Cloaking

Keep secret work secret. We live in a cult of confession society where people go on national television to spill out their personal lives. But consciousness work, esoteric work, is depotentiated, loses power, when you share it with those who haven’t earned access. As Aleister Crowley said, “If I tell a man something he isn’t ready to hear, it is the same as if I told him a lie.” Don’t spill your pearls before swine, save them for your spiritual allies, those that share a deep commitment to consciousness. Often it is safer and in a variety of ways advantageous to be cloaked and to evade unnecessary attention. Deng Ming-Dao, a modern Taoist sage points out, “Useful trees are cut down. Useless ones survive. The same is true of people. The strong are conscripted. The beautiful are exploited. Those who are too plain to be noticed are the ones who survive. They are left alone and safe. But what if we ourselves are among such plain persons? Though others may neglect us, we should not think of ourselves as being without value. We must not accept the judgment of others as the measure of our own self-worth… Thus, to be [...]

The individualized mutant will tend to view collective energy and what Jung called “mass man” with disdain and irritation. I have certainly been guilty of this. It is so easy to be annoyed or even horrified by the bustling, buzzing, acting-out energy of mass humanity. Mass man is composed of people who don’t really know themselves, or their moment in history, and yet seem to be completely defined by the present era. They are person-shaped creatures who seem to be living stereotypes. They aggregate together and produce much sound and fury signifying nothing. And yet they are as much a part of nature as stars, trees or viruses. They are part of the cosmic design and must be accepted as such. Like many natural forces, they can be extremely dangerous. Easily manipulated, mass man has been used to create many of the bloody tsunamis of history. More often mass man is merely mundane and a somewhat appalling spectacle to those of individualized consciousness. The mutant must, of course, be alert to the many dangers and hazards created by mass man. You don’t want to get trampled by a mob, and so it is best to keep your distance. When traveling [...]

Keep secret work secret. Consciousness work should be shared with the worthy — spiritual allies that share your commitment to consciousness. Proselytizing indicates an imbalanced psyche with a compulsive need to get others to share the imbalanced belief system. And even if the belief system you would like to offer is sound, remember what Aleister Crowley said, “If I tell a man something he is not ready to hear, it is the same as if I told him a lie.” Consciousness work is depotentiated if you spill it out to the unreceptive. When a pick-pocket sees a saint, he sees only his pockets. Consider this a propitious time to keep your pearls to yourself, or to share them only with the most trustworthy spiritual allies. Keep it secret, keep it safe.

“Look, I bear a wound that is not yet healed, my ambition to make an impression.” —C.G. Jung, Black Book 2 Most of us have a need for attention or acknowledgment We want to be seen and welcomed into the perceptual fields of others. We may want to light up the back rows with our sparkling and radiant presence. But admiring attention is not always available, Others may be wrapped up in their own need for attention, the hardships of their lives, their depressions, anxieties, and obsessions, and so there isn’t always a surfeit of attention to be focused on us. Wanting to be the center of attention is a want, probably not a need. We are the star of our movie, and it is so easy to forget that other people are the stars of their movies. There is value sometimes in being seen, and at other times in being cloaked. The desire for attention can cause us to seek to be more visible than is good for us. We forget the advantages of invisibility because we experience the invisibility as a wound. Deng Ming-Dao, a modern Taoist sage writes, “Useful trees are cut down. Useless ones survive. The [...]

“Look, I bear a wound that is not yet healed, my ambition to make an impression.” —C.G. Jung, Black Book 2 Most of us have a need for attention or acknowledgment We want to be seen and welcomed into the perceptual fields of others. We may want to light up the back rows with our sparkling and radiant presence. But admiring attention is not always available, Others may be wrapped up in their own need for attention, the hardships of their lives, their depressions, anxieties, and obsessions, and so there isn’t always a surfeit of attention to be focused on us. Wanting to be the center of attention is a want, probably not a need. We are the star of our movie, and it is so easy to forget that other people are the stars of their movies. There is value sometimes in being seen, and at other times in being cloaked. The desire for attention can cause us to seek to be more visible than is good for us. We forget the advantages of invisibility because we experience the invisibility as a wound. Deng Ming-Dao, a modern Taoist sage writes, “Useful trees are cut down. Useless ones survive. The same [...]