Thanks for all the details! This definitely helps to make more sense of the reading.
Making things our own instead of taking with others have to say about it seems wise to me and also to stop divining about the same question, though detailing it might be a good idea. You can talk to gods through divination so you might even directly ask the deity a question like. What do you want me to know?
That sounds like a remarkably strong experience and would definitely consider that you also accomplished that through your own gnosis, with the help of the deity of course!
The NeoPagan community might be "the other place" we were talking about on the last chart and it not being a good one if I am not misremembering. I am sorry to hear that your relationship with it put a struggle in your spiritual path, that sounds hard.
With all that I would consider that there is still a relationship between the deity and you, but it doesn't have to be loud all the time. I would keep an altar with a statue of the deity as a thanks for intervening for you that time and to keep receiving the blessings, even if so minor in comparison.
Contact with gods is a real thing so I wouldn't worry too much about that and certainly don't make it a headache!
It sounds like you need to move on from the experience, and Coch, certainly suggests that. Some serious journaling, prayer to this and other deities and restarting your magical practice really do sounds like a great idea to overcome this. But do it in a balanced way, otherwise Coch becomes overthinking! So analyze your self-talk as well.
More generally it sounds like you are looking for something or missing to reflect on the act of looking itself. What is it?
The words of Dion Fortune are helpful here, in regards to also considering your own gnosis:
"It is the function of the Lesser Mysteries to enable each individual admitted to their teaching to attain the highest degree of development of which he is capable. In the Lesser Mysteries are unfolded the latent capacities of man; but in the Greater Mysteries are unfolded the hidden capacities of nature. The Lesser Mysteries deal with the subjective sphere, the Greater Mysteries with the objective sphere, and the one is the essential preliminary to the other. It is not possible for a man to command the elemental essences of nature unless he is a master of the elemental aspects of his own nature, for the powers within, if rebellious, will betray him to the powers without. Discipline must precede dominion. We operate upon that which is without by the corresponding aspect that is within. If the nature be not purified, it will make a mixed contact when it touches the Unseen. The operations of occultism are based upon the powers of the will and the imagination; both blind forces. Unless they are controlled and directed by a motive which has relation to the universe as a whole, no ultimate synthesis is possible. The personality must be universalized by the ideal at which it aims in order that it may function as an organized part of the cosmic whole. It is this urge towards universalization which is the ultimate hunger of the soul; the lesser self seeks to achieve it by drawing all things into itself in a rage of possession; the greater self seeks to achieve it by transcending the bounds of the self and becoming one with the universe. There are two union to be achieved: the self may become one with the universe by universal sympathy --this is the goal of the occultist; the self may also become one with the Creator of the universe by means of absolute devotion --this is the goal of the mystic. But the occultist, having achieved his own goal, has not yet passed from the manifested phenomenal aspect into the cosmic; and the mystic, having achieved his transcendent union, cannot hold it, but must lapse back into the phenomenal universe. The ultimate integration can only be achieved by means of universal sympathy and absolute devotion united in one nature. Into such an one all things are gathered by means of sympathy, and he is in his turn gathered into the All by means of devotion.
This is the ultimate aim of evolution for the manifested universe as a whole; and he who goes by the Way of Initiation does but anticipate evolution. It is the function of the Mysteries to assist the initiate to tread that section of the Path which has already been explored, but beyond lies a section that is known to no consciousness that is in a physical form; this section a man must tread alone with his Master; and beyond lies a section where a man is alone with his God.
Not in one incarnation can this be achieved. Three incarnations of absolute devotion without error may serve; but who is without error and how far must we be upon the Path before absolute devotion is attained? We cannot step out of the march of evolution with one foot and into the Cosmic Light with the other; it takes many steps to tread the Path, and some of the slip and have to be retraced. The difficulties are emphasized because many embark lightheartedly upon this great and terrible venture, but the fruits of it are not minimized, for they transcend all that eye can see or heart can dream. Neither do we have to wait until the end of the journey before we begin to reap. Day by day the manna fell during all the journey through the wilderness, though Egypt had to be abandoned and the Red Sea over-passed before it appeared.
So in this great journey of the soul to the Promised Land, which is the Way of Initiation, the safety of the human habitations has the be left, and the soul journeys houseless and alone in the wilderness and comes to the Red Sea; here it is that the weak turn back and return into slavery to make bricks without straw for which they receive no wages. But if the supreme test of the Red Sea is faced, the waves are parted by an unseen force and the traveller passes through dry-shod, with a wall of waters standing up on either hand; this is the test of faith, for by mundane law those waters should fall; it is only higher law that keeps them back.
Then, the test of being safely passed, though still in the wilderness, waters flow from the rock and manna falls daily, for though still in the world of sense, the traveller has come under the operation of a higher law."
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Date: 2022-12-26 01:04 am (UTC)Making things our own instead of taking with others have to say about it seems wise to me and also to stop divining about the same question, though detailing it might be a good idea. You can talk to gods through divination so you might even directly ask the deity a question like. What do you want me to know?
That sounds like a remarkably strong experience and would definitely consider that you also accomplished that through your own gnosis, with the help of the deity of course!
The NeoPagan community might be "the other place" we were talking about on the last chart and it not being a good one if I am not misremembering. I am sorry to hear that your relationship with it put a struggle in your spiritual path, that sounds hard.
With all that I would consider that there is still a relationship between the deity and you, but it doesn't have to be loud all the time. I would keep an altar with a statue of the deity as a thanks for intervening for you that time and to keep receiving the blessings, even if so minor in comparison.
Contact with gods is a real thing so I wouldn't worry too much about that and certainly don't make it a headache!
It sounds like you need to move on from the experience, and Coch, certainly suggests that. Some serious journaling, prayer to this and other deities and restarting your magical practice really do sounds like a great idea to overcome this. But do it in a balanced way, otherwise Coch becomes overthinking! So analyze your self-talk as well.
More generally it sounds like you are looking for something or missing to reflect on the act of looking itself. What is it?
The words of Dion Fortune are helpful here, in regards to also considering your own gnosis:
"It is the function of the Lesser Mysteries to enable each individual admitted to their teaching to attain the highest degree of development of which he is capable. In the Lesser Mysteries are unfolded the latent capacities of man; but in the Greater Mysteries are unfolded the hidden capacities of nature. The Lesser Mysteries deal with the subjective sphere, the Greater Mysteries with the objective sphere, and the one is the essential preliminary to the other. It is not possible for a man to command the elemental essences of nature unless he is a master of the elemental aspects of his own nature, for the powers within, if rebellious, will betray him to the powers without. Discipline must precede dominion. We operate upon that which is without by the corresponding aspect that is within. If the nature be not purified, it will make a mixed contact when it touches the Unseen. The operations of occultism are based upon the powers of the will and the imagination; both blind forces. Unless they are controlled and directed by a motive which has relation to the universe as a whole, no ultimate synthesis is possible. The personality must be universalized by the ideal at which it aims in order that it may function as an organized part of the cosmic whole. It is this urge towards universalization which is the ultimate hunger of the soul; the lesser self seeks to achieve it by drawing all things into itself in a rage of possession; the greater self seeks to achieve it by transcending the bounds of the self and becoming one with the universe. There are two union to be achieved: the self may become one with the universe by universal sympathy --this is the goal of the occultist; the self may also become one with the Creator of the universe by means of absolute devotion --this is the goal of the mystic. But the occultist, having achieved his own goal, has not yet passed from the manifested phenomenal aspect into the cosmic; and the mystic, having achieved his transcendent union, cannot hold it, but must lapse back into the phenomenal universe. The ultimate integration can only be achieved by means of universal sympathy and absolute devotion united in one nature. Into such an one all things are gathered by means of sympathy, and he is in his turn gathered into the All by means of devotion.
This is the ultimate aim of evolution for the manifested universe as a whole; and he who goes by the Way of Initiation does but anticipate evolution. It is the function of the Mysteries to assist the initiate to tread that section of the Path which has already been explored, but beyond lies a section that is known to no consciousness that is in a physical form; this section a man must tread alone with his Master; and beyond lies a section where a man is alone with his God.
Not in one incarnation can this be achieved. Three incarnations of absolute devotion without error may serve; but who is without error and how far must we be upon the Path before absolute devotion is attained? We cannot step out of the march of evolution with one foot and into the Cosmic Light with the other; it takes many steps to tread the Path, and some of the slip and have to be retraced. The difficulties are emphasized because many embark lightheartedly upon this great and terrible venture, but the fruits of it are not minimized, for they transcend all that eye can see or heart can dream. Neither do we have to wait until the end of the journey before we begin to reap. Day by day the manna fell during all the journey through the wilderness, though Egypt had to be abandoned and the Red Sea over-passed before it appeared.
So in this great journey of the soul to the Promised Land, which is the Way of Initiation, the safety of the human habitations has the be left, and the soul journeys houseless and alone in the wilderness and comes to the Red Sea; here it is that the weak turn back and return into slavery to make bricks without straw for which they receive no wages. But if the supreme test of the Red Sea is faced, the waves are parted by an unseen force and the traveller passes through dry-shod, with a wall of waters standing up on either hand; this is the test of faith, for by mundane law those waters should fall; it is only higher law that keeps them back.
Then, the test of being safely passed, though still in the wilderness, waters flow from the rock and manna falls daily, for though still in the world of sense, the traveller has come under the operation of a higher law."
--Esoteric Orders and their Work