I'm wondering about this because, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm having trouble reconciling myself interiorly regarding a habit I developed as kind of a harmless way to feel good some two or more years ago.

I've for about a year now stabilized my spiritual practice and my life has followed the same general pattern of stability. I do tend to fall into a crisis after a period characterized by happiness and ease and seeming growth/maturity, but thankfully, during this stability time, the crises are short and don't throw me back to square one. Usually they just create confusion, suffering, temptation, but eventually lead to a discovery of an area of bondage/woundedness that was previously unknown. It's this realization that tends to end these short periods of crises and lead back to the "happy stability" with a new change/practice that incorporates the new understanding in my life.

But the latest crises has brought about confusion. I must say, of all trials, this seems to be the most terrifying when it's online! Which has led me to ask this question here though I don't know if I'll have an answer given how inactive these old-school types of forums are.

During my "crazier" period of Kundalini coming online, I was drawn to magical concepts despite my almost completely Catholic background when it comes to spirituality. It was more like a kind of experiential realization that these things were natural rather than demonic or even supernatural. I'm not talking about the practice of witchcraft per se. More like I started noticing patterns that were not mechanistic. I started to understand it by reference to quantum physics where time and space don't necessarily work in the mechanistic way we expect.

Mostly for me were what we call synchronicities and something similar to what they call law of attraction in new age circles. I don't and never did believe you could control the world one-for-one. More like it seemed to me (and still does to a large degree) that the life outside my body would slowly begin to shift in ways that mirror my inner state. When I was in interior chaos, it was. When I was in interior harmony, it was. It was this time I started watching tarot videos that displayed certain symbols that had developed some synchronistic significance for me, like certain numbers. Those videos were so uncannily mirrors of both my internal and external life (and others without the symbols were not) that I became convinced they were ok since they appeared to be part of a real phenomenon and not me manipulating things.

Since my last year of stability, Ive steadily dropped all sorts of behavior or habits that were contradictory to the highest life with God, which was my deep motive. I had what in my tradition are called "lights" which are greater understanding of spiritual subjects like mysteries of the faith and morals. I was lead to forgive, sonetimes experiencing it as humanly/physi impossible, some offences that cut deep: both recent and in the past. I was lead to get organized in my day to day. I was lead to find a vocation loving and serving those put in my life and to get more intense in prayer and sacraments. It wasn't all pleasant but as I did it, often against the odds while relying on grace, I came to have a conscious experiential belief in grace as a harmonizing and enabling reality at work in my life.

But recently this older habit of watching tarot vids that make me feel hopeful, has become an issue as I've made countless resolutions to drop it, only to restart when later I think I'm going overboard because there's nothing wrong with them. Then I get a thought that everything is wrong with them because Christians don't do divination. Then I get another thought that it's not divination since it's my own mind that leads me to specific videos, which tend to do nothing hrmful beyond giving a little message of hope. Then I get a thought that I'm ensnared etc.

Unfortunately, I've asked two different priests and they gave me opposite directions. One told me he didn't think it was a big deal if it was just for fun. Another told me it was idolatrous! Yikes.

My real concern is this confusion makes it even more addictive I think, because the dropping and picking up seems to have made it worse than before I started this wrestling.

What do you all think? Is it possible to have your mind pick up on "clues" in the world tht make sense only to you, which, when followed, lead to consoling messages? Or must that be a temptation of the devil taking advantage of the desert experience where we're desperate to "feel something consoling" after too long?

I know Phil always says to find a spiritual director and since this past year Ive started praying for it more and more. I was hoping I could join a carmelote lay community I found on the internet somewhere in my city, but they seem a bit far. My parish priests, in all honesty, don't seem like they do this type of thing. Just standard confession counseling.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: St. Rubia,

Great post, St. Rubia. Thank you.

I personally value synchronicities if they confirm or reinforce decisions or leanings I've arrived at through more traditional practices like prayer, reflection, dialogue, etc. In such cases, they can help to confirm a direction and that can be helpful, for if an important decision is in alignment with God's will for us, it's reasonable to expect that God will make some provision for us to carry it out, and this might well entail noticing supportive circumstances.

The problem with tarot, astrology, and similar occultish practices is that they can supplant prayer and other traditional means of discernment, becoming something of an external source of guidance for our lives. As you note, it's easy to get caught up in those kinds of practices and resources, perhaps even to the point that we look to them moreso than to the movements of the Spirit in our own lives. Phil. 2:13 notes that it is God who puts the will and the action into us (people of faith who seek His will), and there's just absolutely nothing in Scripture or Tradition that encourages us to use predictive tools like astrology or tarot. At best, the message we discern from those might confirm something we're already in touch with internally; at worst, we can become confused about whether they are stimulating the internal movement or confirming it. It's even possible that the devil could use occult means to draw our thoughts in a direction contrary to God's will.

I know of some who use astrology charts as a tool for self-knowledge, but I don't know enough about any of that to critique it. There are also books like Meditations on the Tarot which use Tarot symbols as a kind springboard for reflecting on the Gospel, with endorsements from leading Catholic spiritual writers. Those two examples seem different from what you're asking about.

OK, hope this helps.

Thanks for the response, Phil.

You're right about this in our Tradition. But I think I should clarify what I do. I don't really look for the "this is your future" videos. Full disclosure, I get tempted to look at the ones I look at when anxious, to see if they reflect the "hopeful" mind state I'm pulling towards as a kind of confirmation. It's hard to explain without examples, but they tend to be more like "You've been struggling so much, but you're being led to a better place etc" except accompanied by details that tend to be uncanny.

I realize this is a habit I should've quit over a year ago, when I was miraculously able to overcome, by grace, others like apathy/Acedia, sloth, rage, and discouragenent. And indeed I did quit for some months, only to return when anxious. I'm frustrated that it's proved so difficult and that I've ended up picking it up again everytime I'm anxious about my life.

Please pray for me.

Incidentally, today I felt a hard knot in my chest and following it, realized it was a wound of feeling afraid of God, where basically so many past disappointments hit me. I realized there was a connection to this loop/tendency to go back to these videos as a kind of external reassurance that something "bigger" was happening when I'm anxious.

So now I realize it's because a part of me feels like it's punished rather than loved unconditionally by God, which makes trust in the divine in these areas of my life (like career/work) difficult whenever I hit a setback. It's like a temptation to believe I'm hated by God. It's this fear/mistrust that creates the state of confusion that feels like being lost in a dark maze/wood. It takes away a certain kind of foundation. It's like being blocked from the theological virtues (faith, hope, love) which connect us to God.

So I've started saying aspirations of faith in God's love and providence for me. I see my confidence in God's love for me was the source of joy and freedom everytime I've been truly happy and that the trick the enemy has been using generally against me is to lead me, through struggles, to believe somewhere in my unconscious, that God is punishing/has been deliberately inflicting misery, combined with frustration with myself for failing to be the person who doesn't earn this punishment. For messing up over and over again, letting opportunities go. Etc. It's also a sense of just being unlucky. Just believing I'm the unluckiest person in the world.

All of which is false (thinking it through consciously, I clearly see it is).

I've never directly connected to this wound in this raw way before, where I could articulate the sentiments tied up in what feels like a little stone in my chest.

Perhaps the tarot video habit has come back with a vengeance so it can be healed from the roots once and for all and not just be "quit" from a superficial perspective or out of raw obedience when the craving is a deeper concupiscence that requires more than simple resolutions for healing.

You certainly have deep insight into what helps and hinders. I think we all struggle to really, fully believe that we are just plain old loved by God no matter what, and are prone to view our painful life circumstances and experiences as punishments of some kind.

It often helps to just be aware of a place within that is blocked or painful, and to gently hold it before God in trustful acceptance of God's love. This practice alone can help painful knots to unwind, or diminish intensity.

For external reassurance, the Scripture is the most trustworthy source, and there are web sites with compilations of reassuring and supportive verses you can find. Some kinds of spiritual reading can be helpful as well. And, yes, counseling and spiritual direction can also be helpful.

Hey y'all! Happy 2023!!!! Been a minute!

Thought I'd give an update in case anyone out there might be reading this someday.

In Summary: STEER CLEAR of the esoteric stuff!!!!

Thankfully I'm liberated now, after I was shown in prayer the roots of these addictions in deep anxiety and insecurity and I started praying the Litany of Trust by Sister Faustina of the sisters of Life. After about two weeks, the urge or even the desire to even look at the divination stuff just vanished! I lost all desire/inclings, it was a real miracle. The Lord took away the wound that was driving the behavior. Since then, I've learned a lot about spiritual warfare and gotten far more aware of demonic operations in my life. I ended up throwing away all the new agey things I thought were benign.

My interior life has also grown exponentially. Despite many difficulties, I ended up doing the 33-day consecration to Our Lady, which led me to an awaekening of the Love of Jesus in the Passion, which led to a realization that the sacred heart was the Eucharist! Praying everyday, steadily has gotten easier, alongside daily communion and spending time with the Terbanacle.

I've experienced many sweet graces before the Terbancle! The first of these experiences is what led me to the realization of the connection between the Sacred Heart, the Eucharist, and the Passion! It involved a feeling of an ocean of Love in which I was immersed, that was coming from the Terbanacle. It occurred to me this was divine charity itself, because in it, I loved not only Jesus himself but felt strongly that I had to love everyone else for him, or else I'd somehow be wounding him. It didn't last past a few hours (or was it days?) but it marked a new stage in my spiritual life, marked by devotion to the Sacred heart and the Passion. Meditations on the sorrowful mysteries also was very touching and I found myself weeping often, which is NOT my usual thing and I've said the rosary now for years (excluding the periods I was outside the church). I also found myself randomly groaning over my past sins and would need to go to my room and kneel and prostrate before God saying sorry over and over again. These are all old, confessed sins, but it was like I saw them in a fresh light and had to grieve over my rebellion against God the Father like the prodigal son.

I can happily report I no longer commit habitual sins, which is the biggest grace of them all, and my struggles with the overwhelming emotions also has cooled down A LOT! Rage, Envy etc All those ugly feelings that had surfaced have gone down a great deal. I still feel the stuff moving in my body, this time confined to shoulders, neck, and the middle of my brain. I've gotten accustomed now to praying to our Lady of Sorrows to reveal to me the hidden wound/knot in the sensation and many of them have to do with struggles to understand and trust God, in many different variations. For a while there, it was forgiveness because family members did something to me in June/July that shattered me to my bone. But ever since I finished the consecration to Our Lady, it moved on rapidly to the spontaneous prayer of Jesus on the cross "I Forgive them, for they know not what they do/did." It was like a spontaneous mantra every time the thought of the pain came and it seems to have healed all that like 95%!

Speaking of spontaneous mantras, another thing is in prayer or just while thinking deeply, lines from old hymns, many of them long forgotten, would pop into my head with just the message/answer I needed. At some point I wondered if my guardian angel was using old forgotten hymns to communicate to me! I find it very pleasant.

The only strange thing I find unnerving because I don't know what it means is, I have this strange thing happen to me where I fall into a DEEP, DEEP sleep and before checking the clock, I always think it was a few hours when really, I was out for just a few minutes! As I'm waking up, I always have religious thoughts filling my mind, but that's not the strange part. It's the heaviness in my limbs! Like I can't move them without great force which I usually am not inclined to do, and plus strange 'sweet pains' in places that correspond with stigmata (I am not a stigmatist, and not claiming to be one) and inside my head. The feelings are overwhelming and I often cry. It takes a while to move my limbs per normal. Btw, in other times, I can't produce these feelings. I think it has to do with my strongly focussing on the passion after my encounter at the terbanacle. The reason I find it unnerving is not the feelings, they tend to be very very pleasant, even when involving those pains I've mentioned. I find it unnerving because I've read through St. Teresa's nine grades of prayer and other Catholic spiritual books and it's nowhere to be seen there! It's not a type of prayer and it's not even described as a consolation by anyone! Which is a bit . . . 'Yikes! Is the demon doing this to me?'

I still continue to pray for a spiritual director. Unfortunately, I've gone to confession to several priests who just don't get too deep into anything like this. When I was afraid I might have demonic attachments many months ago, due to all the bad things happening around me plus the fact that I had been addicted to divination videos on YouTube, none was willing to even pray a minor deliverance prayer over me! It was a very strange experience. Had I been new to the faith/church, I might've been tempted to leave! But all the stuff I've described above happened after and I'm sure God was in charge and in good time, will lead me to a good priest for direction.

Lots of other stuff, but lets stick with those highlights!!!

That's a great update, St. Rubia! It sounds like your spiritual life has become much more rooted in solid traditional resources. Blessed relief to be done with the divination stuff, and to experience the healing you've described. And there are those wonderful synchronicities, having hymns with guidance pop up when you need them!

You seem somewhat troubled by that sleep-like experience you describe. Could it be that it really is sleep? It's possible to drop into a state of deep sleep rather quickly, at times. If it is sleep, you'll notice that you're slouching, or have drooped into some kind of posture to allow for rest. Deep meditative states often leave one still sitting or kneeling erect. If it's not sleep, it could be a kind of ecstatic, contemplative absorption. I doubt it has anything to do with a demon.

Why do you think you need a priest to meet with for spiritual direction? Most are not trained to do so. Check out the retreat centers in your area, as that's a good place to find one. Religious sisters can be wonderful spiritual directors, and so can lay people who've got training and experience with this ministry.

Yes, St. Rubia, what a wonderful update! It's great to hear all the transformative ways you see the Spirit working in your life and the healing that has taken place in your life.

Regarding the deep, deep sleep you are experiencing, I think Phil is on the right track thinking it may be a meditative state. There are references in Yoga and Buddhism to a deeper state of consciousness during sleep called dreamless sleep, though framed in an Eastern understanding.

Kundalini, prayer and religious practices produces a range of interesting physical and spiritual phenomena. I can relate to a lot of what you describe in your post. Personally, I have also had a those deep states during sleep, when time seems to disappear. At one point, my eyes wouldn't adjust to the light if I woke in the middle of the night and had to turn on the light. The ophthalmologist thought I was just in such a very deep sleep that my eye muscles couldn't respond fast enough. Maybe it's the same with your limbs.

When I was in the initial phases of my Kundalini awakening, I was hoping to find a "good" spiritual director or a priest that could guide me pastorally. I prayed a lot for months to find the right, and then asking God if the spiritual director I had was good for me. It's been four years now with my spiritual director, and I am just grateful to have had this person accompany me in this journey. It's more of a relationship that develops with time and trust, so I recommend just diving in. Usually after three meetings, the director/directee evaluate and decide if it's a go. You can always try someone else if it doesn't seem like a good fit. Have you searched on SDIcompanions.org?