Angels and Demons and Faeries, Oh My!

Announcer 0:30

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's john.

John Moore 0:46

Hello, everybody.

It's been a little while since I've done one of these, I've been busy with a heck of a lot of things. And I'm not trying to be one of those people who were as busy as a badge of honor. I just literally got busy. It's nothing necessarily be proud of working on a lot of things right now. And things I'm excited about. I'm, I'm, I'm writing a book right now, hopefully be able to talk about that very soon. But I'm excited about the project and have been working with clients and you know, spending summer time with my family and all kinds of stuff. So good things, good things been busy with good things. And I hope you are to the things that you find yourself busy with, I hope they are things that enrich and enliven you. Sometimes we have to do things that that don't, and that's okay, too. So today, I'm going to talk about spirits, all kinds of spirits. I'm going to talk about angels and demons and fairies and ghosts and oh, my it sounds almost like I'm talking lions and tigers and bears, Oh, my. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk about all of these spirits and sort of my take through the shamanic lens of, you know, do these things exists? Are they real? How do they exist? How do we interact with them? What part do they play in our lives? That sort of thing? Spoiler alert. Yes, I think they exist. But it's complicated, a little bit. It's a little bit complicated. I'm gonna talk about that today. But I hope you're doing well. It is a rainy morning, as I record this, I look out I actually am one of those people. I mean, I enjoy all weather. As long as it's not dangerous to me, I enjoy looking out on a rainy day enjoy looking out on a sunny day. I'm always looking out into nature, as I record these, and I hope the calmness that comes that I get from looking at nature, the sense of beauty, at least comes through a little bit in my voice. I'm very excited to see that. There are so many people listening to this podcast from all over the world. And welcome, wherever you're are from. I see people on all, you know, all kinds of all different continents and many, many different countries. And I think that's a wonderful thing. And I love and appreciate all of you and hope that hope to make this as useful as possible for you. If you're interested in spiritual topics, I try to switch it up and talk about interesting things and have interesting guests and hoping to have some more guests very soon. I have a few few people lined up to come on the podcast, it's just a matter of getting schedules to align. So as temporal things that can step into the way. So let me talk about I'm going to talk a little bit about shamanism because that is my path and that is the lens through which I view spiritual topics. Um, I describe it as a lens, because it is a viewpoint right? It is my viewpoint. I have lots of lenses that I look through things look at things through, right I have, I grew up in a culture. I grew up with a family I grew up you know, you know, I was raised predominantly in in a Christian environment, all of those things. affected how I perceive the world and what I think is true and what I think is not true. And so, when I talk about things, and I say this is the way things are, um, there should be the understanding that it is through my particular lens and that I am not saying if we differ in our beliefs, or how we perceive the world that you are right and I am wrong, or I am right and you are wrong, it is very possible that through our individual lenses, we are both right.

I know that can be mind blowing, because there is there can be, again, this is another lens there, you know, there's the lens that there can be only one truth. Right? Either you believe this or you don't and either you're right, and you're wrong. Um, I just, I think that as much as we can get away from that and sort of say, Okay, I believe this, and you believe this, and we could both be right, there could be a way that we are both right. I think that's a viewpoint that has served me very well in dealing with people who have very different sets of lenses that they look through that I do. So I'm going to talk a lot about spirit. And in, I'll talk a little bit about some religious viewpoints and that sort of thing. And, you know, if I don't have to use really broad strokes, right. If I talk about, quote, unquote, the Christian viewpoint, I recognize that there are something like 14,000 recognized sects of Christianity in the world. And that is a stunning array of differences in belief that all that all consider themselves Christian, right, and they, and they have some underlying commonalities. But practices and beliefs are different, or there wouldn't be different sects, right, there wouldn't be different. They place emphasis on different things. They look at Christianity through different lenses. So if I talk about a Christian viewpoint, I'm using a very broad brush to paint a wide variety of things. And so I don't mean to offend anyone. When I say that, if I talk about a Buddhist viewpoint, again, it's very broad brush, right? There are many different schools of Buddhism out there. I've experienced with maybe three of those. And so I can only talk from my own personal understanding, of course. And so take that for what it is I don't mean to offend. And if anything I say, runs counter to your counter to your own personal beliefs, you are welcome to think that it's bullshit, right? You're welcome to think that it's, it's not true. I'm not. I'm not trying to get you to believe anything, I don't proselytize. I'm presenting some information that comes through my particular lens of viewing the world viewing the world. But it might be information that resonates with you. And hopefully, it's something new, hopefully, you learn something from each one of these podcasts, I really do aim to inform, to empower, you know, to provide something that's, you know, that's interesting, talk about something that I have experiences with someone to talk about, I'm going to talk about spirits today and all different kinds of spirits. So I, you know, again, like my background is shamanism. And so shamanism, um, and again, a broad brush because there are many different forms of shamanism from all over the world. There are some core things that shamans do all over the world and throughout time. And there are some things that differ based on the cultures that they come from. Right even the word shaman isn't used. We use it in English. You know, it is it's a it's a lone word. We borrowed it from Russian and German and they borrowed it from tongue sick in Siberia and that might have been borrowed from Chinese or poly or Sanskrit. And before that, you know, some some root language you know, before that, so Even that word is not universal use in English, but because we don't have a different word, right, I get I have seen. I've seen arguments about cultural appropriation with that word. Like, we can't use that word, because that word belongs to these people. Um, that's just not true. I mean, you can argue whether or not I'm allowed to use that word. I'm allowed to use the word shamanism or shaman or whatever.

I mean, it seems like a ridiculous argument, like deciding what words what people can use based on where they were born. And to, you know, and where their parents were born seems really, really silly to me. But there is there can be an argument for cultural misappropriation, when we take we take things from other cultures and misuse them or package them up and sell them in ways that dishonor other cultures. That certainly is problematic. And so, but the word word trauma is the only word we have in English to describe this phenomenon. And we did borrow it just as we borrow lots and lots of words into English. Right? Um, you know, English is this cobbled together language it is a roughly Germanic language with a lots of you know, Latin and French and Greek and Spanish and you know, even things from Hindi and all kinds of stuff. Even some, you know, Filipino Tagalog words, you know, Boondocks comes from boondock, which means mountain and Tagalog. So, if you're listening from the Philippines, Hello, my friends in the Philippines. So we borrow all kinds of words, and as do most languages borrow words, so I'm not going to maybe one day I'll do a whole podcast on the cultural appropriation thing. But I you know, shamanism as a core practice has every culture in on the planet, just about every culture has, you know, that has any sort of recorded history or, you know, cave paintings or anything, practice shamanism. So, you know, it's safe to say that everybody has a direct bloodline connection to shamanic ancestors. So, I will continue to practice and try to educate people who scream cultural appropriation at me. It happens, you know, it's in, I understand where people's hearts are, you know, their hearts are in the good put in a good place. They want social justice for people who have been oppressed, and their culture has been taken away from them. And trust me, I want the same thing. But you have to go about it in a way that makes sense, and is actually informed and not ignorant, and, you know, understand, understand what you're talking about. And don't, don't attack, don't attack allies. Trust me on this. You know, you don't want you know, people who recognize when people are on your side, and don't attack them. Um, anyway, enough, enough advice on to spirits. So, shamanism is inherently animistic. And, and if you're not familiar with the term animism, or animistic, or you've heard it, or, you know, even if you have, I'm going to describe what that means I always try to define like, if I if I add a little piece of vocabulary in or I talk about something, I'm going to define it. Because I want you to understand what I'm talking about in my intentions as best I can. Because we might have different definitions of words. And you know, if if I go around using a word in a way that isn't that you're unfamiliar, it just causes confusion. And this isn't to say that my definitions are right. Again, they come from my background, my upbringing, my training, my schooling, my culture, all of these things. So, you know, animism for me is a belief in a multiplicity of spirits. And it carries the idea that spirits are everywhere, and for me, and maybe not everyone else who could be described as animistic is the idea that everything, everything that we can perceive and a whole lot of things that we cannot perceive our spirits Um, so, some people might have the concept that things have spirits that living things have spirits.

And you know, nonliving things don't have spirits, but you know, it having the having the belief that all living things have spirits could be conceived as animistic I take a little bit of a different tack, and I say that all things are spiritual, or all things are spirits, some of the things that our spirits have physical representation, and I do not differentiate between what we would consider in the physical realm living and nonliving things. So, anything that I can perceive as an individual being or object or whatever, I consider a spirit. So, for example, a rock is a is a spirits, it has a physical representation, a river is a spirit, but it has a physical representation, but a rock in a river might not be considered living things by some people. And I think about I think about the Shinto religion from Japan, right? So, in shintoism, places definitely have spirits, waterfalls, rocks, places in nature, especially, have spirits are our spirits, the commie right, the spirits of the Shinto spirits. And, you know, houses and places and places of worship and, and all of these things, in many cultures have spirits. I'm going to talk about Angel, you know, the idea of angels and demons in a little bit. But the word demon comes from Greek, and it just sort of means spirits. You know, in the Christian belief system, if you believe that demons are real, you might believe that they are fallen angels, and that they're evil, and that they're here to tempt humanity and blah, blah, blah. But that, that, historically, the word demon could be a helper spirit, right. And so you would have a house demon, which was a or daemon, which was a spirit that lived in the house that was helpful, that protected the house, and, you know, that sort of thing. So, but, you know, I gotta be honest, when I hear the word demon, I think of, you know, diabolical, I think of hell and Hellfire, you know, right off the bat, and then I remind myself of, you know, the true origins of that word. And I think, in a lot of ways, what, what a religion like Christianity did when it came into an area and took over. And people were pagan, or had other belief systems is that they turned their gods and helping spirits into devils and demons, right? If you think about pan, the Greek god of nature, that has cloven hooves and horns is a type is a sadder, right? cloven hooves and horns is the way that the devil is described in many Christian beliefs, right? And so I think that this happened frequently to convert in an effort to convert local pagans to Christianity, they're like, Oh, you know, you've been, you know, that's this image that you have of this god that you've been worshipping and making offerings to, that's actually a demon. And in some places, you know, if you think about religions, spiritual systems like centuria, and, and some, you know, African American practices, they took African Gods sometimes and equated them with saints. Right, so they could openly worship St. Michael, for example, and St. Michael might refer to in their mind might be a placeholder for some African God, some other you know, some other God and so, you can see particularly in you know, when I have been in strongly Roman Catholic countries, you can see a lot of paganism, woven in. Which I actually think is kind of cool. I like to see, you know, you know, there's a lot of St. There's a lot of st worship and that goes on and You know, you know, in sort of Mexican culture that is really, really interesting to me.

And so, you know, it's important to understand that that sort of thing. So anyway, from a talking about animism back back on subject a little bit, I do digress a lot. But you know, I don't apologize for that, because I hope that the information I'm adding is useful and interesting. But back to animism. So, you know, from a shamanic perspective, everything I see in the middle world and in the middle world is where we live, right? mid guard, if you're going to go into the Norse Pantheon is where we live, and we perceive other worlds in shamanic trance that we can travel to, and where we run into all kinds of spirits there. But when I'm in journey, which is a shamanic trance state, I can perceive spirits everywhere, the world is full of spirits. And it's interesting to me that there are so many in such a different variety. And sometimes the world can appear quite crowded. And, but it's interesting that we don't perceive these things all the time. But sometimes, and I can tell you about, you know, one of the first times I remember encountering a nature spirit, although if I if I think back, and so nature, spirits are things that different cultures have different names for but we might call fairies or elves or trolls, or in Hawaii, they might call men hooni. in West Africa, they might call on Tumblr, a little people, right, these little spiritual beings that run around or fly around or do whatever they're doing. And an interesting thing about that is almost every culture in the world, maybe every culture I, you know, haven't done a full exhaustive study has some form of these little people, these little spiritual beings that have supernatural abilities, and sometimes people encounter them. Isn't that an interesting phenomenon? Like if those beings aren't real? Why? Why is why would that be so common? Why would that model that that archetype of little spiritual beings that you know are sometimes helpful, sometimes hurtful, sometimes described as mischievous? And even, you know, worshiped or, or made offerings to in some some places in the world and and worked with inch with shamans? Why is that so common? Why does that exist everywhere we look, and why does shamanism exist everywhere we look? So from my perspective, these beings are real. And they exist on a plane. So we're talking about, you know, the idea that there are multiple planes of existence, maybe an infinite number of universes, that sort of thing that are sort of overlaid on top of each other. So in the middle world, where we live where things you know, we're physical reality exists there is there there. While say there are from a shamanic perspective, there are multiple spiritual overlays here. And sometimes we can perceive them It requires a usually requires a shift in consciousness. So some form of shamanic trance state or sometimes people do it with hallucinogenic drugs, I honestly think a lot of what's going on with hallucinations. frequently as people's perceptions are opening up to multiple planes of existence and like a whole ton of material is coming into consciousness and the consciousness is just freaking out and doesn't know what to doesn't really know what to do with it. You know, a whole bunch of sensory information pours in because you're just sort of blowing open the doors of perception. And, you know, if you're using hallucinogenic drugs to do that, you can't turn that off. There's usually in my understanding, I'm not an expert in hallucinogens, but there's no turning it off. Once you've bought the ticket. You're going on the ride.

You know, some hallucinogen Like psilocybin or Iosco or LSD lasts for hours, you know, you can be hallucinating for hours. And if you do a significant amount of that without proper precautions, there can be some repercussions. So are people who are taking these things like I Alaska experiencing experiencing other spiritual realities? Or is everything made up in their head? Well, I believe they are perceiving other spiritual realities in a very uncontrolled way. And that may be fine for some people, and it may not be fine for other people. When I when I journey, I don't use hallucinogens, and I do it in a very controlled way. So I am in control of my journey, I can stop whenever I want, I can come back if something is affecting me too strongly or is scary or what have you. But they're so they're, you know, they're all of these planes of reality, if you tune into them, my tuning your brain or doing hallucinogens or you're just overtired sometimes, and you start seeing shadow people or whatever. You can perceive these things and interact with them. They certainly can perceive you and interact with you. And, you know, I want to get around a specific idea with spirits. And again, this comes from being raised in a, in a Christian family and a Christian background. Like there's this real black and white dichotomy, dichotomy of good and evil, right? These spirits are good, these spirits are evil, angels are good, demons are evil. That's a real shortcut belief system, right? Like, this person is bad, all bad, or this person is all good. You know? By what standard, like that's, that's that kind of a value judgment. Right? And so, there are, there certainly are spirits out there that I would describe as not nice. Not very nice, not nice people. You know, I consider spirits to be maybe disembodied people or non human people. You know, because they have there is consciousness consciousness everywhere, we're immersed in consciousness, the entire universe is a field of consciousness. But so from, you know, from a human perspective, you know, things that lead me off a path of spiritual development, or try to trick me into doing something I don't want to do or harm me in some way. I could slap I could slap an evil sticker on that. Right. And it carries with it the idea of doing harm for the sake of doing harm or like enjoying doing doing harm. And you know, there are there are people out there who are like that, right? There are psychopaths out there who enjoy inflicting pain in harmful ways, or enjoy causing harm and that sort of thing. And maybe that's maybe that's evil. And maybe in that regard, there are you know, there are evil spirits out there. Um, but a lot of what people in like, people have negative encounters with spirits and by negative I just mean like they they don't perceive them in a good way. Right. This is not objective. This is completely subjective thinking. I go into I went into a cemetery a historic Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia one time and wound up feeling terrible getting a splitting headache, my the rest of my family was incredibly uncomfortable in that space. And we all looked at each other and said, We got to get out of here. We're gonna have a cemetery and we walked out and as soon as we walked out, we all felt better. And as we like, you know, as we got about 100 yards away from the cemetery walking down the road.

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It's work that I know a lot of shamanic practitioners will not do will not touch It's a little bit, it's a little bit sticky, and it's a little bit scary. And if you're raised in a Christian background, it's can be especially scary from a viewpoint perspective from a, you know, I have my, my cultural and religious beliefs that pile on top of that. And you know, but it is it is sticky. And it's one of those things that I recommend somebody seek a professional for if, if that is indeed what's occurring. And you would need a professional to confirm that's what what's occurring, if you yourself are convinced 100% that you are possessed by some other being and you have not seen a professional, you know, a couple things could be going on, you may 1 of all You may be right, you may be, you know, you're making an assumption. And you may be right, in a professional, somebody who is very experienced and trained and dealing with these things might, you know, might concur and might be able to help you. In my experience, most people who present with a possessing being are not aware of it existing, I think I've had one client in all of my years of experience, they're like, I think I might have this going on. And she was right. And, you know, it was not a big deal too deep as us, you know, to work through that. Most of the time, people are unaware they have symptoms, you know, they have certain symptoms, and I'm not gonna tell you what they are, because I you know, I think there is a lot of spiritual hypochondria out there. You know, and there is also I mean, I do a podcast eventually, about spirituality and mental health, and particularly people with psychosis, you know, some sort of psychosis disorder like schizophrenia, schizophrenia, Schizoaffective, disorder, that sort of thing. I'm not a psychologist, psychiatrist or therapist, but I have had a lot of people contact me who have our, you know, diagnosed with some form of, you know, some types of psychosis and complain about being tormented by spirits day and night, and that sort of thing. You know, just a short take on that, you know, I have had experiences which, you know, some people who might be rational would describe as a psychotic break, but I've, you know, other people have shared the experience with me, so I'm not the only you know, it would be a group hallucination, if that were taking place. Um, there's this fine line, and I think people there, you know, there are people who have these conditions where they hallucinate consciously, or constantly, not consciously, where they, they're, you know, they have, they have, their, their beliefs are affected, I'm under attack by gods and demons, and all of these things, which I don't like those beliefs are not true. But the hallucinations might be an influx of spiritual perception that they're unable to control. So when I do shamanic journey, I go into a specific state of mind. You know, it's a trance state that allows me to perceive the spiritual world in a very controlled manner. And it might be that people who are having a what we would call a psychotic break or having a you know, some sort of mental disorder you know, diagnosed mental disorder where they're constantly perceiving these things. Um, they might be having an influx of spiritual information that their consciousness is just not capable of dealing with and is kind of freaking out and

you know, gosh, I, you know, I really feel for those people, I you know, what a life to be constant constantly experiencing, being under attack, for example, all the time or being out of touch with reality all the time. And we don't have really great ways of dealing with that in, in my culture in shramana cultures, you might take somebody like that and work with them full time and teach them how to control it and they might become a shaman or they might become a seer or You know, a spiritual elder, because but they might have to go through 20 years of intense training. And we don't have a mechanism for that, in this culture, which I think is very unfortunate, you know, what we do? A lot of people who contact me, and you know, I can usually tell, I can say, okay, you know, you're going through a lot, it sounds like, you know, have you ever been diagnosed with, you know, mental health disorder? And freegan? They'll say, Well, yeah, you know, I've, I've been diagnosed with, you know, schizophrenia, paranoid schizophrenia. And I've been given medication, but I don't want to take it because it makes me feel like a zombie. And I can't, I can't operate in the world, when I take the medicine, and so frequently, people struggle with, which is worse, taking the medicine or not taking the medicine. And that kind of, you know, it makes me it makes me really sad that we don't have a better way of helping people. In this culture as a whole, we don't have a way of, you know, taking people in and really working with them in, in a way that may combine medicine and spirituality. So anyway, as you know, I'm me, I'm planning on doing an entire podcast about that at some point in the future. So stay tuned. We'll talk about that. So, let me talk a little bit about angels and demons, because I promised I would. This is a rather complex subject. because growing up in a Christian world, I wasn't raised Roman Catholic, but I spent time in a couple of different churches as a child didn't practice much as a young adult or an adult, but definitely, definitely had a Christian upbringing. And, you know, a lot of our ideas of things, including, like, what Jesus looked like, and what angels look like, and all these things are come from Renaissance paintings, right? where Jesus is light skinned, and, you know, tall and, you know, however, however, he looks right, represented with blue eyes, sometimes, sometimes even light hair. You know, Jesus was, you know, a Jewish guy living in the Middle East, the idea that he was light skinned and had blue eyes is somewhat ridiculous, but a lot of people have that picture of him. And the same thing with angels, we see them as these beautiful humans with wings and glowing lights around them and all these things. And it's interesting if you've ever seen drawings of what angels like using biblical descriptions of what angels actually are supposed to look like. Sometimes they're, you know, set of interlocking spinning rings covered with eyes with light shooting out of it, or animals with foreheads and four sets of wings. You know, the Sphinx. If you think about the the Sphinx that went on top of the, the, the repair of sphinxes that were or a pair of Caribs, right on top of the Ark of the Covenant from the time of Moses. Will Caribs word sphinxes they had the bot, you know, lions bodies and human faces and wings. Um, when Renaissance painters painted them, somehow they turn them into chubby babies. Right? So Oh, look at that, you know, we and we refer to the, you know, beautiful children as sometimes as cherubic as kind of an old fashioned word, meaning they look like a cherub. Um, so very interesting that a lot of our ideas about angels and demons come from Renaissance art and plays and all kinds of things that are not

original source material. But, and of course, there were Christian mystics, and sorcerers and all kinds of things that worked with worked with angels and demons and I talked about the origin of the word demon. And in Christianity we consider or I wouldn't say we, because I don't find myself as Christian anymore. But in Christianity, demons were are sometimes considered as fallen angels. So you know, these angels they live up in heaven and then there was a war against heaven or Morgan Scott or they rebelled and Lucifer was the head, Angel. That rebelled and was cast down into hell. And very interestingly, that follows a lot of pre Christian stuff. So if you look at, you know, if you look at the Greeks, you look at the, the war between the Titans and the Olympians, and, you know, they, they fought to see who would be superior and the Olympians one and some of the Titans were cast to the depths of Tartarus, which is, you know, a lot of where our descriptions of Hell come from giant, dark chasm. So, yeah, there's a, you know, there's a lot of that there's a lot of wars between gods in Norse mythology, you know, the, the, the Vanier and the ACR fight, and they always, they're always fighting the giants and, you know, that sort of thing. So that's a common, kind of a common theme. And it's one lens to look through to describe these things that we call angels and these things that we call demons. There's a guy that I follow a lot, and I like his work a lot. His name is Jason Miller, he runs a site called strategic sorcery. I guess he describes himself as a sorcerer. And even that word sometimes can have connotations of doing evil deeds. I don't think so. I you know, but in a really recent newsletter, he described his take on angels and demons and good and evil. So I'm just gonna read a little bit of his of his email. I do like, if this resonates with you definitely look up his stuff, subscribe to his email list. read his blog, he writes really, really intelligently about lots of great spiritual topics. So his description angels act in accordance with collectivism, obedience, cohesion, understanding and approach the passions of life with an attitude of renunciation or avoidance, right, so we think of the angel on our shoulder, don't eat that chocolate cake, you don't need that or don't have that other drink or you know, whatever. Follow the rules, work in the interest of the collective demons in Christian terms or fallen angels act out of individual individualism, disobedience, dispersion of tradition, and approach the past and passions of life with an attitude of indulgence and reverie. This is very general, of course, right? Because, you know, if you ever work with angels and demons, they have their their individuals and their their spirits. And spirit is ultimately formless. And so we frequently give form to spirit, using our imagination. And so if you were to work through a, like a Western magical system that works with angels, you would picture the angels in a certain way, wearing you know, as humanoid with wings, 15 feet tall, wearing certain colors holding certain implements, representing certain elements. Right, and that met because spirits particularly angels are actually formless. You're what you're imagining this when you're praying to them or working with them.

You're essentially creating a throne, which in this case is a you know, a form in your imagination for them to inhabit so you can work with them. Right? So that's why there can be very, very different representations of what angels look like. And I don't necessarily think that any of them are definitive because they are formless. And the other concept with angels and demons are okay, let's say I'm working with the Archangel Michael, and you live on the opposite side of the world and you're working with the Archangel Michael, how could that be like Can't he only be in one place at a time? So again, like angels are particularly formless they're very high level spiritual beings and you know levels are hard to describe spiritually they live on this. This planes very formless is their home plane, they can act on lots of different planes of existence and might even show up and make an appearance. In the middle of worlds, think that's pretty rare. I think people who get visions of angels are actually changing their consciousness. So you're creating a throne for them, which is an image that they can work through. And, and, and have an effect. And the same thing with demons. And the interesting thing for me about angels and demons, when when I talk about the divine masculine and the divine feminine, and the divine feminine, is very collective, and very into following the rules and very into cohesion and harmony, and all of those things. That's a very apt description that is in alignment with Jason Miller's description of angels, where demons are very individualistic, and sort of screw the rules, I'm going to do what I need to do, you know, that sort of thing. And very evolutionary, and that, that is very much in line with a divine masculine. So this is not to say, and again, like this, these terms get confusing, divine masculine, divine feminine. This doesn't say that angels are women and demons are men, that sort of gross level of physical sexuality doesn't, doesn't really apply, in my opinion. Um, I don't think that angels are, you know, they're, I don't think they have gender like that, you know, physical, physical gender in the way that or I shouldn't say sex, because gender is, is more an identity thing. And I do understand that, but I'm talking about spiritual gender, we're talking about divine masculine, divine feminine aspects, these archetypal aspects. And so I think that's really interesting how these angels and demons kind of fall in line with what we consider divine feminine, divine masculine aspects. Most of us can use a little bit of both and balancing of both. In our lives, both of those aspects, I'm not saying you need to pray to angels, or demons, or whatever I'm not, I'm not saying that at all. You can feel free to work with whomever however you wish. I'm just saying it would be useful for us to recognize both of those aspects, to recognize our impulses to break certain rules, certain rules are unimportant to us, and act in certain ways that are important to the collective. Right. So for example, we don't steal or murder or rape or do any of those things, because it affects the collective. You know, it, you know, yes, there's the possibility that would bring harm upon ourselves as well, by doing these things that harm the collective. But we are also interested in helping the collective by acting in accordance with certain rules. And certain rules. The, you know, the person who's in charge of mind Valley, vishen, lakhiani.

In his book, I, which is really good book, he uses the word rules, which stands for bullshit rules. So there are a lot of rules that society places on us that are bullshit. And they're meant to keep us down and keep us in place. And they don't really serve, they don't really serve anything except a power system that might not be healthy. So the patriarchy that we all live in is not healthy for men or women or anybody. And so breaking the rules of the patriarchy, things like women can't do x or men shouldn't do x or, you know, that sort of thing. Or there are only two genders. You are either a man or a woman and there is no in between, or, you know, homosexuality is wrong, is abomination, blah, blah, blah. All of those things are bullshit. And I'm sorry to say that, that runs counter to your belief system. In my, in my in my view of the world, those are those are bullshit rules. Now. People who are you know, People who are over 50 should not do x people who are under 21 should not do X, you should not wear these types of clothes, you should not listen to this type of music, you should not enjoy blah, blah, blah. Again, it's, it's, it's a bullshit rule, most of the time, I can, cannot think of, I can't, off the top of my head, I can't think of exceptions to those kinds of rules. Because, um, you know, violating those rules, doesn't harm anything except a system that shouldn't exist. A system that has served to keep people in place, to keep us from evolving as a society and to keep individuals from evolving. And think about what kind of planet we would live on. If people if everyone felt comfortable to evolve in their own personal way, do what they were called to do. Think of a world full of art and invention, and music and beauty and peace. Because we lifted the repressive yoke that we put that we live under, that we don't often even understand. Because we swim in our culture, like a fish swims in the ocean, we're surrounded by it. And so we forget that it exists. And that it applies pressure to us as as the water in the ocean applies pressure to a fish. We forget that we forget that it, you know, just by existing in a cultural context, we take on norms, which are rules about how things should be. And this isn't to say that certain norms are bad, or, you know, good or whatever. I think certain norms serve very well, not killing other people, right? prime example. That's a great thing. I think the norm of you know, having certain ages at which we we consider children to have full agency over themselves is a great idea. I don't want you know, five year old children having to take care of themselves, because oh, they're, you know, all human beings are equal. Well, I mean, we're equal, but you know, they don't have, they don't have full capability of, of taking care of themselves. And so we set an arbitrary age in the United States, the age of majority is 18, pretty much everywhere, you need to be 18. To vote. Although it's pretty interesting, you know, in most places, you need to be 16, to get a driver's license 18, to vote 21 to drink, you can join the military at 17. And if you have a parent's permission, and you've graduated from high school, or something, I forget what the exact role is. So different ages at which we consider you can do do certain things. And I think I think some of that is protective and good. You know, and I know that there are different rules for different different places. I was in Europe when I was 17, and could go to a bar and drink alcohol. And

you know, that was a really different experience for me, because it would be four years away from when I wouldn't be legally allowed to do that in the United States. Anywhere in the US. I don't know that there are any differences now. I think every state is 21 these days. So it's kind of a national national thing. And in general, I think that's an okay rule. Because for one thing, you know, we now know that our brains aren't fully developed until we're about 24. And alcohol and drugs affects our brains. But in some ways, that rule isn't great, because when I was in high school, it was like this sneaky thing to do to binge drink. And that led to all sorts of things like drinking, underage drinking and driving and alcohol poisoning and crazy stuff like that. So whatever I'm, you know, again, I go down this path of there are these, you know, they're these sort of bullshit rules. And so the demonic side, you know, not evil, demonic, but demonic. Like the individualistic side says, You know what, these rules are bullshit. Some of these rules are not worth following and are not good for me and are not good for. I'm not good for the collective either. And they break out and so in a lot of ways the people who break the rules in in big ways are the ones who make it Something frequently make big changes. I'm thinking of like, you know, Gandhi in Africa and Mandela and south, South Gandhi in India, Mandela in South Africa, thinking of Martin Luther King Jr. and the United States, these people who pushed civil and human rights forward, you know, sometimes paid a big price for that, you know, Martin Luther King was assassinated, as was Gandhi and Mandela spent a good portion of his life in prison. Right, because they violated these rules that we're not just and we're not, you know, weren't weren't serving anybody really. Even the power holders. The people who stayed in power, I don't think probably had a better life than if they had just shared power. Inappropriate ways. So, yeah, so my take on angels and demons is a little bit different. And as our other people and people who have worked with them and there are lots and lots of grimoires or spell books out there that work with both angels and demons and some of those grimoires come from, you know, come from Christian sources. It might be surprising to some people to learn that Christians were doing things like spell casting and summoning demons and but there are mystical and magical aspects of Christianity and Judaism and Buddhism and Islam and all kinds just but everything else right. Um, you know, just about every major religion has some portion on Be it tends to be smaller, that dabbles in forces that we might consider magical or sorceress and they all have a mystical aspect as well, which is concerned with the development of the spiritual self, the attaining spiritual attainment, for lack of a better term, I don't love that word, but you know, spiritual development, spiritual evolution. attainments, such a weird word because not really attaining anything, it's more like you're realizing, you're realizing truths or you're internalizing spiritual truths. You might, you know, attainment, I won't get into too much, but it's, it's a very sort of greedy word. I do this I'm going to get this kind of thing. And I think it steers people down the wrong path a whole lot. So anyway, the universe is full of spirits. And, you know, we've spirits of nature, spirits of place with angels and demons, and fairies and elves and gnomes and men, hooni, and contemporay. And Tom Tay and I do not know the words for every cultures, nature spirits, commie

all over the world, all kinds of people, this is a natural human thing for me. You see it everywhere? And why is that because it's either the truth or it serves some purpose, or there is some truth to it. Um, you know, and it's very, very real to the people who believe in it. You know, there are still people who make offerings to elves. in Scandinavia, there are still people in the British Isles and Ireland who make offerings or don't enter fairy circles or do that sort of thing. And certainly, all over the world offerings are left to places offerings are one of the best ways you can work with spirits of place or spirits of nature is to make offerings and you know, find out find out what they like with spirits of your area, like common offerings or food and some places that's milk and honey or cornmeal, or, you know, what, what have you but putting out offerings is a good idea. If you can figure out a way to do that. And it's about the intention and it's about, it's about, about, you know, giving of yourself there, there can be the spiritual exchange. I'm a great other offerings, they have an outdoor altar, that they put offerings on pretty frequently. And yes, the animals come and eat my offerings, and that's fine. I can serve them spirits of nature as well. When I offer food out there, if animals eat them I take that is a good sign that they're attracted to the altar, they're attracted to the food on the altar. And hopefully, you know, and even though we're offering physical things, sometimes to spirit, you know, there, again, everything is a spirits, the food you're offering has a spiritual component to them, and is nurturing to the spirits. But it also demonstrates offerings demonstrate a level of sacrifice, you know, even if you're just sacrificing effort, right? But you're, you know, you may be sacrificing some food or even, you know, water or wine or honey or flowers, or, you know, what have you, you're putting something, you're putting something out for these spirits, to get an idea to make offerings. Any spirits that you're working with any spirits that you want to have a relationship with, because reciprocation is a good thing. You know, if I have a friend, that I buy gifts for all the time, and they never do anything for me in return, you know, I might be a little hesitant if they asked a favor of me. You know, or if they always ask me for favors, and never do anything for me in return, that might build a little resentment, right? So, so be in relationship to the spirits where you are. I'm over an hour, but I do want to just I briefly want to touch on the ideas of Gods and Goddesses and I won't talk about God as in the one the one true God, creator of the universe, that sort of thing, I think. Yes, you know, realize that that God is anthropomorphize as a single being in, in many, many religious systems in monotheistic religious systems. So you know, how about if you're Christian or, or Jewish? Or, or what have you, and you believe in a single Creator God? I think there's truth to that. I think once we anthropomorphize this, God turned that God into a person who is jealous and angry and very, very concerned with whether or not you masturbate or eat the wrong foods on the wrong day. I think we're projecting very human values on an Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent God. That's my take. And I apologize if that breaks with your belief system. But again, it's just my take.

people went there, and by the: 1000

But their consciousness was profoundly affected. So who knows? Who knows, I don't, I don't have I know enough to know, I don't have an opinion on that. But I do think that these gods and goddesses can intercede in the material world, they can affect the spiritual reality that lies underneath the physical overlay. That is the world that we live in. And so you know, praying to these gods and goddesses, or making offerings and all of these things. I do think that affects our lives. For people who do that. And I do work with I do work with Gods and Goddesses from a couple of different pantheons several. I don't mix. I don't know what to say like I've, you know, I don't mix the practices. So if I'm working with, let's say, a god from a North Norse Pantheon, I will work just with that. And then if I switch over and work with a god from, from Egyptian Pantheon, I will not do those at the same time, we'll just put it that way. Because to me, they're different streams of energy. They're different streams of consciousness. They're different frequencies I'm tuning into, and stuff gets muddy, and their systems that might be incompatible and I don't think you can just mix everything up and call everyone in I like to have this sort of like clean Okay, today, I'm going to work with Have this goddess and make offerings and recite prayers and meditate and, you know, create, in my consciousness create a form for that dawn to inhabit. Create which is, you know, a type of enthroning when we in our imagination when we're praying or chanting or whatever, when we create an image of this God and hold it in our imagination we're essentially creating a throne for them in our in our sort of astral consciousness to inhabit I don't wanna get too metaphysical today, I know he did a little bit it will perhaps talk about that another time I have done a podcast where talked about different different bodies, different spiritual bodies, astral and etheric. And you know, your soul body and your spirit body and your physical body. So I have have talked about that in previous podcasts, and I might do more I might I might get go down the old metaphysical path at some point in the future. So anyway, I'm gonna wrap it up. I've I've, I've talked a lot today. Hope you found this. Interesting. I hope you found even if my take does not jive with what you believe in. You know, you can take it as there are people who believe this way. And maybe it's an interesting thing and something to explore. As I do with other belief systems that I encounter, I do not automatically put them down because they're different than my belief system. And I think the world would be a better place if we do that in general. And with that, I love you very much and I will talk to you very soon.

Unknown Speaker: 1:16:50

Feel free to contact me through my website, which is maineshaman maineshaman.com.

Announcer: 1:17:29

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john go to MaineShaman.com that's maineshaman.com