Many people don’t ask questions, don’t diagnose themselves or others, don’t search, don’t investigate, and instead immediately make judgments about how things are, what happened, what happened to the other person, or who that person is. What’s worse, they immediately begin applying their own techniques, methods, and treatments—this is how they’ve always worked with everyone. In other words, without prior diagnosis or observation of the other person’s mental and energetic behavior, they invade their space. This action resembles reacting on autopilot—the limbic system (the „X” reactive system) is activated. Such a procedure is foreign to academic work, where a visit to a psychologist or psychotherapist begins with the therapist making a diagnosis—what type of personality disorder or mental illness the patient presents with. However, the next phase becomes problematic because after a diagnosis is made (e.g. compulsive-obsessive, melancholic-depressive, hysterical-obsessive, narcissistic, schizophrenic, avoidant, dependent, histrionic, antisocial, borderline personality disorder or a disorder of consciousness, mood, simulation, dissociative, sleep, adaptive, somatic, psychotic, anxiety disorder), the therapy is tailored to the diagnosis itself and not to individual needs, because that is how the system works.
What if you applied a spiritual model? You create a reading, a scan, an examination, an analysis—whatever you can do. Then, you confront your reading during a conversation with the person, the client, because the problem may be subtle (energetically), but sometimes it requires delving much deeper, into the subconscious, the core, and unearthing this hidden seed—often covered up by shame or a defense mechanism. If you work in person and have acquired the ability to „touch,” you gain additional information directly through touch. If you have also learned to work with the subtle self or soul and understand its/her impact on the body, and have dealt with interference, possession, and shattering of subtle bodies—how all this affects the person’s mental, life, and energetic state—you have a more complete, multidimensional perspective. You operate in a „c” (reflective) state because you are aware of many factors and influences, and you transcend closed systems of thought or conventional therapy.
Without an attitude of constant exploration, asking accurate questions, and observing the client’s defense mechanisms, which are designed to maintain them within their old frameworks, their comfort zones, there is no possibility of conducting deep work—neither mental, energetic, nor spiritual. Effective working on oneself is rarely as comfortable and colorful as various communities portray it.
Consuming as developing?
Consumerism itself is an attitude focused on consuming and possessing without considering the social, individual, and ecological consequences. Developmental, therapeutic, esoteric, and spiritual consumerism, beyond the „more, stronger, faster” attitude and the candy-like approach, conceals a very dangerous dynamic. While working on oneself, one is often unaware of the psychological, energetic, and spiritual processes taking place. This occurs because the release is performed on behalf of the client or because the other person is not involved in the process. Work that combines problem release with simultaneous learning is the foundation of all development. Focusing solely on problem-solving is convenient for many therapists—both classical and spiritual—but a client’s words, „Something happened, it rings a bell but I can’t quite place it,” lead to addiction. Of course, a classical therapist has more „psychological freedom” than someone working more subtly, because the psychologist conducts longer therapy, spread over many months or years. No spiritual-energy practitioner can be certain that the person will reappear. One meeting, one session, and the person may never return. Unfortunately, in the spiritual community, this fosters an attitude of „creating a smile on the face,” where the client is expected to always be satisfied because happiness guarantees their return.
What are the consequences of such action?
Instead of confrontation, one receives confirmation of their preconceived notions and subconscious hunches (which should be distinguished from intuition). Their ego is stroked, and their idealized self-image is not confronted with any uncomfortable information that contradicts their beliefs. Internal mechanisms receive additional fuel because no information obtained during the visit has shaken their low self-image. With this „more, stronger, better” attitude, the person returns and says, „Everything is fine. Development is so cool.” Unfortunately, this does not create true therapy or deep release. Because without confronting one’s own shadow, uncomfortable information and defense mechanisms, without taking stock and observing one’s own behaviors and habits, the work remains superficial—like putting on new clothes on worn-out ones or accumulating incarnational experiences instead of releasing burdens. There are countless deceptions in any development, whether classical or spiritual. However, once a person has become habitually self-deceived, how will they react when they touch upon the topic of spiritual work with the soul or enter more advanced self-work—when faced with things they’ve long repressed? Can a personality accustomed to idyllic and fanciful thinking about themselves and the spiritual world cope with this challenge? Probably not, which is why they’ll activate defense mechanisms such as devaluation, dissociation, fantasizing, generalizing, idealizing, intellectualizing, masking, inverting meaning, projection, and rationalization. However, all of these are defensive elements.
I remember when several people came to me after traumatic experiences in an Indian ashram. They were all in a poor mental and energetic state. When we started working, at a certain point, defense mechanisms began to kick in, defending the perpetrator—though technically, these mechanisms always only protect our vulnerable parts. Of course, we’re familiar with the term Stockholm syndrome, but the most difficult part of helping them was accessing their wounded inner selves, their fantasies about the guru and his assistants, their sexual fantasies, bearing children to the messiah, achieving enlightenment, or spiritual ecstasy. The entire group felt chosen and special, because the guru looked upon them with favor and allowed them to become close.
Working with the body’s patterns and reactions is one thing. The other is freeing the subtle self and soul from the influence of magic, seals, initiations, and the astral influences of the entire „school” and „philosophy.” In any work, taking responsibility is crucial: „I was enchanted, I behaved as if under hypnosis, I saw my father/mother, I projected greatness because I wanted to bathe in someone else’s glow and feel better.” Accepting the hurt, vulnerable part of us, accepting that the manipulator did what he wanted to us. And it was us who allowed this—us and no one else. This awareness is difficult for many, but without it, the process of healing or leaving a cult never begins.
Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias is defined as: The tendency to favor information that confirms prior expectations and hypotheses, regardless of whether that information is true. It causes people to selectively seek and remember information, interpreting it incorrectly. This effect is particularly strong for topics that evoke strong emotions and involve strongly held opinions. For example, when reading about gun control policy, people tend to favor sources that confirm their own beliefs. They also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as confirming their own views. Selective information seeking, remembering, and interpreting has been cited as an explanation for belief polarization (when disagreement becomes even greater when both sides are presented with the same evidence), belief persistence (when beliefs remain unchanged even after the evidence they were based on is refuted), primacy bias (when more weight is given to information obtained earlier), and the illusory correlation (seeking correlations where none actually exist).
A series of experiments conducted in the 1960s showed that people tend to seek confirmation of their preconceived beliefs. Later studies explained this as a result of a tendency to test hypotheses very selectively, focusing on one possibility and ignoring alternatives. Combined with other effects, this strategy influences the conclusions people reach. This bias may stem from the limited information-processing capabilities of the human brain or from evolutionary optimization, where the estimated costs of persisting in error are no greater than the costs of objective, scientific analysis. Confirmation bias strengthens self-confidence and allows people to maintain strong beliefs even in the face of contradictory evidence. Therefore, it can lead to disastrous errors in decision-making, particularly in social, political, and military matters.
What are the effects of this mechanism?
Let’s say a person imagines something about themselves. They’re convinced of their development, status, level of enlightenment, position, or incredible insights. Will any internal mechanism lead them to confront their image, or will it push them to reinforce their beliefs? Knowing the definition of confirmation bias, we know that they will find a person, teacher, group, clairvoyant, con artist, or manipulator who will reinforce their belief and conviction. They’ll hear, „You look beautiful, you’re right, you’ve evolved so much, you’re almost enlightened. No one else has that kind of energy. Our method and theories only confirm your hunches about yourself. Look at how many points you have on our scale. You’ve almost connected with the source. Monks who’ve been meditating for years might envy you. Don’t worry, that guy who told you something contrary to your imagination—he knows nothing, he’s a young soul, just starting life, and besides, he doesn’t have 24 DNA helices like you.”
Consider the consequences of confining one’s perceptions within a bubble, further reinforced by a given group of people, authorities. A person says, „Hey, but I went to this one and that one, and everyone agreed with me.” If, by some strange chance, such a person receives new, different information that contradicts their own perceptions and fantasies about themselves or the world, they often begin to attack and discredit, because a defense mechanism has been triggered within them. Such a person, instead of reflecting, using logic, searching within themselves for what exactly the new information has triggered within them, prefers to destroy the source that disrupts these fantasies. Feliks Koneczny said that civilizations that didn’t confront adversity and dangers, instead settled into the status quo, died out, or were assimilated by the stronger. Edward Stachura said, „If something touches you, it means: it concerns you. If it didn’t concern you, it wouldn’t touch you, it wouldn’t alienate you, it wouldn’t offend you, it wouldn’t irritate you, it wouldn’t sting you, it wouldn’t hurt you.”
Another aspect of this issue touches on the topic of ordinary guardians. Often, one goes to a teacher, a person, unaware of their connections to various entities, schools, and belief systems. Instead of providing support to continue change, challenge fanciful self-concepts, or release their own dependencies, such a guardian pats them on the shoulder, holding them back or halting the process. To put it simply and logically: you don’t go to a priest to free yourself from religion, you don’t go to a white being to free your bodhisattva patterns, you don’t go to a black person to free your hells. After all, these principles are trivial and logical. However, this requires a discerning awareness that the spirituality of each being is different, with different qualities, energetics, minor and major belief systems, schools, black, white, and neutral forces. This lack of distinction causes all esotericists, people involved in spirituality, New Age prophets, clairvoyants, and therapists of various trends to be lumped together. This is how we demonstrate to the world the level of our discerning awareness. Just because someone uses similar terms or names doesn’t mean they act, see, or work in the same way as others. By doing so, we harm ourselves.
Let’s look further.
Another defense mechanism, part of repression and not—as many people believe—projection, is: „What you see in me is your projection of yourself, with which I have nothing in common.” Okay, this statement sounds technically correct, and there’s a line drawn here, but why would someone use it against a therapist? A seasoned therapist knows that this is a simple defense mechanism, encapsulated in a beautiful developmental slogan, because the role of the helper or supporter is to explain the mechanism of blockages, describe the situation from an observer’s perspective, and best lead to confrontation, not to strengthen the defense mechanism by engaging in arguments or unnecessary explanations.
And what happens at the subtle levels that touch our subtle self and soul? What do the subtle self and soul of the other person do? Do we feel trust in the person, or in the person and their soul? A small, subtle difference, isn’t it?
A minimum effort mechanism
If anything happens in our lives, around us, at least three times in a row, our automatic brain recognizes a trend and predicts its continuation. The limbic area is responsible for this, and the name of this system is „1” or „x” system from the English word reflexive. However, there are situations we can’t resolve on autopilot because we need to focus; another system, located at the front of our skull, is responsible for these activities. This system is called „2” or „c” system from the English word reflective (slow, rational, mental). When we operate in the „x” system meaning fast, reflexive, and mindless, we avoid any kind of effort. This system is economical because it consumes very little energy, but it is reflexive and perceives reality rather superficially. When we operate in the „x” system we always follow the path of least resistance. Although some states transcend the „x” system such as intense hunger, thirst, pain, or strong emotions, this state is called the visceral state, and in it we no longer think automatically; we simply don’t think at all (metaphorically, our head is severed). It is very difficult for a person in the „c” state or the one thinking analytically, to communicate with someone who has succumbed to strong emotions, i.e., is already in a visceral state1. The pitfalls of being in the „x” state often include a superficial approach to reality, a shallow perception of stimuli, and almost completely mindless reading. A person in the „x” state prefers to read other people’s comments and opinions rather than analyze the content or the situation themselves. This old part of the brain „constantly perceives” that the person is about to run out of energy (there will be no food, no place to sleep, we will have to run away). It’s worth observing when we switch from the „x” system to the „c” system and vice versa.
Summary
The solution is deep awareness, acceptance and a pragmatic approach to yourself and the world around you:
- Modesty in Action: Remember that you are part of a bigger picture. Your actions and methods have limited application and do not constitute the entire solution. Avoid arrogance and the belief that you possess magical powers.
- Awareness of Action: Distinguish between thoughtless and automatic action (the „x” system) and conscious and mindful work (the „c” system). Strive to shift into a conscious mode by observing yourself and your surroundings.
- Critical analysis of information: Treat other people’s opinions and comments with a grain of salt. Recognize that they reflect their own limitations and experiences. Be alert to possible external influences (manipulations, beings, fears, emotions). Conduct personal analysis instead of following the crowd.
- Process work, not instant results: Recognize that transformation is a complex process that takes time. Don’t expect immediate results and be prepared for periods of setback. Remember that „backsliding” often accompanies the process of releasing old patterns.
- Acceptance of emotions: Allow yourself to experience a full range of emotions, even the difficult ones. Don’t avoid sadness, grief, anger, or disappointment. The emotions that emerge after sessions, while unpleasant, are a sign of deeper healing.
- Intuition vs. Manipulation: Beware of internal blockages and hunches. These may not be the voice of intuition, but rather an attempt by guardians to imprison you, preventing you from changing and accessing new opportunities.
- Self-interpretation: Don’t blindly accept other people’s interpretations of situations. Discard unconsciously acquired thought patterns and formulate your own opinions in a way that is separate from emotions.
- Assertiveness and Authenticity: In challenging situations, be assertive and honest, even if it means saying difficult or provocative things. Be observant rather than rushing to solve problems.
- Contextualizing „white” and „black”: Recognize that labeling teachers or therapists as „white” and „black” does not define their value. Individuals representing different sets of beliefs can be equally effective and contribute to transformation.
- Awareness of the therapist’s limitations: Recognize that trying to empathize and please another person can lead to succumbing to their story and emotions, which prevents true help.
- Recognizing the limitations of one’s own knowledge: Accept that not everything can be understood immediately and that continuous learning and introspection are essential to progress in the development process.
The key to the solution lies in self-awareness, acceptance, and a pragmatic approach to one’s own development process.
Bert Hellinger, despite being a „white teacher”—that is, representing a white mindset (philosophy, perception)—was quite effective as a therapist. I quote his words: „Anyone who thinks clients want to get rid of their problems is gravely mistaken. Often, they only want confirmation of their problems. They want to seduce others into attending to their interpretation and their way of seeing the situation. However, if a given interpretation were correct, there would be no problem. The further such an interpretation strays from reality, the more often it must be repeated to oneself, because reality disrupts it.”
Richard Bandler, representing a dark set of patterns (aura emanations) as a person—is also quite effective as a therapist. I quote his thought: „The greatest personal limitation lies not in what you want to do but cannot do, but in the things you have never considered doing.”
I used these „opposites” to show that the different energetics of these beings do not necessarily define someone as „good” or „bad.” Not every being with white vibrations or a white mindset is „good,” just as not every being with dark energies and a hellish mindset is „bad.” Let’s treat this as a set of spiritual patterns, a baggage of experiences, a stage of the soul. And now, through work and introspection, one confronts and begins to notice one’s „white” or „black” attitudes, burdens, and histories.
In my next study, I’ll cover the topic of shrouds, guardians, the Akashic Records, and the Pleiades. So, feel free to read the part three.
Nikodem Marszałek
2022 / 2024
1 Piotr Zielonka, Schudnij z lenistwa, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owA_Z3navgg [Eng. Lose weight out of laziness; access from February 10th, 2022].
