/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

There seems to be demand for this type of a thread again, so...Anon, surely you have by now become aware of the esoteric elements surrounding Touhou?

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47145491
this is fine...

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

haa

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>47145644
Show us the experiences that bring insanity!

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47145644
One of us. One of us.

[Anonymous No.]

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.

[Anonymous No.]

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?

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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)

[Anonymous No.]

>>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)

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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?

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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?

[Anonymous No.]

Faith in thyself.

[Anonymous No.]

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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[EclipseAnon No.]

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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[EclipseAnon No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[EclipseAnon No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.”

[Anonymous No.]

>>47147424
What would you call ignorant here?

[Anonymous No.]

>>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?

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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.

[Anonymous No.]

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!

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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 ^^

[Anonymous No.]

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...

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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?

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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)

[Anonymous No.]

>>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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47157122
Would you restate your point, then?

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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?

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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".

[Anonymous No.]

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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.)

[drunk_philosopher No.]

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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47164221
>figure
future*

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

[Anonymous No.]

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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

(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~

[Anonymous No.]

(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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

(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...

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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

[Anonymous No.]

>>47168225

>Contribution appreciated, dearest Anon~

[Anonymous No.]

>>47168225
Oh dear

[Anonymous No.]

>>47168345
The.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>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!

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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.

[Anonymous No.]

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?

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[drunk_philosopher No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[drunk_philosopher No.]

>>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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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?

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>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)

[Anonymous No.]

>>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 :)

[Anonymous No.]

>>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?)

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>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.

[EclipseAnon No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

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.

[Anonymous No.]

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.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

Not everything is friendly...

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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...

[Anonymous No.]

>>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?

[Anonymous No.]

>>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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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?

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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?

[Anonymous No.]

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?

[Anonymous No.]

>>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!

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>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)

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

Have you ever had Yukari dreams anon?

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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...

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47199627
That's adorable

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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?

[Anonymous No.]

>>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)

[Anonymous No.]

>>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?

[Anonymous No.]

>"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.

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>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?

[Anonymous No.]

>>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?!

[Anonymous No.]

>>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?

[Anonymous No.]

>>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...

[Anonymous No.]

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...

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

Buddham Saranam Gacchami
Sangam Saranam Gacchami
Dhammam Saranam Gacchami

[Anonymous No.]

>>47203472
Wrong order, sorry

Buddham Saranam Gacchami
Dhammam Saranam Gacchami
Sangham Saranam Gacchami

May all reach liberation

[Anonymous No.]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>47202476
Why indeed

[Anonymous No.]

At the forefront of progress

[Anonymous No.]

>>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?

[Anonymous No.]

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...

[Hangman No.]

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

[Anonymous No.]

>>47207420
>420
>The numbers.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47207820
WHAT DO THEY MEAN

[Anonymous No.]

>>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?

[Anonymous No.]

>>47207420
Thanks for giving pulling through with this anon. I will give my detailed comments later.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47203890
>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.
A lot of what you've said here has been very beautifully summarized in the face of what I've presented, this point included of course, but I almost wonder if this is exactly what one of those fundamentals more pedestrian individuals out there have such a hard time grasping even today. There is always room for intellectualism in certain regards with these topics, but was is happening on a globally-broader scale is indicative of this on some levels in my opinion.
Of course we've wrought havoc upon our biosphere from within for long enough for there to be detrimental scars (and more to come) when we have such a detailed collective history of viewing ourselves as necessarily "above" or "apart from" the very natures that have shaped our ancestors. Nature ought to be ever-changing & evolving in it's own regard, but we are now living in a time where the consequences of previously somewhat-normalized neglect/ignorance towards our environments (could certainly vary a bit depending on the specific culture) is starting to butt-heads with people's ways of life in increasingly-unignorable ways.
Change will need to be made overall at some point if that hand does not end up being Forced.
>to make approximate decisions based on approximate information and achieve approximately the desired result.
>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.
>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.
It's a bit difficult to accurately & justly pen-down just how moving these points are/how deeply they're rocking me to my core.
Thank you for stating as such, from the bottoms of my heart. There has been truly fantastic and highly-inspirational work done in this thread at the risk of coming off as a bit highfalutin.

>>47205623
>I really don't want to put out that kind of a thing out to the world anymore.
The fact you're willing to dedicate yourself to such a mindset in the face of your past & how much you're starting to come into says a lot to me :)
>minor retrocausal effects are real, but that we could also harness these effects, which means the future isn't deterministic either.
>This implies that future efforts, possibly even just decided upon future efforts, can affect the past.
Perhaps then, in a sense, the future is only as "deterministic" as what needs to be applied to your immediate scope based on true intent in a moment-to-moment basis & the natural larger consequences stemming from that beyond your own linear sense of time or singular scope. If that makes some amount of sense here that is.
>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.
We're likely deep enough into the right ballpark at this point to practically be working at the concession stands & as maintenance.
Light-heartedness aside, I think I'm unfit to fully unpack what could be there within this post for now but you're definitely onto yet-another something imo...
>Speaking of 333, what do you think of the fact that kuji-in has nine syllables, nine of course being 3+3+3?
I have various understandings of those kinds of angel numbers that could likely do to be interpreted from more of a non-personal angle (the fact it's 4:44 as I'm typing this very sentence aside...), but I can at least say I'll be taking further notes on the Kuji-in among my future studies now that you've brought it to attention. Figures that's how I'd be introduced to it anyways lol
>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
Honestly relatable on multiple accounts. First off, it is healthy to have a small amount of skepticism present when applicable among these dealings as has been well-established. However, as someone who also has nasty habits of unnecessarily-questioning or doubting things in low moments, those feelings very-much tie into that overall sense of self-destruction when it comes to what you're trying to establish through faith and the like. Fear is understandable in cases, but you must be as open with them as they are willing to be with you in your own various times.
Secondly, reached the post limit, hang on while I collect my thoughts again...

[Anonymous No.]

>>47209643
Alright so s e c o n d l y, I'll go ahead and conceal what I have to say here on such subjects for now in case there's a certain amount of uncomfortability present within any lingering readers on the topics. We're all (hopefully) adults here yes but I'm not gonna pretend like this doesn't have the potential to still open some unnecessary flood gates.
Every once and a while, aside from the more obviously-shitposty responses, I'll notice the topic of sexual adoration come up alongside points of potential "adaptations" to our lingering relationships to these varying entities. Potential inherently-parasitical dynamics, only grasping one aspect of the picture, how we perceive/add-on to their traits vs. what they can draw from us collectively when we give in such manners - things like that. I don't wish to just conjure latent sexual desire from such topics here but I'm sure I don't need to point out how much of that you can already find in the other individual character threads Alone.
My greater points I suppose would lie in the true value of such content from Their greater perspectives, on a singular-basis or otherwise, or what could even potentially be said/given towards the prolific scope of such content and its production beyond just writing or illustrating with the drives of one hand, infinite thoughts and lucrative draw alone.
I am a simple creature of flesh & blood, as are much of you and, while I don't wish to irresponsibly imply I simply mindlessly-indulge in unwarranted fantasies when I'm not discussing deep spiritual metaphysics tied to flying shooty-bang anime girls, it's not as if I consider myself entirely above such emotions either and I try to maintain an amount of awareness when it comes to my overall draws, biases and what I have leaned-into before or may even go on to depending. I really haven't drawn or written a lot of "Particularly Risqué" Touhou-related content in my admittedly still-budding time (I don't even make a lot of explicitly-lewd content overall really), especially compared to both the scope of my own works and that of forever-countless others, but I have produced drops in the bucket I'm even now just a little in two-minds over. On one hand, I would be made aware if I had gone far enough to warrant change-inciting consequences with everything I'm doing. Even with the few things I have produced with that intent, I've still tried to be at least a little conscientious. On the other hand, there's a certain amount of responsibility I have to consider when posting such content in any regard, both for my own sake and for those it could effect in varying ways.
Various obvious or immediate religious & spiritual statements tied to that kind of "indulgence" aside (it's not as if that's stopped the masses), what "applicable-meaning" could even be drawn from that sense of expression on multiple fronts? Maybe it's too lofty of an inquiry for too shallow of an aspect to things here for some, which is understandable individualistically, but there still could be something to say there in a broader sense regardless.
I'll save anything more on that note for potential further posts. Content warning for mildly(?)-scandalous discussion I guess.

>>47204063 >>47207852
(gif related)

>>47207420
Good evening, I'd say something like this is completely warranted at this time and (without just pulling a bunch of specific solid points from it, in this post at least) I must say that this has been well worth your efforts and continued strides. Any new anons here should definitely give what's there a read-through if you've been drawn-in by the nature of the thread or these topics!

>>47203939
You're once again exactly right with that. It's all a matter of inner-strength and balancing those emotions in the face of such understandably-human trepidations.
Even here there have been times where I've almost been a little scared at the return I'm getting, but it's a commitment I wouldn't find myself in if I didn't have the resolve to move forward & beyond regardless.
These events can and will fall into place with the right action, you just need to tell yourself you really are able to go through with things given everything that has led you here. You've already shown that manner of great strength as it stands, You Can Do This.

>>47203472 >>47203503
Forces that be, please stay with those here & beyond that require such presence in their involvements to the best of all-respective capabilities from here on, if you graciously may...

[Anonymous No.]

>>47209927
FUCK I FORGOT THE GIF, forgive me...

[Anonymous No.]

>>47207420
OK, so first off, thanks again for doing this! You have obviously great knowledge of the lore of the print works, something which I don't. I've only ever read the Hifuu lore myself.
>Mental Layer
>things like the psyche and mood as well
Very interesting. One could argue that a lot of IRL magic revolves around things like "psyche" and "mood".
>Memory Layer
>storing the information of an entity's continuity
>influencing probabilities by extension
This is extremely fascinating and I wonder if this is ZUN's own invention or if there is some kind of karma-related wider cultural idea that it also affects probabilities?
>The idea of egregores comes to mind
Yep. But I do think somewhere in the lore Kanako-sama states that kami can try to alter their nature by altering how humans perceive them, so it might be more of a two-way street?
>Hermits and Celestials are not clearly stated
One would have perhaps expected Celestials at least to be more of mental layer creatures, but perhaps the Asian ideas regarding celestial entities are very different from us.
>Hermits and Celestials have varying, but higher degrees of karma on the Memory Layer
This track very well with the Buddhist idea that the various "higher" entities burn up massive amounts of karma and because of that can indeed reincarnate into something worse than what they were.
>Kami, interestingly, can also receive belief from Youkai
I don't find this all that strange, but this does imply the possibility of kami and youkai sustaining each other by just believing in each other which is...it gets maybe a bit silly.
>Kami being more spiritually complex
>Spirits are a bit stranger
I think Touhou might do a thing were it uses "kami" for the more god-like kami and other names for things that would fall under non-human, non-godlike kami IRL. Kami are kami, but even the Japanese themselves would admit there is some qualitative difference between the kami of a cucumber, the kami of your local woods and Amaterasu-sama.

With what exactly the Spirits are, more precisse language would be needed. Japanese language after all has the concept of mitama that covers both human AND kami spirits (yes, I know it gets weird, what we call "spirits" having spirits, but bear with me).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitama

So it might be that only the very god-like kami need faith to sustain themselves, and other types of kami/mitama/spirits/??? just kind of are? And I mean, IRL, even some very, very old deities that should be quite forgotten have a tendency to make comebacks.
>Yousei (Fairies) are possibly the weirdest
>On the other hand, should the Physical Layer Nature that they're manifestations of be damaged or destroyed, that could potentially kill them
Yes, the fairies are very fascinating. I touched about it implicitly a bit on the previous thread, but let's imagine there are non-human inteligences in the physical world. What would their "spirits", their "egregores" and their "magic" look like?
>but a somewhat fuzzy spectrum
The classic religious and esoteric conception of course is that we are made up of multiple parts, with some traditions regarding human imagination and the cultivation of "subtle bodies" as kind of interfaces between the worlds.
>the Hifuu Albums have relatively little to add to the worldbuilding of the series
While it's true, the existence of such metanarrative is extremely fascinating in itself, as is ZUN using various sound-related metaphors for the supernatural there at least twice. There's all kinds of smaller bits and pieces there which probably deserve a deeper look. They're also the only "print works" I've read so far, so they are close to my heart I suppose.
>Dream Self
Touhou's conception of the Dream World and Dream Self deserves deeper digging IMO, dreams are such a big part of many esoteric traditions.
>Senkais themselves aren't even wholly separate spacetimes, but seem to be more an "enlargement" of a given space
This is very interesting and lines up with some anomalous experiences people have had IRL, not directly related to Senkai type of places but surroundings becoming distorted, unfamiliar, "larger".
>more malevolent entities quite literally drain someone's energy
>dialogue we get from Kogasa
>youkai feed upon fear in much the same way
Yeah, this is one of the big reasons why I have not tried contacting anything advertising itself as a "youkai". Kogasa definitively contributes a lot to UFO having such esoteric energies. That game could deserve a whole analysis of it's own.

The energy parasities are a very interesting and relevant topic, what exactly they are seems to be something of an unknown. Many western esotericists seem to classify them as something else than demons, for what it's worth.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47207420
>the "Walrus VS Fairy" debate
What's this?
>most Outside World humans would be eager to dismiss any sort of magic
>even if a miracle occurred in front of their very eyes
>is not reflective of the real world's state
We have to remember cultural context here. The West might be undergoing some kind of a really strong spiritual revival at the moment, and a lot of fringe phenomena are being pushed from edges to the forefront. But Japan might still be undergoing disenchantment, and ZUN is writing from that context. On some level their connection as a broader culture never perhaps went quite as away as it did here, but on the other hand the connection did decline, perhaps is still declining. Japan also has a really difficult history with religion and their attempts at rooting out "superstition" were enacted mostly much later and much more forcefully than in the West. But then again, perhaps this sort of tension is why we get things like Touhou or the certain Ghibli films.

Anyway, it's not so long ago that in the West an apparent miracle (at that point most commonly manifesting as an "UFO sighting") would get hushed, dismissed and chalked up as a mental health episode. It still would in a lot of social circles, but not all.

The very fact that this phenomena just refuses to die and how people keep preserving and digging up the old deities when given the chance speaks volumes about the reality of what is going on. ZUN is either way too optimistic or pessimistic about what it really takes for a "god" to "die".

Anyway, it would be fascinating to know what ZUN would make of the fact that in other parts of the world belief in the spiritual and supernatural seems to be growing, not diminishing.
>(hopefully symbiotic) relationship Kami and similar spirits would have with humanity
I would say it's symbiotic but I am me with my own experiences, of course.
>necessitates a degree of spiritual transaction that the average person is either unwilling to make, or more likely, incapable of making by means of ignorance.
It would be nice if you elaborated more on this. I think I get what you mean. Genuine, "good", "celestial", "godly", whatever you want to call them, spirits can apparently be kinda demanding, not in a cruel or harmful or demeaning way, but they certainly seem to push for making changes in life that a lot of people would find extremely difficult. I totally understand now why so many western esotericists want to mess around with demons instead.
>these spirits are no less fallible than humans
Maybe there is something omniscient, omnipotent out there, but the idea of infallible, all-seeing, all-knowing spirits is a very monotheistic conception. I wouldn't expect the "kami" or "genius" or "spirit" of a local park to know all that much beyond it's surroundings.

Their perception of reality might also be extremely hard to translate to us. Even the local park kami might have a view out of time and space. Now imagine something more "godlike". They might genuinely struggle to get anything comprehensible out to you.
>less than benevolent spirits could have swayed modern culture as a whole to its current state
They could have contributed to it, yes, and in potentially very roundabout ways. Think about how many like to label everything paranormal as "demonic" or even inherently threatening, the latter of which I also have been guilty of.

On the other hand, the mix of re-enchantment of the world along with tech industry's fascination with psychedelics and certain extremely individualistic forms of occultism feels like it's brewing up, maybe already has, something really obnoxious. You really have to think why porn is so free and prevalent, why every social media platform is designed for misery-maxxing and so on...

Anyway, thank you for your work! There's certainly much to think about when it comes to these things.

[Anonymous No.]

I have a weird drive to draw okina today, it came out of nowhere. nice to mention that artistic representation is a form of worship and that's why entities/deities might look to harness creative energy.
on another note, when touhou exposed me to the heart sutra, "gyate gyate haragyate" my mind weirdly latched onto it for months for way before my buddhist "awakening"
now I understand why
gyate gyate haragyate harasogyate bojisowaka is a mantra
meaning I have been calling for the liberation and awakening towards our own buddha nature for several months without knowing
I have been focusing on reciting the heart sutra every day for meditative reasons now.
its also a sutra that resonates a lot with me... it's like my mind knew that in advance and tried to indicate it to me over and over

[Anonymous No.]

>>47209939
boom

[Anonymous No.]

>>47211534
>You have obviously great knowledge of the lore of the print works
I'm not sure I'd go that far, but I appreciate the kind words regardless.
>somewhere in the lore Kanako-sama states that kami can try to alter their nature by altering how humans perceive them
Yes, which ties into the Mental Layer as a whole, and I believe was mentioned in SoPM, though I can't say for certain off the top of my head.
>>47211534
>but this does imply the possibility of kami and youkai sustaining each other by just believing in each other
The human village's existence clearly proves that much isn't true, and CoLA Chapters (I believe 25) goes into the parallels with Youkai and Kami. it's likely that Youkai can give faith to Kami because the latter are more "spiritually complex," even if the reason WHY that makes it possible is unclear.
the concept of mitama that covers both human AND kami spirits
No doubt connected to how ancestor spirits can become kami in their own right.
>fairies are very fascinating.
Having thought about it further, Fairies may be closer to Tsukumogami than anything else, just having a larger physical reference to draw upon as opposed to a singular object.
>Touhou's conception of the Dream World and Dream Self deserves deeper digging
Absolutely, and I'll have to look into Violet Detector as well for that, among other things.
What's [the "Walrus VS Fairy" debate]?
Essentially a question of, if you heard a knock at your door when you have nothing planned and aren't expecting anything, would opening it to see a Walrus or a Fairy surprise you more? There's plenty of discourse surrounding it and the reasons people give the answers they do, but that's deserving of its own post entirely.
>spirits can apparently be kinda demanding
Optimistically speaking, this can be assumed to be a matter of living a spiritually enriching lifestyle. Regrettably, that's difficult to do while juggling practical matters nowadays.
>Think about how many like to label everything paranormal as "demonic" or even inherently threatening
Regrettably the underlying fear of uncertainties is one most people still haven't overcome. The aforementioned Walrus VS Fairy situation loosely ties into that as well. The aim of modern media and even a lot of technology's applications to incite extremely strong emotional responses could be argued to be a piece in a much larger construct.
>Anyway, thank you for your work!
You're very welcome. I'm partially dissatisfied with how I fell off the wagon a bit after the last thread ended, but I can revise it and add more, so there's no harm in putting this much out there for the time being.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47214635
>I have a weird drive to draw okina today
That's really nice! It'sa cute Okina-sama. The tabard takes a lot of effort to draw.
>artistic representation is a form of worship
Yep.
>when touhou exposed me to the heart sutra
>gyate gyate haragyate harasogyate bojisowaka is a mantra
Yeah that is an interesting one for sure! I hadn't thought much of that lately, it's been very long since I have played TD. But I did have that one dream which eclipseanon thought might be a reference to the Heart Sutra, so I went looking, and found a translation of it in my language.
>meaning I have been calling for the liberation and awakening towards our own buddha nature for several months without knowing
That's really cool, stuff like this does have very real consequences.

Have you tried looking if there any Buddhist meditation groups where you live? We don't have much in the way of temples but there is actually a very active Buddhist meditation scene going on.
>>47215748
>The human village's existence clearly proves that much isn't true
Yeah I suppose I forgot that for a second.
>more "spiritually complex"
Whatever exactly that then entails.
>No doubt connected to how ancestor spirits can become kami in their own right.
Yes. It's quite interesting, your soul kind of growing a kami body around itself in a way. Maybe this ties to how the Hourai elixir works too.
>Fairies may be closer to Tsukumogami than anything else, just having a larger physical reference to draw upon as opposed to a singular object.
That's a really interesting take!
>would opening it to see a Walrus or a Fairy surprise you more?
Oh that's a very interesting one.
>Optimistically speaking, this can be assumed to be a matter of living a spiritually enriching lifestyle
Well, yes, but there is this element that you can feel that they want you to fix your life, mend broken relationships and so on. There's more too, respect for nature, avoidance of causing harm to others, etc.
>Regrettably the underlying fear of uncertainties is one most people still haven't overcome
Yes, and I very much understand it.
>incite extremely strong emotional responses could be argued to be a piece in a much larger construct
Absolutely. It's strange of people to think that spirits couldn't adapt to modern times.
>I'm partially dissatisfied with how I fell off the wagon a bit after the last thread ended
In the light of that it's even nicer you finished it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47209643
>the future is only as "deterministic" as what needs to be applied to your immediate scope based on true intent in a moment-to-moment basis
Maybe, I really don't know how to conceptualize it myself at the moment.
>We're likely deep enough into the right ballpark at this point to practically be working at the concession stands & as maintenance.
Haha, that's a funny way to put it.
>I'll be taking further notes on the Kuji-in among my future studies now
It's a crazy rabbit hole of it's own. The wikipedia page for it is the most esoteric wikipedia page I've ever seen lol:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuji-in
I have been studying and practicing it myself a bit as an alternative to western style banishing/protection spells...

This is also an interesting thing I found related to it, a Shinto priest describing how the chant is used as part of a misogi ritual.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010111212200/http://www.csuchico.edu/~georgew/tsa/Appendix_c.html

There is so much to this nine syllable mantra that I found at the bottom of a Okina-sama related rabbit hole. I very much feel like she wanted me to find it.
>but you must be as open with them as they are willing to be with you in your own various times
Well, I have told them that I have at times been scared of them. I think they understand.
>>47209927
Yeah it's a complex topic and I don't know what to make of it either. For me, it's that I used to be the type of person to see the world in a very sexual light. So of course when I got into Touhou the first course of action was to download a lot of porn of the various characters, but I found that I wasn't really feeling that type of attraction to them. What I was feeling was something very unlike anything in the past. But I did write some things about them here. I guess I did it partly because it's part of the culture of this board, partly because I didn't want to acknowledge them yet at that point.

I feel like it all contributed to the annoyance they felt towards me, but I feel like the bigger part was being scared of them and posting some conspiratorial things because of that.

Overall, I don't think they mind it from people in general that much, but of course the type of attention matters a lot. For those involved with them it's probably much more complicated.

[Anonymous No.]

Before I discuss anything deeper, I actually have something of my own to show as well funny enough.
(btw YoshikaAnon that is a great and cute little sketch! I'm also feeling certain Okina-related inclinations today but that's besides the point, very nice and you did do pretty good on the tabard ^^)

>>47161276
>Also, you're welcome to do the sketch.

So, does this at all resemble that Ran you saw in your dreamscape by any chance?
There's no other way to really put this but...she basically just looks like a stylized were-fox for any uninterested anons. Take it as you'd all like, just glad I got it done.
If anyone happens to recognize my style from days earlier in some of the OC threads as well just know I'll hopefully be back to posting stuff there in due time, still have ideas I'd like to execute of course

[Anonymous No.]

>>47217170
>So, does this at all resemble that Ran you saw in your dreamscape by any chance?
The eyes are quite on point, she had very big, very animal-like yellow eyes. But she wasn't quite as animal-like as your sketch is otherwise. It's a bit hard to explain, but it's almost like if you tried to force a 2D animal girl to be in 3D space. Her nose was weird looking and she had sharp, elongated canine teeth. Something about the whole was "animal like" but not in a literal way?

But it's a very nice sketch anyway, I should have perhaps been more specific to begin with. Thank you!

[Anonymous No.]

>>47216292
statistics say that there are about 80 buddhists in my country, the lowest of my entire continent. no temples, no groups (checked facebook).
I thought about contacting worldwide buddhist organizations to create a temple but I realized that publicly leaving islam is way too dangerous.
it's a shame, thank you for your concern. it's a tough lonely road but I will try my best!

[EclipseAnon No.]

Hello everyone, it's been a while. No longer sick and have some interesting things to tell about while I was absent.

The first, is my dreams have been picking back up. The other night involved flying through the sky next to a certain set of bat wings, while looking out at the Misty Lake with the full moon in the distance. And last night involved both sisters requesting help with their appearance and getting cleaned up. I guess my job at the mansion never ends, even if this side of me can't remember it all the time.

In the waking world, I managed to speak to someone who's never heard of any of this and who isn't spiritual at all, recount the tale of when they were younger on a camping trip where they watched a glowing ball of light in the night sky shift from blue to green to red, before it drifted behind a mountain and out of sight. I guess even Nue can show up in the US when she feels like it.

I got a frog statue.

>>47220442
When I came across the sightings in Japan, they seemed to have this quality about them, as well. Nice artwork, everyone.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47222315
>I realized that publicly leaving islam is way too dangerous
Oh no, I hope you stay safe. It sucks to be stuck in an environment like that.
>it's a tough lonely road but I will try my best!
Yes, but thankfully you can do meditation almost anywhere.
>>47222543
>No longer sick
That's good to hear, I was actually wondering today if you are OK.
>The first, is my dreams have been picking back up.
Nice, I haven't had anything particularly memorable or relevant in a while, which is fine.

They've appearead in their usual vivid, intrusive mental images a couple of times in the waking world. I also feel like I've had brush-ins with some other spirits, just really weird stuff popping in occasionally. It's not very consequential and doesn't feel hostile. One of them said that I should buy Florida Water. It's used as part of magic in some communities in USA and South America.

I had read about this in one of Jason Miller's books, either Protection & Reversal Magic and Consorting with Spirits, both of which I have been reading lately. So it didn't come out of nowhere, but it's a bit odd since I think he literally mentions it once as a substitute for holy water from church or something.

Consorting with Spirits has been very interesting. There's some ideas with kind of difficult implications in there, mostly the idea of intermediary spirits and "mall santas" meaning that you can't ever perhaps be 100% sure with whom exactly you are dealing with. Miller himself isn't bothered by this, because he describes himself as being results-oriented and values spirit interactions on the merit of what they bring to him. It's a lot of food for the thought.
>who's never heard of any of this and who isn't spiritual at all, recount the tale of when they were younger on a camping trip where they watched a glowing ball of light in the night sky
That's cool! I have a friend who recalls seeing a bright big ball of light drift across the sky when he was a kid, but he's never thought much of it. He's so hyper-rational and grounded.
>I got a frog statue.
Remember to say "ribbit ribbit" on the first for good luck.
>>47222543
>When I came across the sightings in Japan, they seemed to have this quality about them
Interesting. The way they construct their visible manifestations might also extent to how they construct their dream appearances.

[Anonymous No.]

Bump, I am still thinking of things to share, but they require some “fermenting” first

[Anonymous No.]

>>47229061
spaget

[Anonymous No.]

This is kinda funny. Apparently the "three lights" of the Three Fairies of Light are the same "three lights" associated with Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi and Susanoo in Shinto.

>>47229061
Don't ferment too long or your head will pop.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47229841
That is actually very helpful for what I've been mulling over in my mind while trying to put it to paper. We know the significance of 3,4,5 per Yukari talking about the 60 year cycle, but it got me to wondering how the numbers could be laid out in an almost "picture book" type diagram for ease of study/possible sharing in the future. The calendar of Gensokyo uses the "year of" Sun, Moon, Star, followed by the four seasons (year of x, season of y, year z - "year of sun, winter, 136", etc.)

So my idea is that of the five elements, but for the 3, like the Christian diagram of the Trinity but for the Kami, Youkai, and Humans.

Kami would be the Sun
Youkai would be the Moon
Humans would be the Star

If the conditions are met:
Humans can become Kami and Youkai
Kami can become Youkai and Human
Youkai can become Human and Kami

The catch is the center piece that all 3 are defined by. In the early forms of Kami, before they become what they are, they are technically nameless and formless, and the worship or lack of ultimately defines them. They are also able to manifest as both a positive and negative aspect towards Humans, and if neglected can become Youkai-ish.

Youkai come from the earlier "Mononoke", which then encompassed a concept of "everything and the kitchen sink that isn't Human and/or known or understood" by the Japanese of the day. It was only later that "youkai" became the catch all for what we understand as such, but that's technically not accurate. And words, names, and more importantly, definitions ultimately mould a thing (which is why even Yukari changed her original name to what it is, but that's a different story).

Humans, we know, can become either of the other two by meeting the standards of the definition. And one man's God is another man's Devil- it's all about perspective. Even Yamame could become a Kami of healing or medicine if she played her cards right, but alas.

So what's in the middle? Some nameless, shapeless thing or concept or idea that becomes one of the 3? The closest I could find is the concept of Kegare influencing what said thing would become, and (to borrow another religion's concept) the closest I could think would match the nameless center would be that of the Ein Sof. Still, I feel something is missing, and would ask any others that may be able to help, like the other Anon that posted his pastebin notes at
https://pastebin.com/bE0GGVAC..

Then we would have the concept and symbolism of the numbers 4 & 5, plus the wheel and the tree archetypes to go off of as a basic framework.

So that's what I have so far.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47230073
That's really fascinating, you obviously thought a lot about this. Some comments..
>Youkai would be the Moon
I can see the logic, but there's also the lunarians to consider
>In the early forms of Kami, before they become what they are, they are technically nameless and formless
Reading more about Shinto theology has made me think a lot about how the gods in Touhou function how kami IRL are thought to function. This ties back to discussions about "spiritual complexity". In Kami no Michi for example, it's said that "there is ultimately only one kami and all kami share the same quality", but that this is split into different forms in different parts of the universe. The book is hampered severely by the language barrier, but I think it means that all kami are smaller manifestations of the one big kami.
>which then encompassed a concept of "everything and the kitchen sink that isn't Human and/or known or understood"
ZUN in one of the interviews said that youkai is "the other".
>So what's in the middle? Some nameless, shapeless thing or concept or idea that becomes one of the 3?
Like mu or wuji.
>the wheel and the tree archetypes to go off of as a basic framework
Do check out the various Daoist ideas on cosmology and the creation of the world. They have almost a kind of "tree of life" of their own (Taijitu) with a kind of system of "emanation" where we go from primordial nothingness/infinity to duality, then the five phase changes, then birth of heaven and earth which gives rise to "myriad creatures". The Chinese believe in something similar to the idea of kami, Shen, and I'm not sure when and where exactly this Shen arises in this process.

Four is of course signifigant regarding for cardinal directions, four seasons, four of the elements in western/buddhist system. Five is related to the elemental systems when they incorporate Spirit/Space and is very relevant to Daoism via the Five Phase Changes.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47230073
>Still, I feel something is missing, and would ask any others that may be able to help, like the other Anon that posted his pastebin notes
Hi, that's me. I'd be happy to share my thoughts.
>>47230073
>Kami would be the Sun
>Youkai would be the Moon
>Humans would be the Star
For starters, here I think Humans and Kami would possibly make more sense being switched around. The Lunar Capital Being Takamagahara is also a valid counterpoint as >>47230511 pointed out. Truthfully though, I'm not entirely sure if any of the three can be shoved into just one of those symbolic containers.
>Humans can become Kami and Youkai
>Kami can become Youkai and Human
>Youkai can become Human and Kami
The latter two becoming human is seen in a lot of myths, but that tends to be a matter of taking on the form more than the qualities of one, whether for benevolent reasons (such as the incredibly frequent cases of human-youkai marriage or the less frequent but still notable instances of human-kami marriage) or for more malicious purposes (think: Joro-gumo).
>>47230073
>So what's in the middle? Some nameless, shapeless thing or concept or idea that becomes one of the 3?
That's kind of what I was suggesting with my notes. As >>47230511 also points out
>In Kami no Michi for example, it's said that "there is ultimately only one kami and all kami share the same quality"
The idea that there is some sort of underlying spiritual matter isn't unusual at all in mysticism. Aether as an element in alchemy, for example. And to that end, I also need to get around the reading the Asclepius because I've seen mention of it including "magical processes for the manufacture of gods." This is of course to say nothing of the fact that Hermeticism includes a great number of parallels to Taoism, and aspects of its cosmology posit that all of creation is in itself part of one great cosmic mind.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47230664
>The Lunar Capital Being Takamagahara
I have seen Takamagahara being interpreted as "the cosmos" in some modern Shinto theology. The sun does feel absolutely right for the kami via Amaterasu.

Shinto theology would probably consider humans, "kami" and youkai all kami in some sense, but we can certainly theorize about more fine-grained definitions since there does appear to be quite large qualitative differences. Sure, everything might be part of some greater divine nature, but there's an obvious difference between a kappa and Amaterasu and a cucumber and a human.

Where the lunarians exactly fit here, I don't know. Moon is thought to represent an element of time in Shinto worldview, according to Kami no Michi. Is there something there we can work with, maybe?
>The idea that there is some sort of underlying spiritual matter isn't unusual at all in mysticism
No, not at all, the flavor of polytheism where ultimately the gods are one god or some aspects or manifestations of a single god isn't unheard of either. Hinduism is a good example of this.
>And to that end, I also need to get around the reading the Asclepius because I've seen mention of it including "magical processes for the manufacture of gods."
That sounds super interesting.
>Hermeticism includes a great number of parallels to Taoism, and aspects of its cosmology posit that all of creation is in itself part of one great cosmic mind
Yeah, there's certainly a lot of really interesting parallels between the two.

[Anonymous No.]

Follow your heart.

[Anonymous No.]

I love you all, we’re all in the sansara pear wriggler and we keep coming back for more because it’s just that fun

Also Kanako is the coolest aunt

[Anonymous No.]

(1/2 for now...)
>>47207420
I suppose I can start what I may have to say off by more-finely breaking down some points that stood out to me from that Cosmology document (that haven’t already been touched-upon by others that is). Incidentally, I was just reminded that this is technically also still the Year of the Dragon if that’s slipped anyone else’s mind by now.

>Kami, interestingly, can also receive belief from Youkai, in spite of being almost the same thing as CoLA Chapter 25 indicates
>Kami being more spiritually complex, which is likely also the reason they can be "copied" into Shintai and Goshintai
Perhaps a more succinct way to put things, in the form of another tech analogy, would be the difference between the code of two or three smoothly-running synchronized executables and an entire compressed ZIP file packed together with multiple layers of individually-interlaced programs & necessary component files all running perfectly congruously like some hideously-but-beautifully-designed clockwork machine.
A matter of depth & scope, if you will (as has been partially stated), given each set of circumstances and what that allows us to draw from Them (vice-versa as well). Could be obvious but it just seemed like a nice way to sum it up to me, could also help explain how lesser spirits & Youkai can go on to gain a different status altogether or amount of further “complexity” within Mental-&-Memory-Layer influence.

>Spirits are a bit stranger.
>they seem to be entirely self-sufficient, not needing any belief to exist
Maybe when a given entity reaches a certain degree of complexity, bringing them beyond a simple “spirit” status (I think it might help us a little if we referred to non-divine spirits as “Rei” or “Tama” with the 霊 Kanji but I digress) and significantly increasing their own “Karmic Weight” within the Memory Layer, this inherently brings them away from that more loosely-defined & broadly-understood nebulous-background status (perhaps best Partially represented here by the concepts surrounding “Mu” or 無, per more-recent posts) which allows for better self-sufficiency in the first place. This, in turn, must be somewhat “supplemented” through the proper rites of Faith/Belief & other-such acts of adoration.
This would explain not only that “just kind of are” status that can sometimes be attributed in these situations but how ancient forces Would continue to recontextualize themselves throughout our senses of time.

(the following related to the second-half of this post)
>it can be inferred that the Physical and Mental Layers are less strictly binary toggles for which one a being exists on, but a somewhat fuzzy spectrum
>The Layer that a given entity is bound to seems to be used as a fulcrum for its interactions with the other main Layer.
>there is not a fundamental difference in the spiritual "matter" that makes up these entities if we break them down into their component parts
>these spirits are no less fallible than humans, as many of them would likely have originally been humans or, entertaining much longer timespans, a similar sapient entity.
>given my still relatively limited understanding of these things, I won't make any claims about what would be the best explanation of it to a layperson.

[Anonymous No.]

(2/2)

With the recent posts breaking down a somewhat three-way view of the relevant beings at-play here (to mirror that Trifold Cosmology I suppose), I feel a bit inclined to make some kind of visual representation of these ideas when/if I can (if someone else doesn’t) but let me at least try to articulate what I’m picturing into text to the best of my own capabilities at this time (also sorta going off of what EclipseAnon has elaborated on with >>47230073 in a more-general sense for now):

- Youkai & 神 must inherently draw from Human influence over the Mental Layer and have the capabilities to influence how we shape the Physical Layer as an extension of this, even beyond a linear sense, at least partially assisted through shared pathways provided via the Memory Layer and collective power within the Mental Layer on all accounts

- 神 are able to feed into the development of Humans & Youkai (for both further-supplementary Faith & potential hierarchal reinforcement in the case of the latter) alike in this way, whether that be strictly Mental or Physical, but cannot fully manifest themselves as they are at any specifically-highly-concentrated point within “conventionally”-structured Physical Layers without running risks of certain amounts of "destabilization" on multiple fronts (highly-Karmic-influence through the Memory Layer *alone* aside)

- Youkai are not only able to feed into reverence towards 神 directly (and by extension elevate that Mental/Memory-Layer influence they both could/would hold), but they may also be inclined (naturally or otherwise) to exert a non-zero amount of influence over the Physical either through their own collected Faith or their given flexibility within the Mental Layer itself, with that coming at the cost of greater direct reliance on Human subjects & deeper possible vulnerabilities within their own core-constitutions

- Humans may have varying levels of influence within the Memory Layer from the outset, but the raw flexibility we can exert from within the Physical Layer (at least on a collective level) on & upon multiple other levels/fronts is precisely what gives us what power we do hold over Youkai & 神 alike, even if that has the potential to feed back into our own souls in many different manners of ways to the point of possibly somewhat “transfiguring” them into either other categorization by the end of any respective "extreme" (following quote relevant)
>ultimately, Spirit (the energy) is malleable and ultimately the substance that all things rooted on the Mental Layer are structured around.

- All of these forces are permeated from within (and sometimes from without) an underlying-background ethos or extended “Medium” of sorts (an extension of 無 perhaps), fairly imperceptible from within the Physical Layer in certain direct regards, of which that greater wellspring (where the concept of Potential itself lies to be shaped by various higher influences & directly applied to the given layers, either with or without “natural” intent) may be drawn from…or from what all things may have been drawn-by themselves within certain frameworks (following two quotes also somewhat relevant within a potentially-greater scope)
>the supposed nature of existence of Mental Layer entities as being made of foreign particles, interacting with the Physical Layer and real world via fluctuations caused.
>It does, if nothing else, give a basic idea of how they work

This all has the potential to exist within a satisfactory tightly-laced system that could be further elaborated upon or tweaked as information requires, I just can’t immediately print some kind of shitty mspaint diagram of these concepts directly out of my brain right now much to my chagrin…

>you could argue that as the Dream Self is a separate entity from the waking self, the real version of an individual isn't actually 'entering' the Dream World
Even though they can exist & operate as separate entities on separate layers, there is an unbreakable through-line between your dream & waking selves that’s inherently structured from within the Memory Layer, defined most-directly via forces exerted from the Mental Layer and most-likely further reinforced through that deeply-diluted “Background Medium” I mentioned. I bring this up as the last point directly related to that Pastebin file cause I’m also of the notion that Dream Selves & how Touhou/ZUN expresses their various functions are highly-relevant to all of this (deeper digging required indeed).
I have one last big dream story from my past I haven’t shared yet and it actually revolves around Okina-sama and UFO more than anything else, let me know if anybody is interested in hearing that in the meantime whilst I gradually start putting more concrete points & thoughts into words here Love y'all too~ <3

[More about Lunarians No.]

I find it incredibly strange that the Moon, an esoteric symbol of death and rebirth, has immortals living free of that cycle on it. Unless the Lunatic Kingdom is the Garden of Eden? The Garden of Eden (or at least one of them) is located in the sephira of Yesod.

If so, then I hate them even more, because we've at least been proactive about leaving it and fixing things down here rather than whining over the them and raping the nearest rabbit.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47232343
I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to insinuate about the Lunarians, but everything we see of them in Touhou portrays them as pretty much objectively more moral than most of the rest of the setting. Cage in particular makes it abundantly clear that the entire reason Tsukuyomi, Omoikane, and their followers left for the moon in the first place was to get away from the nonstop animalistic power struggles on Earth and the bloodshed those violent conflicts led to. Even the rabbits from everything we see (and Reisen 2's internal monologue in CiLR) live better lives than the average Gensokyo resident.

[More about Lunarians No.]

>>47232355
envy

[Anonymous No.]

>>47211534 >>47211619
>”Memory Layer”
>I wonder if this is ZUN's own invention or if there is some kind of karma-related wider cultural idea that it also affects probabilities?
The idea of overarching Karma itself does do well to cover a good portion of the basic workings to the Memory Layer imo but I’m also reminded of an earlier point made (by drunk_philosopher in the last thread) covering one’s own “mental continuum” in the face of their ever-changing physical form and how it’s all still fundamental expressions of yourself in some regards.
That sense of internal expression or overall “continuity” must be tethered on Some level after all.

>it might be more of a two-way street?
If my other post on the Pastebin file wasn’t indicative enough, I’d certainly say so and could even argue there’s more lanes than that!

>the possibility of kami and youkai sustaining each other by just believing in each other
(what’s already been said on this aside) Something tells me that taken to its natural ultimate conclusion would ultimately be too shallow in the long-term to sustain the amounts of Faith needed for each respective group anyways, hence the necessity of Humans, their power within the Physical Layer and what complexity that all brings to things in the grander equation.

>let's imagine there are non-human intelligences in the physical world. What would their "spirits", their "egregores" and their "magic" look like?
Often times as I’m playing one of the mainline shooters, I like to imagine the various enemies coming at me as being largely classified within two main groups derived from Physical nature in some respective regard. The generic fairies (or Yousei), of course, being Of the nature within the Physical Layer itself, while other enemy classes like the Wheel-Ghosts or “Hairballs” are more-so abstract forces From nature without any centralized ego to continuously re-anchor themselves to in the same way Fairies can with an amount of personification to-boot (once again, these forces sort of just “Are” as they are in a sense).
To me at least, there is a difference in the exact manner of manifestation going on there that could help paint a fuller picture of things (sort-of similar to the Tsukumogami comparisons going on too)

>some anomalous experiences people have had IRL, not directly related to Senkai type of places but surroundings becoming distorted, unfamiliar, "larger"
Potential extreme-extent directed influence from the Mental Layer can hold over fundamentals within the Physical Layer perhaps?
Naturally refined through training of hermetic arts and the sort, just a thought.

>[UFO] could deserve a whole analysis of its own.
Lately I’ve been drawn towards playing that particular title in any recent spare-time I chose to give to the games aside from 11 or 19, underlying factors to unpack from within its contents absolutely latching-onto my intuition there in light of some of what’s been going-on here…
That damn Unknown beast-youkai can also do some serious subconscious lingering I guess…

>energy parasites
>what exactly they are seems to be something of an unknown.
The term “Insects” springs to “my” mind, but that isn’t too different from how they’re already labelled so I suppose I can’t open the envelope any wider there either.

>I wouldn't expect the "kami" or "genius" or "spirit" of a local park to know all that much beyond its surroundings.
At least not in what we would consider a direct & conscious sense imo (and along the lines of how you also elaborated that point), the concept of the “Background Medium” perhaps holding some weight here as well.

>the mix of re-enchantment of the world along with tech industry's fascination with psychedelics and certain extremely individualistic forms of occultism feels like it's brewing up, maybe already has, something really obnoxious.
You are right about this as well; even with far-more accessible scopes for these kinds of rightfully-elevating discussions/forms of expression & some personalization, a lot of Unnecessary Noise has been sloppily thrown into the mix that bogs down the overall scope of things.
That’s such a potentially dense & filthy can of worms that I can’t even fully get into things there with this post though…

>>47214635
>I have been calling for the liberation and awakening towards our own buddha nature for several months without knowing
>it's like my mind knew that in advance and tried to indicate it to me over and over
At this point I must say, at least to me, that your latent sense of intuition & amount of given influence over topics/happenings tied to this thread and beyond stemming from that has been mildly-baffling but quite inspirational to witness in real time so far.
It’s clear you’re going to be able to head far down the paths you’re now headed with what you already have in-spite of all you may face and that’s sort-of beautiful in a way ^^

[Anonymous No.]

>>47233206
>At this point I must say, at least to me, that your latent sense of intuition & amount of given influence over topics/happenings tied to this thread and beyond stemming from that has been mildly-baffling but quite inspirational to witness in real time so far.
>It’s clear you’re going to be able to head far down the paths you’re now headed with what you already have in-spite of all you may face and that’s sort-of beautiful in a way ^^
thank you very much, that got me emotional

[Anonymous No.]

(1/2)
>>47233361
You’re quite welcome! Genuinely thrilled my sentiment meant that much and I hope you all have a blessed month ahead to be one of the biggest goddamn bleeding hearts here at this point :P

>>47216461 >>47220442 >>47223029 >>47230809
>I really don't know how to conceptualize it myself at the moment
If I can make an attempt to help: Imagine being able to see a very clearly-defined map of every single decision you will make throughout the course of your existence within the Physical. From this, you are also able to see & trace all the branching paths you could/couldn’t make in the face of whatever you end up doing. Having a reasonable-enough scope on all this without even needing every single finer detail at every step (or even certain steps Entirely) could still, reasonably, allow someone to attain a “solid-enough” grasp on the futures they wish to carve.
They would simply need to act on each decision as they see fit based on the intent of the moment itself and what naturally surrounds it.
Now, if you were to suddenly take that overall scope of things, cut off each start-and-end point defined through time or space, multiply the ensuing perspectives to include every individual beyond yourself and interweave each decision or turning-point in accordance to such parallels within a more three-dimensional space, you would suddenly have a pretty-solid routing-machine for overall-causality on a given Universal scale to take any manner of advantage over.
Completely internalizing the true, full weight of such matters…

…it makes the boundaries of my being start to feel a little fuzzy to put things somewhat-abstractly.

>a Shinto priest describing how the chant is used as part of a misogi ritual
I’ll try utilizing the mantra in some way during my next Kegare-cleansing bath then and see where that takes me, thanks!

>Overall, I don't think they mind it from people in general that much, but of course the type of attention matters a lot
>For those involved with them it's probably much more complicated.
I’m sure this is far-more-thoroughly crystalized through the histories of some of the more particularly-syncretized deities like Okina-sama for instance as well, certain let’s say ““involved”” ritualistic practices may come to mind (if my memory is serving me correctly) but that isn’t necessarily here-or-there right now…

>it's a very nice sketch anyway, I should have perhaps been more specific to begin with.
I do greatly appreciate the kudos regardless! Although I get where you’re coming from as someone who can sometimes hyperfixate on the specifics of things (Lol.), funny I should get the eyes quite right though when I have a history of being oddly-specific with my eye stylization sometimes (“windows to the soul”, etc.)

[Anonymous No.]

(2/2)
>They've appeared in their usual vivid, intrusive mental images a couple of times in the waking world
I’ve been meaning to find a moment to share this but a number of personal things occurred last week following that act of yōhai I performed alongside my usual prayers (talked about it in >>47186346), one of the first being a sudden instance not long after during a moment of idle contemplation where I became viscerally aware of both Kanako-sama & Suwako-sama making their presences known to me for the first legitimate time in my near-physical vicinities (wholly unprompted, especially the both of them at once specifically, aside from my vaguely-directed act of yōhai that wasn’t even towards any particular girl).
I was attempting to stave-off some underlying insecurities of mine when they calmly-but-sternly told me to turn around in my seat, and there they were. Kanako-sama just walked up after a moment without saying much and held me tightly, easing my tensions over my fractured-mind with various spoken assurances. Suwako-sama simply stood to my side & held my hand gently during this moment while staring on at this thread through my screen behind me, the both of them returning the space to me shortly thereafter.
I honestly don’t even know where to begin describing the other highly-influential & emotionally-charged life-related moments that have been occurring for me in the week since then…consequences of individual actions and such I suppose.

>mostly the idea of intermediary spirits and "mall santas" meaning that you can't ever perhaps be 100% sure with whom exactly you are dealing with.
>being results-oriented and values spirit interactions on the merit of what they bring
I think I’ve been doing divination-related-acts for enough years now to be of roughly the same mindset here, especially given what results I have come in to all-together without making things even more unnecessarily-personal on my account. Hence my given fluidity in comfortability with certain interactions (“surface-level” or otherwise), but as I’ve stated, I absolutely cannot endorse this for just about anyone for reasons that should be fairly self-evident by this point.
I can say that amount of given personalization and self-specification that inherently comes with involvement in some of these arts is what can help seriously clear that ambiguity or indirectness though, especially if you do know what you’re doing with what you have.

>The way they construct their visible manifestations might also extend to how they construct their dream appearances
Yep! There’s that through-line of the given self again, perhaps one that can indeed be influenced with more fluidity from multiple fronts/layers in the case of Youkai & 神 as partially-covered elsewhere.

>Moon is thought to represent an element of time in Shinto worldview
>something there we can work with, maybe?
My mind goes to whatever original concepts for “Eternity” and a truly “Pure” moon ZUN was initially playing-around with in Imperishable Night before that got brushed under a spare Eientei straw mat, but on some internal level I feel a little unqualified for further Lunarian-based discussion at this time…hard to articulate why exactly

A few more posts to come hopefully, wrapping up lingering thoughts now.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47231355
Haha when I did that one thing that made the kami upset with me I had asked them if I should do it or not and to my best of understanding the answer was "follow your heart". I followed something else apparently.
>>47231906
>pear wriggler
That's a pair of words I haven't seen in a while
>we keep coming back for more because it’s just that fun
To be honest for a very long time I have had this strange feeling that my(?) "lifespan" has been much longer than my current biological lifespan and that I have been coming back many times because ultimately it's fun.
>Also Kanako is the coolest aunt
Elaborate on this? Not that I disagree.
>>47232343
>I find it incredibly strange that the Moon, an esoteric symbol of death and rebirth, has immortals living free of that cycle on it.
Yeah the role of the Moon and Lunarians in all of this is so strange and my lack of firsthand experience with the print works does not make thinking about it easier for me. I should fix that...

One also has to mind the fact that Hecatia, Hekate, one of the most enduring old European deities is in Touhou and connected to the Moon, as she is in real life. It's really bizarre when you start thinking about it.

Maybe a bit tangential, but related to the possibility of Hekate manifesting herself outside of Europe: Jason Miller had his first encounter with Hekate in Tibet while meditating in a charnel ground. At that time he did not know what she was, only that the entity that appeared to him was not of any Tibetan or Buddhist origin.

If you think of it, is Japan any substantially more far away from Europe than Tibet? Could Hekate have sent one of her lampads to check out who on Earth is this weird Eastern man, spinning strange new mythologies for a strange new world, intently staring at the moon, wondering what's out there?
>>47233206
>“mental continuum”
>must be tethered on Some level after all.
Yeah that's very true. This is starting to get into very interesting territory that I have very little knowledge of - the continuity of the "soul" and so on.
>I’d certainly say so and could even argue there’s more lanes than that!
Yes, all the entities in the broader existence are probably tangled in some complex we of interaction where they change each other bity byt bit.
>while other enemy classes...are more-so abstract forces From nature without any centralized ego
Fascinating! It does make sense. I don't know if there is a real, strong connection, but both th16 and th18 have a lot of Yin-Yang Orbs, and both have incidents set in motion by deities...
>Potential extreme-extent directed influence from the Mental Layer can hold over fundamentals within the Physical Layer perhaps?
Could be. A lot of these cases feel like they were precursors to being just straight up spirited away.
>At least not in what we would consider a direct & conscious sense imo
Yeah I think things like "forest spirits" might be as far away from us as we are physical from trees, but apparently some kind of interfacing can happen or people wouldn't be able to communicate with them at all - which they apparently do.
>>47234159
>able to see & trace all the branching paths you could/couldn’t make
So essentially there are a grouping of most probably futures, and we might be able to perceive and steer ourselves into them? Or perhaps even very much outside of the expected path? I wonder if something particular will happen if you stray far away from the "most likely"...
>Okina-sama for instance as well, certain let’s say ““involved”” ritualistic practices
I really don't know what to make of the claims, it's possible, but it's also possible it was some weird slander.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47236816
>To be honest for a very long time I have had this strange feeling that my(?) "lifespan" has been much longer than my current biological lifespan and that I have been coming back many times because ultimately it's fun.

Sansara pear wriggler was an apt description, it’s so fun despite everything that we keep coming back for more, I’ve done everything an infinity of times with countless variations of the same things, “me” not being a sufficient description, no more than a player is his character, and it never got old, there is always more to do, more to see, an infinite amount of variations, but we often get "lost" in our own masks and tend to forget the game / the divine joke, etc, we wouldn't be here if it wasen't fun.

Once you realize that everything is a meme / sigil, things make more sense, spirits / egregores are everywhere for those with the eyes to see it, that's a bit reminiscent of Shintoism, you can acknowledge the spirit of an object / place / concept without worshipping it, and the first step to breaking a spell is to be aware of it, every word, every symbol, every idea we have is magical by nature, all books are spell books, every utterance is an incantation, it's all psychofauna.

>Also Kanako is the coolest aunt

That is the aspect she took with me, she does her job so I can do mine, and i was able to see how they worked in a sense, “they” being a spirit / a god / Kami / etc

What does this means? Gods / Spirits live in the mental layer, they aren't behold to many of the limitations we experience as part of being physical, when you "subscribe" to a god, you are now part of a contract with them, you get back as much as you put in, it's transactional in a symbiosis type of way and they give you a hint there, a nudge here, they become what you need, not what you want, but they aren't babysitters and YOU have to put in the work, they can only help, after all, how can you grow if someone does everything for you?

Faith always preceds direct experience, and it's pretty much a prerequisite, if not the main causal factor.

All of this seems like lunacy to an outside observer, but after a certain point, raw rationalization fails to grasp the totality of being and we have to rely on subtle intuition / faith / trust on things higher than ourselves.

Remember, what you see is what you get, change your perception and you change your reality.

[Anonymous No.]

thread went from stuff like >>47184086
"bros, I had a spooky experience when hiking in the mountains and I swear I got pushed by something I couldn't see"
to >>47234202
"oh btw the other day while I was chilling Kanako and Suwako literally manifested in my room, we hung out for a bit"
ayy lmao

[Anonymous No.]

Why do I always find new threads when they're so full of dense posts that by the time I've digested them all, the thread's over?

[Anonymous No.]

ayy lamo...

[Anonymous No.]

>>47222543
I was also hoping that your recovery would have wrapped-up nicely by this point by the way, good to have you back & feeling rested from all that occurred.

>last night involved both sisters requesting help with their appearance and getting cleaned up
If I’m being honest, I’ve been a little invested in your overall tenure at the SDM since you elaborated on the hiring-process that occurred in the last thread & it’s good to see your progress through things continues even in less-than-ideal Physical circumstances. If you know with any certainty, were they at all aware of your conditions or recent involvements outside the boundary possibly effecting you in some-way or was it mostly irrelevant there? Sakuya-san is used to picking up slack, sure, but you’ve clearly proven yourself to be of a more “reliable” sort as they need you.
On a somewhat-flipside to things, I find it a little interesting you should have a dream helping the Sisters tenderly get ready for their days ahead when the following day I, myself, went on to bring my Flan Fumo to work in a far-more-involved sense than I usually feel inclined to anyways with my silly Fumos…she had fun helping around at least!
That Okina/UFO dream of mine also occurred at the Misty Lake but that’s a bit tangential here…

>a glowing ball of light in the night sky shift from blue to green to red, before it drifted behind a mountain and out of sight
>even Nue can show up in the US when she feels like it.
Really trying to put into words some kind of greater point or non-personal elaboration on this subject beyond how I personally just keep finding myself adding more unfathomable-fuel to her incomprehensible-fires but then she just laughs…Potency really can’t be overestimated-enough with some of these girls at times. Something something Sanae something Common Sense in Gensokyo something…

>I got a frog statue.
KeroKero~o^o? (be sure to keep that thing clean & well-revered!)

[Anonymous No.]

>>47236816
>ultimately it's fun.
It really has been, hasn’t it. Messy & Exciting while still retaining a great amount of Thought & Awe.

Truly Numinous Indeed…

>Hecatia, Hekate, one of the most enduring old European deities is in Touhou
>At that time [Jason Miller] did not know what she was, only that the entity that appeared to him was not of any Tibetan or Buddhist origin
>Could Hekate have sent one of her lampads to check out who on Earth is this weird Eastern man, spinning strange new mythologies for a strange new world, intently staring at the moon, wondering what's out there?
Frankly I don’t think the subject of Hecatia Lapislazuli is terribly tangential given the scopes we’ve reached by this point, honestly kinda surprised there hasn’t been anything deeper directly derived from her overall involvements yet but I suppose I’m no more well-equipped to approach such a subject then any of you might be at this time…
Power-scaling aside, ZUN most certainly has some manner of detailed personal history when it comes to dream experience or just generally interacting with the other Layers in far-more intimate ways (whether he leans into letting that on overall or not/is even fully aware of things in these ways regardless).
It’d be clear enough to any number of higher-powers, at least to me, that his doors for potential influence/application would indeed be somewhat “open” as you’ve hypothesized. I don’t think he’d have to worry about too many bad actors from those Levels at this point either really…

>I don't know if there is a real, strong connection, but both th16 and th18 have a lot of Yin-Yang Orbs, and both have incidents set in motion by deities...
Those Orbs/Wheel-Ghosts also tend to show up more frequently in places where potentially-humanistic-ego-based personifications may have much harder times properly metastasizing, such as the later stages deep in the Rainbow Dragon Caves in Unconnected Marketeers as you’ve partially mentioned or when you first reach the Lunar surface in LoLK for example (pretty sure it’s just all Wheel-Ghosts in the Lunar Capital at least). Perhaps 神 and other-such beings are more naturally inclined towards influencing these forces in a more casual or “naturalistic” & almost unconscious sense

>apparently some kind of interfacing can happen or people wouldn't be able to communicate with them at all - which they apparently do
Interconnectedness, nothing more~

>essentially there are a grouping of most probable futures, and we might be able to perceive and steer ourselves into them?
In a more basic sense that certainly isn’t too far off from things. Most people think they’d seriously need something like a precise internal GPS to map-out some of these routes as they see-fit but you really do only need even just the Slightest inclinations for greater substantial action regardless at certain necessary moments. “One step at a time”, as long as you’re being as conscientious as you need to be in a grander sense.
>perhaps even very much outside of the expected path
That “infinite wellspring/pool of raw potential/possibility/influence” I keep circling around has many different layers & crevices of depth throughout its vast span lying beneath that serene surface. Some areas intimately stretch far below, some portions are far-more shallow in comparison and can only offer so much for those who may be concerned.
>I wonder if something particular will happen if you stray far away from the "most likely"...
If the area of the pool in-question is too shallow for your own given sets of overarching circumstances or there are fundamental clashing-points (physical, causal, mental, logical, what-have-you) betwixt where you’ve come from & where you’re going based on those various key moments/decisions, then, to put things somewhat-lightly, that is when true greater dissonance Will start occurring through multiple Layers of expression & influence and by the end of whatever route that follows overall things may end being somewhat…
…”Corrected”.
The change isn’t always necessarily forced, but there are certain breaking points any disparate number of through-lines can reach without the right kind of larger considerations or forethought.

>>47229061
>”fermenting”
All the recent posting of mine seen above is what happens when I “ferment” for long enough personally. Maybe not always the most desirable but…it does help to somewhat have enough space for these thoughts on multiple accounts ^^;;

>>47238359
Yeah! You know, perfectly Normal things. :)
Like the other anon said, it’s all "psychofauna" ripe for the taking & cultivating.
What you see is what you get! Even if it can all feel just “in the mind”

>>47238468
Maybe I'm just painfully optimistic, but given how many posts the last thread continued to receive well-past the 250 mark I'd say we still have some time here...

[Anonymous No.]

>>47238547
Being "cracked" allows light to come in AND out, to the detriment of "normal" outside perspectives, embrace your inner cringe..

[Anonymous No.]

>>47238593
we are all fools just LARPing
but that's what makes it fun
LARP'ing is the prerequisite of being
LARP as a prophet and you eventually become one, if you LARP as a guy that eat worms, after your third, you aren't LARPing anymore
We are who we pretend to be, and eventually after a point, pretending is no longer necessary, you just are.

[Anonymous No.]

Out of curiosity, what are the thoughts of the anons here of the slew of potential omens that have occurred over the past few years? Tamamo's sealing stone breaking, the Irish government cutting down faerie trees, and recently Durandal being stolen, for example.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47238796
knew about the stone breaking, but not the other two, neat
>>47238593
it's not that I think the ramblings are cringe, it's that they're boring
two lines about durandal being stolen and trees getting cut are 500 times more interesting to me than all the dozens of longs posts in here that are empty fluff

[Anonymous No.]

>>47238826
They're both fun and enjoyable to me, it's down to personal preference.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47238796
I wouldn't want to inherently start fully-catastrophizing things based on all the recent "omens" going about since broad-panicking doesn't help anybody, but I was aware of the faerie trees being cut down and it all certainly is "emblematic" of some less-than-ideal underlying global consequences coming to the forefront of things (as has been touched-upon).
I'm certainly not one to mobilize "action" of any kind, nor do I feel fully-appropriate being in such a role, so other anons could have better things to say on the matter here...

>>47238826
(shrug)
To each their own!

[Anonymous No.]

>>47238878
>I wouldn't want to inherently start fully-catastrophizing things based on all the recent "omens" going about
Nah, I'm not suggesting a catastrophe. I just find it interesting to think about the potential implications.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47238796
>Durandal being stolen,
Motherfuckers stole Durandal?!?
Sounds like people are trying to get some magic stuff going but it could also be a rpg minded schizo thinking "I'll pick this legendary sword to defeat the evil lord"
The Tamamo stone was according to one Buddhist account already exorcised, as in Tamamo went like "yep, I've been shit so I'll go to hell and try to do better next life" to some monk iirc.
I think that with time the fascination and fear for the supernatural is somehow growing lately. Could be good or bad or maybe people just going mad.
>>47232343
iirc some Buddhist depict the truth/exiting Samsara with a full moon.
Moonies also thought that the Samsara was fucked so they exited the cycle with their own way similar to Buddha.
Which might be why in Touhou Nirvana seems to be equal with reaching Heaven and Buddhism seems to be some sort of DIY afterlife with the pure lands...
Maybe, I mean ZUN's Buddhism is odd, and my mind is a bit weird right now.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47237180
Just out of curiosity, what was your level of interest and knowledge of "the paranormal" or "the spiritual" before the last thread? You seem to be having an incredibly strong experience and you are taking it really well.
>that's a bit reminiscent of Shintoism, you can acknowledge the spirit of an object / place / concept without worshipping it
Kami no Michi talks about the concept of kannagara, or "natural religion", spontaneous awareness of divinity in (broadly understood here I suppose) nature. So you are right on the money in that.
>every utterance is an incantation
Yes. Of course, that brings some rather heavy responsibilities with it.
>That is the aspect she took with me
It's a nice way to put it. To me, Kanako-sama has felt one of the more distant ones, not cold by any means, but rarely appears unless called for.
>it's transactional in a symbiosis type of way
>they give you a hint there
>a nudge here
>they become what you need, not what you want
>YOU have to put in the work
Very much my experience too, although I suppose in my case there have been a few more forceful nudges along the way. But maybe I have been in need of a bit harder course-correcting.
>>47238359
I know that type of stuff is ridiculous and alienating to many, but I can't dismiss such anymore. If I can have mysterious sporadic flashes of light appear in my apartement for two weeks, have something mess with the cables of my TV and have something teleport my friend's earpods into my slippers while they were staying over, then sure.

Getting messed around by nature spirits that you made upset is an aeons old story. Spirits straight up manifesting in the physical is also an age old story.
>>47238468
This thread has still life in it, but I do suppose I have set an example for excessively verbose posts.
>>47238547
>honestly kinda surprised there hasn’t been anything deeper directly derived from her overall involvements
I'm a bit hesitant to get involved with any more other spirits at this junction, and I've started feeling like an excellent way to get unwillingly involved with spirits is to read about them. Hekate herself might be distant and busy, but if Miller is to be believed, the Lampads are everywhere in the world acting on her behalf.
>ZUN most certainly has some manner of detailed personal history when it comes to dream experience or just generally interacting with the other Layers in far-more intimate ways
It's obvious he's tapped into something, the question is how intentionally. It's really funny if he's really just leaking out all of this and thinking that he is making pure fiction. But I don't think it's like that. The extra notes from Hifuu stories tell their own little story.
>things may end being somewhat…
>…”Corrected”.
I feel like I have may have drifted somewhere here. It's a bit scary.
>>47238625
As much as I wasn't a "gay retard on shrooms", I am not LARPing either. And overall, my concern is less about people lying, they might be, but then the experiences and lessons seem to be strangely consistent.

My concern is that everyone is dead serious, all of this is really, really happening, and at this point I am not sure why this is a "concern". Everything out there isn't friendly, there are said to be deceptive entities out there. But there is also some greater divine nature, and there's probably a limit to some kind of long con that "demons" or "fairies" would try to pull off.

I would have run away a long time ago if they had started being all "uhhh yeah bro abandon all your attachments and come to Gensokyo with us hehe". Demons don't give a fuck about your family relations. Fairies don't want people to be more concerned if you vanish into thin air.

Sometimes when I read the more far out posts I get this feeling of "oh god what have I helped to push forwards", but it was an inevitability. Every Hifuu club and all the "Gensokyo conspiracy theory" discussions started drifting towards this.

Something really is happening, and already by the end of the last thread I felt like the existence of the thread was contributing to it. That's one of the reasons I was hesitant to make a new one.

There's been so much weird shit in my life lately it's difficult to even process, and these threads have contributed to it. Part of my regrets making these.

But hey, one of them did recently tell me that "you will walk this path, you will walk it slow and steady, but you will walk it to the end".

Last night, I saw a fox only about 100 meters from where I live.
>>47238796
Don't forget the 2000 year old Egyptian coffin juice and the Aztec jade mask! Obviously there is a lot going on. What exactly it is, I don't know. Tamamo's stone was extra fascinating because of the popularity of Fate-Tamamo at that point.

I would add the whole "UAP" thing and renewed interest in UFOs to the omens.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47239026
Certainly. There is much greater interest to be had but there's also an amount of ominous-ambiguity to be potentially discovered within these topics that mustn't be too terribly exacerbated, lest we really do start falling victim to the ensuing darkness of it all and lose what little collective footing we still have.
Looking into the details of the Durandal case is leaving me a bit baffled over not only how recent this happening is but also that someone/something would go through the apparent amount of effort even needed to discreetly dislodge the thing from where it rested in the first place, let alone get away with it! Potentially-sleepy rural French tourist countrysides aside that is...
Maybe some diluted but crazy-ambitious fool has it, maybe it's gonna end up bunkered-away above a mantle/in a safe somewhere or maybe it's some unfathomable keystone within a here-unknown scope for Some Goddamn Reason.
Just don't cut yourself too badly if you're the Fucker that still has it.

>>47239888 (lol i say)
The Tamamo stone (or "Death Rock" as some might know it) was indeed already properly exorcised centuries ago and had been showing noticeable signs of weathering on a structural level since at least 2015 or 16. Considering the body & spirit the stone itself used to be in the appropriate legends and the shifts in weight those kinds of "Vile Temptress" mythos are beginning to hold within ever-developing societal-power-imbalances today (ancient imported East-Asian ideological influences for the overarching-mythos itself as it was natively occurring in real-time aside), it may not even be wholly negative for this particular eventuality to have occurred alongside everything else happening.
The fox-related stories from this thread at least haven't been terribly foreboding...

>Moonies also thought that the Samsara was fucked so they exited the cycle with their own way
>ZUN's Buddhism is odd
Probably also why I was finding it so hard to contribute substantial lunar-talk to earlier points. ZUN can have extremely keen intuition while also being just...dumbfoundedly sloppy with certain ideas/greater directions to take things at times or at least with particular outsets (*some* points circulating in that recent Lunarian thread are coming to mind...)

[Anonymous No.]

>>47240528
>Don't forget the 2000 year old Egyptian coffin juice and the Aztec jade mask!
I tried looking into that mask, found a basic article covering one of recent Mayan origin [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-discover-a-1700-year-old-jade-mask-inside-tomb-ancient-maya-king-180983719/] but I'm not sure if it's the exact same mask you're speaking of (I think it might be but I guess I just wanna be sure).
Also the coffin juice story almost made me barf...what the Hell is wrong with us as a collective...

>maybe I have been in need of a bit harder course-correcting.
You may not always be at "merciless whims" per say, but it absolutely is different for everybody. If it wasn't, none of this could work in the ways it has been & will forever continue to.
With that being said,
>I may have drifted somewhere here
>It's a bit scary.
it's perfectly understandable to feel as-such when particular larger aspects to Your Reality start feeling seriously out of your direct grasp. If boiling points are reached, then the ways correction or "uprooting" may end-up occurring could very-well be rather Gruesome brought to any natural extremes (if the scope does run that deep in the first place and depending on who you ask exactly I guess).
However, what's important is how we end up wielding the various roles we find ourselves in throughout these winding courses through what we can exert on the given Layers. It all amounts to Something in the end, it's just that "the end" doesn't have to be too "unnecessary" on any given "negative" front should we collectively will it to be as such.
How we go about individually doing this exactly cannot be reasonably laid-out here in the most specific of ways, but it's certainly more food-for-thought on the matter for the hungrier minds out there.

>I do suppose I have set an example for excessively verbose posts.
I mean hey, it's not like I've been any better here! I really have tried to truncate things at times but when I got something specific to say I find it insanely hard to cut away what I feel is required (the 'tism...)
I'm not imploring absolutely everybody to give me their full-attention on these matters all of the time and I can understand if some points or minutia get a little lost in the relay/translation.
Anyone who needs to end up reading any of this will surely stumble upon it in the due course of their own actions/through their own will & drive anyways, as was the case for me with the tail-end of the last thread and other anons to come likely.

>an excellent way to get unwillingly involved with spirits is to read about them
Y e a h . . .

>It's really funny if he's really just leaking out all of this and thinking that he is making pure fiction
>I don't think it's like that.
Perhaps it wouldn't be too out-there to argue that, per the broader "Fake It 'till you Make It" attitudes some folks can default-to on certain in-depth matters (like what >>47238625 was talking about in a sense), ZUN eventually started taking his role in things a bit more seriously as some internal sense of awareness increased within him. He's been at this for about 30 years now. Without going into what artistic freedoms he's been able to enjoy, that drive can't be fueled through fan-interaction, fame, prosperity and beer alone...Right?

>I am not LARPing either
I've already provided assurances this hasn't been among my underlying-intentions here as well, but I do still think there's a point to what that Anon was saying that can hold weight over any number of relevant matters:

>if you LARP as a guy that eat worms, after your third, you aren't LARPing anymore

>My concern is that everyone is dead serious
>there's probably a limit to some kind of long con that "demons" or "fairies" would try to pull off.
>Something really is happening
>the existence of the thread was contributing to it.
>hesitant to make a new one
>regrets
In the end, those of us here for what were all truly after will be able to do what they can, when they can, as individual action is needed.
I've made at least one anon here cry and possibly countless others experience untold extremes of emotion on multiple fronts.
It is a lot to confront, certainly even harder to fully internalize without over-personalization or letting biases dominate.
Yet here we all still are.
Even if things may get a bit dramatic or daunting at times, I'm still very much looking forward to all that is to come.

>"oh god what have I helped to push forwards"
I can sort-of feel this from you at certain times as well, your Trepidations, beyond just simple relatability and what you've shared that is. It may be a bit funny to describe and could just be basic empathy but there's your "consequences to individual actions" again for ya I suppose~

[Anonymous No.]

I'm gonna start reading about tendai/tiantian buddhism because its the school that worshipped matarajin centuries ago. interestingly, while I follow chan/zen buddhism, it is pretty close and linked to tiantian, and I followed it before I knew that. tiantian also has many esoteric elements to it though it's impossible to access for me since no one follows buddhism let alone tiantian in my country.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47241389
>the school that worshipped matarajin centuries ago
>I followed it before I knew that
>many esoteric elements
>it's impossible to access for me
Your own research into these things with the rightly-backed sources is always the first step in such cases though! Again, doing what you can to further anything there might be and you're already making quite the effort in such regards. Just wish I could provide you with any specific or solid resources myself right now is all I guess...

[Anonymous No.]

>>47240528
>Just out of curiosity, what was your level of interest and knowledge of "the paranormal" or "the spiritual" before the last thread? You seem to be having an incredibly strong experience and you are taking it really well.

I've been doing this manner of thing on and off for years with different results, different systems, different approaches, and while i've been a huge 2hu fan for pretty much a decade at this point, only very quite recently circunstances reignited the spark and passion i had for it, some 2 months before the first thread appeared.

And while i've had quite a few experiences already (So all of this is nothing too strange for me, so much adjustment isn't necessary) the first thread seemed to be the catalyst for some tremendous changes (Mind you that i very rarely come to /jp/ often, this was on a complete whim) and i never such a strong immediate response like that, taking in consideration i've been experimenting with some mental and perceptual frameworks that (atleast for myself) seemed to be an EXTREMELY useful pre-requisite before things kicked off.

In it's own way, it was the key to stop knowing and start being, what i already knew before served me well, but it was a sort of a "dry" knowledge, and little can actually prepare you for when the unusual comes knocking at your door, only actually doing it and your initial mental framework which you hold helps.

While it's not my first "experience", i've NEVER been this sensitive before, but such strong and rapid events in such a seemingly short amount of time really helped me to integrate the underlying "patterns" that are carried across them, and once you learn to recognize them, you can notice how surprisingly common they are, and it's a bit of a feedback loop, the more you notice, the more noticed you are, learn how to roll with the punches to avoid psychosis, how to slow down when needed, etc, as synchronicities are the most common way "reality" has of speaking with you.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47242976
If a meaningful experience happens, and i come back home to the incense i left burning ending up like this, instead of a straight line / scattered ashes that it normally is, i consider it a "wink".

[Anonymous No.]

>>47241261
>I'm not sure if it's the exact same mask you're speaking of
It's actually not! This was an older case. I'm pretty sure it was of Aztec origin, as there were JoJo memes about it when it got found.
>You may not always be at "merciless whims" per say
It's just kinda intense and I have been doing some things which have not made it any less intense. But I feel like the worst is behind me. I feel like it's less about having to bend my path hard and more about the time element, like I needed to make the changes I have made very fast for some reason.
>it's perfectly understandable to feel as-such when particular larger aspects to Your Reality start feeling seriously out of your direct grasp
Yeah it's not very easy to reconstruct your sense of reality to put it lightly. It's not easy to accept there might be something beneficial out there. For some reason I always thought there was something out there but that it would be malevolent.

Some of the things I have done recently would have felt absolutely insane a year ago.

The craziest one so far is apologizing to a deceased family member because I started getting recurring intense dreams featuring them. After I had done that gut-wringing experience I have an overwhelmingly intense mental image of the Big Four congratulating me. Next night I see a much more peaceful dream featuring the deceased family member and no dreams of them for the past two weeks or so now.
>the ways correction or "uprooting" may end-up occurring could very-well be rather Gruesome brought to any natural extremes
Yeah haha let's hope it doesn't get to that...
>how we end up wielding the various roles we find ourselves in throughout these winding courses
As soon as I acknowledged that this is happening trying my best to orient that I would wield my roles in the most ethical way possible became my first priority. It's not easy and I have not always succeeded.
>the broader "Fake It 'till you Make It" attitudes
Yeah you can call yourself "High Priest of the Hakurei Shrine" for maybe 5-6 games untill something happens.
>Yet here we all still are.
And I couldn't resist making the thread!
>I can sort-of feel this from you at certain times as well, your Trepidations
Haha at this point I probably radiate trepidation like a nuclear reactor radiates waste heat.

But I think I am slowly getting on terms with it. I had a kind of an experience today. I went to a beach at the sunset and the world was so beatiful that I was filled with utmost sense that the "kami" that make and maintain this all can in no way be evil. The evil is an anomaly. Good may be too. Most of it just is. I felt at ease and that I have been interpreting certain recent events in far too alarmist light. Why is it easier to imagine being abducted to some fairy land than it is living a balanced, aware life right here? I don't know, and that is the question I have to answer.
>>47241389
Do share your finding about Tendai! I have been scouting out Buddhist organizations in my country and there's surprising a lot going on and relatively near to where I live, including a zendo. I'm even more interested in Zen now if it has links to Tendai.
>>47242976
I see. It would have been extremely exceptional if that one thread with some minimal previous exposure would have catapulted you so far. Well, I still think that whatever is going on with you is of course very exceptional.
>the first thread seemed to be the catalyst for some tremendous changes
Honestly, I don't know if this is weird or very self-centered, but I'm really happy I helped with my small part to push you forwards. Sometimes I get the "oh god what I have done" but you seem to be doing really well overall.
>In it's own way, it was the key to stop knowing and start being
Interesting. I'm definitively one of the knower-thinker types and I think it's also holding me back.
>such strong and rapid events in such a seemingly short amount of time
It seems like a lot of people in these threads have had quite intense experiences lately.
>really helped me to integrate the underlying "patterns" that are carried across them
Patterns in the experiences itself?
>it's a bit of a feedback loop, the more you notice, the more noticed you are
Sounds like the classic "when you get interested in the supernatural, the supernatural gets interested in you".
>learn how to roll with the punches to avoid psychosis, how to slow down when needed, etc
I believe it would be very nice if you shared some of this advice here.
>synchronicities are the most common way "reality" has of speaking with you
What type of synchronities have you been having?
>>47244082
Cute incense burner! And the snake-like pattern of ash is so cool. It even has a little open-jawed snake head too! Just like that rain front that appeared on a day with 0% predicted chance of precipitation.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47244606
>Interesting. I'm definitively one of the knower-thinker types and I think it's also holding me back.

I'll give you an analogy here, it's like reading a manual for boxing / martial arts, but never actually practicing any of the moves, you might know the THEORY but you aren't "being", you don't have the muscle memory, you don't have the dexterity, and so on, those things you can only really adquire by actually practicing what you know, and through that, you are able to adquire a much deeper view that goes far beyond what the text itself says.

>Patterns in the experiences itself?

Everything has underlying patterns, once again as an analogy, if you are a very athletic person, if you try a new sport you haven't before, you'll still be far better off than someone who is very sedentary as virtue of your body being better trained for it, a car mechanic will most likely be able to fix mechanical things that aren't cars due to the underlying patterns common the field, and so on, it is same for supernatural things, even if they come in different "flavors", once you are "aware" of the common grounds they tend to come in, it's easier to both spot and deal with them, though my previous "focus" before this was mostly in goetia and CCRU/Numogram related things, which are another insane highly entropic rabbit hole.

>I believe it would be very nice if you shared some of this advice here.

I'll tell you what i've been told directly, both by mundane and more otherwordly sources, slow down, calm down, it isn't a race, these things always have been here and they aren't going anywhere, we are all addicted to insight but the real work is actually INTEGRATING what you've learned, our souls / minds can only handle so much at once, so focus on actually integrating your experiences so you grow from them, and thus become better able to handle more intense ones in the future with a better perspective on them.

>What type of synchronities have you been having?

Mostly very strong intrusive thoughts to learn a specific thing/ go somewhere / etc, and those become very relevant later on, when you least expect them coming, plus a lot more frog / snake related symbology/views in my local area when there weren't many before (or i just started noticing), alongside relevant things to my thoughts showing up JUST as i was thinking about them / answering my questions before i asked them, those are a few examples, by their nature, sychronicities are deeply personal and only really make sense to the individual outside of exceptionally unusual ones (Like a random person DM'ing me to ask who do i worship / snake trail incense, and so on)

[Anonymous No.]

>>47244888
>888
Very cool, thanks

[Anonymous No.]

>>47244606
>"But I think I am slowly getting on terms with it. I had a kind of an experience today. I went to a beach at the sunset and the world was so beatiful that I was filled with utmost sense that the "kami" that make and maintain this all can in no way be evil. The evil is an anomaly. Good may be too. Most of it just is. I felt at ease and that I have been interpreting certain recent events in far too alarmist light. Why is it easier to imagine being abducted to some fairy land than it is living a balanced, aware life right here? I don't know, and that is the question I have to answer.
Kami are not necessarily benevolent. There are numerous Shintō spirits and demons that must be appeased to avoid calamity, but there is no absolute dichotomy between good and evil. All phenomena manifest "rough" and "gentle" characteristics. The noted Japanese scholar Motoori Norinaga 本居宣長(1730-1801) defined kami as anything that was "superlatively awe-inspiring," either noble or base, good or evil, rough or gentle, strong or weak, lofty or submerged. There is no definitive standard of good and evil, there is no moral code. Things are as they are. Even the evil bloodsucking Kappa has some redeeming qualities -- i.e., when benevolent, the Kappa is a skilled teacher in the art of bone setting and other medical practices. "
>Do share your finding about Tendai! I have been scouting out Buddhist organizations in my country and there's surprising a lot going on and relatively near to where I live, including a zendo. I'm even more interested in Zen now if it has links to Tendai.
zen buddhism (and other schools) were founded by tendai monks and both are mahayana in general.
from wikipedia:
"Other unique elements include an exclusive use of the bodhisattva precepts for ordination (without the pratimoksha), a practice tradition based on the "Four Integrated Schools" (Pure Land, Zen, Mikkyo and Precepts), and an emphasis on the study of Chinese Esoteric Buddhist sources.[4] David W. Chappell sees Tendai as "the most comprehensive and diversified" Buddhist tradition which provides a religious framework that is "suited to adapt to other cultures, to evolve new practices, and to universalize Buddhism.""
although zen is very focused on practice and meditation and is probably the least "religious" school of buddhism out there, so don't expect much more in the terms of "spiritual", at least not more than personal cultivation and growth, and a LOT of sitting staring at walls. chan on the other hand while being the originator and brother of zen is in practice often mixed with pure land in chinese temples and thus has more "religious" characteristics. though in the end, you can follow both zen and tendai, as tendai believe all roads lead to rome (enlightenment) and I quite agree.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47245298
I did some reading on Tendai and...is screenshot attached the reason why in Touhou Gouyoku Ibun Okina is depicted as trying to force a relationship with one of the animal spirit clans??

[Anonymous No.]

>>47245298
"During the ceremony a priest rides on a black ox.[27] He recites a formula meant to eliminate all calamities and bring happiness, wears a mask representing Matarajin, and is accompanied by four monks dressed as red and green demons, symbolically representing the Four Devas.[2]"
matarajin and bishamonten have links =D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwSaiHnoAw4
anyone who might speak japanese could help me out? I want to know if there's any text to pray to matarajin documented out there so I can pray on my end. english side is very scarce when it comes to info.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47244606
>After I had done that gut-wringing experience I have an overwhelmingly intense mental image of the Big Four congratulating me.
Alright Big Four Anon, from now on my mental image of you will be Shinji.
>Why is it easier to imagine being abducted to some fairy land than it is living a balanced, aware life right here?
The simple idea that the former will whisk you away from the problems you have to deal with IRL. It's fallacious thinking, to be sure, as regardless of what your environment is, there are going to be issues that stem from yourself, but it's an easy trap to fall into.

I've been doing more thinking myself, and while frankly I think interest in the supernatural may be less of a factor so much as the inherent willingness to acknowledge it, (someone who denies its existence, even if they're 'noticed' by it, will never report its effects, even if they're brought to the person's attention) there's also the matter that perhaps my own dealings with it, or relative lack thereof as I grumbled about earlier, is just a matter of the fact that you guys clearly have more of an interest participating in such things than most other /jp/ users. Without getting into any level of blogposting, I largely would prefer to not add anything supernatural to what I have to deal with when I frankly feel I have enough responsibilities on my plate already, which may be the lynchpin of why I just can't hope to keep up on the same level as the rest of the regulars here.

[Anonymous No.]

Bump

[Anonymous No.]

>>47244888
>those things you can only really adquire by actually practicing what you know
Yes. At least I have managed to persist with daily meditation.
>it is same for supernatural things, even if they come in different "flavors"
I see. I think I have gotten something of a feel for this through reading & some of the practice. You start noticing similar stuff cropping up sooner than later.
>my previous "focus" before this was mostly in goetia and CCRU/Numogram related things
Oh, you were into some heavy stuff. Very interesting that with such a background the humble esoteric in Touhou thread would be the last puzzle piece for you.
>slow down, calm down, it isn't a race
>the real work is actually INTEGRATING what you've learned
I do feel that I have been pushing way too hard lately. There was a perioid of couple weeks where it felt like nothing but the "supernatural" and "spiritual" was of any interest. I feel like I learned much (and I didn't get abducted to fairy land) but I seriously need to take it easier.

They probably agree, considering the whole "you will walk this path, you will walk it slow and steady, but you will walk it to the end" thing.
>by their nature, sychronicities are deeply personal and only really make sense to the individual
Yeah, I know, but thanks for sharing. It does help me and the others understand what kind of things you are going through.
>>47245298
>Kami are not necessarily benevolent
>There are numerous Shintō spirits and demons that must be appeased to avoid calamity
Yes, but when it comes to the natural world, what we see as calamity might be a largely neutral event from a wider perspective. I guess I see intentional evil a bit differently at this point.
>Things are as they are
Yeah.
>so don't expect much more in the terms of "spiritual", at least not more than personal cultivation and growth, and a LOT of sitting staring at walls
Yeah, but I think the heavy focus on practice might be just what I need at the moment.
>>47245421
What's going on in the video? Some kind of a prayer?
>>47246376
>from now on my mental image of you will be Shinji
>The simple idea that the former will whisk you away from the problems you have to deal with IRL
You're so mean lol. Jokes aside, there is an element of truth to that, but I think it's also a mix of recent events creating this feeling that a lot is happening in a very short span of time mixed with the fear of the unknown. So when things start drasticaly changing, it's easy to fear that they might drasticaly change for the worst.

And it's honestly been a lot to take in. There's so many things that I could, maybe should, worry about, starting from the fact that hey, apparently I have some kind of a soul?
>I think interest in the supernatural may be less of a factor so much as the inherent willingness to acknowledge it
That's an interesting take, I can't really say yes or no to this. I do feel there is an element of "interest", but certainly willingess to acknowledge could very well be part of it.
>you guys clearly have more of an interest participating in such things than most other /jp/ users
Haha yeah.
>I frankly feel I have enough responsibilities on my plate already
Understandable. I would have not willingly done so myself, but it happened. I do feel that there is a some point of dealing with your shit (you seem to be oriented towards it) that makes certain entities interested in you. Maybe some ones that might want to hinder you, but I also very strongly feel like there are entities out there who very much apreciate people who try to overcome whatever they are stuck in. So you might find all of this ahead of you some day.
>I just can't hope to keep up on the same level as the rest of the regulars here
As it's been said, this isn't a race, you should not risk your wellbeing to impress a bunch of /jp/sies or to "get an experience". The writeup you did on the extended Touhou canon via print works and it's relevance was a really great contribution. You have done a lot for these threads already.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47250543
>Yeah, but I think the heavy focus on practice might be just what I need at the moment.
that's the right mindset. I wish you luck. I found a lot in meditation and zazen. do not expect anything out of it. just be. that's the best advice I can give, to just be.
>What's going on in the video? Some kind of a prayer?
reciting a mantra I think.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47250543
here's a funky short essay for whoever is interested, it should make man things a LOT clearer once you are able to grasp what it's talking about, psychofauna are just as real as any of us in their own way, and just as ideas can "come to life", they can also build themselves from the ground up, if you are aware of the concept of superstition, i'll now introduce you to hyperstition, which is EXTREMELY relevant to the contents of the past discussion, though in a more modern way.

“Hyperstitions by their very existence as ideas function causally to bring about their own reality,” explains the CCRUs Nick Land. “The hyperstitional object is no mere figment or ‘social construction’ but it is in a very real way ‘conjured’ into being by the approach taken to it” (ibid). Even conventional historians allude to this process. As Fernández-Armesto cautions in Civilizations (2001: 544), “illusions – if people believe in them -change the course of history.”


https://www.secretorum.life/p/ideas-are-alive-and-you-are-dead

https://www.orphandriftarchive.com/articles/hyperstition/

[Anonymous No.]

>>47250631
figured it out, it's the mantra "om beishiramandaya sowaka"

[Anonymous No.]

What do the anons here think of this?

[Anonymous No.]

>>47250918
For the last post on that image, this is a quite relevant wikipedia page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47250918
Ah, I see you found that as well. (I'm the one posting the joke about the jizou revenge, etc.)
Personally, I'm all for following along with it, though my actions are obviously colored by what I have experienced in the past, and there is plenty of overlap between the quantum and the paranormal even if it's difficult to explain to outside observers.

For instance, that of Yukari and how she plays into all that. A long dive the other night had me in a mental place that saw her possible influence with all of this.

Specifically, that of photons and the double slit experiment tying into how these entities exist in a place and state of being that is both separate but on top of our own, as the new Hifuu album shows with its extrapolation on waves and their function.

To clarify, I was reading the post of the Anon who responded to me about the SDM, and the title of Flan's spellcard popped into my head: Q.E.D.-ripples of 495 years. The reason this stuck is lost to me, but the way she moves in the attack is that of a wave disturbing the field in how quantum physics describes some things. This led me to the Latin phrase of QED (quod erat demonstrandum), meaning "that which was to be demonstrated". Literally it states "what was to be shown" (ripped from Wiki, by the way).

This then led me to look at what qed would mean from the quantum angle, and I was led to quantum electrodynamics, which (wiki rip) "mathematically describes all phenomena involving electrically charged particles interacting by means of exchange of photons and represents the quantum counterpart of classical electromagnetism giving a complete account of matter and light interaction.

In technical terms, QED can be described as a very accurate way to calculate the probability of the position and movement of particles, even those massless such as photons, and the quantity depending on position (field) of those particles, and described light and matter beyond the wave-particle duality proposed by Albert Einstein in 1905."

Probability.
How Gensokyo and the two barriers work under/with the limitations of needing to explain how they work from both a scientific and magical aspect to not null itself out of both existences with a paradox. And this finally led me to Yukari's ribbon on her hat. It's the figure 8, infinity, yes. But it's also describing the Feynman diagram of probability amplitudes.

>>47238510
I'll give you a better rundown in the next post about it all, but suffice to say it's both "yes" and "no" on how what happened to me with that thing influenced my job(?) in the other world, haha.

[Anonymous No.]

Luck?

[Anonymous No.]

I'm really not sure if it is or not at this point...

Did it ever Matter ?

[Anonymous No.]

>>47251548
>>47251574
What?

[Anonymous No.]

>>47251586
Sorry lol, I'm the second response there and the Anon that Eclipse was talking about in >>47251073
I've been holding my breath on saying anything substantial again cause so far all of this has been really great and I'm finding myself just doing a lot of grinning & nodding anyways while keeping myself steady but I was having another one of those "synchronicity" moments in real-time with the posting & my own activities again so I guess I should say something greater for now.
One moment...

[Anonymous No.]

So first off, without just somewhat-echoing or pointing out a lot of other excellent new individual points, analogies and links here I'd like to at least say (for now on the following subject) that I was hoping whatever's lurking beneath the posts in >>47250918 would be brought up again in a place like this at some point (even if the topic slipped my own mind with everything that's been personally going on with me lately, there's my poor thread management showing again I guess...)

Secondly, if you're in a similar real-life position to >>47246376 and do have enough on your plate as it stands with everything that's been presented here, that's obviously just fine in the grand scheme of things.
Even if you do have your various ties while still having some sort of set "time" to come into a lot of the subject matter here, your immediate focuses should still be on maintaining the wellness & constructive functions of those necessary or important ties/grounding agents you've established as many anons here do still understand. I'm balancing these things with work & studies myself, even if the scope of my future has now been completely pried open to allow me insight into as much as I Can even perceive right now.
Different paths all around, it's been well-enough we've had as much overlap as there has been.

Finally, on kind-of a lighter note, I was also honestly half-picturing KeikiAnon as a Shinji-type since earlier this week for reasons I don't really fully understand right now even, but I guess it's funny to see that outside of my semi-random psyche. No offense intended of course, these things just happen for some reason.

Looking forward to that rundown! I'll be trying to focus my efforts on wrapping-up those notes on the last thread I have when I can, it'll be a bit much to take in (especially with how I've structured them...) but they can hopefully amount to something here.
Also, I said what I said about the topic of Luck because if moments like these are the results regardless then does that actually matter? A lot of people would call me lucky but most of the time I just feel a little dumbfounded towards things in my core, probably reflective in what I've talked about as well ^^;;

[Anonymous No.]

Reading Shinto theology. There is a well-established precedent of a fictional character becoming a kami. Tamakazura from Tale of Genji became a kami. Fascinating!

[Anonymous No.]

I have a feeling that almost everything has the potential “to be” already exists in some way in the noosphere / emanation from the world of forms, etc and eventually makes its way here.


Captcha: V TOY

[Anonymous No.]

I found something really interesting. It's a documentary about a mountain trail around Hakuba. Around 15:20 it mentions a game the villagers would play. It's basicaly trying to see the shapes of other things in the snow and rocks of the mountains.

ZUN has probably done this too. It's quite interesting, training yourself into increasing pareidolia in your perception. Perhaps such would unlock the ability to perceive the world in a different light..?

There's something about the presentation of the Touhou games that makes me wonder. Why the endless spirals of mandala-like danmaku? It's frankly quite psychedelic at times.

Is it just a coincidence, or do they reflect some kind of visionary states ZUN has experienced? I'm starting to feel like it's very much possible to go into such states without the involvement of any kind of psychedelics.

This all has gotten me thinking about something. If we accept that spirits are real and that they can communicate to humans via mental imagery, could the fractals people tend to perceive in altered states of consciousness be either representations of spirits or possibly some form of communication? We have tended to treat these phenomena as being inborn, but what if it's not?

Would it then be possible that the various danmaku patterns depicted within the game might be some kind of communication? Communication we cannot understand directly, but such that it might be understood through the subconscious..?

I can't possibly be the only one who feels like staring at those patterns has rewired their brain. If it's not communication, perhaps it's our very own "pareidolia game", a way to rewire some part of our visual perception...
>>47250641
Thanks for sharing, but I am at a point where I feel like if I dive into some CCRU stuff right now my head will explode. Others who are a bit less at capacity so to say will probably find that very interesting though!
>>47250631
Thank you. I think building a steady meditation practice without any expectations is probably important at this point.
>>47251073
It's really interesting that this stuff is leaking outside of this thread. The new Hifuu album really has something going on.
>Q.E.D.-ripples of 495 years
>the way she moves in the attack is that of a wave disturbing the field
>"what was to be shown"
>quantum electrodynamics
>Probability.
>Yukari's ribbon on her hat. It's the figure 8, infinity, yes. But it's also describing the Feynman diagram of probability amplitudes.

Oh man that's quite the rabbit hole! I don't really know enough about the quantum stuff to really comment beyond that, but that's a really cool find! The double meaning behind QED feels very ZUN.
>>47251802
>I was also honestly half-picturing KeikiAnon as a Shinji-type since earlier this week
I'm not like Shinji at all...
>>47255238
>already exists in some way in the noosphere / emanation from the world of forms
If we accept that there is some kind of inteligence, consciousness, life beyond Earth, absolutely.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47238510
To answer how they interacted with me while I was sick and technically taking care of them: They never said anything and I couldn't feel any "sickness" in that place, whatever it actually may be, but the fact that they were both taking things slow and just wanting me to set out their clothes and brush their hair and help with a button or two may have been their way of telling me to take it easy then. The most they asked for that dream was to get tea poured up while Sakuya was busy with..everything else, and we know how the fairies can be.

>>47256427
Basically, I'm approaching what you're thinking about the state of mind and the patterns from another direction. Essentially, we can hypothesize how "in the know" Zun is with his work and actions, or if he's being used as a mouthpiece or focal point for the other things and beings that exist to interact with our side in a way that allows them a better way of expressing their own existence, etc. Even the human brain has a part that naturally generates DMT, and humans have used patterns ever since they could first conceive of such to do just about any and everything. The earliest markings of human history can be summed down to an effort to shout into the void "I was here-I existed!" The same can be said of everything else that's not human, and in a way, these patterns and hypnotizing movements are an action by these beings to do the same thing, just on a less-than-open method. many of them can't simply show up at your house and go "hey, I'm here", but at this point it would just get into a philosophical debate and last as long as humanity like all the other things that have been dreamed or thought up.

So let's put it this way to maybe help what I'm saying in the other post be better understood.

Imagine an alien has come to Earth, and you are tasked with showing it how a car works. What's the first step you do? Most would say "move the seat", or "turn the key", or any other variation you can think of. But how many are going to tell it how to open the door first? We miss things that may be obvious to us, but difficult or unknown to others. So to help with what I'm referring to with Yukari and, to a lesser degree Flan (and how intelligent she and her sister may actually be despite looking how they do in stature, etc.): Reimu asked Yukari how the border works, and Yukari went off on a long tangent about quantum mechanics and fantasy, and all that.

The meat of the matter? You can't have a place where the fantastical exists fully separated from the mundane or the place wouldn't be able to exist, and vice versa. The border(s) act as a middle ground, where from the outside it has to exist from a scientific point of view, and from the inside must exist from a magical/fantastical point of view. Otherwise? It implodes on itself. The same can be said about this website and our interaction here. I know I exist, and you know you exist, but until this interaction between us, neither one was even cognizant of the others existence, let alone opinions and thoughts and feelings and experiences.

I exist to myself, and you exist to yourself, but I have no way of knowing your age, gender, ethnicity, political opinions, religious beliefs, you could be a human or youkai or Kami or even a talking dog for all I know (And nobody on the internet knows you're a dog. Nobody.). The same for your perspective-I could be anything from a human to a bot to a figment of your consciousness interacting with you here and now. But the crux is that without this medium of 4chan and this thread, we wouldn't even know of one another, and in essence that's the same thing they are doing, all in their own ways that they know. This is from a religious or paranormal experience, all the way to a mathematical equation and mental gymnastics problem that solidifies their reality. And in the same manner of them using spellcards or hypnotic patterns in a videogame or the drunk ramblings of a pseudo-unofficial, self-appointed head priest....they are doing the same thing humans have been doing for aeons; "I'm here! Look at me! Acknowledge me! I exist!"

Science and magic are two sides of the same coin, and that coin is reality. It can be subjective, objective, it doesn't really matter. but what does is when you turn that coin sideways and see it's all the same-right there in the middle where both sides meet. From game patterns to musical compositions and waves of photons. That's the non-euclidean hyperspace of Yukari's work, and that's the mandala patterns in a videogame, and the dreams and otherworldy interactions we have with them, and it's you and me and all the rest, talking on this board and trying to make sense of it all. But aren't we all, in a way?

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47257094
>Reimu asked Yukari how the border works, and Yukari went off on a long tangent about quantum mechanics and fantasy, and all that.
EclipseAnon... That was a shitpost edit... That dialogue never occurred in canon.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47257623
Even if it was a shitpost, the logic in what Yukari's dialog is explaining is correct how Gensokyo would work from a scientific point of view, with some suspension of disbelief thrown in.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47257712
That's some EXTREME artistic license of science to argue that. Even more than ZUN actually does.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47257886
Have you seen the thread we're in and the topics discussed? Just sounds like you lack faith.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47257623
trolling is a divine art, and every good joke has a nugget of truth to it

[Anonymous No.]

Right now I’m pondering how to distill / condense what I already “know” mixed with some speculation based on that on the points we’ve laid on this thread and the first one, so if this is still up tomorrow, I’ll hopefully have something ready.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47257928
I've been in this thread and the previous one for a while, and you taking that at face value is making it much harder to take anything you said across these threads seriously.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47259535
Then you've missed the point if you think I did. I'm not here to convince specifically you of anything, either. I'm here for the same reasons as everyone else-to make sense of it all and share what we know.

Now if you want to get technical and really argue for no reason like you seem to be, whoever did that panel had a good understanding of quantum physics and filled the gaps where our current understanding of it is lacking or "doesn't make sense" with the fantastical. You can pick and choose literally everything here and the previous thread that you want and argue the same exact thing. There is no perfectly laid out set of instructions that will tell you the right answer and the secrets of the universe. If there was, then we'd be sitting on the grand unified theory and would have bigger problems to deal with.
"I've been here since the beginning, and the stories of the Kami and how they work is making it hard for me to take seriously"

"I've been here since the beginning, and scientific theory is making it hard for me to take seriously"

"I've been here since the beginning, and x,y,z religion is making it hard for me to take seriously"

And so on, and so forth, ad nausem.

Of all the other supposed loopholes and cracks in everyone else's logic of how it "fits", you choose me to pick out? It doesn't matter if that was made by a fan, a ahitposter, or your grandmother-if it works, it works. You're not stuck with spontaneous apotheosis or all-consuming knowledge of the world, so you're in the same boat as the rest of us. Lego pieces, Anon. "Stand on the shoulders of giants" and all that. The answer isn't all in one location, it's from all over. That's the point I'm making. So why does a shitpost that turned out to be mostly factually correctand my using it cause you problem, but me telling the story of how I had a literal time-stopping blade maid appear right in front of me and I was questioning my own sanity doesn't make you doubt my logic? And then what of the others and their stories?

It doesn't make sense. Don't build up an idea of me in your head and then be disappointed that I don't solely draw off of a strict set of scientifically, peer approved set of information that's been verified to be 100 percent "correct". I'm just a guy(?) on here like you are.

[Anonymous No.]

Yeah I gotta say for now, as the Anon who’s talked about being projected into a literal fucking Catgirl by some purple-clad blonde hag from another Layer of reality (among many other understandably fantastical things) I can’t believe it was That EclipseAnon post of all things here to finally start breaking it for ya.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47259763
See? The catgirl gets it.

[Anonymous No.]

Too much fiction. Too many psychidelics.
Reality has more than meets the eye, but it shan't be seen in places like this...

[Anonymous No.]

>>47259763
It's not hard to comprehend if you have functioning neurons. Something operating under mechanisms that are acknowledged as not being understood is far more believable than asserting something that clearly contradicts understood physics.

>>47259732
>whoever did that panel had a good understanding of quantum physics
Bait used to be believable.

[Anonymous No.]

For reference to the doctored image.
Sounds right if you have some degree of understanding what she's talking about, and the rest that doesn't match gets filled with the fantasy bits. Yakumo-it (her shikigami)just works.

They right.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47260234
And this part explains how someone from the inside experiences the Outside, and how Yukari immediately steps in to pull a 4th-dimensional warp fuckery bullshit move to put the pieces back in place via Rinnosuke falling outside because he put an iPod to his ear and ended up at the flip side Hakurei shrine.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Curiosities_of_Lotus_Asia/Chapter_11

[Anonymous No.]

So I have been thinking about the games itself lately and I really strongly feel like there are elements in there that are meant to cultivate a more magical perception of the world.

ZUN himself talks about his desire to maintain a "chuunibuyo attidute" untill he dies, defining it as "the heat of life" and "explosion of one's imaginative power".

I feel like these elements are also oozing out of the games. There is something about how it looks like, sounds like, plays like that makes it come together.

The gameplay forces you to pay attention to minute details, requires repetition and perseverance. You are exposed to confusing mandala battles. If you play these games over long stretches of time, you can feel your brain rewire itself. Eventually, you start to perceive the patterns among the noisiest danmaku. These changes are of course going to carry over to rest of your life.

What do you think happens when you start putting this concentration, grit and attention to detail, ability to perceive patterns from the noise to use elsewhere?

On the presentation side, there is an atmosphere of innocent, magical whimsy, girly and colorful, comfortable, beatiful and inviting. But there is also a dark side to this, scary youkai of boundaries, spirit creatures holding humans captive, even consuming them whole...

It's hard to put what I think into exact words, but I feel like "the magical" operates on a very strange boundary transgressing way where reality and imagination mingle together. A lot of fantastical narratives work just as well as descriptions of more literal events as they do as metaphors. A forest might have good fairies and bad fairies, kami and youkai, just as it might have beatiful and usefu plants as it can have poisonous plants and dangerous animals.

There's this constant churning of perception and projection, narrative and reality that magic dwells in, perhaps most strongly acts on. The challenge is to not get lost in this churning, but to maintain your focus.

How this relates to Touhou is that there might be both a more literal and more metaphorical narrative going on. There might be a fairy land in rural Nagano, cut off from the rest of the world by spirits that seems idyllic but has a dark side to it. There might be an immensively popular doujin game series that is beatiful but can cultivate dangerous, self-consuming obsessions with it.

Sift the bad from the good. Take the ability to see magic in the world, the focus, determination and ability to see patterns. Don't get "eaten" by "youkai", don't get lost in the fairy land.

It's even harder to put into words what I'm trying to say next, but on some level, it's a spectacle, a theater. The supernatural, the spiritual will interupt the recurring cycles and loops that make up your life. The discontinuity propels you into a state of heightened learning and insight. In these moments it's possible to reach immensively powerful forces that can act as teachers. You can see the drama in the patterns, maybe even the lessons. You will always learn something. You will always change.

Time doesn't seem to pass in Gensokyo. Maybe time is an illusion and Gensokyo reveals it's absurdity. But perhaps Gensokyo is in a loop that mirrors the eternaly recurring loops in our own lives, punctuated by occasional supernatural drama. It's an endless mill of narratives and archetypes.

There's a weird peripheral idea in the magic scene that you can live "multiple lifetimes in one" if you practice magic. I'm starting to understand it now. Life is cycles. It's possible to make those cycles faster or slower or to interrupt them via means considered "magical" or "spiritual".

I do think there is more to it, too. It's too complex a phenomenon to be purely narrative either.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47259535
same

[Anonymous No.]

>>47260234
>Sounds right if you have some degree of understanding what she's talking about
You do realize that with every time you double down, you just further prove that you're a pseudo-intellectual only posting here in the hopes of getting the acknowledgement of internet strangers, right? Not too dissimilar to what Yukari is actually like, I suppose, which would explain why you latch onto this edit so strongly.
>>47261193
>It's too complex a phenomenon to be purely narrative either.
A lot of that I could sort of follow and agree with, but Touhou following "sazae-san time" as ZUN puts it definitely isn't. Considering how inconsistent and self-contradictory a lot of the lore gets, I'd imagine the esoteric elements like that are subconsciously placed because the dude clearly doesn't have the writing skill, much less the nuance, to effectively thread in such ideas and themes.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47261193
One thing to make note of about the flow of time in Gensokyo compared to the Outside world is that while they don't appear to age like you've mentioned, the collapse of the shrine by Tenshi can be matched to the collapse of the Hakuba shrine in the real world, so there's some weird time thing going on for sure. Teimu and Marisa should be in their late 20s-early 30s by now, and Akyuu should be on deaths door with her limited lifespan, but whether that's artistic license on Zun's part or something quasi explained in the settings world as some higher mechanism is entirely up in the air unless we're all missing something.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47263691
That reminds me-depending on time zone, it's around the time of Tanabata right now. So everyone find a "taboo" to break and see what happens. Maybe we'll have a jp Anon in Japan go visit the hill and meet with the Jizou. One can hope.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47263158
>I'd imagine the esoteric elements like that are subconsciously placed
The degree to which the elements come from some subconscious route vs some more direct route is an interesting one. ZUN obviously has done research into the culture and religion of Japan and more in particular the places where he has lived in. But the whole does feel more coherent, more "souled" than one would expect from a sprinkling of myths from a not so great writer.

I also believe that there are cases where you can be a terrible writer (or artist of any kind I suppose) where you fumble the bag with 80% of the work, but some core 20% saves it. Is ZUN such a creator? I don't know.

There is a reason why people are so fixated with these games.

One could also imagine there are forms of creativity which appear "bad" from the POV of attempting to construct coherent forward-moving narrative. But if one were to establish a kind of a new mythology, would not the internal conflicts, lack of a greater "plot", people making biased interpretations simply mirror how things are? If there is a "kind side" and a "rough side" to the world, isn't there such to Gensokyo too?

I also feel like there is some signifigance to Gensokyo being stuck in a "timeless" state. Both the idea of cycles and interruptions to them and in contrary the idea that time is an illusion are too prevalent.

If more was known of ZUN's creative process (perhaps there is something out there which I'm just not aware of) something more definitive could be said. No matter if it's intentional, subconciouss or channeled, I do feel like Touhou has a very particular, very souled, very numinous character. You can really feel that "heat of life", and it does rub off on to you. If it didn't, I don't think the people here would have ever had these conversations either.

I've certainly felt that "heat of life" and a "explosion of creativity" and the way I see things has probably been irrevocably changed.

And of course there is still some larger than 0% chance it's an illusion. It's all just nothing but coincidences and projections in a mandala of delusion. We're talking about Gensokyo afterall. But in that case, it's a most remarkable illusion. If one can derive so much insight and change inspired by an illusion, what can be achieved if something non-illusionary is found? Shinto, Daoism and Buddhism are all still very real and will start revealing their secrets to anyone who is willing to look deeper into the lore behind Gensokyo.

My experience points that there is something in there, out there that responds to names and depictions that correlate with certain Touhou characters. What exactly they are, I don't know. But at this point they have inspired me to study so many life-changing things that even if they were to one day vanish or to reveal themselves to be something completely different than what I imagine them to be...I would still honor them. They deserve to be honored for showing the way and pushing me forwards. But I also need to honor their distant cousins who are everywhere here where I live, put the things I have been pushed to learn into practice.

I want to be worthy of meeting the kami. I don't want to be eaten by youkai.

[Anonymous No.]

It’s been a long day and I’m hoping to get the post I’ve been pondering done through the power of unconscious forces through which after a certain point the text writes itself, and which will hopefully be helpful to the right person that stumbles upon them

[Anonymous No.]

>>47266346
anon...
"pondering through the power of unconscious forces and the text writing itself" is just called half-assing what you write, non sequitur under a different name doesn't really change anything
it does explain the long stream of posts itt that didn't have coherent points, I guess

[Anonymous No.]

>>47266346
Turns out the MoF title screen was accurately representing what i was trying to do, desacralization of wonderland, and my post was turning into an autopsy rather than a biopsy.

but to still give a "hint" to whoever gives a shit, look into hyperstition and instrumentalization that comes through it, belief / disbelief as a part of it and as a a tool, circuits, synchronicities and coherence, possibilities with narrative and metanarrative threads, understand how interfaces for narratives work, active imagination (Jung) "theatre that is for real” —a communion with the Outside—", understand what an image REALLY is and their power, Iconoclasm that results from them.

the “borders of the conscious” are influenced by the unconscious and vice versa.

This means that essentially man’s “software” can determine its “hardware”, and the “hardware” can determine the “software”.

I've been given very strong hints not to spoonfeed too much, but these are a few of the basics of the psychic-spiritual mechanisms behind the funny egregores of girls with silly hats, and to give an idea of the interface / framework they operate in.

TLDR things exist and don't exist at the same time and belief / disbelief helps deal with that uncertainty that they manifest themselves through, and narratives can operate in multiple levels, even seemingly conflicting ones.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47266935
Thank you, you've been very helpful with this.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47266951
I was writing a MUCH denser post, but dumping pre-chewed memetohazards in a nice thread like this would be inauspicious, i hope the anons here find what they're looking for, i'm happy to share my insight for most part, but ultimately everyone has their own personal journey to go through and they all deal with it their own ways.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47266935
Yeah let's not desacralize the wonderland. Some of the things there, the role of narratives, "theatre that is real", resonate with me, but I am at a point where I feel like my head will explode if I study more about things.

I feel strongly there is some "narrative" element at play, both on a larger cultural scale and on a personal level. But I also feel that is not the only thing going on.

Maybe it's just that stories and narratives are both shaped but also sustain belief in things. Maybe it's the power of the numinous to disrupt set life narratives. But on some weird level I feel like they live in narratives, not in a way where it's made up, but almost as if the story is first, and then come the events. And most certainly there have been events.

But it's not a one-way process where the events are dicated to us either. Beliefs, narratives, stories, perceptions could very well be the fulcrum with which we exert pressure on the "Mental Layer".

There's so much to integrate.

Thank you for this nevertheless, there may be other anons who will find this helpful in this very moment.

I had personaly hoped to explore certain esoteric aspects of Touhou lore more in depth, but I kept getting sidelined by everything else. I think there is still much work to be done, especially lore about the Suwa myths and Okina-sama. The impact of Daoist ideas on Shinto creation myths and certain wider elements of Japanese cultured is also underexplored. Perhaps such is behind ZUN's strange, conspiratorial portrayal of Daoism.

To cap this thread off, here's a list of external links that got posted during the course of this thread:

On the worldbuilding of Touhou and it's relation to real life esoteric insights
https://pastebin.com/bE0GGVAC

Info on Hakuba, ZUN's childhood neighbourhood
https://w.atwiki.jp/th_seiti/pages/53.html

Kami no Michi, history, Shinto theology and some practice:
https://web.archive.org/web/20001218105000/http://www.csuchico.edu/~georgew/tsa/Kami_no_Michi_ToC.html

Mimusubi, Shinto practice and some theology
https://www.mimusubi.com/

On hyperstitions:
https://www.secretorum.life/p/ideas-are-alive-and-you-are-dead
https://www.orphandriftarchive.com/articles/hyperstition/

There's much to be learned if you are willing to learn. And when you learn, you grow closer to things.
When you grow closer to things far away, you will also grow closer to things right next to you.
When you grow closer to big things, you will also grow closer to small things.

Keep on learning, keep on being respectful to things around you, meditate at least 10 minutes daily and take care of yourself. The samsara pear wriggler will sort you out.

[Anonymous No.]

I don't wish to poison the well in the slightest either with all that's been said, but I did promise you all I would follow-through with this:

https://files.catbox.moe/jb80b5.png

"PerfectlyNormalThings.png"

These are my rough, cumulative notes of the thread before this one.
It is very messy and unorganized, my own Pepe Silvia conspiracy-wall of things I've felt are important to all of this.
This will be my last contribution for now, please make of things as you all have and do not feel pressured to start discussing things even further at this exact time.
I couldn't have been more thankful to have been apart of all this at this point in my life.
Please, please do take care. All of you~

[Anonymous No.]

>>47267504
Thank you! As difficult to parse that might be, it's great that you attempted to put together the insights from the first thread. I think it would be difficult for anyone to make something coherent out of all the discussions.

You know, looking at that thing, all the discussions during the past couple of months...it's no wonder I have been feeling like I am suffering from some kind of information overload. I have been also reading voraciously about religions and esoteria outside of these threads too. So I am probably suffering from a very real information overload.

To be honest, during the existence of this thread, as blogworthy as this is, I had kind of a bad time that has settled down only within the past couple of days.

As much as any anon will have various opportunities to eject old habits and old baggage, some old things will try to grow back if you give them a chance. To some extent this happened to me. It felt really bad and feels like it has interfered with my connection to divinity.

But I don't think it's all bad either. I can correct the course. There's good times and bad times, ups and downs. Something about studying and practicing spirituality and esoteria makes the various cycles in your life more visible. It disrupts them too. You can find unexpected doors to go through, only to sometimes wind up again somewhere that looks kind of familiar, but really isn't anymore.

I know this is weird, but I think if you start living with enough attention, respect, intention and belief, belief at least in that things can change and that you can find meaning, you will kind of "reincarnate" multiple times during a single physical lifetime.

The implications for the samsara pear wriggling here are unclear.

I feel like I have ejected out some things that could take a person a lifetime to eject out. Fear (and only fear) of the "supernatural" resulting in some profound ontological sense of insecurity is gone. Of course there are things out there that I am reasonably afraid of, but I know there are divine forces out there. I know they can help to keep the bad actors at bay. I know that even by yourself, you can do things to keep the bad actors at bay.

There's more, but this alone is such a huge thing. The challenge now is to maintain the positive changes and not to burn myself out.

These threads have been monumental and the fact that I helped to bring them to life still fills me with vague unease. But also other things, joy, pride and humor.

I'm hoping that by the time the need for another thread like these emerges, that I will have formed something more coherent from my studies into Touhou lore and it's relations to real life religions and mythologies. But for now, I have an unrelated, old, unfinished project I must complete.

The cycle will set you free.

[Anonymous No.]

thanks everyone for this wonderful thread.
you possibly changed the course of my life forever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SNJ4vXWD6Y

[Anonymous No.]

Same here! Forgot to mention this in that mess of a note-chart, even if it's a silly detail, but I was even able to add one more 神 to my pantheon in-light of all that has occurred.
稲荷大神 (Inari Okami) has been a very refreshing presence in my life thus far ^^
Cheers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvv7BmOJarM

[Anonymous No.]

Ok, you guys might not be as bad as I thought.
I'm convinced that Touhou at it's core is anti-spiritual, but perhaps I'm looking at it wrong.

[Anonymous No.]

It’s been a joy to be a part of this and the last piece of a rather large puzzle for myself, good luck for everyone involved, it was a pleasure

[Anonymous No.]

>>47268439
>you possibly changed the course of my life forever.
No, anon (You) all changed the course of my life forever. Have a good and safe journey.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47268550
Anti-religious as in critical of religious establishments, in the extended canon, sure. Anti-spiritual? I'm not seeing it, only if you were to think spiritual practices and revelations would have to come from the establishments being criticized.

But it might all be an illusion from the land of illusions and I am the one looking at it wrong. But that would make it quite the illusion, wouldn't it? To derive such inspiration and guidelines for practice from essentially nothing. The implications of such are even stranger than "there is a spirit world in rural Nagano and you can tap into it by playing these certain games and having a willingness to learn".

[Anonymous No.]

>>47268572
Honestly it's been fantastic to see how much insight you gained in such a short perioid of time and from sources that must seem so completely, insanely, unlikely. But I think these extremely meaningful random events are at the heart of the numinous, somehow. Knowing that my decision to start the first thread helped you along makes me happy, makes me feel like I did something that mattered to someone.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47268643
I meant it more in a sense that spirituality is shown to bring harm to you and those around you, with benefits being rather marginal or nullified easilly by the natural consequences of such practice. It's not tied to religions as institutions, as gods, celestrials and lunarians themselves show. Their 'spirituality' is nothing more than materialism without matter.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47268741
This would have been a fantastic conversation to have 300 posts ago, hehe. First off, I'm willing to admit that I don't know everything about the Touhou canon. I do know that the various higher entities are depicted as being assholes, magicians turn into youkai etc. With this I would perhaps return to something I said in the previous thread: which of these things are meant to be exemplary, which is of these things are meant to be cautionary, and which of these things are meant to make these characters more relatable to humans?

Touhou really is, well, it's many things, but it's also in a way split into two: There's the Gensokyo, and then there is the Hifuu Club.

If you want to make a negative reading, Gensokyo is a spirit world where humans are completely at the whimsy of spirits. You could understand them to be literal, or then symbolic - humans being completely driven by superstitions and ideas they can't comprehend. The outside world of the Hifuu Club is a dark mirror of Gensokyo: a spiritually dead, also increasingly biologicaly dead world where humanity seemingly dominates everything. This seems hardly ideal either, as shown by the dissidence of Maribel and Renko who resort to increasingly dangerous stunts to escape. This could be symbolicaly read as modern people dabling with potentialy dangerous spiritual practices.

So really, it comes off as a whole both "anti-spiritual" and "anti-material". In the Hifuu materials ZUN clearly seems to lament materialism and a kind of decline in spirituality. To him the "spiritual" that he craves seems to be more akin to some kind of magical thinking than, I don't know, zazen or qigong. But ultimately, some type of magical thinking, or in my opinion, just acknowledging that there is more to reality than is immediatedly obvious, underpins every single spiritual belief system.

So more than Touhou being anti-spiritualist it's perhaps that ZUN simultaneously craves to live in a more spiritual, magical reality, while also acknowledging the abuses perpetuated by various religious, spiritual institutions, in Touhou partly personified as deities, celestials, lunarians etc. Moving out from a more symbolic level, you could also say that he acknowledges that not everything that lurks in the numinous is necessarily friendly to humans.

It's all a bit more nuanced than people give credit for, and perhaps by accident. This might be one of those cases where the creator fumbles the 80% and carries the core 20%.

I don't think there is a 1:1 Gensokyo out there. I don't think ZUN's creative works capture everything, and it's always a two way street. We always project something into the world, and ever since ZUN landed himself a wife and they got kids he seems to be projecting the anxieties of a family man in an increasingly fraught, incomprehensible world.

What I do think is that flawed or even bad teachers can still carry valid lessons. ZUN is a flawed human. Touhou is a flawed creation. Shinto, Buddhism, Daoism are flawed institutions. This doesn't mean there is nothing to learn from any of these. There is no perfect person, no perfect creation, no perfect system. Learning to sift the good from the bad, the signal from the noise is part of the spiritual process.

Personally, I also think there are spirit entities out there that respond to images and names associated with certain Touhou characters. They have a kind side, a rough side and a side that has occasionally projected absolutely bizarre manifestations to my mind while I'd rather be just taking a walk. They are in some ways very much in-line the way they are in game, other ways different. So I don't think it's a 1:1 match, just like there is no 1:1 Gensokyo.

But with these kami, the underlying lesson, seeing the divine nature in everything, eventually including yourself, is at the core. It's this lesson that makes them worthy of worship to me. This, and the way they have pushed me forwards, but also showed consideration and mercy when things have gotten a bit too much. Such confirms their divinity to me.

When I worship them I worship them both as those who showed the way and as aspects of the larger, all-encompassing divine nature.

I would have stopped a long time ago had they come with promises of whisking me to a fairy land. Because I know Gensokyo is no paradise, and maybe it's partly this knowledge why they have been so willing to get involved with me.

So yeah, that got a bit outside of the original scope, but hope this is of some interest to whoever still digs through this.

[Anonymous No.]

Thank you for another insightful and inspiring thread.
I don't have much else to add that hasn't already been said, but please... try to be mindful of verbosity in future threads (as in, make honest attempts to avoid it). Long posts are inevitable to some degree, but many of the replies ITT could be half as lengthy while conveying the same ideas.
Another personal gripe I have is that ZUN works are often treated as some sort of Bible, and spoken of as if they were infallible and immutable. This, I have no doubt is a byproduct of the Western obsession with canonicity, "fact-checking" minutiae, and proving the other wrong as though everything ought to be a political debate. Note that I'm not trying to say it's worthless - far from it, I adore the man and what he has done, and there is value to using it as a point of reference. I simply believe that fantasy is only one of the many different factors that come into play when dealing with supernatural matters. As for fantasy itself, there is more to it than the ever-changing views of a single individual.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47269950
>try to be mindful of verbosity in future threads (as in, make honest attempts to avoid it)
Yeah I have set a bad precedent for it and I apologize and will try to do better in the future.
These threads are pretty hard to read and everyone who bothered to go through them is exceptionally dedicated.
>ZUN works are often treated as some sort of Bible, and spoken of as if they were infallible and immutable
Yes. There is a lot of interest and relevance in there, but as has been said, all perception and communication is partly projection. ZUN's contact with the numinous is no exception, especially if he is not aware of it.

I recently watched a documentary about Terence McKenna, and it was said of him that he was "poeticaly right and literally wrong". ZUN might also be so. As much as we didn't literaly catapult ourselves into some mycelial hyperdimension on 21st December 2012, there most likely isn't 1:1 literal Gensokyo of which ZUN produces literal 1:1 descriptions of. But life after 2012 does sure feel a lot like "infinite novelty", so there was maybe some kernel of "poetic truth" to McKenna's ideas. What are the things that ZUN is then "poeticaly right" about?

[Anonymous No.]

you get to keep schizoposting, i get banned

[Anonymous No.]

>>47270197
That proves we are not in fact schizoposting, doesn't it?

[Anonymous No.]

>>47270223
no

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47270260

[Anonymous No.]

>>47270082

[Anonymous No.]

>>47268741
>It's not tied to religions as institutions, as gods, celestrials and lunarians themselves show. Their 'spirituality' is nothing more than materialism without matter.
As OP put it, it's honestly a shame this showed up at the end of the thread, because if there were the time I would gladly debunk this, especially considering the actual Lunarian characters we get are, morally speaking, far and away some of the best. The Celestials have issues with Nepotism, admittedly, and the kami are a different matter, but a lot of that gets quite literally lost in translation.

In any case, it's been fun, minus a sour spot around the end there. OP should give himself a pat on the back, his pleasant, earnest nature does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to drawing people into these discussions.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47269155
>>47271016
Next time a similar thread comes up I'll definitely mention this again, because it's a very serious issue with Touhou for me.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47271016
>OP should give himself a pat on the back, his pleasant, earnest nature does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to drawing people into these discussions.
Well, thank you, but I wouldn't have anything or anyone to work with if these threads didn't manage to draw in so many interesting and mostly well-behaved anons. /jp/ anons should give themselves a bit more credit.
>>47271080
I predict there will be a new one in a month or two. We'll see how things go. This one was started because these type of discussions started cropping up in other threads. Maybe next time I will have something lore-relevant to present, like I had hoped for this time around.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47271133
I see you post this, I open YouTube, and this is the first video recommended.

Should we be worried?

[Anonymous No.]

>>47271213
Okina-sama would never do something like that!

[Anonymous No.]

>>47271240
Naturally. She would get arrested for being on the Epstein flight list, instead.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47271503
What a terrible thing to say.

[Anonymous No.]

>try to be mindful of verbosity in future threads (as in, make honest attempts to avoid it)
>set a bad precedent
>/jp/ anons should give themselves a bit more credit.

Maybe by next time, I'll have figured out a way to sound 20-to-30-percent less like a Thesaurus you guys!
(partially kidding obvi lol, I'll be doing by best on that front too with time)

[Anonymous No.]

>>47271773
Well, I did encourage you, didn't I? It's just been so nice to find someone who seems to be going through something similar. But we should seriously try to be less wordy in the future. Let's be mindful of other anons.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47271133
These things pop up as needed, the quality comes from them being organic rather than forced, but 1-2 months is usually enough for interesting things worth sharing to happen

[Anonymous No.]

>>47271897
Every since a certain white haired woman and infant dragon, I ain't trusting the one on the right, either.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47271897
Interesting seems to be an understatement for many of us haha. I don't think I've shared nearly all of the weird shit that happened between this and the previous thread, mostly because it didn't feel like it was really connected to Touhou.

Highlights include:
- random flashes of light mostly localized to my living room that strongly correlated with reading about occult material, once appearing behind my back, confirming it's not a pure visual processing glitch
- attempting and possibly succeeding to contact a deceased family member
- few instances of random demonic visages popping up when closing my eyes, these disappeared after I completed the Master Protection Ritual and were probably some sort of long term unwanted cohabitants
- developing a persistent mental image of a female entity I don't recognize and ending up asking it if it's a dakini which prompts it to say yes and never to show herself again
- getting told by an intrusive mental image of a disembodied head of an afro-caribean man that I should buy some Florida Water
- getting told by a splendid vision of Keiki-sama that I have "graduated" after I just decided not to engage with a certain intrusive mental image

Shit was immensively weird for a while during the peak and I'm really glad things have calmed down substantially since. The reason why I didn't perhaps put all that much original thought to this thread was partly because I was strugling with just so much weird random shit going on.

I hope and believe things will be much more manageable for the time being and maybe I'll even get something useful and interesting ready by the time there will be another one of these threads.

There's certainly much to work with, I have been reading Shinto theology, history and practice and that could be an angle to explore, Touhou and how various elements of Shinto show up there. The discussion about whether Touhou is anti-spiritual or not is another interesting topic. The Suwa lore and things connected to Okina-sama could possibly be explored further. Both have immense history and some rather curious things in them.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47271949
Many such cases, I feel like for many these threads have basically been baby’s first animism through a touhou lense and a gateway drug into other things, not to disparage the message, I think it’s great and it really helps people to see past the usual rat race we live in, and to interact with an intrinsic yet subtle aspect of reality that has been somewhat suppressed by our culture

[Anonymous No.]

>>47271969
>1969
The numbers!
>baby’s first animism through a touhou lense and a gateway drug into other things
It's really funny how there's like this ankle deep layer of fluff before you start to hit stuff that has genuinely life changing potential. Shinto is exceptional because it shows you can have a major, developed nation practicing animism. It's not some European attempt at renewal which too often veers towards just larp, and elsewhere it's the way of seeing for marginal or native populations. It's much harder for the average doujin game player type to shrug of Shinto as "primitive supersitition" or whatever.

The more esoteric elements of Buddhism and Daoism are also there under that tiny layer of fluff. Not to mention there being like, Buddhism and Daoism there. It's like...try to imagine a western indie game where you have like Rosicrucians, Kabbalists and the Sufi fighting among each other. Not some historical or explicitly made to cater people into such things type of game either. Like a platformer or roguelike. You can't. That just doesn't happen. It would be so weird from our POV.

But yeah, once you hit past the layer of fluff, you have to start reading about these things outside of Touhou. So in that very sense it's a gateway to other places.

But it becomes very interesting when you do start learning about these things beyond how they are presented in the games. There's a couple of instances where I feel like I was given a tiny bit of advance information regarding some ideas in Shinto, Buddhism or Daoism or how they are manifest in Touhou. There's been many more where things suddenly just kind of lock into place or I realize I have looped back into some reference in Touhou which I didn't know even was a reference to anything. It's really enriching and kind of feeds back into itself.
>it really helps people to see past the usual rat race we live in, and to interact with an intrinsic yet subtle aspect of reality that has been somewhat suppressed by our culture
Yes, and I very much feel like there are certain elements in Touhou, by either accident or design, which are designed to cultivate both of these.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47272037
Speaking of. There is something in I believe Daoist study that is a talisman to help see the spirit world. You have to get the talisman and burn it, then mix it with water and rub your eyes and drink the water, and it's supposed to act as the Eastern equivalent to the stuff that Western fairies would rub on their kids eyes to see the other realm. I'm curious if anyone has heard of this or had any experience in it. Naturally, it's considered dangerous and a basic "shell shock" to the senses, but could be a method to help some people once a spiritual tolerance was built up. I'm almost contemplating trying it myself. (And don't try to buy the things, as "practitioners" will try to charge you literally thousands for a slip of paper, even if it's actually useful...)

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272088
Fascinating. I remember watching one of Benebell Wen's videos where she explained about some Daoist ritual that involved making a talisman, burning it, mixing the ashes with water and drinking it if you wanted an immediate effect. So there is precedent in Daoism to these talisman ash potions.

She said not to drink it though because the talisman is supposed to work, just slower, if you just make and keep it. She said the end result could be toxic.

I'd be really careful about rubbing an ash potion into your eyes. I don't think you have trouble with spirit vision, based on your experiences.

Anyway, if Daoism is of interest, Wen's videos are fascinating if you can take her rapid fire information delivery style.
https://www.youtube.com/@BenebellWen/videos
I'm not sure if I ever shared this or not. If not, let it be a treat to all of /jp/'s brave necromancers.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272088
Look up the Luban Shu if you want to have fun with that kind of thing

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272132
Wow, I hadn't heard of that one before. That's quite the find. Thanks for posting it, the related products in Amazon also led me to a book on Onmyodo I didn't know existed. This thread is really getting the best stuff after it's death haha.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47272129
Will hasn't to check that out, thanks.

And don't worry, the rubbing into the eyes is with the eyes closed and rubbed on the lids. Plus, I think the original ink uses cinnabar, and I'm avoiding that.

As for spiritual vision, it's very rare for me personally to see anything outright in front of me now. I can "sense" them like a compass and probably point directly at something and be looking it in the eyes but I can't "see" them anymore. Not like when I was a kid and could have full blown conversations and physical interactions with the dead kid that lived in my house, etc. Things like what I've shared here were practically once in a lifetime events that hit back to back for me. Even the air was different over in Nagano-I could feel a charge and prickly sensation like static sometimes, and was full of energy and barely ate the whole trip but never really got hungry. I'm getting off on a tangent here, I apologize.

TL;DR? I want to be about to look it in the eyes again. That way if Creepy McCreep thing tries to jump me on a mountain again I can sidestep the thing. Maybe the ashes work on the rest of the body? Fists? I'll become a local resolver by going ghost puncher and give Reimu a run for her money or something. Maybe that'll get us into Gensokyo, etc. *shrug*

>>47272132
Nice, thank you. Coincidentally, grimoires got me thinking about what all the SDM library might hold as a hypothetical. You know, try and build a fraction of the stuff to both study and act as sympathetic magic objects I could piggyback off of...decisions, decisions...

>>47272176
Full agree. It may be that we're all holding back the good stuff for fear of looking like a loon to the rest of us. Who's gonna take the first plunge and all that.

[Anonymous No.]

>It's just been so nice to find someone who seems to be going through something similar
^^
>I don't think I've shared nearly all of the weird shit that happened between this and the previous thread

If this is is now the post-game last minute bonus round for funsies, allow me to also provide some final lingering morsels of my own incidental happenings:
- often burnt incense while making my various posts & I leave the air off when I do so the smoke can be manipulated more naturally, when it wasn't flowing up in an unbroken straight-line it had a habit of somewhat surrounding me and my PC
- lots of synchronicities with my work/college schedule allowing me to be here at ideal times that only occurred because of otherwise borderline comedically-tragic happenstances "unremoved" from here (I feel what pain you've gone through too OkinaAnon...)
- finally clearing out a lingering leech-entity of my own that had been feeding off of my dreams and having an extremely personally beautiful dream the following night (woke up crying, untold dreams of mine notwithstanding)
- having to abandon my now-broken car of nearly 7 years in some apartment complex lot after an evening riding around with my Flan & Koishi fumos (currently an ongoing issue lol)
- re-orienting my studies on all levels in a huge way

I could likely go on, but there's enough "fluff" to sift through as it stands. What digging there is to be done though among it all! Also,

>I'm curious if anyone has heard of this or had any experience in it.

First I'm hearing of the specific details on it myself, doesn't sound too far-off from how I take small drinks of my purified salt water in preparation for takusen though.
I would also be careful, but now of course you've caught my interest in a larger scope once again so maybe I'll have something to say there in a few months...

>This thread is really getting the best stuff after it's death haha.
It's truly Funny how this all comes about sometimes huh.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47272198
>>be careful
That's the plan, hopefully. I'll see if I can find a peach tree sword and smack one of them if it gets bad.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47272238
And ironic. I browse x a bit, as I'm sure most here does. Found the one thread about the random wiki page and clicked it. Guess what pops up?

Kinomiya shrine in Shizuoka-a power spot.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272132
at the same time, get aquainted with the general concept of chinese magic, i-ching and the like, i-ching in particular is a great gateway to understand the bagua (and a LOT more touhou related things will start making sense once you learn) and from there it snowballs.

I myself have been getting a lot of immortality related synchs recently, dreams, content popping up through the algorithm, the name of the street i'm changing to, opening a random page in a chinese dictionary to land on it (升仙)

Also unironically that Seiga Kaku uses her amazing Taoist arts and gives you a life lesson game is a VERY VERY good introduction to the tao te ching (including in character notes in the book itself)

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272275
damn dude, when i tried my luck, my first result was this (Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine), i considered it an omen if you take into account the millions of photos it could had landed on but it gave me this instead.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272185
>Not like when I was a kid and could have full blown conversations and physical interactions
Oh man no wonder you would want to experience something like that again.
>Even the air was different over in Nagano-I could feel a charge and prickly sensation like static sometimes, and was full of energy and barely ate the whole trip
That's so cool I've heard people reporting electric sensations in encounters with the supernatural.
>That way if Creepy McCreep thing tries to jump me on a mountain again I can sidestep the thing
You did get some kind of sense that there was something out there? At least there was that.
>what all the SDM library might hold as a hypothetical
I bet they would have some quite fine European grimoires at the very least.
>It may be that we're all holding back the good stuff for fear of looking like a loon to the rest of us
Yeah maybe is indeed an element of that.
>>47272198
>lots of synchronicities with my work/college schedule allowing me to be here at ideal times that only occurred because of otherwise borderline comedically-tragic happenstances "unremoved" from here
Well it sure seems like somebody wanted you to be online.
>(I feel what pain you've gone through too OkinaAnon...
I hope metaphoricaly!!!
>finally clearing out a lingering leech-entity of my own that had been feeding off of my dreams
D-Doremy..?
>It's truly Funny how this all comes about sometimes huh.
The last thread had a very extended, very fruitful afterlife also. Might just be a feature of them at this point haha.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272301
Well, given the subject matter, it should come as no surprise that these threads have enriching "afterlives." It probably helps that the ticking clock before it's bumped off lends itself to the anons not getting too wordy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272275
>>47272297
The Wikimedia Commons, what does it mean?
>>47272284
Yeah Daoism goes INSANELY deep and it's wild how they systems in it just lock into each other. I've barely scratched the surface of it all and I have come to the conclusion that it's so worthwhile I'd rather have a teacher than just read about it at home. Hence I am enrolling into a local Tai Chi group when they start taking in new students. It seems to be the real deal and have some sporadic mentions of the internal alchemy side in their presentation. I'm interested in Tai Chi itself for many reasons, but it also feels like a good place to ask if they know someone who knows I Chi.
>>47272284
>I myself have been getting a lot of immortality related synchs recently
If you eject your weird soul baby out of your head straight into the loving caress of the Dao in between this thread and the next I say it was a joy to have you around here.
>Seiga Kaku uses her amazing Taoist arts and gives you a life lesson game is a VERY VERY good introduction to the tao te ching
Do you wanna go a bit more into detail? I've read Dao De Ching and played TD but I didn't quite catch this myself?

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272339
>Well, given the subject matter, it should come as no surprise that these threads have enriching "afterlives."
It's just funny how the medium reflects the media, the content the form, however you want to put it. Makes the thread feel very "magical". Which it is.
> It probably helps that the ticking clock before it's bumped off lends itself to the anons not getting too wordy.
Oh dear that's me.

There's also that short posts don't "waste" the bumplimit anymore.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272342
>Do you wanna go a bit more into detail? I've read Dao De Ching and played TD but I didn't quite catch this myself?

In a nutshell, it's a half meme, half legitimate
VERY good content, in which Seiga teaches you the basics of taoism, explains and clarifies some hard to understand concepts, gives a general "idea" how to get into said flow, and it includes a copy of the Tao te ching with commentary by her, which helps digest some of the less obvious passages.

VERIFICATION NOT REQUIRED

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272378
What
What the hell
I didn't realize this was a whole game of it's own. I'm ESL, tired and misread what you wrote.

How does something like this just exist in the wild?

Oh goodness they made Seiga teaching Daoism into a real thing.

Did whoever made this know???

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272275
I searched that thread out and got this: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St._Jacobus_-_panoramio.jpg
Would anyone who knows a bit more about Christian Theology be able to inform me a little by chance? I can't figure out if this dude was a Saint or an Angel or what and I feel a little out of my own scope here...

I'll absolutely be looking into the i-ching more though, I see what you mean about it filling in a lot of key blank-spots. Even more incidentally, the Hexagram for me today was #23 (Splitting Apart) and both 23 & 69 are very personally significant numbers to me.
I'm watching them I'M WATCHING THEM ALL I swear...

>>47272301
>sure seems like somebody wanted you to be online.
Pretty sure most of them did honestly! Looking back on things, I guess I can see why in some small way.
>I hope metaphorically!!!
M-Mostly...
>D-Doremy..?
If only! In all honesty it looked like some horrible cross between Giygas in his Unstable state and those white-bruised-zombie-like enemies from Ocarina of Time with no eyes that scream and have the creepy grabby hands. Hated it, but it was placed in my life by an extremely malicious irl agent I'm no-longer in contact with so it's thankfully out of my hands now.

>Makes the thread feel very "magical".
>Which it is.
>short posts don't "waste" the bumplimit anymore
Very relevant.

[Anonymous No.]

Oh god on that note I also need to ask real quick:
>>47271949
>a female entity I don't recognize and ending up asking it if it's a dakini

What did she happen to look like..?
If you can remember anything specific & are comfortable with sharing whatever that is.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272445
>some horrible cross between Giygas in his Unstable state and those white-bruised-zombie-like enemies from Ocarina of Time
So... Just a deformed version of Giegue from Mother 1, then? That's certainly an interesting appearance for such a thing to take, if nothing else.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47272284
Very nice, thanks for the info. I'm doing that recently actually, which is pretty funny. Some in here wanted synchronicities, so, well...

>>47272297
That's a power spot too, and maybe a message to you, me, and a bunch of others.

>>47272301
Could go on and on with this subject but don't want to bog it down in its twilight. Next time or somewhere else maybe if anyone is up for it, but that's.....iffy.
>>You can see them
And I pointed right at the thing where the picture was tooken. It can push me, so it's only fair to return the favor, you know?
>>SDM, etc.
Ah, to have a library of my own...

>>47272342
Wiki commons is basically just hitting random on the site and seeing what comes up. Nice find, btw.
And Tai Chi is good stuff.

>>47272445
A bit rusty on that particular subject, but could deep dive on a bunch of Gnostic stuff. I'm pretty certain he's a Saint, but could be wrong.
>>things appearance
Uh....funny that. You wouldn't be the first to see something like that in Dreamland.....my sympathies.

>>47272493
Curious about that as well....

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272493
>What did she happen to look like..?
Basicaly an anime girl with golden skin and hair, horns that formed kind of a crescent shape. She had like a veil stretched between the horns, very strange look. Long hair. Basicaly naked but with jewelry, always angled in a way that I wouldn't see her nipples or crotch. She'd appear against black background, surrounded by a halo of uniformly red flames that looked less like fire and more like paint against the background??

She had a strange vibe, not really malicious or evil but very intense, attention-seeking and intrusive. Like 90% of the times I got the visual she was basicaly just dancing or striking a pose and giving a kind of playful smile.

At first I wasn't sure if it was just some mental junk, but she kept reappearing and eventually I just kinda drifted into a mental discussion with her, found myself acknowledging her and without really even intending to asked her if she was a dakini. She said yes. There was something else too, but less comprehensible, at this point I had become conciously aware and kind of janked myself out of it. She hasn't made an appearance since.

I had read about dakinis as part of research into Okina 2-3 weeks before she made her appearance, so I knew of such entities, but she didn't look exactly like the traditional depictions. I didn't immediatedly think "oh that's a dakini".

So yeah, I don't know, weird stuff.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272545

...

I suddenly feel an immense amount of pressure towards what I could & could not say on the matter here but at this point in the thread (and the lives of any other thread in the future) I'm sure most of it would be my own emotional conjecture anyways, so I'm gonna withhold anything too specific. I hope that isn't too ominous of me?
Thank you for telling us though, it's some good insight into how these interactions can work at times.

Weird Stuff Indeed . . .

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47272602
That's beautiful. You do the art or find it?

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272602
Very interesting if such an entity would immediatedly ring some bells for you.

To be honest I have at times felt like I have the attention of someone who has spotted me through this thread, but what extent such has been an intentional effort at reaching (or scrying me) and to what extent just...energies leaking out of this, I don't know. And by someone I mean a human?

We both certainly put a lot of effort into this thread. Did we get somehow slightly tangled? I wonder if you are about to, or started to have, become visited by things I was once visited by.

Curious stuff.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272617
Either from one of the art threads or I just scoured it from elsewhere! I thought so too but wasn't quite sure when to use it until just now, I snagged it a while ago.
I'm nowhere near that skill level when it comes to my detailing yet though, especially adding watercolors with that amount of delicacy on top of that. I'm lucky enough to just now finally start understanding how Hands work...

[Anonymous No.]

>"Did we get somehow slightly tangled?"
>post within the same minute
>Within the same few Seconds.

HMMMMMMMMM........

Now which one of you Anons was looking for others in the US Southwest again...?

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272665
>Now which one of you Anons was looking for others in the US Southwest again...?
Unfortunately, not me. That would have been quite something if I was. But if you also are there, then your future Hifuu Club member might be in this very thread!

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47272648
It is a bit ironic though. I got the desire to go somewhere and ended up at an art store and was stuck near the canvas yesterday. I've been getting the urge to paint or draw some of the dreams I've had but fear I would lack the skill to do so and would be insulting them. At this point, I believe the ladies of the mansion have become my collective muses, the sisters being in the lead. The idea of a Renaissance-style portrait of them all is floating around somewhere up in the mental space... One day. One day.

>>47272665
US Southwest? Not I. But I'm in the Southeast...

So we all get together and rent a space to do a ritual for summoning a gateway to Gensokyo......
I jest.

Partly.

>>47272687
Speak of the devil(Kami) and she'll(?) appear!

You're the esl, right?

[Anonymous No.]

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272701
Yes, I'm ESL and past my bedtime. It's a miracle if this thread is around when I wake up.

As for get togethers, visiting Hakuba and Suwa with the anons would be a dream come true. One day. I'm manifesting that.

See you on the other side, someday, somewhere again.

Don't probe me too hard.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272701
You should absolutely try painting a dream or two when you got the resources you need and you have a good place to do it! We all start somewhere.
There can be much to learn from what you already have been presented with beyond an endless stream of semi-guarded hypothetical ancient-Japonic/otherwise grimoires & tomes.

Secondly, if that last question was for me, are you asking if English was my second language? Pardon me if I'm absolutely missing the mark there.
To tell you the truth, English is my mother tongue and I struggle heavily with Japanese in-spite of the ways I still try to utilize/learn the language. It's all a process and again, we all start somewhere, but I just need to apply myself more when I can.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47272747
See you on the other side. Don't worry about any probes, that question is the extent of my digging unless you decide to share one day. Have a good one OkinaAnon.

Suwa is due for round two for me, so maybe. Depending on how things go here, I might make a follow up thread if there's still some momentum, but no worries on it being milked. When it's time for the thread to go, it'll go and meet thread Komachi.

>>47272750
Thanks for the encouragement. And no, I was asking OkinaAnon since I had a strange feeling they would be going soon. I imagine it's around 3-4am where they're at-it came to me through cryptic symbolism...

Despite my trip overseas, I can't fully speak or read it either. I knew just enough to get by with being polite, but it's difficult when you wander out into the countryside and meet people that speak better English than you do, and I'm a native sneaker. Funny how that ends up.

[Anonymous No.]

>I'm a native sneaker.
I didn't know you were actually a Sneaker this whole time, which brand are you?
Are you for Hiking or Sporting?

Mostly teasing lol, you're very welcome and I bet it would be a little jarring to be in a situation like that. This is where that very-particular kind of humor to be found in life resides and that really is always fun if you know what you've stumbled into, or at least it is to me. I'm simply riding out whatever last breath this thread seems to have, without imposing too much of course

I really don't have much else to elaborate on myself right now and I don't feel like I've left anything specific out of here that I wanted to put in, which is nice. Whatever happens next happens, even if this all gets archived within the hour or so.
Would anyone, per chance, still be interested in hearing my little Okina/UFO dream from a while back to maybe wrap things up? There are a lot of dreams here already, especially from me, but there aren't too many "serious" pressures here right now either.
Up to any lingering anons.

[EclipseAnon No.]

>>47272829
I'm here till it's final breath, so by all means tell away. A good story shared is always welcome in my books.
And I'm the running kind. When you come across a weird thing in the woods here and there the first steps you take are large ones.

[Anonymous No.]

Same here desu, I always love me a good gallop! Let me try and make this a little more tightly-written for you all as well...

Not too long before the dream I discussed in >>47198312, I had another fairly-visceral one that started with my subconscious self being projected into the Backdoor Realm (something I interpreted in the moment as a vast, flaming, sparkling nebula with violets/teals/oranges). I then started being spoken to by a semi-corporeal figure I also first interpreted as something else (some kind of ancient shamaness spirit maybe?), but I've now come to understand this was likely just some form of Satono. I was debriefed in a way I could only describe as "instinctual" before she handed me some things I couldn't comprehend in that space. I was then unceremoniously shunted out of a nearby backdoor a decent ways above the Misty Lake with what I could now comprehend as 2 of Princess Kaguya's 5 Sacred Treasures, the jeweled-branch and the begging bowl. Don't ask me why they had these things or how they got them out of Eientei because they didn't tell me and I was likely some kind of Patsy throughout all this. Last thing I remember before plunging through the fog is Okina-sama making her favorite face at me from the other side.
I surface, clinging to some nearby lumber floating on the waters with both artifacts in-tow. I'm soaked and have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing here, let alone how far away from the shoreline I am (the fog was so goddamn dense that day...) but then something huge looms above me in shadow over the waters.
It's the Palanquin Ship! It's eerily floating over the semi-rough waves in silence but for some reason it also half looks like the Titanic...I really don't know why but Maybe I also do. I start paddling over as best I can holding a fucking branch and a pearl-inlaid dish the size of my face but I eventually reach an emergency ladder and start climbing up.
I step onto the ship proper and it's also eerily quiet, creaking of the planks and the sound of the lake aside, instantly got the feeling that I wasn't exactly going to be running into anyone directly very easily. At this point I'm also no longer holding the jeweled-branch for some reason but I still have the begging bowl as I start timidly walking around (and sometimes floating about like it's Gmod almost if required). Nobody is in the galley, nobody at the bow or stern, all the facilities were on but it was all extremely Liminal. I make my way into a space I figured may be around where the steering wheel or control center would be but I suddenly find myself heading down a carpeted staircase. At the bottom of the steps is a turning point that goes further down, leading to a corridor/series of hallways filled with what could have only been "guest rooms" of some kind. The corridors stretched into darkness and there were no lights on in front of any of these numbered doors so I chose to simply keep going down the staircase.
It just fucking repeated itself.
I look back behind me towards the above hallway that in-turn leads back out to the main ship area and it's still there.
I go down another level, more carpet, more long halls.
I go down a fourth and find a Christmas Tree decorated with white lights and angel stuff sitting in the hall, for some reason???
The fifth level repeats again without the Christmas Tree, I'm starting to feel a little frazzled by this point.
I go back & up all the way out to the top of the ship where the smokestacks are and I just sit on the front end of that precipice, wondering who the hell I need to give this damn bowl to.
Then I suddenly stand up and brace myself because the ship starts moving through the fog. I'm not sure where it's headed cause the mist seems to be everywhere around the lake, but I think it started heading back up towards Youkai Mountain based on the semi-treacherous landmasses that started whizzing by. I'm not sure how much time I have left but I suddenly get the feeling I don't want to be just sitting on the roof when this thing starts seriously picking up speed.
I start running & jumping my way back down onto the deck and towards that galley, remembering before I got lost in that fucking stairwell that there was another hallway I could try that seemed to lead deeper into the ship.
I'm about to make my move down this new path when everything goes dark and I wake up.

Not everything can be within your exact control at every moment of course, but sometimes you simply need to do what little may even be vaguely asked of you at all in order to successfully follow-through. I deeply appreciate the encouragement of everyone else here as well, even the hecklers ^^

[Anonymous No.]

>>47264926
>One could also imagine there are forms of creativity which appear "bad" from the POV of attempting to construct coherent forward-moving narrative. But if one were to establish a kind of a new mythology, would not the internal conflicts, lack of a greater "plot", people making biased interpretations simply mirror how things are?
I always say this in lore threads. We've been conditioned to expect clear narratives and strict conformity to archetypes, but such simplicity doesn't track with reality, and is in many ways too limiting for fiction.
Lack of apparent order doesn't mean lack of order.
"Chaos is order yet undeciphered."

[Anonymous No.]

>>47268550
>>47268643
>>47269155
I believe Touhou is pro-spiritual, anti-spiritual, pro-religion, anti-religion, pro-material, anti-material, and many more things, because it explores a lot of complex topics from a lot of different directions. If it can be said to make any statement at all, that statement would be "the world is complicated, and you can carve out any narrative you want if you try."
Carve in the sense of cutting away and discarding material in order to make a recognizable shape out of a solid chunk of material.

[EclipseAnon No.]

If you're still around, Anon, you've convinced me. I just got back from the craft store with a bucket load of paints.

[Anonymous No.]

Glad to hear it~

Pour your heart out. I'm sure you'll find some Beauty in everything you try.

[Anonymous No.]

>>47272994
Find Renko

[EclipseAnon No.]

It's apparently Remilia day. Will have to celebrate somehow and do something a little special for my dream world employer. Painting it is.