6

Mystic

68-77

p. 68

"the ability to experience mystical states is more common than the ability

to horse (be possessed by) spirits ... .

{This usage of the verb "to horse" is merely a recent neologism. It is unknown in Africa, for Africans are averse to domesticating horses. Forcing beasts to work (or to be ridden) would seem to them too akin to enslavement, an institution which (though promoted by fiendish Christians) is abhorrent to pious Africans.}

The techniques given here may help you to establish a better instinctual feeling ... for the spirit world".

p. 69

[quoted from spirit-worker L.D.] "Those with a vocation for mysticism often find themselves driven to arduous, painful disciplines in an effort to improve their connection with the divine."

{The same is routinely said of a vocation for shamanism/ shamanry/ shamanhood.}

p. 70

"People with thicker boundaries make clear distinctions between "self" and "not-self." ... By

{That is to say : they are selfishly greedy, rather than selflessly altruistic.}

p. 71

contrast, people with thinner boundaries are much more prone to free association and are more responsive to hypnosis."

{This assertion is quite inaccurate, and fallacious. Helter-skelter thinking and mindless submission to being hypnotized by capitalist-stooge warmongering are characteristics of greedy, selfish persons, not of of altruistic, selfless persons.}

"selfless devotion ... is also an important job skill for a mystics. If the Gods talk to you, there's some reason for their conversation. Typically they want you to accomplish some task or send some message ... . Many prophets have been ordered [by deities] to chastise

their local religious

{N.B. If the local "religious" authorities were not already receiving messages from the deities, then such a "religion" is not genuine, but rather a spurious fake, and ought to be abandoned and discarded forthwith -- without even bothering to admonish its "authorities", who are unworthy of any admonition.}

or political leaders".

p. 74

"The pious are devoted to their Goddess {and/or Goddesses} ... . Mystics take that devotion to ... an intense, lusty, and sometimes erotic passion. And the Gods{and/or Goddesses} reciprocate : mystical encounters can have a decidedly sexual character."

p. 76

[quoted from E., a priestess to a god :] "I'm a consort of Loki ... . My personal gnosis for that role ... pertains largely to my relationship with Loki, who is my God, my patron, and my guardian, but also my husband and lover. ... However, it's a matter of public record that I consider myself married to Loki and that my main job is being a priestess and nun dedicated to him. That wasn't my decision; it was Loki's".

"those mystics who are not committed to celibacy often find it difficult to maintain outside [sexual] relationships [with mortals].

This can be particularly challenging when dealing with a less devout partner."

{Certainly, a person married to a deity ought not to be sexually involved simultaneously with a non-devout, non-pious mortal. Devoutness and piety (on the spouse's part) is to be required, and praerequisite.}

"A near-death experience ... may trigger changes in someone's psychological structure and energy body, opening up mystical abilities, or the Gods may decide to start talking to a particularly devout follower for their own reasons, just as

they may never contact someone who would appear to be a perfect candidate."

{Reasons for this may exist without being entirely evident in that candidate's own person : perhaps the candidate's kinsfolk lack [heathen-style] devoutness, or perhaps the candidate's other associates or neighbours are lacking in [pagan-prone] piety.}

7

Judging the Message

78-93

p. 78

[quoted from B., U.S. A`r nDrai`ocht Fe`in pagan] "a four-stage ... way to evaluate personal devoutness.

First, we begin with ... pure experience. ...

Second, we come to the stage of assent. ...

p. 79

Third, we reach a stage where the personal gnosis must be submitted the scrutiny of ... personal ... worldview. If it is within your worldview that the Gods can talk to us, then it is not unreasonable to conclude that a God did talk to you. ...

Finally, it must be compared with the experiences of past ages and sages ... . ...

This stage is what I would probably equate with the term peer-corroborated personal gnosis."

{Not necessarily. One may compare it with "the experiences of past ages and sages" and yet not be able to obtain corroboration by peers (i.e., friends and associates), simply because one is not personally acquainted with any persons who so much as even care at all about the subject-matter of the gnosis -- this would often be the case simply because the totality of all "the experiences of past ages and sages" must very far exceed the experiences and interests of one's few and perhaps paltry-minded "peers". Corroboration by peers would normally be a separate and perhaps fifth stage (though it could conceivably praecede the fourth stage, if one's peers be quite amiable and ready to agree to anything proposed, while there be no access to literature nor other information on "the experiences of past ages and sages").}

p. 79

"Let's say that you have been ... listening to the Gods or spirits ... . A message came, whether in a waking vision or a dream or a voice ... . ... Here are the steps to take, one at a time, to discern ... :

p. 80

1. Is it consistent with external reality as we know it?"

[quoted from Djeri-wepwawet, U.S. Kemetic Pagan :] "For instance,

mental shapeshifting

{viz., shifting the shape of one's mental body (manas-maya-kos`a)}

does not contradict ... known biological possibility."

"2. Is it consistent with what is already written about that God or spirit?"

p. 81

[quoted from P. S.V.L., Hellenic Pagan :] "While researching ancient texts that have survived ... is useful, ... some of the matters in them may not be useful ... to do in today's world in any case."

{This is one of the reasons why it would be more convenient to make use of some existing mystical religion[s] (Taoist, Tantrik, S.ufi, Qabbalist, or whatever) than to attempt to figure out how to revitalize some extinct antient mysticism.}

"3. Is it consistent with what other devotees of that Deity or spirit say about that entity?"

p. 82

[quoted from Hrafn, U.S. Heathen :] "That Odin {O`dinn} and Freyja did some work with me on past relationships is something that I can warn other spirit workers might be coming because both I experienced it and my teacher experienced it."

p. 83

"4. Does it contradict your own experience of that Deity or spirit? ...

5. Is the tone and nature of the message consistent with itself and with the worldview of the cosmology it claims to be from? ...

6. If this message came from another person but is specifically about me, do I trust the source? ...

p. 84

7. Intuitively, does the message feel right on every level? ...

8. Is it too gratifying? One of the hallmarks ... is ...

p. 85

a Great and Terrible Task, ... of "... I'm going to have to suffer for the Gods! How exciting!" ...

9. If I'm not sure ..., would it ... incorporate into my worldview for the moment? ... If it turns out to be less than workable, you'll find out soon enough."

p. 86

[quoted from Del, U.S. Pagan :] "The first and foremost criterion I apply ... I will endeavor to "fare forth" myself and verify the information with the Deity in question ... . Most Deities I've encountered in this work find it ... honorable that you're willing to go so far to check the veracity of something. ...

p. 87

Sometimes [spirit-]guides are unaware of modern practices and can communicate only in the terms they understand".

"10. Is it something I can afford to put aside for the moment? ... Unless the message includes [a Divine demand for] immediate action, it might be ... about what the Gods will think, you can promise them a specific date on which you will ritually revisit the information and ask them to help you gain better clarity in the meantime.

As the Gods don't experience time in the same way as we do,

{That is, their concurrent memory of ongoing passage of time would tend to function variantly.}

if the message is real, it will probably still be pertinent."

[quoted from R.S. : U.S. Neo-Pagan :] "On an individual level, I know many people who verify their gnosis through a personal vetting process. They look for signs, they ask for signs, to verify their revelations. ...

p. 88

So you do some serious meditation, prayer, and ritual work, and you ask for signs. ... It's a process that takes time."

"Let's say you get a strong feeling that the pomegranate Persephone ate in the Underworld was somehow connected to sterility and barrenness."

{Most likely, the pomegranate comested by Persephone in the abode for souls of the dead must have been aequivalent to the strawberries tasted by souls of the dead traveling to the abode of the dead, in Wabanaki/Abnaki (including Micmac etc.) shamanic cosmology -- there the strawberry is stated to be unrecognized form of the brain of the soul's dead material body. (The convolutions of a pomegranate-fruit resemble the convolutions of a brain.)}

8

Mad Wisdom

94-107

[quoted from Sally C., "who spent more than thirty years in the American psychiatric system"] "I learned early on to listen to my inner voice and not to the ... foolishness that is conventional {i.e., capitalist-stooge-promoted} "wisdom." I recognized that the experience some call "psychosis" was for me ... spiritual transformation, and I sought out wise teachers {i.e., defiers of capitalist-stooge materialism} who could help me {to defy capitalism}."

"The mind-shattering terror one felt in the presence of Pan inspired our English word panic."

{/pani^kos/ (adjective only) 'groundless (of fears)'; or /paniko'n/ (substantive) 'a canard, a baseless rumor' ("PGEL")}

"If the Gods want only the best for their followers, why would they inflict schizophrenia ... and crippling psychosis on a devotee?" {A better quaestion would have been to ask : why the deities permit psychiatrists to slander their victims.}

{Supra, p. 94, the authors quoted Sally C. "the experience some call "psychosis"", implying that the term "psychosis" is indeed a slander, "a canard, a baseless rumor", a false accusation made of capitalist-stooge psychiatrists against their unwilling prisoners immured in state "insane asyla". The term "Schizophrenia" is likewise an unwarranted a slander, "a canard, a baseless rumor", a false accusation made of capitalist-stooge psychiatrists".

"... neither should we pretend that insanity does not exist.}

{The only actually insanity in existence of is that of greed-maddened capitalists and of their hireling capitalist-stooges, who imagine that they can carry on forever their deceitful mislabeling of divinely-inspired sages by the very terms (of opprobium) that rightfully apply only to themselves.}

"not every mystic is mentally ill ... . Joan of Arc and Francis of Assisi heard voices".

{Joan of Arc was a warrioress busied in slaughter the very English soldiers who were protecting the pacifist Cathars (in southern France) from being mass-murdered; when the English armies were withdrawn, the Cathars were burned at the stake, en masse, by the French.} {The Franciscans (from Italy) were themselves pacifists; but after being assigned by the Catholic Church to missionize the Amerindians of California, they so converted those Amerindians to pacifism that, without resisting, those Amerindians were massacred wholesale by United-States immigrants after the California was violently seized (from Mexico) by the United-States government in 1846-48.}

"Mental illness can be tremendously lonely and isolating."

{Although there is no such thing as "mental illness", it is quite possible for a person to receive divine communications who is woefully uninformed about the necessity for radical politics and revolutionary (i.e., socialist) oikonomics. In such a case, the mystic will have no comradeship at all, simply through unimaginative neglect to seek out the only possible somewhat reliable allies, namely radical-albeit-materialist insurrectionists. (The authors of this book are apparently among such negligents; but they managed to find as provisional allies an assortment of antiquarian-type personalities.)}

p. 96

"A fili is ... a sacred poet and nature mystic".

{Irish /FILI-/ is cognate with Lituanian city-name /VILna/ and with the Norse god-name /VILI/ and with Skt. god-name /VIRIn~ci/.}

p. 97

"the geilta ... have been made "mad" by their experiences ... within a spiritual context ... to generate spiritual/mystical experience as ways of healing".

{Irish /GEILt/ is, alike to Scottish /GLeg/ ('alert, responsive'), an extension of */GHeL-/.}

"Conversing with spirits, ... some are very nice, and some not so nice."

{Even if spirits speak oddly, that would be intended by them as a sarcastic rebuke directed a a reprimand to someone who hath neglected insurrectionary agitation for the overthrow of an intolerably oppressive government. Anyway, about the only reason why spirits would speak without shewing their bodies is that they distrust the person being spoken to, for the same reason -- the person's neglect of insurrectionary duties.}

[quoted from Del, U.S. Pagan] "If you're hearing voices tell you that you're radically more important than the rest of the human race and that you're the only special child of God and that everyone else is dung, I'm willing to bet that this is probably your mental illness speaking."

{Iesous Khristos (Jesus Christ) constantly heard voices telling him that he was radically more important than the residue of the human race and that he was the only son of God and that everyone else was so worthless as to deserve Hell; so therefore every rational person is willing to bet that Iesous Khristos's mental illness of total insanity is speaking into Christianity.}

[quoted from Del, U.S. Pagan] "I hear voices, and yet I am a practicing shaman with a reliable sense of U[verified] P[ersonal] G[nosis]. ... When my Gods talk to me, ... I feel their presence throughout my body, and

my head feels full of light."

{Eskimo shamans indicate that their head is illuminated.}

p. 105

"I'm adding my experience working with people with seizure disorders".

{The main reason why divine beings would cause such chronic disabilities in someone would be that that person is negligent in the duty to at least preach and promote insurrection for the violent overthrow of a viciously oppressive capitalist regime.}

p. 106

[quoted from Wintersong, U.S. Pagan shaman :] "I have Tourette syndrome".