What Are We Trying So Hard To “Cleanse” ?
I took a closer look at my desire for “spiritual purification.” Here’s what I discovered.
Back in 2021, I reexamined many aspects of my spirituality. This is part 3 in a series about old beliefs and practices that I decided to clarify and shift. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.
In Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach writes, “Those who feel plagued by not being good enough are often drawn to idealistic worldviews that offer the possibility of purifying and transcending a flawed nature.”
When I first read that sentence, I recognized myself.
“Spiritual purification” has been an obsession of mine for many years. I’ve written lots of blog posts and created lots of videos about it. I’ve literally written entire books about it. I’m talking about things like space clearing, aura cleansing, and purifying crystals and other objects with sunlight, sage, salt, and running water.
I still find value in these things. But I see them differently now.
Or, rather, I see myself differently. And the world.
Reading that sentence in Radical Acceptance – “Those who feel plagued by not being good enough are often drawn to idealistic worldviews that offer the possibility of purifying and transcending a flawed nature” – helped me realize that often, beneath my desire to purify, was the belief that I was toxic. And that the world was toxic. That there were scary spiritual cooties floating around that I needed to combat. Maybe even that there were bad or lonely spirits that wanted to attach to me and sap my energy. Those were sort of my unspoken, unexamined assumptions.
You don’t just leave a religion, it turns out. That religion stays with you. It shapes you.
Luckily, its power over you does appear to fade over time. But it takes a while.
In the article, Dr. David Ludden explains,
Early childhood is the formative period in which we learn our language and culture, and our personality and attitudes are largely shaped during this time as well. Even when we intentionally reject the religious teachings of our childhood, we’re still greatly influenced by [its] implicit attitudes…
As I’ve written about before, my childhood experience with religion led me to live in fear of satanic or demonic possession. (It didn’t help that I grew up in the 1980s, during what’s now known as the satanic panic.)
And, as you may know if you’ve followed my work, I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. So it’s not too difficult to see why I might have believed myself to be toxic, or why I would have been drawn to the idea of spiritual purification.
As I’ve also written about previously (last week and the week before), the pandemic inspired me to look more deeply and attentively at my spiritual beliefs and practices; to analyze and question them. But even before the pandemic, one day I was listening to an old Doreen Virtue meditation (yes, I still listened to her meditations every once in a while, even after she converted to Christianity), and I remember being somewhat taken aback when I heard these words:
Very often, psychic attack takes on an etheric form that looks like and feels like daggers, arrows, swords, and other instruments of attack. And as Michael magnetically lifts swords, arrows, daggers, and other instruments of attack out of your back, out of your shoulders, out of your neck, head, and other parts of your body, feel your muscles being refreshed.
At that point, it had been a while since I had heard a Doreen Virtue meditation, or since I had been in contact with her work at all. I was surprised to her her say that we may be psychically attacked with energetic weapons “very often,” to the point where we would need to regularly perform a meditation remove them. But then I looked back on all the times I listened to her radio show and remembered how frequently she mentioned things like “earthbound spirits” and the danger of them “attaching to your aura” so they could “drain your energy.”
Reflecting on this now, I can see that one reason I was drawn to Doreen’s work (and other teachings like it) was because it put words to what I was already afraid of – invisible spiritual toxins and spiritual attack – and gave me advice about how to protect myself from it.
And, if I’m honest, I think it helped! Over time, all that spiritual cleansing helped me to feel more powerful and less afraid. Perhaps, as I repeatedly visualized myself as spiritually clear, whole, and protected, I slowly began to believe myself to actually be that way.
Still, it would have been valuable if someone had said to me, early on, “When you engage in any kind of spiritual purification work, remember that you are not inherently toxic. Let purification (space clearing, aura cleansing, etc) be an act of self-compassion and self-care, rather than a way of trying to make yourself better, or or more worthy of love, or more deserving of wonderful things.”
Similarly, I remember judging myself if I got sick, or ran into hardship. I would think, “I must not have purified myself enough. My vibration must not be positive enough. Otherwise, why would this be happening to me?”
Again, that’s changed over the years. As I wrote about in this blog post, I now realize that was a form of victim blaming. Even though the victim I was blaming was myself.
So, why did the past year bring all of this into greater focus? Because QAnon.
The particular brand of confusion we call QAnon – which has unfortunately claimed so many new agers – has clearly demonstrated the problem with holding a worldview that includes an invisible spiritual battle between pure and impure, also known as good and evil.
While I like to think my personal obsession with purification did not veer into ableism, racism, or anti-semitism, this is not the case with the QAnon worldview. (Much of QAnon’s anti-vax, anti-mask rhetoric is ableist. As in, if you’ve eaten pure enough food and practiced pure enough spirituality, no virus can hurt you. And you need look no further than the Capitol insurrection to see the links between QAnon, racism, and anti-semitism.)
Like so many of you, I was initially shocked to learn of the QAnon/new age connection. But it turns out the new age has had this issue before.
In Occult America: White House Seances, Ouija Circles, Masons, and the Secret Mystic History of Our Nation, author Mitch Horowitz writes about a wildly popular article from 1928 called “Seven Minutes in Eternity,” written by author William Dudley Pelley about his reported near death experience, where he met
…the “Spiritual Mentors” who tutored him, as they would many times in the years ahead, on karma, reincarnation, and the realities of the afterlife.
…Revived by the “cool, steadying pressure of [the Mentors’] hands,” the nude Pelley was gently directed to bathe in a soothing marble pool. The magical waters seemed to remove his sense of nakedness, and he then strolled through the illuminated Roman porticos of the Higher Realm, where he encountered “saintly, attractive, magnetic folk…no misfits, no tense countenances, no sour leers, no preoccupied brusqueness or physical handicap.”
(Note that first, upon entering this rarified realm, he was spiritually purified. Then, he noticed that everyone he saw there fit his personal description of healthy and attractive.)
The article was a huge hit. Pelley popularized “the near death experience” and became a new age superstar. Soon, however, he leveraged his his metaphysical platform to become
one of the nation’s most notorious hate leaders: an avid admirer of Hitler, the organizer of America’s prototype Neo-Nazi order, a literary influence on the anti-semitism of poet Ezra Pound, and [still] a popular writer who reported receiving “hyper dimensional instruction” from “Spiritual Mentors.”
…By 1933, acting under “clairaudient” instructions from his cosmic Mentors, Pelley started the Silver Shirts, a paramilitary neo-Nazi order that served as a template for some of the worst hate groups of the twentieth century.
Still later in life, after serving time in prison for spreading conspiracy theories about the US government, Pelley created
a massive output of channeled writings from his higher messengers, which he called the Soulcraft teachings…[He] crafted an astral-Spiritualist religion based on cosmic messages from interstellar guides.
I was surprised to learn that Guy and Edna Ballard, founders of the I AM Temple (which helped popularize the ascended master Saint Germain and his purifying violet flame) were greatly inspired by William Dudley Pelley’s article. And, they saw their spiritual mission as intrinsically patriotic. According to the podcast Cults, they believed they were protecting the United States through their spiritual work.
I was also surprised to learn that the prolific new age author Elizabeth Clare Prophet – author of such books as How to Work with Angels and Violet Flame: Alchemy for Personal Change – spouted conspiracy theories that inspired extremist behavior. According to Mitch Horowitz, while she led the Church Universal and Triumphant in the 1980s, “church members dug an elaborate network of underground chambers near Yellowstone National Park, stockpiled weapons and provisions, and awaited American-Soviet nuclear armageddon.”
It was George Santayana who said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
I certainly didn’t remember that time a new age guru founded a seminal hate group.
I also didn’t remember that time a couple founded a new age church with a mission that included spiritually protecting the United States.
And I most definitely didn’t remember that time a new age author instructed her followers to stockpile weapons and hide underground to protect themselves from an imaginary threat.
And I know a lot of you didn’t either.
So QAnon showed up in our spiritual community and many of us were blindsided.
But now, while we probably don’t remember these QAnon foreshadows firsthand, at least we know about them. And we may even have a little insight into how they came to be.
Perhaps unhealed trauma, lending itself to an unexamined sense of toxicity and unworthiness, was at the root.
And perhaps the “religious residue” of the good versus evil paradigm was also playing a role.
So, moving forward, when we engage in spiritual purification work, I propose that we first remember that we are not inherently toxic.
Next, I suggest that we remind ourselves that the good verses evil paradigm (just another way of saying the pure verses impure paradigm) is not only overly simplistic, but it’s also divisive. It flows right into the us versus them paradigm: the vilification of the other.
Finally, I think it would be valuable to ask ourselves: what exactly are we purifying? Why are we doing this? What is the intention? If we want to reset our personal energy, or open up to a new way of being out of compassion and love for ourselves and the world, great. If you want to reset the energy of a crystal after you buy it at the store or use it in another ritual, fantastic. If you want to clear the energy in your home after you and your partner have a fight, or just to get energy moving in a positive direction, fabulous.
But if what you really want is to get the cooties out – to unconsciously strive to make yourself feel more worthy or deserving, to attempt to feel less inherently toxic, or to get rid of etheric arrows or knives that seem to attach to you “very often” – it’s time for some loving shadow work. Bring those underlying, disempowering perspectives out into the light of conscious awareness so you can dissolve them and build something new, more loving, and more true.
So in some cases, you’ll be incorporating another dynamic of cleansing: releasing the reasons you thought you needed cleansing in the first place.
***
I hope it’s clear that I’m writing this series of posts not because I suddenly dislike metaphysical spirituality and want to dismantle it, but because I care about it so very passionately. There actually is a baby in all that dirty bathwater, and I want to get it out of there.
Did this post resonate with you, or bring up any thoughts you’d like to share? I’d love for you to speak up in the comment section below.
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I posted earlier and have been fascinated reading the following comments. My Bachelor degree was in Psychology and because of that I still maintain contact with several psychology research sites.
Several years ago there was an hypothesis about what is called the “Mother Wound”. It was an interesting review and I followed it briefly. I had always had a strained relationship with my mother. I could never seem to please her. At one point she even told me about when she found out she was pregnant with me, she was forced to go back to my “father” which she hadn’t wanted to do. She had also abandoned her first husband and son.
Fast forward to 2020 and I suddenly find out that the man who raised me and I loved, wasn’t my father. My mother had an affair. Talk about getting hit in the face. I was angry, hurt and grieved.
Early this week another article showed up about further understanding regarding the “Mother Wound” and this time it brought a lot of clarity to my life. And now looking at this blog again in a different light I wonder if many of these folks are trying to find solace from a life that has been damaged by a mother that just wasn’t there for them (physically, mentally, emotionally) or was more focused on their needs and not their children. Are they trying to cleanse and purge so they can release something they aren’t even aware of? Are they clinging to crackpot theories or deranged spiritual leaders because they are still seeking what they didn’t get from their mothers. I don’t know, but it is an interesting thought when I look back to my life. Fortunately I had a strong “father” figure that gave me strength to face a lot of things without flinching. But I see some areas, where I too, felt I needed to cleanse without realizing why. I have released the anger and hate toward my mother. I have severed all karmic ties with her. And now my life is my own.
I’ve decided that whether something is deep or shallow, it’s all shallow unless I know what I want, have the clarity to conceptualize it, and actually have the will to carry out my desires.
Desires aren’t random. They are the part of me that that wants something. The part of me that’s honest.
The problem with a lot of people who seek gurus is that they decided that wanting anything was evil, and so they decided to serve the arbitrary whims of someone else who actually does know themselves and what they want. Not that learning from someone else is bad. Its just that many people checked their brain at the door and assumed that someone else could be a saint so that they could be a mindless sinner or a victim.
To do good means being honest about the fact that desire is inescapable, and that certain Buddhist philosophies are deeply irresponsible to that fact.
Desire is the only thing that can protect a person from selfish codependency.
If what I want is to be the best poet I can be, then that’s a desire that I can own that gives me joy.
If my desire is to be a world famous scientist, then that’s a desire that the world can own and can take from you.
The trick to never being had is to want something that can’t be taken from you.
Like the song says, if we’re all born to die, then we’re all born to live. Codependency is the lie that human beings need to compensate for that craving for oneness that isn’t there. But it is there. And doesn’t need to be fought for. Just allowed and responsibly cared for while wanting something for myself that no one can take from me.
When I did that, I discovered that doing good for others was just debt, but having a home is something I just have to allow.
Any blessing that comes from the world can only be given by the free will of the world.
Meaning you can’t aspire to be a world famous scientist.
You can only aspire to be a great scientist.
The world will be the world.
Barbara, fascinating. I can definitely resonate with this.
If I had to answer this question directly but not to be rude it’s because overly spiritual type folks didn’t learn the lessons of social skills first so as to create a roof that would prevent personal slavery to ones sexual instincts that were over valued as sex magic that sublimated into temporary connection to God but without a social light to make that connection permanent with other human beings, and so y’all fell into sexual prisons that was only stalled into becoming a hell by sex magic into temporary purity.
That’s why I let things get dark and learned self respect first so as to properly have a personal outline that could process light sex magic in a sane way so I don’t have to fall ever again and make my progress permanent.
Sex magic without a roof is short money and a slippery slope into a personal hell, and thats why self respect and social skills should be learned first in a sane manner BEFORE ANY ATTEMPTS at sex magic!
I very much appreciate this article. I have, for a long time, been dismayed by the New Age distrust of modern medicine. Ancient systems of understanding the body and the physical world are often great for developing a good routine of daily self care that can promote good health, but they do not address illness or serious medical challenges when they arise. The resistance to vaccines, as a historian who teaches global health, is mind-boggling. So many diseases that killed and maimed millions of people have been eradicated or made less deadly with modern medical technology. As a yoga mentor once said at a workshop I attended, “if I’m hit by a truck, please take me to a surgeon, not a yoga teacher, or new age practitioner.” I’ve been on the “cleansing bandwagon” for over a decade as well and you are right to question what that says about self-image. (In the wellness sector, we are consistently messaged that we aren’t yet good enough, clean enough, pure enough–yikes, it’s “virginity culture” all over again!). A few years ago, I went low carb and a colleague asked why I wasn’t eating bread–“I gave that up to improve my diet” was my response. “But all you eat are salads anyway–what are you giving up next, air?” I’ve been thinking about that exchange ever since. Purification is a toy that we often play with and we should always consider what it says about how we view ourselves. I tell my students that we’d have a better world if we worried less about the size of our rears and more about each other. To me QAnon is all about a disgustingly self-focused worldview where self-preservation and the interest in one’s own personal rights outweighs public health, research and logic. Thank you for your investigation into your own motivations for cleansing and alerting us as to how we may be unwittingly support this deplorable mindset.
I once had a person obsessed with purity who thought that she was the only person who existed and that everyone else were robots and that everyone was picking on her.
I has the opposite view and still have the view that all these people are people who need their humanity just like I need my humanity. The fake lessons were leverage to people who were deliberately obtuse and narcissistic.
By viewing people as needing something and realizing I needed something I was willing to negotiate and keep my word and that’s why the world looks friendly and human to me now.
But the reason I’ve had contempt for many religions is that within a small ball of light people learned to hate their own humanity. And that ball of light would only get smaller and smaller until that turned into a hell.
Humanity is beautiful and someone once said I had something good. And it’s just because I’ve committed myself to my humanity.
And that’s the sad and funny and tragic thing of all these religions. People just seem to want to run from the very best part of themselves.
People just run to hell to avoid their humanity. And that’s the tragic thing about it.
Lisabeth, exactly! We are on the same wavelength here.
You are such a blessing to this world! Thank you for sharing your wisdom and thoughts in such a loving genuinely and no nonsense way. Keep shining you are such an amazing and beautiful soul. You have taught me great things! Blessings to you always!
Jennifer, that’s so nice! Thank you.
Once again, I am honored to read all these comments, and glad to know I’m not alone. Thank you all so much for reading and for sharing your thoughts.
Wow! An eye opener! Ty sooo much!
My Asian immigrant parents were magical and spiritual. In America our neighbors and classmates looked down upon our family. We looked different, ate exotic foods, spoke another language, our home had the smell of incense and spices. We celebrated the seasons and nature with our garden of trees, flowers, fruits and vegetables. My parents always said “God’s light lives in all of us, we are all beautiful children of God”. They also believed that we shouldn’t project unto people our judgemental assumptions. My parents were magical and kind people. All that you wrote reminded me of their joy in spirituality and the free way we lived. My parents eventually aged and got ill, requiring lots of care. I was vulnerable and got lured into befriending a charismatic angel healer mentor who turned out to be a racist deceitful, person. Because of my parents upbringing I recognized the bad situation and never believed that I was needing to purge myself to oblivion. This situation reminded me of Qnon, brainwashing, taking people’s money, not allowing us to question the teachers facts or sources of information. The teacher chanted some of her chants incorrectly. How do I know? I am Asian fluent in the language and religious custom she (non Asian) claimed that was her holy healing chant. She then claimed that only my physical appearance was Asian and that she was more Asian ? She was a Nordic blonde hair blue eyed American .She said that she was chosen by God and that only she was allowed to possess psychic power. She claimed that anyone else with natural psychic or healing abilities were demon infested heathens needing intensive expensive multiple purgings to destroy our natural abilities. Some people followed her blindly like sheep, they never checked or confirmed anything, I constantly asked, checked and finally ditched this teacher. I was traumatized and it opened up memories of racism and feeling like my psychic abilities had to be hidden again. My parents passed away afterwards. Covid gave me time to reflect and heal. I chose to honor my parents and remember all the magic and beauty they showed me. 🙏
How blessed you were to have such wonderful parents … follow their path and trust your natural loving heart.
Redhen, thank you for sharing this. I’m sorry you went through it and glad to hear you were able to ditch the teacher, reflect, and heal. Also, I agree with Heidi – your parents sound amazing.
Hi Tess,
I love this series of articles. I think they create an excellent vehicle to recalibrate as we emerge from this dark period. I feel the common thread in the three pieces is that there is no magic answer to all of your problems if you look outside of yourself and give away your power to another imperfect human’s beliefs. Following new age leaders 100%, religion 100%, any person or group 100% will only limit your own growth. The Louise Hay quote about wealth if interpreted 100% at face value is clearly not true, but there is truth in it. I grew up Catholic and now fall in that “spiritual, but not religious” category, but it doesn’t mean that growing up Catholic was all bad. It just means that it wasn’t 100% for me. We learn from our spiritual teachers and combining those ideas with our own truth, makes us stronger. I am thankful for your teachings. I have taken your positive outlook, feng shui teachings, spell casting techniques and weaved them into my spiritual path as I ramble down the road or human existence. Thank you for sharing yourself and your experiences so openly. Much love, Dora
Hi, Tess-
This series is fabulous, spot on, and so very needed. I’ve been in the craft since the late 80s and I’ve seen/learned a lot along the way. I’m sad to say I wasn’t that shocked by QAnon’s appeal for some new age/metaphysical folks. (That doesn’t excuse it, of course.)
Thanks so much for using your platform to speak up and out. Thanks also for your oracle decks. I adore them both. ❤️
Brightest blessings,
Hi there. Can you please tell me if there’s a natural method to use that can or will remove BAD LUCK?
I can relate to soooo many things going wrong in my life despite me being a caring and loving individual toward others in real true life. This is now going on for years already and I just seem to not find an answer.After reading a few of ur articles, I just thought of enquiring if there’s anything natural that I can use to assist me please? Thanks, Calvin
I had a family of clients with whom I did energy work years ago. They formerly belonged to CUT. They talked a great deal about their experience with the group and the Prophets. They had to have permission to have children and then ECP would name the children, not the parents. The members worked for the organization and were not allowed to own anything. Breaking free did not make them in any way safe from attempts at control. I saw that level of brainwashing firsthand. Qanon and its ilk are no different. I fervently hope people reading your posts have an awakening to the lack of true spirituality in these teachings and groups.
Thank you, everyone, for reading and for the thoughtful comments. I’m glad to know this series is resonating with so many of you. Writing these posts has been helping me to organize and clarify my thoughts about all this stuff.
Lovely Tess, I’ve been following this series with great interest and have yet to post until now. I have no solutions except the fervent wish that if only, IF ONLY!, every individual would think for themselves, be responsible for their own actions and operate from a place of pure love. Imagine a world where every individual, before speaking or taking action, would say to themselves ” How will these words impact others? ” Or ” How is this action for the greater good of all involved?” Living from a place of compassion and kindness IS possible in today’s world if everyone learned to trust that their own, deep, inherent goodness is the right path – essentially to do no harm. My parents raised my 6 siblings and myself this way – and yes – sometimes it felt like we were bullied a bit, or someone “less deserving” got what they needed (material items, a promotion etc) by using underhanded or mean-spirited tactics to step over us, but as my siblings and I enter our 50’s and 60’s we all count ourselves as extremely blessed (we all acquired post-graduate degrees in fulfilling careers; have joyful, intelligent, healthy children and grandchildren; homes in a peaceful, gentle part of the world abundant in beauty and nature, and a deep sense of faith in something greater than ourselves.) My parents, by the way, are in their 80’s and are still the gentle, beautiful humans they’ve always been – except it often brings them sadness when watching the news of the world as of late. ( I remind them of the words they taught us – “You can’t control the world- you can only control how you behave in it”). I realize that not everyone was as lucky to have such lovely people to raise them – and have had many obstacles to overcome ( I’m a retired social-worker so I’ve seen it, believe me!) – but that doesn’t mean we can’t start now to live each moment with compassion and kindness – for ourselves and for everyone in our circle. I don’t preach to others, I don’t form groups or organizations, I just live my life, and if someone wants to know my secret to joy I’m happy to share the lessons I’ve learned. Thank you, Tess, for all the love and compassion and meaningful thoughts you put out into the world. Keep it up! xoxo
I also found Doreen a light. She spoke simply and clearly about Angels and energy. I know many turned on her when she became an Evangelical. She had always been a Christian and was a member of Unity, which is a non-denominational church. But, what was sad, was when she began condemning people for things like practicing yoga, meditation, using cards that she created, etc.
Her love turned to a fear based hate. It was sad to see.
But I see that in so many people that are in the late 20s to early 40s range. They have no solid compass. They grasp at things in hopes that it will bring them happiness and peace. And when something fails them they turn on it violently. It had to be evil or wrong because it didn’t work for them. They grasp at the newest sensation on social media. They seek solace in conspiracy theories. Them against “us”.
This isn’t new. It has gone on for centuries. But the difference is social media. Now millions can read rumors and conspiracies in a matter of minutes. Unlike the past, where it was conveyed by word of mouth, that could take years.
It will be interesting to see how things evolve. It will be up to those of us, who walk the path, to speak out and hopefully be a guiding light.
Thank you for writing this series of articles. You share so much. I am grateful
The very symbol of the witch is a broom, as if our Sisyphean task is to cleanse away the continual buildup of spiritual gunk.
I have some OCD tendencies around cleaning (my therapist told me this) and I can tell you, it is an illusion – it will NEVER be clean enough to make all the anxieties go away. You must relax FIRST – that is, address your sense of unworthiness, and THEN, from that place, you may clean, not to achieve worthiness or peace, but simply because the dishes need washing.
Tess, I really love your recent series of articles. I’ve also experienced a great reexamination and shift in my viewpoints over this past year. After some renovations in my home that forced me to clear things out, I realized that over half my books no longer resonate with me and will be donated (keeping yours, though!). I’ve also experienced several friends and acquaintances in the new age community getting swallowed up by Qanon and its theories and it’s painful to realize that I no longer recognize them. Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful posts on these topics.
And as far as conspiracy theories are concerned. I had a friend tell me a deep intimate truth about things and then showed me a poster of a bunch of conspiracy theories in a church who didn’t know that truth.
It then occurred to me and stuck with me that conspiracy theories is just a signal that whatever I might be doing is incoherent with the way things are if my mind ever decided to go there. Connection to real natural laws within myself and the world is the only way to both not be at the mercy of other people’s “secret knowledge” and to keep my sanity at the same time.
Fear and hatred as motivating forces are logically incoherent with faith in love, and that’s why a lot of these spiritual journeys are often doomed to failure before they’d even begin. People try to “hitch their wagon” to the “right group” out of “humility” and end up dooming their own cause before it even got out the door.
I liked this article. I like how a lot of that dirty water you were discussing might be something that might need to be cleaned, but it isn’t something that can be cleaned by anyone who WANTS TO CLEAN IT. Like the person who just wants to get ride of all dirt so as to justify some kind of imaginary righteousness. I personally feel that all individual human beings are perfect, but are often at the mercy of constantly adjusting natural laws.
The only person who could clean that dirty water is someone who could do it compassionately with the faith that their humanity is beautiful and finding common ground among other people already attached to that dirt.
It’s not that a lot of the people you referred to were wrong in their observations, in that some spiritual cleansing is often a test of faith and connection to the divine that a vaccine too soon might prevent, but the structure of a group trying to surround themselves and circle their wagons and look for someone to blame would pollute their own chances for success by engaging a situation that requires love and faith and solitude with fear and hatred.
I personally believe that not only is that kind of spiritual racism wrong, but that by not venting the beautiful light that some imagine to be protecting them by hiding in fear and suspicion, they might be creating a hell because of cowardice and incoherence with the world.
And so a lot of well meaning people who were born in racist energy (I don’t consider anyone to be inherently “racist,” not only is that not compassionate, but that would just ignore the fact that some people are born into water they didn’t have a choice but to be born into) would create a hell of their own making so as to avoid hell.
That’s the effect of locking in wisdom. All wisdom has to be coherent with the greater all of everything, and that’s the fatal flaw of all racial ideologies. Race matters in that if it didn’t matter there wouldn’t be any racial differences, and there’s wisdom in acknowledging the distinct racial experiences of different people.
Acknowledging a truth, that racial differences exist and need to be studied and understood, is very distinct from fear.
True racism is inappropriate responses to truth. I feel that political correctness is a new form of racism, because the danger of it is that it sought to bury truth in fear and suspicion, which is the hallmark of what racism is in structural terms.
And there is something to fear in racial mixing, otherwise people wouldn’t be afraid of it. But it’s either an issue we can all solve together, or it’s a problem we can all fry in isolation because of fear.
Often the bedrock of the humanity of one race is the stumbling block of another race. But ultimately everyone is a human being and all races are just incomplete parts of the puzzle that we’d die if we didn’t communicate with one another.