Apparently, I have changed so much that an about post I wrote and pinned 7 months ago already no longer applies in many ways. So here is the next, though certainly not final, iteration of who is behind this blog as well as https://restorativeluciferianism.ghost.io .
Name: Feebz
Age: In my 30s
Identities: Androgyne and pansexual with pronouns ze/zem/zer (they but with z's). I am a Luciferian Buddhist meaning that he acts as my guiding spirit/ishta devata (and partner) while I practice a form of Vajrayana Buddhism that is best compared to where Buddhism met tantric Shaivism historically in what are now called India and Nepal.
My missions: Apply a social justice lens to all topics as well as a restorative approach to whom possible. Write blog posts and fictions of all types in devotion of Lucifer. Survive my Masters in Social Work program.
What I do: Worship The Devil and his demons, slowly find my way along the Noble Eightfold Path, practice shamatha meditations, build queer community and found family in the Pacific Northwest where I live, perform magic through writing, live as an anti-assimilationist weirdo
Spirits I spend my time with: Lucifer (ishta devata and partner), Astaroth, Beelzebub, Belial, Asmodai, and to a developing extent, Shiva and Shakti. Also, most importantly, my kitty Sofia.
Peak Mercury retrograde moment is that I saw a cat who I used to know like over a year ago when we were both living in a completely different state and the cat recognized me š¤š»šŗš¤š» Shout out to Snowy!
I've been thinking about doing a proper WordPress blog post about this but since my executive functioning hasn't come back from the war for that level of Formality (TM), let's do this, instead.
Basic skills I wish I'd been encouraged to start with as a baby polytheist spiritworker.
My teen nephew has been making noises about learning spiritwork, so here's what I basically told him.
Have a mindfulness practice so that you know where 'you' end and 'other' begins.
The difference may not be so straightforward, depending on a whole variety of spiritual factors, but GENERALLY SPEAKING, you want to have a baseline standard of being able to know what's your internal narrator/intrusive thoughts/mental illness/etc and what's actually other entities. Not all (or even most) random thoughts for most people are actual spirit chatter. Work on your discernment.
If possible, I'd recommend having a supportive but critical third-party support: a therapist you actually trust, for example. Especially in the beginning, it's easy to get sucked into thinking everything is spirit contact, or spiritual damage, or spiritual something. Maybe it is! A lot of it isn't. Having an incredulous (but supportive) sounding board can help you calibrate how your personal brain stuff plays with your spiritual stuff, and also help avoid getting sucked into cultish movements that do harmful stuff like equate trauma = empathic psychicness.
Additionally, if you're familiar with your spiritual body, e.g. how your physical body carries spiritual energy, it can also help you know when you've picked up unwanted Stuff like some curses, spiritual parasites, or other immaterial 'gunk.'
"Mindfulness" can look a bunch of different ways. More conventional mods of meditation are perfectly fine, but other kinds of somatic/embodiment practices can work just as well: experiment to see what's compatible and sustainable for your lifestyle, resources, and cognitive processing style.
Pick an external divination style and get comfortable with it.
Doesn't really matter what kind: what you're looking for is some kind of a system that can become a shared language between you and your own spirits/gods/blessed powers. That can take some negotiation, and you can always change systems, but pick one to start with and get to know it.
You won't always have to rely on another person to act as the messenger between you and your own spirits. (That said, there are times when you shouldn't do your own div, but that's a different post.)
Having an external div option will help you double-check on your own intuition. Not sure if what you saw was a sign from your spirits? Use div to make a more formal check. If we're personally invested in a particular answer to a question we have, that can skew how we interpret our intuition.
Helps deepen personal relationship between you and your spirits, which also makes shit like mediumship or using omens easier.
You can double-check other people's divination for you. For more important/higher stakes stuff (such as a Tarot reader telling you that a specific deity is now claiming you and you have to swear an oath, dear lord, please take don't take that as face value without at least a second opinion!), this can be particularly important in terms of maintaining a sense of autonomy over your own relationships with your blessed powers.
Basic healthy communication skills that frankly most of us aren't ever taught.
All the meditation and div practice in the world isn't gonna do shit if you don't know how to talk to other beings, human or otherwise. You know what made the actual biggest difference for me in transitioning from 'flailing baby pagan practice' to 'devotional polytheist priest'?
Knowing my boundaries AND how to negotiate them safely and healthily. Learning how to do possessory mediumship first started with me getting every single one of my trauma triggers slammed ALL AT ONCE. Nothing healthy would've come out of that experience if I hadn't had been intentionally practicing my boundary-setting skills in my mundane human relationships, AND if my blessed powers hadn't been willing to meet me halfway. It took a LOT of conversation and mistakes were made on both sides, but now possession is something that's become privately sacred and beautiful and wonderful for me, partially because of how hard-earned it was and how it required the development of mutual trust. (Now I get scolded for being TOO trusting with my main lady, oops. š )
Conflict management. A lot of people are conflict-avoidant. That's not helpful. It's also not helpful if you dread 'getting in trouble' or 'being a disappointment' every time you have contact with your blessed powers. Learn how to handle disagreement, misunderstandings, disappointment, and frustration with more intention and skill so that you can move past those inevitable incidents with growth instead of deeper shame, resentment, or resignation.
Assertive communication (or your social/cultural equivalent of that, since what's considered 'appropriate communication' might change based on culture, circumstances, etc). Assertive isn't the same as aggressive, either. But basically, this is the kind of communication that's like, "What are your needs, and what are my needs, and how can we collaborate on exploring options to get both our needs met with mutual respect and dignity?" For example: when my blessed powers ask for a daily disciplined routine, my ADHD ass has learned to ask what the goal is and here are the methods I am neurologically capable of to achieve said goals, how does that sound? So far, we've always been able to come to a mutually satisfying plan that doesn't deepen my old, unhelpful, internalized ableist narrative of being 'too broken to do something that any neurotypical person could do.'
There are lots of other helpful skills, both spiritual and mundane, and not everyone may agree with the ones I picked out here, but these are the most basic ones I find myself returning to most often and being the most thankful for, personally.
So a lot of people are already aware of this and I've actually made a few posts about this myself, but secular/western Buddhism is not exactly popular within much of the Buddhist community, but I feel like when its criticized, the criticism usually focuses on the fact that Secular Buddhism is just not really accurate, which is definitely true but I feel like something that kinda gets ignored is the harm that it can cause to actual practitioners of Buddhism.
For example I've seen many cases where westerners who had preconceived views of Buddhism as a purely secular, rationalist materialist philosophy that is in complete alignment with western thought see actual Buddhists engaging in very clearly religious practices it can kinda confuse them and many of these people will jump to the conclusion that it isn't their understanding of Buddhism that's wrong but is actually the way Buddhists practice it that's wrong, this usually manifests in a pretty racist way especially against Asian Buddhists, the idea that these "superstitious Asians" having "infected Buddhism" with their pagan idol worshipping culture is a concerningly popular way that many westerners attempt to explain this discrepancy between how they view Buddhism and how its actually practiced, and while this is enough to be condemnable I think it goes further in that it completely reframes who is the primary authority on Buddhism,
From this Western perspective, it obviously can't be people from traditionally Buddhist cultures because they have already "corrupted" and "lost the true essence" of Buddhism, so obviously they cant be trusted, instead, the true authority of Buddhism is non Buddhist/secular Buddhist Western Intellectuals who very often know very little about Buddhism, which leads to a lot of misinformation about Buddhism beyond just the idea that its not a religion AND leads to the harassment and mistreatment of actual Buddhists
I agree a lot with this post; the conception in the west is that Buddhism is an atheistic religion when in reality it's polytheistic. This started with Buddhism's introduction to the west through the Theosophical Society because the founder Helena Blavatsky's prominent Buddhist advisor was Anagarika Dharmapala, who openly condemned Buddhist practices throughout several cultures that had been present for centuries calling them "false" Buddhism. But the fact is Dharmapala's own Buddhism was so disconnected from these forms of Buddhism, which had existed for centuries, that his Buddhism was eventually called Protestant Buddhism by later scholars. He eventually split from Blavatsky, but his and the Theosophical's contributions to the idea of Buddhism and their many misconceptions about the religion remain in the West.
One of my first experiences in the Soto Zen sangha I was originally a member of relates to OP's frustrations. A middle aged white woman was guiding me up to the three bodhisattva shrines, which were chosen and fashioned directly after Japanese monasteries. I commented upon them as "deities" and she said, "Deities? That's a strange word. We just see them as aspects to aspire to."
Ma'am, with all due respect, you might but that's not a Buddhist view, that is a Jungian idea. It is less than 100 years old and was established by one of the founders of psychology, Carl Jung. Meanwhile, the founder of Soto Zen, Dogen, wrote of how the bodhisattvas in one of the shrines, Kannon, saved his life while he was on a ship during a storm. He and all of the human crew witnessed her presence in a human shape.
Anyway, that was probably the moment I realized that was not the place for me. I left that organization and I took refuge in a nearby Tibetan sangha, which uses the word deity interchangeably with "yidam."
When living in the West, and especially when entering Buddhism without a born background, we need to be cognizant of not continuing the colonization of the religion started in Theosophy. This means not selecting the parts of the religion you deem "useful" and denigrating the rest. You can put it aside if it doesn't work for you, certainly, but you need to ask yourself every time you do it. Is it just that it doesn't work for you, or are you unconsciously following trains of oppositional and dukkha-inducing thought processes that Buddhism warns against?
I don't have the authority to say what "a good Buddhist" is universally, but being a good Buddhist to me means learning and accepting the forms of the religion that may be outside of my experience as true and valid. I truly hope western Buddhist organizations and people within them start to realize their Buddhism is not the only form of Buddhism and start opening their minds to all the inferences that come with that.
People get made fun of for being scared of aging but it comes from the very real fear of being discarded by society thatās why i always say the goal is not to never become old or disabled the future comes for us all the goal is better social policy
Y'all, I'm sorry if this seems like a hot take because it's coming from a well intentioned place, but no, sometimes your personal practice/UPG does not trump 1000s of years of general consensus. It is SO important to stay connected to agreed upon reality because regardless of your perceptions, you have a life and body here on earth. If you live more in the spiritual than you do spend grounded, you are going to cause yourself and even other people unnecessary harm. Worse, if you are in a tough spot, others are not going to be able to help pull you out because of how you're not connecting with them and the mundane circumstances leading to misfortune. Please check that your practice is not leading you to toxic individualism because your mental and emotional health matters.
I am so tired of short-attention-span, trim-the-fat culture.
All writing advice these days is for how to write like Chuck Palahniuk. "Cut 'think', cut 'feel', cut 'wonder' - only action, only pushing forward, show and move and move and move." What if I could emulate this style, and still don't want to? What if I want to write like Henry James, with three paragraphs of introspective musings between each dialogue line?
The music advice is, "make it shortform, make it Tik-Tok compatible, make it punchy, hit the refrain as soon as possible." What if I want that 10-minute prog rock piece? What if I want that symphony? What if I want it slow and luxurious and lazy?
Movies. Series. Poetry. Bodies. Everything is "trimmed trimmed trimmed trimmed, stripped bare, you have three seconds to win me over, make it airport chic." I don't want to win you over, then, I guess.
I want the fat left it.
I want the pleasure and the indolence and the indulgence.
Fuck this art-advice that's always "your art needs Ozempic."
on bluesky (sorry) they're pretty much all in on the "right wingers hate this film so it must actually be awesome" train for the odyssey. i'm sure i won't get bored of this dynamic happening for some mediocre new film every 1-3 months for the rest of our lives.
Improving Your Spiritual Relationships Using Therapeutic Strategies
You are a spirit. The other intelligent beings you interact with, including plants and animals, are spirits. Every time you connect with a spirit, whether they are embodied or not, you have a relationship with them. Sometimes, those relationships can go sideways. This blog post explores some of the reasons why and some of the ways how you can improve your relationships through personal reassessment.
*
Recently, I spoke with Apollo, my original guiding deity, for the first time since our previous dynamic had ended. In a way, this conversation was a point of repair, even as there never had been any grudges held on either side. However, maybe that underlying tension was why I wanted to ask him specifically why I had noticed so many other people in close deity relationships have reported having a lot of interpersonal problems with them.
"Our [deities'] relationships with people differ because other individuals view us in their ways and you view us your way," Apollo had answered.
"In what way do I view you?" I asked.
"As helpful."
In relation, with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)āthe therapeutic modality that has one of the largest evidence bases for effectivenessāthere is something that practicing behavioral health professionals and their clients are taught called the "cognitive triangle." The triangle illustrates the idea that thoughts lead to feelings, which then lead to behaviors (called "actions" in the below image). There is a spin off modality of CBT that treats people who have experienced trauma, called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which follows a similar foundation, but also targets beliefs associated with the feelings. That would make the triangle a rectangleāthoughts lead to feelings, which relate to underlying beliefs, and then that entire speedy process activates a behavior.
Furthermore, behaviors have consequences. When practicing CBT, the goal of the professional and client is to understand what the client is thinking and feeling that leads to behaviors that then have consequences. Consequences can be positive or negative; however, usually a client is attending therapy due to a need to make changes. Understanding what consequences are unwanted and all the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that lead up to them helps with detecting where and how those changes can be made.
This blog post is not just about addressing relationships with gods and other metaphysical spirits. However, we can assume that thoughts or beliefs about gods/spirits influence our approach to them, which leads to related consequences. If those consequences are frequently experienced as negative or unwanted, there is an issue of mental or spiritual health at play for the human individuals involved. Something in the dynamic probably needs to change. As CBT teaches, you cannot change the other people involved in the scenarios causing distress. You can only change yourself and your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
I am not going to put myself on a pedestal when it comes to relationships of any kind, mundane or mystical. I have definitely had my fair share of conflicts with other humans in the past. But I am going to say that I generally have had pretty positive relationships and minimal stressors with spirits I establish ongoing contacts with (knock on wood š). The rest of this post outlines a couple of basic tenets I follow to keep them that way.
Do Not Ascribe Negative Qualities to the Other
This one is a funny one because I am a devil worshipper. I experience Lucifer as so kind and warm toward me that I frequently forget that most people ascribe literally everything bad about the world to him. Technically, it's supposed to be part of his lore... But because I believe that almost everything humans describe as "evil" from an Abrahamic standpoint is actually "ignorance" per the Hindu and Buddhist tenets, I just don't factor it into my relationship with him at all. Maybe because of this, the only time his Devilness ever comes up is when he's peacocking or teasing me.
I prefer my attitude toward Lucifer to be this way because then there is no underlying assumption that he is "bad." Because if I think that he is "bad," then it stands to reason that I don't feel that I can trust him, and if I feel that I can't trust him then I may believe that I am in a relationship with an entity who may not have my best interests in mind. Resulting behaviors from this thought-feeling-belief line may include me picking fights or making decisions against his in order to attempt to protect myself. This happens in relationships with humans and other beings as well. If you assume your partner is selfish, you may have similar feelings of lack of trust within the relationship, and if you don't talk about it and work it out, it may lead to behaviors, such as fighting, withholding intimacy, and other ways of expressing resentment. It is better to to not hold the assumption that the other party is out to get you, or literally evil, and try to understand what their reality actually is so you can ideally work on improvements in your relationship together.
I am not going to pretend that this is easy for me, given the types of spirits whom I'm close with and the stigma that surrounds them. Sometimes, you need to locate evidence, as CBT often encourages in order to dispel what are called "cognitive distortions." My evidence for why my relationships with these entities are positive include that they have helped me secure housing, additional funds, animal and human companions, and classes with better professors so that I can maximize my educational experience. All of those things are conducive toward my having a good life and achieving my goals. If that is what your partners or allies of any kind do for you, even if conflict sometimes occurs, generally that means they are worth giving the benefit of the doubt when they make mistakes and keeping in your life.
Improve or Limit Your Storytelling
This is one of the first incredibly useful things I learned about Buddhist teachings from a now-fellow Buddhist. It also plays directly into where CBT tries to intervene in order to create change for people who practice it.
"Storytelling" is the tendency people have to ascribe meaning throughout their thought processes which do not necessarily have a strong basis. This is best illustrated through an example, which I am going to offer using my cat Sofia.
Lucifer located Sofia for me and helped me obtain her over half a year ago as of this writing. While I have had dogs my entire life, she is my first cat. I have found since starting my life with her that cleaning the litterbox is one of the chores that I hate most in the world, but having a housecat and living alone obviously means I must do it regularly.
So when I clean the litterbox, this is the process that often occurs internally with thoughts and feelings: I hate this, this is disgusting. No matter what I do litter gets somewhere new and I have to vacuum or wipe something else down. If that's happening, I must be cleaning this wrong. If I am not good at this, this means I am a bad cat parent. I'm sure Sofia can sense this and because of it, doesn't love me. I clearly should not have a cat if I am a bad cat parent. Lucifer got me this cat so that means he's not looking out for my best interests, which means my relationship with him is bad... And on and on and on.
The bolded line is where CBT starts its intervention and says, "Wait, what about cleaning the litterbox being an arduous experience means you're a bad cat owner? Didn't your cat jump up on the bed with you the other day and put her paw on you as she joined you for a nap? Doesn't she meow every time you enter the room she's in for your attention? Haven't you had multiple conversations with her vet for the last number of months and have bought expensive food and medications in order to try to treat her ongoing allergies?
"What if you changed the story?" Okay, I clean the litterbox even though I hate it because I love my cat and I am being the best cat parent I can be. Other problems I have with my cat can be resolved, whether its replacing the Litter Genie with a better alternative, obtaining those pet communication buttons so we can establish trust, or asking other cat parents for advice.
Or, I can drop the storytelling entirely! Guess what happens if I just stop following the direction of this thought process and focus on cleaning the litterbox, the same way Thich Nhat Hanh in one of his books advised just being present as you wash the dishes? I feel a lot better and the litterbox still gets clean.
Almost every human tells stories about their lives. Make sure you are telling the right ones about yourself and your experience, if you choose to continue.
Remember That Everything is through Your Perception
I had a bit of an annoying experience with someone recently. We were meeting for the second time ever and this was the first time we both discovered that we are pagans, of the variety that tends to have more personal relationships with deities. After I told them that I had my connection with Lucifer, they were able to perceive him with meāit is often and almost always the case that people are only able to realize his presence after I verbally alert them to the fact. This is probably to keep the human mind safe and functional; having been in periods where I did not have such filters and could hear trees talking to each other without intentionally tapping into them, I can tell you that it is not at all fun nor helpful to be in a state where you pick up all energetic activity currently occurring.
This person shared that they had pre-existing negative sentiments toward Lucifer. They proceeded to tell me, "He has a message for you, but is using the wrong pronouns."
They did not seem to realize it was hurtful to imply that my companion of about a year would not respect my pronouns, or that I would put up with it. We don't know much about the existence of spirits for certain, but many spiritual traditions assume they primarily exist in a different realm than ours. In relation, I must deign to point out that Lucifer does not have a brain, vocal chord, mouth, nor tongue. So when people pick up messages from spirits, it is purely through our imaginative faculties. That is why experiences of spirits may not always be consistent between two different people. It also explains why psychic senses can be strengthened through visualization exercises, such as advised in Mat Auryn's book Psychic Witch. It's not that Lucifer literally spoke English and used the wrong pronouns for me. It's that the recipient of the message had a basis of not trusting him and their English-speaking brain filled in a pronounāhopefully one that was not reflective of how they, another trans person, perceived my genderāwhere it needed one in order to make the message comprehensible.
Again, even the mundane is filtered through our perceptions. Cognitive distortions are descriptions of common ways our perceptions can be unhelpful to us. It is usually not our fault if we have never "gone meta" and thought about our thoughts to realize how they are shaped and how they are affecting us. But it is our responsibility to understand that our reality is subjective and to allow space for others'.
This point circles back in many ways to my first. Refrain from making negative assumptions where you can. Give others the benefit of the doubt. Treat other people well. Otherwise...
Please Have Boundaries
The final point: if someone of any kind is causing you more difficulty than they are gain, that is your cue to set boundaries.
In talking to friends who share similar restorative and community-based values with me, we have come to an agreement. Sometimes people who have a lot of interpersonal drama do so because they actually love the drama. This is sometimes because they grew up in households where a lot of fighting was normalized. Sometimes as consequence to this, or otherwise, the drama boosts these people's endorphins and makes their lives seem less boring. Other times, they want attention, approval, feelings of importance, or even have the need to make a living as related to the drama when sharing it with others. I can admit that at one point relatively recently, some of these motivations played into my having not-ideal interpersonal behavior. Witnessing this happening with other people in my life led to the conversation with Apollo at the start of this blog post. Even if you're not a direct part, it can be really draining without initially realizing it to see these dynamics play out over and over again.
Setting oneself on true restorative communication, community-building, and having healthy relationships means abandoning any love for drama you may have had previously. It means knowing what your standards and goals are and explicitly telling the humans or other intelligent spirits in your life that they must help you meet them. It means having tough conversations, "When you did A, I felt X, which led me to responding with Y. In the future, it would be helpful for me and the trust in our relationship if instead you did B."
For instance, this is one I had recently: "When you responded with me not wanting to do something for you with 'you have to because I told you to,' I felt triggered and very destabilized because it reminded me of the first three decades of my life where I was fully controlled by my parents. I do not feel capable of reacting in anyway that isn't self-protective under those circumstances and it hurt my trust in our relationship. In the future, if I say I don't want to do something, please try to approach with curiosity and help me explore why instead of trying to force me into what you want me to do." Because this message was received with genuine remorse, understanding, and willingness to change behavior, I continued the relationship.
This, unfortunately, is not always the case. Sometimes you experience hurt and even have a conversation about it. The other party indicates that they understand, but then they do it again. And again. And again. Whether it's due to endorphin-cycling, being invested in some kind of storytelling, or some other motive or need with one involved party or both, the second violation is enough. At some point, it is being a responsible and emotionally mature person to have the self-awareness to know where you must advocate for yourself. You know you are appropriately self-advocating when you limit or end such a relationship.
*
An additional note on deities for those who may need it: contrary to the Abrahamic conception many of us grew up with, not every tradition nor person perceives deities as all-good, all-benevolent, all-loving, or perfect. There is also, evidently, a variation on how personal a human being's relationships with beings who are so vast can be. That said, this is objective fact: gods are not humans.
The most successful relationships with humans and deities I have seenāincluding those that involve godspousing, whether or not everyone wants to believe such a thingāis when the human understands this. They do not expect that the god is going to behave like a human. They trust that even if the god does something hurtful to them in a moment it likely is to lead to a higher good for them in the long-term, and often truly experience difficult incidents as involving larger pay offs. They understand their relationships as being the base for important spiritual functions, not just for themselves, but crucially for other people outside the relationship. They also realize that the gods can make mistakes and there are pathways toward reparation.
If you enter into a dynamic and let it be led with self-indulgence, I personally believe that this is extremely short-sighted. While deities and spirituality can and do provide comfort, this is not the main reason why they should be in your life. It is inevitable that throughout your limited time here on earth you will be forced to grow and change. The more you embrace this, and understand that growing and changing inherently involves bettering your relationships with and improving the circumstances of other sentient beings of all stripes, the easier time you are going to have. If this understanding is not accomplished, the challenges will come from within your relationship with the deity, or other spirit, instead.
I hope this blog post reaches those who need it. Be well and remember the golden rule: treat others how you want to be treated.
Jiddu Krishnamurti, a great Indian spiritual teacher of the twentieth century, once said that we only come to know who we are through the mirror of relationships. That is, only when we observe how our mind responds in relationships do we discover our tendencies, pretensions, fears, desires, and vulnerabilities.
ā When Things Donāt Go Your Way: Zen Wisdom for Difficult Times by Haemin Sunim
Embarrassing fact about me is that it took me so so long to be able to tell Ross Bryant and Grant O'Brien apart. I'm sorry guys you're both tall white dudes with similar-sounding names and very very similar voices. I would just wait for the first sex joke or Shakespeare reference.
The most interesting thing about Mercury retrograde to me is not the glitches and miscommunications, but the formers and exes who stop by for a visit. This time it's La Jolla and my first primary deity, Apollo. The pain of my separation from La Jolla aches my entire body; it's heartbreak. I thought that I would be sad moving away for the first few months... I forgot that grief balks linear time and resurges at summer reminders, at the blazing sun, and the sand under one's feet. Still, the wound will not close for months as I only possibly will return to the land I love in the late winter.
As for Apollo... I haven't spoken to him since Lucifer took me as one of his. I guess I'll see what he has to say.
Abrahamic and Ancient Greek Religions: G-d/the gods are fully omniscient. They are Perfect and Good. They are Everything and love each and every one of us.
Me: Gods are devas and devas are sentient, which apparently gives them capacity for conflict. This is weird. I don't always like this. Why can't they get along? Help.
