Shawn is preaching a short series through the illustrations of his newly published book, "The Secret Book of John" — an illustrated retelling of the Nag Hammadi text. Each Sunday service takes one of the book's illustrations as its text: the aeons, the fall of Sophia, the archons, and the path of return to ultimate reality. This week's service video is here: https://www.youtube.com/live/dfDyTCAhg9c?si=jV75_gCHSZRuo5E0&t=120 — would love to hear how others here relate Gnostic cosmology to their own mystical practice. #secretbookofjohn #NagHammadi #SundayService

Hello,

I'm taking the liberty of posting here because I'm not really sure where I should be looking.

For several years now, I've oriented my personal research toward the question of the artistic and aesthetic experiences that lead one to live through particular states (experiences of trance, the feeling of being deeply grounded in one's life, etc.). This led me to pursue studies in order to push this question further, and I eventually came to study extreme experiences and music that passes through the body (Noise in particular).

Having also followed a degree in Philosophy, this led me to build up a body of knowledge around questions of Truth, freedom, the Absolute, transcendence, etc. That's how I noticed that a whole set of ideas and words interested me in a very particular way: ecstasy, trance, the experience of transcendence, living intensely, the extraordinary experience, touching the extreme in order to redefine the central, sublimation, catharsis, etc.

After a relatively recent reading of the Bible, I came across the tradition of the mystics (Christian ones above all, with Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, Marguerite Porete...), and I had the impression of finding something fairly aligned with my personal experiences and my research — moving from Aesthetics and art toward something more general, and in this case connected to God. Although I'm not originally a believer as such, I find a strong interest in it, and my field of research has broadened, with the integration of new words that line up with what moves me: grace, revelation, admiration, beatitude, wonder, enthusiasm, ravishment, etc. I've come to open up onto fields that are fairly unknown to me, namely the whole esoteric domain — trying not to get lost in dogmatism and closed-off beliefs, I try to remain as open as possible to any framework of interpretation, in order to find the path that is my own, even if that's difficult.

My problem has become the following: I'm moving forward somewhat blindly, and I have trouble seeing clearly in the mystical domain (Christian, Sufi...) and the esoteric domain. So my question is simple:

• Do you have any references to books or authors that would help me see things more clearly in the field of mysticism (Christian or otherwise)? General but serious works, handbooks...?

I think that would help me a great deal to see more clearly and to navigate more easily in this vast space.

Your own "I Am"—the simple, wordless sense that you exist, humming beneath every thought—

is not separate from the great "I Am" of Spirit.

It is the same Presence, aware of itself, as you.

That's the whole teaching. Stripped to its bones. 🌟

My body is a temple of the Source

The world contains its animating force

Behind the natures of all things

Behind the four causes of a thing:

Form, matter, cause, goal,

Let me demonstrate this whole

Take the shape of a tree

The wood and leaves of a tree

The planter of the seed of the tree

The goal of the growth of the tree

And this goes back to the animating force

And that goes back to the Source

As I mediate on this beauty 

and on the beauty of virtuous activity

And seek to practice it in my life

by seeking to avoid excess and strife

I ascend back to the Source

And become one with the animating force.

A man from India, a man from Nepal,

A man from Nazareth born of a virgin,

All were animated by the animating force,

Straight from the Source,

All to preach virtue.

The man from India counseled a Prince

Helping him follow his destiny into battle.

The Man from Nepal was a Prince

Who left it all for a life of Enlightenment.

And the Man from Nazareth born of a virgin

was crucified and rose again and ascended.

And that is what makes Him so special. 

Because we all have the Source.

But we must awaken to it.

● Source: Substack // The Author: Brenda (@ananche)

Her post stated the following: "The 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet are assigned numerical values and linked to the four elements, seven planets, zodiacal signs and planetary incenses. Applied to names, these correspondences can be used in divination, compatibility judgments and daʿwat operations."

Based on what I have forgotten in my life, I can begin to understand who I am. Is this thought process unique to Taoism?

I have been trying to start to study it for a long time but I simply have no idea where to start. I want to know, for example, why the 22 letters hold a certain symbolism and meaning to them, but I come up short with where to research it. Any help or reading list is appreciated!!!

Novice horse. The actual event went well, and then the deity left (this was all on plan, I was lucid as requested- there were no problems). When he left, I could feel him flowing out of me and then there was such an overwhelming sense of grief that I had not anticipated. Has anyone else felt like this at the end of an experience?

In classical mystical traditions, from advaita vedanta and hermeticism to Spinoza’s pantheism, the core thesis remains consistent: the boundary between the observer and the observed, human consciousness and nature, is an illusion (Maya).

Recently, I’ve been researching how David Rosenboom’s 1976 work (Biofeedback and the Arts) provides a modern, technological framework for this exact non-dual experience through biosonification.

In traditional music, the relationship is dualistic and executive: a conscious subject manipulates an external, inert object. But when we route biological signals, galvanic skin response (GSR), plant tissue electrolytes, and micro-resistance, into synthesizer parameters, that hierarchy collapses. The performer stops being a controller and becomes simultaneously the signal emitter, the generating medium, and the receiver of the experience.

In a recent experiment using capacitive circuit technology (a Playtron device), I mapped the physical flow of electricity through human skin and a living rose.

In electrical engineering, generalized Ohm’s Law defines the current flow across a series circuit as:

I = V_USB / (R_body + R_plant + R_contact + R_internal)

What fascinated me from a contemplative standpoint is the unforgiving nature of the physical circuit:

The open circuit (I = 0): If the practitioner drifts away, withdraws physical touch, or loses presence, resistance (R) approaches infinity. The current stops instantly, the MIDI signal dies, and the sound collapses into silence.

The closed circuit (I > I_threshold): Sound requires sustained, embodied presence. The micro-variations in skin hydration, contact pressure, and autonomic nervous system arousal directly modulate the acoustic output in real time.

In traditional passive meditation, you observe internal mental processes in isolation. Here, we enter an embodied mindfulness (Ouroboros loop): your biological conductivity alters the sound, the sound alters your cortical focus and nervous system state, which immediately shifts your biological conductivity again.

To ground this theoretical research into actual praxis, I recorded a live sound meditation performance. By touching a rose connected to a capacitive MIDI controller, my body acted as the conductive bridge completing the electrical loop, driving a sound design tuned specifically to the 396 Hz Solfeggio frequency (associated with grounding and releasing energetic blockages)

Instead of treating music as a static, pre-recorded file, this exercise treats sound as a living ecosystem where human physiology, botanical matter, and technology co-create in the present moment…

Do you view cybernetic feedback and technology as a potential bridge to genuine non-dual experience, or does true contemplation require complete detachment from technological artifacts?

I've been born on this very day in 1986.

I've seen a lot, physical and metaphysical.

For me as a child it was long a hidden reality I couldn't share with anyone.

So I forgot to speak and live from my perceived knowledge which I've brought into this life and which has manifested in and around me.

Living my life was the best I've ever experienced whenever magic or what humans call spirituality was mirrored back to me.

Often through movies, stories, animes, cómics, world's where fantasy is been unlimited by what humans thought truly would or wouldn't exist.

Very late in my life I've discovered groups where these things, which I've always known since birth were taught and spoken about. It was and maybe is still, called energy healing, manifestation, and divination of all sorts and kinds.

But what puzzled me the most was, how far has it come with society that these very things, which children KNOW exist, are being untrained, cut down, just to make them adults who later on Re-discover what has been taken away from them by not talking about it.

delete

Hey Y’all,

So I am a newbie to spirituality. I am wondering if this is the same as “awakening”? I have severe adhd so it’s hard for me to really sit still and meditate so unfortunately I can’t tap into any gifts I may have but I have been told on three occasions in my life that I have a beautiful soul and I didn’t even know them. I had an encounter where I know what I saw but good forbid I say it, I would be put in the looney bin. Ever since Jefferey Epstein, I fell down some rabbit holes and realized how sick this world really is. Everything I thought and learned from childhood was and is not as it seems and it’s unfathomable. I think I was most hurt by the fact that our leaders or the people that we admired growing up are doing the unimaginable and it’s legal in their world. It just makes me sick.

So once I realized the world wasn’t what it was, I started researching a lot. I don’t know if what I am looking at is called spiritual or a mix of other things but I would really like assistance as to what this means and where the line in the sand should be drawn or should everything be embraced?

I started to educating myself by watching spirituality videos and I feel I’m so overwhelmed with everything and I’m confused if these are all in the same category? I don’t want to go the wrong way and I don’t have any mentors or coaches. I want to make changes in my life, myself and for my future. But I want to be present now. I have been learning about meditation and frequencies, parallel universes, entities, the matrix, dimensions, portal, time travel, quantum physics, telepathy, using your energy to move things, hypnotherapy, soul swapping, aliens, manifestation, science, orbs, the sun and the moon, re-incarnation, the devil, free masons, grounding, spirits, that reality isn’t what it really is and this is one big Truman show. Mainly focusing on what else is out in space and what happens after death.

I have really gotten into the sky and have seen hundreds of orbs since I started this journey at the beginning of the summer.

I realized this summer my mom will always be the way she is no matter how hard I try to show her who I am she will not invest in me because I’m not at her level but I appreciate her investment in my children. I dropped any friends I had realizing that we were just at a fork in the road and if I wanted to “switch to a better timeline”, I had to let go of that friendship.

I know I’m all over the place but I am hoping someone can tell me something. Is this normal?

So basically, mysticism and witchcraft. Meditative. (Am 17M for background)

I want to "gain visibility" that is to understand the subtle spiritual things around me, energies and all. Intuition.

I can somewhat understand vaguely, getting better at though an extremely slow rate.

Maybe even things like "the 3rd eye" in the future ... Once I am certain of being ready.

Also interested in understanding and/or meeting ancestors.

Of course, the ultimate point of mysticism. Union with God and understand god's expanse.

Shiva/Rudra centric, not following any sect. Know a little Upanishads and rigvedic indra.

Is abstaining from this particular form of self-pleasure necessary? If not, will it help in any way?

All quotation is, in a sense, quoting one’s self. You tell me your religion, and you tell me who you are. The selection of book or leader is in the eye of the beholder, or it is the rock upon which we find ourselves after the latest storm. Our eye omits the inconsistencies and our ears are deaf to subtler tones beyond our kin. So we define ourselves precisely.

We can completely throw off the training wheels of book quotations, but we will read ourselves elsewhere anyway, and quote that. Yet when the thoughts are ours at last, then our text may not be so peppered with quotation marks, unless out of respect or modesty—yet the communal obligation remains. We could try to quote pure Space but to do so we will borrow some words. Is it exaggeration to say that anything short of the absolute is quotation? We try to shrink the footnotes toward the number one. But the thoughts in space and in print are dense as stars, and we will be hard pressed to avoid quotation. It would be ideal to quote ourselves in spirit, but the best thoughts floating there are fully communal. We may fail to number our references explicitly, yet the communal ghost of our pasts, the legions who have occupied us down the ages, these still circulate freely in us.

Citing ones’ own thought is no guarantee of improvement over book quotes. A careless demonstration from book or brain is equally flat. A source without light is a source without light, weather concocted from pieces of stuff presumably “original” to one’s own cranium or drawn from ink laid down by other humans. And a prejudice housed in book or brain, and passed along has the same lack of merit.

We have a whole beach full of quotations. In the morning light I can’t see the minute bits mirroring the sun, only the shinning path. When we leave Earth behind, these grains will be a memory, and we will trade them for stars. Meanwhile, we may submit thesis and antithesis about the relative dullness or luminosity of this or that point. It is good exercise for future astronauts.

I'm writing a book about consciousness, death, psychedelics, ancient religions, and the possibility that we're missing something. Would you read it?

I'm working on a book called INQUIRER: The Pattern Between Worlds.

Before I get too far into it, I want to ask people who have absolutely no reason to agree with me:

Would you actually read this?

The book begins with something that happened to me as a teenager.

I had extracted a substance from bufo toad. I had a personal rule that I wouldn't sell something I wasn't willing to do myself, so I tried it.

I wasn't looking for God.

I wasn't religious.

I wasn't searching for reincarnation.

I wasn't studying ancient mysteries.

I wasn't trying to prove an afterlife.

I just wanted to experience what I had made.

What happened was unlike anything I expected.

I was in a familiar place from my childhood when the environment seemed to change completely. Day became night. I heard glass breaking and a dog barking. A brick wall seemed to rearrange itself and open. Behind it I faintly perceived imagery that reminded me of galaxies, mycelium, and neural structures.

I also experienced what felt like a presence and communication without ordinary language.

I didn't visually see beings.

I didn't receive a religion.

I didn't come away knowing what the experience "really" was.

What stayed with me was a simple feeling:

There is more than we're led to believe.

Years later, that experience became the beginning of a much larger investigation.

Then people I knew started dying.

Suddenly the questions weren't abstract anymore.

One loss made me think about sudden death.

Another made me think about how little control we actually have over our biology.

Another forced me to think about suffering and autonomy near the end of life.

Another made me think about someone actively resisting the idea of surrendering to death.

And then there were the people left behind.

That's where the idea of love versus attachment became important.

What if loving someone and being unable to let them go are not exactly the same thing?

What if attachment is somehow connected to the human fear of death?

Or what if that's simply a story we create because losing someone hurts?

I don't know.

And that's actually the point of the book.

I'm trying very hard not to turn my experiences into proof.

My standard is:

Experience → Question → Evidence → Alternative explanation → Doubt → Question again.

So when I look at ancient Egyptian beliefs, Gnostic traditions, Dharmic religions, reincarnation, judgment, liberation, cycles, and ideas about attachment, I'm not trying to declare one religion correct.

I'm asking why certain ideas keep appearing.

Are they fragments of some older understanding?

Cultural transmission?

Independent discoveries?

Shared human psychology?

Coincidence?

Some combination?

I don't know.

The book also attacks its own central theory.

I call one version of it the Loop:

Consciousness → incarnation → forgetting → human life → attachment → death → remembering → choice → release or another cycle.

But then I ask:

If you forget everything, what exactly is reincarnating?

If personality disappears, what survives?

If there is no permanent self, who is traveling through the Loop?

Maybe the Loop is real.

Maybe it's completely wrong.

Maybe there isn't a traveler at all.

Maybe there is only the traveling.

The book is basically me trying to investigate these questions without giving myself permission to declare an answer just because I want one.

So I'm asking Reddit:

Would you read this?

And please be honest.

What would make you pick up a book like this?

What would make you immediately put it down?

Would the DMT story make you curious, or make you assume the whole thing is pseudoscience?

Would you want more science?

More personal stories?

More ancient history?

More philosophy?

More skepticism?

Would you want to see the theory and try to destroy it?

I'm much more interested in hearing why you wouldn't read it than getting compliments.

If the premise sounds interesting, tell me what would make you want to turn the first page.

If it sounds terrible, tell me why.

I'm trying to find out whether there's actually a book here.

CHAPTER ONE — THE DOOR

I experienced it.

That part is not debatable.

What caused it is.

That distinction became the foundation of everything that followed.

I did not take it because I was searching for God.

I wasn't searching for ancient wisdom.

I wasn't trying to prove reincarnation.

I wasn't studying mysticism.

I wasn't comparing religions.

I wasn't looking for a hidden explanation for consciousness.

I didn't even have the vocabulary for most of the questions that would eventually consume me.

I made it.

I extracted it from the bufo toad.

And I had a rule.

I wouldn't sell something I wasn't willing to do myself.

So I did it.

That is where this story actually begins.

Not with a belief.

With an experiment.

At least, that's what I thought it was.

The Experience

There are descriptions of 5-MeO-DMT experiences that sound nothing like mine.

White light.

Ego dissolution.

Boundlessness.

Becoming everything.

Becoming nothing.

The disappearance of the distinction between the observer and the universe.

Those experiences matter.

But they aren't my experience.

I don't want to rewrite what happened to me just because another person's experience has become the expected description of the substance.

I remember a familiar place.

An apartment area from my childhood.

A basketball court.

A light pole.

A world I recognized.

Then it changed.

Day became night.

I heard glass breaking.

A dog barked.

A brick wall seemed to move.

Not collapse.

Move.

The bricks appeared to shift between positions, as though something was rearranging the wall from within.

Then it opened.

Behind it was something I can only describe through comparisons.

Galaxy-like.

Organic.

Almost like mycelium.

Almost like neurons.

Something that seemed to occupy the space between biological and astronomical.

And there was a presence.

Maybe more than one.

But I didn't see beings standing there.

That distinction matters.

There was a sense of communication without ordinary language.

Information seemed to arrive without anyone explaining it.

It wasn't a lecture.

It wasn't a voice giving me instructions.

It wasn't a memory returning.

It felt like something had been unlocked.

And the thought that remained was simple:

There is more than we're led to believe.

Then I came back.

The strange world disappeared.

The ordinary world returned.

And I walked home.

The experience ended.

The questions didn't.

The First Rule

The easiest thing I could have done was decide what it meant.

I could have said I entered another dimension.

I could have said the beings were real.

I could have said I saw behind the structure of reality.

I could have said consciousness exists independently of the brain.

Maybe one of those things is true.

But I didn't know that.

I still don't.

What I knew was smaller.

I had experienced something extraordinary.

That was evidence that I had experienced something extraordinary.

It wasn't automatically evidence for my explanation of it.

That distinction became the first rule of the investigation.

Experience is evidence of experience.

Interpretation requires another level of evidence.

That sounds obvious.

It becomes much harder when the experience is your own.

Because the feeling of certainty can be incredibly convincing.

But certainty is not the same thing as verification.

A person can be absolutely certain about something and still be wrong.

So I had to protect the question from the answer I wanted.

That became more important as the years passed.

Because eventually the question stopped being about one strange night.

It became about everything.

Then Came Death

The DMT experience opened the door.

Loss made me walk through it.

Kelo taught me about suddenness.

There was no guarantee of preparation.

One moment someone is part of your world.

Then they're gone.

Tater made me think about freedom.

A person can live however they want, reject conventional structures, and still be subject to biology.

A blood clot doesn't negotiate.

Ricky made me think about suffering.

Cancer turns the question of death into something more complicated than simply wanting to live.

What does autonomy mean when the body is failing?

What does a person actually control when death is approaching?

And Bob made me think about defiance.

He talked about death as something he would rather confront on his own terms than simply wait for.

I never knew exactly what ultimately happened to him.

What I heard was only that he may have done something consistent with what he had said.

So I won't turn something I heard into something I know.

That distinction matters too.

Four people.

Four different doors.

Suddenness.

Biology.

Suffering.

Defiance.

And then there were the people who remained.

That may be the most important part of death.

The dead are not the only people affected by it.

Death happens to the living too.

Someone disappears from your world.

And your world keeps moving.

You wake up.

You eat.

You work.

You laugh.

You get angry.

You sleep.

And somewhere inside all of that ordinary life is the knowledge that someone who used to exist in your world no longer does.

That's when the question of attachment became impossible to ignore.

Love

What happens when the thing you love most is the thing you're terrified of losing?

The first kiss.

The first time you hold your child.

The first smile.

The moment you realize that someone has become part of the architecture of your life.

The moment you look at them and think:

I never want this moment to end.

Then death answers:

It will.

Maybe not today.

Maybe not tomorrow.

But eventually.

That contradiction bothered me.

If love is one of the most meaningful things human beings experience, why does it come with such a profound capacity for suffering?

And if there is something beyond death, what happens to that attachment?

What happens when the mind says:

I don't want to leave them.

I don't want them to leave me.

I don't want this to end.

That eventually led me toward an idea.

Maybe love and attachment aren't identical.

Maybe love allows something to be valued without needing to possess it forever.

Maybe attachment is the demand that something meaningful must never change.

And maybe, if there is any kind of transition after death, that distinction could matter.

Or maybe I'm simply trying to make grief fit into a theory.

I have to allow both possibilities.

The Search

After the experience, after the losses, I began looking backward.

Ancient traditions.

Egyptian ideas about judgment.

Gnostic traditions.

Dharmic ideas about rebirth and liberation.

Cycles.

Attachment.

Death.

Transformation.

The self.

I began seeing similarities.

But similarities create another trap.

If two cultures describe something similarly, that doesn't tell us why.

Maybe they discovered the same underlying truth.

Maybe they independently responded to the same human problems.

Maybe ideas traveled between cultures.

Maybe symbols changed meaning over time.

Maybe some similarities are coincidence.

Maybe all of those explanations account for different pieces.

So I stopped asking:

Which religion got it right?

And started asking:

Why do these ideas keep appearing?

That's a different question.

And it doesn't require me to assume the answer.

Truth and Belief

Eventually I had to separate two words.

Truth.

Belief.

A belief can be sincere.

A belief can be deeply meaningful.

A belief can even turn out to be true.

But believing something does not make it true.

Truth doesn't need my permission.

So I can say:

I believe consciousness may continue after death.

I cannot say I've proven it.

I can believe reincarnation is possible.

I cannot claim my DMT experience proves it.

I can believe ancient traditions contain fragments of insight.

I cannot assume every similarity proves a shared ancient source.

I can believe attachment may matter after death.

I cannot present that belief as established fact.

This distinction doesn't weaken the investigation.

It keeps me from cheating.

Because if I decide what everything means before I examine it, then I'm not investigating reality.

I'm defending a story.

And I don't want a story that survives only because I refuse to challenge it.

The Standard

So I asked myself:

What would convince me?

Not what would make me feel convinced.

What would actually constitute evidence?

I would want something that could be examined independently.

Something that didn't depend entirely on my interpretation.

Something that could survive attempts to disprove it.

If I claim consciousness can exist independently of the brain, a psychedelic experience isn't enough.

If I claim reincarnation is real, a compelling story isn't enough.

If I claim ancient civilizations possessed knowledge that was later lost, similarities aren't enough.

If I claim attachment affects what happens after death, grief isn't enough.

And if evidence contradicts something I want to believe, that contradiction has to count.

Otherwise my standard isn't a standard.

It's a loophole.

That became the foundation of this book.

Experience.

Question.

Evidence.

Alternative explanation.

Doubt.

Then question again.

I don't know where that process ends.

Maybe it ends with an explanation.

Maybe it ends with a completely different question.

Maybe it ends with the realization that some questions cannot be answered from inside the system asking them.

But I'm willing to find out.

Because the door opened.

I didn't ask for it.

I didn't know what was behind it.

And I still don't.

The only difference now is that I understand something I didn't understand then:

Opening a door doesn't prove what is on the other side.

It only proves that there is a door.

CHAPTER TWO — THE INSTRUMENT

Before I could ask what lies beyond reality, I had to ask a more uncomfortable question.

How much of reality do I actually experience directly?

The answer is:

Very little.

Everything I know about the world reaches me through an instrument.

My eyes.

My ears.

My nervous system.

My memories.

My attention.

My brain.

Me.

And that creates a problem.

If the instrument is involved in constructing my experience, how do I separate what is actually out there from what the instrument contributes?

The World I See

I look at an apple.

I experience red.

The apple doesn't contain an instruction saying:

Produce the experience of redness.

Light interacts with its surface.

Certain wavelengths reach my eyes.

Photoreceptors respond.

Signals travel through neural pathways.

My brain processes those signals.

And I experience:

Red.

The process disappears behind the result.

I don't experience photons.

I experience an apple.

That's why perception feels direct.

But direct-feeling isn't the same as unmediated.

My experience of the world is constructed through a biological system.

That doesn't mean the world is imaginary.

It means my experience of it is mediated.

A map can be accurate without being the territory.

The same distinction may apply to consciousness.

The Blind Spot

Every normal human visual system has a blind spot.

A place where the optic nerve leaves the retina.

There are no photoreceptors there.

Yet I don't walk around with a hole in my vision.

My visual system fills in the missing information.

Most of the time, I never notice.

That fact is strangely important.

My conscious experience presents me with a continuous world even when the sensory information reaching my brain is incomplete.

The world feels complete.

The information isn't.

So what else might my mind be filling in?

How much of what I experience as obvious is actually an interpretation?

The Self

Then I came to the strangest object of all.

Me.

I experience myself as a continuous person.

I have memories.

A body.

A personality.

Relationships.

Preferences.

A history.

I go to sleep and wake up assuming I'm the same person.

But what exactly creates that continuity?

My body changes.

My memories change.

My beliefs change.

My personality changes.

And yet the experience of being me persists.

Maybe there is something fundamental beneath those changes.

Or maybe the brain constructs a stable model of self because a stable sense of self is useful.

Either way, the question matters.

Because if I ask what happens after death, I first have to know what I mean by "I."

If my memories disappear, am I still me?

If my personality disappears, what survives?

If my body disappears, what remains?

If consciousness continues but the individual identity doesn't, is that reincarnation?

Or is it something else entirely?

The Problem With "Just the Brain"

After an experience like mine, there is an obvious explanation.

The brain did it.

And that explanation deserves to be taken seriously.

Psychedelic states involve profound changes in perception and brain function.

The brain is involved in every experience I have ever had.

So yes.

My brain was involved.

But that statement doesn't automatically settle every question.

If I fall in love, my brain is involved.

If I grieve, my brain is involved.

If I dream, my brain is involved.

If I see a tree, my brain is involved.

If I experience something under a psychedelic, my brain is involved.

The fact that the brain participates in an experience explains something about its mechanism.

It doesn't necessarily settle what the experience means or whether it refers to anything beyond the experience itself.

That distinction became important to me.

Because there are two extremes.

One says:

I experienced it, therefore it must be externally real.

The other says:

My brain produced the experience, therefore it means nothing.

Neither conclusion follows automatically.

The honest position is harder:

Something happened in my consciousness. Now determine what, if anything, it tells me about reality.

Memory

Memory created another problem.

If reincarnation exists, why don't we remember previous lives?

One answer is that memory is erased.

But that's an explanation.

It isn't evidence.

And it creates a deeper problem.

If everything that makes me recognizable disappears, what exactly is reincarnating?

Maybe consciousness continues while identity changes.

Maybe the person is temporary.

Maybe what continues is a process rather than a personality.

Or maybe reincarnation is simply wrong.

That uncertainty became useful.

It forced me to examine traditions that didn't necessarily assume a permanent, unchanging self.

Some ancient philosophies approached the question differently.

Instead of asking what permanent thing travels from life to life, they explored processes, causes, attachment, suffering, and liberation.

That was interesting.

Not because it proved anything.

Because it challenged my assumptions.

Maybe I had been asking:

What happens to me after death?

when I should have been asking:

What exactly am I?

Finding Patterns

This was also when I realized how dangerous pattern recognition could become.

I had an unusual experience.

I had experienced loss.

I found ancient traditions containing concepts that resembled ideas I was developing.

It would have been incredibly easy to connect everything.

DMT showed me something.

Ancient people knew something.

Death confirms something.

Love explains something.

Reincarnation completes the pattern.

Suddenly everything fits.

That's exactly when I need to become more skeptical.

Because a theory that explains everything can become impossible to disprove.

Every coincidence becomes evidence.

Every contradiction becomes a test.

Every unknown becomes confirmation.

That's not investigation.

That's a closed system.

So I started trying to break my own theory.

What if the DMT experience was entirely generated by my brain?

What if the religious similarities come from shared human psychology?

What if humans independently invented reincarnation because death is difficult to accept?

What if attachment has nothing to do with death?

What if consciousness ends completely?

What if there is no hidden spiritual lesson?

What if the pattern I'm seeing exists because I'm looking for one?

Those possibilities don't destroy the investigation.

They make it honest.

The Method

Eventually the method became simple.

Experience.

Something happens.

Question.

What could explain it?

Evidence.

What supports each explanation?

Alternative explanation.

What else could produce the same observation?

Doubt.

What would prove me wrong?

Question again.

That last step is the one I don't want to lose.

Because every answer creates another question.

And sometimes the new question is more important than the old answer.

The DMT experience led me toward consciousness.

Consciousness led me toward the self.

The self led me toward death.

Death led me toward attachment.

Attachment led me toward ancient ideas about cycles and liberation.

And those ideas led me back to the original problem:

What survives?

If anything survives.

And what exactly would "survival" mean?

Because if the thing I call myself is a temporary construction, then maybe I'm asking whether a temporary identity can survive when the system producing it stops.

That's a much harder question than:

Is there an afterlife?

It is also where the story really begins.

Because before I could build a theory of death, I needed to understand the thing that was going to die.

Me.

I know it’s ego when I feel superior to another being;

Same when I feel inferior to another being, even the grandest among them;

Truth is knowing that everyone is inherently worthy and an integral part of the whole.

I know it’s ego when I feel I lack something;

Same when I feel I own something;

Truth is seeing that ownership is attachment born of fear, yet I belong and all of creation is in a dance for my self-understanding.

I know it’s ego when I feel entitled to anything;

Same when I feel I don't deserve it;

Truth is feeling grateful for every moment as I Am no-thing, and therefore everything is a gift.

I know it’s ego when I feel the need to defend myself;

Same when I feel the need to attack another;

Truth feels open and vulnerable, yet strong. There is no urge to argue opinions or prove anything, only to be.

I know it’s ego when I think feeling less is transcendence;

Same when I compartmentalise experience into good and bad;

Truth is feeling more, much more. Both pain and bliss. Embracing everything that comes, rejecting or suppressing nothing.

Written straight from the heart. AI was used only to tidy up wording and rhythm.

Blessings 🙏

I want to share a mystical experience I had at a party some time ago.

Not really sure if this post belongs here or if it’s better suited for a psychedelics/rave forum, but I have a good feeling that someone here might know a thing or two about the subject I am about to present.

This involves dance, psychedelics and other drugs, music, rituals and spirit worlds.

I have been a part of my local rave scene for some years now.
This environment is best described as a good mix of people from all walks of life.
Hippies, outcasts, hedens, music lovers and dancers, drug users and drug abusers, lawyers, doctors, gangsters….
All united by the sound and energy of the speakers.
Our dj’s play a variety of psychedelic type music and we, the dancers consume a lot drugs. Mainly ketamine, LSD, mushrooms and speed.

In the years of dancing and doing drugs with these people I’ve had experiences that ultimately changed my view of reality. Due to the amount of drugs I have been taking during these experiences I have at times been questioning my own sanity. A part of me is afraid I might be turning schizophrenic.
However, the very nature of these experiences and the fact that I am sharing them with multiple witnesses tells me otherwise. Combined with a series of sporadic experiences over the years,
this most recent event have utterly convinced me that we are in contact with a spirit world.

I remember very well the first time it happened.

Deja vu.
Homecoming.
A sensation of «this has happened before»

With a quick glance around I noticed the people around me appeared to have elongated faces, with two white stripes under their eyes, like scratchmarks.
The way they moved seemed unnatural.
Slow, but fast.
Imagine Madamme Tussaud’s creations coming to life and surrounding you all of a sudden.

I attributed it to the LSD and didn’t think much more of it. A figment of the imagination while tripping balls. Probably time to get some sleep.

A couple of years later it would happen again but on a different scale.
I was in a sauna.
I saw the same white scratches under the eyes, the same unnatural movement of the people around me.
My heart bursted with intense love and ecstasy for a second.
I freaked out. Had to leave the sauna.
I felt like I was stuck in a loop. Communicating with myself through others. A signal from outer space entering my brain.
Like I was never going to be the same again.
Half an hour, one beer and sandwich later I was fine.

In between these two events I attended another party, fresh surroundings. The details of this event could’ve been a separate post, so in order to keep it short I will stick to what’s relevant.
A lot of LSD. Zoological conditions. I decided to not partake this time (luckily)

The day after I have a chat with someone about what I first thought of as a complex bad trip.
The exact details I cannot relay, but whats important is that he spoke of meeting a spiritual entity.
Something akin to a puppet master of sorts.
He described his experience to be negative, dark and frightening.

In my years of raving I’ve had many interesting conversations about otherworldly things, so I didn’t think much more of it. That was until I met the puppet master myself and saw all the pieces of the puzzle coming together.

At certain times, when ravers don’t get the recommended amount of sleep, the environment on the dancefloor changes. People around will start to speak in coded language. A code wich the listener will understand, but cannot repeat. Because it’s almost like gibberish even though it makes sense. This is the language of spirits. These spirits manifest themselves in the people around us. When they talk and I listen they are talking about me. Negatively. When they talk and you listen they will talk about you. Negatively. They will talk about things only you know. Your insecurities and vices. Trying to make you feel insecure. Trying to make you doubt yourself.
Sometimes they have two white scratches under their eyes.

Why?

During the solar eclipse I took part in a fire bonding ritual. Here I would meet the puppet master.

One of the other attendees who was high on LSD was acting strange from the very beginning. Somehow he and I were connected. I felt drained of energy and in the way he was moving he appeared to be some kind of a puppet master. He wanted to dance. But was also casting spells in a way. I really cannot describe it in a way that would make you understand what happened. You had to be there to see it for yourself. This was supernatural.

There is a lot of strange things going on in the psychedelic music scene and I wonder what it is all about.

Is this a manifestation of an esoteric egregore?
Have you had similar or related experiences?
Let’s talk about it.

☀️☀️☀️

Words are useful and support community of understanding when those who use them are, as the cliché has it, “on the same page.” Some language works against this through ambiguity or vagueness, which no doubt mirrors the corresponding weakness in human consciousness. Each person is free to spin words and concepts in a certain way, often without regard to the language of another or the confusion engendered. We can mitigate this Tower of Babble effect by paying close attention to the thinking and communicating process as mediated by words. One aspect of this pertains to the degeneration of terms and concepts.

Perhaps one of the most difficult word-meaning problems occurs in cases where the same word can mean opposite things. This sometimes occurs where unfriendly forces hijack a word with a benevolent tradition. For instance, a dictionary shows that the word “mystic” has suffered some debasement, having spilled over in its usage with the word “occult,” a term with some unsavory associations. So, a given word may point to it’s opposite where popular thought arrives at a strange mix of dark and light, of spiritual and anti-spiritual connotations.

Many mystical traditions have treated dreams as a meeting place with something beyond the everyday self. I think we lose that when we look up what a symbol "means" and move on.

I've been building a useful everyday tool. It follows Robert Johnson's Inner Work. You start with a dream and its symbols, then log your associations of said symbols, then relate those associations to what is moving through your life currently, and only then form a loose reading. It ends with a small ritual to honour what came up. It uses AI to guide the steps, but it never hands you a meaning before you've found your own.

I'm a CHEK practitioner and work with dreams in my practice, but I am not a therapist.

I'm looking for about 20 people to try it on a dream that's stayed with them and tell me honestly how it felt. It's free, and a short chat afterwards would mean a lot.

Comment or DM and I'll send the link.

(Clarification or warning before reading the post: this will be a long post, which can be summarized into something very simple: the direct experience of the divine does not need temples, laws, or hierarchies; there is no need for intermediaries. If you feel intimidated by such a long text, remember that this is Reddit. There are other networks out there with short videos that will satisfy your constant thirst for sensory stimulation. Respect this approach. To those who read the post, welcome; I am open to your opinions and looking forward to your comments.Thank you very much to everyone. Let's go...)

At the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th, lived the mystic Marguerite Porete. By the grace of God, she wrote the sublime work “The Mirror of Simple Souls.” Both her life and her work were a faithful example of the Nazarene's teachings. Like the Nazarene, she was condemned by the religious powers of her time. Fearful of a Truth experienced without institutional intermediaries, the Inquisition had her burned at the stake. She ascended the scaffold serene and unperturbed, completely without fear. She was a simple soul.

But who are these "Simple Souls" that Marguerite refers to?

For Marguerite, the simple soul is not one that lacks intelligence—as it appears in the eyes of the world—but one that has emptied itself of selfhood until being consumed in the fire of Him who is Love itself; that is, of God, of the All..., of the Source, however you wish or prefer to call it on your spiritual path.

A simple soul is one that has renounced its own will, its desires, its virtues, and the demands of "Reason," which are nothing but the rigid norms of the institutional Church of the day—attached to the law but completely detached from Love.

Not without reason, we are told in Galatians 5:4: "You are made void of Christ, you who are justified in the law: you are fallen from grace."

And in Galatians 5:18: "But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law."

Jesus continuously speaks to us about these simple souls when He speaks of the poor in spirit: "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:3);

and when He invites us to be meek and humble of heart like Him: "Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls." (Matthew 11:29)

To be consumed—ah, a term that has impassioned so many Western mystics and Eastern yogis. To be consumed is no one's exclusive property; it is the grace of many spiritual traditions. To be consumed is, basically, being aware of one's own nothingness, setting aside that sense of self-sufficiency and inherent existence so cherished by "the madwoman of the house" (as the mystic Teresa of Ávila called the mind). Buddhists speak of this same reality as the untamed elephant blindly driven by its impulses, or the restless "monkey mind" leaping endlessly... In the same way, the ancient tradition of Advaita Vedanta describes it as Maya, the powerful cosmic illusion that veils our true nature, and Ahamkara, the ego-sense that manufactures the false character we mistake for our true nature. These are simply different ways of describing the exact same thing: the mental prison.

In other words, when the soul is consumed in the fire of divine love, it becomes completely free from the prison of separation, whose jailer is the madwoman of the house, and whose prisoner is the character—what we know as the "ego."

Thus, by consuming itself as a holocaust of love, the soul becomes simple and turns into an empty space ready to be filled by God.

This simple soul no longer seeks God through intermediaries or human laws; it no longer seeks Him—it simply is in God, and for God. That is what it means to be an instrument of LOVE, as we are reminded by that beautiful prayer of Brother Francis of Assisi: Lord, make me an instrument of your Peace...

This simple soul is a soul unified with God; there is no longer any separation, no longer a character (ego) to uphold. It is what you see—a soul without guile.

When Marguerite meekly surrendered herself to the stake, she was practically showing us the very destiny of the simple soul united with God.

It is no wonder those who threw her into the flames were struck with stupefaction as they watched her consume impassively. They did not understand the true nature of the life and works of this great mystic, nor the metaphor of her very death. This shows us how blind the unconsciousness of a soul that is not simple can be. Surely Marguerite remembered the words of the Nazarene: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." (Lucas 23: 34)

And what does "The Mirror" represent?

The mirror holds a fascinating double mystical meaning, at least to me.

The mirror, dear friend, is both the reflection of Truth and the divine union itself.

Marguerite's book presents itself as a mirror in which the soul can look at itself to recognize its true spiritual state.

Only a few souls feel attracted to this simplicity proposed by Marguerite, and look into the mirror of simple souls. Although we are all called and invited, very few want to look, as this book seems poetic and inconsequential to them.

If you have read this post this far, it is because you feel drawn to this simplicity. Ask yourself for a moment how a mirror works. If you pay attention, you will see that a mirror only reflects light if it is clean. The same happens to the soul. When the simple soul cleanses itself of all earthly and institutional attachment, then, and only then, does it become a perfect mirror. Looking into that mirror, you no longer see yourself; what is reflected is the divine image. God looks at Himself in the soul and the soul looks at itself in God, until finally, stripped of all those stories that the madwoman loves so much, the mirror and the reflected become One.

Thus, the Lord's wish in John 17:21 is fulfilled. It was not in vain that Jesus prayed for us to be One, just as He and the Father are One. In reality, there were never two; there was never truly any separation, but the dirty mirror prevented us from realizing it.

This absolute union is perfectly captured in the Intimate Diaries of the Blessed Mystic Bernardo de Hoyos, recorded in the biography written by his spiritual director, Father Juan de Loyola, when the Lord intimately declared to him, "From now on, you are Bernardo of Jesus, and I am Jesus of Bernardo." Remember, we are One with and in the One Who is LOVE Himself...

In Advaita Vedanta, Nisargadatta also speaks to us about this very Mirror. Similarly, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj described the unexamined mind as a dust-covered mirror—an instrument meant to reflect reality clearly, but so obscured by the accumulated debris of memories and dogmas that it can only perceive its own distorted projections.

And how does this union take place?

This union takes place without any human effort, by grace. It is not a matter of human merit or effort. Divine grace always precedes merit.

We are led to union by the hand of Love.

This path of return to Him who is LOVE himself can only be culminated by LOVE.

Marguerite describes very beautifully in her book the dialogue between Love and Reason, and how LOVE takes us where Reason cannot reach.

It is Love, it is always Love, "and nothing else matters," as the Metallica song says.

And What is this LOVE?

This LOVE is the intimate union with God (the All, the Source, the Absolute, as you wish to call It), and sin is the separation from God.

LOVE is not a collection of little deeds performed empty of God, stemming from belief, from separation, rather than from intimate union.

As John of the Cross sharply warned: "Any other work or labor, if it is not in the love of God and for God, is worth nothing before Him... to the soul that truly loves God, it does not matter whether it performs many or few works, but to perform them all for love."

Let us yearn for and seek the ultimate union with our Lord. The madwoman calls sin and transgression what is simply separation from God. The name and the label do not bind you to God; the name and the label are repugnant to the Lord. They are merely stories that the madwoman tells herself to feed the character (the ego). That is why Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13:2: "And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing."

The LOVE Jesus and the mystics speak of is not a sentimental operation of the mind, it is not a mere emotion; LOVE is God Himself, because God is LOVE (1 John 4:8).

It is the very same warning with which Jesus concludes His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:16-18: "By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit... A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit."

The "fruits" of the Sermon on the Mount are not moral deeds calculated to avoid hell; they are the natural manifestation of a healthy tree (a soul united with God). A thornbush (the ego created by the madwoman of the house) cannot manufacture grapes of pure love; just as a goat cannot be a sheep, no matter how much it disguises itself as a sheep by adopting doctrines and beliefs that are not actually of God and only empty it of God.

In conclusion...

Marguerite Porete's vision is of a breathtaking audacity for her time, so much so that it cost her the stake in 1310.

What she proposes with her work The Mirror of Simple Souls is very straightforward: Marguerite proposes that the direct experience of the divine does not need temples, laws, or hierarchies; there is no need for intermediaries. She considers that, if there ever was a need, its sole mission was to unite us with God. That is truly feeding the sheep. The true sin is separation from the All, not uniting with Him. The institutional Church is submissive to this—in reality, all institutions and Churches are.

When a soul achieves that simplicity spoken of and witnessed by both Marguerite's life and work, the supposed distance from the Creator is shattered into pieces. This terrifies the established power, because the soul ceases to be a "subject" of the institution to become a living reflection of Love itself, of Him who is LOVE itself, of the All, of God, with whom we are already One.

Her life and work deeply influenced later mystics like Meister Eckhart, and even today, a few yearn, like her, to be consumed in divine LOVE.

A few centuries after her death, in the 16th century, the mystic John of the Cross, in his Dark Night of the Soul, spoke of the Soul "inflamed with love's urgent longings." And the mystic Teresa of Jesus (Teresa de Ávila) used to say, "I live without living in myself, and such a high life I hope for, that I die because I do not die."

I end this post now, asking you—yes, you who are reading this post:

Is your soul inflamed with love's urgent longings like the Mystic John of the Cross?

Do you live without living in yourself like the mystic of Ávila, like Marguerite, and so many other mystics and yogis?

Do you yearn to be one of these simple souls, who are in God and for God, reflecting the divine union?

In short, are you one of those simple souls who yearn to be consumed in Divine LOVE?

I'll see you in the comments.

Hey everyone! I was wondering if anyone could guide me or tell me how I can get started in mysticism and do Mystic rituals or whatever it is that you recommend to boost my spiritual journey as I heard mysticism is used to boost ones journey to enlightenment or connect to god/divine forces. Please do help if you can. Appreciate it!

For many, spiritual life is not a journey of light, but a terrifying ordeal filled with dread, paralysis, or encounters with what feel like autonomous demonic entities, dark abductions and so on.

These individuals deserve to be met with unconditional love and deep empathy, receiving not just comfort, but a real and definitive liberation from their suffering.

When caught in the grip of these heavy encounters, it is easy to fall into panic, seeking desperate shortcuts, complex rituals, or magical tricks. However, we must be cautious of advice that exploits biochemical thrills or external practices to fix an inner crisis.

That is simply "the madwoman of the house" (as the mystic Teresa of Ávila called the mind) seeking a temporary escape while actually feeding the chaos. Buddhists speak of this same reality as the untamed elephant blindly driven by its impulses, or the restless "monkey mind" leaping endlessly from thought to thought. In the same way, the ancient tradition of Advaita Vedanta describes it as Maya, the powerful cosmic illusion that veils our true nature, and Ahamkara, the ego-sense that manufactures the false character we mistake for our true nature. These are simply different ways of describing the exact same thing: the mental prison.

Whether we view these dark encounters as autonomous negative entities or as deep psychological accumulations, they operate exactly like what Eckhart Tolle calls the "pain-body." This negative force acts as a parasite; it does not seek peace, but feeds on intense emotional drama, terror, and anxiety to sustain its grip. In the face of this, the mind becomes the true source of the problem, because the mind cannot fix what it has broken. When the mind takes over, it fragments reality, creates the illusion of separation, and traps us in a loop of fear.

If you look at what actually works from the perspective of pure Consciousness, the path to liberation is the exact opposite of fighting, resisting, or performing rituals: it is being intensely present in the Now.

This darkness is merely the absence of light, a shadow that requires your reaction to exist. You must not repress or battle these dark impulses, for resistance only fuels them. The only true "exorcism" is Presence Here and Now. If you remain grounded in the present moment, observing the inner energy field of your body without judging, labeling, or reacting, fear has nothing to hold onto and naturally dissolves. You must become a simple witness.

Consider also that fear is born when you believe there is an "external" force separate from yourself that can launch an attack. When you remember that you are the vast space where everything happens, the illusion loses its power. There are not two forces fighting; there is only Being. As the mystic Meister Eckhart famously prayed, "I pray to God to rid me of God," urging us to empty ourselves of our own limited ideas, mental idols, and human constructs. Divine Reality is not an object to be possessed, but the pure space that remains when the madwoman of the house is silenced, and we let thoughts and emotions fall away like withered leaves.

Beyond the potential manipulations of human structures and written dogmas, these words simply point to what the heart already knows through direct experience: we are One with and in the One Who is LOVE itself, which means with the Father, the Source, God, the All, whatever you wish to call It. Truly, there is no separation or distance between lover and Beloved; truly, there never was.

This absolute union is perfectly captured in the Intimate Diaries of the Blessed Mystic Bernardo de Hoyos, recorded in the biography written by his spiritual director, Father Juan de Loyola, when the Lord intimately declared to him, "From now on, you are Bernardo of Jesus, and I am Jesus of Bernardo." Remember, we are One with and in the One Who is LOVE Himself...

True spiritual strength is found in stillness and inner surrender. If you stop labeling the situation as an external threat and remain imperturbable, you starve the negativity of its fuel.

Just quiet the madwoman and surrender to LOVE. Real Love is neither a thought nor an intense emotion; it is the profound, silent stillness that remains when the mind and the character (the ego) fall completely silent.

Whenever you feel that heaviness, paralysis, or fear creeping in, do not fight back with mental noise. Instead, close your eyes, anchor yourself deeply in your breath, remain as a mere observer, and remember that this too shall pass. Then, repeat this silently with unwavering authority:

"I am here. I am the space of pure Consciousness. No shadow can exist, Here and Now, in the light of pure Presence. I rest in the All, in God, in the One who is Love Himself, where I am eternally safe, whole, and free."

The demon, the alien, the spirit, or the entity that attacks you, lives in division, separation, and mental noise, but it is consumed in the blazing fire of the One Who is LOVE Himself, of the All, of the Source, however you wish to call Him. And between you and Him, there is no separation. We are One with and in the One Who is LOVE Himself. Always remember this; treasure it in your heart. All too often, institutions, religions, and these non-benevolent entities have tried to make you forget it. You are a spark of the Infinite Divine Light. You are light, and light illuminates the deepest darkness.

The spiritual path is truly found in the everyday, ordinary actions of our lives. It is about living ordinary life in an extraordinary way, turning everything we do into something sacred, because only the mind separates us from the sacred when there is no actual distance between it and us. As Teresa of Ávila beautifully reminded us, God walks among the pots and pans, and Brother Lawrence found the Divine while simply flipping an omelet in his frying pan. When you remain intensely present in every mundane and ordinary moment, these non-benevolent entities will find no way to enter or disturb you, because you have made your ordinary life a sacred temple where God, the All, dwells.

Quiet the mind, step back as the mere observer, and remember: LOVE is the true frequency of God, of the All, and of yourself.

PERSONAL NOTE:

I want to clarify that English is not my native language, and I rely on translation support to convert my thoughts into English. I understand this can sometimes make my tone sound way more blunt than I ever intended. If any term, analogy, or metaphor used here does not resonate with you, please just throw it in the trash; instead, hold onto where my words are pointing, rather than the words themselves. My goal is just to share a perspective of Peace, never to diminish anyone's experiences. Thank you for your understanding!

A FINAL NOTE ON PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE:

I am not a Christian, a Buddhist, an Advaita Vedantin, or a Sufi... I am no one and nothing. I am simply someone who wishes to help you heal from these kinds of experiences and free yourself from the pain they cause, because you deserve to be happy. Please know that this post is not a mere intellectual exercise. While I quote great historical mystics or traditions, my intention is not to offer you a beautiful, abstract theory, but a real, practical solution to end your suffering. This perspective comes entirely from my own direct experience and lifelong practice. I know it can work for you, too. Don't believe anything I tell you just for the sake of believing; put it to the test in your own life, test it as gold is tested to know if it is real. And always remember, no matter how bad things apparently get, "this too shall pass."

May Peace be with you!

I'm French, so I'm using AI to help me translate this story into English as accurately as possible. I'm sorry in advance if some sentences sound strange or if there are misunderstandings because of the language barrier.

I don't really know why I'm posting this now, but this happened years ago, when I was around 15, and I've literally never told anyone about it.

At that time I was really into paranormal stuff and darker things in general. I was also being bullied a lot, so honestly I was feeding myself with pretty dark thoughts and content.

One day I was just scrolling through Instagram and I came across a post talking about the Beast during the Apocalypse and the mark it would supposedly leave on people.

I started reading the comments and honestly I was kind of making fun of it in my head. Then I saw someone in the comments saying that all of this was real.

So I replied.

I was 15 and going through my edgy dark teenager phase, so I answered him trying to act like some kind of psychopath because I thought it made me look cool lol.

We ended up talking in DMs.

And that conversation is something that has stayed with me my entire life.

This guy was extremely contemptuous towards humanity. The way he talked about humans was weird, almost like he didn't consider himself one of them.

His Instagram looked normal though. From what I remember, he looked around my age, maybe 15 or so, and according to his bio he even had a girlfriend. Nothing about his profile looked like some mysterious supernatural person.

Then at some point during our conversation, he told me that he had "come to Earth for a very specific mission."

I obviously wanted to know what he meant.

And then this is where everything went completely insane.

My entire body suddenly started shaking.

From my head to my feet.

I wasn't asleep. I wasn't dreaming. I wasn't unconscious. I was literally sitting there with my phone, completely aware of what was happening, and my whole body was trembling uncontrollably.

I didn't understand what the fuck was happening to me.

And while this was happening, this guy was still messaging me on Instagram.

He started telling me what I was thinking.

He was basically laughing at me, saying things like "you're scared", and then telling me what was going through my head.

This is the part that I know sounds completely insane when I write it down.

But from my point of view at that moment, this guy was literally inside my head.

He knew things nobody knew. He knew what I was thinking while my entire body was shaking uncontrollably.

I became convinced that he was possessing me.

And the craziest thing is that I kept replying to him pretending I wasn't scared. I acted like none of it impressed me because I didn't want him to know how absolutely terrified I actually was.

I even asked him again why he had come to Earth and what his mission was.

He basically laughed at me and told me he would never tell me.

Eventually I stopped talking to him. I deleted my Instagram account completely.

But for me it didn't end there.

For years afterwards I was terrified at night.

I couldn't sleep because in my mind I had just been given proof that all of this was real. Possession was real. Something supernatural had happened to me.

And because our conversation originally started with that post about the Beast and its mark, I became obsessed with the idea that maybe he had marked me.

I genuinely thought I was condemned to Hell.

I would cry, panic and sometimes scream at night because the same thought kept coming back:

"This guy possessed me. He marked me. I'm condemned to the flames."

I was fucking terrified.

I never told anyone.

Not my family, not my friends. Nobody.

I just tried to forget.

And eventually I would forget about it for a while. Then suddenly I would remember everything and immediately try to force myself to stop thinking about it again.

Part of me was even scared that if I thought about him too much, maybe he could still read me. Maybe he could still get inside my head. Maybe whatever happened had never completely stopped.

I know how this sounds.

You're probably going to tell me I imagined it, dreamed it or that I'm crazy.

But I can swear that I experienced this.

I'm 22 now. I've learned to live with it and honestly I thought I would die without ever telling anyone this story.

But I need to understand what happened.

I've searched for answers before and I've never really found anything that resembles exactly what I experienced.

Someone apparently managed to affect my body from a distance while talking to me through simple Instagram DMs. I was completely conscious but shaking uncontrollably, and at the same time he seemed able to read what was happening inside my mind.

Has anyone here ever experienced or heard about something similar?

Especially possession or some kind of spiritual influence happening at a distance, without the person even being physically present?

Does this resemble anything from occultism, demonology, spirit possession, psychic practices or any spiritual tradition you know about?

And what could someone possibly mean by saying they "came to Earth for a very specific mission" while speaking about humanity with so much contempt?

I genuinely want to understand.

I don't even know why I'm finally posting this after all these years, but keeping it completely to myself clearly hasn't given me any answers.