Psychology

Across Time, Across Identities

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Most of us who pursue mystical endeavors read documents that are hundreds or thousands of years old. People pursue writings on meditations and mysticism, looking for strong threads and useful practices. Worshipers of various gods read through translations and historical documents, embracing divinity by trying to understand the past. Human history is the history of the mystical, the spiritual, as that’s part of what we do.

Plus some of us want to make sure we’re not just following something a hack wrote on a page for a quick buck a few decades ago.

As I’ve noted before that in my own Taoist-infused work, I’ve tried to cultivate a mental “ecosystem” of Taoist thought for my practice. I read some of the Tao Te Ching each night and study a hexagram of the I Ching each night. This helps me better understand Taoist practices and have a mindset that is more expansive, having a system of symbols to relate to reality.

However in my practices I also find moments wondering as to the mindset of whatever author of long ago I’m reading. It might be a bit of obscure symbolism, a disturbing bias, or an intimate detail I just don’t get. One moment you’re reading a thousand-year-old document and truly getting the author’s deep point, then you’re wondering what you’re reading.

(And, yes, there’s a specific set of indicdents in my own studies that spawned these speculations).

I think it’s easy for us to forget that those we read and study are people who lived in different times and places. We may relate to them due to shared experience, their exellent writing, and/or a good translator but there will be a gap. At some point, there will be an alienness between us and those of the past we want to learn from.

That’s fine. That’s to be expect.

Remembering these gaps exist helps me get better at learning in my mystical studies. Why is this symbol so important to this one person Where did these strangely-phrased biases come from? What was the political situation at this time? Why did some food get classified this way (a personal one for me, a cooking enthusiast)? This way I can bridge that gap.

In fact, as I noted, my attempts at a “Taoist Mental Ecosystem” are part of that. If I want to understand some of these amazing writings, I have to get into the mindset. Best of all I get to update that mindset for the present, which may mean I can one day help others or write something that helps people appreciate the things I do. Come to think of that, some of that is posts like this.

I also think remembering these gaps helps us appreciate when these gaps are bridged by the effort of authors, translators, and record-keepers. Some works are timeless because someone(s) tried to make a piece of work be accessible to others. Even the smallest spiritual book or meditation guide that has stood the test of time is a monument to the effort that made sure it has.

So let your past authors and translators and so on be a bit alien. It’s OK. They did their part, so let’s do our part to connect to them.

–Xenofact

The Spoons of Taoist Energy Work

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The Spoons of Taoist Energy Work

No, this isn’t about a highly obscure magic item (yet). It’s a bit more exposition on how my takes on “energy” work in mysticism has some benefits even if it’s not scientifically true. Energy as a metaphor is quite useful in my meditative practices, if only because it gives me better ways to understand myself.

In my meditations, I practice a kitbash version of “Internal Alchemy” from Taoist practices. Essentially I clear blockages of energies, generate energies, and circulate them. There’s 3 basic “treasures” (vitality, chi (sort of general energy), spirit), meridians, etc. But the key thing for this column is you conscience of your body’s forces as having certain functions and being able to be refined, expended, and conserved.

Taoist works often talk about conserving these treasures (usually all three, as they affect each other). One does not wish to waste one’s vitality in pointless sexual and physical indulgences as one cannot generate chi. One does not waste chi with poor habits and racing emotions as that is the powerhouse of the body and source of spirit. One preserves the spirit so it does not drain away, limiting your mental abilities and your ability to achieve higher states.

This may sound complicated, but it really comes down to “stop randomly expending your energies with worries, disconnected indulgences, etc.” One “guards” these treasures and refines them into mental and physical health and even enlightenment.

I found this simple idea of “guarding one’s energies” to be very useful for understanding how I waste the resources of mind and body. Pointlessly pushing oneself at work, obsessing over things you can’t change, etc. just burns you out. Having a more complex and poetic framework just makes it easier, no matter how “real” it is.

In fact, I realized how these ideas go to the idea of “Spoons,” the metaphor used for how much attention/mental energy one has in popular culture. Though a recent invention, it compares to multi-aeons old practices rather well. Another reminder of how metaphors for complex human behaviors are so useful, even if they are not technically or scientifically real.

Now admittedly Taoist practice isn’t just spoons – it’s sort of more forging spoons, using spoons wisely, and making better spoons. But in many ways, the preservation of one’s powers (especially spirit, which is closer to “spoons”) is part of both metaphors.

Ancient practices and modern metaphor. A reminder that a little poetry goes a long way towards our spiritual health.

Plus I get to make jokes about the title of my essay.

-Xenofact

A Newly Burning Brand

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“I’m X, Y, and Z” some religious person or spiritual seeker will exclaim proudly, touting their supposed morals and ethics.. However they are neither X,Y, or Z in your humble opinion – yet if you call them on it they get very offended. You yourself are offended that they are making such statements while clearly not living up to what they profess.

We’ve seen this before, with gun-toting Lightworkers, compassionate Christians who want homeless people dead, and so on. People are very emphatic about who they are while being absolutely nothing like they say they are.

So are they just lying? Well, it would seem as much, but drifting among various conversations I’ve had and heard, I’d like to suggest something different. These people have a brand.

A brand. A set of labels and images and so on that define them. It doesn’t mean they are these things, but they say they are. The human equivalent of a corporation touting their love of the environment while pumping toxic waste into it, or financial responsibility being part of their image until the CIO suddenly flies to a country without an extradition treaty.

At least with corporations we have the comfort of assuming people in them are lying to us, but I think these “spiritually branded” people who don’t live up to their brand may be serious. They may actually think they’re what they say they are.

Why do I say that? Am I going soft? No, they’re still destructive assholes, but we can learn from them. In fact I think I have a pretty good idea of how we got here.

Ages ago, “personal branding” was all the rage in the career world. Initially I kind of liked it because it felt like a vision quest – figure who you are and sum it up! I’ll even argue that early on it was a good thing as it helped people figure out how to communicate in their careers!

But of course, it became corrupted into bullshit-spewing self-marketing. The internet didn’t help because it encouraged everyone to brand themselves. Start this youtube channel! Start this podcast! Do this etsy store! Try this on your LinkedIn. We all got branding dumped down our throat, and even if we didn’t respond we saw all those people who found brands and wondered . . .

Now slather all of this on top of religion and spirituality, which has had PLENTY of inaccurate branding over the ages. The result is something far worse than the usual religions toxicity. We’ve taken the problems humanity has always had and added market-tested, keyword-enabled branding on top of it. It’s somewhere between marketing and toxic fandom.

So when you tell someone they’re a religious hypocrite and they insist they aren’t with buzzword bingo, remember this is branding. This is a lie people are so used to telling it’s not a lie.

(As how we deal with it, well, that I gotta put some thought into . . .)

– Xenofact