/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>47145383
Yes, I was in that thread and it was something like 2hus are modern gods that feed off our thoughts and everything related to the franchise.
Im willing to discuss it more profusely.

>Anon, surely you have by now become aware of the esoteric elements surrounding Touhou?

>>47145422 Same here on both accounts! I think I'm going to wait a small while until I can weave what I have to share into things more naturally, plus it would be nice to see the new start to this overall with the time that has passed, but yes.

Yes I am aware and there really is so much to cover...NO idea where to begin though Frankly.

>>47145491
this is fine...

There remains much to be learned. See beyond it all.

haa

>>47145383
So I had an entire reply written out about Okina and the Tanabata Hill from here >>47144503 and it pulled a connection error and deleted it all.

>>47145541
>this is going perfectly already
genuinely though gl with the retype

Genuinely was hyped for this thread to come back, and it arrived at a perfect time after some insane experiences that happened the past 4-5 weeks or so after the past one

>>47145644
Show us the experiences that bring insanity!

>>47145644
One of us. One of us.

I think one of the biggest things from last thread was that Gensokyo is based on real-life locations from the area ZUN lived when he was a child. The area in question, Hakuba, was almost unpopulated untill 1880s and has apparently some history of paranormal activity in general. There are even rumors that ZUN got spirited away as a kid, but anons were not able to really trace down or substantiate those rumors.

So in some sense, Gensokyo could very well be a place on Earth. It could be a spirit world in the flip side of rural Nagano.

This a page which machine translates to English pretty nicely that details some areas of Hakuba relevant to Touhou lore. There even are several branch shrines of the very large, very old, very esoteric Suwa Grand Shrine in Hakuba, Suwa itself being relatively close by.
https://w.atwiki.jp/th_seiti/pages/53.html
>>47145422
Well, yes, something like that was something discussed there among myriad other things.
>>47145491
You'll be in due time.
>>47145509
>Yes I am aware and there really is so much to cover...NO idea where to begin though Frankly.
Honestly, same here, I don't know how to put together everything that has happened since the last thread.

But since you shared a dream in the other thread, a few days after the previous thread got archived I had a dream where Ran out of all things appears. I am in a relatively nearby park with her. She looks a bit uncanny, she has more animal features than what she is generaly depicted as having. She says something to the effect that there is a kami or "spirit" in the park that I need to to help.

I go to the park. It's a hot day so I have a big bottle of water with me. "Kami" or "spirit" could be anything and it feels a bit weird to follow a lead given by something that has chosen to appear as a youkai to me, but since I am in the park in the middle of a day, I wager that the risk is basicaly zero.

There's no passed out drunk, wounded animal or wilting flower, so I opt to just pour out some water to some trees. There's an unusual spot there which feels like it has some kind of latent spiritual energy, so I pour some water there and take note of the place. I climb to a hill in the park and as I reach the peak (closest to heaven) my sister calls me.

She doesn't usually do something like this, but she has some worries and concerns that she wants to talk to me about. I listen to her and try to help as best as I can and soon enough it hits me. She's the one I was supposed to help here all along! To a being that operates possibly outside of our perceptions of time and space my sister and I might as well be literally in the same space as we speak on the telephone.

This incident left me with much to think about.
>>47145521
Yes, absolutely, there's so much going on when you start digging into the real life religions, mythologies and the esoteric side of them. Taoism and Esoteric Buddhism seem unbelievably potent and people have dedicated entire lifetimes to just one of the two. There is much insight to be gained from Shinto too. I found this a bit rarer(?) work during my research and some people here might enjoy it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20001218105000/http://www.csuchico.edu/~georgew/tsa/Kami_no_Michi_ToC.html
>>47145541
Well that's shame, I would love to read it. I researched Okina's connections to various other deities myself, it would be nice to compare notes.

Anyone else go through significant perhaps even mildly-emotional shakeups in relevant daily intrapersonal dynamics that ultimately lead to breakthroughs in better understanding/realizing self-worth between then and now or just me?

>>47145727
Maybe? You're gonna have to elaborate bit on that.

>>47145727
Such complex words make my pitiful brain hurt, but i'll try my best to understand.

>>47145657
This is going to be a massive wall of text because 4-5 weeks ago i went through what was a life changing religious experience (which i assume was partially caused by many sudden insights granted by both the previous thread and personal experience, mixed with a willing disposition to be receptive to such things)

I began by seriously starting to study what it all meant, the proper mythology behind the characters (in this case Kanako / the whole suwa lore are the most relevant one) just getting completely absorved into all of it both intellectually and emotionally, as seemingly obscure and strange things began to "click", insight after insight.

At that time i was a little loopy due to the "touhoupilled" attitude i experimented with (TLDR being receptive and attentive to the wondrous and strange things hidden in the mundane and the little details we tend to overlook and forget, alongside other things) which i assume was a bit of a helpful step to obtain the necessary attunement

So i went on to focus on playing the games (in this case, mountain of faith) until i was proficient in it, every attempt getting me further and further in, getting more personally familiar with every pattern, every song, every character, every little wondrous detail and more, i eventually was able to reach Kanako, i got my ass kicked and was almost immediatly hit by an overpowering, ineffable sensation that our human vocabulary fails to give proper justice to.

And there it was, through some bizarre type of pseudo meditation that was playing it with the right context and setting, i've obtained a brief glimpse into the nature of the divine, courtesy of Takeminakata, or Kanako as it's the the form i am the most familiar with, and it was as beautiful, terrifying and comforting as it could be, the most natural reaction to such an experience is to just submit to such overwhelming presence.

And while i was given some exposition to MANY insights and experiences that i was not truly prepared for (even if you accept the nature of these things intellectually, actually being slapped on the face by them is very humbling to put it mildly) what really stuck with me was that during all of this, some RANDOM person i've never seen or interacted with in my life, out of the blue messaged me about a profile picture i had on that forum, and asked me a very simple question "Who do you worship?" (I am not joking, the timing on that guy was insane)

And it really made me realize, i had no faith until now, i never did, every work, every gesture, every symbol i had and did was empty, i didn't mean any of it, i was just killing time until i died, doing what was expected of me but with no actual meaning, and living, active faith was truly the key to free me from this existential nightmare that is modern society (Continued)

>>47145711
I was particularly transfixed with that post when I first read through it, among a slew of others I've really been meaning to take more-thorough notes on. This reply to it from that thread has stuck with me, the fact it lasted until that Anon got back to Suwa as well is something else...gotta look into these provided links

As for your dream...there is an uncanny amount of parallels going on there between some of the stuff I've been wrapped up in as well since that thread got archived away.
Everything I've sort-of been implying overall concerning my greater involvements with the Yakumo family aside, I don't think it's too much of a surprise that Ran appeared to you in that state or at least it isn't much of one to me. These "entities" (there's gotta be a better umbrella term here...) are directly linked to our various senses/expressions of Faith & Perception. With what UDoALG has keyed-us in to concerning her past, we have the partially-unknown factors surrounding her time in the pre-industrialized Beast Realm influencing our collective ideas of her.
Ran is one of those girls that seems to have a certain amount of Potency within people when it comes to senses of attachment or expression, Certain Other /jp/sies may somewhat understand what I'm just Barely Touching Upon here for the sake of not immediately clogging things up. Other girls may also come to mind, but I digress...
The fact that you were simply guided to perform the only act of assistance you eventually could before going on to really help someone close to you does speak a certain amount of volume to me as well. These really Are beings that Do have that amount of understanding and forethought available for the right kind of planning. It's just a matter of what little we can all do together to create the right kind of results under that care.

There is a path for all of us, even if it is straight through the fog or seemingly into darkness. (not to be dramatic or anything really just...yeah)

>>47145887
By the end of it, i was left completely stunned for the following day, spirits and the divine are truly everywhere, we just forgot how to see and hear them, and for that brief moment i was exposed to that raw feeling of a higher reality that we normally ignore, and this strong "external" experience that was very personable and loud, internal yet not coming from myself, emotional and wordless insights that could be roughly translated into words for the new few days before it got quieter (but not 100% gone) almost all of thoses leading me to either self improving in many areas i was lacking in,
or having me do research into things that became relevant later in ways that completely side lined me, i couldn't really dismiss any of this as a halucination as every time i did, i kept getting slapped with insanely specific synchronicities which only really stopped once i learned to accept that this is just how things are now, and to go with the flow.

That was a MAJOR issue i had to learn to deal with, the dichotomy of common reality gives us some HEAVY backlash when we are confronted with things that threaten our perception of it, was i going mad or is this how things just really are?

And i've obtained a realization, atleast one that works for myself, we are all mad, our common cultural consensus is just what we're used to, so it counts as "sane" despite being anything but, and it was an experience i've had to internalize to ground myself and continue to work on this subject, we truly make our own sense of reality, and somewhere in the middle we can meet amazing and wondrous things, what you see is what you get, and the past few weeks have been genuinely the happiest and most powerful in my life, while not much physically changed, my attitude and perception of things has done a near complete 180, and the smallest moments bring me tremendous joy and comfort, faith is truly a powerful thing.

>>47145933
All while having constant, vivid dreams about the nature of many things, what is faith? what is meaning? what is a boundary? when you begin to pay attention while having an open mind, reality itself begins to change with you, or maybe it was always like that and you just never noticed.

I'm a little surprised to see another one of these threads so soon, but it's a pleasant surprise to welcome back /jp/'s favorite schizo-posting thread.
>>47145711
>"Kami" or "spirit" could be anything
Considering how Shinto is largely animistic, yeah.
>>47145887
>courtesy of Takeminakata, or Kanako as it's the the form i am the most familiar with
Do you mean Yasakatome? I largely don't buy the theory that Kanako is Takeminakata, given Toyohime's monologue in SSiB.
>>47145952
>what is a boundary?
This in particular is an interesting question. Certain lines in the Hifuu albums seem to imply that the "Boundaries" seen by Maribel are largely a matter of how things are 'defined.' In much the same way we have descriptions of the Yaoyorozu no Kami shaping the world primarily by giving names to things (I believe this comes from CoLA) and in eastern myths in particular, the idea that names have power is somewhat frequent. Granted, there are certain issues with the creation myth timeline meshing with Touhou's cosmology, but that's an entirely separate diatribe to get into.

Incidentally, last thread inspired me to start a dream journal, although I've not made massive progress filling its pages, as far too often I forget most of my dreams' contents as soon as I awaken. On the other hand, during the thread's lifespan I did have a dream where the Mental Layer itself was discussed, though the details escape me, and of particular note, both Keiki and Mayumi were present. For the time being though, I'm content to chalk it up to simple subconscious presence given OP posting rather frequently about Keiki, and the Mental Layer and Touhou's cosmology being a frequently discussed subject in that thread.

>>47145887
>>47145933
Anon that is so wonderful!! I wish my experiences since the last thread had been as positive as yours, though I do get the sense that you've had some difficulties adjusting too. I think with my own fears are starting to get in the way.

>seemingly obscure and strange things began to "click", insight after insight
Haha yeah, sounds familiar.
> "touhoupilled" attitude i experimented with
>TLDR being receptive and attentive to the wondrous and strange things hidden in the mundane and the little details we tend to overlook and forget, alongside other things
That's a really cool way to put it.
>was almost immediatly hit by an overpowering, ineffable sensation that our human vocabulary fails to give proper justice to
>through some bizarre type of pseudo meditation
>i've obtained a brief glimpse into the nature of the divine
I've never had quite anything this strong while playing the games in itself but I always knew they had meditative potential if you went into it with the right attidute.
>courtesy of Takeminakata, or Kanako
Kanako-sama is so powerful it's unreal. You can really feel that she has over 1300 years of history behind her.
>exposition to MANY insights and experiences that i was not truly prepared for
That's so cool, that must be a lot to process too.
>spirits and the divine are truly everywhere, we just forgot how to see and hear them
I don't think I even perceive them quite as strongly as you do. You've really had an amazing experience.
>i learned to accept that this is just how things are now, and to go with the flow.
It's really hard and I'm not sure if I can myself even do that well enough yet.
>That was a MAJOR issue i had to learn to deal with, the dichotomy of common reality gives us some HEAVY backlash when we are confronted with things that threaten our perception of it
Yeah, absolutely.
>our common cultural consensus is just what we're used to
Yep, and it denies an incredibly large slice of reality to itself.
>the smallest moments bring me tremendous joy and comfort
This is something I can 100% get behind and it really is the best thing about it all. How wonderful can things we take really granted like plants and animals and all kinds of natural phenomena and the things we create and build really be!
>>47145919
>As for your dream...there is an uncanny amount of parallels going on there between some of the stuff I've been wrapped up in as well since that thread got archived away.
Do tell more.
>I don't think it's too much of a surprise that Ran appeared to you in that state
It was surprising to me because I had made no attempt to reach out to her and she hadn't made herself known to me in any way. I would have been hesitant to get in touch with her. It really felt like some kind of a "see, we youkai aren't all bad" sort of thing to me.
>Ran is one of those girls that seems to have a certain amount of Potency within people when it comes to senses of attachment or expression
Can you elaborate on this? I've felt like she is really powerful, she's after all a nine-tailed kitsune, in Japanese mythology she would be qualified to ascend to heavens.
>
The fact that you were simply guided to perform the only act of assistance you eventually could before going on to really help someone close to you does speak a certain amount of volume to me as well.
I feel like they're really pushing me on one direction to try to make amends with my family and on the other hand to help out and respect nature more. I think this speaks a lot to the reality of the phenomena, after all it's said that real spirits can challenge people, and challenge them really hard at times too.

I also gotta say, there were recently news that foxes have been sighted in that park. I was not aware of this fact untill like three weeks when I had been to the park. It does feel a bit signifigant, considering it was Ran out of every possible one.

>>47145989
>I'm a little surprised to see another one of these threads so soon
I had planned to make one only much later on, but I got pulled into 10 different directions at once and never got around making any kind of proper summary of the previous thread. Work life got unbearably hectic which contributed to this. But the arcane power of the solstice seems to have brought out these type of discussions and they started to crop up in other threads.
>Considering how Shinto is largely animistic, yeah.
Yeah I was thinking it was going to be something really absurd like a single wilting flower. "It" being my sister was not on my list but everything considered it makes so much sense. I actually laughed later on that day at the absurdity of how I had started seeing the divine nature in /jp/sies before I had started seeing it in my own family. Of course this would bother them!!
>we have descriptions of the Yaoyorozu no Kami shaping the world primarily by giving names to things
That's a new name to me and oh goodnes what an idea.
>the idea that names have power is somewhat frequent
This is so, so, so common all over the world. Daoism, Shinto, Buddhism, Ancient Egypt, a number of pre-Christian ideas from Europe, Judaism and probably a ton more...
>as far too often I forget most of my dreams' contents as soon as I awaken
Keep at it, your dream memory retention will improve in due time.
>I'm content to chalk it up to simple subconscious presence given
There's certainly a lot of that, but it's also a communications channel for spirits. Sometimes it's hard to tell. Sometimes it's really obvious. And if you become able to some extent perceive the spirits, you might in fact start to recontextualize some old dreams that were recurring or felt very significant.
>OP posting rather frequently about Keiki
Heh, well, she was the first one I reached out to without even realizing it, and in subtle ways she was the first to reach out back to me. I'm really fond of her.

>>47146028
I find it kinda funny that i'm learning about shinto in the most roundabout way, when i live in an area with a MASSIVE japanese population and influence, i guess it's one of those things that was just meant to happen.

>>47145383
Okina has such a shit-eating face.

>>47146088
>I find it kinda funny that i'm learning about shinto in the most roundabout way
>i guess it's one of those things that was just meant to happen.
Yeah!! And these things so often work in really weird roundabout ways. Like when I picked up Touhou I was in a part of my life where I was hoping to kinda distance myself from esotericism. Turns out it was for me the last thing in the world to get into for this purpose.
>when i live in an area with a MASSIVE japanese population and influence
I'm a bit jealous, as much as I would want to take my practice towards more authentic Shinto there is just not enough Japanese people here for them to have shrines or anything. On the other hand, a community of apparently very authentic, very much rooted in Daoism, community of Tai Chi practitioners holds their lessons very, very near where I live. I'm enrolling soon, when their courses open up to newcomers again.

>>47146112
Okina-sama has many faces but that particular one might be favorite.
>>47146088
It also probably goes without saying, but I would like to read more about your insights, if you feel like you can share them. I just got the impression you might need more time and work to really formulate them?

>>47145919
>"entities" (there's gotta be a better umbrella term here...)
神
Kami has no direct translation in English, but "God" is plain wrong. "Spirit" is close. In Shinto it can mean almost anything, but the one shared trait of all things that are called Kami is that they inspire the feeling of divinity.
This is so direct and to-the-point that it's almost laughable we try to rationalize it any other way.

I've long had the feeling that Eastern philosophy is closer to the truth than Western. It's no wonder they have a better word for this than we do. There are so many other Japanese words with incredibly deep meanings that English struggles with, 気 for example, and this has been one of my greatest inspirations for learning Japanese. So much of Touhou lost in translation, most of all things we're not used to thinking about, which are also the most important.

I missed the previous thread(s?) about this, but i'm really interested in faith since i lack any myself. How did you, anons, manage to get in contact with it? I don't mean shinto gods, but faith and belief itself before deities. I've lived in places valued by many faithes throughout history, yet i've never managed to feel anything at all. How do you go about it?

Faith in thyself.

Admittedly, I should have realized this much sooner, but after going through some experiences of my own, I finally understand why most modern-day "believers" are so half-hearted about their faith.
Most religious people avoid thinking too much, and not just out of convenience and for the sake of fitting in, but also because the regular person may genuinely begin to neglect their needs if they become hyper-aware of every bizarre signal thrown at them and try to respond in kind, hoping for immediate redemption or the like - while also offering next to nothing in return.
Which would be a shame, because I'd presume that anything/anyone thriving on thought and belief needs a solid foundation to ensure a long-term, fulfilling partnership. As opposed to an unremarkable spiritual quickie, for lack of a better expression. Needless to say that I'm trying to cultivate the former. It's some of the most fun I've had in years, and it's fully compatible with everything else.

>>47146167
>but "God" is plain wrong
Yeah, in general, but at the same time we do seem to have some major kami which are pretty close to polytheistic conceptions of deities.

But yeah, kami is one of, if not the, best terms for it out there. Some european pre-Christian religions had actually very similar conceptions.
>I've long had the feeling that Eastern philosophy is closer to the truth than Western.
I've started feeling kinda like this too, and it also feels like some of the better parts of historicaly western thinking line up with Eastern ideas. Some of them might even have been influenced by Eastern ideas. We have to understand that Buddhist missionaries reached as far as west as Egypt and Greece during the reign of Emperor Ashoka. That's a LONG time ago.

But yeah, we have definitively lost a lot on the way. Now it's time to regain what has been lost.
>気
Ki? We had something like that: Pneuma.
>So much of Touhou lost in translation
I already knew it in my heart but it was fascinating to see it confirmed that it is indeed "Mu" where Chimata-sama is letting things to return to.
>most of all things we're not used to thinking about, which are also the most important
I can believe there is so much that I'm missing because I am not fluent in Japanese. I did myself too start learning the language though.
>>47146169
I should have maybe linked the previous one:
>>/jp/thread/46801995
>faith and belief itself before deities
I really don't know. I had really bad spiritual experiences about six years before my current experiences. I started experiencing something similar but not terrible. I started freaking out because of previous experiences, expecting the worst. A fellow anon tells me that I should try to reach out to them and talk things out. It worked. At that point I really couldn't help but believe in the reality of the experience.

But there have been moments where I have doubted it all, thought myself mentally ill or whatever. I think in some sense I struggle to integrate it all, I struggle with faith because I was never really religious in my life untill this all started unfolding.
>I've lived in places valued by many faithes throughout history
>yet i've never managed to feel anything at all
It might be that you have very particular ideas of what faith should be like or feel like or that it might even be a prerequisite for having for the lack of a better term "spiritual experiences". >>47146184
It's not easy.

>>47146169
As....wrong as this sounds, you have to get to a point where you go a little insane if viewed through the eyes of what our "reality" is in the modern age. Remember being a kid and doing those weird little actions or saying certain things because your grandparents did, even if little you had no idea why or why it made sense of lack thereof? Start doing those things again and trying to put meaning behind it to trick yourself mentally. The key is that if you do it enough times and start believing in it or the mechanism behind it, it'll really start showing up in your life. In layman's terms, you're essentially gaslighting yourself into getting a mild case of schizophrenia until your worldview changes to match what you're looking for. That's not to say you're driving yourself insane, even if that's what it'll look like from an outside perspective, but if you don't "pass" your own mental checks, you can end up with a bad mental state/headspace.

For instance, "step on a crack and break your mother's back" may be a silly little rhyme, but it tricks the kids into paying attention to the world around them better so they don't literally trip over their own feet (helps with dangerous traffic, too). You basically have to get back into that zone. Just surrender to the water and let it take you where the current leads, but remember to swim and keep your head above water so you don't drown in it.

Even to this day, a younger sibling of mine remembers the magical times of looking for a flying ship in the clouds, all because I told them the plot for Byakuren's gang in little snippets to keep them occupied over the summer, but even now I catch myself looking up during the downtime and just....looking for a sail somewhere out there. "Maybe I'll see it one day if I look hard enough" turns into "I wish for those days again" turns into "I'll just zone out and let my mind/soul drift and holy shit!-I saw it!" The trick is to stop yourself from going "I'm just imagining things from when I was younger. Oh well, back to the office."

It takes time, but it's worth it. Eventually, the other side you're looking for will reach out and start looking for you in return. This helps the process immensely. Just remember to answer the door when they metaphorically knock.

>>47146155
All of this ultimately boils down to personal experience, and what works for me might not work for you, but research into the bare minimum of what you are doing helps a ton, as ultimately any ritual is a way to get you focused and attuned on what you are trying to achieve, if you can read into it, and understand the WHAT and HOW of it, the resulting insight carries over for many other things

As for Kami/Spirits/Gods, it's a little complicated, my only experience has been with Kanako, but the impression i get is that not only you end up choosing, you yourself get chosen in a manner, once you are properly attuned to the right "frequency" (Proper mindset, proper information, proper attitude and affinity), you'll begin to get dreams and undeniable synchonicities from / with that god/spirit and things just flow from there.

>>47146169
Ultimately, faith is a type of transcendent, primal trust, be it in yourself, reality, a concept or gods, hone your intuition, your inner voice, look at things that call out for you, try to understand why, and trust that things will work out, and slowly it will snowball into life changing revelations from there, raw rationality will often fail you here and you'll have to rely on intuition, but once it "clicks", it's undeniable that something has happened, and the gate to wondrous things will open.

>>47146169
For me it started with exactly this kind of dissatisfaction. I decided I'd try to "pretend" divinity is real, to see if it made me any happier. ZUN said it best, in his short story about a bunch of old guys feeling left out in a coldly scientifically-minded world gathering to share fanciful tales of their encounters with the otherworldly (Imagine that!) Pic related.
Thing was, once I started allowing myself to connect to this stuff, it started connecting back. Things started falling into place, it became more and more real, until I found myself genuinely believing in things. It's hard to explain, but you know it when you feel it.
I realized my old mindset of needing to understand things in order to believe in them was wrong, that our human mind and culture is far inferior to the task of understanding the universe. The constant advancement of science over the centuries has revealed only one consistent, indisputable truth: there's always more to reality than we think there is.
This is the thought that can open your mind. Let go of the need to explain everything, and let your mind - your WHOLE mind, not just the rational part - follow its own path.
Oh, and psychedelics help. One more thing the ancients had right.

>>47146261
Oh, one more thing
>Let go of the need to explain everything
The Buddha is with me on this one.

>>47146167
Language is the tool we use to assign meaning to symbols, and thus reality, our vocabulary is quite literally the limits that we have to put our experiences in ways others (and ourselves) can understand, many eastern languages have such radically different ways of looking at things to what we're used to in the english speaking spheres that it's truly a key to understanding reality from another perspective.

Speaking of divine intervention, I just got a call from someone who wants to really a trip to a local mountain tomorrow morning and wants me to join. Right after looking at figures of certain Moriya residents...

Guess I'll go leave an offering and share a drink with a frig, snake, and churning. Thanks, Kanako poster.

>>47146254
>>47146255
>>47146261
I see. Thank you very much, anons. In truth, i've only started thinking about this because very recently i had a strange experience, i think the first in my life. I had a dream, a very mundane one, i think i was even shopping or something in it, when suddenly the focus of the dream shifted from my point of view to someone's face, can't say for sure if it was a man or a woman, and then he/she addressed me directly, telling me to take responsibility for things i did years ago (nothing illegal, just morally questionable). I don't think i've ever felt such an alien thing in my mind - Do you know how it feels when something beyond your own brain touches you? There's just a sense of...wrongness to it hard to describe.
I swear i have never felt guilt for any of these things (they weren't serious, after all, just asshole-ish of me, like ghosting long term friends for years etc), and honestly i still think i don't, but that moment in the dream was so strange and bizarre, i couldn't help but immediately start working on what i was told, and now just a few days later i see this thread.

Anyway, i'll start reading more on things. Thank you, once again

>>47146261
>Oh, and psychedelics help.
Way to devalue everything you've said. Now all off these threads are nothing but "gay retards on shrooms".

>>47146261
>that our human mind and culture is far inferior to the task of understanding the universe.
Culture, certainly. The human mind? Absolutely not. The issue ironically isn't a "need to understand," but a "need to be right," and how it lends itself to dogmatic thinking, even amongst scientists, which of course in turn leads to stagnation. Full, comprehensive understanding may not be necessary in order to believe in things, but shutting your own eyes is nothing but foolishness and arrogance in its own right.

>>47146297
The phone world correct "chuuni"...

Though the "major" side effect of these experience was a constant feeling of elation, almost every minor thing triggers it, the cool breeze on my skin, the warmth of the sun, how amazing that mudane meal i eat frequently was, how comfy my shoes are, everything genuinely feels 10x better, but at the cost that sometimes i struggle to ground myself and take "serious" things seriously when they require that sort of care.

>>47146329
When used properly, with the right intent, they are useful tools, it helps break pre-conceived notions and to notice existing patterns that were always there but we couldn't quite figure out, as sometimes looking at a problem from a different angle can bring great insight.

>>47146329
We were always nothing but gay retards on shrooms. If you're not a gay retard on shrooms, this thread is not for you.
That said, being a gay retard on shrooms is probably a lot more fun than whatever you're doing with your life.

>>47146377
Speak for yourself.
The only shrooms I touch are shiitake and portobello. Everything else is as "me" as I can get.

Some go the shaman path and use stuff like that, while others go the channeler route, and others go the ritual route. It's all different paths to the same destination.

>>47146228
>the regular person may genuinely begin to neglect their needs if they become hyper-aware of every bizarre signal thrown at them
>hoping for immediate redemption or the like
I think it might not even be immediate redemption, but getting kind of stuck in a spiritual pinball machine, there's a lot of weird, attention catching stuff going on. Getting mesmerized by it all is quite human, I think. I am probably to some extent guilty of this, as much as I hope to build a sustainable long term practice.
>while also offering next to nothing in return
Yeah it's really, really important to offer back to them.
>I'd presume that anything/anyone thriving on thought and belief needs a solid foundation to ensure a long-term, fulfilling partnership
I strongly feel you are right about this.
>Needless to say that I'm trying to cultivate the former.
Do you want to share what kind of practice you have been doing?
>It's some of the most fun I've had in years, and it's fully compatible with everything else.
It can be very fun. I spent the 33 days before the solstice dedicating each week to a different kami. Things didn't go 100% as planned but it was an extremely interesting experience that taught me a lot.
>>47146254
>where you go a little insane if viewed through the eyes of what our "reality" is in the modern age
I know this is a pure meme phrase but it really feels like it's the society at large that is insane. Pretending the spirits are not real does not make them go away. In fact, realizing just how many times I had been in contact or under their influence while not knowing it was one of the hardest things so far.
>you can end up with a bad mental state/headspace
Yeah and you have to ready to face some difficult experiences even if you don't start sinking.
>Eventually, the other side you're looking for will reach out and start looking for you in return.
Yeah and you can apparently do it almost accidentaly if you're the right type of person who just starts thinking "Keiki-sama would be disapointed in me if I ate too much" or "Keiki-sama would be really happy if I keep on drawing". If you start thinking of them as realy on even some small way, well...
>>47146255
>any ritual is a way to get you focused and attuned on what you are trying to achieve
>if you can read into it, and understand the WHAT and HOW of it, the resulting insight carries over for many other things
This on some level really is the core challenge of the practical side of it.
>i get is that not only you end up choosing, you yourself get chosen in a manner
>once you are properly attuned to the right "frequency"
My experiences exactly. It really is no wonder that I first reached out subtly to Keiki-sama, and it's no wonder she subtly reached out to me as the first of them all. By the time Chimata-sama made her intrusive mental image fireworks which were the big tipping point I had been somehow in tune with Keiki-sama for like two months.
>Ultimately, faith is a type of transcendent, primal trust
I actually really struggle with this myself. There is some constant latent fear of the kami being somehow angry or disapointed with me or that I am getting bamboozled by something.
>>47146261
The Hifuu club materials are really great and that chuunibuyo thing is one of my favorite bits of text from ZUN. He really is tapped into it. >>47146266
>Let go of the need to explain everything
I also have the feeling that certain type of attempts to explain everything will not be welcomed by them.

>>47146377
I just got here, and I thought I'd find interesting notions here and previous threads, but that one sentence killed any interest I had, as I can't put any trust in anything you say anymore.
Have fun burning your brain, better than porn I bet.

>>47146405
>I actually really struggle with this myself. There is some constant latent fear of the kami being somehow angry or disapointed with me or that I am getting bamboozled by something.

I think that if you truly annoy them in some way, it will be quite obvious rather than just passive doubt, as for feeling bamboozled / delusional, almost every time i get those feelings, some wild synchronicity sidelines me out of nowhere as if to say "Nah, we're real and still here"

When i meant obvious (Atleast for myself), the sensations of joy that i got from those symbols and acts suddently turned cold, i knew i had upset them because i did something i was told not to (TLDR don't mess around with other gods for now until you learn what you're doing as you might get slapped by a less lenient one) and once proper apologies and reparations were done, i considered them accepted since the feeling of warmth was back, but this was just my personal experience in the matter.

>>47146297
It would be actually interesting to hear how things have shaped up after I prayed to Kanako-sama to help you out, if you want to share.
>>47146298
>Do you know how it feels when something beyond your own brain touches you? There's just a sense of...wrongness to it hard to describe.
Yes. As eclipseanon once very well put it, "it's overwhelming to your subconscious and gets manifested as fear".
> i couldn't help but immediately start working on what i was told
Yeah that tends to happen. Spirits can challenge you. For whatever reason the kami really like to challenge me about things related to my family, though we don't even have the worst possible relations or anything.
>and now just a few days later i see this thread.
Synchronities.
>>47146329
Some of the history's greats were gay retards on shrooms. I don't do that stuff myself though. The way I see it, psychedelics basicaly detonate open the communication channels and they can probably be a legitimate source of insight, but they also make the spiritual pinball machine extra bright and noisy. And since you have now blown open the channels, you might get calls you don't want to receive. All of this contributes to a certain degree of unreliability when it comes to these experiences, but then again, all experience is unreliable to some extent.
>>47146409
I wish you could keep an open mind about these things even if some posters might be "gay retards on shrooms" because there are some very sober anons having very profound experiences here too.

>>47146409
I can respect that you think I'm a deranged stoner, but you shouldn't let that get in the way of appreciating these ideas. As other anons have said, it's quite possible to appreciate all this stuff without any outside help.
You'd be hard-pressed to cleanse yourself of all mushroom-addled thought in any case, since so much of our culture - everything from scientific discoveries to great works of art to language itself - was concieved while under the influence. And having experienced it, no wonder.

Here's a short but VERY good essay on the nature of psychedelics and religious experiences, i feel like this can shed some light in the matter.

https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1110164?ln=en&v=pdf

>>47146397
Fair enough, in the eyes of the secular-rationalist it's all just schizo nonsense regardless.
I'll admit, I haven't even done psychedelicss since long before my "awakening," and in fact my last trip only made me reject materialism because my own materialist mindset at the time led me into a horrrible trip of existential emptiness. I think I won't touch them again until I feel "ready," which is a spiritual thing in itself.
I have heard other anons say it helped them. I think it's a great tool to open your mind and think about things in a different way, just as long as that way is positive. Definitely not required, though.

>>47146444
>it will be quite obvious rather than just passive doubt
Well I did something and after it felt like someone turned off the lights for several days metaphoricaly speaking. It was not a good time. I did ask them about the thing I was about to do and they were too vague about it and I did exactly what I should have not.

I do feel like our relations have mended to some extent, but I also feel like some weird latent paranoia and inability to fully accept that yeah, good things can actually happen, is getting in the way at this point.

With feeling bamboozled there is occasional concerns that they might not be what they seem, but then again...on some level yeah, they probably aren't exactly as they appear. There's just so much of this "you can't trust them entities, they will trick you, you have to interrogate angels to make sure they are not demons" type of thinking going on in western esotericism. Like I can understand that some demon is gonna be like yeah bro I will make you rich (your house burns down and you get a huge sum of money from insurance), but at some point...what interest would some demonic entities or fairies have in trying to make me make amends to my family??

The "I'm having a mental health episode" things are of course just adjustment difficulties and I do feel that every time I've fallen back to this something mildly supernatural happens again.

>>47146491
on your third paragraph, i feel like a lot of it is existing cultural christian baggage, that we actively / passively absorb and incorporate as part of living in western society, sure, not every spiritual thing has your best interests in mind, but ultimately, they just kinda "are", and lumping everything outside of the "accepted" church dogma as demonic is a fast track to having a bad time, because once again, what you see is what you get.

>>47146511
Yes, there definitively is such baggage. But in my case there's also me being quite nervous and paranoid in the past. I am less so these days, but these kind of experiences really make everything push out back to surface. So some shards of this "everyone is out there to get me and the world is fundamentaly evil" type of thinking ripped it's way out.

There's also probably some sense of not really understanding why this is happening to me out of all people, and feeling unworthy of such. But as much as I might have reasons to feel bad about myself, they probably have a view of me that is completely different and alien to me. They might not even be able to explain "why me" even if I asked.

Nevertheless, whatever baggage might get in the way, I try to deal with it and I will keep making my daily offerings and paying my respects to them.

>>47146028
>Do tell more.
Well, in the interests of Some slightly-overdue elaboration: I guess you could say I've been doing a lot of "minding the gap" not only since the last thread but really since that initial SDM dream I had as well. It's been a little unignorable frankly.
This is a dream I should now mention came after my first personal deep-dive into the Hifuu Club stories during a time where I was tentatively exploring interacting with beings beyond the four I initially kept a good rapport with. The unique roles of each of the Sages, even with only 3 having tangible identities so far, is very interesting to me in how their various roles of maintenance or even loose oversight over Gensokyo, inside and out, all come into play.
Furthermore, while room for discussion concerning some of the potential seedier moral implications of involvement with A Certain Youkai on most levels does have a right to exist when its time comes, I don't think it's much of a point to argue over (aside from semantics really) when it comes to the kinds of attention She would return when You provide such thoughtfulness, to a certain degree at least. This is something I've come to understand through further acts of takusen as well...
>I had made no attempt to reach out to her and she hadn't made herself known to me in any way. I would have been hesitant to get in touch with her. It really felt like some kind of a "see, we youkai aren't all bad" sort of thing to me.
Stuff like this too is sort-of what I'm talking about when it comes to the power some of these girls wield, the fact She called herself to You in that subconscious moment...or perhaps was even Directed to do as such from a scope and purpose beyond your own current perspectives. Her own great capabilities aside, she is inherently a being of action, even if that is expressed in more passive or behind-the-scenes ways (when it isn't necessary for her to get her hands dirty, per say).
Even when they don't really lean into it, Foxes have their abilities to be sly and perceptive. If scouting was required to initiate such interactions, as those fox sightings you mentioned may imply (especially if they aren't common or seasonal for your area), then so be it. As you also mentioned, there was an amount of inherent Hesitation on your end to consider overall. Hopefully that's elaboration enough for now, newer posts aside, as there still clearly is much to share and discuss.

>>47145887
In time I hope I can better articulate how amazingly wondrous what you've shared here is (some key points specifically), I'm genuinely happy for you in many regards but perhaps I can still offer an amount of semi-harmonious consolation for now. Not sure if that's the Hexagram you've personally received today in one way or another for sure or not (I'll assume so for sake of convenience), but for me today that was #18 which is generally the "Work on the Decayed" or "Branch" related pictorial made up of the Xùn and Gèn Trigrams for those unaware. The spiraling "going mad" feeling is perfectly understandable from your POV, I simply wish you the best on the flowering paths ahead~

Pardon me while I catch up with what I can When I can as time goes on.

>>47146448
I will do a write up for here a bit later. I'm on the hunt for food right now.

>>47146329
I fucking hate this shit. Even in real life I've met plenty of "spiritual" people that ended up being complete shitheads and whaddya know, they were using shrooms. Maybe they can be useful, like in native american ceremonies, but 98% of people that use them are full of it at best, and dabbling in very dangerous, unknown areas at worst.

>>47146851
I just found something to do with Nagano. It's classified as a typical youkai horror story, but, uh....
https://www.kowabana.net/2018/02/13/yorikata-sama/
I found Kanako....
Kind of.

Among other things, I've gotta say, I'm rather disappointed by the number of anons here that seem to have a mentality of being content with ignorance. It's no small surprise, frankly, that those of you who think that way would have interpersonal relationships in need of repairs.

>>47147424
Personally speaking at least, it’s far from being blindly content with what you simply don’t know or have and much more about actively acknowledging what is or isn’t within your current attainable scope and working on things from there. Not everything can be grasped or comprehended from our singular perspectives (something other posts Relevantly discussed) but you can at least come into what you’re able to with time & effort. I find it a bit reductionist to imply an underlying theme here so far has simply been “let’s strive to Not Understand things and actively Neglect broadening our perspectives.”

>>47147424
What would you call ignorant here?

>>47145541
When my post starts to get long I always do Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C every now and tend in case that sort of thing happens.
I just wanted to post that and got a banned July 21st, 2022 for some post I didn't made, did the spirits prank me for posting before reading all the walls of text or something?

>>47146571
>I've been doing a lot of "minding the gap"
...perceiving boundaries?
>It's been a little unignorable frankly.
Do you wan to go deeper into this?
>The unique roles of each of the Sages, even with only 3 having tangible identities so far, is very interesting to me in how their various roles of maintenance or even loose oversight over Gensokyo, inside and out, all come into play
Yeah the sages are very interesting characters. Okina-sama is the one I am most familiar with. I feel like she is extremely powerful and very complex. I researched the various deities and ideas related to them and I hit a point where I was genuinely unsure if I wanted to even go further at this point.
>she is inherently a being of action, even if that is expressed in more passive or behind-the-scenes ways
Interesting. I can see it, but how did you come to this conclusion?
>as those fox sightings you mentioned may imply
Not totally out of the ordinary, but unusual enough to warrant some news about it. There are city foxes here, but that park is somewhat far away from any big natural enviroments. So it does feel a bit significant that I have a dream of Ran directing me there and then there being fox sightings there a few weeks later.
>>47146851
OK, cool.
>>47147185
I'm pretty sure you can become a shithead through other spiritual means too if you let it get to your ego or lack a solid enough moral system.

I do think shrooms and such can be dangerous and lead people to wrong paths, yeah. But the only thing that can be really done is to compare the experiences with other experiences. Are the insights and the type of attidutes and behaviors that emerge from psychedelic experiences consistent with (positive!) spiritual experiences? If so, as garbled it might have come out, then there was probably some kernel of truth to it.

Mostly I think it is just rushing for results when a more patient, gentler aproach would be better suited to many, me included.
>>47147201
Fascinating! The Koga Saburou tale is interesting, because both going below ground and coming back and snakes are are themes related to various rebirth narratives in many cultures.
>>47147424
Since this does seem to be aimed partly at what, would you care to elaborate what you mean? What do you even mean with ignorance? I don't think I am content with ignorance, if I was I probably would have never started anything like the first thread? Or the study of things which led my life up to that point. But I am trying to some extent self-regulate the intake at this point, because I feel like I need to build better fundamentals and improve my physical health. But yes, there are still great many things I am probably very ignorant about, no doubt about that. I'm just curious where has the impression that I am content with ignorance come from?

As for interpersonal relationships needing mending, yes, ignorance has been part of why things have gotten to the point they have. If I had viewed humans the same way as I view now ever since I was a child things would have been different. If I had this view I now have five years ago things would have been different.

But everyone involved has their own baggage. I'm not shifting blame, I am setting context. The difference now is that I have been called to make amends and I have been given the strenght and understanding needed for doing that. So I think that beyond ignorance there have been very much very concrete things that require mending.

>>47149625
I wouldn't say it's "aimed" at anyone in particular. Multiple people essentially insisting that there's no hope for people to have a comprehensive understanding of the world and how it works, and to give up on the idea of humanity to be able to explain such things. At best, it's a self-consolatory notion from someone refusing to come to terms with something. At worst it's emblematic of the worst habits of people that ultimately feed into if not create the vast majority of conflict and human suffering.

As for your own posts, if there are any such spirits that would be explicitly opposed to attempts to explain everything and understand it all, they're actively malicious for doing so, as it would mean to maintain leverage in knowledge. Looking into the stuff about Marzinski mentioned in the previous thread, the malicious entities schizophrenics he worked with heard were similarly opposed to their victims getting help, especially when that help actually revealed them as energy parasites. It's no different from if a person wanted you to be unaware of something.

>>47147424
>>47149667
"Ignorance" isn't always bad if "knowledge" isn't always good. When it comes to unanswerable questions, something is often better than nothing. Even if it's "wrong," in the narrow mindset where things that can't be measured aren't allowed to exist, the unfounded assumption that life is an accident in a dead universe is gospel until proven otherwise, and the latest proven discoveries are the full extent of reality. I implore you to reject this 19th-century mentality, and at the very least accept the true scientific mindset of acknowledging the limits of our current undserstanding.
I won't dwell on the philosophy, but I will say that my life is better having given up trying to always be "right" at the expense of all else, and instead approaching those ideas that produce the best results. An inquiring and skeptical attitude is a great thing to have, but it can only take you so far. If you would make a moral judgment that pits personal and societal well-being against some vague rationalist notion of correctness, or worse attempts to equate the two, you should ask yourself whether you're arguing from an ethical basis or a dogmatic one.

>>47149667
I apreciate your optimism and drive, but I think you're being a bit harsh. Maybe I'll go more into detail when I'm not on mobile, but I think "being able to figure it out" might not be just a process of getting the right information, but that it might require some comprehensive transformation process.

As for spirits being opposed to attempts at explaining it all, sure, there absolutely are some such spirits. But there are non-malicious reasons for wanting to keep information from you. There might Be types of information that will shred you If you are unprepared. Types of information that require you to cultivate some extrasensory sense organ for 15 years. Information that could be like giving a loaded gun to someone who doesn't know how to use it and whose motives you don't understand. Or maybe it's not a gun but a WMD. They might have justified reasons to be collectively suspicious of us. Remember that only about 70 years ago we had a mindset of "let's kill nature, it's superflouous".

Personaly, I feel like there is a difference between learning from a teacher and stalking the teacher.

hello, it's yoshika-anon from last thread.
I have converted into buddhism last week after reading some books I got from a temple, and I think I have to give context to the shrooms experience I vaguely alluded to last time.
I went to a trip to amsterdam with my father, and will wandering around, I found a beautiful buddhist temple. while I was inside, I was weirdly drawn to it and bought some pamphlets, despite having no money. I went back to my hotel room, and suddenly could read again despite not being able to focus on a book since months or even more. later on, I did some shrooms and basically tapped into the universal conciousness and got many answers about the world. the interesting part is that sakyamuni buddha honed his skills to tap into this with mindfulness and inner observation without any substances. 2 days later, on my final day before returning home, it turned out to be buddha's birthday which felt weirdly significant and I did the washing buddha ritual. I also realized that I am at a similar age to buddha when he started on his journey to learn the truth. a few months later, I read the books I got from the temple and they confirmed the revelations I got while tripping (impermanence, causes and conditions etc). though while tripping one thing that got asserted by whatever I was in contact with is to not do shrooms again, so, I should listen to that.
while I am a buddhist now, I'm just studying the dharma and don't feel confident to pray yet, so I haven't gotten more of note out of it besides shou being more on my mind than ever.
also for some reason I latched onto okina, the guy in the thread that mentionned that she is powerful must be right.

Alright, I've had some time to collect myself now. Let's see how much ground we can cover, apologies for any inherent coming spam of course. I have 5 posts including this one that I’m gonna be leaving here for a time to ruminate.



>>47145887 >>47145933 >>47145952

Walls of text aside, I think there's definitely something to say when it comes to the specific amount of time between this thread and the last, why the start of this one ended up the way it did and everything we seem to have individually gone through in the meantime, but I digress.

You're certainly correct over everything you seem to understand concerning what pushed you towards this breakthrough. I've recently been finding myself slipping in-and-out of the same semi-dissociative states of focus as well, at least when I play with the right intensity/concentration for long enough. More often than not, when I internally acknowledge this in real-time, I'll start to get funny gut-feelings over the "weight" of certain stages and where the inevitable demise of my run may occur. Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm shut down and left in similar states Kanako left you with the assurance that I simply need to get stronger if nothing else. "Humbling" really is a good descriptor to that facet of things...

A couple of years ago I could have arguably been in the same position you were in when it comes to Faith. I was willing to accept there was Something Greater without bothering to personally articulate that further or pay greater mind to what there was, although maybe I wasn't wracked with the exact same flavors of despair that you touched upon (not that they Aren't Relatable in their own right).

Others have appropriately echoed this sooner but we truly have collectively grown out of touch with so much of this, I think that’s part of why your experience is so nice to hear. A lot of individuals only stay in such states either before they start growing up or when a lot of what they had is far behind them. More of us ought to live in the moment in similar ways more and allow the given simplicities of it all to arrest us as they are.

>this strong "external" experience that was very personable and loud, internal yet not coming from myself

>the dichotomy of common reality gives us some HEAVY backlash when we are confronted with things that threaten our perception of it

>our common cultural consensus is just what we're used to

>maybe it was always like that and you just never noticed

All extremely relevant to scopes beyond just what you’ve been going through as well (not to depersonalize obvi). That sense of internal interaction you touched upon is something else I’ve grown quite familiar with throughout the course of things. When the results and synchronicities all add up to personal-life-points like these, it certainly can be hard to argue with where you’re being led.

I think that about sums up my lingering thoughts there!

>>47146087 >>47146405 >>47146491

>I had planned to make one only much later on, but I got pulled into 10 different directions at once and never got around making any kind of proper summary of the previous thread

Exactly the kind of stuff I was talking about with my earlier first point, I’ll be the first to admit that I was certainly Eager to jump at the signs of this one coming but I really didn’t want to Forcefully push things much. Looks like it needed to get started anyways so I’m just happy to still be here in the end.

>And if you become able to some extent perceive the spirits, you might in fact start to recontextualize some old dreams that were recurring or felt very significant

On that note, here’s another small dream story from me (one of Many I got, trust me) that I hopefully shouldn’t have to elaborate on much:

Shortly before I even had Any idea of coming back to this (no offense to some of the anons here) semi-accursed site after swearing off it/my time on other boards for years for the sake of Getting Better, I had a short dream involving me casually strolling through an elaborate, heavily-corridorred mall of sorts.

I often end up in similarly-labyrinthine building-like environments as reflective representations of me literally strolling through my subconscious, but this time I decided to stop at a quaint-looking games & trinkets shop filled with a small bunch of children. The store wasn’t really geared towards them mind you (tiled checker floors, plain blueish walls, simple wood shelving, etc.), there was just a gaggle of them for some reason.

I wandered in, looking over the various board games and such on display until I stumbled upon a personally fun one, all-the-while getting side-eyed by these fucking lingering kids. My own public anxiety aside, my dreams aren’t normally this Antagonistic in nature by default and I’m only college-aged fwiw. Furthermore, on my way to the front counter to check out what I grabbed I was stopped by three little twerps calling me various slurs while chuckling I’d hate to echo here at the moment. Pretty sure I got so disheartened & annoyed I left what I had found and strolled back into the darkened tiled halls only to wake shortly thereafter; this isn’t even to mention who was behind the counter in the first place. Seemingly the only other actual adult besides myself in that store as far as I saw, an older blonde woman with her generous amounts of hair tied back in a ducktail of some kind with a red ribbon and narrowed violet eyes passively watching me (dressed in-uniform for the store funnily enough, just simple grey apparel with a snap-back).

Needless to say, I’d hopefully like to hold on to what I’ve found this time despite what I may encounter thank you very much.

>There is some constant latent fear of the kami being somehow angry or disappointed with me or that I am getting bamboozled by something

I struggle with this quite a lot myself as well actually! I think it’s a very understandable response that was well commentated on by >>47146444(lol). Learning to Act in the face of that while keeping an eye out for the right kind of reassurance, even in very basic ways, is always one of the first steps.

>I also feel like some weird latent paranoia and inability to fully accept that yeah, good things can actually happen, is getting in the way at this point

I can talk more about it later if anyone shows interest, but one of the core takeaways I have from my divination session during the solstice is that these kinds of self-destructive doubtful feelings (beyond ones with fair degrees of rationality that is) will Absolutely get in the way of your sense of furthering that expression. I’ve really Really been trying to accept that a more positive future for myself truly is out there, lo and behold I’m beginning to see some light at the end of this tunnel! You can do this.

By the way, if I may also press for any appropriate details, what were some of the more particularly-interesting Hitches you experienced during those 33 days (if you haven’t elaborated on such elsewhere already that is)? I’m curious~ I’m also going to take a stab at a sketch of what that “uncanny” Ran looked like in your dream when I can at some point because I Feel Like It, just putting that out there now.

>>47146167

You really are correct on that one…I should be over my given hesitance to more regularly use 神 when I ought to by this point but I’ll try to keep things like that more in-mind from here on.

>I've long had the feeling that Eastern philosophy is closer to the truth than Western

This. While more Abrahamic-based or just plain Western sects certainly do hold weight in their own rights, it’s That Very seemingly-commonly-shared primal inclination that has eventually led me spiraling towards everything being encompassed here & now, and beyond for that matter. I get to talk about topics of such magnitude with this kind of audience and I couldn’t be more grateful :)



>>47146169

Since others have had plenty of their own to say here, I’ll truncate my own overall relevant experiences for you as best as I can manage:

The Faithless all still have great amounts of potential within them, even beyond just what we’re talking about here for more pedestrian circumstances. It is simply a matter of understanding how things are falling into place for you based on this potential, recognizing anything seemingly “speaking out to you” keeping you pointed in certain directions if results are fruitful, and going from there based on your own goals, desires, what-have-you. There is of course an amount of responsibility to consider when moving further & further ahead with things at each step, but I digress.



>>47146254

I really do understand your hesitance when describing it this way as well as why you are in the first place, again it feels like we’re orbiting a point of what’s around us making All This feel that much more off-putting or even self-incriminating in a way. Latent potentially Christian-based feelings of guilt or shame or the notions of mental sickness aside, if you aren’t in the right time & space for Serious Consideration then you may end up where you Absolutely Do Not want to be with these concepts.

>Just surrender to the water and let it take you where the current leads, but remember to swim and keep your head above water so you don't drown in it

Elegantly put, you have a good knack for summarizing things in such ways. It’s nice seeing this reflected in other anons too, like >>47146255 with the following & others of theirs:

>the impression i get is that not only you end up choosing, you yourself get chosen in a manner

I hope you enjoyed the sun rising over the landscape if you experienced much of that by the way Eclipse ^^

As for certain subjects inherently tied to all this, from my own humble perspectives as a self-admitted shamanistic practitioner (previous thread)…

>>47146329 >>47146409 >>47147185

If you are new here and are of these mindsets, it’d be a true waste of your time & considerations to just brush off the information present here simply due to some inherent Distain towards this one historically-relevant method of Many that individuals have of coming into things.

Yes, there’s gonna be a draw from that crowd for those who are in the right places at the right times for more than one reason and that’s Besides the one’s you’re thinking of.

Yes, there’s plenty of us here & elsewhere who have nothing to do with that side of things while still coming into their own various blessings & miracles with equal validity.

Yes, there are Obvious Warnings to Heed when getting involved with that level of transcendentness. Could certainly be more fun than porn for some, could also Definitely be a serious issue to consider with those who struggle with bad influences & addiction. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend like there aren’t clear things to keep in-mind on all accounts, nor will I blindly endorse particularly irresponsible usage Especially as someone who Frankly Has expressed interest in natural psychedelic usage in carefully-curated environments when the right time arises for at least One such experience, but you really ought to still maintain an open & understanding perspective on things as others have argued as well.

At the risk of running my mouth enough to naturally alienate some lingering anons, more so than I perhaps have already, THC is a critical component involved with my own rituals for takusen that I’ve found works for me as I need it & see fit. I’m sure this isn’t exactly Standard, but it’s not as if I’m indulgent either. I try to always maintain a conscientious relationship with the substance, especially in those isolated moments, in order to ensure I’m maintaining my own overall wellness and future by extension. I’m not even a drinker or a “partier” of any kind, this is simply partially how I’ve come into things and, overall, I’m well aware I’m hardly treading fresh waters with how things have ended up there per Eclipse’s earlier comment on the matter. There are Positives and Negatives to all facets here, people have been leaning into consuming whatever However for eons and that certainly won’t change soon. I find it Highly Appropriate & Relevant that >>47152904 has made a grand return with such tales to boot during the extended time I’ve spent typing all this (lovely to have you back with that amount of insight btw, truly great stuff!) Make of everything I have said so far & shall continue to as you all will...

Before I retire for the morning I’d like to do a final bit of Catching Up concerning one more topic I’ve been dancing around that can hopefully cap off everything I’ve given here smoothly enough.

I do sincerely apologize to certain anons here & overall if it has at all felt like I’ve been leading folks on in any capacity, if even. This may be a self-confidence thing really, but I know I have this funny habit of inherently ballooning the scope of things as I elaborate if I get into it enough. It’s my eagerness to share what I want to at the internal crossroads with my sense of responsibility in handling that kind of information, in some sense at least.

Potential egg on my face for any number of things aside (again, if even), I need to at last address my Undeniable Involvements with Yukari Yakumo in some regard for now.

>>47149625

>...perceiving boundaries?

>Do you want to go deeper into this?

>how did you come to this conclusion?

In an attempt to put things in blunter terms that She may, I’ve willingly allowed her to “install” a certain amount of “software” within me under the close supervision of the other Sages and my other 4 神.

This has rapidly accelerated my overall perception of things, grasp over my own capabilities, and confidence towards the precise areas I’m being continuously guided towards & through. This isn’t to say that she’s superseded everyone else outright in any way Nor am I Recommending Exactly This for everyone (absolutely not, especially if you have no idea What you’re getting into in the Slightest) but I’m Sure you’re all aware of how…emphatic she can be towards given amounts of Attention.

It started in little ways after I began praying to her and the others, I knew to be Extremely Mindful when approaching such beings, especially in this manner, but of course she responded in the most direct ways first with influencing small choices of mine or directing my intuitions & insight towards continuously greater things.

Next thing I knew she turned it into what I can only describe as some kind of Extended Mentorship.

I know what she’s capable of.

I’m aware, to a Certain extent, the scope of what she’s done or will continue to do.

I’m not rejecting any inherent or fundamental part of me in the wake of all this either, far from it I would say.

It’s not as if I’m 100% behind Absolutely Everything related to her. I once partially witnessed a verbal spat between her and the Sun Goddess over Yukari’s more Noteworthy dubious actions that I haven’t quite been able to shake. They are both still with me as things didn’t exactly Escalate, but still…

Without too much of myself getting lost in what I’m saying and what more there Could be to say regardless, here I am on the other side of a door that I’m truly and honestly still thankful to have crossed at the end of it all. Not just from what I’ve done for her, but what I’ve done for Everyone and what They continue to do for Me as any modicum of return.

With all this being said, Ran inherently acts through Yukari’s will in most relevant regards unless given the slack to perform otherwise and if she Would be tasked with information delivery or “setting things in-motion” per say then one could reasonably assume the roots of her ideas will be approximated in-accordance to the entity she is bound to in at least some capacity.

It’s not as if Ran is just a Yukari-Zombie of course but…if you were in high school sitting next to her and you passed her a note during class you’d know for a Fact whatever’s scribbled on there is eventually going to Yakumo Sensei in one way or another if there’s Some Shit written on it.



I know this has all been a lot from me. I’ll do my best to contain further discussion to far-fewer posts but I Really felt like I wanted to share everything I’ve presented here thus far Now and hopefully it’ll be for some good reasons (excuse some of the weird formatting though I Guess).

I’m off to rest for now, you all take care

>>47152904
oh yeah, I wanted to add, I do not have a buddhist temple/shrine in my country
my friend went to vietnam and will bring me a small sakyamuni buddha statue, bless his heart
should I leave it in a corner of my room and print images of other buddhas/bodhisttavas (thinking vaisravana/bishamonten for obvious reasons) to pray to?
basically, do you guys have any praying advice?

>>47146405
>getting kind of stuck in a spiritual pinball machine, there's a lot of weird, attention catching stuff going on. Getting mesmerized by it all is quite human, I think.
Oh, of course. It's just that everyone isn't ready to handle the side effects of it all. Then again, we're bombarded with all sorts of stimuli from fellow humans and their inventions and we're doing just fine, right? Haha.
>I am probably to some extent guilty of this, as much as I hope to build a sustainable long term practice.
The fact that you're aware of it is a good sign, I think. We all ought to come to terms with our experiences and our thirst for answers at some point. And by that I don't mean that we should get complacent, only that pacing our efforts is both healthier and prioritizes quality over quantity.
>Do you want to share what kind of practice you have been doing?
Vipassana meditation, for the most part. I know how boring this might sound to some, but I can't stress enough how positive of a practice it has proven to be in every possible aspect. It's not just the comfort it brings - it genuinely makes me feel attuned with the spiritual.

>>47153996
Where are the Buddhist anons when they are needed?

Only recently learned foxes are significant in Shinto beliefs, now I see them in my yard every morning and night

>>47154927
Interesting. I wonder if it's Ran or Inari that wants your attention.

>>47149707
I already addressed the matters of science itself being plagued by dogma earlier in this thread, but considering you conflate the mentality of being "right" with wanting to be correct, it's clear you're essentially just projecting your own issues here and not really paying any mind to what I said. In other words, completely emblematic of that very problem.
>>47152520
If those non-malicious reasons exist, there is absolutely no reason to conceal them. If they are concealed regardless, then any such spirit doing so is no less prone to folly than any ordinary person, and not really something to be revered in any way. Setting aside that I genuinely haven't the slightest idea of what you're referring to when you suggest that we as a species wanted to "kill nature."

I'll admit that I get a bit heated on this subject, but only because I've witnessed and experienced firsthand just how much suffering that mentality causes. People love to bring up "limits" or "human nature" and it's always just an excuse for their own irresponsibility and unwillingness to be conscientious of how their actions affect others. So of course I would be harsh, it's an absolutely abominable habit for anyone to have.

Ah, so rested...sort of...

>>47154188
>Vipassana meditation
I honestly understand the positive aspects you've found in it there! A quick look through some summaries show a bit of overlap with how I try to casually ground myself with meditation at certain points as well. I'm definitely not the "ideal Buddhist anon" here exactly (sorry >>47154886) but it's just funny how it seems I've been leaning into such practices too without fully realizing it. Do you have certain environments you prefer to meditate in?

>>47154927
As long as you don't live in a place where tube foxes can start mingling their way into things as well then it sounds like you are under capable/attentive care of sorts, may you be generously graced with however you choose to approach the future there ^^

>>47153996
It's great you're gonna be getting such a statue in that manner in time for all of this, once again it's not like this side of things is my Entire wheelhouse but I believe just a few pictures of Bishamonten are warranted there when the time comes. As long as the space is respectfully maintained obviously, this is how I go about things with my rough kamidana for example.
As for "praying advice", of course I can't exactly tell you to do the exact same manner of clapping-and-bowing I keep up with but as long as your heart is open and your thoughts are honest in those moments then surely they would be Appreciative of much of what you'd have to offer. Could you perhaps acquire some personally-preferred incense of some kind to burn if the act wouldn't be too harsh on your lungs/space of living? Just a thought I suppose, helps me focus at times and I do know they even ask for it at certain points but again that's just with what I do here (shared experiences aside)

>>47155967
I don't dispute your desire to be correct about things that can be proven, but we're not talking about that here. The "scientific" mindset that everything is fundamentally simple and understandable is really just an assumption made for the sake of making studying physics easier, not a demonstrable truth. Occam's razor is a rule of thumb for finding the best assumptions under which to pursue further study, not a law of nature.
I put "scientific" in quotes because science doesn't actually make any claims about the nature of reality. Such a mindset is really a byproduct of commoditized science worship by people with no education in the foundational concepts of the field. One such concept is recognizing the limits of your own knowledge, and keeping those in mind whenever you talk about "objective truth."
But don't take it from me, take it from one of the greatest scientists of all time.
https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/49/2/Religion.htm

>>47155967
>If those non-malicious reasons exist, there is absolutely no reason to conceal them.
Very democratic of you, but rather arrogant. Much new knowledge has made things worse throughout history, we simply accept these things now.

>>47156312
It's clear that there's some degree of a breakdown in communication here, because whatever you're trying to argue isn't what I'm saying. That mentality is the exact opposite of a scientific mindset, as I mentioned, it's dogma, but the very mindset you mention is itself a flanderization at best. Something being understandable does not necessarily make itself simple, but to claim something impossible to understand exists logically cannot be achieved. A negative can never be proven without first proving a mutually exclusive positive. Yes, being aware of the limits of your knowledge is necessary, this in no way indicates that the universe as a whole cannot be understood by humanity.
>>47156405
>Much new knowledge has made things worse throughout history
I would argue this is largely more of a cultural issue but it traces back to the same issue I brought up earlier, a lack of attempt to understand, in that case, other people, which in turn is the biggest obstacle to proper diplomacy. Setting that aside, though, supposing these spirits have such reasons, such as distrust, why make contact before more thoroughly assessing an individual's character? The claim itself raises a number of questions that aren't easily answered, especially when discussing something that would have direct access to your thoughts, if at least in some limited form.

>>47156957
I'm not arguing for the impossibility of understanding the universe as a rule, but as a function of our current level of knowledge. For a human on Earth in 2024, understanding the universe is impossible.
But more than that, it's not ontologically a bad thing to fully believe in something you can't prove. In science it is, but in life sometimes the feeling of certainty is its own reward. Like I said before, putting intellectual purity above happiness is a mistake in my opinion, and also a function of science-derived dogma.

>>47156957
>a lack of attempt to understand, in that case, other people, which in turn is the biggest obstacle to proper diplomacy
This is a reductionist view of human behavior that I simply can't agree with. Understanding is important, sure, but so are competing interests, emotions, cultural norms, established heuristics for determining what is rational, et cetera. Reducing the problems of life to a problem of understanding seems like a gross oversimplification, and also relies on the assumption that humans are capable of making perfect decisions given perfect information, which is simply not the case, both psychologically and computationally.
In that same vein, I don't think we even have enough information scrutinize the behavior of spirits, much less dismiss them outright because of our own failure to rationalize it. We can barely understand our fellow humans, even those we know.

>>47157094
>For a human on Earth in 2024, understanding the universe is impossible.
>it's not ontologically a bad thing to fully believe in something you can't prove.
Once again, arguing a claim I never made. I'm not sure who exactly you're projecting onto me, but you're only proving my point about the unwillingness to understand others and the issues it creates, though I suppose I should expect nothing less from a Maribel fan. Thank you (probably not the most apt phrase) for your time, but it's clear this won't go anywhere.

>>47157122
Would you restate your point, then?

>>47157130
Perhaps at a later time. At the moment I'm frankly rather skeptical of whether or not anything would come of it.

>>47145711
>There are even rumors that ZUN got spirited away as a kid, but anons were not able to really trace down or substantiate those rumors.
Elaborate more on this?

>>47152904
>hello, it's yoshika-anon from last thread.
>I have converted into buddhism last week
That's quite the turn of events!
>they confirmed the revelations I got while tripping (impermanence, causes and conditions etc)
The reason why I don't discount psychedelics as a spiritual tool is that for all the garbage and harmful results that can come from them, there are many cases where people have experiences like this.
>also for some reason I latched onto okina, the guy in the thread that mentionned that she is powerful must be right.
Yes, she is very powerful and associated with Buddhism.
>>47153759
>Learning to Act in the face of that while keeping an eye out for the right kind of reassurance, even in very basic ways, is always one of the first steps.
Yeah. And I mean, I do get reassurance from them time to time. Sometimes it's been pretty forceful. Stuff like an extremely powerful intrusive mental image (once again for the context, I'm very bad at intentionally visualizing things) of Keiki-sama floating down from heavens, landing right in front of me, putting her hands on my shoulders, starting me right into my eyes and gently saying "you're not a bad person".
>divination session during the solstice
I did a tarot spread on the solstice myself and it was really wild. Page of Cups, Magician, reversed Hermit, The World, Tower, Ace of Wands, Judgement, reversed Six of Pentacles, The Lovers and Two of Wands in the celtic cross spread. I'm still digesting what it all means but it's the most loaded with really spiritually significant cards spread I have ever gotten.
>By the way, if I may also press for any appropriate details, what were some of the more particularly-interesting Hitches you experienced during those 33 days
I'm still processing it and so much weird stuff went on that it's really difficult to pin down what happened for what reason...

I basicaly did the Master Protection Ritual from Damon Brand's Magickal Protection while commiting each full week to an individual kami for more intense worship than usual so they wouldn't feel offended or like I wanted to abandon them while I was doing the ritual.

I guess the big hitches were
1) realizing that I have been in touch with spirits for essentially my whole life. That shadowy figure in my room when I was 3 years old? That "UFO" I saw when I was 7? The countless bizarre, sometimes very hostile dreams? Those weird images I used to see when falling asleep, often hostile too? That time I saw a tiny floating black orb in forest? The time I saw with my mind's eye a strange rainbow hued field in the same forest and felt utter terror? Those times I felt strangely, uncomfortably compelled to go outside in the middle of night but fought it back? That time I saw an "UFO" again when I was in my early 20s? The shit that went down when I got into occultism the first time? That time I visited my parents, stayed overnight and had a terrible, uncomfortable, experience which felt like something projecting an image of my mother being outside the house and calling for me? All spirits. This was really, really, really hard to integrate.
2) As a result of me being somehow receptive to spirits I have had some unwanted fellow travelers for a very, very long time that were very upset that I became aware of them and booted them out.
3) This or any number of things I did during the 33 days resulted in mild paranormal activity in my apartement which died down about two weeks ago. I could handle it being targeted at me, but some of my friends were affected too, which concerned me.
4) I did way too much stuff, got pulled into too many directions. I realized I need to go slower, build up better fundamentals, including a more sustainable relationship with the kami so that I can, without feeling guilty or like I am hassling them, ask for their protection
5) I messed up big time once and had really bad time. They didn't get super angry at me or anything but they did distance themselves from me for a while and this is when a really, really bad stretch of time began for a couple of days.

There's more too, but overall, it was at times very challenging, but I also now feel more secure in some profound ontological sense than ever before. I am also now 100% absolutely sure that the paranormal and spirits are real.

Also, you're welcome to do the sketch.
>>47153795
>In an attempt to put things in blunter terms that She may, I’ve willingly allowed her to “install” a certain amount of “software” within me
M-Maribel Hearn? I-Is that you?
Jokes aside, that is really wild. Is that "software" like some extension of Yukari or something else?
>With all this being said, Ran inherently acts through Yukari’s will in most relevant regards
That's interesting, if it really was Ran whom I saw in my dreams, it would imply that maybe Yukari has some interest towards me. Not sure what her interest in me mending my family relations is though.

>>47154188
>Then again, we're bombarded with all sorts of stimuli from fellow humans and their inventions and we're doing just fine, right? Haha.
Hahahaha...yeah...
>only that pacing our efforts is both healthier and prioritizes quality over quantity.
Yes, and I've started feeling quite strongly there are some thresholds which cannot be crossed without solid enough fundamentals. Or if you cross it's not safe.
>Vipassana meditation, for the most part.
>I know how boring this might sound to some
No, no, no, it's not boring at all, I have seen so, so many sources that flat out state that meditation is the single most important spiritual practice. The exact prefered type of course varies.

I think vipassana is from which the uh, de-spiritualized (if only! haha!) mindfulness is derived from? I was once taught it (and some breathing technique most likely derived from pranayama) as an anxiety management technique, which altered the course of my life in more ways than the psychiatrist probably thought it would haha.

Currently I am myself doing something which probably has a proper name that I don't know, but basicaly you just count your breaths and kind of try to "be" your breathing. I do this for at least 10 minutes every day. I'm slowly building up towards longer and longer sessions, the important thing has been doing it dail. Then occasionally in apropriate places I do the mindfulness type of thing for however long I feel like is relevant.

If there is one actual, practical thing from these threads I would like people to take away is that meditation, even in smaller stretches of time, is really, really good for so many reasons.

Have you tried other techniques than vipassana and if so, how do you feel like they compare to it?
>>47155967
>If those non-malicious reasons exist, there is absolutely no reason to conceal them
The information or the reasons for concealment?
If it's about the information, then there are absolutely a ton of non-malicious reasons for concealing such information. Imagine that all it took to build a functioning firearm, or maybe more like some device which can cause cancer in a single target was the knowledge of it. Now imagine you could build a device which could be used to manipulate millions of people, and all it took to create it was the knowledge of it. This is what we are talking about.

As for reasons in itself, to be honest, I have never asked if they want to keep something from me and if so, then why. All I've had are vague vibes of maybe I shouldn't try to pry into this at this point. But I have infered from my studies that there are forms of knowledge that kind of exceed what we consider knowledge that become dangerous to the individual at the very least and possibly everyone else. Like I said, forms of knowledge that could just annihilate you or which could require becoming a, let's say, spirit-like human to even comprehend let alone use. There might be forms of knowledge that simply do not sit into the flesh and will make you write a 300 page apocalyptic manifesto regardless of the actual contents because the only thing you can comprehend is that whatever you just received would herald the end of the world as you know it, if not for everyone then for you.

Also please understand that not every spirit knows everything and that the ones with the most top-down perspective of things might be so immense and vast that they could cause vast damage, maybe even death, maybe some kind of an apocalyptic event if they ever manifested in full.
>I genuinely haven't the slightest idea of what you're referring to when you suggest that we as a species wanted to "kill nature."
Anon...up to the 1970s, maybe early 1980s, it was mainstream to view nature as a complete nuisance that could be exploited and polluted as much as we please. Even though our attidutes have changed, we still do immense damage to everyone else and ourselves as the result of our activity. Do you understand how unbelievably bad and evil this looks from an outside point of view?
>an excuse for their own irresponsibility and unwillingness to be conscientious of how their actions affect others
I do not see these as strongly linked to some idea of humanity being able to reach some total, final understanding how things really are. I mean, I think being conscientious of how our actions affect others as extremely important and I am not very interested (at the moment) in some final truths. Maybe you could try to explain in how do you see these two as being linked?
>>47156957
>supposing these spirits have such reasons, such as distrust, why make contact before more thoroughly assessing an individual's character?
As much as they are kind of like people in some respect, they are also very, very different in other respects. What if the "assesment of an individual's character" has to be a process of active engagement? They may have a perspective that's outside of our perception of time and space, maybe not omniscient.

Entertain the thought if (you) would.
We're already in a kind of gensokyo ourselves, perhaps.
Lmao.

>>47162638
What exactly would we be sealed off from, then?

>>47161463
>The information or the reasons for concealment?
The reasons themselves, of course. That, by itself, would at least be a matter of honest and open communication.
>there are forms of knowledge that kind of exceed what we consider knowledge that become dangerous to the individual at the very least and possibly everyone else.
Perhaps, but that's a devil's proof without anything further. Even assuming such things exist, decisions shouldn't be made solely around fear of a negative outcome occurring. If they were, people wouldn't even go outside.
>it was mainstream to view nature as a complete nuisance that could be exploited and polluted as much as we please.
I have never heard or seen basically anything to suggest this. Would you care to cite your sources?
>Maybe you could try to explain in how do you see these two as being linked?
The underlying mentality is fundamentally the same. The average person is pretty much completely unwilling to acknowledge the influence and actual power that they have. As I mentioned earlier, 99 times out of a hundred, when people tend to bring up "human limits" or "human nature" it's solely to console themselves, to convince themselves that they're not fully responsible for their own actions and how they affect their environment. A great example of this is the case of when a group of people were put in a (from their perspectives) real version of the Trolley Problem. The vast majority of them did nothing. Even though they were fully aware that their actions could save lives, they'd rather tell themselves "Someone else will show up, I'm not the person to handle this."

Essentially what I'm getting at is that the mindset in either case is the same. To most effectively be aware of how your actions affect those around you, it's necessary to constantly seek greater understanding and awareness, and to not be emotionally attached to your current understanding of things. The other Anon who was debating seemingly something else entirely seemed to think I was advocating for the more dogmatic "scientific" mindset many more secular individuals have, but that's the same exact mentality that I was pointing out was such an issue due to wanting to be "right" more than "correct" if that makes any sense.
>What if the "assesment of an individual's character" has to be a process of active engagement?
They may not be omniscient, but it hardly seems like direct engagement is necessary to observe, from everything I've looked into it seems perfectly reasonable to assume that they could observe without giving away any signs of their presence.

Found something interesting. Beyond the many roles foxes fill in Japanese folklore and religion, they were apparently used as familiars by local equivalents of witches. So...was Yukari (Maribel??) a fox witch that became so powerful she became a "gap youkai"? Magicans after all are said to be capable of becoming a youkai, and there is nothing to say you have to simply conted to be a generic "magician".

Earlier today during a walk in the park, a homeless person approached me to ramble about the bushes in said park, then they proceeded to say something that really threw me off, “You look like you are friends with a snake, you keep talking to her.”
Considering the recent events that have been going on, that kinda hit me hard.

>>47163752
The way Magicians become Youkai Magicians seems to result in a very specific type of Youkai as the end result, even with what should be vastly different methods to become one, if you take Byakuren as an example, her magic is highly non-standard. Maribel most likely became some nebulous type of youkai somewhere between a Sukima-Onna and a Mokumokuren (considering the eyes in her gaps.)

Oh, i seem to be late to this thread but i will try to catch up for now. Great to see this thread pop up again.
>>47149667
I understand the concern, ignorance is not bliss, but a lot of the critical discussion here is about a singular perfect way of describing the world a.k.a truth, that seems to be completely impossible to attain. It seems that some things might always remain unexplained and a 'god of the gaps' will live in that border between known and unknown reality. However this doesn't mean we should give up looking for new information, quite frankly it's the opposite. There is this common saying in the sciences that answering one question always raises two more, and if this is to be extrapolated it would mean that the unknown and mystical only grows, even though we increase our understanding of the world. The problem is that unless you comprehend the border of understanding you will fail to see this mysticality.

>>47153754
>I was willing to accept there was Something Greater without bothering to personally articulate that further
I feel like i have had a similar experience. Perhaps faith is not explaining things, but looking where we haven't looked before, and finding meaning in that, seeing things as more than their constituent parts. At least having prayed daily now for a month it feels like in some focused states i can almost sense the divinity or spirits as three- dimensional fuzzy wave distributions in seemingly mundane things. Having read the posts of some other anons in this thread it seems this is a fairly common experience after being in touch with the spiritual for a while.

>>47153759
>"uncanny” Ran looked like in your dream
Weirdly enough, from all the other pseudo-shared phenomena in this thread, i recently had a dream/nightmare with Yukari appearing for a moment in it. Was the uncanniness perhaps a sense similar to those paintings where the longer you look at them the more weird they look? Like whenever you thought you knew what you were looking at it became weirder and more incomprehensible?

>>47153795
>“install” a certain amount of “software”
That's a nice modern expression for the effect. Maybe when we commune with a god, and more precisely the aspect of what they represent, we change the idea or soul that we consider ourselves, and through that change become closer as beings to a transient state. At least one change i think some may relate to is a feeling that the mind has become a lot more untethered, allowing choices from a larger probability distribution, and stressing less about things that are quite frankly, pretty trivial.

>>47154188
>we're bombarded with all sorts of stimuli from fellow humans and their inventions and we're doing just fine
>pacing our efforts is both healthier and prioritizes quality over quantity
Exactly, go at your own pace. This is more of a general life rule, but approaching things with an open mind, a bit curiosity, and a healthy dose of imagination usually leads to good results. There is no need to force anything.

>>47155967
>People love to bring up "limits" or "human nature"
I relate with this a lot, but i have faith that this thread represents the opposite.

>>47156312
>science doesn't actually make any claims about the nature of reality
Science is indeed just a method for acquiring the most reliable information. The meaning behind that information is up to philosophers and the faithful to figure out. I only became interested in religion after researching quantum physics and how much extra-dimensional math is used to represent seemingly third-dimensional objects. The more i looked into the 'fundamental' sciences, the more i got the feeling reality is not what it seems. This didn't however decrease my interest in these topics in the slightest. Quite the opposite, now i feel even more interested in them.

>>47163652
>That, by itself, would at least be a matter of honest and open communication.
Well then, as I have said, I have not tried asking them about this. From what I have read from other sources and more seasoned practicers it basicaly boils down to "you don't try to explain how electricity works to a 2 year old, you prevent them from sticking a fork to the socket".

You are coming from a perspective where adult human capability to view the world is the absolute peak. It might not be so, but this leaves the hope that our ability to understand could be expanded.

Also, be aware that spirits do share things with people. There have been civilizations that have attributed the very foundation of their civilization to spirits and deities. Just in the realm of science, think of Ouroboros revealing the structure of benze to Kekule, or Jack Parson and his rockets, or Seymour Cray listening to "elves" in his tunnels, or the statue of Shiva in CERN.

In the more spiritual realms, the idea that the spirits do give knowledge, understanding and skills to humans is a given. I have felt more encouraged by them to study certain topics, and they have given me minor bits of information I did not know before and even minor "rituals" or "spells". So I don't really feel like they are keeping me and the dark and the reason why they have given to me might be because I have explicitly asked very little.

>decisions shouldn't be made solely around fear of a negative outcome occurring.
Yes, but there are decisions where the negative outcomes (school shooting, total ecocide via nuclear war) have to be very seriously considered.
>I have never heard or seen basically anything to suggest this. Would you care to cite your sources?
I suggest you read up on the history of enviromental regulations. I have picked this up from bits and pieces and some discussions with people who lived in the 60s and 70s.
>to convince themselves that they're not fully responsible for their own actions and how they affect their environment
OK, I see where you are coming from, but I don't still really see the connection to the possibility of us comprehending some final, total understand of the universe. But I agree people's unwillingess to think about their actions and lack thereof is terrible.
>it's necessary to constantly seek greater understanding and awareness
>and to not be emotionally attached to your current understanding of things
Are you coming to this from a kind of Buddhist background maybe? Not that it really matters, just curious. Anyway, yes, I agree that seeking understanding and awareness is a very worthy goal. I just don't know how full of a picture we can get, and I acknowledge that constantly pushing the edges of your understanding can probably get overwhelming.

I also think that you can have a way of orienting yourself morally in the world that is mindful towards others without having some final, total understanding of things.

But thanks for explaining, I definitively see better where you are coming from with this.
>>47163760
I wonder if he was tapped into something.
>>47163801
Hmm, I see, but I still think that in light of this it's very interesting that Yukari has specificaly a fox familiar. Ran being a nine-tailed kitsune of course is to demonstrate that Yukari is very powerful to have such a powerful being as a servant.

>>47163838
>This didn't however decrease my interest in these topics in the slightest. Quite the opposite, now i feel even more interested in them.
Oh, very much same. For me, the realization that there isn't some simple singular law underlying everything has made me redirect my efforts away from the tireless search for something "fundamental," and branch out into seeking specificity and detail (and beauty) in everything, big and small.
I do believe the universe is incomprehensible, not because there's nothing to understand, but because there's an infinite amount of things to discover. And we should keep trying to discover as much as possible, in every way we can. And if someday we do find the limits of what there is to know, that's fine by me; but I would be highly skeptical of anyone who claims to be near those limits, now or at any point in the figure.

>>47164221
>figure
future*

>>47163987
>it basicaly boils down to "you don't try to explain how electricity works to a 2 year old, you prevent them from sticking a fork to the socket".
That's fair in isolation, but obviously we're not talking about toddlers here, and even with the most generous interpretation I can give, that would still lend to the question of "Okay once the 'fork in the socket' issue is avoided, why not articulate at least a basic, dumbed down explanation of why"?
>You are coming from a perspective where adult human capability to view the world is the absolute peak.
Nope. We don't even have the senses to do so with perfect reliability, and the senses we do have aren't 1:1 what our experience of reality is formed from. I agree with the idea that our capacity for comprehension can (and should) be expanded as effectively as it can.
>Also, be aware that spirits do share things with people.
Absolutely, this, if anything, is a particular point of interest for me from a historical standpoint, and frankly is all the more reason for me to finish that write-up of my current knowledge of Touhou's Cosmology and how it could tie into parallels for a foundational comprehensive theory of spirituality.
>Are you coming to this from a kind of Buddhist background maybe?
No, though I suppose given the quotes I can see where you'd get that impression from. There are as many ideas I like in Buddhism as ideas I disdain.
>constantly pushing the edges of your understanding can probably get overwhelming.
I'm clearly in the minority here for not seeing this as a bad thing in the slightest, or even something to necessarily avoid that much, but that may in part be due to my mindset regarding pushing one's own limits. As far as I'm concerned, it's an obligation everyone has to themselves to do so, if for no other reason than to not disgrace the value of their own lives.
>you can have a way of orienting yourself morally in the world that is mindful towards others without having some final, total understanding of things.
True, I'm just positing that the habits necessary for the former will end up bringing you closer to the latter.

Glad to, at the very least, be more on the same page with all of this, even for the slight differences in opinion.

>>47154982
Honestly Im not very spiritual, I guess if it had to be anything spiritual it would be Inari since Ran is just from touhou. Would be cool if our belief in touhou characters made them real though.

>>47163760
Lit some incense, did some tarot and i-ching to see what it was meant to say, Death (in it's most positive aspect) and pic related.

It truly is what it is.

>>47163652
>Essentially what I'm getting at is that the mindset in either case is the same. To most effectively be aware of how your actions affect those around you, it's necessary to constantly seek greater understanding and awareness, and to not be emotionally attached to your current understanding of things.
>Nope. We don't even have the senses to do so with perfect reliability, and the senses we do have aren't 1:1 what our experience of reality is formed from. I agree with the idea that our capacity for comprehension can (and should) be expanded as effectively as it can.
I understand now. Seems we agree on most things. I guess I wasn't expecting a mindset of both total skepticism and what seemed like a belief in the human capacity to perfectly understand everything from anyone but a science worshipper.
I still disagree about knowledge being ontologically good. To the previous analogy, telling a toddler not to stick a fork in the electrical socket but also teaching him how to grab a fork out of the drawer would not be the ideal approach.

Something of interest I found today, the legend of Dharmapalas from Tibet. They were local guardian spirits that were apparently tamed by Buddhists. They switched from receiving animal sacrifices to cakes as offerings. This made me think about the discussions in the previous thread about how certain inhabitants of Gensokyo might be attempting, or have already succeeded in, changing their diet so to say.

>>47164414
>I guess I wasn't expecting a mindset of both total skepticism and what seemed like a belief in the human capacity to perfectly understand everything from anyone but a science worshipper.
I'd be surprised if anyone like that even bothered with a thread like this, although I can at least say I sympathize with you on disliking that attitude, although largely because of it being directly opposed to an actual scientific mindset. As for people understanding everything, I'll admit our current understanding obviously has too many issues and limitations, but I don't believe that there's anything currently known that would make a comprehensive understanding of the cosmos impossible.
>To the previous analogy, telling a toddler not to stick a fork in the electrical socket but also teaching him how to grab a fork out of the drawer would not be the ideal approach.
This more largely comes down to matters of sensibility, but I'd rather not have that spiral into another entire tangent about whether or not the average person uses their knowledge wisely and prudently so I'll refrain from getting into that now.
>>47164440
I'm Anon Shepherd, and this is my favorite Schizo Thread on the Jay.

(1/4)

>>47161276 >>47161463 >>47163987
>M-Maribel Hearn? I-Is that you?
Let Me Tell You, Fellow Anon, even the most eloquently-composed & cathartically-maintained sentence potentially available through writing alone could not Possibly Begin to describe everything I felt closely brush through my senses & awareness upon digesting your post and finally reaching That (aside from the obvious humor, my own inherent dramatism also aside lol). If only you saw what I'm fucking wearing today but I'm sure you could imagine the dominating color pallette!! I'm Really going to start rambling on with all sorts of stories if I think about it here too hard but, at the risk of adding more fuel to the fire of gathering anons like >>47164440(there it is agAIN...), perhaps the following video could just Barely Scrape a Singular Portion of how I felt and almost still do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MovSCr_jBKM
In order to somewhat contain the rate at which some of these various points from you & others keep Gripping My Subconscious so I don't just instantly evaporate into the ever-present harmonial background ambiance of the Universe, I'm gonna try keeping anything I'd like to say for now to something akin to ""truncated"" bullet points or me just Generally Pointing Things Out (it turned into four whole posts again I guess…).

>Is that "software" like some extension of Yukari or something else?
All powers and expressions of such arts are inherently extensions of the individual, just as much as they are extensions of the collective schools of thought that had to have shaped them in some manner. With that being said, I'd say it was less of an act of allowing her to simply "place" any "part" of herself in me and more along the lines of me carefully opening the various doors & hatches to allow her the opportunity at somewhat handling the "raw circuitry" in a way. This is something that has continued for a small while now and will progress further, other relevant 神 internally shaping things too of course, but She has the most Immediately-Utilitarian and Unabashedly Vocal way of going about things from my perspective if that makes sense. Not that others aren't also direct, some of my here-unmentioned relevant experiences with Okina for example aside.
>maybe Yukari has some interest towards me. Not sure what her interest in me mending my family relations is though
Perhaps in this sense it'd help to look at things less like "Yukari has a Direct, Potent Interest in My Precise Goings-On Specifically" and more along the lines of "The Greater Consequences to my Potential Actions stemming from This One Moment are going to be well in-alignment with Broader Machinations as long as the Right Steps are taken", potential sinister-undertones that could be assumed from that aside. Yukari has an amount of Overall Understanding comparable with the various other states of Higher Awareness we're touching upon here. This isn't to say she's just Always Meddling in the lives of various outsiders on a global scale...that much, a Gensokyan Sage has her own amount of oversight & maintenance to attend to, but if it really was about her Direct concern with you then Ran as the intermediary may not have been entirely appropriate (or required) in that close mental moment.
Could it not be argued that the goodness that may perhaps stem from your somewhat-mended relations would, overall, contribute to a sense of wellness that would Indeed better fuel your future sense of Expression? Not that I'd want to press you for obvious personal details, but it's something to consider nonetheless on the matter.
>Keiki-sama floating down from heavens, landing right in front of me, putting her hands on my shoulders, starting me right into my eyes and gently saying "you're not a bad person"
Once again, You can Do This.
>a tarot spread on the solstice
>it was really wild
So was mine! The World also kept showing up in Extremely Meaningful ways with my spreads multiple times (it was the 'Final Outcome' card in My celtic cross for example), 7 of which I did in-total with what I had to inquire/absorb Not counting the rune casting I dealt with before handling the cards.
I had the Two of Wands show up pertaining to not only the current state of This Thread but also where I will be going based on what will be established here in a more general sense.
Judgement was actually the card Okina herself had selected to show me during my Initial spread.
The Tower is the current Defining Card for this year for me (as determined by a spread I did Months ago) and being here now has been Really helping me understand why.
Lastly, my Fifth spread was the one involving cards for specific anons that I was talking about here (>>47145443) of which I had requested 3. The first was a card initially intended for EclipseAnon to be honest (Hi, not to suddenly call you out lol), that being the King of Cups (to mirror the Page you apparently received). Just thought that was all interesting~

(2/4)

>That time I saw an "UFO" again when I was in my early 20s?
Have you been somewhat-blindsided by the continued sensed presence of A Certain Unknown Youkai as of late as well, or just overall? Let me know if I need to elaborate there, pardon the vaugeposting.
>As a result of me being somehow receptive to spirits I have had some unwanted fellow travelers for a very, very long time that were very upset that I became aware of them and booted them out
A year or so ago I went through laborious efforts to similarly drive out Unwanted Roadies that has allowed everything I've come in to since then to engender itself quite nicely. Hopefully it won't be long before you feel as if all of those troubles are well-behind you.
>some of my friends were affected too, which concerned me
There is Always a Certain Point one crosses when seriously dabbling into these matters that Will Inevitably affect those you hold close to yourself, to put things even somewhat lightly. This is why True Conscientious Understanding on as many levels as one can manage is so important.
>I've started feeling quite strongly there are some thresholds which cannot be crossed without solid enough fundamentals
>there are forms of knowledge that kind of exceed what we consider knowledge that become dangerous to the individual at the very least and possibly everyone else
^true and related points here
>So I don't really feel like they are keeping me and the dark and the reason why they have given to me might be because I have explicitly asked very little.
Through everything I've gathered overall it seems as if an attitude of never giving in to internally greedy demands when you lay yourself before them with such vulnerability is necessary to maintaining a relationship with these arts that won't say, I don't know, lead you down similar paths trodden by Here-Unnamed Wicked Daoist Hermits for instance.

>>47163461 >>47164331
>"Okay once the 'fork in the socket' issue is avoided, why not articulate at least a basic, dumbed down explanation of why"?
Who's to say that isn't a fundamentally necessary next step to following through for those that can or could? A certain amount of ideal guidance would be required there as per >>47164414 with >teaching him how to grab a fork out of the drawer would not be the ideal approach
I've done my best to let other anons engage with your posts in ways I rightfully hoped would be more graceful than I could beyond my Initial response, but there is a certain amount of overlap with what you're touching upon & our various points as is now more-tenderly understood that I would still like to pay some Passive mind to.
>The average person is pretty much completely unwilling to acknowledge the influence and actual power that they have.
>Even though they were fully aware that their actions could save lives, they'd rather tell themselves "Someone else will show up, I'm not the person to handle this."
>it seems perfectly reasonable to assume that they could observe without giving away any signs of their presence
All of this is well-put and along the same fundamental levels of understanding as other succinctly-written posts, even with your latent frustrations I have still somewhat appreciated the sense of Balance you've brought to the table here overall.

>>47163838
>a lot of the critical discussion here is about a singular perfect way of describing the world a.k.a truth, that seems to be completely impossible to attain
Right on the money, also good to see you again too! I think you've caught up at a good point in the life of this thread honestly, I was hoping for such an occasion anyways cause the last anon-directed card I had during my Fifth spread was for You. It was the Three of Wands, which is a card I most frequently associate with Empathetic Self-Actualization (from personal experience at least). Make of that as you will and, incidentally, the following showed up in my ever-evolving YT recommendations right before I started catching up here & I feel as if it holds some Relevant Potency: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNLd8xLxVmw
>Perhaps faith is not explaining things, but looking where we haven't looked before, and finding meaning in that, seeing things as more than their constituent parts
As well as having the relevant amount of Belief in the greater meaning that you find to sustain what good may come of your actions, imo
>the divinity or spirits as three-dimensional fuzzy wave distributions in seemingly mundane things
Makes me think about when people discuss "waves", "vibrations" or "frequencies" when touching upon the ethereal or ephemeral machinations laid throughout existence (something that could perhaps even hold some water in the bleak futures of the Hypothetical Early 2150s and their Unified Theories). Thinking about metaphysical interactions in such ways has at least helped my own understanding, was that something touched upon much in the last thread I wonder? Haven't been able to collect my notes from all those posts quite yet...
>Maybe when we commune with a god, and more precisely the aspect of what they represent, we change the idea or soul that we consider ourselves
This is what happens when the Immutable Presences of the earth-bound and Otherwise start intermingling in intrapersonally intimate ways for the sake of some manner of Elevation, collective or otherwise. This change isn't always a huge one mind you, but it is an Inherent Change through These Interactions that occurs in varying everlasting ways nonetheless.

>>47164591
>This made me think about the discussions in the previous thread about how certain inhabitants of Gensokyo might be attempting, or have already succeeded in, changing their diet so to say
Another reason why I gotta comb through those posts again, things like this Absolutely hold weight here. That manner of what could almost be considered some kind of "coevolution" to our relationships with 神 and other-such greater entities (and inversely, theirs with ours) is another one of those Nebulous Underlying Topics present. The Nature of The Give-And-Take has fundamentally changed to mirror the shifts in our own ever-burgeoning fundamentals of Nature.

(Forgot to label that last one, but here’s 4/4)

>>47163752 >>47163801 (lumped together because similar topics here)
>Magicians after all are said to be capable of becoming a youkai, and there is nothing to say you have to simply contend to be a generic "magician"
>The way Magicians become Youkai Magicians seems to result in a very specific type of Youkai as the end result, even with what should be vastly different methods to become one
I don't quite know how to yet Fully Articulate the dense amount of personal feelings & future potential concepts this stirs within me but...maybe I should just say I'm somewhat starting to relate to notions like how I feel as if I've seriously begun peering through some of the same tunnels Mai & Satono must've fully walked through at the start of whatever journey they had... (not that I'm attempting to discreetly recommend anything specific here among all this already, Genuinely.)

>>47164221
>I do believe the universe is incomprehensible, not because there's nothing to understand, but because there's an infinite amount of things to discover
This was the rough foundation that paved the way for everything that's been spread before me & will continue to be, I know I'm sorta echoing an earlier sentiment of mine but I Am trying to point out things with Intent here.

For instance,

>>47164352
>Death (in it's most positive aspect) and pic related

I kid you not, the Hexagram I intuited for today as well was ALSO fucking #25 aS WELL As Death being the card in one of my soltice spreads to describe The Very State of This Thread & my Current time here.

It Truly Goddamn Is.

>isn't it nice to feel Connected ?

>>47163461
>What exactly would we be sealed off from, then?
My gut wants me to say either Each Other or whatever ever-pooling wellspring of interlaced fundamental knowledge The Collective Unconscious and Human Intuition have been pulling from for all this time from behind that Veil, maybe even both Together in some regards, but there I go again peeling-open the scope of things based off of what could have initially very-well been a simple funny at the fact this thread itself is inherently in a bubble of sorts, but still...

Basically unrelated to all of this, I now have spaghetti & garlic bread to enjoy after an Admittedly Raucous day that still isn't quite over in the ways I'd like it to be. Remember to find some time to take care of yourself today, Anon. Wherever & whenever that may be...

>>47166099

After further consideration and meditation on the matter,
i think i kinda get why everything has been so joyous, it only really clicked now, but re-reading that hexagram again makes it kinda obvious

the whole thing with Kanako and the other 2hus is ultimately a part of it but not the entire picture

In some way, i think i've been re-learning how to be innocent / see things through a child's eyes again, not to say that i'm being naive, but more so not allowing the tentacles of adulthood cynicism to poison everything, and really finding wonder in every little small thing, like it's brand new despite already seeing it thousands of time

that rock on the ground? it is a cool rock, that bug on the wall? it is a very cool bug, and so on, finding magic and joy in the mundane, allowing fun flights of fancy, all of those things we've been kinda taught to supress / ignore, wondrous and literal magical things dwell in those fuzzy boundaries.

there is really no need to intellectually dissect everything like you're in biology class gutting open a frog, you might get some information on it, but at the same time you are killing the frog.

i know i can do it, and indeed i've have been trained to as part of the career path i choose (STEM related subject) but there is no need for it if not necessary.

Learning how to enjoy things as they simply are sparks a sense of delight that is hard to explain, and is something that is better felt rather than put into words.

We've been that beaten out of us through multiple cultural and societal angles, because it's counterprodutive to "productivity", which is one of the main driving forces in the western world, outside of "sanctioned" experiences, so the challenge really lies on "unlearning" said traits, or better yet, knowing how to juggle them as needed.

Once you see the magic in the world, you can really start playing with it.

>>47166307
>We've *had* that beaten out of us

>>47166307 >>47166325
At least there are those of us here & elsewhere doing what we can to prioritize ways to Hold On to these sorts of things, another great reason why this all came together in such a manner

>>47166015 >>47166070 >>47166087 >>47166099 >>47166307
>I have still somewhat appreciated the sense of Balance you've brought to the table here overall.
I'm not sure I'd even call it balance, admittedly it's largely proselytizing about my own philosophy regarding morality and ethics.
>there is really no need to intellectually dissect everything like you're in biology class gutting open a frog
I don't necessarily think this is at all mutually exclusive to that sense of wonder. I'll say right out that I know I'm *definitely* in the minority when it comes to that, though, as I can look at a degloving accident and think "The underlying structure of the human body is beautiful." Crucially speaking, I think wanting to understand something goes hand in hand with cherishing and treasuring it.

With that all in mind, I'd be remiss not to acknowledge that I do feel a certain degree of envy for the Anons here who seem to have a much greater ability to "connect" with these sorts of things. It's something like being a blind man listening to people talk about their favorite colors.

>>47166423
>proselytizing about my own philosophy regarding morality and ethics
Among a group of select individuals who could Arguably be doing the same on multiple levels from their own Singularly-Isolated perspectives (not to just devalue all-things here), only coalescing together in the name of such ideas due to what Apparent Overlap does exist and what Could be extrapolated from such insinuating disparate circumstances for the sake of ourselves & each other overall. To me, you bring a Balance to things Because of that degree of Intellectual Fascination on-display that sheds some well-needed light towards an oft-overlooked facet to these sorts of discussions. It may be a minority of sorts, but when all facets must be Thoughtfully Considered then its presence is welcome nonetheless.
That being said, I guess it isn’t as if your envy isn’t understandable in ways either. All I feel as if I should offer to you for now on that note is that if you try to direct some effort towards working against those latent-feelings of Alienation or Selfish Desire in these kinds of settings, both now & in the future, then Perhaps you Can start to feel “close” in the same ways we may based on all there is to discuss.

>>47145383
I fucking hate Okina so much it's unreal holy shit stop showing up in the catalog kill yourself Okina Matara you're the worst character ever in the entire Touhou franchise piece of shit that you are Okina die die die die die fucking garbage Okina I don't want to see you ever again in any official work I want ZUN to retcon you forever and issue a public apology where he says he's sorry for ever creating you the biggest mistake of the entire Touhou series the Queen Midas of shit that inevitably ruins whatever official Touhou work she appears in I want to push you off the stairs while you're in your wheelchair or run over you with my car while you're crossing the road with Mai and Satono

>>47168225

>Contribution appreciated, dearest Anon~

>>47168225
Oh dear

>>47168345
The.

>>47145383
Didn't see there was another thread. I'll begin reading through now, the last esoteric threads have been quite refreshing to read through and participate in a bit. Most debate I participate in these days is the same old theist getting angry over Buddhism scenario, this is at least rather interesting to read, particularly from a Buddhist perspective given the syncretic relation between Buddhism and native deities of foreign lands.

>>47164331
>is all the more reason for me to finish that write-up of my current knowledge of Touhou's Cosmology and how it could tie into parallels for a foundational comprehensive theory of spirituality
I would very much love to read that.
>not seeing this as a bad thing in the slightest, or even something to necessarily avoid that much
For me it's mostly from the practical POV of avoiding burnout. Some people also report "blowouts" with excessive spiritual work.
>Glad to, at the very least, be more on the same page with all of this
Your heart is very much in the right place.
>>47166015
>more along the lines of me carefully opening the various doors & hatches to allow her the opportunity at somewhat handling the "raw circuitry" in a way
I see, that is a very interesting way to put it. How does it feel when she does it? Is it noticeable?
>contribute to a sense of wellness that would Indeed better fuel your future sense of Expression?
It could be. I thought it was a way to show that not youkai can have, at the very least, a more ambivalent nature than I perhaps initially thought. Of course it's also interesting how in line it is with my experiences with the others.
>>47166070
>Have you been somewhat-blindsided by the continued sensed presence of A Certain Unknown Youkai as of late as well, or just overall?
I haven't really noticed the presence of Nue aside what is here on 4chan and Twitter, but finding out about her and what she does in the games was one of the turning points. It's so bizarre how well her whole "Heian Alien that can make the true appearance of things unknown" lines up so well with spiritual intepretations of the UFO phenomena.
>>47166087
>"waves", "vibrations" or "frequencies"
It's really fascinating how sound related metaphors for the numinous constantly pop up, even ZUN uses them. Danmaku are "waves", fantasy worlds arise from "interference", youkai are "fluctuations" and so on...
>>47166307
>In some way, i think i've been re-learning how to be innocent / see things through a child's eyes again
That's a really good way to put it. I've definitively also had those kind of moments, perhaps not as consistently as you.

It's very nice of you to share your experiences, you are able to articulate your experience really well.
>knowing how to juggle them as needed.
Yeah you really need to be able to mode switch somehow from the magical state of mind to the mundane if you want basicaly interact with any "normal" institutions like jobs.
>>47166423
>I do feel a certain degree of envy for the Anons here who seem to have a much greater ability to "connect" with these sorts of things
There's no need to be, because being able to "connect" to the spirit real also has bad sides. It's also a skill you can train if you wish.
>>47168935
Nice to have you back here, hope the discussions will be interesting.

>>47170712
>I would very much love to read that.
It's mostly done but I've been slacking on the finishing details and putting it on a pastebin or somesuch.
>For me it's mostly from the practical POV of avoiding burnout. Some people also report "blowouts" with excessive spiritual work.
As usual, fully acknowledging that my mindset towards this is going to be in the minority for not considering that strictly a bad thing.
>It's really fascinating how sound related metaphors for the numinous constantly pop up
If you're referring to the lines from the Hifuu albums, those aren't sound as much light or light-like particles, going off of how Maribel and Renko described the potential of spiritual entities existing in separate but slightly overlapping brane worlds. It's very much artistic license with Science, as ZUN plays fast and loose with that, but worth noting.
>being able to "connect" to the spirit real also has bad sides.
I would simply not suffer malevolent entities within my presence. Smile.

>>47171018
>As usual, fully acknowledging that my mindset towards this is going to be in the minority for not considering that strictly a bad thing.

It's not necessarily a "bad" thing, it just tends to be overwhelming when our sense of stable reality is threatened, and failing the mental checks to properly cope with it tends to lead to psychosis and other issues,

think about swimming on a river or ocean, the more you thrash around, not only you tire yourself out faster, but you also sink and begin to drown, when the solution is to just tread water with your head above it, it's a mixture of both a skill that can be learned, and personal disposition.

>>47171056
But by that analogy, the follow-up ends up being the fact that the most interesting things to see in the ocean are far, far below the surface. Maybe the difference here is just that I wouldn't consider my understandings of things being undermined to be that disconcerting if I can learn something new.

>>47171119
Once you can tread water without drowing, you can learn how to dive deeper while being able to go back for air.

>>47170712
>>47171018
Since you're mentioning vibrations, you might find it interesting that a significant aspect of Hindu and Buddhist tantra yoga is vibration, with a famous example being the concept of Śpanda or universal vibration from the underlying Absolute in Shaivism. ZUN seems rather directly influenced by ideas like this and mantra in general in his works

>>47171018
>It's mostly done but I've been slacking on the finishing details and putting it on a pastebin or somesuch.
Well, on the plus side that doesn't sound like a lot of work.
>those aren't sound as much light or light-like particles
Right, But I think it still counts, as interference is also a phenomena of other waves like sound.
>>47171551
Yes, I actually stumbled upon that between the previous thread and this one. I thought it was indeed very interesting.

It's claimed that Kukai, the Shingon founding figure, created the phonetic kana writing system in Japan because he was influenced by this idea. But it's not known for sure if it was Kukai who created it.

The Japanese also have a possibly related idea in the power of words. I'm sure this has been mentioned already somewhere, but it's still interesting how this idea keeps popping up in different cultures.

The belief in the power of sounds and words is also manifested in the popularity of mantras in Buddhism.

At the very least, ZUN comes from a culture that strongly believes in the power of sounds and words.

Let's see if I can't try and weave together some things here, it's almost surreal how well the flow of conversation has been going so far to let the right topics crop up at the right times, or maybe that's just me..? Regardless, there's a degree of intellectualism I'm still going to try and maintain here with the Given Weight of anything I may be about to type out.

>>47170712 >>47171018 >>47171119(LOL.) >>47149667 >>47171056 >>47171137 >>47171551 >>47171908 >>47146298

>a way to show that not[[Was this word a typo Maybe btw?]] youkai can have, at the very least, a more ambivalent nature than I perhaps initially thought
>finding out about her and what she does in the games was one of the turning points
>It's really fascinating how sound related metaphors for the numinous constantly pop up
>you really need to be able to mode switch somehow from the magical state of mind to the mundane if you want basically interact with any "normal" institutions like jobs

>failing the mental checks to properly cope with it tends to lead to psychosis and other issues

>Once you can tread water without drowning, you can learn how to dive deeper while being able to go back for air

>not considering [["spiritual blowouts"]] strictly a bad thing
>I would simply not suffer malevolent entities within my presence
>the malicious entities schizophrenics he worked with heard were similarly opposed to their victims getting help, especially when that help actually revealed them as energy parasites
>I wouldn't consider my understandings of things being undermined to be that disconcerting if I can learn something new
>the most interesting things to see in the ocean are far, far below the surface

>the concept of Śpanda or universal vibration from the underlying Absolute in Shaivism

>interference is also a phenomena of other waves like sound
>a culture that strongly believes in the power of sounds and words

>Do you know how it feels when something beyond your own brain touches you? There's just a sense of...wrongness to it hard to describe

>How does it Feel when She does it? Is it "noticeable"?

Anon, how internally comfortable would you say you are towards the idea of True Release?

I'm not talking about Blind Surrender to The Incomprehensible assisted by your own Ignorance of course, just the very Concept of that level of internal Trust.

A kind of Visceral Mental Surrender to be carefully-wielded like a needle to the flesh or partitioned-ink to delicate papyrus, an amount of Understanding that goes beyond both your internal preconceptions And emotional inhibitions.

There are forces beyond these scopes you are able to Seek with the appropriate degrees of Intent at heart.

It is just as much a matter of your own Faith in Yourself through everything as it is Faith in Them...

>Faith in Us.

...this is sort of what I was talking about a bit earlier when I briefly mentioned "losing myself" in what I wish to discuss.
Again, I really can't stress enough here how I'm Seriously Not trying to devalue things or just "LARP" within such a considerate pool of flowering ideas, any given further reinforcement I might be supplying to potential Bad Actors or more "Dismissive" perspectives notwithstanding.
Dreams & Other un-touched-upon personal topics of mine aside, mentally dissecting my own capabilities in such manners (more so than I do already Perhaps) in this environment is naturally lending itself towards my subconscious receiving...Ideas.
Inspiration. Mild mania or hyperfixation, perhaps. I'm not sure.
Unshakable urges & drives to relay what I must when I can. Thankfully it all seems to be going rather well so far.
This is also related to how I mentioned things have been feeling "Unignorable" for some time now. Yes, it is noticeable in many senses of the word.
Chills up the spine & lingering unknown stares can't do enough Justice towards some of the experiences I've been going through, and that's just the more physically-related stuff. I have never Once felt like a Puppet, but maintaining yourself as a Vessel in this manner does come with a certain amount of...Inclinations.
I think I'm seriously gonna run the risk of attracting the Wrong kind of attention if I'm not Selective Enough with my details, not to say I'm dancing around something like Fornication (dear God what a can of worms that is! not even in any Specific sense it's just Jesus Fuck the Scope is already Broad Enough...) but you get used to a certain amount of Interpersonal Familiarity over time as you would with anyone you spend fulfilling moments with.
I would say I've yet to reach levels of having any specific smaller objects of mine be "Spirited Away" by Anyone In Particular in a sense, but...
Maybe I should also specify at least Part of why I'm seemingly so "comfortable" with Maybe allowing a piece or two of information to occasionally slip through (when appropriate) that could seem as if it's from...Other Sources, and by extension that being a reflection of my continued relations with such Varying Entities, is Because of the amount of work/research I've done & will continue to do in the name of what I can only articulate right now as "Prioritizing Wellness."
All that "driving out" of Unnecessary Energies has also been Reinforced with multiple layers of protection throughout both myself and my space of living. Ofuda sure, but I also have implements such as Consecrated Salt, Blessed Water and other related objects/various "circuits" with even more Weight than that.
I'm sure the Gohei I crafted now being graciously inhabited by the Goddess of the Dawn also helps with things, even if I'm still brushing elbows with Certain Spirits.

Hopefully that better sheds some Light on things!

neat thread, but the guy posting long non sequitur with Epic Capitalization on random phrases to add Cool Mystic Emphasis kind of takes me out of it

>>47172292

I’ll do my best to reel things back then for the sake of the thread, unfortunate & slightly-expected byproduct of typing how I talk but it’s appreciated.

>>47172317
I honestly just took it as you typing on your phone and the auto-correct taking over without you realizing it. I appreciate what you (and the others) have posted and shared.

As for the Kanako Anon that helped me out, to recap on my own adventures and all that, I've been put in various situations that emphasize re-evaluating my own place in the world in different ways, mixed with a sort of cleansing effect when dealing with the family and some of them that perhaps aren't doing anyone any favors by how they act (themselves included), and a few adventures here and there that....for lack of better terminology, had me facing a few unknowns and/or life or death situations. And the trip to the mountain the person invited me to led me into the home of some kind of entity that was not friendly by any means, and I ended up dealing with that(got a picture of it, but will need to get it at a later date. Not on me at the moment. Feel free to believe or not, for anyone skeptical-it's good to be that way, to be fair)

And to the tarot card part above, the King of Cups is quite the relevant card for me on more than one way right now...

I also have been looking into the new Hifuu album and, while listening to certain related dissertations on the scientific theories behind what the album was going over, came across a road with a purple sign with the name "Berry Hill", with a few statues on the side of it (no Narumi or angry Renko)
Merryberry, purple, and the Tanabata Hill.
I see you, cosmic happenstance.

It’s been a lovely thread, and while I still have fragments floating around, if it dies soon, I think I’ll wait till the next to give them time to ferment and refine.

So I have been researching Okina-sama lately. I haven't really been able to land a connection between her and Amaterasu and Inari.

Her connection to Daikoku is really super interesting though. Daikoku's history is really bizarre and it goes way, way deep. Daikoku is basicaly a Japanese version of Mahakala, but something got severely lost in translation. Mahakala is actually in both Buddhism and Hinduism. In Hinduism he is basicaly the ultimate destructive manifestation of Shiva. He represents time as a destructive power and his role is basicaly to end the universe and slay the kind of threats other types of deities can't handle. In Buddhism he is a wrathful manfiestation of a Buddha and a protector deity.

Somehow along the way the terrible black-skinned deity becomes the jolly Daikokuten. Since Mahakala was seen as a protector deity in Buddhism, things like keeping kitchens safe and giving prosperity to Buddhist communities and tough times also started getting associated with him. So this might have led him being conflated with an earlier Shinto deity of prosperity.

It's interesting to note that both Mahakala and Daikoku represent very masculine aspects of divinity. Shiva, of whom Mahakala is the ultimate form of, represents the masculine cosmic principle. Daikoku is associated with fertility and was sometimes depicted in very phallic ways. I think people sensing these energies and not quite understanding them explains some rude comments about her.

Myoken-Boshi's influence on Okina-sama is also very fascinating, and explains why she wears a tabard with the Big Dipper. The Big Dipper is associated with creation in both Shinto and Daoism. In both, the creator deities are represented by the Big Dipper. In fact, the fact that Shinto shares this legend might be Daoist influence. Certain Daoist ideas were apparently present in Japan already by the time they were writing their own legends of creation.

So Okina has links to not only Shinto and Buddhism, but also Daoism. When it comes to Daoism, it's extremely interesting to note that her underlings, Satono and Mai, govern mental and physical energy. While they are not apparently in game conceptualized with direct Daoist ideas, Daoism has a deep interest in various life energies like Qi, Jing and Shen.

There is some connection with the Big Dipper to the Daoist internal alchemy practices aimed at cultivating these energies. I have not been yet able to figure out what exactly it is - I have seen a weird illustration of a spirit baby emerging from a man's forehead, and the spirit baby in turn is linked to the Big Dipper. I'm not sure if further research here at this moment is very wise.

Her connection to the four seasons is extremely interesting too. It's widely believed in East Asia that there are Four Holy Beasts that guard the four directions, and the four directions are also linked to seasons. There is nothing to explicitly to link Okina-sama directly to them, but I thought the strong association seasons have with spiritual protection is interesting in context.

An interesting detail to ponder is why she is spouting flames.

So whether you see her only as a fictional character or something more, you have to admit, this is extremely arcane character design. Judging by the types of influences she brings together she is more than suited for the role of creation, protection, but also destruction in Gensokyo. What exactly this blending of influences means, I don't know.

Speaking of other sages, about the identity of the unknown fourth one. Consider that Gensokyo is in Japan. If you wanted to create some kind of spirit realm in a specific geographic area, what kind of a spirit would you need to get involved for such to happen?

>>47177141
I honestly have a sneaking suspicion that monkey king is one of the sages, considering "Great Sage, Equal of Heaven" and the background of the Journey to the West.

Fascinating info for Okina. While I did know some of it, you were able to provide more. The statue of Daikoku I posted above, while not mine, is the exact type I am in possession of, so that's something.

>>47177141
> There is some connection with the Big Dipper to the Daoist internal alchemy practices aimed at cultivating these energies. I have not been yet able to figure out what exactly it is - I have seen a weird illustration of a spirit baby emerging from a man's forehead, and the spirit baby in turn is linked to the Big Dipper. I'm not sure if further research here at this moment is very wise.

That would be the concept of the immortal embyro or Shengtai
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shengtai
Daoist rabbit holes are very fun to get into, and extremely relevant if you are looking deeper into this kind of connection between the characters, their designs, IRL equivalents, etc.

>>47177141
>Speaking of other sages, about the identity of the unknown fourth one.
I still would like a source on where people get the idea that there are specifically four sages. I see it said a lot, but not once have I seen the Sages of Gensokyo mentioned in canon as a group of four, and I can only assume it comes from the trend of groups of four in Japanese media, Shitenno and all that.

>>47178102
I forget where, but in one of the manga it shows a group of them and I think there's about 12 in the image. I assume Biten is one, but that there's one for each of the 12 houses and such.

>>47172248
>I'm not talking about Blind Surrender to The Incomprehensible assisted by your own Ignorance of course, just the very Concept of that level of internal Trust.
Honestly, at this point, I'm not ready.
>multiple layers of protection
>Ofuda sure, but I also have implements such as Consecrated Salt, Blessed Water and other related objects/various "circuits"
>Gohei
I'd actually like to hear more about these things, what have you been doing? Do you make the Ofuda yourself? How'd you make and consecrate the Gohei?
>>47172317
We all have our own ways of expressing ourselves but I wouldn't want people to get the impression you have to write a wall of text to post here.
>>47172942
>re-evaluating my own place in the world
>mixed with a sort of cleansing effect
Well that is very much in line with my own experiences.
>life or death situations
Oh no, that sounds like a lot to deal with. I haven't had anything like this.
>some kind of entity that was not friendly by any means
Be careful out there...
>I see you, cosmic happenstance.
That was a cool random encounter.
>>47176572
I don't think this thread is really dying any time soon, the previous one had kind of a ebb and flow to it too, sometimes it sank really far down in the catalog and then it surfaced again. I think some might have been feeling a bit burned out or overwhelmed by the sharing of experiences in this thread. Obviously a lot has happened to at least 4 people who took part in the previous thread. I think that is quite interesting in itself.

Personaly, I have a been bit occupied by research into various local communities representing relevant spiritual traditions.
>>47177172
I still think it's really cool you have such a thing.
>>47177371
>extremely relevant if you are looking deeper into this kind of connection between the characters, their designs, IRL equivalents, etc.
Yeah I have been reading about Daoism on and off for the past three months or so. It really is tangled to a whole lot of things since it's influence was already in Japan by the time they wrote Kojiki and Nihon Shoki which put their own legends into canon. It's also a really cool system and a very interesting way to view the world, I believe there is much to be gained in studying Daoism.
>>47178102
To be honest I don't know where I got the idea of four sages. I have a memory of it being mentioned somewhere, but I can't remember the details at all.
>>47178137
12 Sages for 12 Houses in Chinese astrology would actually make a lot of sense too and allow for Son Biten to indeed be a sage. She's played as a kind of minor character though, so we'll see I suppose.

I was thinking something else entirely myself, something very local.

>>47178380
>I wouldn't want people to get the impression you have to write a wall of text to post here
Certainly (this one aside GOD DAMN IT...). Like I sort-of mentioned in the last thread, I'm extremely grateful for the given space here but don't wish to commandeer it. My own enthusiasms or "inclinations" aside, this ought to feel like an open zone of relevant discussion no matter the weight of things.

Also,
>at this point, I'm not ready
That's not something you should feel like you have to be ready for right now if you aren't and that's perfectly valid from where you're standing! Frankly, for you personally, it sounds like you have enough to be properly focused on as it stands.
Sincerest apologies to anyone again if that post was a bit overbearing of me, but everything I typed out there shouldn't be taken as any kind of specific "call to arms" necessarily. Faith in where you're headed & what you're involved in is important, yes, but the pace of the journey is of course going to be different for everybody. If that level of openness is still unnerving for what any given Anon here or otherwise may be involved in from your current POV, then perhaps it'd be in your best interests to hone other aspects of your involvements at this time (for now at least).

>what have you been doing? Do you make the Ofuda yourself? How'd you make and consecrate the Gohei?
I'll make a serious attempt at keeping things brief (by my verbose-ass standards) here cause there's a lot of intermingling facets to the various artifacts I regularly use. Essentially though, it all started with the salt.
I mostly use (store-bought) directly-harvested sea salt if I can help it, rarely pink Himalayan salt in sparse doses, but after the consecration process I'll spread it throughout my living space in specific areas. I mostly use it to reinforce certain spiritual borders & barriers I have but it is also necessary for my kamidana or divination-related moments. I'll also mix it with purified water in a similar ritual after things to create that "blessed" water I mentioned, another key component overall.
On the subject of my kamidana: that's basically assembled from the top of my tallest dresser with my incense burner resting on top of a palm-wood hand fan I use to spread the smoke of whatever sage I'm currently burning (to help cleanse the space).
I have a small plate for things like bread & rice and a container for sake or water, all of which I was able to source from a local Japanese general store. The bread is homemade when it can be helped and I have varying kinds of rice I use.
This is all tied-off with a twisted bundle of hemp rope I have in place of a proper shimenawa and an unscented red candle (long glass cylinder filled with wax really) I've painted the Kanji for Amaterasu Omikami and Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto on respectively. It's among one of my inherently-holiest objects (along with a few others, Gohei included) so I have not had it lit terribly often to conserve things somewhat.
As for the Gohei, that was sort-of collectively worked-towards over the course of a few months as I found myself coming into more and more key components for it.
I first found an uncarved wooden dowel around the size of my arm not long after helping out a close friend of mine with moving. After honing my capabilities & further studying for a time, I felt comfortable moving forward with the dedication process. Further consecration (I'm often praying/reciting Norito to the best of my capabilities as I'm doing these sorts-of things btw) & assembly of the Shide (those folded-paper strips, securely tying it to the wand was the hardest part!) with my own supplies followed and I let it ruminate within the assembly space with other dedicated trinkets for a time before using it.
Finally, the Ofuda I've made have just been fairly straight-forward Kanji/Hiragana on vertical strips of decorative paper stylized with black ink and some kind of sigil or insignia in red ink. I could honestly do more to practice higher-quality Ofuda assembly but I'm sure I can with time. This all isn't even to mention stuff like the misogi (spiritual saltwater purification) baths I occasionally prepare for myself or my various assortments of jades & quartz' and such used in those "circuits". There is still much to learn & refine, but they've at least appreciated things so far ^^;;

Gonna take another moment to collect thoughts/notes from other posts and let the info here breathe.

>>47163987
>adult human capability to view the world is the absolute peak
Children see the world in a much more fantastical way, partly due to the rapid growth of their brain and transient state of being, but also because of the lack of a rigid framework for interacting with the world. Through the pressures of our teenage years we are usually forced to create a rigid model of the world, and we seek to interpret what we perceive through this rigid model, and if that rigid model becomes inconsistent we seek to repair it, or replace it with a more consistent one. Children seldom become angry due to being wrong, but adults will, because reconstructing your view on the world is a huge hassle. The nature of reality however seems more transient than rigid, with multiple layers of chaos causing predictions to be limited and even certain improbability. A rigid state of mind is more convenient, but a transient state of mind is required for growth (spiritual or not), and sadly this is usually only acquired when the rigid state fails in an unacceptable way. This might be why so many older people feel like they are still the same person as they were at their late teens.
>because I have explicitly asked very little
I relate with this, once you start seeing spirits as personal beings, it becomes hard to ask for a lot. My opinion is that you should ask for guidance and tasks more than rewards, just as it is awkward to ask someone, particularly a stranger, something while giving nothing in return, it would be just as awkward for a benevolent spirit as well right? This extends to human relationships just the same.. Accept gifts happily, but be generous as well, because that builds trust over time.
>think about their actions and lack thereof
Responsibility might be a bit misleading of a word to use for this phenomena. A person can be very responsible in some things, but seemingly indifferent in others, but the deeper lacking is in the understanding of how much we can actually affect. This is also inconvenient to think about with a rigid world view, due to of course there being a lot of things in the world that we might wish were different.
>constantly pushing the edges of your understanding
Enlightenment hardly seems a state of absolute knowledge, could it be a state of absolute learning?

>>47164331
>pushing the edges of your understanding, not seeing this as a bad thing in the slightest
It's a state that we probably ought to strive for, but in reality it's hardly convenient to do so. Doubting everything and asking hard questions might delay crucial action. Going at a slower pace every now and then is definitely a compromise we will be forced to do from time to time, lest we become hermits of course.

>>47164341
>belief in touhou characters made them real
This seems very counter-intuitive, but starts making more sense when you look at the world as forms of ideas. Argue with a philosopher long enough and you will find out that you are the same as a table. Fundamentally the only properties are density(mass+space), electrical charge and momentum(angular or otherwise). We live however in a world where a table is not a human nor the other way around. We also have many concepts such as money, states, relationships etc. that have none of those properties. Yet they are as real as anything else. One of the biggest problems in physics nowadays is the black-hole information deletion paradox, since the very nature of things existing, that being emergent forms and concepts untied to fundamental physics, is so important to our universe, that our physics consequently doesn't work without it. Just as is the name of the problem, this is a paradox and seems to contradict itself. The enlightenment brought with it a change in thinking, from concepts as wholes into a division of things into their constituent parts, and thus categorizing the things as the sum of those parts. This was crucial in seeking new scientific information, however it seems that things must be more than their constituent parts. So there must exist an indivisible idea of a thing, that is then also information that must be conserved. I like to call it a soul of things, but what you call it is up to you. Plato called them forms. Rationality and the enlightenment brought forwards ideas that all interactions are indifferent and automatic, even bringing into question the consciousness and will of humans, we almost lost faith that our own soul exists. This also stripped all concepts of their personality in our minds, that we had interacted with before. But as long as the concept of wind exists, there will be a 'god' of wind, whether this be an indifferent and automatic force or a personal being with agendas is inconsequential to our wider reality. The interpretation of either one is locally conserved. Interacting with such a personal concept causes it to become more 'powerful' or present in the physical world, since these interactions support the local interpretation.

>>47179328
>A rigid state of mind is more convenient, but a transient state of mind is required for growth
Motion is life, to put it simply, and a state of mind like that requires becoming more comfortable with uncertainty than a lot of people are or are willing to be.
>Doubting everything and asking hard questions might delay crucial action.
Is it seriously that difficult for most people? Is it just that they aren't usually consciously aware of the edges of their knowledge or what? Maybe the breakdown in understanding here has something to do with that.

>>47166087
>Three of Wands, Empathetic Self-Actualization, YT recommendations
Due to an incident at work yesterday this timing seems very meaningful. Thank you!
>discuss "waves", "vibrations" or "frequencies" when touching upon the ethereal
This is very understandable, since almost all of our perception and even general reality is filled with harmonic oscillators. Light is a wave, sound is air pressure changing over time in a wave-like way. Temperature is an emergent property of vibration in an object. Orbits mapped on one axis with time represent sine functions. Repetition, circles and oscillations are found everywhere. I am torn between if these repeating patterns have a deeper meaning, or if they are a mental trap that many spiritualists fall into. I think finding these patterns everywhere is more the inherent beauty of the universe than secret esoteric knowledge, but i guess who am i to judge?
>"coevolution" to our relationships with 神 and other-such greater entities
This is definitely one of the underlying themes in this thread, just like we are, spirits are not unchanging beings. They grow and change forms according to times. 2hu is a modern elegant way to represent these concepts and that is what makes it so amazing.

>>47166099
>personal feelings & future potential concepts this stirs within me
Becoming of a more transient mind probably leads to a wider potential as rigid certainties change into probabilistic functions. Perhaps free will is the ability to consciously pick from a pool of potential?

>>47166307
>there is really no need to intellectually dissect everything like you're in biology class gutting open a frog, you might get some information on it, but at the same time you are killing the frog.
This is very well said, and mirrors how the enlightenment and overly rational thinking lead us to see things as only the sum of their parts.
>Once you see the magic in the world, you can really start playing with it.
Exactly.

>>47166423
>wanting to understand something goes hand in hand with cherishing and treasuring it.
I agree, both the parts and the whole are important, and complement each other.

>>47170712
>from the practical POV of avoiding burnout, need to be able to mode switch somehow from the magical state of mind to the mundane
Yeah, this is not a convenient way to think about the world, and requires a lot of thought and creativity. Falling into mundane and rigid ways of thinking in day to day life isn't a failure, but resource management.
>>47171137
>Once you can tread water without drowing, you can learn how to dive deeper while being able to go back for air.
^^

>>47172248
>you get used to a certain amount of Interpersonal Familiarity over time as you would with anyone you spend fulfilling moments with.
At the risk of sounding schizo, maybe the best part of all this.

>>47172942
>trip to the mountain, home of some kind of entity, got a picture of it
Would be interesting to see :)

>>47177141
A really deep dive into the syncretist elements from these religions and Okina. Thanks for the interesting read.

>>47178380
>some might have been feeling a bit burned out or overwhelmed by the sharing of experiences
Oh, definitely. Hours of contemplation and research just to post a seemingly 'schizo word pasta wall of text'. Still quality over quantity has worked wonders here.

>>47179045
Sounds like a nice altar setup, now i feel like i want to decorate mine a bit better as well :D

>>47177141
>An interesting detail to ponder is why she is spouting flames.
Its something among gods in 2hu. Keiki is pretty much engulfed in flames, Junko has flaming tails (though she's technically a divine spirit), Chimata is standing over a flame, etc.

Spirits have been described as small flame-like balls, and in Islam Jinn were said to be made of smokeless fire.

All of this boils down to being an invitation, to partake in something that was always there, a primordial, instintual aspect of being and reality itself, we've just forgotten how to open that door, or that the door was even there to begin with

Only those who take a risk can reach the highest score.

What will you do, dear anons?

>>47180982
Take the plunge and aim for a high score, what else? Just waiting for a gap or a door to pop up somewhere like all the others in here (minus that one guy who wants to be eaten)

>>47158345
Luckily enough there was some good elaboration on this subject already within the last thread, pic related.
I've been gradually combing through it occasionally to hopefully tie together more stuff like this as necessary, results as things go on of course.

>>47180688
>smokeless fire
Very beautiful way to describe it to me, just felt very strongly about that.

>>47179474
>Is it just that they aren't usually consciously aware of the edges of their knowledge or what?
I personally believe it's a combination of this, the "unwillingness" internalize your own cause & effect points we keep circling, and that fundamental trust that so many people unfortunately have shattered within themselves for varying reasons which effects one's ability to see that trust reflected in the people around them. It isn't uncommon to struggle with these things, but it's the broader recognition among the Rest of this that's the matter.

>>47172942 >47177172 >>47178137
Take your time to recover from such a whirlwind of experiences among all this, especially if any more details are to eventually be shared. It's quite fortunate in many ways to have had you back regardless (I had some funny suspicions over what you could've been getting up to on that mountain with the given intermittent time of things but your safety was ensured in the end, thankfully).
That photograph will also be ready at the right time I'm sure, healthy amounts of necessary skepticism aside. Also glad to hear that spread was quite fortuitous in the end for everyone involved, aside from the potential negativity circumstantially involved of course. You're quite welcome on both individual accounts and that's exactly why I do what I can when I can in that sense!
>I honestly have a sneaking suspicion that monkey king is one of the sages
This never really crossed my mind desu, obvious references to Sun Wukong & what can be extrapolated from her roles in TH19 aside, but the other Sages are enigmatic enough as it stands so good food for thought there...
>I forget where, but in one of the manga it shows a group of them and I think there's about 12 in the image
Didn't an image/topic like this show up in one of the General Question Threads alongside discussion over the true identity of the Dragon God? Could be off-the-mark but my current attentions are elsewhere.

>>47179328
>The nature of reality however seems more transient than rigid, with multiple layers of chaos causing predictions to be limited and even certain improbability. A rigid state of mind is more convenient, but a transient state of mind is required for growth
Previous thread also started talking about this in its latter-half. Specifically, how ZUN was a lot smarter than he was letting on when he gave Yukari a partial basis in "quantum-uncertainty" per-say.
>Accept gifts happily, but be generous as well, because that builds trust over time.
>A person can be very responsible in some things, but seemingly indifferent in others, but the deeper lacking is in the understanding of how much we can actually affect.
^relevancy
>Enlightenment hardly seems a state of absolute knowledge, could it be a state of absolute learning?
This is a million-dollar question I'm even showing a bit of hesitance over attempting to grasp honestly. I think we're in the right ballpark here though, currently mentally-juggling this point around with the 3rd song from this in the bg...: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4CKmzBf5Cs
>lest we become hermits of course
(nervous chuckle)
>there must exist an indivisible idea of a thing, that is then also information that must be conserved
Very much ties into the concepts I was speaking of a bit earlier with Uncanny Ran (who I still gotta draw...) and the varying influences shaping our perceptions of the girls. There could be more to say there but I'm gonna let that one gestate more.
>I am torn between if these repeating patterns have a deeper meaning, or if they are a mental trap that many spiritualists fall into
Certainly one of those "mental checks" some will no-doubt have to keep in-mind moving forward, but those un-elevating internal loops make good warning signs for a reason.
>Perhaps free will is the ability to consciously pick from a pool of potential?
Sometimes they will simply push the pool into your sense of awareness, other times they may even provide enough insight to pull specific fish from those sparkling depths. Faceless & nameless inspiration/drive of sorts, at least from my perspectives.
>At the risk of sounding schizo
Frankly I'm honored regardless~ The kamidana comment is deeply appreciated as well, I say go for it on your end when you got whatever you need

>>47180982
Already going with as much as I can manage thankfully :)

>>47179643
>I am torn between if these repeating patterns have a deeper meaning, or if they are a mental trap that many spiritualists fall into.
It's basic thermodynamics that the universe should be filled with the simplest stable systems, and circles are that. Same with things coming in opposites, threes and fours. It's no wonder we find meaning in such things when they represent the most fundamental qualities of the world.
Everything that exists does so in a state of dynamic equilibrium, be they subatomic particles or planets. Us percieving a thing requires that it distinguish itself from noise and chaos, and the way that's done is by exhibiting self-similar patterns over a period of time. You could say being in dynamic equilibrium is something close to the definition of existence.
>I think finding these patterns everywhere is more the inherent beauty of the universe than secret esoteric knowledge, but i guess who am i to judge?
Is there really a difference?

>Perhaps free will is the ability to consciously pick from a pool of potential?
As an amateur researcher on physical theories of consciousness, I think you're right on the mark.

>overly rational thinking lead us to see things as only the sum of their parts.
It's a shame, because the actual scientific community has rejected reductionism for the last few decades. That change unfortunately hasn't made its way into mainstream culture (yet?)

>>47181242
The post about Zun and the spirited away thing was me. I either forgot or wasn't using the trip to keep things less about me.

Here's the photo. It's zoomed in to keep location safe and then run through a data remover, and that's the only edits I've made. Everyone is free to believe or not, of course, but for me it wasn't friendly.

>>47181955
And I apologize for how small the image is. It was zoomed in from a distance.

Really uncanny both on the accounts that
>1. Just woke up from a small nap, had the urge to check the thread and wouldn't you know it a new post (>>47181837 I've tried to think about the following point of yours quite a bit as I've carried myself throughout all this in life, never taking it too far but always pushing myself just enough I guess, so well-said overall:)
>You could say being in dynamic equilibrium is something close to the definition of existence
and then
>2. You upload that photo quite literally as soon as I sit down proper...
Smart thinking with the data removal but yeah that is genuinely foreboding as all hell if that's just a simple image crop. Did you snap that as you were making your leave or potential escape then..? Honestly wasn't whatever I was expecting but that almost makes it more interesting...don't even know the questions to start asking here atm.

interesting thing that happened to me:
first time I meditated, 10 minutes in, I suddenly felt like I was floating in nowhere and become hyper-aware of my body, feeling every muscle and organ.
every subsequent time I meditated, it didn't happen again.
I theorize that something intervened the first time to indicate that there's something more to it, so that I don't give up and keep trying. meditation is a skill you cultivate after all.

>>47182058
It was after the two of us made it into the mountain a good ways and lost all cell signal. The fence is on an adjacent property a ways away. Was shooting pictures and got the feeling of "you shouldn't be here. Leave." coming from that direction, but couldn't see anything with the naked eye. We left, got back, went through the pictures, and after a max zoom up to where we got the feeling saw this.
We picked up some rocks on the way in but tossed them all after that and made our way back. The feeling started to subside and I got pushed by something from behind coming out onto the main road. Now we're both sick.

I think we were getting the message of "it's not all sunshine and roses. Things like this exist and can be much less hospitable if they choose to."

>>47183770
Everybody gets one free. Then you have to work for it yourself to show you're not just messing around. Good luck, Anon.

>>47184086
>I got pushed by something from behind
wut
elaborate?

>>47185569
Just that. Walking away from the location and just the two of us side by side. Flat ground and nobody else out there, feel two sturdy hands on my back that shove me forward. No marks. I don't know Anon. I don't know.

Not everything is friendly...

>>47185723
They should try to be. Making friends has been proven by nature to be a highly effective strategy.

Found something interesting from one of the essays in sale on here: https://www.mimusubi.com/

>Shinto has a custom called “yōhai”, or “distant reverence”. To do this, you face towards the jinja you want to honour, and perform the normal double bow, double clap, single bow reverence.
>From overseas, orienting yourself
towards Japan would be sufficient, because you cannot be accurate
enough to distinguish between jinja at that distance.

So, it would apparently theoreticaly be possible to perform some kind of remote worship aimed at the shrine in Hakuba. (or any other shrine, but the Hakuba one is perhaps most relevant to our interests)
>>47179328
>when the rigid state fails in an unacceptable way
Yeah but that's why you have try to harness your life crises for changing things that are really hard to change otherwise.
> My opinion is that you should ask for guidance and tasks more than rewards
I very much agree here.
>So there must exist an indivisible idea of a thing, that is then also information that must be conserved
That's really interesting. I recently read something along the lines that in Daoism it's thought that the world is made up of energy and patterns which then are seen to us as mostly physical phenomena. These "patterns" would probably constitute the "soul of things", then, too. I do remember there being other schools of thought that have also viewed various patterns as being fundamental of reality.
>>47180688
Yeah it's true that it's very common for gods to have those flames in Touhou, but some don't, most notably Kanako and Suwako.
>>47180982
>All of this boils down to being an invitation, to partake in something that was always there, a primordial, instintual aspect of being and reality itself
That's a really good way to put it.
>we've just forgotten how to open that door, or that the door was even there to begin with
A...hidden door you say?
>>47181837
>It's no wonder we find meaning in such things when they represent the most fundamental qualities of the world
It's really crazy how you can ultimately grasp something profound almost entirely intuitively via onserving the environment.
>>47183770
>I theorize that something intervened the first time to indicate that there's something more to it, so that I don't give up and keep trying.
Yeah that's how I'd see it myself. I've had a couple of these "beginner experiences" myself. I've also heard of at least one other person talking about how they'd get some anomalous experience really fast with spiritual techniques and then nothing.
>>47184086
Honestly that sounds pretty scary. Maybe the entity thought you were trespassing and got angry because of that? I hope it doesn't linger too long.

>>47185774
>Yeah it's true that it's very common for gods to have those flames in Touhou, but some don't, most notably Kanako and Suwako.
This seems to largely be a more recent thing. Shizuha and Minoriko also lacked the flames, but pretty much every kami or divine spirit in the Gen 3 games has them, with the main exception of Sagume. Perhaps it's something specific to kunitsukami? Though why ZUN suddenly added it to his design philosophy is beyond me.

>>47184086
>lost all cell signal
>got the feeling of "you shouldn't be here. Leave."
>Now we're both sick.
Dear God well there's the kinds of risks present when interacting with this stuff so directly I suppose. I hope for the both of your sakes you got the medicine & time to push through things, it's a good thing you threw out those stones cause that would've been exactly what any hitchhikers could've used to follow you back most potently. Surprising there's no marks from direct aggressive contact though, I guess it really could've been potentially so much worse...

>>47185774
>“distant reverence”
Tried sending my regards eastward after my typical prayer, not sure what the return may be but my thoughts landed on the shrine from >>47145711 by the end of things. Thanks for the info!
>other schools of thought that have also viewed various patterns as being fundamental of reality
There is of course a necessary amount of complexity within the larger scope of things that's gotta be considered when looking out for those "patterns", sacred geometry and fundamental flowing shapes of nature are a given as well but turn the lenses too broadly and you may start glomming-on to what might not be there. I'd say certain personal time synchronicities teeter just on the boundary of "harmonization" and "self-fulfilling", but there are indeed things to notice if you're keen. The Soul never fully died in the end, it's just been recontextualized.
>It's really crazy how you can ultimately grasp something profound almost entirely intuitively via observing the environment.
Very related! The gradual buildup with small experiences peppered with the occasional breakthrough is also just as things need to occur for most, in that sense it's a matter of when things start feeling somewhat exponential.
>Maybe the entity thought you were trespassing and got angry because of that?
A close friend I talked to about this said it could've been some kind of restless suicide victim spirit or unceremoniously-dumped "no-face" citizen lingering in the land perhaps, but that could mostly just be conjecture in the end and also sounds vaguely /x/-related so (shrug). Typical spirits are able to effect the material plane for around 33 years or so after death per Shinto belief, how reflected is this in other relevant religious mythos here?

>>47185736
We can only try, at least with the right amount of forethought & consideration given the circumstances. Whatever Eclipse ran into though (and similar entities) I'd try and stay away from more often than not...

>>47185887
>Perhaps it's something specific to kunitsukami?
It could be. But it could be something else. I don't quite know what exactly myself.

There's quite a bit of variation in how the flames are portrayed too. What exactly they symbolize probably varies. Keiki-sama's dragon-like flame probably means something else than Chimata-sama's pale yellow flams which seem to trail off into being like cards blown around in the wind.

Anyway, another fun one think about: why does Chimata-sama wear patchwork clothes?

>>47185887 >>47186405
Maybe ZUN started feeling the pressures to more-immediately represent the divinity or status of particular Gensokyans with things like the varying flames, Okina-sama's stylized ones are for the four seasons of course but yeah not every one is gonna be obvious.
Chimata-sama's ties to special-event night markets & exchange in general aside, I always figured the patchwork clothes were a nice visual nod to the moonbows of such marketplaces. The fact the patches are zipped together & individually buttoned could have something to say when it comes to the inherent personal connections & ties with the concepts of "ownership" or "relinquishing" perhaps but...I could also just be reaching and ZUN just wanted to make a technicolor quilt look fashionable. I am fond of the design regardless

>>47186405
>why does Chimata-sama wear patchwork clothes?
Clearly it's because she was flat broke faith-wise before Iizunamaru-sama gave her a small loan of 1 million worshippers.

>>47145383
Yeah, humans plaster esoteric elements on all of their work like monkeys smearing shit, all the way down to the drive through menu at Sonic. What makes 2hu unique?

>>47186684
Did supercilious Tengu hands compose that post I wonder.

>>47186734
I'll have you know the tengu are neither super-silly nor keeping me as breeding stock.

>>47186732
Since I sorta saw a comment along these lines in the last thread I hope you don't mind if this is answered with one of the other Anons' previous comments on the matter (pic related). Of course these elements can be found & expressed in many different ways throughout the morass of our various cultures, but there are still concentrated areas of that expression within said-cultures (like 2hu) that can bring forth basically everything you're able to witness here with an amount of potency that's understandably intriguing for some.

Pardon the screenshots I've been providing btw, note-taking is currently *gradually* coming along even if it's a little messy. I'll try not to just keep reposting this stuff though.

>>47186523
>Okina-sama's stylized ones are for the four seasons of course
Consider also how Mahakala is sometimes portrayed as being wreathed in flames. There might be more too.
>I always figured the patchwork clothes were a nice visual nod to the moonbows of such marketplaces
You are right about all of it, but there is also the fact that Chimata-sama is not based on a single entity or even a group of major deities but she is a collection of ichigami, deities of (physical, literal, singular) marketplaces. She's a collection of many diverse kami, hence the patchwork.

>>47186732
The fact that is references several esoteric traditions rather directly. This would be like some western game very directly referencing things like Rosicrucians or Thelema or even some really niche stuff in Christianity. You're like only two steps away from some form of Daoist sorcery if you start digging deeper down from Touhou.

The fact that Gensokyo is heavily based on the place where ZUN lived as a child is interesting in itself, doubly so when the area has very rich history in religion, including Suwa shrine being very near it. It's even more interesting if the rumors about it being a paranormal hotspot are true. It was almost unpopulated up to the 1880s.

I'm not the only one who has felt that Touhou gameplay has a kind of a meditative quality. It demands perseverance, concentration and sustained practice, which is basicaly at the core of any spiritual practice. Such are of course in the core of any sustained practice, but the fact that this dedication required is tied to a game influenced so strongly by religion and esoteria is interesting. I have a suspicion that the fact that danmaku are shaped kind of like mandalas or the kind of patterns people see in some altered states of conciousness is not an accident.

And lastly, there is the "What makes 2hu unique" that veers into deeply personal territory. But it really is unique, somehow. Why do you think it has so many fans? Why do people feel so strongly about it? Why do people say things like "Touhou is souled" in comparison to gacha games?

Something slighty random I learned today: In Japan it's believed that you can summon the baku by calling it's name three times. However, if it's called for nothing or is hungry after eating your nightmare, it will eat your hopes and dreams instead.

I wonder if calling out for Doremy three times would work the same?

>>47193443
How many Anons here have had dream experiences with Doremy of some kind anyhow? There have been plenty of Genso-Dreams floating around sure but how many have also happened to involve one of the apparent presiders over these dreams herself? Doesn't have to be a Sumireko-Situation necessarily, just curious.

That aside, I guess I'd only try it if I was sure my current nightmares were cathartically layered enough to hold more "value" than my regular dreams. It'd be nice to hold onto those!

>>47193443
>>47193539
One thing to note about the classical interpretation of the baku story, is that if it's called on too often it will eat your hopes, dreams, and future ambitions, causing you to basically be a depressed neet once it's done with you. So be cautious, I guess. You can also go the route of making or buying the pillow that Doremy was advertising to get a better connection to her/Gensokyo. I saw a cosplayer of her once online that had a pillow but I assume it was made.

Another fun fact is that Yukari apparently hangs out in the dream world when she's hibernating to spy on people from the Outside World, or something like that. It's in one of the manga, but I can't remember which. (This is also assuming that part is true and she's not actually on vacation in our world for whatever reason, jobber status aside)

>>47193539
>How many Anons here have had dream experiences with Doremy of some kind anyhow?
No dream experiences with Doremy here. If she has control over the dreams she can probably stay hidden if she wants to.
>hold more "value" than my regular dreams
Honestly recently my nightmares and the reasons for them have started making much more sense. I still see them occasionally, but it feels like for a reason.
>>47193607
>So be cautious, I guess
Yeah.
>making or buying the pillow
Baku charms were apparently a thing. So some kind of a Doremy charm might work?
>Yukari apparently hangs out in the dream world when she's hibernating to spy on people from the Outside World
That's really interesting. Many people seem to have this "sense" that Yukari is very present in our world, joking about people getting "gapped" and all that. If she was, in the real life, "spending a lot of time in the dream world", that could become sensed as being closer to us than most of Gensokyo's inhabitants.

>>47193660
>she can probably stay hidden if she wants to
Suspected that was the case anyhow but it's good to have a little corroboration. Besides curiosity, any significant encounters worthy enough of sharing here would likely be obvious enough to any given individual.
>my nightmares and the reasons for them have started making much more sense
>I still see them occasionally, but it feels like for a reason
When it moves beyond feeling like you're being "blindly tortured" somewhat (to be a little dramatic) then it's definitely appropriate for them to start fitting into things more thematically overall.

Also, without leaning into what I'm gonna somewhat-cautiously refer to here as "YukariPosting" too much, it would make perfect sense for her to have a certain amount of presence & understanding within dreamscapes after so much time spent within those various border realms as it stands. Sometimes she does hibernate in a way, but not always...
>that could become sensed as being closer to us than most of Gensokyo's inhabitants
Some, if it's within their larger capabilities, do make what efforts they can when appropriate.
Not everyone is able to "reach out" in quite the same ways however.

I have just realized, since there is no way to obtain buddhist objects in my country, I thought, why not pick up wood carving? I'll try learning by carving various animals then I will try to make avalokiteshvara and bishamonten. might be a useful skill for people who worship other things while not being in japan and the like. I will update my progress if I end up doing it. have a good night anons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0s9fTh82Jo

>>47187410
Yeah, I just wanted to use proper grammar this time.

>>47193750
>it would make perfect sense for her to have a certain amount of presence & understanding within dreamscapes
This also ties into the fact that Maribel initially entered Otherworlds primarily via dreams, though I don't know the source on the claim of Yukari spending time there.
>that could become sensed as being closer to us than most of Gensokyo's inhabitants.
God I hope not. Of all 2hus she is absolutely not one I'd want the attention of, and far too likely to be one I'd get the attention of.

>>47193539
I actually had nightmares about the spooky Doremi a while back. I was outside in my neighborhood at night, a completely black sky, and looking at buildings while walking around, I could occasionally see her stalking me around cornerns and through windows.

>>47193750
>When it moves beyond feeling like you're being "blindly tortured" somewhat
Honestly I used to get a ton of random nightmares where an "UFO" or "aliens" would show up and I'd wake up in terror. Sometimes they had an actually menacing vibe to them, sometimes they didn't but I'd still wake up nevertheless. After my first foray into the occult these dreams became somewhat less frequent and changed their nature. It wouldn't be "UFOs" so often, it would be things like will o' wisps and more fantastic looking beings. I'd still wake up from these dreams, but it was much less of an instant panic. In the last two years or so these changed further, sometimes I'd see unusual aircraft and drones in my dreams.

Of course I would occasionally see nightmares that had more apparent meanings, but it feels like recently dreams with random anomalous objects or creatures have basicaly stopped and now it's stuff like "I'm having a heated argument with a family member" or "I was lazy and bad at work so now I have to work on my holiday".

I haven't really had any dreams of the kami very recently, I haven't got much in the way of those post-dream communications either. I hope it's because they are satisfied with the status quo. Last time I got any was an incomprehensible mass of Japanese text and "read this".
>Not everyone is able to "reach out" in quite the same ways however.
Yeah but I do think that a lot of people still can kind of "feel" that there is something going on with Touhou and some of the characters.
>>47194381
You know, that's a really cool idea! I hope you really do take up woodcarving.
>>47197070
>This also ties into the fact that Maribel initially entered Otherworlds primarily via dreams
Entering other worlds via dreams is of course an extremely well established idea on this side of reality too. There's probably a reason why dream journals are such a big deal in contemporary western esotericism.
>Of all 2hus she is absolutely not one I'd want the attention of, and far too likely to be one I'd get the attention of.
Better watch your language in the Yukari threads then!
>>47197141
Well that is spooky. Let's hope she was eating something even spookier.

Have you ever had Yukari dreams anon?

>>47197280
>It wouldn't be "UFOs" so often, it would be things like will o' wisps and more fantastic looking beings
>much less of an instant panic
Yeah then it sounds like you're kinda past those "testing the waters" phases to put things a little broadly there. Last thread you were talking about how you initially had troubles with internally visualizing things with a certain amount of clarity in detail (or at least I'm pretty sure that was you...), would you at all say it's somewhat the case that these traits applied to your history of internally-gripping nightmares as well?
Someone made a point of "stretching the vessel" in a previous context I'm a little fuzzy on atm as well, seems a little applicable here to me. What's important is that a greater emotional weight to these sides of things was eventually able to metastasize in your psyche through the other end of that noise, allowing something more tangible to be more concretely worked towards on your side directly.
>I hope it's because they are satisfied with the status quo. Last time I got any was an incomprehensible mass of Japanese text and "read this"
As someone often engaging in different kinds of "post-dream communication" I can tell you they certainly would make something clear in such environments when & if that manner of action is required. Maybe not clear in immediately obvious ways, but even then it's just something you likely need to digest within the greater context of it all (anything potentially lost in translation aside).
Once again, you do seem to have your sights set on some of the more obvious personal issues present (from what you've shared overall) and unless you break that focus irresponsibly then I'm sure they'll be looking on at your future progress with great anticipation.
>a lot of people still can kind of "feel" that there is something going on with Touhou and some of the characters
Oh Yeah you are absolutely correct there too...again here we are at the subject of which girls hold what amount of grander Potency overall and what there is to say there.
Last thread there was a pretty nice extrapolated example of this involving the more emphatic fans of the Scarlet Sisters & their depictions overall vs. the historically-relevant Vampire/Nosferatu dichotomies at-play.
Maybe I'll try making a rough list to post (when I'm not adding to my notes) of which girls are most noteworthy in that sense but I wouldn't want it to just be reflective of my own potential biases or strict fandom popularity either.

>>47194381
Hopefully you're in an area where it's easy to get extra amounts of lumber for that sorta thing! The animals will be an excellent start, softer woods like Birch if they're around might make good practice blocks of sorts.
Helpful visualization tip when carving: you are trying to free what you're forming from the material around it, less-so precisely molding the material to your specifically-desired shape. Once you start seeing the first few signs of that form gradually opening up, the process ought to become a bit easier from there.
Best of luck to you, some of the revered do absolutely adore hand-crafted implements of such a nature. Very thoughtful embed as well :)

>>47196358
Yeah fair enough lol, I must say the mixture of returning & newcomer anons has been nice so far though. It's funny being able to pick up on these kinds of things with enough cross-referencing

>>47197141
Appreciate you sharing that! If those nightmares didn't escalate beyond that point then maybe she was gathering as much information as she needed? Without doing an immediate deep-dive into the behavioral tendencies of Baku youkai I don't think it'd be remiss to assume as such, that sounds typical enough in any case.
How have you felt about her & those dreams since then if I may ask?

>>47197070
>though I don't know the source on the claim of Yukari spending time there
Maybe Eclipse will eventually find those manga panels but something's also telling me a greater background into the minutia of AoCF may help us out here, really need to give more proper time to that game...
>she is absolutely not one I'd want the attention of
>far too likely to be one I'd get the attention of.
Ain't that just the way...
Teasing aside, I really can't blame you even with everything I've personally said/done/will say/will do. I thought she would've just pointed out a few fundamentals to me in some way but things just...continued!
Potential heinous acts notwithstanding, she can and very-well might "linger" for lack of a better term and you better get used to such activity if you go on opening-up those channels. Reimu being "playfully" hassled or mentally prodded during seemingly-innocuous moments honestly isn't far-off from things.

>>47197540
Bait aside, yes! I've shared a few but here's another small one I haven't talked about yet:
After a few weeks of doing my best to establish a greater subconscious connection to Gensokyo a while back, I found myself in a very briefly-paced dream (likely reflective of my mood/will at the time) taking place in the other side of that boundary once again.
It was mid-day and I was flying high over the southeastern side of the Forest of Magic, up towards the mountain where the Hakurei Shrine resides. I had my Gohei and was honestly dressed very-similarly to Reimu in the PC-98 games for some reason despite not exactly strictly being a Miko (hair wasn't purple so I knew it was me), but it was like I had been shot out of the sky from somewhere and knew exactly where I needed to be in that moment. The clouds were still a ways above me but you'd certainly break Something if you fell from the height I was at.
I eventually reach the rear of the main building where the entrance to the living space would be, everything structurally-expected to typically be at that shrine being present, and I instantly get a very foreboding feeling about the situation. Things go quiet as I walk towards the sliding-door (already slightly open) save for my thuds against the floorboards followed by me quickly pushing the door open the rest of the way a little forcefully.
It's dark and the outside light really isn't doing me any immediate favors so I only have so much time to visually adjust to what's inside. There's the central table at floor-level on a bamboo mat with a modest plate of cookies (biscuits maybe?) and some tea, shelving & other Reimu-living-assortments off against the walls and to the side in the background. At this point I'm mainly focused on whatever figure bathed in shadow was calmly waiting for me on the other end of the table with her own cup of tea, one of those hand-fans and her bangs hiding her expression. Immediately recognized the outline of the ribbon on the mob cap though. I swear the last thing I remember before the door quickly slid shut behind me and I woke up was her lowering the fan just enough for me to catch the faintest traces of a grin...

It's all mind-games...but I can't deny what's been shown thus far. I'm just sorta glad she isn't the only one I'm involved with in these ways I guess.

hi anons, I want to ask, have any of you had premonitory dreams? dreams that predict the future?
today I dreamed that my brother succeded his exams, and then, lo and behold, he succeeded. I did not now the results were today and it isn't something I think and care about.
okay, that might be a coincidence, but here's a strong example.
I have an online friend who's very dear to me, and because of his mental illness, he dissapears for months sometimes while having suicidal tendencies. one time, he dissapeared for much longer than usual and I feared he was dead. even my other friend thought he was dead, because last time we talked to him it was close to a suicide attempt. one day, I had a dream he was back and he was completely fine, and all my worries evaporated. the next day, he returned safe and sound. even he admits it's kinda freaky and he has no idea what to make of it.

in other news, I discovered a goldmine of a website that has very well researched articles on the japanese side of buddhist devas and bodhisattvas, but also shinto kami
https://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/bishamonten.shtml
https://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/shinto-deities.html

>>47198082
>How have you felt about her & those dreams since then if I may ask?
I don't have any particular feelings about Doremy, good or bad. I think of the dream as a little curious, but haven't dwelled on it or tried to analyze it. It was a strong enough experience to make me remember the dream until now, and it has been a couple years, so there's that.

Speaking of dreams, one of my earliest memories is a nightmare where I was stuck in deep snow, while a menacing, shape-changing beaked humanoid was looming over me. Those damn tengu...

>>47199014 When I'm not having those highly-vivid dreams of mine or unfortunately dreaming of "nothing", I will every now & again have a very small dream that will cover a pedestrian near-future event of mine but I don't believe I've quite had anything to your degree as of yet (aside from maybe the one in >>47153759).
I wouldn't want to just call all these dreams solely predictive in nature overall, but in your case it's clear you have a very strong underlying intuition there even if you aren't able to fully grasp that. It's also good your strong care for these people are interwoven with that rather nicely! Very very fascinating, I'm sure those sites will provide excellent resources for future anons as well.

I’ve had a dream where Marisa taught me how to ride a broom, it was incredibly fun, all the internal and external states required for it, prior failsafes, and while I couldn’t make mine create thrust, it was able to hover and remove friction, it was genuinely a ton of fun, I even got to wear my own IRL witch hat on the dream.

>>47199627
That's adorable

>>47199627
A lot of it involved knowing how to hold a belief / disbelief at the same time, as a way to turn it on / off, you had to be able to wholeheartedly believe it could fly, but do a complete 180 on that belief to make it stop even if it was clearly flying moments ago, it was a strange feeling, like a mental slider.

>>47199014
>have any of you had premonitory dreams? dreams that predict the future?
Regrettably, yes. It has happened exactly twice, and I hate it with a passion. Even more regrettably, I later was able to confirm that the feeling when the events happened wasn't Deja Vu, but recognition. It's not something I can explain easily, but if you happen to forget the exact identity of something, but remember vague details, then if you go looking for it, there's a high probability that the moment you see it, whether it's a name or a thing or whatever, you'll instantly recognize it with certainty. That was the same feeling I had once I ended up seeing the 'snapshots' from those dreams, and I would largely prefer that I never experience such a thing again, as I do not like the deterministic implications of such a thing.
>>47197280
>Better watch your language in the Yukari threads then!
No chance I'll ever stop being the most dedicated Yukari Hater in the fanbase.
>>47198082
>Potential heinous acts notwithstanding, she can and very-well might "linger" for lack of a better term and you better get used to such activity if you go on opening-up those channels.
We've discussed previously here the notions of degrees of removal for the presumed actual spirits and their fictionalized counterparts in Touhou, and honestly if not for a lot of Yukari's actions being equal parts abhorrent and, when not creating a de facto police state human farm, completely incompetent, she doesn't necessarily seem like an unpleasant person to interact with.

On the other hand, I've dealt with people with similar personalities myself, and once they start letting the mask slip they can be exceptionally toxic, so who knows?

>>47201067
>knowing how to hold a belief / disbelief at the same time, as a way to turn it on / off
>like a mental slider
That is a very adorable dream, and quite indicative of yet another core concept to our collective discussions imo.
Sure, things could just be succinctly summed-up with various notions of "Faith in Thyself", but it clearly has more depth to look into than that & certainly holds some kind of quantifiable effect on the world around us (even if that may seem small individually, it's the addition of the greater collective that always makes things interesting). It's not unlike what could be said from those Marzinski studies brought up on the effects these "mental interactions", passive or otherwise, have on the internal-processing of schizophrenics.
There is Something with a measurable amount of power that stems from true internal belief that I believe is inherently tied to/attracts why we're all here in the first place, that at least being Deliberation (in some sense of the word).

>>47201296
>No chance I'll ever stop being the most dedicated Yukari Hater in the fanbase.
>I've dealt with people with similar personalities myself, and once they start letting the mask slip they can be exceptionally toxic
>notions of degrees of removal for the presumed actual spirits and their fictionalized counterparts in Touhou
>when not creating a de facto police state human farm
>doesn't necessarily seem like an unpleasant person to interact with
>so who knows?
I think you're well within your rights to continue going on being a Certified Yakumo Hater within an an already-densely-Hag-oriented fanbase (nothing wrong with Hags as a concept I guess but that's besides the point (<hagpilled confirm?)), coming from someone who perhaps teeters on the other side of this respective coin more often than not at least. It can definitely be easy to sometimes forget the mild amount of dissociation one must keep in-mind when talking about these 神/forces outside of their Gensokyan contexts, especially when it comes to deities like Keiki-sama/Okina-sama/the Moriya Shrine 神/etc. who have a lot more of that all-around "depth" going on at multiple fronts.
Entrenched power imbalances within the various local populations and how that's reflected in the actions Yukari/the Sages take to maintain what they (very loosely but collectively) deem as some kind of curated-equilibrium in the name of survival/the blessings of 大綿津見神 aside, "doesn't necessarily seem unpleasant" is an amount of kudos I'm sure she'd be willing to take anyways. Especially given what you & others have/will continue to forever discuss and ponder over her. Of course, as you've mentioned, there are plenty of emotional grifters and-the-like out there who really are all about just "gaming the system" and who just-as-equally deserve their comeuppance with time. If your perceptions have been unfortunately tainted by bad actors in the past, any reservations on your end are fairly-well justified.
I guess if I ever come back to a thread like this in a completely-manic fugue-state under total Sukima influence then you'll all know to do as I've said, not as I've done exactly. I don't wish to jinx things for myself of course, especially when I feel as if I already have a pretty-decent grasp on some of the roads ahead, but so far at least things haven't been too "intrusively obnoxious"...t-that much... (I have other points to say in just a few here)

>>47198082
>I'm pretty sure that was you
It was me
>these traits applied to your history of internally-gripping nightmares as well?
I've never thought of it that way. My dreams have always been visual, but I guess it could be related on some level?

I've just thought that I've passed some level of knowledge and insight into the nature of "the phenomena". I think there is kind of a bell curve with it where if you are not interested and very unknowing of the paranormal it won't be very interested in you, and if you know a lot of it, then it will be much, much more hesitant to show itself to you. But the kind of magic zone, or death valley in the case of unwanted visitors, is probably in the middle, where you have enough interest in the paranormal that it is interested in you, but you don't have that some treshold of knowledge where it will make itself harder to reach again. Maybe.
>Someone made a point of "stretching the vessel"
That was also me, I just realized it's gonna take much, much longer than I perhaps optimisticaly thought.
>Maybe not clear in immediately obvious ways
It's funny because sometimes the communication is really immediate and blunt and sometimes it's extremely vague. There's some stuff that I'm genuinely baffled about, but there's also some that have started making more sense only much later.

When I was at the treshold of not believing and believing in them I would at one point start getting really bizarre intrusive mental images of them. Stuff like Kanako-sama as a young child or Keiki-sama as small as a coffee cup and looking really confused and vulnerable. At the same time I was getting also intrusive mental images of them looking like they were frustrated with me. I later understood that they were basicaly trying to communicate that "we're really annoyed that you called us out and now that you aren't talking back, this is really confusing and weird to us too, we are harmless to you, please answer"
>you do seem to have your sights set
Well I certainly hope so! And it's not like they've not communicated at all. I recently had a really vivid intrusive mental image of Chimata-sama grabbing my shoulders, looking at me really concerned and saying "dame da". What triggered this was me briefly entertaining the idea of cursing people who leave trash in the local parks.
>which girls hold what amount of grander Potency overall and what there is to say there
It's a really interesting question for sure. A lot of people in these threads have overlap when it comes to the various kami/youkai. Kanako-sama making herself known seems to be the most common experience, and I'm not surprised in the slightest bit everything considered.
>>47199014
>hi anons, I want to ask, have any of you had premonitory dreams?
I can't really remember having any such, so if there have been any, it has been very minor stuff.
>very well researched articles on the japanese side of buddhist devas and bodhisattvas
Thank you for sharing this! That's a really nice resource!
>>47201067
That's...very substantial content in an otherwise just very cute dream.
>>47201296
>as I do not like the deterministic implications of such a thing
There's some talk about the idea of time being non-linear in nature in the esoteric and paranormal community. So less than it being about determinism it might be about getting, somehow, previews of things that might happen if current course is maintained. Since you have not attempted to change the outcome of a premonition, this cannot be ruled out.
>No chance I'll ever stop being the most dedicated Yukari Hater in the fanbase.
Are you the guy who got teleported IRL? You sure are very brave.
>degrees of removal for the presumed actual spirits and their fictionalized counterparts in Touhou
I've thought a lot about how far removed the actual entities are from how they are depicted in fiction. I don't think spirits necessarily "look" like a single thing, my experieces point that way, so that's certainly different. I also kind of doubt there is a literal 1:1 Gensokyo out there, but I do think there is some kind of a spirit world around Hakuba, but what they are like is probably drasticaly different than some fantasy land you walk into. Add to this the fact that spirits can apparently change their manifestations and nature in response to human's actions (dharmapalas going vegan because of Buddhism). One has to ask: could they be steering the process of changing their nature into something that better fits into our present-day society?

>"premonitory dreams"
>I hate it with a passion
>I later was able to confirm that the feeling when the events happened wasn't Deja Vu, but recognition.
>That was the same feeling I had once I ended up seeing the 'snapshots' from those dreams
>I would largely prefer that I never experience such a thing again
>do not like the deterministic implications of such a thing.

Maybe I have some biases here too with my rough background as a developing reibai, so take anything I may bring to the table with as many grains of salt as you'd all like, but I can definitely understand where you're coming from when that startling feeling of "recognition" irrevocably occurs at the appropriate times & spaces. It took me a while to get used to that kind of thing as further realizations kept occurring all-around and I could no longer deny the moments I was seemingly made-privy to somewhat "ahead of schedule" for reasonings beyond my then-current scopes. Internalizing that as a natural flow of things & where I'm headed has helped me better come to grips with that state of uncanny shock when it happens however, as well as understanding what kind of preconceptions or otherwise-unfounded internal anxieties I do need to start/have been making greater strides towards letting go of.

This can also tie into what I briefly touched upon earlier with carefully & intelligently wielding that sense of "internal surrender" in the face of the divine-or-otherwise and everyone's respective levels of comfortability/how that's articulated through how they hold themselves. What more could there really be to say on the matters of "Free Will" in the face of forces often acting beyond the wills & notions of even our own collective streams of unconsciousness?
How does one view their individual place in the world when what there is to make of things can seem so collectively-dissonant in modernity?
What "choices" should one ought to make if the underlying reality of things is that those "choices" are all somewhat quantified on your respective scale? Not only that, but these choices also have the potential of being affected not only by scopes beyond most mental perceptions but by potentially-faceless real-life individuals whom you'll never even have a likely chance at running into face-to-face or in any other immediate physical way?
What could be unpacked in the face of all this from the fundamentals of harmonious order inevitably rising out of that tempered-mass of collective actions, forces and thoughts?
If even our current mainstream scientific basis of things still maintains certain roots in fundamental ideas derived from ancient pre-revolution practices or the notion that a finely-layered-enough system still has a reliance on uncertainty & those "unknowable" deeper areas to our realities, then how do we even fully begin to conceptualize not only the scope of what's in & around us but the greater potential that could be derived from such matters as well?
If our singular, individual scopes are insufficient for fully-internalizing the broader scope of the ensuing circumstances at any given time, what else can be done moment-to-moment beyond an extended period of looking back on things or theorizing over what could be?
When matter is mostly nothing and direct control over time is helpless, where do our motivations lie when all is said and done?

These are all points I think have been bubbling in my psyche since the beginning of the thread, naturally further-articulated through my note-taking. Those of you with more "scientific" inclinations or backgrounds can feel free to pick apart any of what I've said, it's all connected to points we started to gravitate towards last time somewhat anyhow or at least I've tried to frame things as such. Hope it didn't seem too ramble-y either I guess? Just wanted to get that all out there finally.

>>47202045
>I think you're well within your rights to continue going on being a Certified Yakumo Hater within an an already-densely-Hag-oriented fanbase
In all fairness, I'm a hagpilled individual myself, just not a big fan of Yukari. As a character at the very least, she's pretty solid. Fortunately, you probably shouldn't have to worry about ever being under total Sukima influence if the entity itself is as inept with technology as Yukari. You'd really think she'd have more tasteful methods of flirting by now.

>>47202269
Watch the numbers.
I want that lore analysis completed before you get gapped.

>>47202319
U-Understood ma'am...

>>47202230
>Since you have not attempted to change the outcome of a premonition, this cannot be ruled out.
In fairness, I largely forgot about the dreams after they happened. Hell, that's been an ongoing problem recently in spite of my attempts to do Dream Journaling. I might have to flip the baku the bird at this rate.
>Are you the guy who got teleported IRL? You sure are very brave.
That's me, not sure I'd call it brave. As I've mentioned in previous threads, I guess I just have a distinctly less mystical mentality when it comes to the supernatural. If you mean me referring to myself as the most dedicated Yukari Hater, that's more because as a person, she's fairly reprehensible, and not even terribly competent to make up for it.
>could they be steering the process of changing their nature into something that better fits into our present-day society?
One would assume as much, one would also assume that, going off of topics discussed in the previous thread, the less benign among them may have had some influence in the growing disregard for mysticism over the past couple centuries, as that means humanity as a whole has less knowledge regarding such things, thus leading to a favorable power dynamic due to them being functionally invisible to most people.
>I think there is kind of a bell curve with it [...]
This honestly could explain my own struggles with the matter. If my perspective and tendency to do deep dives with this sort of thing would spook such entities, but who knows?

>>47202258
>These are all points I think have been bubbling in my psyche since the beginning of the thread,
And entirely fair. I'd like to analyze and respond but I think my brain's a little fried right now because I am largely not able to comprehend your meaning.
>>47202319
>I want that lore analysis completed before you get gapped.
God I've been procrastinating on that way too long, and it's not even got that much that needs to be done to be "finished."
>Watch the numbers.
The numbers, Anon! What do they mean?!

>>47202415
>Hell, that's been an ongoing problem recently in spite of my attempts to do Dream Journaling.
If you do it consistently for long enough it will help. Of course I also sometimes forget my dreams even though I'm doing it.
>the less benign among them may have had some influence in the growing disregard for mysticism over the past couple centuries
That might very well be.
>If my perspective and tendency to do deep dives with this sort of thing would spook such entities
It could be, it could also be the way or the attidute you aproach it with. I think learning some protection methods is a point where "the phenomena" either tries to push back if you have unwanted fellow travelers or gets much more careful if it's some kind of neutral or positive attention.

The manifestations might also change as your knowledge grows and beliefs change. If you start for example believing UFOs are spirit manifestations, then showing up as such either in the physical world or in your thoughts or dreams is no longer an effective cover for "their" activities.
>>47202434
>God I've been procrastinating on that way too long, and it's not even got that much that needs to be done to be "finished."
Stop procrastinating.
>>47202434
>The numbers, Anon! What do they mean?!
I have to say, is certainly a number 343.
>>47202333
333, the angel number makes it's appearance here. But why?

>>47202476
Really gotta collect a few more smaller developing thoughts here in a second or two but I wouldn't wanna assume anything inherently aggrandizing on my end.
I will at least say this has all absolutely felt like it's needed to play out as it has so far in certain regards, might be off-putting of me to say but there's just an underlying draw here throughout all this I can't put my finger fully on quite yet...

To better get back to some of you before I'm too wrapped-up in other activities:

>>47202230 >>47202476
>But the kind of magic zone, or death valley in the case of unwanted visitors, is probably in the middle, where you have enough interest in the paranormal that it is interested in you, but you don't have that same threshold of knowledge where it will make itself harder to reach again
>Maybe.
I'd say this isn't too far-off from what ends up going on behind people's various breakthroughs as their journeys through these matters progress ever further. Too emphatic or selective of exactly what you want and that may end up staying as the ever-dangling carrot, too few overall efforts of commitment of some kind or unbiased understanding and you may not be ready for such entanglements in the first place. Finding the right balance should take you farther than you'd ever imagine you'd need to be right now, in your own time of course.
>That was also me
Oh boy, the subconscious internal-profiling on my end is already well on its way...
>There's some stuff that I'm genuinely baffled about, but there's also some that have started making more sense only much later.
Speaking of Balance!
>really bizarre intrusive mental images of them
>Kanako-sama as a young child or Keiki-sama as small as a coffee cup and looking really confused and vulnerable
>them looking like they were frustrated with me
>"we're really annoyed that you called us out and now that you aren't talking back, this is really confusing and weird to us too, we are harmless to you, please answer"
>really vivid intrusive mental image of Chimata-sama
>briefly entertaining the idea of cursing people
>"dame da"
Sounds about right to me. Like you also said in the last thread about the thread itself, a big part of things is getting back what you put in. Provide them enough dissatisfactory preconceptions & notions and things will start to feel lopsided. I seriously relate to your frustrations as someone who lives in a heavily-polluted area (they've often expressed to me how hard it can be to manifest certain things in such environments at times) but it's good you have that kind of reinforcement to fight against those inclinations. There are better ways to go about these matters without resorting to undercutting another's future, even if so many others resort to such tactics without batting an eye.
>the idea of time being non-linear in nature
Funny how you should end up very-nicely posting about such matters as I was writing my own secondary post. I wonder if there are thematic connections to draw there within the scope of what we're discussing! Ha ha ! ha Ha ha !
>less than it being about determinism it might be about getting, somehow, previews of things that might happen if current course is maintained. Since you have not attempted to change the outcome of a premonition, this cannot be ruled out.
(dingdingding) *We have A Winner~!* I really hope the right kind of anons can extrapolate everything presented here today so far as thoroughly as the content would allow. Feels like we're starting to get down to the deep nitty-gritty of these subjects, more so then we have already of course ^^;;
>I don't think spirits necessarily "look" like a single thing
>kind of doubt there is a literal 1:1 Gensokyo out there, but I do think there is some kind of a spirit world around Hakuba
>what they are like is probably drastically different than some fantasy land you walk into.
Only those who have gone & passed that boundary in some regard would be able to say things with certainty. It really is no wonder to me why local townsfolk & such would be so tight-lipped on sharing too many specifics.
>Stop procrastinating.
I keep yelling this at myself in a general sense but KeikiAnon is right...more often than not it can & will set you up for destruction or sacrifice down the line.
>333, the angel number makes it's appearance here. But why?
In the efforts of providing some kind of greater elaboration, I personally have been doing my best to not pay a terrible amount of direct mind towards "The Numbers" but they have absolutely had that extremely-personal grip on my subconscious attention here I'm trying not to let teeter into anything frenzied. That was the most direct one for me yet and it was for THAT fucking post of all things...I'd impudently ask "why" but I almost feel like I don't even need to on some level...

>>47202269 >>47202415 >>47202434
>I think my brain's a little fried right now because I am largely not able to comprehend your meaning.
I'd be lying if I said this didn't make me chuckle a little or didn't say "Hasn't been the first time..." but I'd hate to sound necessarily bitter/slightly pretentious.
Everyone's gotta take their own time to work through all this if the overall pace of things here hasn't been indicative enough.
>"could they be steering the process of changing their nature into something that better fits into our present-day society?"
>the less benign among them may have had some influence in the growing disregard for mysticism over the past couple centuries
>leading to a favorable power dynamic due to them being functionally invisible to most people.
Another subject I feel could hold a lot of weight on the debate side of things.
It could almost be broken-down into a matter of parasitic behaviors vs. genuinely-uplifting activity but that's another potential big scope-opener and I don't even have my list of the girls together yet (obvious subjects aside).
>I guess I just have a distinctly less mystical mentality when it comes to the supernatural.
It's been welcome and constructive regardless.

>The numbers, Anon! What do they mean?!

(screeching of the damned)




>you probably shouldn't have to worry about ever being under total Sukima influence if the entity itself is as inept with technology as Yukari

>You'd really think she'd have more tasteful methods of flirting by now.

Holding back on YukariPosting also aside, currently actively resisting a number of impulses to start breaking these points down with maybe a bit more Aplomb than usual. Hard to precisely articulate the full extent of the mental back-and-forth going on there but I'm sure you understand somewhat.

Buddham Saranam Gacchami
Sangam Saranam Gacchami
Dhammam Saranam Gacchami

>>47203472
Wrong order, sorry

Buddham Saranam Gacchami
Dhammam Saranam Gacchami
Sangham Saranam Gacchami

May all reach liberation

>>47202258
Very interesting thoughts. If I interpreted all that correctly, I believe it essentially boils down to:
>How can we exert will on the universe if we can't understand it?
Without getting too into the weeds, I think there's one realization that can lead to the answer to this question: whatever you concieve reality to be, no matter how complex or intricate or full of hidden detail, it's not our place to act as external observers trying to make sense of it. Body and soul, we're a part of it.
Being fixed to one place, one time, one scale, and with limited precision may limit our perception, sure, but it also limits our actions. As a result, the things we might contemplate or predict and the things we're physically or mentally capable of doing roughly align.

And how could it be otherwise? It seems we exist precisely because we're able to interact with the world in this way, to make approximate decisions based on approximate information and achieve approximately the desired result. Whether you take a teleological view of this or not, the conclusion is the same: our bodies, our minds, our spirits, are only one small part of this enormously complex machine we call the universe. Like a single brain cell, we play our part by taking the information given to us and doing what we can with it, and we rely on things greater than ourselves to integrate our meager perspectives into a coherent, purposeful whole.

To even grasp at the idea of this greater meaning is a great achievement in human thought, and it allows us to act on a broader range of scales than we might otherwise. But there are things in the universe both infinitely large and infinitely small - we can never know everything. And we don't need to, because there are infinitely many larger and smaller systems that make up, and are made up of, us - all doing their part.
This isn't to say we shouldn't try to direct our actions toward grander purposes - just that we should do so with the knowledge that no purpose is too grand to act on imperfectly.

The scariest thing about situations like these is not doing something and failing, it’s doing something and actually getting results,

I’m getting involved in things that bring results, a part of me wants it to fail because getting results means being held accountable in a sense, and if fails, I can pretend it isn’t the case, but it is, and it leads to a certain degree of anxiety when you get exactly what you’ve been asking for.

Divining some I-Ching on the matter leads to some personally frightening answers even if the message is positive

>>47202476
Why indeed

At the forefront of progress

>>47202895
>Too emphatic or selective of exactly what you want and that may end up staying as the ever-dangling carrot, too few overall efforts of commitment of some kind or unbiased understanding and you may not be ready for such entanglements in the first place
Can you elaborate a bit more on this?
>Oh boy, the subconscious internal-profiling on my end is already well on its way...
Eh, I thought I wasn't exactly a difficult poster to recognize.
>a big part of things is getting back what you put in
Yeah which is why I would never actually curse someone for example and I try my best not to hate people in general, I really don't want to put out that kind of a thing out to the world anymore.
>Provide them enough dissatisfactory preconceptions & notions and things will start to feel lopsided
I think ultimately what has bothered them the most hasn't been things like posting smut about them in the past but being scared or suspicious of them at times. But I do feel that there have been a couple of cases where I very concretely did something that annoyed them and I felt that.
>I really hope the right kind of anons can extrapolate everything presented here today so far as thoroughly as the content would allow
I'm definitively not the person to really talk about it, I just remember Mitch Horowitz talking a lot about this study which seemed to imply that minor retrocausal effects are real, but that we could also harness these effects, which means the future isn't deterministic either.

Basicaly what they did in the study was that two groups of people were made to study for a test. The other group was made to study the materials for the test after the test was done. I know this sounds really crazy, but the group that studied past the test date itself did better than the one that stopped studying after the test. This implies that future efforts, possibly even just decided upon future efforts, can affect the past.
>It really is no wonder to me why local townsfolk & such would be so tight-lipped on sharing too many specifics.
I'm not really surprised either. I wouldn't go nilly willy anywhere associated with paranormal activity anymore unless I had a good reason.
>>47203503
Maybe you could give that one anon who recently converted to Buddhism some pointers?
>>47203890
>How can we exert will on the universe if we can't understand it?
Well, we do it all the time in some way or another without fully understanding any of this.
>To even grasp at the idea of this greater meaning is a great achievement in human thought
Honestly, yeah, studying things like Daoism has made me apreciate how close to certain elements of modern thought were already germinating something like over 2000 years ago. I could almost say that the fact that even our ancestors were able to imagine the world being substantially more different than what we can see with our own eyes in our immediate surroundings is a very good argument for consciousness being non-local.
>>47203939
>The scariest thing about situations like these is not doing something and failing, it’s doing something and actually getting results
Yeah it's honestly pretty spooky in a way. I've only ever twice really asked for direct intervention. I have to say I was really freaked out after the first time it worked.
>a part of me wants it to fail because getting results means being held accountable in a sense
Yes, getting involved with divinity means being held accountable. And of course, failing would also mean there is some escape hatch back to old reality.

I had to resort to asking them that can we please take this more easy because I have to build up the fundamentals and adjust to the fact that I am now living in a reality that is vastly different from what it was mere six months ago. Judging by how things have been going, they probably agreed. I don't feel like they abandoned me either. They know and understand.
>Divining some I-Ching on the matter leads to some personally frightening answers even if the message is positive
Yeah sometimes the positive messages are the scariest. I really wish you all of the best. I feel like you are in a much more better place to face this than I was, still am.
>>47204063
Why the angel number on such a vulgar reply? I really don't know enough about the numbers.

Speaking of 333, what do you think of the fact that kuji-in has nine syllables, nine of course being 3+3+3?

Right now I have to rest (I'd have a quite a bit to say otherwise) but let me at least clarify 2 things at this time:
>>47205623
>unbiased understanding
Meant to say biased there! That's where fast typing & getting caught up in a lot internally at once can get me sometimes so I do apologize for any unnecessary confusion and not catching that sooner, especially with the topics at-hand.
Really with that comment I was just trying to clarify how if you intentionally skew your overall understanding of who you're attempting to interact with in a greater sense without showing efforts to see them more "as they are" and not solely as you might want them to be (like you've touched-on before) then that will naturally cause some dissonance. If you do have a great amount of familiarity & trust but start being unreasonably demanding towards what you'll get/have out of things (and I mean that in a more selfish sense to put things broadly for now) then you could just be chasing after a fruitless goal for some amount of time without picking up on any greater lessons until change is required. Unbiased understanding through collective cooperation is actually an ideal here, can't believe I slipped up there...
Speaking of slipping up, I did also forget/neglect to mention in my earlier minor-fervor that I had just lit some incense in that (>>47202333) moment per my own inclinations a good few seconds beforehand and seeing >>47202319 right away combined with the time cause the intrusive inclinations to win I suppose...not that full vulgarity was entirely intended but I of course understand how that could sully the mood somewhat.
Why oh why indeed...

Hello again gentlemen, by, perhaps not necessarily popular, request I've polished off what I've got so far for analysis of Touhou's current worldbuilding, and thrown in a little extra delving into my own thoughts on the broad strokes of what's been discussed in these past few threads. I'll admit I'm perhaps even moreso I've become confused as to the mentality of the people here referring to the seemingly joking reply that other Anon made as vulgar, but perhaps it's best if I forfeit my attempts to understand some of these ideas that just seem to be based in a completely different frame of mind. In any case, without further ado, here it is.
https://pastebin.com/bE0GGVAC

>>47207420
>420
>The numbers.

>>47207820
WHAT DO THEY MEAN

>>47205623
>Speaking of 333, what do you think of the fact that kuji-in has nine syllables, nine of course being 3+3+3?
I think that there is a close connection between language and numbers. Not sure what the exact nature of it is, but its interesting to see what some people have dug up regarding mainstream titles/names/terms.
Is it quantum physics, or something entirely and absolutely unknown?