I have a TikTok presence where I (vaguely and not well enough) promote my books as well as provide free psychic-medium readings and promote my Skool platform. Something someone said in response to one of my posts has prompted this blog today.
I posted a collective psychic-medium message which was prompted by hearing the chorus of the Goo Goo Doll’s song, Iris over and over in my head. I hadn’t heard it on the radio or anything (I rarely listen to the radio in the car if I’m alone), and it was clear that the message was – don’t worry if the world doesn’t understand you. Be who you are. Who you are meant to be because that’s the way to finding peace and fulfilment. By being your true, authentic self. And if that means that some of the people you thought were your friends turn out not to be, then perhaps it is time to let them go. To walk away from them and find the tribe that does suit the real you. I meant it from a spirituality perspective, that perhaps someone had discovered their spirituality and their friends were either walking all over it or were more open and receptive to it than you ever thought they might be.
One of my followers and someone who is also on my Skool platform replied that someone she knew had been horrible to her about the fact that she was taking our tarot course. She had been very disparaging, barked up the wrong tree and generally disheartened the lady I know. It is so unpleasant when people do things like that, but first of all let’s have a think about why they behave in that way. When we behave negatively, it is often fear-based. So, perhaps this woman was afraid of tarot readers. Perhaps she is afraid of the whole thing, maybe the fact that spirits exist is too uncomfortable to her. Which would mean I hazard a guess that this woman is far more psychic than she lets on and is too scared to talk about it or deal with her gifts. The problem, though, is that she managed to make the woman I know feel bad about herself and that is not okay.
Why would she feel bad about herself? Well, that usually boils down to a lack of self-esteem. When we care about what other people think of us and our choices it is because we are seeking external validation for them. I know, I’ve done it up until very recently. I’ve not wanted people to disparage the spiritual choices I have made so I have been very quiet about them on social media. Why should we care what other people think of us? If we are doing nothing to hurt anyone else, what right do they have to judge us? But when we open ourselves up for external validation (though the lady I know isn’t), we are inviting judgement in. Not everyone will agree with someone who is stepping off their ‘line’. Who is slowly walking away from the ‘rules’ society has placed upon us. They will find it threatening and, in that fear-based energy, will strike out. They will disparage. They will pull you down. They will say horrible and hurtful things that are designed to hurt and to keep you in your ‘place’ wherever and whatever that is supposed to mean.
Why should people be ashamed of being spiritual? Many are not ashamed of being deeply religious, quite the opposite. Yet there is no more empirical evidence of their beliefs than there are around spirituality. Less, even. I mean it is undeniable that we are a part of nature and not separate to it, for example. And the spiritual elements of each religion relate to each other so deeply it is pointless pretending they are about the religion because they are simply the one thing. Spirituality. Spirituality is a broad ‘church’. It welcomes all in and doesn’t insist that you believe in a certain way. You can read whichever religious text you want, in fact it’s probably best to have read them all. There can be as many prophets and messiahs as you want, they likely all existed and probably all said the same thing. Until organised religion got hold of it and sought to create differences for whatever reason. Spirituality doesn’t ask that you reject anything other than judgement of others. It doesn’t ask anyone to lead armies and go into battle to spread it anywhere it isn’t wanted. There is no ambition of world domination in spirituality.
What there is in spirituality is an acceptance that there is something ‘more’ however you want to define it, and that can be intensely personal to you. It should be intensely personal to you I would suggest. There is the acceptance that we are all one, that there is fundamentally no difference amongst any of us regardless of everything that makes us unique. No one is lesser, no one is greater. We just all are, and we are all connected through the collective conscious. We are all part of the universe, it is categorically within us at a physical and spiritual level. We are connected – what is so wrong and embarrassing about that? Why do people eschew it? What is so ‘woo woo’ about it yet not about organised religion? What is so wrong with the suggestion that we have an eternal soul, that there is a different plane after death and that our loved ones and ancestors watch over us and communicate with us in a myriad of ways? Divination tools have been used since time began – when you study the history of tarot, for example, no one even knows where, how or when it truly started because it has been in existence for so long. There have been people communing with spirit for millennia with the ancient histories littered with people such as the Oracle of Delphi, Tiresias, Cassandra and Sybils in ancient Greek stories alone.
Spirituality, in its most fundamental form, has always existed. Not as an organised religion with strict rules, physical churches, tithing, and dogmatic texts. But with freedom, love, connection, and morality guiding it and those who follow it. Yes, you have the ‘gurus’ who have jumped on the bandwagon and peddle their wares with scant real regard for the people listening to them. You get that in every walk of life, and especially in organised religion. But that doesn’t make spirituality any less nor does it mean it is something to be denigrated or denied.
In fact, if we were all a little bit more spiritual and a lot less judgemental the world would be a much happier place.
Louisa Simpson 