Mysticism

Room For The Mystic

by

I have a book on my reading pile that I really need to get to, Alchemists, Mediums, and Magicians: Stories of Taoist Mystics by Thomas Cleary. It a catalog of assorted Taoist eccentrics, mystics, artists, and so on. It’s strange that I haven’t rushed to read what is basically “character study of characters” but there you go.

I have poked around in it, delighting at some of the stories. It also made me think about other Taoist figures, from the legendary immortals to 18th century doctor and mystic Liu Yiming (who apparently predicted his own death). Taoism has a legion of artists, mystics, sorcerers and other impressive weirdos throughout its history.

I suppose it’s no surprise I feel at home among this cast.

This got me to think about how many of these tales are about people who wrote great treatises, explored mystical states, founded orders, created poetry, and are noteworthy centuries and aeons later. They did this without the internet, without social media, without megachurches – many of them seemed to oddly not care about fame but achieved it anyway.

Even more obscure figures may still appear in historical documents – or in the book like the one I mentioned.

As I write this in 2025 I think about how we’re pushed to monetize everything – and avoid things that don’t make us money. We’ve got example after example of spiritual grifters to tempt us to start monetizing videos. Why can’t we just be religious weirdos?

We also don’t really encourage people to really live their religion. Our own religious pursuits are “fine and good” but you know, don’t take it too far. If you’re gonna be weird at least be religiously obsessive in the right way.

Oh, and to be sure don’t be religious in a way that makes the world better. We’re fine with homophobia and war-mongering, but don’t you dare tell us to care about each other! And be sure you never denounce the system or anything!

We don’t really have place to just be some spiritual weirdo in American culture, and we need those.

We need the eccentrics who contemplate the strange and discuss it, and that’s fine. We need people who produce zines (ahem) to spread their thoughts obsessively. We need to have room culturally for someone dispensing wisdom fro their front porch. We need people who live their spiritual practices.

We need people whose mystical meanderings may lead us to something. Let society have it’s spiritual Skunkworks.

Besides, if we had more people really thinking about the Big Ideas, we’d have less cults and megachurches. If we accepted the idea of a spiritual quest as fine, acceptable, and laudable who knows what we might have. Especially if we don’t encourage people to make a buck first.

I suppose I’m doing my part. It makes me wonder what happens if more and more of we weirdos live sincerely and team up. It also makes me wonder if maybe I’ve got some inhibitions I’m best without . . .

The World Behind It All

by

“Fairy tales are more than moral lessons and time capsules for cultural commentary; they are natural law. The child raised on folklore will quickly learn the rules of crossroads and lakes, mirrors and mushroom rings. They’ll never eat or drink of a strange harvest or insult an old woman or fritter away their name as though there’s no power in it. They’ll never underestimate the youngest son or touch anyone’s hairpin or rosebush or bed without asking, and their steps through the woods will be light and unpresumptuous. Little ones who seek out fairy tales are taught to be shrewd and courteous citizens of the seen world, just in case the unseen one ever bleeds over.”

― S.T. Gibson

This quote is one I see come up again and again in pagan and occult circles I run in and it always strikes a chord in me.

It is a reminder that the world we see is only part of something much larger, much more connected. Forests echo with life in the present and over time, culled by forest fires and rergrowing in a rhythm as sure as breathing. Old homes bear the weight of history, tears and laughter echoing down hallways for as long as it stands. Every person is a tale extending back untold generations.

And all of this rhythm and history and lineages comes together in something so much larger. We’ve all had those moments where we realize how big and live the world is. We feel that pulse behind everything, something we might call supernatural, but it’s actually very natural, but nature is really big and complex and everywhere. We’re just doing our best to understand it.

When you get to things that are traditionally supernatural it’s not hard to understand why people might believe them. In this big world we understand a slice of it really well but there’s that bigness to it all, and maybe it’s really big if you get my drift. As I’ve said in various forms, believing in gods, spirits, etc. may be necessary just to apprehend something much larger.

To deal with this bigness, we really do need things like folklore, myth, and more. These are ways to remind us of connectivity of the world. To know there are things outside of our everyday life, and to walk carefully lest we step disrespectfully.

Folklore and myths might not correspond 1:1 to reality – or even the bigger reality – but they are good reminders of that bigger reality. It’s hard to boil down that bigness into guides and the like, but tales and correspondence tables and legends are a good try. At least you keep thinking, at least you take some caution when you tread in the world.

People who aren’t mystically or occult-inclined, even the most materialist, still have their folklore and myths. The sports fan who has their rituals so their team wins. The people who talk to their beloved cars. The cup of coffee you have to have in the morning in just the right cup to get going. Everyone has their folklore and sense of the bigness of the world.

We need folklore to see the bigger world. We might as well admit it – and who knows what we can find when we do?

-Xenofact

A Dialog Across Time

by

A large part of mystical practices is about correspondences among things. Omens and runes, Sephiroth and Hexagrams, all are about a the deep orders and patterns of the universe. Then again what is mysticism of all stripes but the idea of an involved, deep, living universe?

Of course anyone who’s dealt with correspondences in such practices knows there are two things you can count on:

  • A history of charts, graphs, grids, lists, and so on trying to understand these correspondences.
  • People not agreeing on these things currently or throughout history. Sometimes quite pointedly.

It’s strange, isn’t it? Anyone who’s read a tarot or cast Hexagrams has had those moments where things just line up. You know you’ve stumbled onto something deep, something real where all those correspondences and commentaries line up . . .

. . . but also there’s so much out there talking about those correspondences. From online arguments to ancient commentary it’s a bit overwhelming.

How are we to deal with all these writings on correspondences over time? As a person interested in the I Ching, I’m used to hearing people discuss commentaries by various authors centuries or even aeons apart. I even have translations of two specific commentaries on the I Ching, one for meditative practices, one for organizational practices. It takes a certain level of commitment to decide you want to detail good organization advice for sixty-four different hexagrams.

But needless to say these historical commentators aren’t always on the same page. Or the same book. It can be confusing or even distressing, as you wonder if someone has gone off the rails or is just to deep for you or is using a regional or timebound reference.

Over time I’ve come to think of all these commentaries and charts, conflicting as they may be, conflicting as their creators may be, as an effort over time. We’re all trying to figure out how the universe works, how the parts line up, to find the structure behind reality. They may not agree, but maybe by study we can find more about just how it all lines up. We can be part of the dialogue, but that’s going to take us stepping up, reading, contemplating, and thinking.

Nothing is right. Nothing is perfect. You could write the most complete and accurate book on mystical correspondences ever, but how much of it might be bound by time, place, and cultural references? But a dialogue? A dialogue is something that can go on over time.

We can even be part of it.

– Xenofact