This week on Astral Projections I explore a futuristic limb of scientific terrain—the hypothetical research field of spiritual and supernatural phenomena, a broadly sweeping category which may include topics such as God, the cosmos, manifestation, energetic entities, crystals and much more—essentially, anything non-ordinary with respect to the typical depiction of physical reality, a base of inquirable marvels stringently defined into a field of study. I trust this to be a subtly important endeavor as humanity transitions rapidly into an era of digitization and disconnection, a world where misinformation spreads like wildfire owing to individuals’ grasping desperation to belong, where misrepresentation runs rampant in a sea of social-media fabrications and surface-level relationality. People will believe anything if it promises felt improvement; therefore, our focus in unravelling new-age conceptualizations should hinge upon a desire to bring forth clarity, precision and ingenuity in a time of confusion and incongruity.
As is promoted within 12-step recovery fellowships, spiritual transformation is a requirement for contemporary salvation, acting as a salve that soothes the raw pain of cultural wounding intrinsic in the majority of human-upbringings. Such evolutions ought to be fostered by one’s localized community; ideally, there would exist a reliable, accessible foundation of peer-deliberated empirical inquiry that may help to suggest the authentic nature of abnormal normalcies, oddities of occurrence that permeate the thought-to-be universal laws of physics, once-inexplicable and arcane ideations cohered into a rigorously-tested set of ideologic fundamentals. Many esoteric concepts are held to be true as is, yet without concretized proof we fall into a precarious configuration—instinctively, there is an underlying effect of strict belief that enacts noticeable change, regardless of whether said belief is well-founded. Specifically, those who willfully follow their dogma with utter linearity are likely to observe the corresponding output, perhaps an artifact of desirability bias or the sheer power of belief.
There are those also who compulsively cast away any notion of extraordinary conscious perceptivity, those so firmly-rooted in the physical realm—anchored by their job, politics, social issues, human connection—that they dare not fathom a total sphere of practicable operation magnitudes of order more grand than that which they know to be true and real, solid, dependable. These two contradictory extremes of population subsets—those who believe dogmatically and those who refuse open-mindedness—create an urgent yet challenging necessitation: to introduce observable, measurable, logical provability into the essence of supernaturality. Effecting a framework of empirically-supported theory which explains a wide-range of non-ordinary happenings would prove itself an authority of unification, consolidating the ever-shifting tides of collective concentration and crafting a cohesive architecture of dynamic, utilizable philosophy.
Why is this important? What role can spiritual-science endure in the advancement and sustainability of a healthy civilization? The answer to this is contingent upon that which can be inferred as viable and functional practice, now-obscure imaginations that unknowingly carry potential for mass instilment and ultimate betterment. Assuming there is indeed some unearthed premise of utilitarian-spiritualism, its development and installation into modern life must be done with careful oversight. The risks of mass commercialization and power-based possession are significant for any technology; however, for something profoundly enigmatic such as metaphysical applications, which could wield immense capacities for material, emotional and psychic alteration, a high-degree of containment and hazard-aversion is required, especially in early-days of progression.
Picture a world where energetic healing is an established branch of attainable wellness modalities; for example, trained energetic healers attuned to some divine source of vitality who can transmute and transfer this flow to mend ruptures in the physical form, to eradicate inflammation and reverse atypical cellular mutation. These mystic-physicians would be equipped to manipulate the essence of higher-consciousness and generally bypass standardized modes of conceivable order, defying regularity along a tangent-plane of quantum mechanization. Such abilities would be revelatory, drastically shifting the fundamental basis of medical science, revealing a vast unexplored dimension of feasible self- and relational-actualization.
If these tactics of health-optimization are strictly possible, does society have an obligation to uncover and assimilate them? At some point, a community of truth-seeking and altruistic radicalization reaches an impasse, crossing the jagged border between maximized positive realism and utopian free-floating absurdity. If pain and suffering were entirely eliminated, would life be worth living at all? There must be an intelligible awareness of the inherent dangers present in accepting every potential spiritual enhancement as they arise—it is fair to assume that anything imaginable is plausibly achievable under the guise of quantum adaptation, and thus the degrees of engineerable freedom ought to be rigidified, maintained to limit the uncontrollable proliferation of insanely complex and powerful innovations into widespread abstractionism, preventative measures that prohibit extinguishment of the ever-important core of humanity lest it become drowned in a sea of hedonistic reach imparted by automated spiritual invention.
To build a multilayered foundation of properly conducted spiritual research is an exceptional task with intricate nuances and supreme difficulty. My hope at minimum is to provide my curious peers of tomorrow with a sturdily crafted blueprint of design which outlines logical sequencing, appropriate theories and experimental studies that, if undertook, may elucidate the genuine nature of spiritual and supernatural ideology. As I have discussed somewhat at length here on Astral Projections, a tricky component of such an attempt is the integrity of empirical volunteers—many known spiritual concepts carry a strongly subjective aspect that mandates a unique methodology with respect to the process of mechanistic discovery. Take astral projecting, for example—the purposeful exiting of one’s body upon the cusp of entering a sleep-state—this act occurs entirely through a frame of perception housed in the conscious mind of they who succeed in enticing it. Therefore, to accurately inquire towards its phenomenological essence, lead-scientists must trust that their subjects are perfectly honest in relaying their experience. Another option is the combining of subject and clinician, emergence of an individual trained to remain objective in their analyses of self to gleam insight into the elementary facets of spiritual process.
Crystals are another relevant, fascinating, highly-popularized topic that merits focalized study—many believe that these stones of particularly-ordered atomic packing may boast specialized capabilities of physical, mental and emotional influence, fuel-cells that absorb and transmit ethereal infusions into the surroundings and body of those who keep them. Any metaphysical store will stock a fine display of beautiful crystals for sale, a trend I myself have adventured into out of both curiosity and perceived necessity, throughout a years-long spree of deranged entheogenic and psychedelic substance exploration during which my armament of crystals certainly seemed to be working, somehow, in a way just out of reach from words yet palpably, demonstrably enough to persuade my skeptic mind into deep intrigue bordered by obsession.
Being now sober, my relationship to the realm of crystal potency has shifted. The distinct brand of magic I once felt in their presence has diminished, as have countless other spiritually-funded internalizations that I held closely in a state of being now so distant, different, as if it were but a dream. This intimate disjointedness drives me to recreate that immeasurable sense of wonder whilst living in psychoactive abstinence, to find an awe-inspired childlikeness once rooted in an infallible motivation to travel outwards from standard consciousness, to ruminate along the outmost edges of psychic discernment with nothing remotely resembling a safety-net. This has led me to the frontiers of novelty, desiring to provide illuminated researches into the absolute workings of all-things strange and bizarre. To ascertain such a framework may be the keystone in manifesting that all-too-familiar yet hauntingly frightening inner composition, a place I wedged myself far-enough within to witness that which lies there, the formless, indescribable ecstasy of oddity.
Whether crystals are veritably able to effect movement into the dynamic landscape of existence, I cannot conclusively state, not without performing rigorous, anti-biased testing and analyses. I believe what I have known to be true, experientially, situationally, yet still I remain unsure. To begin a comprehensive set of examinations would entail employment of reservoir engineering concepts, a topic I am well-versed in due to fortune of circumstance, applying parameters such as porosity and permeability with a clever twist of quantum energetics. Simultaneous to theoretical and analogic application, experimental design would be tantamount in the derivation of spiritual logics, to which one could devote a lifetime of inquiry. For that reason, a baseline level of intuition is important lest one’s valuable time on earth prove futile by its celebratory end. I would not dedicate my finite resources to a field devoid of implicit richness, hopefully, and the balanced mixture of practicality, complexity and originality make boundlessly ripe spiritualized areas of study.
Somehow, the fidelity of formalized scientific methodology must be implemented into a field of inquiry marked by inner experience and unseen forces of potential truthfulness. This undertaking for now remains budding in its infancy; regardless, I believe it will one day prove itself critical in the successful survivability of the human race. We find ourselves backed against a ledge, a discretized singularity of epic proportions looming behind us, waiting to swallow up the final remnants of alive decency. The collective soul has seemingly been detached from its hosting lifeform, indicated by longform universal malaise saturating the matrix of wholeness, a uniformly distributed sickness which acts as a plaguing bacteria, multiplying with exponential quickness. Entropy continues to release and agitate within the systematic container of corporeality, an agent of pure chaos that lingers through the air of contemplative behaviorism, presenting as a large-scoped collection of terrible actors in positions of unfathomable dominion, apathetic perpetuity seeped into bone and flesh of all worldly passengers. An eminent miracle is imperative in overcoming the autocratic reign of disorderly normality—hope of redemption waits in the geometry of spiritualized revolution.
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