![[Pasted image 20220805172920.png]] This is my bridge, the pathway from the world I used to live in to the one I live in now. The Bridge from Here to Everywhere is an *index essay* for my discoveries and speculations about the nature of reality and existence. The universe is in fact ensouled, alive, and full of signs to this nature. And far from being inaccessible, excessively esoteric, or shrouded in gaudy aesthetic smoke, there is evidence easily within reach that can lead us into our own lives and goals with more richness and purpose. If you feel you are at a precipice, have a hunger to know more about yourself, your experience, and the impossible absurdity of existence, this is for you. This is the red yarn I've left behind through the labyrinth. The way I learn about the universe is by making connections. Every culture in the world has perspectives on the nature of reality, its purpose, and what is possible within it. I look at everything and attempt to triangulate potential truth in common throughlines. This led me through philosophy, esoterics, magic, divination, body work, healing, and eventually direct engagement with "entities" or various types of beings and spirits. I mentioned earlier this is an index essay: it'll have my thoughts but also plenty of links and references which are in a more or less order I think is most accessible. The territory ahead is both heady and body; feel free to skip around, but know that there is much internal ground to cover. Some brief housekeeping: for stuff I highly recommend you check out, I'll use a bold link. Some things I'll link I will not have read fully, or only skimmed to get the major takeaways, or know come highly recommended from friends and/or experts. Of course I especially recommend you read anything I've written, but let your curiosity guide you. Take your time; this bridge has many stones. ## Phenomenology, Epistemics, Practice, and Purpose The first step is that we have to reckon with our attitude toward weird stuff. Much of this attitude is not based in any real critical thought, but rather social and cultural pressure from one's upbringing. For this sort of exploration, this stance doesn't do us any favors. My essay **[Around Here We Take Our Phenomenology Seriously](https://cosmicindigestion.substack.com/p/around-here-we-take-our-phenomenology)** covers this theme. For me, direct experience is the point. No amount of brain-in-jar rationale can get away from the fact that there's plenty of interesting stuff to experience, and spending time arguing about its "authenticity" prevents us directly experiencing what value it actually has. Most importantly, often times this closing-of-mind prevents us from pursuing explorations deep enough that we do find the external verifications and matches in reality. For example, I know materialist tarot readers who believe that the tarot is just a random introspection tool and it can't be used to predict anything or point to any sort of externally verifiable truth. They're so sure of it, they've never even tried! Meanwhile, I regularly correctly predict questions about externalities and watch financially-oriented readers use tarot to predict cryptocurrency moves successfully day after day. I first dipped my toes into exploring these topics seriously as an adult when I encountered the idea of [tumblr witches](https://www.vice.com/en/article/nz7q47/emoji-hangover-spells). I was skeptical and thought it was kind of ridiculous, but still somewhat intrigued. There was a system to it, a logic of its own kind. And part of me wondered: why? Why go to all the effort to do something that doesn't work? I figured there was no way all these people were casting spells on tumblr just to fool *me*, so either there had to be something else they were getting out of it, or... it actually *worked* on some level. Sure, most of the people in the article were casting spells to save the bees or destroy capitalism (impossible to verify your personal effect), but doubtlessly there were people attempting to use this for personal problems. I did some more searching and stumbled across Ingrid Burrington ([@lifewinning](https://twitter.com/lifewinning))'s bibliography, **[Some Recommended Reading on Magic](http://lifewinning.com/magic/bibliography/)** which had some entertaining and accessible writings on magic. After enough reading I figured: what the hell. I didn't have anything to lose. Worst case scenario, it doesn't work and I don't tell anyone and never think about it again. Best case scenario, it *does* work. If I could squeeze even 10% more effectiveness out of everything I do, it would be worth dedicating years to learn magic and whatever else this world could offer me. At the time I was deep in the throes of the hustlemax grindset startup life working as a software developer, so that's how I thought about everything. That was the point: to prove or disprove for myself that this *magic* thing could help me attain my goals. It had to be concrete and actually fix my problems, otherwise who cares? ## Explorations ![[Pasted image 20220806105653.png]] *All artwork in this essay generated with [Midjourney](https://www.midjourney.com/).* I liked the idea of magic. But how did it work, exactly? It didn't seem to be like, shooting fire from sticks Harry Potter-style or having superhero powers. So I read, a lot. I read about magic itself: - **[Modern Magick: Twelve Lessons in the High Magickal Arts](https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Magick-Twelve-Lessons-Magickal/dp/0738715786)** by Donald Michael Kraig - **[Book of Lies: The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003P9X76C/)** by various (weird but fun--that will be a common theme) - **[Real Magic: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science, and a Guide to the Secret Power of the Universe](https://www.amazon.com/Real-Magic-Ancient-Science-Universe/dp/1524758825)** by Dean Radin - [Six Ways: Approaches & Entries for Practical Magic](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0999356607/) by Aidan Wachter - [Magic and Mysticism: An Introduction to Western Esoteric Traditions](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EMLDEVU/) by Arthur Versluis (a little too academic for my purposes) - [Condensed Chaos: An Introduction to Chaos Magic](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008LE4D5U/) by Phil Hine - [Liber Null & Psychonaut: An Introduction to Chaos Magic](https://www.amazon.com/Liber-Null-Psychonaut-Introduction-Chaos/dp/0877286396) by Peter Carroll - [SSOTBME Revised – an essay on magic](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004IK9S3S/) by Ramsey Dukes - [The Elements of Spellcrafting: 21 Keys to Successful Sorcery](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0794R6MVN/) by Jason Miller - [Candle Magic For Beginners: Discover Candle Magic and Make Your Wishes Come True](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MTG5P0X/) by Electra Valencia - [Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003V1WUNU/) by Judika Illes The basic idea was that the universe was in fact much more responsive to the mind, intent, will, whatever, than mainstream worldviews would have you believe. By utilizing ritual, symbology, and heightened emotional states, one could project one's desire into the world. There were many systems from different lineages and practices, but most magical practice had a distinctly *syncretic* (combining) style. While some magicians believed in keeping their lineages completely self-contained, most perspectives I read were interested in what worked best and would mix-and-match based on their results, leaving metaphysical theories aside as an exercise for the interested reader. The manner in which magic tended to occur was also subtle, more often through a funny feeling and a strange coincidence that delivers the result you want--often through a way that almost feels like the universe is winking at you. Unlike mainstream depictions, magic took the *simplest* route to work, such as suddenly making just the right connection you need, finding exactly the info you were looking for, or even just feeling especially inspired and magnetic for something like a job interview. I read about energy work and general psychic development: - **[Life Force: Sensed energy in breathwork, psychedelia and chaos magic](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XPKLQFV/)** by David Lee - **[Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S1H619X/)** by Mat Auryn - [Energy Work: The Secrets of Healing and Spiritual Development](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005EXYB4O/) by Robert Bruce - [Keys to Perception: A Practical Guide to Psychic Development](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073XY7DXH/) by Ivo Dominguez - [Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to Brennan](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MTK49IU/) by Kurt Leland Most authors consider the human body to be made up of both the physical body but multiple layers of subtler bodies that relate to the subtle dimensions and signals around us which we lose sensitivity to via years of materialist conditioning and the generally forgetting the nondiscursive wisdom of the body. Over time and after doing the practices, I began to feel my "energy body". At the very least it did seem like I could internally feel *something* "happening", moving, tickling, tingling, creating sensations wherever I paid attention. At first I felt very much, "OK, so what, I can make myself feel funny things with my mind" but eventually came to recognize that the physical(?) sensations I could feel were more indicative of a sort of energetic homeostasis. Doing energy work would actually seem to have effects on the quality of my mind as well as mood. With practice, this started to go both in directions: when going through intense experiences (especially negative emotions), I would immediately sense the dullness, constriction, and tightness in my energy body which I never noticed before developing sensitivity to it. Learning to check in with both my physical body and energy body has become increasingly important as it gives me signals when my mind is unsettled or unclear. I read about dreams and astral projection: - **[Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0070YFQBC/)** by Robert Waggoner - [Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/034537410X/) by Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold - [A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming: Mastering the Art of Oneironautics](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CTZG3E6/) by Dylan Tuccillo, Jared Zeizel, and Thomas Peisel - [Astral Dynamics: The Complete Book of Out-of-Body Experience](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008K06AOM/) by Robert Bruce - [Journeys Out of the Body: The Classic Work on Out-of-Body Experience](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OWWOM2O/) by Robert Monroe There was definitely something very strange going on in the dream world. I found Robert Waggoner's takes in particular very compelling: he felt that dreams were cocreative with something far vaster than the individual, presumably whatever the human subconscious actually is. He would encounter entities that would be immune to his proficient lucid dreaming skills and seemed to know more than he did. I tried some of the techniques that Waggoner described and to my surprise had similar experiences. I had one lucid dream where I arrived at some sort of metro area full of strange beings and aliens. I tried to interact with a kiosk but was laughed at for not having an ID, and then was informed that I was on a certain "dream level" and could go no further. Astral projection also interested me deeply, which was the act of actually lifting your "astral" body directly out of your sleeping physical body and being able to see, travel, and experience the world (and more) in that form. It's distinguished from dreaming or meditation in that it's something you can do from a (semi-)conscious state and you can actually use your "eyes" to see things in a fully aware, visceral experience. I was never able to accomplish it personally. I read about consciousness beyond death and mediumship: - [**Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife**](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553419617/) by Leslie Kean (there's also a Netflix special now) - [Where Two Worlds Meet](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593306970/) by Janet Nohavec and Suzanne Gieseman - [Wisdom from Your Spirit Guides: A Handbook to Contact Your Soul's Greatest Teachers](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0746RNPVB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) by James Van Praagh - [Mediumship Mastery: The Mechanics of Receiving Spirit Communications: The Ultimate Guide](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/069239608X/) by Stephen A. Hermann Surviving Death by Leslie Kean is a groundbreaking book, in that it is a compilation of the most convincing cases for consciousness persisting outside of the body and potentially after death. Especially notable to me were the cases where young children remembered dozens of facts about a previous life which were subsequently confirmed and found to be so obscure that it would be beyond reasonable imagination for the child or family to fake. So at the very least, *some* people likely reincarnate. (I have a [short thread of reincarnation stories here](https://twitter.com/sadalsvvd/status/1508136201139757063).) It also went into out of body experiences while near death as well as communication with ghosts and other entities. I was very interested in the idea of being able to psychically communicate with *something*, but I still found the idea quite spooky and had no idea who I would talk to, so I put this aside for the time being. At some point I learned it was important to do divination on the outcomes of any spellwork or magic. So I bought some tarot decks, starting with the **[Smith-Waite Centennial Tarot Deck in a Tin](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1572818123/)**, a popular take on the tarot with plenty of resources to learn about it. I read: - **[Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Book of Tarot](https://www.amazon.com/Seventy-Eight-Degrees-Wisdom-Book-Tarot/dp/1578634083)** by Rachel Pollack - **[The Easiest Way to Learn the Tarot - Ever!!](https://www.amazon.com/Easiest-Way-Learn-Tarot-Ever/dp/1419692887)** by Dusty White - **[Holistic Tarot: An Integrative Approach to Using Tarot for Personal Growth](https://www.amazon.com/Holistic-Tarot-Integrative-Approach-Personal/dp/158394835X)** by Benebell Wen - [36 Secrets: A Decanic Journey through the Minor Arcana of the Tarot](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1716325099/) by T. Susan Chang - [Psychic Tarot: Using Your Natural Psychic Abilities to Read the Cards](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0057UD52I/) by Nancy Antenucci and Melanie A. Howard - [A Guide to Tarot Card Meanings](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0692262512/) by Mark McElroy (also available [as a PDF](https://markmcelroy.gumroad.com/l/xYra)) - [Cartomancy - Fortune Telling With Playing Cards](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008SBBUQG/) by Julian Moore Tarot was very strange to me, and I spent a lot of time working with it and the uncanny synchronicities it provided. I started by drawing a daily card and seeing how it applied to my life. Sometimes it would give me a lens to view that day, but more often the traditional significations of the cards directly described the types of experiences I would have. As I did more readings for myself and others on questions about external realities, the cards continued to show themselves to be uncannily accurate. Tarot convinced me that divination was subjective but it wasn't *random*. My "hit rate" went far beyond chance almost immediately. I was most impressed by tarot when I would use it to read for complete strangers and have it be uncannily accurate. One person even accused me of eavesdropping on their conversation at a party! It also taught me the particular importance of neutrality. Personal desires and moods could influence the readings, which pushed me deeper into my personal explorations. I read about meditation, personal journeys, healing, and the soul: - **[Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0037B6QSY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)** by Jon Kabat-Zinn - [The Unbound Soul: A Spiritual Memoir for Personal Transformation and Enlightenment](https://www.amazon.com/Unbound-Soul-Spiritual-Transformation-Enlightenment/dp/1533380465) by Richard L. Haight - [The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TU29WA/) by Michael A. Singer - [Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0081JFUF2/) by Robert Moss - [The Seven Day Mental Diet (Illustrated): How to Change Your Life in a Week](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019J0CMNE/) by Emmet Fox These books got me to think more deeply about mindset, the weight of the heart, and personal healing and ways to regulate my nervous system, which seemed essential to me to being able to perform magic without causing backfires due to subconscious desires, fears, or other inner psychological hang-ups. In general though, I enjoyed the depictions of a sort of personal *vitality*, the sense of personal power and fulfillment one could find searching for their personal path. I also read the first few books in Carlos Castaneda's [The Teachings of Don Juan series](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KDYNW7X?), a highly psychoactive read about an anthropologist's initiation into the world of Yaqui magic by several wise men which were important in helping me navigate my own initiation. The most important idea I took away from it was to not fix my concept of what reality was. In the series they admonished that becoming too settled in one's belief of how reality truly works can prevent one from seeing further, sometimes for the rest of one's life. Realizing that I needed to hone myself further, I began exploring books and courses that were explicitly devoted to spiritual and occult development: - [Initiation Into Hermetics](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LPV7PAQ/) (IIH) by Franz Bardon (also potentially helpful: [A Bardon Companion](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1453859039/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) by Rawn Clark) - [Quareia Magical Course](https://www.quareia.com/) by Josephine McCarthy Both of these are rigorous, intensive courses designed to take you from knowing and sensing nothing to full on entity contact and magical work. I engaged with both at a basic level for a few months and it wasn't long before I had my own first spirit contact experiences. Life and temperament took me away from these lineages but I am fascinated by them still. As I got deeper into, well, everything, I was interested in learning more about the deep correspondences between various esoteric images and symbols. So I bought [The Hermetic Tarot](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/091386692X/), a beautiful black-and-white deck full of them. Most obvious were the astrological associations, which gave me pause. As much as I'd read, everything I'd heard about astrology was that it was bullshit not worth my time. I figured, OK, *fine*, I'll buy a couple astrology books, learn the planets and signs or whatever, and then never think about it again. I read **[Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452288592/)** by Richard Tarnas, currently the most renowned "historical astrology" book that viewed the past through the lens of massive astrological themes and archetypes, pointing out correlations and repetitive cycles all throughout history. It was intriguing but I couldn't gauge it: it's easy to cherry-pick similarities from all of human history, after all. Next I got [The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1589796535/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) by Janna Martine Woolfolk, a book on natal astrology for examining one's own birth chart. It was a bit hokey, yet it nailed me for most of my placements. Most importantly, I saw that I *didn't* relate to the interpretations for other placements which numbered in the dozens. This wasn't just a 50/50 coin flip, but really more like nailing me over and over on a 1/12 chance ten times in a row (~10 placements being in 12 signs and 12 houses). Headfirst I went. I read a few books that were more accessible to people who knew nothing about astrology: - **[A Scheme of Heaven: The History of Astrology and the Search for our Destiny in Data](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TJ2JQ3Q/)** by Alexander Boxer - [A Little Book of Coincidence: In the Solar System](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802713882/) by John Martineau - [Under One Sky](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/096491137X/) by Rafael Nasser and 8 contributing astrologers As well as a few foundational books for learning astrology specifically: - **[My recommended books for learning astrology thread](https://twitter.com/sadalsvvd/status/1329160271890419712)** - **[The Moment of Astrology](https://www.amazon.com/Moment-Astrology-Geoffrey-Cornelius/dp/1902405110)** by Geoffrey Cornelius - **[Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune](https://www.amazon.com/Hellenistic-Astrology-Study-Fate-Fortune/dp/0998588903)** by Chris Brennan - **[On the Heavenly Spheres](https://www.amazon.com/Heavenly-Spheres-Helena-Avelar/dp/0866906096)** by Helena Avelar and Luis Ribeiro The more I learned, the more I realized that there was an entire world of deep and advanced astrological practice that was hidden from the mainstream world, and it *worked*. It worked on me, it worked on my friends, it worked on the past, it worked on the present, and it worked on the future, depending on my level of understanding. The more I learned, the better I got, and the more deeply fascinated I became with it. These books are a *tiny* sampling of the dozens I read trying to understand the nature of reality through astrology, a task that still keeps most of my focus to this day. Given these explorations, I read about the nature of time, physics, and reality itself with a smattering of broadly "time" related books: - **[The Order of Time](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07638M8JL/)** by Carlo Rovelli - [Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self: Interpreting Messages from Your Future](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KRJS4P4/) by Eric Wargo - [Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465026567/) by Douglas Hofstadter - [Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H394L49/) by Eric Wargo - [Weaving Fate: Hypersigils, Changing the Past, & Telling True Lies](https://www.amazon.com/Weaving-Fate-Hypersigils-Changing-Telling/dp/0999356623/) by Aidan Wachter While any book based in modern physics is going to hedge its implications, *The Order of Time* was a thoroughly mind-blowing book that essentially concludes by saying that due to the nature of relativity and entropy, things you cannot observe literally do not occur until some form of observation-induced [quantum wave collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function_collapse). GEB hinted at the nature of consciousness-like properties emerging from systems made from "meaningless" elements. The other books I haven't read personally but come highly recommended and deal directly with the concept of *retrocausality*, or being able to interact with your past self or receive messages and communications from your future self. I also watched Randall Carlson's **[HIDDEN MATHEMATICS - Ancient Knowledge of Space, Time & Cosmic Cycles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7oyZGW99os)**, which blew my mind. I highly recommend taking the time to watch this. In general, I read *everything* I could get my hands on. Books on evoking spirits, tarot, astrology, psychism, energetic protection, telekinesis, crystal gazing, "miracle" healing, animal communication, dowsing, other divination methods, and anything else that seemed weird, unusual, and typically considered impossible. I even spent a ton of time reading the subreddit of wildly varying quality, [/r/occult](https://www.reddit.com/r/occult/), where every voice imaginable shared their map of reality--some clearly edgelords, some deranged, some very thoughtful and cogent. Anywhere I could find some shred of corroborrating information that I could hold in my mind as I continued to learn, I looked. Not everything was high-quality and I found plenty of what seemed like nonsense to me, but I had found enough and had enough strange personal experiences to put me on this path for good. ## Power and Fear ![[Pasted image 20220806093420.png]] For all my explorations through reading, I was still very cautious in my approach. Magic seemed like no joke; it was a powerful force that could touch something vital in your life and change its course in a moment. I was afraid of it, and what it might do to my life. There were other intimations, too. It seemed that to be a magician meant to take responsibility for everything in one's life. If I could influence things in my life directly--if it was all within my reach--I would have to confront the degree to which I am complicit in every unhappiness I abandoned parts of myself in. The idea of the power and freedom to induce change was exhilirating, and the absolute total culpability for screwing it up was intimidating. I skirted around the edges and made small prods. By this time I was having many strange experiences ([twitter thread](https://twitter.com/sadalsvvd/status/1304102639051902976)), riddled by synchronicities, and getting better at divination every day. My first proper spell was a chaos magick style sigil to meet an "Unusual Fuzzy Animal", and ended up being given two dinosaur toys in the same evening by separate people. When my mom's cat ran away and was presumed dead, I cast a spell for the cat to come back. She didn't, probably because sadly it was already too late, but within a few weeks another cat practically followed my mom home. My mom described it "as if it was magic", and the two of them have a profound bond now. I was interested in poker at the time and wondered if I could affect the odds. I cast Jupiter spells for luck and received spam email from unknown addresses with the text "zeusliving" repeated 24 times and then hit incredibly lucky hands the same night (notably: straight flush over straight flush; quad 2s twice in a row by myself then another guy at the same table). ![[Pasted image 20220813014038.png]] Even in my timidity, the magic still worked and reacted, though in a lilting, playful, mysterious way. The implication of most authors was also clear: don't overspecify your magic or you'll clog up the works, because the solutions are likely beyond your current knowledge or awareness. The magic will change your life for you, you just have to let it. But I wasn't sure I wanted that. Even with my small personal experiments, my world already seemed to be impossibly more alive than I could have thought. I would think about topics and they would be everywhere I looked, in *very literal* ways. One day I was reading about the left hand path, a very broad (and vague) term for more individualistic types of magic, but one proposed contrast struck me. The right hand path, such as taking a Buddhist path to union with the divine until you disappear, is one based on ego release and union with all. The left hand path would be using magic to bring all experience and knowledge into oneself, eventually becoming god itself, probably over many lifetimes and some sort of supposed spiritual immortality. Essentially the same end result, but with different requirements. What does that actually mean or imply, though? I honestly have no idea. But I had been pondering the nature of power, magic, and creating with it, so I was musing about these topics as I went along. On a whim, I decided to go see Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and it turns out that a major plotline exactly describes something (spoiler in footnote).[^1] At the height of my practice things got bendy. I would think about things and then they would be there in the world around me. Synchronicities would pile up in such quantity in so little time it would freak me out. I practiced my **[Rubik's cube test](https://twitter.com/sadalsvvd/status/1363180996078747649)** on various things. But I also went through derealization spells as I reckoned with what I was experiencing. I had nights where my mind was haunted and it was impossible to tell if I was just scaring myself or not. Learning that your mind influences reality can make everything feel hallucinogenic. I was learning to see a subtle layer behind all of existence, and it required constant reorientation and grounding work to connect it to my real life and not spin out. So I decided I would back away a bit. I stopped meditating as much, stopped IIH and Quareia, stopped doing magic, and things got less spooky. Instead, I would keep exploring divination and understand reality that way. ## Divination ![[Pasted image 20220823212835.png]] As it would turn out, divination contained perhaps more hints as to the nature of reality than anything else. By *divination*, I personally mean the act of either reading "signs" in one's experience (such as planetary positions, dreams, animal sightings, precognitive thoughts, etc.) or using a source of randomness (such as drawing tarot cards, casting runes/gemstones/yarrow sticks, or the [quantum random number generator](https://qrng.anu.edu.au/)). The fact that I could do divination on just about anything I wanted, as much as I wanted (some caveats apply), meant I had lots of *data* to work with. Instead of messing with my life through magic to understand how reality worked, I could observe reality directly. ### Tarot My forays into divination began with tarot. I would ask all kinds of questions: about how my day would go, advice on romantic situations, predictions about the future, about myself, and pretty much anything I could think of. Divination was addicting: here was something that I could ask *anything*, and receive a more-or-less useful answer from. And most importantly, divination was *working*. As I was learning, the tarot "worked"--by which I mean it seemed to repeatedly deliver answers that made perfect sense in context of the question, matching the traditional meanings of the cards described in the books I was reading. It went far beyond simply "reading into" the cards; I would receive the same cards repeatedly, over and over, repeating their themes as they directly applied to my life. My "card of the day" would invariably predict, time and time again, the experiences I would have that day--including elements and dynamics that were completely out of my control and unexpected. As I began to get opportunities to read for total strangers, I found that the cards would still manage to describe *their* lives with great relevance and clarity far above chance. At that point, I decided that I had to confront divination seriously: my worldview had no satisfactory explanations for this. I spent time reckoning with the tarot. See my **[Twitter thread on tarot methodology, synchronicity, and hints at potential metaphysics](https://twitter.com/sadalsvvd/status/1317184139519533056)**. I did more readings, and used it to [predict things I shouldn't be able to](https://twitter.com/sadalsvvd/status/1317196499974000640). It seemed that the tarot could return a relevant result--possibly including real-world factual information I did not know--to *any* question. I was in awe of the possibility. You mean I could know *anything*? The gravity of it set in quickly. If tarot worked, and it sure seemed to, then it was also a massive responsibility. And in working with the tarot, I quickly came to see that it wasn't just some arbitrary store of information I could access. It responded to my subjectivity. If I was hellbent on a certain outcome being true (no matter how wrong I was), I would get cards confirming my desire back--and then be in for a nasty surprise. If I anxiously flooded the oracle with question after question, I would begin to receive cards indicating anxiety and fear, or they would simply begin to seem truly random and not apply to my questions at all. It seemed that the tarot was intelligent, dynamic, and responsive. It had just about infinite patience until I begin to ask questions disingenuously, already knowing the answer, or neurotically asking the same question a dozen different ways. ![[Pasted image 20220823213203.png]] I learned how to ask good questions. Pretty much everyone who has ever done a tarot reading with no question in mind has had the experience of it describing the exact situation you're in. This also tends to happen when you ask "should I" questions. For a long time, my fear of the unknown and unfamiliar translated into a desire to be told what to do. I would ask "Should I do X thing? Should I talk to Y person? Should I make Z choice?" and the cards would invariably either describe the situation or yield Justice, Judgment, 8 of Swords, 2 of Wands--all the "make a choice" cards. Often reversed. That's because at the end of the day, it's *my* life. "Should" questions were no good, because the responsibility of the choice was ultimately on me. But I could ask any other type of question, such as: - What happens *if* I do A or B? - What am I missing about this situation? - What do I most need in this situation? - What are my actual motivations? - What choice is best for me, overall? (Sort of a cheat--you still might get rejected like with a "should" question! Have your genuine best interests at heart when asking.) - What options have I not thought about? - What would the best version of myself do in this situation? - What am I afraid of? - What is keeping me stuck? And so on. I found I could also ask the oracle to restate the result to me in another way if I was sincerely struggling to understand. One thing that was very important to understand is that most divination systems are often very *literal* and *contemporaneous*. This is especially true of the tarot. If you don't specify a time range or topic (a general reading), you'll get cards that directly address the main thing you're dealing with or thinking about in your life at the moment. On the flip side, you can get very precise, such as doing a day-by-day tarot spread for an entire week ahead, a 13 card spread for the entire year (a theme and one card per month), or asking about factual yes/no information. The more precise of a question you ask, the more precise of an answer you'll get, so it's important not to stretch and twist your interpretations outside of the sensible range of answers that might apply to the questions you ask. More often than not, it's a direct answer. In my opinion, when learning divination you should try to ask as many *verifiable* questions as possible. This is important because it gives you feedback about your interpretation. Without connecting the cards to our real experiences, we will not be able to get a sense for the angles and boundaries of the different sign symbols and their mythemes. And without that, it's very hard to feel confident in divinations on topics which are unverifiable but still important for acting on personally. I have a few favorite tarot spreads I go to repeatedly: - General diamond spread - one card up top for the overall situation/theme/topic/question; two cards beneath as descriptors of the top card or complementary factors and dynamics; one card beneath as general advice. - Two choices spread - three cards going left for one decision; three cards going right for the other; a last card between them as advice. Can be extended to 3 or more choices (but don't overdo it). - Overview spread - one card up top as the known situation as it's generally perceived; three cards next as past, present, and future; one last card below describing anything hidden, unrevealed, or lying beneath the situation. Countless other spreads can be found online for any topic. It can be pretty fun to browse them! I also improvise spreads all the time. If I don't understand a certain card, sometimes I will "open up" that card, or draw more cards to describe it. I remove the spread except for that card and reshuffle, drawing three more cards to create my diamond spread, this time asking about that card's meaning. It's worth noting that doing tarot opened up my intuition and psychic ability. As I allowed myself to relax into my knowledge of the various cards built up over months of daily draws and questions, my intuition began to activate. This would especially be the case when reading for others: as I would describe the traditional meanings of the cards, a sense of what people were like would arise, or an inexplicable knowing about some facet of the situation. I could only access this state accidentally at first, but with time I learned to invoke it intentionally. The trick seemed to be relaxing into a receptive state, and adopting a wide gaze which seemed to make my consciousness feel more open, as well. There's a strange, creeping sensation of altered perception that seems to inch its way around my temples and cheekbones when I take this gaze. <-- @todo: something about a prayer for neutrality here? or maybe that should go in the subjectivity section Intuition and/or psychic knowing is a blessing and a curse. While it can help you skip certain steps of divination entirely, it can mess with your divination system with "outside the box" intuitive leaps that you may or may not want to remain associations in your mind. Worse, it also brings you the task of discernment: figuring out what's a genuine intuitive insight or psychic reception and what is a reflexive or intrusive thought. Again, when possible, it's important to try and verify the external truth of these perceptions, because that will help you tell what the *feeling* of a correct intuition is like. This builds a further confidence into a virtuous spiral, but only if you can base it on a solid and well-practiced foundation of the phenomenological, *inner sensation of truth*. (Reading for oneself is a whole different topic. On pretending to read for someone else) (On intuition, cards always working, etc... a good diviner doesn't blame their oracle) ### Astrology write about how I disacovered astrology in a way tha tmakes it legit, i.e. realizing that all the misconceptions, two zodiacs, ophiuchus, etc., but also that it has its own legacy and history and how every culture had its own form of astrology and how it represented a lineage of all of history and culture use [[Astrology FAQ for Astro-Curious Skeptics]] Divination tools also tend to talk to you at your level, and sometimes one above. They will usually use Go into etc. about how learning astrology you gradually learn about certain types of signatures and get clients around it, how cards try to teach you My forays into astrology were voracious. Hungry for self-knowledge, I read every scrap of information I could get my hands on and eventually accumulated two bookshelves worth of astrology books. Astrology had a language that could help me map the inside of myself. But it also just worked, and could serve as a map into the future. I was most fascinated by prediction. After all, if I could know what was coming, I could prepare for it. My relationship to astrology and divination evolved over time. Initially I was interested in divination because I wanted *control*. I was an anxious person and a terrible dater, so I learned synastry (compatibility) astrology to get right to the interesting stuff and tell whether we'd be a good match or not. I was interested in electional astrology, which could help me I realized this could be a dating app and started coding one. Then I realized that to do it properly I would have to interview tens of thousands of couples and I didn't have that kind of time. But it did eventually turn into [a fun little Twitter project](https://twitter.com/sadalsvvd/status/1425107222506446854) where I modified my algorithm to introduce people to each other based on their astrological compatibility. I learned you can use astrology to predict markets (from my old Glitchet newsletter: [Temporal Blindness and the Market](https://buttondown.email/glitchet/archive/temporal-blindness-and-the-market/)), and there were many people doing it ([list of dozens of financial astrologers on Twitter](https://twitter.com/i/lists/1358510967672422401))--hell, there were even books about it. I spent a lot of time working on this and even ended up collaborating with another professional trader and astrologer for a period of time. This work is ongoing, though I don't talk about it much due to its nature. Nowadays I am interested in using software and astrology to make it easier to depict time as a narrative. ### Divination Story of tarot/etc., getting into astro, hermetic tarot Todo: write How To Make Astrology Part of Your Life, do mad SEO on this one for all variants of search terms for this #### Charlatans and bullshit This probably just goes in the main section but on how bell curve etc. Power laws Bell curves Comparative cultural examples #### Honesty (Astro dice roll link here?) For spirit section: ![[Pasted image 20220823213617.png]] ### Scene Dynamics and Charlatans https://shwep.net/ ![[Pasted image 20220806092122.png]] ## Body and Bliss Jhanas https://tasshin.com/blog/discovering-bliss-states/ Meditation, IIH Piti effects, chills, biofeedback I dimly remember as a kid, first experiencing the bliss state when thinking about angels, reading about them and the various types online ## Now ### Unfolding Inspirational / Fun / Interesting - https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-the-cactus-person/ - http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/dancing.html ### Health and Land https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316227935/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 [[Surviving Contact with Reality]] ![[The Bridge from Here to Everywhere-202207231809.png]] Kira Sutherland - Australian medical astrologer Fun media Miscellaneous stuff to watch - Hellier - Third Eye Spies - Undone - Everything Everywhere All At Once - [The Messengers: Owls, Synchronicity and the UFO Abductee](https://www.amazon.com/Messengers-Owls-Synchronicity-UFO-Abductee/dp/0967799570) - [In Search Of The Miraculous](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0156007460/) by P.D. Ouspensky - [The Law of Vibration: The revelation of William D. Gann](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0857192590/) by Tony Plummer [Fearless Accurate Dowsing 2nd Edition : Your Three Step System to Divination Mastery](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074JLJK3W/) by Colleen M. Flanagan [Dowsing: The Ultimate Guide for the 21st Century](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0042JSLUQ/) by Elizabeth Brown Others' experiences in woo https://twitter.com/TylerAlterman/status/1510744853851873285 Stuff to maybe include: [The I Ching](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/069109750X/) translated by Richard Wilhelm Fiction: [American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition: A Novel](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004YW4L5K/) by Niel Gaman [The City and the City](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001NLKYQ0/) by China Miéville [Opening to Light Language: Humanity's Evolution into Multidimensional Communication](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BECUR0K/) by Jamye Price [A TROJAN FEAST: The Food and Drink Offerings of Aliens, Faeries, and Sasquatch](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1938398351/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) by Joshua Cutchin [Summoning Spirits: The Art of Magical Evocation](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0025VKC4G/) by Konstantinos [The 72 Angels of Magick: Instant Access to the Angels of Power](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BPT9VT0/) by Damon Brand [Archangels of Magick: Rituals for Prosperity, Healing, Love, Wisdom, Divination and Success](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078T8MWPY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) Psychic accounts and experiences - https://kristinposehn.substack.com/p/psychicshit - https://www.hardtowrite.com/anarchism/ IDEA: Make a site called "The Rubik's Cube Test". Or perhaps just a Substack. [^1]: The protagonist Peter Quill's father, named *Ego*, is in fact a god-like celestial entity that accrued power through existing over endless ages to form its consciousness into a planet. There's also a sequence where Ego teaches Quill to harness his power into balls of energy, which for me was too obvious a parallel to my memories of practicing "psionics" as a kid--essentially a sci-if'd up version of energy work for bored weird teens--where we would form "psi-balls" of energy that I would visualize almost exactly how it was depicted in the movie.