Anger and its effects on your spiritual practice

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Polyhymnia
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Anger and its effects on your spiritual practice

Post by Polyhymnia »

I have been in conflict with myself for some time now with how quick I can be to anger. I'm typically a very calm person. I would say I'm jovial, and quite easy to get along with. But there is a person in my life who drives me delirious with anger, and I often have to excuse myself from conversations and reset. She is a Christian pastor, and related to my partner, and every time she tells me she will pray for me I have to bite my tongue, often physically, because the urge to say something rude to her overwhelms me so much that it's the least I can do to stay quiet and politely nod my thanks.
When my mother tells me she'll pray for me, I often say "love me or hate me, just don't pray for me" and that's mostly just to tease her, since I have been very vocal about rejecting my spiritual upbringing for most of my life, but there's something inside of me that means it and recoils at the idea of anyone praying to specifically the Christian god on my behalf.
I struggle with this because I can't seem to figure out how to overcome this reaction. I pray all of the time. I can't help but feel as though my reactions are very childish, and a better person would be able to accept these prayers with grace and calm composure.

I find my frustration will often come out in periods of meditation, when my mind will wander and I'll realize my face is wet with tears. This phenomena isn't exclusive to the Christian prayer incidents, but often happens when I'm feeling any sort of sadness or frustration in other parts of my life. Does anyone else notice anger affecting their spiritual practice? How do you cope?
"Limited love asks for possession of the beloved, but the unlimited asks only for itself." -Kahlil Gibran
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Astraya
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Re: Anger and its effects on your spiritual practice

Post by Astraya »

Thank you for the important question. I feel that anger is the most absolut feeling that one can link to occult work. It is personal and collective feeling, what I try to avoid to get in a way to work in best result to everyone. Anger includes creativity and void. Balance is hard in this feeling . I myself try to cope in this with the wisdom of other people, wisdom and insight of pain.
“There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion”
― Carl Gustav Jung
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Soror O
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Re: Anger and its effects on your spiritual practice

Post by Soror O »

I have worked (and struggled) with anger - mostly towards my parents and my ex-husband.

To me anger is an emotion which fuction is to separate, to transform ignorance into acknowledgement and to draw barriers. Hate can be functional - as long as the separation and the barriers are in the end dissolved with Love. Hate also, in my opinion, transmutes ignorance into more subtle and awaken perception of conflicting polarities. To me, ignorance is the "opposite" of love (as if something could opposite love). "The greatest love seems indifferent", yes, but it's not ignorant.

I have worked with hate in following stages:

1. Becoming aware of my resistance of hate (as it is the most judged upon emotion - the azazelian emotion. One ought not to underestimate the weight of the social conditioning regarding hate.)

2. Researching the anatomy - and cause and effect (karma) - of my hate: when did it begun, why it exists, in what way it exists, where it exists?

3. Dissolving hate with Love. And love here means absolute, non-judging, all perceiving presence

(Repeat)

This stages are cyclical, tangled and multi-layered (expanding deeply into familiar and collective spheres).
If you want to reborn, let yourself die.
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Nefastos
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Re: Anger and its effects on your spiritual practice

Post by Nefastos »

An important question to be sure. Just yesterday we talked a bit about anger after a Graal lodge meeting. It seems important to understand one's anger & anguish inside, for a person who is unable to do so – like a child – will almost certainly end up hurting other living beings.

I only show my anger to the people I consider the very closest. To me it is so intimate and also bonding: to show your feelings at their weakest & most vulnerable. In anger there should therefore never be actual hatred, lack of love, but love should be the thing that makes showing the anger possible at the first place. I understand anger to be so volatile a feeling, that it should be about energy going from place (emotion) to another, and never one's actual stance towards someone. Anger should not remain, even though its result in separation often might need to.

Ave wrote: Sat Jun 06, 2020 7:49 amHate can be functional - as long as the separation and the barriers are in the end dissolved with Love.

This is very true for me too, since my basic emotional nature is so all-encompassing: it has been extremely hard for me to cut something totally out. There's always something good mixed with bad. The easiest example is Judeo-Christian God. It would be easy to choose the understanding approach as an esotericist: to interpret Bible & theology only in a good light. But considering the cultural context, I feel that would only prolong the existing problems. So, Judeo-Christian God must be Hated. This is actually quite easy application of the instrument of hatred, since its object will not suffer from that hatred, unlike a human being (astrally) would. The question is much more problematic when hatred (or anger) must be allowed to focus on actual person, to sever a bond that has become evil – usually some form of vampirism. Such an inner wrestle bears semblance to the fight against the Lernaean hydra: not only must the emotional heads be severed, but every neck must then be burnt with love.

Polyhymnia wrote: Sat Jun 06, 2020 12:38 amand every time she tells me she will pray for me I have to bite my tongue

No wonder! Praying for someone is basically putting a magic spell over her. That's why I always stress that even though in the Rosary of Azazel practice we pray for different beings & people, the prayer must be absolutely free of particular wishes save the most abstract wish for good things coming to her. If we let our own idea of what would be this good for someone else to come to our prayers, even as the faintest mental taint, the result is black magic: choosing the path for someone else. That creates a terrible astral karma, basically killing one's own free will as a result.

Polyhymnia wrote: Sat Jun 06, 2020 12:38 amDoes anyone else notice anger affecting their spiritual practice? How do you cope?

As said above, my spiritual practice suffers more from the lack of natural separatist tendency than from it (anger). But of course there are occasions where anger arises. Just today I felt: "How can this person do such a foul deed, pay good with evil? How vigorating & freeing it would be just to send a bolt of hatred like a black lightning to that person. Ah, that would feel so relieving. It would be just." But instead I wrestled with that understandable yet selfish & destructive need, and instead considered it good that another person had helped the needed process of separation by doing a malevolent deed. What is left for me is therefore to pray for such a person (with no intent for anything particular happening, like said). This is never easy, of course, but it becomes easier & quicker to turn that destructive need every time the wrestle has been won. It is a skill like any other.

Astraya wrote: Sat Jun 06, 2020 2:58 amAnger includes creativity and void.

This is an important Satanic insight. Both are mostly inner things, also. So it would be important in one's occult life not to leak those energies outside for bad, since they can be used inside for good. Or, when we take the approach that anger is shown as a sign of intimate vulnerability, such a creative void becomes like a new clearing in relationship. Making room for something new, changing the approach. People who never get angry might risk of never actually changing their course either.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
Hairetikos
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Re: Anger and its effects on your spiritual practice

Post by Hairetikos »

I'd say anger is a gift and a curse that should be caressed. In my life it's been a magnificient force guiding towards something maybe "ascending" and in the other hand just pure poison eating me from inside and paralysing me to lie under the most painful thoughts. All before mentioned naturally depends on the skills how to cope with such strong emotions. I get easily irritated (a bad habit I know I know) but getting really angry and mad is quite rare nowadays. Whenever in some kind of a conflict I try to keep myself calm as good as I can since 1) I don't believe mundane issues get any better with rage and 2) I've become pretty careful not letting everything out in a furious manner because my rage could turn to a violent (not in physical ways towards others or myself but violent within me) outburst that'll leave inner damage.

Of course this happens from time to time and then I'll have to take a look at the remains and see what could be done. I've spent past years trying to understand my hatred and anger and slowly, even frustrating slowly, I begin to see some results and something is left behind and something needs work and attention. Overall, my view of anger was pretty much covered in the first sentence.
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Insanus
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Re: Anger and its effects on your spiritual practice

Post by Insanus »

I have lost my mind few times during my life and every time it has been anger mixed with feelings of powerlessness or disappointment or shame that ruined the day.
On the other hand, every great change I've ever made has also probably been motivated by anger. Anger feels like simulating a psychic threat in a black-and-white way and that gives extremely good focus and motivation unless we, confused, both want and don't want to sacrifice something. The optimal intensity seems to come from sharp precision defining the perceived error much more than from feeding the flames mindlessly. There's a sense of cruelty, because defining also kind of objectifies. My anger tries to control painful perceptions, and it gets out of hand when that control is not achieved, that is, when the object of anger is weakly defined.
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Soror O
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Re: Anger and its effects on your spiritual practice

Post by Soror O »

Polyhymnia wrote: Sat Jun 06, 2020 12:38 am I have been in conflict with myself for some time now with how quick I can be to anger. I'm typically a very calm person. I would say I'm jovial, and quite easy to get along with. But there is a person in my life who drives me delirious with anger, and I often have to excuse myself from conversations and reset. She is a Christian pastor, and related to my partner, and every time she tells me she will pray for me I have to bite my tongue, often physically, because the urge to say something rude to her overwhelms me so much that it's the least I can do to stay quiet and politely nod my thanks.
(...)
I struggle with this because I can't seem to figure out how to overcome this reaction. I pray all of the time. I can't help but feel as though my reactions are very childish, and a better person would be able to accept these prayers with grace and calm composure.
(...)
I find my frustration will often come out in periods of meditation, when my mind will wander and I'll realize my face is wet with tears. This phenomena isn't exclusive to the Christian prayer incidents, but often happens when I'm feeling any sort of sadness or frustration in other parts of my life. Does anyone else notice anger affecting their spiritual practice? How do you cope?
What if the roles were reversed: Would and could you say to her: "I'll pray for you?" If not/yes, why?
If you want to reborn, let yourself die.
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Polyhymnia
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Re: Anger and its effects on your spiritual practice

Post by Polyhymnia »

Ave wrote: Sat Jun 06, 2020 9:06 pm What if the roles were reversed: Would and could you say to her: "I'll pray for you?" If not/yes, why?
This was incredibly hard for me to answer. I don't think I could, and I think it's because she would reject it so vehemently because she's of the camp "it it's not from Jesus, you're going to Hell." I suppose a part of me wouldn't want to waste my energy, and another part of me wants to be withholding to someone with such a rigid stance. That latter part is quite ugly to admit, but I don't think I'll be able to move forward if I'm not honest. It's hard for me not to rise when baited, which is often how I feel when dealing with her. Christians often feel the need to "rescue lost souls from the depths of darkness", at all costs, and it's probably the thing I find the most annoying about the religion.
Insanus wrote: Sat Jun 06, 2020 6:11 pm On the other hand, every great change I've ever made has also probably been motivated by anger. Anger feels like simulating a psychic threat in a black-and-white way and that gives extremely good focus and motivation unless we, confused, both want and don't want to sacrifice something. The optimal intensity seems to come from sharp precision defining the perceived error much more than from feeding the flames mindlessly. There's a sense of cruelty, because defining also kind of objectifies. My anger tries to control painful perceptions, and it gets out of hand when that control is not achieved, that is, when the object of anger is weakly defined.
Now that I think of it, I think every great change I've ever made has also been motivated by anger. Or fear. Which is also a psychic threat in that same polarized way. Your description of anger getting out of hand is like looking in a mirror, though mine often gets out of hand faster and larger than I could anticipate. I get overcome by fits of blind rage, and in the midst I get confused about what I'm actually mad about. Focus is so important, and now more than ever I see how much I need to get it under control. It's like Nefastos so wisely said, it is a skill like any other (not meant for that particular example, I know, but I feel it still applies!)
Nefastos wrote: Sat Jun 06, 2020 2:37 pm

I only show my anger to the people I consider the very closest. To me it is so intimate and also bonding: to show your feelings at their weakest & most vulnerable. In anger there should therefore never be actual hatred, lack of love, but love should be the thing that makes showing the anger possible at the first place. I understand anger to be so volatile a feeling, that it should be about energy going from place (emotion) to another, and never one's actual stance towards someone. Anger should not remain, even though its result in separation often might need to.


I'm the same. That isn't to say I don't feel that intense anger towards other people, it's just, sadly, the closest to me who see that explosion of energy. I think it would do me good to practice experiencing anger the way you put it here. Mine often manifests as a stance towards someone, which then makes it almost impossible to let go in the long run.


Ave wrote: Sat Jun 06, 2020 7:49 am
I have worked with hate in following stages:

1. Becoming aware of my resistance of hate (as it is the most judged upon emotion - the azazelian emotion. One ought not to underestimate the weight of the social conditioning regarding hate.)

2. Researching the anatomy - and cause and effect (karma) - of my hate: when did it begun, why it exists, in what way it exists, where it exists?

3. Dissolving hate with Love. And love here means absolute, non-judging, all perceiving presence

(Repeat)

This stages are cyclical, tangled and multi-layered (expanding deeply into familiar and collective spheres).
Your thoughts on things always really speak to me. This is a very helpful cycle. Thank you for sharing this.
Astraya wrote: Sat Jun 06, 2020 2:58 am Anger includes creativity and void. Balance is hard in this feeling . I myself try to cope in this with the wisdom of other people, wisdom and insight of pain.
A beautiful thought. It would probably do me some good to find some similar coping mechanism. The replies to this post alone have been very eye opening and incredibly helpful. I am once again blown away by the graciousness and generosity shown time and time again in this forum. Thank you all.
"Limited love asks for possession of the beloved, but the unlimited asks only for itself." -Kahlil Gibran
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Soror O
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Re: Anger and its effects on your spiritual practice

Post by Soror O »

Polyhymnia wrote: Wed Jun 10, 2020 9:07 pm Christians often feel the need to "rescue lost souls from the depths of darkness", at all costs, and it's probably the thing I find the most annoying about the religion.
I think about the act of proclaiming to pray for someone. Just pray or don't, but what's the fuss and proclaiming about...

Real things happen regardless someone stating it outloud.
If you want to reborn, let yourself die.
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Cerastes
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Re: Anger and its effects on your spiritual practice

Post by Cerastes »

Ave wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 10:06 pm
Polyhymnia wrote: Wed Jun 10, 2020 9:07 pm Christians often feel the need to "rescue lost souls from the depths of darkness", at all costs, and it's probably the thing I find the most annoying about the religion.
I think about the act of proclaiming to pray for someone. Just pray or don't, but what's the fuss and proclaiming about...

Real things happen regardless someone stating it outloud.
I just had the exact same thought.

"I will pray for you" is often just another way of marking moral superiority. There is always something derogatory about it and it is one of the phrases that But as you said, if someone prays for you, s/he can do it without telling you. If s/he tells you, there is often a secret wish to put oneself above a person - eventually even the wish for others to notice this in case there are other people present. The person might not even be conscious about that wish so an angry counter reaction is not expected. I find that moral superiority due to one religion and the resulting claim to be able to judge others is repugnant.


It usually helps me to understand on an intellectual level why something makes me angry. If something is important enough to upset me, there is always a reason. If I find out that the problems is not on me and the behavior of the other person was in fact inappropriate, I try to be open about it, even though it might cause disharmony. At least that’s the theory but of course it does not always work as planned.
“Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else.”
(Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)
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