Spirit Keepers: The Struggles of being in a “Fringe Practice”
So perhaps it’s the fact that I get an average of three hours of sleep a night, am battling a sinus infection, and am currently popping pain killers to subdue a frightening headache right now, but I had a random desire to write a blog about the struggles of being a spirit worker under the fringe title.
As a whole, we can be very discomfited people. Our outlook on life is narrowed down to a tiny pinprick of a hole in comparison to the outside world. The broad, fascinating subjects we wish to talk about are pushed into a tiny slot, and are unable to be mixed with the many mundane talks we are surrounded with from day to day. We often feel as though we don’t fit in, even amidst countless other metaphysical workers. And it’s painful. It isolates us.
Why is it, that when it comes to the fringe of fringe practices, are spirit keepers shunned and exiled even by members of the spiritual communities?
It’s really simple, honestly. It’s because we are not widely known. As a human race, we often shun the unknown. We fear what we don’t know, because there’s the uncanny chance that it might be unsafe, whatever it is. When that happens, rumors upon rumors start exploding around the subject. And before we know it, we’ve ostracized yet another potentially innovative and utterly fascinating group of people simply because “we don’t know who they really are or what they really do.”
My Christian father erupted in a swarm of angry curses when I informed him three years ago that I was Pagan. He called me twisted and wrong, and told me that he didn’t know what I was doing in my practice, and that’s what scared him. Three years later, I mentioned I was Luciferian after he caught wind of a liked page of mine on Facebook, and the entire subject started up again. I was “evil.” A wicked child of his who came out completely skewed and narrow-minded.
I pity my father. I feel very bad, honestly. I feel bad because I accept him for who he is, and I respect him, even if his reaction is not out of the type of love I hope for. He explodes because he is scared. He gets offensive and angry because he fears for my safety. He only wants the best for me, even if he himself is not completely aware of what is best for anyone. Even himself. I have been exiled due to my practices as a spirit worker. I go against the current. Against the “norm,” and being different has been stigmatized in every corner of humanity.
This is a message to the skeptics who reside in the metaphysical community outside spirit keeping. The skeptics who have been told that spirit keeping is “trapping and enslaving spirits” and how it is an inhumane practice. The skeptics who believe that spirit keepers are invalid because they actually communicate directly with ethereal entities, when the skeptics cannot.
We spirit keepers are are not “keeping spirits.” Instead of thinking that we are hoarding spiritual energies to work our will, think of us more like groundskeepers. We take care of spirits and living astral entities. We work with them as friends and family, watching them grow in many ways, and helping them move on, find new companions, or even get one step further in their otherdimensional lives. In the many years that I have been a summoner of entities, I have never pushed one of my spiritual friends into laborious tasks in order to get what I wanted. I conjure spirits to make friends, meet past life family, and connect with realms beyond the plane of Earth. And I will never conjure to attack, inconvenience, or abuse humans or spirits.
Just like how my father thought my “witchy stuff” would cause destruction in his house, society is ruled by fear of the unknown. It lives and breathes fear. Many of us have been shunned and hated for being in the metaphysical practice--whichever practice it may be for you. It’s time to stop turning against each other and begin embracing instead. I will always be grateful when I meet someone who lives a different lifestyle or religion than me, because it’s my opportunity to learn from them and grow to be someone even better than I was before. As one fringe practitioner to another, I encourage you to try it.
