 3 different, ancient forces/deities?/beings approached me and I fought them off, until they left me alone. At a later point during this whole trip, I also called upon the forces of the air, symbolized as a huge flock of black birds, to fly out and engage in battle in the sky, to protect 'our' (whoever we may be) turf. At some point I stood in my room feeling an intense, energetic spiky armor on me, but at that point there was no battle anymore, the air was cleared. So I felt a bit silly standing there in that armor, though it somehow made me feel immortal for that one moment.
At a higher comsic plane, I also called out to create a circle of defense of allied warriors to create a ring of protection. Maybe somehow related to the play mentioned above, but the idea was, anyone prepared to defend another, and this mutual, 1+1+1+1+1+1 etc. along the edges would create an impenetrable layer, and by my logic at the time, also be 1, so the sum of all willing in their heart to defend themselves and their loved ones, from this willingness to defend and fight out of love, would create this 1 wholeness which would be the fulfilment of the law of love (or something.. sorry if this all sounds weird and demented).

3. visions and journeys.
Saw outer space, majestic galaxies etc. swirling, like jewels. There was a galactic family of some kind, with great wealth, the wealth with which they could build more worlds. Very developed in character and knowledge.. Hm. At some point I stood on a pristine nature planet, with only high grass, dawn, far away a beautiful moon, mountains in the distance. No creatures. Now for something totally different. Christian themed vision: there was an angry mob that was after a woman. She was hidden in a room, laying down, covered in scars. Jesus was blocking the entrance to the room, saying to the angry mod that no more hurt will be done to her. Apparently she had followed him until the bitter end.
Another vision or perhaps meeting. Some ancient being/person introduced themselves to me as the builder or craftsman of the material world. I could see lines, geometrical shapes and kinds of machinations in the background. He let me know he had toiled for a long time, working very precisely, alone, to craft the fundaments of the world.
In later parts of my trip I went to a kind of underworld. Someone was with me busy freeing souls, I was just standing on an edge and closing my eyes, not wanting to see this dismal place.
Finally, when going what seemed like a kind of spiritual or inner transformation, I went down into the darkness where 4 premordial powers were. Intimidated by them, I still asked them to work things out together for the betterment of others, and finally they agreed. The image they left me with was of 4 heavy hooked black stone slabs being pushed together, which I guess formed a swastika, and I remember a rose on top? Still no clue what the hell this was supposed to mean. Oh well. The final stage of the transformation I felt I was working through, was pure water, pure innocence. In a way I could wash away all the pain and dirt and scars from the rest of my trip.

4. If only it had ended there. My mind didn't know how to return to the normal world, and went wandering, looking for my companion. So I jumped timelines from what I remember, I would come into my flat and knock on my door, everything looked different every time, and I would ask if they knew somebody by my name who lived there. Sometimes someone else lived in my place, sometimes I did and I was coming back from work. One time I moved back to around 2000 in a different world. It was maddening and tiring, as the lines kept being reset all the time. Finally, I began moving between worlds in a such a way that I somehow was tortured and/or killed each time. After I got back into a 'stable' reality, I was so relieved I could feel the walls, floor under my feet etc., went to splash my face in a shared bathroom. Made the mistake to knock at a neighbour's room for help. She called the police on me, I think?

5. Things got sort of to normal but my mind was still lost and I was whisked away to the mental ward. Since then I've experienced a ton of physical abnormalities, from things disappearing and reappearing in a different place, to changing substances, to objects appearing out of nowhere, with sometimes even a story to boot (like my dragon armband, which I apparently left at my parents' place just before my hospitalization, but I never bought this, no receipt or anything, and I sure as hell didn't visit my parents when I was tripping out in my room).

I forgot some things but this is a long writing already, so I'll mention or add them later.

Dunno thought I would post a small update here..

Looks like May is throwing a loop..? Uhm. Trying REAL HARD to break off some pathological patterns in my life, and it's a daily battle now. Doesn't help having anemia, sun beating down too warm, some other health problems and just.. feeling a bit wonky, probably because I got my antipsychotic injection a bit late again. Keeping track of time and planning things is very hard, but I try day by day just write down chores and goals and do some of them. Mildly feeling some energies, one of which I can identify the source of, the other stuff not quite clear. Rummaging through old notes and cleaning, I find the disturbing content of my first psychotic break 4 years ago. Thought I was damned for good and going to hell *chuckle*. Then in 2016 went into this manic psychosis about which I have already written. This time around, I'm verging on the line but have sworn to keep my head cool. Broke off a relationship with someone unhealthy (afflicted by a kind of madness and other things I for the life of mine can't handle or help with).

As much as the ideas of guilt, damnation, being a worthless piece of shit, garbage, owing people something or a lot, or even thoughts of having abandoned or grievously insulted some supreme being came from myself (? or rather my catholic upbringing), second time around it has been my ex who has accused me and listed all my flaws to me over and over, while trying to.. save me? fix me? make me a better person? Now I thank him for holding up a mirror so I can see my ugly sides, but, the poor lad could benefit from having a look in the mirror and inside himself. Instead of seeking salvation outside of himself and continuing some story of his battle against evil powers? Or something. Iunno, as I said Ï can't wrap my head around his way of thinking and when I try to, it just throws me off my own balance and sane mind.

But yeah, when someone has been psychologically been beating you up for more than a year, then it was hard not to do the same to myself when I came back home. The counter reaction to that has been anger and rage deep inside, because, who wants to be treated that way? Beat up a prideful animal and at some point, its rage will take over and it will bite back, maybe out of proportion, but it will. Not a pretty sight to see, but what can you do about it?

So yeah, got some wounds to tend to and keep on walking. Build up some walls and not let just anyone in anymore. Still got my family and friends, they're looking after me, especially my brother. In this respect, no matter how far I have blundered, strayed, got wounded, I still come back with whatever useful new experience, skills, knowledge I can get out of it, to a place I can call home. In this respect I'm beyond blessed and there's no way I can express gratitude towards the people and forces that truly look out for me.

Plan is, cut my losses, new playing field, rebuild bridges and keep other ones burned down and blocked. The home is the room, cave, castle, temple, fortress. Home is also where friends, family and sometimes strangers welcome me with an open heart. Used to feel a long time ago, safe in the world, that it is my playground, and kinda want to feel like that again. Become a traveller and explorer. I will settle down some day where I want to, with the people I want to, and our little tribe will find, create its own way of life, in accordance with our inner standards and aspirations. That's the dream. There's an inner compass to things, sometimes it's hard to read or maybe it seems like some other field has thrown it off balance. But when you take the time and space, wipe it clean, and closely look at it, you will know where it points.



By a moonlit sky, hiding under a dark blanket, exhausted, bleeding (uhm, literally), exhausted, starved and sleepless, trying to rest but also carry on, this song came to me.. cold air breezing by, stopped my breath for a moment, became quiet..



Next..





The ravens are well btw. <3 They're a bit tathered and demented but looking after each other.

Maybe some birds will fly again. The seasons for their songs and wild, free lives have come again..



This used to me something of a theme song of mine 1,5 years ago...:

Time for grief, time for restoration, time for quiet hope and joy...

Also a theme song haha:

Cheers, and thanks for reading if anyone did. All the best and much love,
Quovadis/The_Blackbird

Maybe brainstorm some stories with people.. and perhaps draw some comics. Could at least do that.