CraigJustCraig

Tag: spirituality

  • Follow The Bread Crumbs Back To The Circle

    There was a time when the world was not divided—when spirit and matter, love and healing, the living and the dead, were nearly undistigushable. In the Dagara world, this unity is not myth but a reality. The material is simply the skin of the invisible; what we call the “supernatural” is nothing more than the deeper part of the natural world. Ancestors walk among us. Rivers speak. Trees listen. Ritual is not an event but life itself.

    From birth, each person carries a unique “genius,” a purpose breathed into them by the Other World. Names are a reminders of that destiny. And community exists to safeguard the chosen. To forget or worst never learn your genius is to weaken the whole community. In this way, individuality and community are not opposed; the singular gift of each person is the cornerstone of our survival.

    Nature, in this worldview, is not scenery or resource. It is the first book, the first teacher, the first home. Its remedies do not only cure the body but restore the mind. To be cut off from nature is to be cut off from healing. Reconciliation with nature is reconciliation with ourselves.

    Ritual, then, is the technology of the invisible. It is how a community repairs the web of connection—between people, between worlds, between elements. Unlike the rigid ceremonies of modern religions, Rituals are alive, tailored to the wound at hand. It bends with grief, laughter, anger, or celebration, channeling energies too subtle for perception. Ritual is how a community remembers itself.

    And yet, this remembering is fragile. Knowledge in the village is guarded, not hoarded. What is sacred must be revealed at the right time, to the right person, in the right way, or it risks becoming powerless or harmful. To know is to recall what was already within.

    This stands in stark contrast to much of Western life, where knowledge is accumulation, love is possession, healing is symptom management, and community is we just go here.

    For the Dagara, love is not private. It is spiritual and communal, woven into the obligations of ancestors and community. Intimacy is not simply pleasure—it is power, to channel spirit. Marriage is notjust a couple’s affair but a oath to the village itself, binding families and tribes for future trials. Elders ensure that unions are aligned with purpose and energy.

    Compare this to Western societies, where—as Erich Fromm and bell hooks observe—love often collapses under the weight of the individual. Love is mistaken for cathexis, the temporary intoxication of infatuation, rather than practiced as “the will to nurture our own and another’s spiritual growth.” Patriarchy trains men to avoid vulnerability and women to endure abuse. Consumerism co-opts spiritual hunger, selling “self-love” while starving us of communion. There is a longing for love, but also a fear of it this is our crisis of faith.

    , as Lee Harrington writes,Kink communities attempt to build “tribes of the heart” where negotiation, consent, and radical honesty about needs become sacred practices in themselves. Here, love is not assumed but constructed through dialogue. It is not perfect, but it is intentional. In their rituals—munches, play parties, collaring ceremonies—we glimpse a yearning for communal intimacy that echoes indigenous wisdom, refracted through an erotic lens.

    For the Dagara, illness is not a biological glitch but a fracture in relationship. To heal is to mend connections—with community, with nature, with Spirit, with self. Community is the tool that loosens the grip of ego, shakes free what has calcified, and restores flow. Grief is not hidden but shared, for communal grieving is food for the soul. Healing is less about “fixing” than remembering.

    Western healing, by contrast, often isolates. Therapy can be profound, but it is privatized, pathologized, and often stripped of spiritual practices. Grief is silenced or rushed; illness is reduced to symptoms; loneliness is epidemic. The hunger grows, yet yet you feeds it empty calories. As Scott Peck noted, true healing requires discipline and communion—yet Western culture trains us to seek quick fixes, not deep chages.

    Again, kink offers an alternate path. Scenes are often framed as “play,” not work: confronting fears, releasing trauma, exploring shadow, achieving catharsis. Like ritual, kink manipulates subtle energies, shaping altered states of consciousness. It can be profoundly healing when practiced with care. Though rooted in Western contexts, it resonates with the indigenous truth that healing is communal, embodied, and spiritual.

    The Dagara teach that community is not optional; it is the very condition of human life. The entire village raises each child meaning that your child might sleep in any home in the village, that you might go weeks with interacting and yet know that they are safe and cared for, ensuring their gift is heard and honored. Elders anchor the tribe with memory and wisdom, while mentors nurse the spirits of the young. Conflicts are not disruptions in the community but messages from Spirit, to be resolved for the sake of all. Community is abundance—not in accumulation, but in fullness of connection with one another and with the earth.

    Western culture, on the other hand, prizes the individual above us all. Isolation is epidemic. The nuclear family, far from being ideal, even has fractured under capitalism, leaving many adrift. Elders, feared as reminders of death, are hidden away, stripping society of wisdom. Progress is linear, technology destructive, speed a sign of spiritual collaspe. And yet, beneath all this, there is yearning—a hunger for belonging, for tribe, for home.

    In this yearning, kink communities again serve as a mirror. They craft chosen families, create rituals of gathering, and strive for inclusivity. They are not utopias—conflict, drama, and exploitation exist—but they hold space for radical honesty, vulnerability, and shared identity. In their best moments, they echo what Sobonfu Somé calls the “spirit of intimacy,” where connection itself becomes sacred.

    What emerges from this tapestry is not nostalgia for an idealized past, nor condemnation of the West, but a bridge. As Malidoma Patrice Somé argued, indigenous wisdom is for museums it’s medicine. Westerners are spiritually hungry, emotionally starved, and communally fragmented. Indigenous traditions remind us that purpose is not invented but remembered; that love is not a feeling but a practice; that healing is not fix but a choice; that community is not a lifestyle but a condition for survival.

    Even within the West, subcultures like kink show that another way is possible. They reclaim intimacy as intentional practice, ritualize communal gatherings, and insist on consent and transparency as cornerstones of relationship. While not identical to indigenous forms, they demonstrate a deep human impulse: to belong, to heal, to love, to remember.

    Conclusion

    The bread crumbs point the same way: toward intentional communities that prioritize growth over ridicule, acceptance over blame, rememberance over punishment.

    The lesson is the same: we are not meant to live alone. Our purpose is to each other. Healing is communal. Love is the will to nurture growth. Spirit is here in every moment, every action, every touch, every ritual, every breath.

    A community committed to growth does not tear down indivual in the name of purity or ideology. It understands conflict as a chance to deepen connection rather than sever it. To ridicule or exile is easy. To call in—to say, I see you, I see the harm, and I want us both to grow—is harder. This shift is essential if we are to build communities that do not replicate the same domination, punishment, and disposability we came to escape.

    The rope, the flogger, the collar are all can be tools for healing, remembrance, and ecstatic communion. These spaces echo the Dagara’s ritual circles, arenas where we purge pain, confront fear, and taste freedom together. When kink transcends performance and becomes devotion, it is indistinguishable from prayer.

    Non-monogamy when rooted in respect, honesty, and care are not threats to community but expansions of it. They can become vehicles for abundance instead of scarcity, generosity instead of jealousy, connection instead of competition. Pleasure is shared, intimacy is sacred and these are not spaces of fracture but whole.

    We must break from ideologies that serve power, image, or ego, and return to practices that serve Spirit, healing, and growth. Choosing practice over posture. Love, healing, community, and kink are not slogans—they are labors of devotion.

    Building cultures of trust. we must create spaces where hiding is unnecessary, where truth can be spoken without fear—not masked by ominous catch-all terms like “consent violation” or “harm.”

    Honoring elders and mentors. Communities cannot thrive without wisdom keepers, guides, and midwives of the Spirit.

    Ritualizing our connections. Whether through kink scenes, communal meals, or healing circles, ritual transforms the ordinary into the sacred.

    Centering Spirit and respect. Every encounter—sexual, communal, or conflictual—is a chance to honor the divine in one another.

    What lies on the other side of this path is not utopia, but fullness: communities where each person’s genius is recognized; relationships where respect and devotion are more powerful than possession; kink circles where energy, eros, and ritual are woven to heal and uplift; non-monogamous constellations where love is abundant, not scarce.

    This is a vision of better sacred communities: not dominated by shame or fear, not fractured by ideology, but alive with Spirit, love, and the ecstatic pulse of collective life.

    It is not a dream of perfection—it is a call to practice.
    To love. To heal. To remember.

  • All I Ever Wanted Was Community v2

    All I Ever Wanted Was Community

    All I ever wanted was community. That longing might sound naïve, but it is deeply human. I entered these spaces hungry for connection, for chosen family, for a circle that could hold both my fire and my tenderness. I led with my heart—always have. That heart has carried me through joy and devastation, but it also connects me to a much older hunger, one that thinkers and wisdom-keepers across cultures have tried to name.

    Sobonfu Somé, in The Spirit of Intimacy, reminds us that true community is a spiritual endeavor: a weaving of vulnerability, ritual, and collective responsibility. In her Dagara tradition, the health of the individual is inseparable from the health of the whole. Malidoma Patrice Somé echoes this in Healing Wisdom of Africa and Ritual: Power, Healing, and Community: community is sustained by rituals that reconnect us to one another, to nature, and to Spirit.

    I believed that if I moved with integrity, compassion, and willingness to learn, there would be room for me. I showed up. I gave. I made space—not to earn approval, but because that is how love teaches us to live. bell hooks, in All About Love, calls this the ethic of love: an active choice to nurture growth in ourselves and others.

    But instead of belonging, I met betrayal. I have been erased from spaces I helped hold, accused in whispers, and defamed without dialogue or process. This grief is mine, but it is also cultural. M. Scott Peck writes in The Road Less Traveled that true community requires struggle, honesty, and commitment to growth—but most groups collapse before reaching that stage. Instead of intimacy, we replicate domination.

    The West romanticizes the “rugged individual,” Erich Fromm critiques in The Art of Loving, but this individualism breeds alienation. Families are privatized, elders discarded, art isolated in museums, Spirit replaced with consumption: I shop therefore I am. In Of Water and the Spirit, Malidoma Patrice Somé contrasts this with African initiation systems where community raises the child, and where each person’s survival is bound to the survival of all.

    And yet, I kept hoping. I thought the circles I entered could be intentional spaces of care. What I found instead was conflict avoidance, gossip as governance, and safety-ism masquerading as accountability. Lee Harrington, in Playing Well with Others, emphasizes that authentic community requires communication, negotiation, and clarity—not whisper networks and silent complicity.

    So no, I am not broken. I am becoming. Smaller, deeper, and more intentional. I no longer scatter my energy into spaces that treat my humanity as optional. I do not beg for belonging. I honor those who have supported me, I release those who have harmed me, and I devote myself to what Sobonfu Somé calls the “vital life force” of real community: ritual, Spirit, and the deliberate weaving of souls.

    Community is not everyone in a room. It is not gossip or safety committees or charismatic leaders. It is a spiritual practice: a collective intimacy that restores, heals, and sustains life.

    That is still all I ever wanted. And that is still what I am building.

  • Unbound and Untamed

    They only crave what they cannot taste. They only hunger for what does not beg to be devoured. The moment you stop offering yourself as their feast, they circle your absence like starving pilgrims, desperate for one more sip of the nectar you’ll never pour again.

    People are trained to prey on your longing—the soft tremor of needing to be desired, the ache for approval, the moan for validation. They smell it on you like sex. Like sweat. Like blood. But once you strip yourself of that hunger, once you tear out the root of needing to be chosen—you stop being food.

    Your silence is lethal. Your detachment is a mercy. No longer a body bent into shapes for their comfort, you become an altar of your own making. They’ll call you selfish. They’ll call you heartless. There’s nothing more suffocating than hands that held you only to keep you down.

    They raise you on the lie that being needed is the same as being loved. When you no longer need anyone, you become the only one they all need. Love without reverence is just hunger, and hunger will always drain you dry. Your absence becomes louder than their presence. They whisper your name when you’re not there because silence has made you a legend.

    Most beg for a seat at poisoned tables. When you no longer need their touch, their approval, their lips at your ear, you become the very thing they worship in secret. They tremble, they whisper your name in their sleep, because the one who no longer kneels becomes the only one worth kneeling to. You’ve met your monsters, made them dance, and came back free of every leash.

    They’ll call you ruthless when you stop explaining. Arrogant when you stop apologizing for your hungers, your fire, your divinity. But their accusations are burning on your altar. Their words feed your legend. Mystery is power. Secrecy is survival. To withhold your body, your secrets, your energy—this is sovereignty.

    A world addicted to taming wildness will call you a monster when you bare your fangs instead of your throat. But it is not monstrosity they fear—it is your refusal to be owned. They want your submission as proof they still matter. But you’ve tasted your own darkness, your own lust, your own silence. You are no longer theirs to tame.

    The old you—the one who apologized for existing, who begged for scraps—is gone. You buried that ghost and wear its ashes as war paint. Your indifference is not emptiness, it’s fullness. Your withdrawal is not cruelty, it’s clarity.

    Now, you choose where your loyalty goes. You choose who earns your presence. That choice is your crown. That choice is sovereignty.

    They will circle your silence like worshippers around a forbidden shrine. They will ache for the doors of your temple to open again. But they no longer understand: you are not waiting to be claimed. You are not starving for their presence. You are nourished in the sacred garden of your own solitude, fed by rivers no hand can touch.

    Let them gossip. Let them rage. You are not theirs to own, never were. You don’t need their applause, their tables, their love offered as ransom. You are the ocean—vast, ungraspable, answering to no one.

    You are not stone—you are iron. Not cruel, but sovereign. Not cold, but untouchable. You stand as proof that freedom is possible. That is what makes you dangerous. That is what makes you unforgettable.

    Everybody wants you when you don’t need anyone.

  • BDSM, Kink & Ritual: The Dark Doorway

    The air around me vibrates. It hums with power.

    My sanctuary is sweat, breath, and pulse—found in the heat of the moment, in the intoxicating exchange that strips away every falsehood you thought could protect you.

    For me, BDSM is more than play. Every scene is a working. Every strike is a sigil carved into flesh. Every breath is a silent offering. This is not escape—it’s the place where reality bends to my will. The body is the altar, the temple, and the sacrifice.

    The first time I held someone’s life in my hands, I knew: this was more. In that space, taboo is not forbidden—it’s sacred. Fear, pain, anxiety, stress, worry—these are instruments in the divine choir, a symphony for your shadows and your gods. It is dangerous. I like that danger.

    We begin by drawing the circle and naming the intent. Tools lie ready. Music hums low. Bodies are consecrated by touch, by breath, by oil.

    The moment roles are assumed, we call in archetypes. We invoke gods.

    Then the work begins. The bass of a strike on flesh. The hiss of rope tightening. Those chants you call moans. We carry that beat within us until the trance cracks the mind open and everything rushes in—release, collapse, surrender, climax—the moment of manifestation.

    We close with grounding touch and care, pouring libations, speaking gratitude. The circle is sealed, and the magic lingers in the body.

    The Great Alchemy


    This is the courage to dissolve the ego and trust completely.
    To submit is not to weaken—it is to choose surrender, knowing you are still sovereign.
    To dominate is to hold the keys to the temple, guiding another through the fire with fierce, protective precision.

    Pain as Crucible


    Pain, consensual and intentional, strips the soul bare, burns away the noise, and leaves only truth.

    The Oldest Temple


    The body is the first temple. Sweat, saliva, sexual essence—they are the elixirs of life, offerings poured out for gods. To taste is to merge essences, to mingle life force in a primal act older than civilization itself.

    If you would walk this path:

    • Set your intentions.
    • Invoke your chosen powers.
    • Prepare your space.
    • Infuse every act with consciousness.
    • Close and ground with care.

    Above all: consent is the circle. Without it, there is no magic

    I do not separate kink It is flesh, breath, hunger, and shadow.

    Here, you will not be shamed for your desire, your power, or your softness. You do not have to prove yourself—your presence, your truth, and your willingness are enough. Your vulnerability will not be weaponized. Surrender here is a choice, never a demand.

    You will not be misunderstood for being “too much.”
    You will be seen.
    You will be held.
    You will be free to meet the gods with your whole self—naked, trembling, and unafraid.

  • Sacred Exchange: Building and Navigating Spiritual Dynamics

    I want to explore living a deliberate spiritual power dynamic as a path of discipline, growth, and freedom.

    Spiritual dynamics are a different caliber of connection. They demand more vetting, smaller contracts, ongoing renegotiations, and lots of communication. I share this because I’ve failed here and paid a price. That loss is real and painful — a reminder that spiritual power exchange requires patience and respect. Build carefully. Communicate openly. Be willing to grow.

    A spiritual power exchange dynamic is not casual.

    That means you need:

    • A vetting period: Spend time learning each other’s limits, triggers, communication styles, and values before jumping into big commitments.
    • Smaller contracts: Start with limited agreements — maybe rules that apply only during specific times or certain activities.
    • Regularly revisit your agreements: People change, situations change, and a spiritual dynamic demands intentional ongoing consent and communication.

    Building Your Dynamic

    • Only add one rule at a time, so you don’t overwhelm yourselves or create conflicts.
    • Keep your total number of rules manageable so you both can remember and follow them.
    • Enforce rules consistently — a rule ignored is a rule dead.
    • Be ready to drop or modify rules if life changes or they just don’t work.
    • Decide what the power exchange covers. Interaction with other partners? Goals? Motivations? Drives?
    • Decide when the dynamic applies. Only during in-person play? Only when a collar is worn? There’s no right or wrong.

    When Conflict Arises

    Power exchange can be intense. When conflicts come up, resist the urge to “fix” things or walk away. Instead:

    • Step out of the role.
    • Remove symbols respectfully and with intention.
    • Speak as equals, using real names.
    • Aim to find solutions that work for both of you.

    Remember This About Spiritual Dynamics

    What makes a spiritual dynamic different is the purpose behind it — and that purpose is deeply personal. Whether you’re seeking to learn more about yourself through service to another, or seeking clarity through asceticism, that reason is personal.

    So, ask what your partner gets from protocols, and share what you get too. Make it personal.

    Rituals, symbols, and ceremonies matter — treat them carefully.

    Don’t copy-paste from past dynamics.

    Honesty is Rule Zero. Break that, and you break everything.

    Additional Notes

    • Non-monogamy and spiritual power exchange can coexist but require ongoing negotiation and Failsafe conversations.
    • Your dynamic will evolve as you meet goals, benchmarks, and milestones.
    • Discuss what breakup or transition out of the dynamic looks like — it’s a hard conversation, but important.
    • Mental health matters — depression or trauma affect dynamics deeply. Support your partner.
    • Narcissism kills spiritual power exchange; mutual respect and interest fuel it.

    Final Thoughts

    Living a deliberate spiritual power dynamic is a path of discipline, growth, and freedom. It’s messy, challenging, and deeply rewarding.

  • History of Magick in the West

    Buckle up I’m about to ride the timeline of Western Sex Magick. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it fast, and mostly factually accurate according to my sources Modern Sex Magick by Donald Michael Kraig.

    Evidence suggests early Hebrews practiced sex-based fertility rites 70 CE: Destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Mystical knowledge (including Kabbalah & sex magick) begins to disseminate

    1118 CE: Knights Templar founded. Accused of heresy and magick, possibly learned sex magick from Sufis, who were influenced by Tantric India.

    1312: The Templars are suppressed; survivors carry secret knowledge underground.

    Hasidim (1700s): Orthodox Jewish mystics focused on meditative Kabbalah there were like were like, “No more sexy rituals, suppressing older techniques. bodies + ecstasy = divine contact.

    Paschal Beverly Randolph (1815–1875):Enter the Black occult daddy himself. Created new sex magick systems and founded the Eulis Brotherhood. Crowley copied his homework later, but make it racist and chaotic.

    Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772): Explored spiritual sexuality through trances and automatic writing.

    Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815): Developed animal magnetism—trance states through sexual energy, laying groundwork for hypnotic and energetic healing traditions.

    William Blake (1757–1827): Poet, artist, and Freemason; merged Swedenborgian, Druidic, and Kabbalistic ideas into visionary art with sexual undercurrents.

    Golden Dawn (1888): Founded in London. Secret rituals hinted at sex magick. Members included Moina & MacGregor Mathers, Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune

    Aleister Crowley (1875–1947): Overtly practiced and popularized sex magick through the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) and Thelemic doctrine.(He’s like: “All of this? Mine now. Add sex. Add drugs. Add a goat.”
    He took Randolph’s notes, put a British accent on them, and boom)

    Austin Osman Spare: Developed automatic drawing and sigil-based sex magick; which became the foundation for Chaos Magick.

    Surrealist artists (1920s–30s) like Salvador Dalí and André Breton used sexual and dream states to channel unconscious energies, echoing occult sex-magickal principles.

    Gerald Gardner & Wicca: Introduced the Great Rite, a symbolic (sometimes literal) sex magick rite within Neopaganism.

    this history ignores the wider reality of sex magic namely it didnt state in the west (taoist, vajrayana, shinto, kemetic, ifa and orisha, to name a few), and this also implies sex magic remained unchanged over the last 2000 years it did not. any way now You carry the bones of a people who prayed with their hips. Sex magick is old. You’re the latest in a long, sweaty line of sluts keeping the flame alive.

  • Review: The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden

    Before I get into the review, I want to lay some groundwork. I don’t choose books at random. Every book I pick, I do so with the hope that it will crucible for me—not just as a person, but as a mage, a prophet, and a healer.

    My background is… strange. I’m a former preacher, a former school teacher, and now a former research scientist. So I come to magick from three angles: as a member of a congregation, as a student, and as a research topic or research area.

    Here, my lab, my equipment, and my facilities is myself. In Existential Kink by Carolyn Elliott, she states, “The truth is sensational.” Truth resonates—it has a feeling associated with it. That is my metric, those are my notes for further examination, and that is what I’m going to share with you.

    But also, while I will share that with you, I will also talk about two things: association and recollection. As the student, these are essential for my understanding, and I will bring up other books, other quotes, other authors, and other notes to help bring my point into focus.

    And finally, as an area of research and study, let me share my methodology for evaluation. Unlike Western culture, which calls for “scientific” backing to split reason from emotion, and reality is understood perceived and organized, in linear sequential relationships.

    I will use Marimba Ani’s Yurugu definition for study: knowing a subject involves knowing the surroundings. Knowledge involves immersion, and through sympathetic participation, meaning is revealed and understood as Symbols—these symbols—are the words I will share with you.

    I don’t usually talk about this, but because this book is something I’ve newly finished, I wanted to reinforce my ideas, beliefs, and practices with you.

    So let’s begin.

    Branden defines self-esteem as “the immune system of consciousness.” That stuck with me. He breaks it down into six practices: Living consciously, Self-acceptance, Self-responsibility, Self-assertiveness, Living purposefully. Personal integrity

    What came to mind in reading that was: your self-esteem is a credit card with unlimited funds, but that bitch will decline

    And while the tone of the book is undeniably Western—individualistic, capitalist, and sometimes awkwardly obsessed with Ayn Rand—I was surprised at how much of it aligned with magical theorems and esoteric principles. what came to mind as I read were these theorems:

    Theorem 1: All action is magickal.

    Theorem 2: Magick is not something you do; it’s something you are.

    Theorem 4: Creation on the spiritual plane leads to creation on the physical plane.

    Theorem 6: Let go—and let the magick work.

    Theorem 8: Magick is both a science and an art.

    Theorem 9: Magick is synergistic.

    Theorem 16: The sexual trance opens many doors.

    There’s a strong resonance between Branden’s core idea—that self-esteem is the backbone of conscious, embodied living—and the magical premise that alignment between mind, body, and spirit (or soma) is the first step in unlocking your true power.

    Branden writes that self-esteem is made up of two parts:

    Confidence in your ability handle challenge. AND Confidence in our right succeed.

    This reminded me of something else: Magick requires neither your understanding nor your consent. Like self-esteem, it simply does what you ask of it—whether consciously or unconsciously. And as Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it Fate.” or “As above, so below; as within, so without.”

    This is the first step, we must take: walk in one accord—mind, body, and soul: not rejecting or fragmenting any part of ourselves. That is the real beginning of a magical practice. That shit is hard believe me

    which lead into this quote “Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship with myself.” That is the first pillar of self esteem and bring to mind what is talked about it in the body keeps the score “feeling free to know what you know and to feel what you feel without becoming overwhelmed, enraged, ashamed, or collapsed.”
    But this is where the work begins he says that “Without self-acceptance, self-esteem is impossible.”, impossible not hard, not unlikely … impossible. Let that sit for a second. This fundemental key force to life is impossible to achieve without acceptance.

    Then he goes on to say self-acceptance is what an effective psychotherapist strives to awaken in a person this mirrors what The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk who says “Psychological problems occur when our internal signals don’t work, when our maps don’t lead us where we need to go, when we are too paralyzed to move, when our actions do not correspond to our needs, or when our relationships break down.” in other words ” realities we cannot avoid. Regardless of what we do or do not admit, we cannot be indifferent to our own self-evaluation. That our actions shape our self-esteem, and our self-esteem shapes our actions. That is magical causality. That is the “as within, so without.” Causation flows in both directions.

    Where I pushed back was the overemphasis on productivity, efficiency, and efficacy, The Western lens of radical individualism

    As a practitioner, my goal is to live congruently—body, mind, and spirit aligned in desire, and in purpose. Reading this book reminded me that esteem is not just a quality. It’s a magickal potential.

    I recommend this book—not as gospel, but as a tool. Take what resonates. Burn the rest.

    I’d love to hear what you’re thinking about it.

  • Nihilomancy: “divination from nothingness”

    I’ve been reviewing some old material for an upcoming class on bondage as a tool toward spiritual release. This book is one of my hard-to-find treasures: Earthly Bondage by Brigett Harrington. https://www.passionandsoul.com/blog/soul/earthly-bondage

    I’ll be teaching this class with Goddess Dior and the House of Diamond, About the Many Path Of Earthly Bondage and one of the core paths we’ll be diving into is the art of Nihilomancy: divination through nothingness.

    “I call upon thee, wisdom in darkness…”

    From that invocation, the chapter plunges us into a world where silence, restraint, and the absence of external stimuli become gateways to the divine.

    The practice of Niihilomancy dark and sensuyal exploration of how sensory deprivation can be used not just for kink, but for deep inner work, divination, and astral travel. It walks a fine edge between mysticism and embodiment, showing how blindfolds, hoods, vows of silence, bondage, and mummification are not only tools of restraint, but instruments of revelation.

    By removing outside distractions (sight, sound, movement), the body and mind enter an altered state where messages can rise from deep within the soul, and from the spirit world.

    It’s where the world is stripped away until only the question remains:

    • Where do I go from here?
    • What choice is mine to make?
    • What truths lie beyond the body?

    Their is a ritual to preparing for this; laying out sacred items and calling upon spiritual forces before entering the sensory void. With each layer :rope, hood, scent, silence. you get closer to the inner realm where wisdom lives.

    What stands out most is the gravity of ritual. Each object whether rope, oil, or spandex becomes charged with intentionality. There is a rhythm to the preparation, an architecture to the ritual that feels devotional, erotic, and sacred all at once. The ritual explores both the somatic and the spiritual experience of sensory deprivation as a threshold art: the portal.

    Think less “nothingness” in the empty sense, and more the void, the liminal space, the fertile dark.

    Whether through fasting, purging, or embedding sigils within the wrappings and around your ritual space, it evokes/invoke something powerful. Death lingering in the margins: the surrender of control, ego, movement, consciousness. But instead of despair, it offers a promise… answers.

    while doing this ritual it describes you’ll feel the shadows settle around you. You’ll hear the call to your own dark silence.

    what is clear the path is laid in layers:
    Fasting or purging .
    Setting the ritual space
    Laying out tools.
    Invoking spirits guides or ancestors.
    Embedding sigils.

    With every layer, with every sense denied, a different kind of awareness opens.
    Sometimes, that leads to wisdom from self.
    Sometimes, it leads to channeling a presence.
    Sometimes, it leads to delicious dissolution.

    Let’s be clear:
    This is erotic mysticism: raw, reverent, and real.

    For those in our coven of kinky mystics and sensual scholars, that aren’t afraid to talk about getting ridden by godforms.

    Because even in darkness, we need witnesses.

    If you’ve ever longed to use your body as a spell, your silence as a question, and your restraints as a roadmap to spirit
    this one’s for you.

  • What Are We Doing Wrong?

    We talk about building community like it’s host the play party, hold a few consent classes, add a Discord server, and boom

    But let’s be honest: most of our “communities” are just clusters of trauma-bonded strangers orbiting ego, secrecy, and unmet needs.

    And we wonder why they keep exploding.

    This isn’t a takedown. Not a defense. Not even a manifesto. This is a reflection. A spiral through the wreckage we keep calling community—and a challenge to ask if we’ve been building it on sand.

    Every time harm happens, we fall into a pattern that feels more like reflex than care. Someone speaks. Someone is named. Screenshots are taken. Events drop names. Reputations scatter like ashes in the wind. All under the banner of safety, but rooted in something else—fear, shame, power, confusion, grief.

    We get what we’re living through now: collapse, betrayal, shame, power struggles masked as consent violations, and intimacy weaponized into control.

    This piece is about what happens when we confuse harm with evil, accountability with exile, and community with containment. And what we might do instead, if we remembered who we are.

    The Cascade of Silence Someone trembles and speaks their truth

    They name their experience. And everything erupts.

    The accused disappears

    People whisper. Screenshots circle like wolves. Social capital bleeds out like a wound. Groups back away. Educators go quiet. And in the empty space where dialogue could live, silence hardens into strategy.

    This is not justice. It’s reaction.

    The pain is real. The fear is real. But how we move through it determines whether we are a village or a battlefield.

    Two People, Two Nervous Systems, One Wound Most harm doesn’t come from monsters. It comes from mismatch—two bodies not attuned, two stories with different beginnings, two people unprepared for the depth they were stepping into.

    Consent wasn’t fully navigated. Boundaries were spoken, but not tended. Silence was misread as agreement. Someone fawned. Someone froze. Someone thought things were okay. But they weren’t.

    No one is lying. No one is a villain. But harm happened.

    We don’t need exile. We need curiosity. We need slowness. We need repair

    Bandwagons Are Not Accountability We say we believe survivors, but often what we believe are posts, not people. Often, the social response isn’t about care—it’s about positioning. About showing we’re “safe.” That we “stand with.”

    But standing with someone doesn’t mean erasing someone else.

    We’ve turned harm into a currency. Trauma into a status symbol. Support into spectacle. We ghost the accused, but call that justice. We erase nuance to feel safe. But safety built on destruction is a shaky house

    When Trauma Echoes and Becomes Contagion One post reopens a dozen old wounds. Not because of what happened—but because of what resonates. Collective pain rushes in. Everyone bleeds at once. And now we’re not holding one story—we’re drowning in many.

    This is called vicarious trauma. And when a community isn’t trained to hold it, it reacts. It expels. It purges. It isolates. Not to heal—but to survive.

    Misaligned People harm others while trying to connect.

    They were scared. They were socially awkward. They didn’t know how to read cues. They thought silence meant consent. They panicked. They froze when confronted. Trauma met trauma and neither had the tools to hold the charge.

    This doesn’t excuse. It explains. And understanding gives us the chance to interrupt the cycle.

    We don’t ask the person harmed to teach. But someone must. Someone must hold up the mirror. Offer tools. Walk the path

    Most survivors don’t want a head on a stick. They want acknowledgment. Transformation. Assurance that the harm won’t happen again. That something shifted. That the pain wasn’t meaningless.

    But when our culture offers only silence or war, survivors lose too.

    What if we gave more options:

    • ~

    The Bias in Our Vision A big, awkward dangerous person. A bubbly soft-spoken unserious person. A dominan aggressive person.

    We don’t just misread—we misjudge. And in trauma-saturated communities, our fear projects shadows onto others.

    Being trauma-informed means knowing when the voice in your head is your past—not the person in front of you.

    A Better Pattern Let’s imagine a new way:

    • ~

    Healing Is a Communal Act This is where it gets spiritual.

    Unresolved wounds don’t vanish when we walk away. They reappear under new names, in new spaces. Every time we “move on,” we take the wound with us.

    And community? It isn’t just “people we hang with.” It’s the supposed to be the net that holds us together when we fall apart.

    Real intimacy cannot exist outside spirituality. It’s not an “I” relationship—it’s a “we” relationship, where the “we” includes ancestors, nature, spirit, and the village.

    We’ve lost the ritual of community. The wisdom of circles. The shrine as conflict resolution. The sacred as container for grief, desire, and misunderstanding.

    Rituals That Can Hold the Ache Imagine a space where:

    • A circle of men sits with a husband in conflict.
    • A women’s circle carries a wife’s grief.
    • The couple steps back. The village steps in.
    • Conflict is held, not hidden.

    We must stop separating the erotic from the sacred. Stop treating intimacy as a private contract and start treating it as a public covenant.

    Every relationship, especially the intimate ones, must be blessed, witnessed, nourished, completed. Even when they end, there must be ritual. There must be release.

    There is power in saying: “This is what’s aching me.” In letting the village hold the ache. In speaking the trouble out loud, until the problem becomes afraid of your voice.

    Community isn’t optional. Intimacy isn’t trivial. Harm isn’t a death sentence. Accountability isn’t exile.

    We must:

    • Call people in, not just call them out.
    • Use ritual, not reaction.
    • Center spirit, not spectacle.
    • Reaffirm that harm is a call to gather, not a reason to scatter.

    Let’s build communities where harm becomes the beginning of healing. Where closure happens through ritual. Where we listen—to each other, to spirit, to the trees. Where we remember: we belong to each other.

    Let’s do it differently. Let’s do it sacredly. Let’s do it together.

  • The Art of Fucking with Reality

    Magick is raw. It’s unhinged. It’s DIY divinity for the spiritually undomesticated.

    About reshaping reality like wet clay—with nothing but willpower, imagination, and audacity.

    This is the magick of rebels, shapeshifters, and fools.

    1. Manifestation by Any Means Necessary

    You want something? Good. Make it happen.

    magick doesn’t care.

    It’s not about tradition—it’s about impact. Whatever channels your belief, emotion, and desire gets the job done.

    Spell it. Draw it. Fuck it into existence.

    2. Reprogramming the Self

    Your identity is not fixed—it’s programmable.
    Your trauma? Hackable.
    Your habits? Glitches.
    Your beliefs? Upgradeable

    In magick, the self is an interface—fluid, ever-changing. You can delete patterns, install new ones, shapeshift personalities, even rewrite the story.

    Be who you choose to be

    3. Liberation from Dogma

    There is no one true way. Only the way that works right now.
    Beliefs are masks. Paradigms are costumes. You are behind the curtain.

    Adopt a path. Burn it. Combine ten more. that’s the power. freedom is the point.

    You are god now.

    4. Creating Your Own Systems

    Don’t just follow —create.
    Birth your own myths. Craft your own legends. Speak your own language.

    If it feels real, if it works, it is.

    magick evolves with you.

    5. Belief is Technology

    Belief isn’t precious—it’s programmable .

    Treat it like a tool. Temporary. Tactical. Transformational.
    Try it! Feel it? That’s the current.

    Belief is not about truth—it’s about leverage.

    6. Disruption & Rebellion

    magick is the sledgehammer for your inner prison.
    It dismantles the stale, breaks open the rigid, and lets the wild flood in.

    You can use it to:

    • Explode old identities
    • Challenge stagnation
    • Call in absurd, primal, or taboo forces

    This is rebellion. This is Revolution.

    7. Shadow Work as Fuel

    You are not just light and love—you are rage, filth, sex, sorrow, chaos.

    A magicians don’t exile their shadows—we invite them to dance.
    We speak the unspeakable. Break the unbreakable. Laugh at the unlaughable. Touch the darkness and let it power your light.

    Your discomfort is a key.
    Unlock yourself.

    8. Direct Access

    You don’t need me or some old fuck to tell you who you are.
    You can build your own entities, craft your own egregores, or interface directly with the raw current.

    Servitors. Thoughtforms. Astral codes. its all just Energy in motion.

    You are the medium. The spell. The source.

    Chaos Magick isn’t pretty.

    It’s not safe.
    It’s not for those clinging to Certainty. Absolutes. Predictable

    It’s for those ready to burn it all and create their own.
    It’s the path of the masochist, the hedonist, the sadist of reality.

    This isn’t about playing god.
    It’s about remembering you already are.