From Psychology to Enlightenment

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I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The best part of blogging is reading your comments. And because of them, I’ve realized that I can’t half-tell this story. I need to share my whole thinking on enlightenment, and the path I took to get here. That’s why I told you about ascention yesterday.

Today, I want to share my journey as I developed this model, so that tomorrow, I can tell you about my current work in enlightenment this past week.

I first encountered ascended spirits somewhere around 2004. A friend introduced me to a group of them. At the time, we noticed two differences between the ascended spirits and other spirits: (1) the ascended spirits were much more skilled, and (2) where other spirits seemed petty and human, the ascended spirits did not.

Until then, I had only encountered the concepts of enlightenment and ascention in TV shows and whatever new-age bits I happened to read. It wasn’t something I studied, read, or even thought about. And so, I didn’t have any overarching model of it. The terms basically referred to these spirits I was working with, and didn’t need any definition beyond that.

That’s also why I focused on behavior, rather than internal mental state: Observing ascended spirits, I could see the behavior, and feel their calm and focus when they sent messages, but I didn’t know anything about the internal state of their mind that produced it. And for around 5 years, enlightenment remained something that these ascended spirits did, rather than something I was working on.

In 2009, I developed that consciousness integration technique I told you about. At the time, I still wasn’t thinking about enlightenment. I just had something bothering me — I can’t recall what, but probably something about work or relationships or something — and wanted to stop my mind running so I could focus on something more fun. There’ a reason it sounds like psychology and mental health: That’s what the technique was designed for.

Then I showed the technique to the ascended spirits I worked with, and they told me it was part of the path to enlightenment. I still wasn’t thinking about enlightenment much, but it was neat to have a technique related to it, and they seemed pleased, so I was happy.

Since then, I’ve improved consciousness integration several times. Until this last time, I’ve focused on psychological benefits, rather than on ascention-related enlightenment, because I tend to focus on problems I can actually solve, instead of grand problems that I can’t make progress with.

For my technical readers, here are the main improvements:

  • After activating the connection between conscious mind and the semi-conscious area, leave that connection on, so the semi-conscious area contuously updates. (In my terms, “semi-conscious” is for parts of your psyche that intrude into conscious thought, while “unconscious” is for strictly unconscious processes that you’re almost never aware of.)
  • Rather than connecting one semi-conscious area at a time, activate a network of paths between conscious mind and many semi-conscious areas, you can update many unhealthy thought patterns, even if you aren’t exactly sure what they are yet.
  • When you do that, be sure to use your mental muscles to support your conscious mind, so it shifts the semi-conscious areas, rather than the other way around.
  • Then there’s one more I learned last week, which I’ll post about soon.

With each advancement, consciousness integration moved away from a one-time fix for an unhealthy thought pattern, and toward a lasting change to how the parts of my mind are networked together. And each time, my view of enlightenment changed.

And, writing this series, I’ve realized that my view of enlightenment — maybe my view of most magick, even — is based around what I can do right now, plus the one or two steps further ahead that I can see. It’s based on experience, rather than a grand vision of what enlightenment ought to be.

It’s really only in the past 6 months that I’ve started to think of enlightenment as something I can work on, rather than something impossibly advanced. And I only got a good structural definition of enlightenment in the past week, from ascended spirits working on improving their own enlightenment. And so, I have advanced techniques relating to enlightenment, developed for mental health purposes, but I’m at the very start of my own thinking on the subject.

This series so far has captured much of my view on enlightenment up until that training last week. Which means that now, we have the background to talk about my current work on enlightenment. That’s the next post in this series.

Other posts in this series: If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.

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2 Responses to “From Psychology to Enlightenment”

  1. Ona says:

    “It’s based on experience, rather than a grand vision of what enlightenment ought to be.” -Mike

    I think that’s a really sane place to work from, EVEN if you are working within a pre-existing system that outlines the bigger picture. Being obsessed with the fantasy of the future rather than paying attention to what’s going on now and what you actually know based on experience is more often than not just a distraction. If you allow things to keep changing, leading you along, unfolding in interesting and relevant new directions, then all kinds of development and adventures can be had. Hang on to future fantasies or refuse to adjust your view of the present when experience contradicts expectations and you just spin in circles.

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