#new age thinking

[elminx]

Hiya!

I know you've mentioned the topic before, but what is your stance/ where do you intersect the concept of manifestation/ law of attraction and magic or spirit work? The new age spiritual movement (esp in the social media sphere) is quite contentious, but it's always interesting to see similar language used in witchcraft/magickal spaces, astrology, and new-age spiritual circles despite the communities being distinct (at least for longterm/ more extensive practitioners or hobbyists, I only ever see astrology and witchcraft communities overlap, but generally centred around moon cycles). Do you find witchcraft to be the same as manifesting but with physical elements, or completely distinct from loa/manifesting, perhaps somewhere in between? Does spirit work affect your view on LOA/ new age concepts of individualism and how everything is "within" us/our mind? I find it all interesting because all of these practices are largely internal, however LOA is very individualistic, almost like a capitalist take on different parts of magic, spirit work, and even denial in happenstance.

Sorry if these weren't the type of questions you were looking for or it was worded in a confusing way ! I have plenty more lol.

Hey!

I actually think that this is a really interesting ask. But it's a lot and I may not cover everything in this so feel free to send in another and reask if I don't.

Note: My expertise is definitely in the Witchcraft/Astrology sphere, not New Age so I don't know all of the ins and outs of LOA and "Manifestation" though obviously these spaces sometimes overlap so I've had some exposure to them.

I have two big problems with the Law of Attraction:

We call it a law and it's not. If we just called it the rule of attraction (like begets like) I don't fully disagree with it.

People say it can affect things beyond our mental states and act like purely thinking about things will change your life (spoiler alert: it won't)

Let me try to elaborate as succinctly as I can. I believe that the Rule of Attraction is an effective and fairly simple form of mind magic that can be used in conjunction with any type of magic/witchcraft/astrology etc.

So much of how we perceive the world is affected by the state of our brains. There is so much more stimulus than we can ever perceive and process that our brains make decisions about what to focus on. This is done automatically based on our past experiences - our lives with all of our traumas and triumphs have trained our brains to perceive the world in a particular way.

This is why optimists tend to notice the good things that happen to them more and pessimists tend to notice the bad things that happen to them more. And I don't think that this is, for most people, a conscious choice that they have made. I suspect that for the average (generally unaware) person, the reason that they are a pessimist or an optimist is based upon the things that have happened to them throughout their life. If their life has been easy, the brain has been trained through this ease to see and recognize good things. But if their life has been hard, they may have had to focus on bad things to keep themselves safe.

The good thing about this is that through the neuroplasticity of our brains, we can change this. We can literally train our brains to focus more on the good or more on the bad.

We saw this happen through the last three years as many of the people who had up until the pandemic had relatively easy lives crumbled under the weight of realizing how dangerous the world can be. (That's not a judgment - just the reality as I see it) Trauma changes the brain, ignites our parasympathetic nervous system, and trains our brains to see a threat behind every corner.

When you are looking for a threat, you will find one. This is the like-begets-like part of the Rule of Attraction. When you expect your day to go badly, you will focus on and remember the bad parts of your day and ignore the good parts.

But, as I said, you can retrain your brain. When I am capable of giving the LOA gurus the benefit of the doubt, I think that is what they are trying to teach people to do. By focusing your attention on the positive things in your life, you are literally training your brain on how to look for the positives in your life. With practice, you can become more optimistic and learn to see the world differently.

I know because I have done this. And let me tell you, it is the hardest thing that I have ever done but also the most rewarding thing that I have ever done. It has calmed down the majority of my PTSD triggers. It has helped me to overcome bouts of depression faster. It has helped me to get over things that I thought were the base parts of my personality.

And I want to be clear: sometimes people interpret the Rule of Attraction to mean that you can't ever look at the bad things because that will mean that you draw in bad things. I choose to believe that's a deep misunderstanding. You can be a positive person (or simply be trying to look for the positives in life) and still encounter negative things - the trick is to not doomsday yourself the minute that a bad thing happens. To choose not to assume that one bad thing happening will ruin your day. To shake off the small stuff even if you can't shake off the big stuff. To remember that this afternoon is another chance to have a better day, or tomorrow is if this afternoon is shot.

What I don't believe is that you can think your chronic illnesses away, make money without working, or make other drastic changes to your outside life just with "positive thinking".

But being more positive thinking can help you to notice when you're having a good chronic illness day (rather than ruminating over how bad the next bad day will be), recognize that good opportunity to make money, or make you more likely to take the chance that WILL change your life rather than assuming that it won't work out.

I get that the Rule of Attraction isn't for everybody and that many people can't use it due to mental illness or trauma getting in their way. You aren't a bad person if you can't utilize this type of brain work and there's nothing "wrong" with you - it's just not for you. But I also don't think that makes it wrong or bad in the way that some people vilify it to be. (Yeah, that was me trying to be succinct. I am not sure if I answered your question at all. But thanks for the chance to get on my soapbox, I guess)

[anotherpapercut]

genuinely it will never stop baffling me how people will wear twilight shirts and talk about team Edward vs team Jacob and then the same people will be like "I'm not basing my personality off of a piece of media (harry potter) made by a transphobe 😌" like good that's great! so you can excuse racism but you draw the line at transphobia? good to know

[an-established-butt-dent]

I'm a bald Solas lover I swear!!!!

—> Process video under the cut because of flash warning.

[zaahvi]

GLORY TO THE RISEN GODS

[gerrykeay]

im not putting this post into words. beams into your mind The Parallels

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[spitedemon]

i really don’t think it’s “typical dragon age fandom nonsense” for people to be genuinely upset about the world state choices. combat, level design, art direction, gameplay gimmicks, those have all varied across each dragon age game. the one thing that’s remained constant are nods to our previous choices.

i wasn’t expecting my HoF to come riding in on a griffon, but i can’t find a monument dedicated to warden tabris somewhere around the anderfels? lucanis couldn’t have some lines about the time that one arainai boy was stirring up trouble in antiva city? you’re gonna tell me that making a mage the new divine wouldn’t have some impact on nevarra and antiva? on the anderfels, the supposed most devout militant andrastian nation in thedas? you’re saying nobody in the north is paying attention to who rules orlais or ferelden? come on.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

soon it'll be dawn again

transcript under the cut ⏬

page 01

Fig: no way? - you're still up?

Riz: Wh– yes?

Riz: Why'd I not be.

page 02

Fig: I me~~ean - that took.

Fig: whole day.

Riz: Yeah?

Fig: 'm beat.

Riz: you should sleep.

page 03

Fig: nah. my guy's still up

Fig: I wanna hang out.

page 04

Riz: That's really nice.

Fig: Hah! - Nobody ever expects an Archdevil rockstar to be nice.

Riz: … yeah. - 's just budget work tho. (the stuff I'm working on) - I've heard it's boring.

page 05

Fig: yeah, but you do it…

Riz: It keeps things going, right? - Nothing happens if nobody sits down and - does the thing.

Fig: That's right… - though. Yeah.

page 06

Fig: sometimes it's someone else who - doesn't want the same thing to happen.

Riz: … - mm.

page 07

Riz (off screen): …It took me a long time to get that not everyone likes doing what I do. - 's probably because you guys are so nice– - or. - kind.

Riz (off screen): to anyone too, not just. - the people you /love/.

page 08

Riz: that's not how it is elsewhere. - The world's– not. hostile. - but 's not like it's kind.

Riz: So I'm doing as much as I can now… 

page 09

Fig: Hey.

Riz: ?

Fig: Go dig some dirt with me.

page 10

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - oh you meant like - actual dirt. (not incriminating information)

Fig: o yea.

Fig: there's clay in the backyard soil. - sometimes when I'm sun deficient or something I go touch dirt for a bit.

page 11

Fig: here u go

page 12

Riz: uh

Fig: now we make a thing! - 'm pretty good at freehanding a bowl.

Fig: I'll show u

page 13

Fig: just– yep, flatten that out as evenly as u can, then–! - actually ur nails'd be so good at cutting out the strip. [larger than usual space] wait. - wait. wait u can carve patterns with them! we HAVE to try

Riz: uh - What. do I carve?

Fig: anything!!!

page 14

Fig: and– yep just seal the inside uh. seam?

Fig: yep that works - okay time's up! all contestant hands up

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - okay - wh. what's next?

Fig: haha - watch this.

(sound effect text): FWOO—MP

page 15

Riz: WH– DON'T JUST DO THAT???

Fig: Now it's fired!

Riz: THAT WAS NOT SAFE

Fig: (actually it's just dry. if u add water rn it'll dissolve)

Fig: ok catch!

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - careful!!

Fig: dw no need haha

page 16

Riz (thought bubble): oh - it's warm…

Fig: now I want you to throw this.

page 17

Fig: u gotta do it - c'mon

page 18

Riz: wh– - It's like 3AM right now

Fig: oh it's not /fired/ fired it's not gonna make a loud noise

Riz: And then just? leave a pile out here?

Fig: pour water over it & it'll be gone I told u

Riz: but

page 19

Fig (off screen): RIz.

page 20

Fig: I've done all this before.

Fig: Can you trust that at least?

page 21

Riz: no, I– - I do. - I trust you.

page 23

Riz: okay what happens now

(sound effect text): glob

page 24

Fig: we do it again!

page 25

Riz: wh. [larger than usual space] What do you mean. (this clay's too wet also)

Fig: see! you're already learning

Fig: [blank speech bubble] - there are flows that are futile to fight. - The world changes.

Fig: Things change.

page 26

Fig: I've learned my lessons with "forevers". - But - as an artist

Fig: I can give you one thing: - You can always do it again.

page 27

Fig: most of everything depends on the rest of the world, - but this. - making new. - that's yours as long as you want it.

page 28

Fig: So?

page 29

Riz: Yeah. - Yeah! - let's make another one.

[ripplesinthesand]

the funniest thing about smallville is the fact that they basically took your typical lighthearted #thepoweroflove superman story and put a succession character in there. like lex is out here trying to escape the Cycles and suffering under the thumb of his abusive father while clark is like man i wish my dad would let me play football :/ like i love smallville clark, he's one of my favorite guys of all time, but he is incapable of understanding why lex is the way he is, not only because he grew up with a family that loved and cared for him but because he is living inside a completely different genre. he's out here saving people, making the world a better place through goodness and compassion, while lex is sitting inside his million dollar estate on his fourth glass of bourbon talking about how he doesn't know how to love people because he was raised in a business instead of a family. and both of these are very good and interesting stories, but they are so fundamentally different that i think the show struggles to reconcile them at times, which is why you have scenes where clark is like "well lex you should've just tried harder with your dad because love and family conquers all in the end" while lex is just sitting there looking at him like he's insane.

[hayden-christensen]

OBI-WAN KENOBI (2022) Cinematography by Chung-Hoon Chung

@pscentral event 26: minimalism

[ainsi-soit-il]

Regardless of religion, people are allowed to be ticked off and uncomfortable when their customs and holidays are stripped down into a vague, distorted, and easily-marketable husk.

[two-corpses-in-the-burial-mounds]

Anyone else think a lot about how at the end of canon, Lan Wangji has had time to mature for 10+ years into a guy in his mid-30s, but Wei Wuxian still has the life experience and general maturity of a war-traumatized early 20-something?

Because like. Wei Wuxian died young and he died tragically, and everyone who was around him then that's still there after he's resurrected has gotten to live their lives. They got to mature. They've had 13/16 years to heal (or not heal -_-) and learn who they are. To become fully realized adults outside of the pressures of war. And Wei Wuxian hasn't had that. If you believe MXTX's interview that circulates on this site sometimes, he spent those 16 years in a suspended state of agony. And even if you don't believe that, he was still dead. Non-existant.

For Wei Wuxian, the war is fresh. The pain is fresh. He has no idea what's doing because he's barely an adult, if admittedly a highly skilled one for his age. The world has moved on around him and he has stayed in place. What does he do with that?

Wei Wuxian had no choice but to pretend that he's moved on, too, because that war that took so much from him was almost two decades ago, now. The Wen Remnants have been dead for over 10 years. What use is it to dig up old hurts? Except, those hurts are still hurting him.

When he died, Wei Wuxian was helping care for Lan Sizhui. Wen Yuan. When he died, Lan Wangji raised A-Yuan with the Lan. If Wei Wuxian was dead for 13/16 years and A-Yuan was 3/4 when he died, then Lan Sizhui is about his age, or very close to it.

This is the child he was raising. This child is now his peer.

Wei Wuxian has memories of war and tragedy, but no one to talk to. The juniors, who are closest to him in relative age, haven't known war, and everyone who has known it has moved on. He's trapped between generations, and that has to be so incredibly isolating.

Jiang Yanli, the Wen Remnants, Wen Qing of particular note, all of them died shortly before he did. Did he ever really get to grieve them? Will he be allowed to now? Especially with his reputation. Especially with the number of people who would really prefer him to simply leave the past in the past. Especially with all the people who think he is the cause of the deaths he wishes to grieve.

Will he be allowed to mourn, if the cultivation world thinks these deaths are his fault? Or that these people don't deserve to be grieved?

Wei Wuxian has the misfortune of being a man who is a decade out of time, and he will have to learn to cope with that, but how does he account for the missing years? When the pain is still fresh for him, how does he find a place in a society that has long since moved on?

[demaparbat-hp]

Zuko's eyes watered against his will when the ghost of a woman he did not know smiled at him like he was her child.

Zuko decided right there and then that maybe, just maybe, this too was something he came to find.

Ghost-Mother takes a look into Zuko's soul in For the Spirits Chapter IX: A Rider Alone.

More than a stranded soul, Kya holds all the love of the Old Tribe and the means to calm a coming tempest. Zuko won't ever forget her.

(He won't be allowed to.)

[albaharu]

years later it haunts me how anders could cure karl but he just didnt know it. but WHAT IF.... AND HE KEEPS HIS CAT ALSO....

[bluerosefox]

BREAKING NEWS! Youngest Wayne's Secret Lovechild?!

Teenage Ellie taking care of deaged Danny and moving to Gotham to hide from Vlad because Lady Gotham offered them sanctuary and will keep Vlad out.

BUT

Chaos is set into motion when during a Rogue attack, Damian Wayne (not as Robin at the moment) saves him and returns Danny to Ellie...

The internet/news happen because of course it did.

And people mistake Danny as his kid and Ellie his baby mama.

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[justaz]

lol arthur realizes with the other knights after watching merlin flirt and being hit with a wave of deja vu: holy shit you asked me out

merlin and the rest of the knights around a campfire after leaving a village bc lancelot and leon somehow started a brawl in the tavern: ???

arthur points at merlin: after valiant! you asked me to buy you a drink! you were asking me out!

merlin is busy cooking dinner and confused out of his fucking mind: what???…..valiant….oh the knight with the snakes.

gwaine who was slightly tipsy now stone cold sober and sitting up straight against a tree: wait. explain. what do you mean merlin asked you out??

arthur snaps his fingers as he recalls the memory: i apologized for sacking you and you said that if i bought you a drink we’d be even.

merlin now remembering how he had stumbled into camelot, picked a fight with a pigheaded bully which quickly turned homoerotic and flirtatious, and continued their teasing-flirting for days before merlin shot his shot and asked the prince out only to be rejected: oh yeah, i forgot i did that…..wait, you mean you didnt realize what i was asking?

arthur: no?? we argued everyday, how was i supposed to realize you were asking me out??

merlin now abandoning the dinner and staring across the camp at arthur while the rest of the knights watch their back and forth like a game of tennis: to you we were arguing, to me that was very much flirting. i thought you were flirting back so i decided to ask you. then you rejected me

arthur, mentally beating his past self up for fucking up their chance: i didn’t reject you!!! i just didn’t realize what you were asking me. how was i meant to? we fought every chance we got

leon, nudging elyan, glee and excitement riling through him: its happening!!! its finally happening!!! seven long, grueling years is finally paying off!!!

merlin, realizing the misunderstanding and acknowledging the fact that he wasn’t rejected, his flirtations just weren’t noticed - realizing he still has a chance: oh…oh i see. arthur, my dear, our fights were extremely flirtatious. need i remind you of what you said? “do you know how to walk on your knees? would you like me to teach you?” or “i could take you apart with one blow”

arthur, mental capabilities at an all time low: m…my dear….?????????

merlin grinning devilishly as he realizes that his flirtatious persona he had hidden away after falling head over heels for arthur can make a come back: that is what i called you. should i call you something else? say…mine?

percival gags in elyan’s ear: cheesy

elyan hides a laugh: at least they’re finally getting somewhere. better than the hopeless pining

arthur, flushed from head to toe: ah uh no um im uh

merlin thoroughly enjoying himself: oh come now, your majesty. use your words.