Enigma777

The postmodern spiritual marketplace is vast and fragmented, and it can be dizzying for seekers trying to orient themselves within it. Amid this abundance of teachings, movements, and practices, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between authentic forms of spirituality and their counterfeit or corrupted counterparts—between those paths that lead to genuine inner transformation and those that merely lead astray. In today’s globalized and pluralistic context, we face an unprecedented level of multiplicity. Without a coherent evaluative framework, it becomes nearly impossible to discern which traditions, movements, or groups are worthy of serious engagement and which are not. This is why we have developed a systematic framework for evaluating spiritual systems—a way to assess their validity and authenticity that strives to be universal and objective, yet nuanced and flexible. This evaluative framework forms part of a broader esoteric-philosophical system known as Metamodern Traditionalism, grounded in cultural theory, Integral Theory (Ken Wilber), and the Traditionalist School (Guénon, Schuon, Coomaraswamy, etc.). The first two were synthesized with the latter to correct what we perceive as the Traditionalist school’s core epistemic and historical limitations. A basic understanding of Traditionalist doctrine—especially the Guénonian formulation—will help contextualize what follows, though the ideas presented here are intended to be accessible even to those unfamiliar with that background. Here are some preliminary remarks and a brief introduction: To understand the purpose of this framework, it helps to grasp a few key ideas. Traditionalism, as articulated by thinkers such as René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon, holds that all authentic religions express a single metaphysical Truth—the Primordial Tradition—which transcends historical and cultural forms. However, Traditionalism often views modernity as a process of degeneration and rejects the possibility of spiritual evolution within history. We can think of it as a more rigorous and systematic Perennialism. Integral Theory, pioneered by Ken Wilber, approaches reality through developmental and multidimensional models of consciousness, emphasizing evolution, integration, and the coexistence of multiple valid perspectives. Cultural Theory—and specifically Metamodernism—explores the dialectical movement beyond modern and postmodern paradigms, toward a worldview capable of synthesizing sincerity and irony, faith and reason, transcendence and immanence. Metamodern Traditionalism unites these threads. It preserves the metaphysical depth and discernment of Traditionalism while integrating the developmental, pluralistic, and self-reflexive insights of Integral and Metamodern thought. The result is a framework that seeks not only to recover the sacred but to articulate it coherently within the conditions of contemporary consciousness. In order to understand the evaluative framework that follows, it is necessary to clarify a few fundamental principles which underlie this approach. These principles are drawn from the perennial metaphysical worldview, reformulated here in a contemporary language that integrates the insights of developmental and metamodern thought. 1. The Nature of Tradition “Tradition,” in the metaphysical sense, does not mean the mere repetition of ancestral customs or religious dogmas. It refers to a transcendent source of wisdom—a body of revealed and realized knowledge concerning the structure of Reality itself, its Divine Origin, and the path of return to that Origin. Every authentic civilization has, at its core, a transmission of this Primordial Tradition, expressed through symbolic, ritual, and doctrinal forms suited to its epoch and culture. Traditional spirituality thus recognizes the immutable principles behind all mutable forms. 2. The Vertical and the Horizontal Dimensions of Being Reality unfolds along two axes: the Vertical and the Horizontal. The Horizontal represents the plane of time, history, and becoming—psychological development, culture, and social evolution. The Vertical refers to the axis of transcendence—the eternal dimension of Being, consciousness, and the Absolute. Modern and postmodern paradigms have largely collapsed the Vertical into the Horizontal, reducing spirit to psyche or culture. Authentic spirituality restores this Vertical orientation, directing man upward toward the Real rather than outward into endless relativism or inward into mere subjectivity. 3. Initiation and Transmission Because the higher states of consciousness cannot be reached through theoretical knowledge or scattered and inconsistent practice alone, initiation is required. Initiation, in its true sense, is not a social ceremony but a metaphysical process of opening the higher centers of being, often mediated through a living lineage, realized teacher, or a rigorous process of self-initiation through both intense and disciplined theory and praxis(practice as opposed to theory). 4. Esotericism and Exotericism Another foundational principle of this framework is the distinction between Exotericism and Esotericism. Exotericism refers to the outward, institutional, and dogmatic aspect of religion — its moral codes, rituals, myths, and collective belief structures intended for the general faithful. It provides social cohesion and ethical guidance but remains within the domain of belief and form. Esotericism, by contrast, concerns the inner and transformative dimension of the spiritual path — the direct realization of metaphysical truths through inner illumination rather than external authority. It replaces dogmatic belief with participatory knowledge (gnosis): a direct, experiential apprehension of divine realities that transcends conceptual mediation. We are now moving on to the framework and presenting to you what we refer to as “The five axioms and the tripartite Typology: An evaluative framework of spiritual movements” First, the 5 Axioms Traditional standards of genuine spirituality/Five Pillars of Esoteric Orthodoxy: 1: Vertical Transcendence Authentic spirituality orients man toward what surpasses him — the Absolute, the Transcendent, the Unconditioned. It cannot be reduced to psychology, therapy, lifestyle enhancement, material gains, or even mere “peace of mind”, and recognizes that a true spiritual path must point beyond mere therapeutic self-improvement. It also recognizes a transcendent, absolute, infinite Principle that is the source of all existence, and towards which all of creation is teleologically oriented. There is a clear distinction between the Vertical line of Being and the Horizontal line of Becoming. This includes the distinction between the Psychic and the Spiritual/Noetic ; Genuine spirituality discerns between psychic phenomena and noetic illumination. Experiences of energy, emotion, vision, or temporary altered states are subordinate to the realization of the Self beyond form. 2: Hierarchical Ontology Authentic spirituality recognizes itself as a path along a hierarchical Chain of Being and aims at conscious developmental unfoldment along this chain. It recognizes gradations of spiritual attainment and an initiatory hierarchy that needs to be ascended. 3: Praxis/Ascesis Authentic spirituality requires sustained Praxis— disciplined practice aimed at the vertical unfoldment of consciousness — as opposed to merely theory. 4: Lineage and transmission Not absolutely necessary but optimal(by a large margin). Authentic spirituality ideally operates within a lineage of transmission, ensuring continuity of realization and method. Yet when such formal chains are inaccessible, the seeker may still attune inwardly to the living archetype of Tradition, provided this is approached with seriousness, discernment, and unwavering rigor and discipline. 5: Gnosis(Participatory Epistemology) Authentic spirituality is always centered around Gnosis — a mode of knowing that is participatory, transformative, and ontological rather than merely conceptual and ideological; a direct apprehension of Transcendent realities. It transcends the dualism between subject and object by uniting knower and known in direct realization. Gnosis is not belief in metaphysical truths, but the realization of them through conscious participation in the living fabric of Being. Secondly, the Tripartite Typology A Typology of Premodern, Modern, and Postmodern Spiritual Movements: From Counter-Initiation to Authentic Tradition Classification system: •Initiatic Orthodoxy/Canonical Esotericism -Denotes movements that are sufficiently aligned with the Five Pillars of Esoteric Orthodoxy to make them fully legitimate spiritual currents -“Orthodoxy” here means right alignment with flexible Principle and analytic criteria(on a spectrum scale), not dogma. •Esoteric Heterodoxy/Semi-Initiatic Currents(Redeemable movements) -Legitimate initiatic content present, but with distortions or partial errors (pre/trans confusions, excessive psychologism, confusion of Psychic/Noetic etc) •Counter-Initiatic Currents/Pseudo-Esotericism/Inverted Spirituality -Movements that simulate initiation but actually invert or sever the Vertical axis, replacing transcendence with psychic inflation or materialization, effectively collapsing the Vertical into the Horizontal. Simulacra of Tradition. “LARPers”. -“Inverted” points to ontological reversal, not just moral error. The question now arises: In light of this typology, how do we classify the various spiritual groups/movements/traditions into the three tiers? What standards do we use and how do we use those standards to rank spiritual lineages into those categories? Well, since this framework was only recently developed, it doesn’t have some rigorous, empirical, scientific method of evaluation here(part of the reason we use the word “Typology” and not “Taxonomy”). We merely use a soft(more grounded in common intuition) and basic measuring system: First, we base our analysis on the five axioms/pillars we outlined above. Then, we take a certain spiritual group/movement/tradition, and score it against each pillar on a scale of 5 points, for a maximum possible score of 25. Then, we multiply the final result by four and it gives us a percentage. The percentages associated with each tier are as follows: •Below 50% = Counter-Initiatic Currents/Pseudo-Esotericism/Inverted Spirituality •50-80% = Esoteric Heterodoxy/Semi-Initiatic Currents(Redeemable movements) •80%+ = Initiatic Orthodoxy/Canonical Esotericism Here is an exemple with a concrete movement to illustrate this evaluative method: We take the Pragmatic Dharma movement 1st Axiom — Vertical Transcendence: Consciousness work oriented toward supra-personal experience, Nibbana, cessation - explicitly vertical. Caveat being a focus on “emptiness”, and a lack of consideration for the “Infinite”, “Absolute” side of the coin. Score: 3/5 2nd Axiom — Hierarchical Ontology: Theravada maps: Mind & Body, Cause & Effect, Three Characteristics, A&P, Dark Night, Equanimity, Four Path Model - RIGOROUS hierarchy. Score: 5/5 3rd Axiom — Praxis/Ascesis: Serious, ometimes absurdly rigorous. However, solitary practice is in most cases prone to procrastination and a falling back in unconscious tendencies, off the path. Score: 3/5 4th Axiom — Lineage and Transmission: Traditional Dharmic Doctrine provided in a Western context. Mahasi Sayadaw tradition, legitimate Theravada transmission, etc, just informal presentation. Score: 3/5 5th Axiom — Gnosis(Participatory Epistemology): Direct phenomenological investigation as fundamental to Dharmic doctrine. Score: 5/5 Final score on 5 levels of analysis: 3+5+3+3+5 = 19/25 x 4 = 76%. This places the Pragmatic Dharma in the upper levels of the second tier of classification: Esoteric Heterodoxy/Semi-Initiatic Currents(Redeemable movements). As can be seen, the framework is still far from rigorous, but we believe is still strong enough to effectively pressure-test spiritual doctrines and separate wheat from chaff in our current 21st century, Postmodern, globalized spiritual landscape.

It’s really not that simple, man. People aren’t having fewer kids because they “forgot” how to repopulate — it’s because of a whole web of socioeconomic and cultural factors: the cost of living, housing prices, women entering the workforce, declining religious influence, delayed marriage, and overall lifestyle expectations in modern economies. You can’t just say, “we’ll repopulate like we used to.” Society has completely changed. Families today can barely afford one child, let alone three or four. And what exactly would “repopulating” even look like in policy terms? Are we talking forced monogamy? Government-mandated births? Financial incentives so big they tank the economy? That’s the thing — you can’t just will a demographic recovery into existence. Western birth rates have been below replacement for decades despite multiple government programs trying to reverse it (tax breaks, parental leave, childcare benefits, etc.). It’s not a moral issue — it’s structural. So immigration isn’t some conspiracy to “replace” people — it’s literally how modern economies stay afloat when the native population is shrinking. It’s not ideal or utopian, but it’s pragmatic.

I get where you’re coming from, but you’ve gotta look at this in historical context — especially the global political shifts after WWII. Key things to research are globalism, free markets, liberal democracy, and how they emerged in the mid-20th century. It’s not that our political leaders are sitting in a room plotting to “dissolve our culture.” Sure, you’ll always find a small group of ideological activists — usually in academia or social movements — who use extreme rhetoric like “abolish whiteness” or “down with patriarchy.” But the idea that this minority somehow represents most Western politicians is just paranoia pushed by certain right-wing circles. It doesn’t match reality. And to be fair, the progressive side isn’t entirely wrong either. It’s easy to forget that racial segregation in the U.S. ended only about 60 years ago. We’ve only recently become a racially egalitarian society, and no reasonable person wants to roll that back. It’s not about “moral dogma” — it’s just common sense. The broader shift toward globalization and multiculturalism has been happening for decades. It wasn’t started by “woke” activists or some shadowy cabal — it was largely a geopolitical response to the devastation of two world wars. Nationalism had just plunged the world into chaos twice, so international cooperation and integration seemed like the only sane path forward. That’s why we saw the rise of organizations like the UN, NATO, the EU, and global trade systems. The underlying idea was that interconnected economies and multicultural societies would make another world war less likely. It was a utopian dream, maybe naïve in parts, but not an evil conspiracy. So no — politicians today aren’t trying to erase Western culture. They’ve just inherited a system built on the post-war ideal of global peace and integration. Whether that ideal still works in today’s world is a valid debate — but saying it’s “proof of a great replacement” is a massive oversimplification of what’s really going on.

The mistake is in falsely assuming that this is some kind of organized effort to undermine *your* tribe and *your* culture, by some sort of evil globalist elite attempting to tear everything down. Like, chill bro, Klaus Schwab ain’t trying to erase white people from existence. This document from the UN doesn’t support the “Great Replacement” theory; if anything, it undermines it. It shows you that western politicians are, yes, trying to bring in more people from the four corners of the world, but not with some sort of nefarious purpose in mind, but for very straightforward socio-economic reasons. There are very real statistics on fertility rates among native white westerners, and there have been for decades now; our populations in developed occidental countries have been shrinking for various(not intentional cause, that would be impossible) reasons for a while and politicians are trying to bring in more people to fill the gap. Do you know why a smaller population is bad? Plenty of reasons; shrinking labor force which weakens the economy, shrinking tax base, high dependency ratio of retiree workers(toll on social funds and resources), smaller military etc. Life’s already hard and complicated enough as individuals, do you really think some group of “elites” has the time and energy to dedicate to…what? Tearing down civilization? There are a bunch of rational, data based, reality based concerns for why to bring in large numbers of immigrants. Your conspiracy theories just pull a veil in front of your eyes and drown you in fantasy. Your politicians(as flawed as they are) aren’t trying to destroy civilization or social engineer anything man. Chill

The so-called “Great Replacement” is less a geopolitical reality than a psychological projection I think the Great Replacement is a theory born out of a primal, biological impulse to be defensive and paranoid about the survival and perpetuation of one’s tribe or familiar in-group. We live in a globalized world, but we still carry the same set of instincts that our Paleolithic ancestors possessed. So we tend to operate on very primal, instinctive grounds — and then backwards-rationalize our irrational emotions through theories, mental constructs, and ideologies. What’s really fueling this “Great Replacement” idea is a kind of fundamental animal paranoia. It comes from a deep sense of being threatened, from fear and insecurity. You also have to factor in personality types — some people are simply more “neurotic,” more prone to fear and distrust than others. This overlaps with the well-documented personality differences between conservatives and progressives: conservatives generally have higher threat sensitivity and lower openness, which explains why this theory circulates almost exclusively in right-wing circles. So, psychologically speaking, the Great Replacement is a paranoia-fueled mental construct, behind which sits a very primal fear as its source. Now, sure — the world is changing. Cultures, rigid national borders, and fixed identities are dissolving. Everyone’s mixing together, and yes, that means your idealized white nationalist Christian state is disappearing. But… so what? Are the “evil Muslims” going to impose Sharia law? Are we going to devolve into third-world chaos because we imported all those uncivilized monkeys from the four corners of the globe? Those fears are baseless, irrational, and grounded in raw emotion, not fact. So no, there’s no “great replacement.” It’s all just a collective ego backlash. Sit back, watch it all unfold. It’s just another distraction.

Yea, solid too; that’s the difference between uncritically adopted beliefs and actual understanding. Spirituality isn’t about blind belief, fundamentalist faith, or dogma. It’s about experience(Participatory Epistemology/Gnosis) and understanding for yourself.

And Yes, that’s exactly what I refer to as the 5th Pillar: Gnosis, or Participatory Epistemology — a mode of knowing that’s direct, experiential, and unmediated by ideology, intellect, or conceptual filters. So the primacy of direct experience is indeed a core principle of the framework. And I fully agree regarding the deconstruction of self and identity: traditions that reinforce the “lower self” or serve personal survival agendas, rather than orienting toward awakening and transcendence, are seen as distortions or inversions of genuine spirituality within the system I presented.

Hey, totally fair point — and I actually agree that truth can be found across a wide variety of spiritual paths. The framework I laid out isn’t about dogmatically excluding anything or “canonizing” certain paths over others, but about discerning degrees of depth and alignment with universal metaphysical principles. It’s not a theological list of “approved” beliefs, but more of a meta-evaluative tool — a way to tell the difference between forms of spirituality that genuinely orient consciousness toward transcendence, and those that get stuck in ego, psychism, or horizontal materialism. So it’s about quality of alignment, not sectarian boundaries. It’s meant to bring nuance and structure to an otherwise chaotic spiritual landscape — not to shut anyone out of it. And also, there’s a key distinction between a teaching containing nuggets of truth and it constituting a coherent initiatory system. Many movements express fragments of higher principles, but few actually structure those truths into a path aligned with transcendence, discipline, and realization, and many (if not most) contain subtle corruptions and fundamental mistakes that can and do lead seekers astray. My framework is about promoting discernment in this vast sea of spiritual paths, and promoting rigorous but flexible standards for evaluating them — not denying truth wherever it appears or create rigid, dogmatic distinctions.

Amazing, glad to hear it. Hope it can be helpful on your path. (Thanks for engaging with the content, it’s pretty heavy and nerdy)

That’s a big one. Spirituality is exceedingly used for escapism, “LARPing”, bypassing, ego-inflation etc. It becomes another trick of the ego-mind to perpetuate and reinforce itself, feeding into defense mechanisms instead of dissolving them. It becomes another tool of survival as Gura himself as pointed out. That’s a massive insight. Genuine spirituality vs fantasy.

The framework outlined above is not a map of spiritual progress; it is not a path in itself, rather, it is a meta-framework meant to evaluate the validity of spiritual paths in general, so it seems your answer is simply out of context yet again. Again, it just seems like you haven’t read any of it, which just feels disrespectful. But this Neo-Advaita, anti-intellectual, “hippie” approach to spirituality is exactly what this framework warns against. If you wanna make a case against it by engaging with the actual content, please do so. Otherwise, you’re not adding to this conversation.

Yea, classic clinical narcissism. Very prevalent in “spiritual” circles. selfishness vs selflessness 🔑

Yes this is key. That’s the whole problem with dogmatic, ideological forms of spirituality(e.g. Fundamentalist religion). Uncritical engagement based in blind, passionate conviction. This is a distraction from the actual path, not to mention the bullshit and evils that derive from it.

This is off subject; it doesn’t answer the original premise. It’s not even operating in the same context. What’s more, this sort of opinion is exactly the kind of Postmodern, relativistic, democratized, egalitarian, “everything goes” approach to spirituality that the framework criticizes. I’ll just assume that you didn’t read it. This approach is fine if you’re a weed smoking hippie with a surface level engagement in spirituality and a focus on carefree hedonism(nothing wrong with that per se), but it won’t help people who’ve actually had some legitimate spiritual insights but were left in some obscure, uncomfortable liminal position on the path with no knowledge of how to advance further(which happens a lot on the path, and in our current cultural context, people are left alone in such positions, without bearings or legitimate lineages/frameworks to lean on). This “everything goes” approach has nothing to do with actual spirituality. It’s the antithesis of actual Initiation. People need to make that distinction.

Furthermore, here are some key questions to distinguish Real vs Fake forms of spirituality to go along with this framework: Fundamental questions of spiritual discernment The following are fundamental questions meant to evaluate the validity of spiritual groups/mouvements/traditions 1-What is its ultimate aim — and is that aim truly Transcendent/Vertical Does the movement direct consciousness beyond the human and the contingent toward the Absolute, or does it merely circle within the horizontal domain of psychological, social, or material betterment? Criterion: The higher the aim, the more vertical the orientation. 2-What conception of Reality(or the Absolute) does it affirm — and is this conception metaphysically coherent and living? Is Reality understood as a hierarchical, ordered whole with a transcendent Source, or as a flattened field of relativistic experience? Criterion: Authentic paths acknowledge an ontological axis of ascent and return. 3-What is its anthropology — what does it believe Man is, and what Man can become? Does it recognize a spiritual principle (Self, Spirit, Nous, Atman, Ruach, etc.) latent in man that can be realized, or does it reduce the human being to psyche, emotion, or biology? Criterion: The higher the view of man’s nature, the more initiatic the path. 4-By what means does it propose transformation — and are those means ascetic, disciplined, and integrated? Is there a real praxis that reshapes being (meditation, ritual, prayer, contemplation, virtue), or only emotional stimulation, intellectual speculation, or spontaneous enthusiasm? Criterion: Real transformation demands sustained, structured practice. 5-Does it transmit a living knowledge — a Gnosis — or merely information, belief, and ideology? Does it initiate into direct participation in the Real, or does it merely offer doctrines to believe and techniques and paraphernalia to consume? Criterion: Authentic knowledge transforms the knower; it is participatory, not merely conceptual. 6-What are its fruits — ethical, existential, and noetic? Does prolonged engagement produce humility, clarity, virtue, detachment, and wisdom, or inflation, fanaticism, and self-importance? Does it make a distinction between mere psychic transmutation/well-being and Noetic realization? Criterion: The fruits of the spirit reveal the authenticity of the root. 7-How does it understand hierarchy and authority? Does it affirm the reality of gradations in realization, or does it dissolve all distinction under a false egalitarianism? Criterion: Recognition of authentic hierarchy reflects metaphysical realism. 8-What is its relationship to Truth — is it absolute yet inclusive, or relative and sentimental? Does it hold that Truth exists and can be known (however ineffably), or does it treat all beliefs as equal, subjective, or symbolic only? Criterion: True paths bow before Truth, not convenience. 9-Does it reconcile transcendence and immanence — or collapse one into the other? Does it perceive the Absolute as both beyond and within, maintaining polarity and mystery, or does it deny transcendence (humanism) or deny immanence (escapism)? Criterion: Wholeness without flattening is the mark of metaphysical maturity. To conclude, brief description of Metamodern Traditionalism: The term Metamodern Traditionalism emerges out of a perceived necessity to reconcile the metaphysical depth of the Traditionalist school (as articulated by figures such as René Guénon and Julius Evola) with the epistemological and cultural insights of modernity, postmodernity, and their integral successors. While the Traditionalists correctly identified the metaphysical impoverishment and desacralization inherent in modern life, their critique was frequently bound to a regressive nostalgia for premodern social forms and a cyclical conception of history that obscured the evolutionary and dialectical unfolding of Spirit. In this sense, they fell prey to what Ken Wilber has identified as the pre/trans fallacy: the confusion of pre-rational modes of consciousness with trans-rational modes, resulting in a romanticization of archaic forms rather than a genuine integration of higher ones. Metamodern Traditionalism seeks to redeem and refine the Traditionalist project by situating it within a broader, integrative framework of cultural development. It affirms the ontological primacy of metaphysical first principles and the hierarchical structure of Being, but it rejects the exclusionary stance toward modern and postmodern sensibilities characteristic of earlier Traditionalists. Instead, it endeavors to operate at what integral theory terms a “second-tier” level of cognitive complexity, one that can hold and integrate multiple paradigms without collapsing into relativism or dogmatism. This involves embracing the scientific rigor and instrumental rationality of modernity, the deconstructive and pluralistic insights of postmodernity, and the emerging metamodern ethos of oscillation between sincerity and irony, hope and critique—while simultaneously recovering the participatory, “enchanted” sensibility of the premodern world. At its core, Metamodern Traditionalism is a project of redemptive synthesis. It affirms that modernity, despite its evident alienations, constitutes a necessary phase in the dialectical and evolutionary self-unfolding of Spirit. History is not to be understood as a simple degeneration from an original Golden Age, but rather as a fractal movement of division and higher reunification, in which Spirit comes to know itself through increasingly complex and self-reflexive forms. From this perspective, the metaphysical insights of the Traditionalists can be preserved and deepened without collapsing into regressive archaism. The task is not to retreat from modernity or postmodernity, but to integrate their partial truths into a more comprehensive cosmology—one that re-enchants the world while preserving the gains of scientific rationality, reflexive subjectivity, and cultural pluralism. Thus, Metamodern Traditionalism positions itself as both heir and corrective to the Traditionalist school. It retains the metaphysical absolutism of Tradition while rejecting its historical fatalism, affirming instead a Hegelian dialectical progression of Spirit. It seeks to offer a framework capable of reconciling perennial metaphysics with contemporary complexity, not by reducing one to the other, but by weaving them into a higher synthesis. Its aim is not merely critique, but the construction of a worldview adequate to the full spectrum of human cultural sensibilities—from premodern to metamodern—thereby opening the possibility of a renewed spiritual order commensurate with the challenges of our time.

This post if for people who go deep into the woo-woo aspects spirituality too early without having a proper foundation in the first place. The photo linked below is a map that precisely traces the path of many people in spiritual communities. Below is my brief breakdown of the map. https://share.icloud.com/photos/0c9-5VZahEzKUcuLVuG2Wwjiw The foundation of our whole lives is built in the first 10 years of your lives. What you project on your parent figures and how they modeled survival to you is going the determine in profound ways how you are going to adapt and relate(survive) to the world later on. If your parents were pathological your degree of pathology will likely be similar to theirs and you will have to work through the karma they passed unto you before you can even hope to reach higher paradigms of development. Many suffering people have early awakenings but then try to bypass the lower levels of development(social skills, money, social status, dating etc) on their path which is a terrible mistake. The map linked above is the archetypal depiction of the journey of most of these poor souls. First you have the childhood stage of development where you project yourself unto your parents and through your relat-ionship(relating!) with them you learn how to relate to yourself and to the world and thus the ways in which you are going to preserve your individuality which is the primary mission of the body-mind complex(survival). There’s a continuum of attachment; on one side you have totally insecure attachment and on the other side you have perfectly secure attachment. Insecure attachment could also be called maladaptive relating aka relating to the world in a way that is not conducive to the highest expression of your being. The energy(libido, in jungian terms) that wouldve been supposed to go into authentic self expression, with the insecurely attached individual, is being mobilized(contracted in various patterns of frequencies that create different but archetypal pathologies in different individuals like “nice guy syndrome”, narcissism, anxiety disorders, depression, social anxiety etc) to protect yourself from expected threats in your environment; and the expected threats are always projected(through the anima or relating function that your parents shaped through projection and reflection) based upon the abuse(physical, psychological etc) that you suffered in your environment growing up. So the mind body-complex, living in the past, projects the anticipation of a potential threat in the environment because of learned survival patterns of behavior. And because “as within so without” the projection creates a self fulfilling prophecy in the form of a traumatizing and negative outcome and that’s how you loop on trauma and karma. Think of your environment as the mold and yourself as the cake. Whatever shape the mold was, is the way you become. Because, before becoming an actual cake(individual) you are an abstract set of potential outcomes that is unactualized, and the way into which you shape yourself is dependent upon the energetic dynamics that you swim into in early phases of development. You only manifest from potential into actuality through your early environment. That’s how you create your reality. The more pathological and low consciousness your parents psyches were the more you are going to be pathological yourself. And there are archetypal patterns playing out that will create different outcomes. Certain patterns of behaviors(archetypes) exhibited by parents repeatedly and predictively create the same patterns and personalities in different individuals because the material world is finite so there is a finite number of possibilities of surviving which means that there is recognizable patterns that are born through different types of parent-child relationships. Here’s a few parent child pathological dynamics that we can see recurring through time: Over-protective(dark) mother, Absent(cold) mother, manipulative/shaming mother(often overprotective and shaming goes hand in hand shaming used as coercive tool to control). Insecure/weak/passive Father, absent father/ abusive father. This first stage of development in this model, is called, the Freudian stage because it deals with early adaptation and the way in which you learn to relate to the world. How you relate corresponds in part to how you express your instincts. Remember, as within so without, whatever relationship you have with yourself internally will be mirrored externally through behavior. And what are the primary influences through which you learn to develop a relationship(relate) with yourself? Your parents. As much as, As within so Without, we could say that, “as your parents so the world”. Pathological relationship to father(archetypal masculine) figure could mean, maladaptive relationship to authority, fear of confrontation, inability to set boundaries, insecurity, hatred problems, feeling weak, dark intimidating world(world is dangerous) etc. Pathological relationship to mother could mean self-hate, Shame, despair, chronic melancholia(anima moods in jungian terms), addiction(protector part trying to soothe despair in IFS terms), maladaptive relating to woman etc.(if you are a woman slightly different but in the end similar patterns it’s just that it’s the animus not anima). So again this is extremely broad because that’s a general assessment and not a targeted analysis of a specific individual and there’s sooo many mixes of patterns possible that they can’t all be listed here. But in synthesis the first stage of development namely the Freudian stage dictates the way in which you learn to relate to life inside and outside and depending on your parents shadows, complexes and traumas you will be shaped accordingly to these patterns. If you developed secure attachment much work won’t need to be done but for the smaller percentage of sick and suffering people work will need to be done and the amount of work necessary will be directly in correlation to the amount of trauma and in the end all that trauma is, is fragmentation or, the degree to which you’ve been misdirected(sin, miss the mark, devil etc) from your authentic self expression. The second stage is the Adlerian stage of development. Freud was more interested in primal instinctive drives but Adler was more focused on social relating and how to find meaning purpose and all that self development stuff. Accordingly the next stage is called the Jungian because of his inclination towards the shmystical airy fairy woowoo etc. So the map goes like this; first Freud which I outlined briefly but deeply, then Adler aka first theres the initial environment of the family and after that there’s the broader world that opens itself up to the grown up kid(teenager). So because of the earlier childhood pathologies and inferiority or superiority complex will have been developed in the individual and with it, a maladaptation to instincts and thus a maladaptive relationship to the outside world and thus a wound to the fundamental desire to experience life fully and express yourself as yourself in the world. A wound to social adaptation because of the underlying instinctive frustration coming from a misalignment with the true self, misalignment which is kept alive by parental complexes. ➡️Following this relative or total failure to adapt socially there’s a following depression and loss of meaning that can either be fairly bearable or a complete mental breakdown ➡️Following this there’s an intuitively driven need to compensate for this lack of meaning. The root cause(namely, disconnection from self) not yet being understood, a number of compensatory behaviors and interests will arise in consciousness in the forms of addiction, identity politics, internet gurus, pop psychology, Nietzsche, armchair neurotic pseudo-philosophy, psychedelics, no-fap, fear of the collective shadow(because of projection of inner darkness into the mysterious collective; often this takes the form of conspiracy theories), delusion, using ideas to inflate ego to compensate for feeling inadequate, schizoid traits etc. ➡️ After this follows a personal crisis sometimes caused by the use of psychedelics and sometimes, signs of mental illness as a sign from the unconscious that enough is enough and that it is time for true healing and self expression… Then naturally follows the 3rd stage, namely the Jungian stage. Following the personal crisis generally comes a katabasis(descent into hell/Hades aka the unconscious). Throught this descent in the unconscious, the traveler discovers the existence of what was previously hidden from him; monsters, shadows, demons, complexes, traumas, painful truths etc. Overall it is a life changing experience that forces one to realign to the new context provided by his new discoveries. This accute awareness of all his inadequacies forces him to make a radical change, namely to dissolve the rotted foundations of his traumatized psyche through the power of redemptive love and coagulate(solve y coagula:)) the pure elements left after the dissolution into a new, refined form. But to do this he must spend some time traveling into the depths of Hades, exploring the underworld(the lower part of his psyche in Psychosynthesis) in order to develop a thorough understanding of who he is, why he became who he is, the patterns of energy and influences that molded him etc. After having developed a total understanding of his personal self there gradually develops an awareness(through visions, dreams, intuitions) of his true self outside the ripple of trauma patterns that shaped his old self. In this process, because of an understanding of the Freudian and Adlerian pathologies at work in his psyche, he discovers Freud and Adler to be presursors to Jung. He also realizes that no amount of meditation, philosophy or psychedelics will do anything about this situation and it is only in the real world that he’s gonna be able to truly self actualize into the authentic radiant being that he is at the core of his being. The next step of his journey after having been throught this dark night of the soul into hades is to consciously connect with the Anabasis(ascent) process. He can only ascend after having developed a perfect understanding of himself thorough and thorough and an awareness of his true self. Having done that the ascent will consist in dissolving(through awareness/love) the inauthentic parts of himself and coagulating into a coherent harmonious whole the authentic parts of himself. This is the process of self actualization and individuation. This is TRUE self help, not nofap cold showers gym bullshit ➡️Through anabasis comes the uncovering of the authentic personal myth with full engagement. The process of attaining authentic self expression, which the psyche yearns for naturally, is sped up through conscious participation into the whole process until individuation is attained. Alongside this process, many people will want to have a lot of sex, make a bunch of money, build a network, travel the world etc in order to burn through karma and fulfill desires they didn’t have the chance to fulfill while lost in an unconscious existence possessed by their parental and cultural influences. And this, my friends, is truly burning thought karma in the most fundamental sense. The exhaustion of the individual ego through complete maturation of it. And through the process, sucking the world dry before transcending it.

I saw @Leo Gura’s blog post about the YouTube channel “whatifalthist”, and since I think it raises crucial issues at many levels, I thought a more extensive conversation on the subject was necessary. First of all, taking into consideration the spiritual insights that he brings to the table, to simply dismiss him as a blue stage reactionary seems like an oversimplification. Sure, his videos are to a certain degree corrupted by a stream of stereotypical and immature right wing ideology but I think this is fundamentally rooted in the complete failure of the modern political zeitgeist, based on leftist politics, to bring any sort of higher order meaning to the collective. Meaning that you don’t have to be a radical conservative ideologue to be dissatisfied with the modern leftist discourse; over the years, we have seen people who identified with the left wing such as Joe Rogan(who, as he stated himself, would’ve been a Bernie Sanders voter a few years back) and Russel Brand suddenly shift poles in terms of their political identification. This, in my estimation, is a sort of Hegelian dynamic, the dialect between the political left and right forming a sort of pendulum where extremes are compensated by antithetical motions of the pendulum swinging in opposite directions and balancing out the collective dynamic. The ideologies of the left went too far and a natural systemic compensation arose, leading masses of people to start leaning on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Therefore, I think that Rudyard is less of a radical right wing ideologue(although he might advertise some radical ideas to pander to a certain audience) but simply another individual who’s dissatisfied with the hollow and spiritually emtpy doctrine of the modern left. Peterson is right to say that old institutions falling away and the West losing its identity and tradition laid the ground for the dissolution of collective identity, meaning and fundamental orientation in the world. And this is a problem that the left simply hasn’t solved. Now, it is a very difficult problem to solve and one I do not think figures such as Peterson are capable of solving, but I do believe that, if listened to closely, thinkers such as whatifalthist might bring something closer to a meaningful answer. My critique of Leo’s commentary on him is that it is overly simplistic. Again, to dismiss Rudyard as a blue reactionary is just too easy. How would you explain the spiritual insights he clearly has? A high level of waking up but a low level of growing up? Perhaps, but in one of his videos(linked below), he mentions Ken Wilber and integral theory, showing an understanding of the developmental nature of consciousness development. Leo himself once said that Lower levels are not aware of the spiral. He might present blue stage ideas yet, he’s still aware of the spiral. How do you explain that? See, Leo always wants to remind people of the complexity of reality, but oftentimes he himself seems to overlook it and oversimplify his arguments especially when it fits his own political biases. Leo often touches on politics, always from a left leaning perspective but he never seems to bring a higher paradigm than the modern left to the discourse. Yes, I’ve watched his videos on conscious politics and am aware of his propositions on world government and a conscious society, yet he rarely speaks from this perspective in the rest of his political opinions. He doesn’t seem to address major problems with the modern left such as the pervasive lack of meaning that it’s paradigm induced in society and too easily dismisses the commentaries of figures such as Peterson(which is not your average conservative or fundamentalist). Also, Leo is a left leaning political thinker, which is fundamentally a relativistic paradigm which offers no higher order solution to the chaos of modernity. Yet, he’s also aware of fundamental spiritual principles underlying the structure reality and by extension, human existence, yet he rarely mentions the role of these principles as far as politics and government goes. A relativistic society is simply not compatible with an awareness of these higher principles. In conclusion, here’s a whatifalthist video that’s pretty solid(although admittedly somewhat corrupted by a certain level of modern day right wing ideology): Watch this video and tell me he’s just another blue level thinker. You simply cannot do that, this is a gross oversimplification. He brings solid point there and even though I might disagree with the use of the term “right” in this context, to conceptualize of a society that honours timeless transcendent principles and traditional moral values in the purpose of reestablishing meaning and order seems to be a hell of a lot better than what we have now as a society and culture. Yes, your spirituality can be tainted by right or left wing biases, but it’s still higher in paradigm than the modern secular left.

Ok well then I have a simple question for you: How do you reconcile the so called blue traditionalist perspective of transcendent principles and fundamental moral order with the turquoise conception of timeless universal principles. Of course, blue morality is generally rigid, dogmatic and made up of bullshit platitudes we don’t wanna hear anymore, BUT how do you explain someone like whatifalthist having genuine awareness of fundamental spiritual truths and being at a blue center of gravity? We’re not talking about a simple blue stage morality here, it’s more complex than that, how do you explain this complexity? Cuz the morality he’s proposing is not simply some blue stage rhetoric, it’s much deeper than that and I don’t know how to reconcile that with turquoise teachings. So how do you? And btw, Peterson was critical of Trump back when it didn’t grease his pockets to praise him, so no, he’s not fundamentally a Trump apologist, he became one when it served his interests.

Hey @Leo Gura, I would want your personal opinion on the WEF. Most of what I see online are right wing capitalists and conservative propagandists blindly reacting to the idea of “globalization” and demonizing this organization. So I wanted a non biased alternative perspective on them and thus came here From what I see from them they seem to be at a green/emergent yellow perspective. They seem to be high up on the spiral and seem to embody the healthy aspects of green. Just like in an individual’s psyche, the disparate parts must come together(through Love) to form a coherent whole, do you think the WEF and their plans of globalization are the doorway towards a greater global unity and a reaching up collectively on the spiral? I heard you speak about the conscious future of humanity being a unified one world government, and the WEF might be a doorway towards this happening. We know what happened in the 20th century with ideologies promoting the dissolution of boundaries(communism) for the greater good, which is representative of the shadow of green, it’s toxic aspect. Could the WEF be the healthy green going into yellow the collective was waiting for, and the prerequisite for a future global turquoise government? Where do you stand on all of this

I remember hearing Leo say that Jordan Peterson might be a stage yellow thinker with a green shadow. I did get the gist of what that meant but without any specific insight into the psyche of Peterson. It’s easy to see that it is the case that he has such a shadow because of his emotional reactions and anger when talking about his postmodern neo-Marxist nightmare but it is another thing to have actual insight into the mechanics of such a shadow. A channel named “The living philosophy” made a video about Peterson that, in 25 minutes, gives you much more information on what’s wrong with J.P than @Leo Gura’s video could in 2+ hours. It is a masterpiece diving in Peterso’s shadow: Did you know that J.P was in a socialist group while in college and that he upheld utopian ideals for society, most likely the kind of ideals he now is a fierce critique of? I also remember him talking with his daughter on a podcast saying how in the same period of his life(college) he had multiple failed relationships. He identified the cause of these failures as his tendency to put his girlfriends on a pedestal. He also has been very opened about his struggles with alcohol, major depression and a lack of order in his life in his early twenties. So what does this tell us about him? We all know the stereotype of the passive, weak, liberal nice guy who upholds such ideas as socialism, feminism etc and who bends over backwards to please females in an effort to be validated. Well it seems like Jordan Peterson in college was exactly this type of guy and that, through a certain psychological process, he became the opposite(through Enantiodromia) of what he was to a certain degree and made a shadow of his past self. So Peterson, appearing as a disciplinarian, capitalist conservative is actually a soft, socialist liberal. In fact, deep down, he’s the very thing he’s fighting. That’s why he straw men’s the progressive type; he couldn’t do otherwise, as he sees his own shadow, his own self projected out of him. When he sees the liberal sjw’s, he is really seeing himself in them, and reacting to them not objectively as they are, but reacting to the contents of his own mind projected outward of himself and onto his environment. If you watch the video, notice how he frames Foucault as a suicidal outcast using his very high IQ to impose his pathological postmodern ideology on others. Well, as stated above, J.P himself has been open about his struggles with severe depression and about the desire that arises to use one’s intellect to acquire power(talking about having to face this temptation himself). He’s a very intellectual type so we can imagine he also was a nerd type of guy, maybe making him an outcast to a certain degree. So when you see him talk about Foucault in the video, replace the name “Foucault”, with “Peterson”, as if he was talking in third person. It’ll make more sense and you’ll see how he’s ultimately talking about himself. So yeah, huge green shadow. It’s sad, he could’ve been such an apex level intellectual without his issues, biases and shadows, yet in the end they held him back from unfolding his true potential. And if you listen to J.P too much and without this context, your mind is gonna be infected by his shadows and pathology, a trap too many have fallen into. Don’t fall into the Peterson trap.

I am sure most of you here are aware of Plato’s allegory of the cave and the shadows on the wall; representative of a state of absorption into illusion and a disconnection from truth, the real world, represented by the sun rays shining in the cavern. Too often, people in communities such as this one become infatuated with big, inflated ideas communicated by charismatic gurus and such figures. They unconsciously absorb worldviews and their whole perspective of reality become filtered through such worldviews, to the point where they encase themselves in a bubble of theories and concepts. They even adopt such ideas as dogma, parroting buzz words and catch phrases they learned from a certain figure, without truly being conscious of who they are as individuals and where they stand. They get absorbed by these ideas, and through such process, become prisoners of a cave, infatuated with shadows on a cave wall, disconnected from the real world and the materiality of things. To live infatuated with external figures and fancy ideas is to be a prisoner, and I suspect that it is the case of many individuals here. Many times, engagement with intellectual subjects is used as a compensation for a lack of ability to properly engage with the world. One thus becomes hyper intellectual as a way of compensating for their failure to properly adapt to the demands of life and allow their egos to become inflated by the highfalutin ideas they engage with, believing themselves to be superior or different from the rest of their human peers. The content that @Leo Gura shares online, as much as I myself like it, is especially dangerous for that kind of projection to happen. It can easily trap individuals into a conceptual world where they feel elevated and superior, while remaining stuck in a cave of conceptual thinking and lack of proper adaptation to actual reality. The ideas that Leo shares act as perfect psychic containers of projections by individuals who start identifying with such ideas. Also, it is important to note that whatever pathology a given guru exhibits, will be transferred unto and picked up by whoever follows such guru, because an identification with a given figure leads to psychological transference of both good and bad aspects of such figure. And we have already seen Leo in the past become highly inflated himself, reaching a point of arrogance that borders on delusion. I acknowledge that he has become aware of it and grew in wisdom throughout the years which is honourable, but the point still remains that being exposed to such content can easily lead maladapted and hyper intellectual individuals into further delusion. Leo’s ideas are exactly the kind that leads to such happening, and I haven’t seen him address this enough. I am not one of those people who will call Leo a cult leader, I am well aware of his work and respects it very much. I know that he has warned his followers throughout the years about certain dangers that I have outlined here but I just think he has failed to PROPERLY and thoroughly address this danger which I believe affects more people here than he may think. That is why below are two videos from depth psychologists speaking about the very same dangers I’ve outlined but with the ideas of Carl Jung. But you could replace “Carl Jung” by “Leo Gura” or any other guru/teacher for that matter:

I get what you’re saying and it is true, most people do live in a cave of some sort. But I wasn’t referring to those people. Notice how people who are ideological and dogmatic can also be properly adapted to physical reality and relate properly to the external world. I was specifically referring to a process by which a socially maladapted individual becomes absorbed by inflationary ideas(ideas that lead to inflation of ego) leading him to lock himself in a conceptual world, remaining stuck in his fantasies while his physical life remains unactualized. Leo speaks about such people. The people who listen to him and his big ideas and concepts while not having any kind of real world success and experience. But from a psychological perspective this issue goes way deeper than I’ve seen him address. It can create serious neurosis to be maladapted to physical reality while engaging with such ideas. And Leo Gura’s ideas are among the most inflationary you could possibly come accross so I wanted to highlight the danger for some people. Hence the videos that I linked, to help individuals in such a situation get out of it.

Also this video outlines the process of many individuals who engage with inflationary ideas in such a way:

The following is a short text I came up with on sociological entropy. The concepts I had in mind when I first wrote it were emergent phenomena like crimes rates, different ideological currents overtaking certain societies, the rise and fall of different businesses, corporations, public figures(healthy or toxic) and how their level on the spiral dynamics scale of consciousness is a reflection of the state of the broader collective etc. We see a lot of “green” and even healthy, well meaning, orange and blue people trying to tackle these issues but it always end up being some sort of radical solution or ideological war never going to the root cause of the problem. So here’s a brief summary of how society can get to the bottom of such issues(in the end, only higher levels of consciousness will do it): “From a sociological perspective, we’re only the victims of entropy induced emergent phenomena when we do not have sufficient understanding and awareness of the broader patterns giving rise to said phenomena. Whether at an individual(micro) scale or at a societal(macro) scale, developing an understanding of the patterns of non linear causation can help us break or prevent negative emergent phenomena and induce desired ones. Now obviously, every set of variables in any system can’t possibly be taken into consideration, so entropy, and therefore unwanted emergent phenomena will always occur, but the more we foster an understanding of fundamental natural patterns at different levels of existence the more we can limit the spread of “cancerous” or parasitic archetypal forces. The less conscious an invididual or a society is, the more of a victim it will be to the tides of unseen forces directing its course. The more conscious a system is on the other hand, the more it will be able to act in accordance with the fundamental laws governing the universe and to deliberately steer itself on a more optimal course of being or timeline/field configuration.”

Jesse Lee Peterson is a known political commentator. At first glance he is a clown to be laught at and not someone to be taken seriously. He’s a Christian but just like with most(especially conservative) religious individuals you would expect ideological dogma and pure idiocy but in a new interview that came out you actually can notice that he has some level of spiritual, metaphysical and psychological knowledge. Skip at 34:15 “Forgiveness will set you free”. I think he’s far from truly understanding what he’s saying and even further from actual integration but damn, such knowledge from someone that you would consider a right wing normie. Because what he says relating to forvgiveness of the mother, even though extremely simplified and crude, is very accurate from a psychological and spiritual perspective. It’s way deeper than how he communicates it but even then, he has some grasp of extremely deep concepts while apparently being not very conscious, extremely biased, homophobic etc. Do you,@Leo Gura have any explanation for how some normies having a baseline level of consciousness that is very low, can demonstrate such feats of abstract comprehension. I would’ve never expected such sauce to come out of this man’s mouth this has given me a pretty rough mind fuck. He even speaks about Gods energy being something that brings(even though not in these words) equanimity(which he basically calls peace). He speaks about how Gods energy transcends the neurotic up and downs of the ego and centres you in something more fundamental basically which gives you peace, or what is most commonly referred to in our circles as equanimity. This is extremely deep knowledge that someone like him SHOULD NOT be aware of in the least. What’s going on here?