community

We Need The Shrines

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I’d seen a Tumblr post about a desire to have community shrines again, a place to leave offerings to local spirits and luminaries, a sort of ritual in physical form. That post made me feel many things and I wanted to explore them.

We have them, we just don’t call them that

As any regular reader knows I adore Little Free Libraries and in fact engage in ritual behavior with them. Every week I place books of particular importance to me in whatever Little Free Library I choose – a used copy of the Tao Te Ching a copy of On Tyranny (which i get in bulk). Sometimes I place other books, and of course sometimes it’s time to clear the shelves – but I always make it part of a ritual.

The Little Free Libraries are a shrine to knowledge and writing, all you have to do is treat them as such. Your favorite gods, immortals, and spirits of such things can be respectfully and appropriately honored – as well as any local spirits you wish to.

But there’s aren’t’ the only “also shrines” out there.

There’s Little Free Galleries that display art, take a piece, leave a piece. There are donation boxes put out to share resources in a community. I’ve seen people leave “bottles” of well wishes for people to pick out, or invite folks to chalk inspirational messages on the sidewalk, hang signs to give neighbors a books, and so on. All of these are shrines if you let them be. In fact, they may be shrines anyway if you really think about it, and the creators may not have realized it consciously – but unconsciously, who knows?

Real shrines might be a challenge

As much as I’d like full-bore public shrines I think they might be a challenge. Making things multi-spiritual/syncretic is a challenge in America of 2025, and it doesn’t take many people to ruin it anyway. It seems there’s aways some Influencer-Brain busybody out there to raise a stink, and I can hope in the near future we shame them away.

This makes me sad. The honest need for shared public ritual, spaces, and values is important. I think we need something like that. I think our culture, such as it is, needs something like that. Shared ritual space, perhaps just silent leaving of offerings and wishes, would do so much good for us.

However . . .

But let’s do it anyway – our way

What this really makes me think is we should start making public shrines and ensuring things are public shrines but in ways that work it into the community – and thwart busybodies.

Start with the Little Free Libaries, Little Free Studios, Donation boxes, and so on. Make donations, get your fellow spiritually-inclined folks to join in. Set regular times, do a walk around a city to hit specific spots relevant to local spirits, history, and so on. If you had a lousy day make an extra special donation, or make a donation in the name of those passed or those blessed. Use what we have.

Extend what you do. Nothing wrong with sending the person supporting a Little Free Library an anonymous card of gratitude and maybe a few bucks to pay for expenses and a non-specific “bless you.”. Put a bookmark that just happens to have your fave deity in the book you donate. When you donate food, put sticky note with a blessing to the person taking it on it, wishing them well. That sign someone hung on a tree saying “Have A Nice Day” probably needs another sign with another affirmation next to it to further encourage people.

Maybe make anonymous shrines out of some places you find. Oh nothing official, but perhaps you and your friends may agree to “enshrine” a specific area or thing, a bench or a post or something significant. Leave offerings and notes over time. Don’t call it out, or make it “official” just do it and see what happens.

Let’s get our shrines back, subtly at first, but then let’s see how far we can go . . .

–Xenofact

Maybe It Can Never Be Big

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The Industrialized spirituality of our modern world gets to me. The Ayahuasca retreats where narcissistic techo-bros take an ancient drug with no guidance or knowledge, only becoming more of their shallow selves. Churned-out big budget mysticism 101 books that are the same or worse as that of a decade, a century, an aeon ago. It’s a clicking-clacking machine of sameness where any depth is accidental.

I mean faux-mysticism has been with us forever, albeit at smaller scale since people didn’t have the technology to efficiently spread bullshit on a global level Fake grimoires copied over and over again to deceive royalty. Cults that become governments. Some grifter is always ready to monetize and mechanize spirituality.

At the same time, it’s fascinating to read of small-scale spirituality. People who lovingly copied books for friends and families. Small folios – for instance I own a book on Taoist energetics clearly easy to copy and pass on. Even strange little creations of today, vanity press creations that may be divine madness, or at least one of the two. It’s always been there and it’s there today, and a lot healthier than the latest spiritual bestseller that’s been the same book for five decades.

Now I’m sure some of these “industrial spiritualists” are sincere. But the results speak for themselves, the great sea of uninsightful sameness. Even sincere and smart people may spiral down into the same old same old.

I look, and I think spirituality, really healthy spirituality, can’t be done at a large scale, even sincerely. You can have large organizations, but they need to support the personal touches – and guard against becoming generic. You have to be careful of making stars and rockstars out of your people.

When you industrialize spirituality, you welcome grifters. There are people who are glad to take advantage of scale to profit at scale. That’s no reason to, say, not publish a lot of copies of things like the Tao Te Ching or whatever, but that’s the basics and the historic.

When you industrialize spirituality you have to generalize. There’s only so much you can do it before it becomes washed out and meaningless. You can try to write for a generalized audience, but even the most benevolent will risk generalizing to much.

Besides, spiritual practice needs personal touches. You need that one book that’s just right, that extra post from someone on a forum, or something that fits you. As much as I am skeptical of gurus, I get why many a Buddist or Taoist practitioner talks of needing “mind to mind transmission.” It has to fit you.

The at-scale spirituality we see see now probably can’t generate what people really need, since they need different things at different time with actual depth. Probably some clever, smart, persistent people could do it, but I’m not sure it’d be worth the effort in the end. Time is probably best spent figuring out how to get people the intimate, networked, personal spiritual experiences they need.

– Xenofact

The Challenge of Sharing the Mystical

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I’ve written here about my thoughts and opinions on the mystical – religion, magick, and the like.  What I haven’t done is share experiences I’ve had.  As you can surmise, I’ve had them, and had ones that stood up after examination – I just don’t like sharing them.

I wanted to explore why, and the hope that it provokes dialogue, dear reader – with you and with myself.

First, such mystic experiences are to an extent personal. They’re intimate things involving gods, personal motivations, and personal insights.  Sharing such things feels, to be honest, rather cringe as people younger than I say.  It’s like blogging about your marriage or when your friend confided their insecurities.

Second, I dislike the idea of sharing mystical experiences as it sounds like bragging – and the esoteric community has no shortage of annoying braggarts and grifters.  I don’t want to show off, I want to share and learn and have a few laughs.

Third, I fear being misinterpreted.  The realm of the mystical is not easy to communicate, and the bullshit out there makes it even more of a challenge.  I’d rather not accidentally lead someone down a painful path, and I’ve made my own mistakes.  Let’s just say I take Quigong much more seriously after what we shall call “an incident.”

Fourth, I sometimes wonder if I can explain mystical things properly.  I have notes on my experiments going back  about 25 years.  But I have to translate them from “me” to “other people and sometimes I’m not sure what I wrote down.

Fifth, let’s face it, all experience is incomplete.  My mystical experiences, even well-explained, might not actually be useful.  That might lead to people misinterpreting as well.

And, finally, I’ve seen plenty of drama among communities of magicians and mystics, and I want no part of it.  This also means I’m pretty bad at finding fellow practitioners, something I hope to remediate – but I don’t blame myself.

So that’s it.  Still, I think I should start sharing some of what I’ve done, and I am seeking appropriate ways to do so.  I will doubtlessly do some here.

Maybe I’ll share some of what happens here – but in a non-cringe way, of course.  I hope.

– Xenofact