Liberatory Spirituality

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I’ve been thinking about my spiritual practices lately, what I want to do, share, write about, and learn about. I think the best term is “Liberatory Spirituality.” There are several levels to it, and I’m going to try to consolidate them here, both to share and also to organize how I think about it.

There’s the personal level of Liberatory Spirituality. The practice of spiritual activities that help liberate me to think and act in ways where I am more connected with the world but also less restrained. It’s meditation that brings a unifying intent. It’s contemplation that overcomes neuroses. It’s things that both evolve me but also let me be myself without the constraints of time and neuroses – more me, less my limited ideas of me.

Our first set of constraints is ourselves. We need to be liberated from what we think we are, not necessarily a jailbreak, but just realizing where the walls are. This is important because we can be our own prison and our own jailer – and because we can delude ourselves into thinking we’re liberated when that’s just a new prison.

There’s the social level. What is my role in the world, what does my spirituality tell me? How do I interact with others and help them in their own liberation? What roles and professions and so on help us grow and grow together? How can we be liberated together?

Taoist and Buddhist writers I’ve read often talk about the wish to help all attain the Tao, for all to be liberated. That’s so important because when we care about others, we take down our own walls. When we connect with each other, liberty is reinforced and amplified.

Finally there’s the “cosmic” level, a lovely term I heard in Understanding Reality – being part of the Celestial Design. There’s that role in the greater universe, in the underlying principles and powers of the world. Gods and virtues, history and cosmology.

This is the hardest area to talk about, perhaps. But it’s also one that has us think about our place in the greater world – or how we’re disconnected from it. It helps us think of gods and great patterns. And yes I’m being all artsy and poetic because it’s the only way I know to express this.

These liberations all work together as well. Some great teaching from history leads us to take up liberatory practices that in turn help us liberate others. Compassion for another can crack our emotional armor, leading to realization that inspires us to write down our thoughts to share for history. We may see a god in another person, leading us to appreciate the cosmic patterns beneath the world while our own sense of self weakens – yet broadens.

It’s liberation all the way up and down our spiritual practices.

So in my own limited way, that’s what’s important to me. I’d like to see human liberation on all levels – in short, as a spiritual practice. It’s nice to know so many feel this way, from the Liberation Theology of Christianity to the Buddhists desiring to liberate all to people who just care about their fellow humans.

Let’s all get there together by being here with each other.

–Xenofact

The Inevitable Cult of Wealth

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A lot of wealthy people seem to be in cults, and I’m not just talking your standard Right Wing Christian Crap. As I write this in October 2026 we’re getting reporting on strange cults of Artificial Intelligence, rationalism, Antichrist obsessives, and more. People are looking at billionaires and going “what the hell did they say” and “what drugs are they on” (Ketamine of course, but also my guess is plenty of psychedelics). There’s surprise at this cultic behavior, and honestly there really shouldn’t be.

Imagine you’re wealthy for whatever reason. You can shape your entire experience to be whatever you want. People will do whatever you want because you have money (and possibly fame and power). You can exist the exact way you want with little to no pushback.

Oh you may think you’re not living an illusion, but unless you’re very careful, you will. If you can change the world with a transaction, people will like to you, suck up to you, or worse assume you’re right as you have money. Even if you’re careful, you’ll have to work hard not to delude yourself because others will help you do just that.

Being rich and powerful leads to an echo chamber and eventually a kind of cognitive impairment. Ever seen a Really Rich person just freak out at a random social media post? Someone living in a self-imposed bubble will loose their shit over something posted by some anonymous person with a handle like BannanaCannon420.

Now such environments will lead to cultic behavior – even if it’s a cult of one. You’re in your own self-created bubble. You’re creating a feedback loop. You’ve got people willing to tell you what you want to hear (often for money). That’s a cult.

But also think of these echo chambers these people live in. If a cultic behavior or set of ideas are introduced there’s a good chance it won’t leave and will be amplified. It just takes one doofus with the right (or wrong) idea, one self-published manifesto, to get into the sphere of some rich person and then the bad idea stays and grows. They may even share it with their friends, who are also wealthy and honestly probably kind of bonkers.

So yes, some of the uber-wealthy act like they’re in cults – they are. They exist in self-created echo chambers. Bad ideas don’t get flushed out. They talk to other people like them. And that’s not counting important questions like “is the economy structured so utter assholes easily take control.”

Honestly, once you add the asshole factor it gets worse. I’m being kind.

So maybe in our current state we need to consider the rich and powerful to be in some kind of cult by default until proven otherwise. And it’s another reminder of why consolidation of power of any kind is a problem – because culty behavior follows almost inevitably, even with the most charitable viewpoint.

–Xenofact

Systems Help Us Move Forward

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Last column I wrote about how spiritual and psychological systems are useful in many ways, but one way is seeing how kind of ridiculous we can be. When you see your flaws as part of some psychological model or flows of energy, they seem lesser, they seem kind of foolish. Not to discount the very real psychological work we need, but some issues look more ridiculous when you classify them, like realizing you could just oil that squeaky hinge.

Systems – psychological, mystical, etc. – help us see we can be better. Which is something I’d like to address.

Having a “System of Self” (I probably need to make my own term here) means that you are viewing yourself as a process. You’re not solid, not inevitable, not immovable. You’re a thing of inputs and outputs, processes and changes, evolution and decay. You can change – and will change.

You can also decide on the kinds of changes you want to make. Because you are a system – be it one of energy flows or psychodynamics – you can decide how to direct and correct that system. When you think in systems you have a way to see yourself and see where you can make changes. From releasing repressions to changing your elemental balance, you have a way to ask what do I change.

That is incredibly empowering. Your system is a way to think of yourself so you can heal, evolve, and grow. To have a good system is to have a way to rethink yourself and to develop. When you see yourself as parts, it’s easier to be whole sometimes.

For myself, the use of energy flow concepts from Taoist practice, and the psychological ideas of the Five Elements are helpful. When I really began evaluating myself, seeing myself as these changing processes, my perspective shifted into one of tweaking and adjusting.

As noted several times in my writing, I don’t even think the system has to be that good or accurate. It just has to be something to get you started so you can start thinking and learning – and something with the leeway to let you play and think. I mean there’s plenty of criticisms of Freud, but his initial ideas were simple enough to work with.

I think we all need A System to think about ourselves. We need that power to say “yes I can evolve and change.”

–Xenofact