Open Post on the Lonliness of the Magical/Esoteric Path

[causticus]

General discussion thread for how to deal with the loneliness issues that tend to creep up as one advances further down this path. The usual etiquette of Ecosphian discussions apply here.

Comments

[boccaderlupo]

I guess my question would be: is it a lack of social interaction per se? Or that the social interactions you have are desultory, as they do not pertain to spiritual matters?

I definitely get the latter, as I don't frequently have real-life conversations on those subjects. Most of my time and energy is invested in reading and contemplation in that regard, but alternately due to real-life situations I of course am compelled to have interactions that have nothing (ostensibly) spiritual to them.

My initial take on that: When in the material element, engage at the material level (so long as it does not damage "the chain").

Axé

[causticus]

I've always been the kind of person who enjoys discussing things I'm interested in with other people. That might be the source of my problem here; that I have no one really except for the other participants in this community to talk about these things with. Since my interests have shifted to things the vast majority of people have no knowledge of, much less interest in, my social interactions beyond small talk and dealing with family are quite limited.

I end up having to do what you suggest above: engaging people at the material level.

[boccaderlupo]

If you are so inclined, I would offer a prayer to the blessed gods for some solace and resolution to your situation.

There are some useful resources from Portae Lucis that touch on the solitariness of the path, but I don't know that it will necessarily provide much comfort.

Axé

[causticus]

Thank you, please do :)

[boccaderlupo]

Good vibes incoming!

Axé

[jprussell]

For me, the latter is definitely more of a challenge. I have a pretty close group of friends and have been able to see them/stay in touch with them decently despite all the craziness in the world the past year and a half. On the other hand, going from essentially an atheistic-materialist view of the world to a magico-spiritual one has done quite a number on a lot of my beliefs and what I take for granted, and a lot of that was a shared basis for understanding the world with my friends.

So, it's been less of "man, it sucks that I can't talk about spiritual matters with my friends" (though there is some of that), and a bit more of "oh, I have to be careful how I respond in this conversation because I no longer agree with something we all used to be on the same page about, and to explain why I don't agree would take rather a lot of unpacking." That can interfere a bit with rendering unto Caesar as you recommend.

[causticus]

That second paragraph well describes the impetus for me gradually unraveling myself from social media over the past six years or so. When my own evolving positions on this or that issue require too much unpacking for a typical fly-by Faceplant comment exchange, I figured the juice was not worth the squeeze. Converting a few casual "friends" (that I only converse with online) to my own way of seeing things was just not worth it and would undoubtedly create more problems than anything in the way of mutual understanding. In retrospect I found myself drifting away from an old echo chamber. As someone who has always seen himself as an independent thinker, I would often forget that many other people are socially motivated by groupthink and conformity way more than I am. I learned the groupthinkers were suddenly no longer my "friends" the moment I no longer agreed with whatever the group-mind deemed to be the correct opinions. This is one of the central dysfunctions of modernity; the age of coherent family/clan structures has long passed; now people socially organize along the lines of abstract ideologies and consumer tastes.

[jprussell]

There's a rather good analysis of the fracturing of western culture through the 20th century here: https://meaningness.com/meaningness-and-time

He goes through how traditional societies handle meaning, what modernity did to that, and then how modernity's attempt to provide a coherent, single way of making sense of the world fell apart due to the world wars and their aftermath. He comes at things from what seems to be a materialist-Buddhist take on the world, but he at least takes meaning and spirituality seriously. I found the whole website quite helpful for identifying and thinking through various spiritual issues, even if I now don't wholly agree with it.

What I found most relevant to your comment here is how he traces the development of a single "Counter Culture" to the many counter cultures of cliques to the complete atomization of today.

[causticus]

Thanks for the link, it's an interesting little piece, even if I'm not one to be all that impressed with a pseudo-Buddhistic, materialist worldview. I would probably agree that fluidity is here to stay in one form (or many!) or another, especially given we're now in the age of Aquarius. The old Piscean type of ideological absolutism will be fading out over the next few centuries until it becomes a historical footnote. The singe counter-culture was a mass reaction to 1500 years of said absolution, though like anything that defines itself by what it is NOT, as opposed to what it stands for, cannot be a long term cultural replacement. Notice how the people who most fervently embraced postmodernistic ideas have now suddenly plunged into yet another absolutist ideology, albiet one which has rules and mores that seem to shift every six months.