FSTDT

John Michael Greer #magick ecosophia.net

On the etheric plane, the first difficulty faced by a straight young man when he masturbates is that his etheric body is expecting a jolt of life force from a partner’s etheric body, and doesn’t get it. That’s the source of the weakness and depression that many men feel after masturbating. Over the long term, this can lead to health problems, and it also produces that distinctive vibe that many of us have learned to associate with words like “wanker.”

Fortunately there are other sources of etheric energy, and one way to deal with this problem is to rely on those instead. Vigorous breathing is one of the ways the body charges itself with etheric force, for example ...

Cold water also has much to offer. Water absorbs and holds etheric substance more effectively than any other commonly available substance—that’s why living things are mostly made of water—but the etheric capacity of a given volume of water varies with temperature, reaching its peak at 39°F. Step into a cold shower and you’re literally bathing in etheric substance as well as in water, so your etheric body can recharge. (Washing with a washcloth wrung out in cold water is nearly as effective and less of a shock to your system.) Since the water retains its capacity to absorb etheric substance, it also picks up and carries away etheric crud from the surface of your etheric body—yes, the inner planes can be just as grubby as the material plane, especially in a society like ours that doesn’t even have the concept of etheric and astral hygiene.

And if your etheric body has the opposite polarity, as it does in most women and some men? Your etheric body expects to release a great deal of force into your partner’s etheric body, but if there’s no partner involved, this can’t happen. The result will generally be a state of etheric congestion. There are various ways to deal with this but the most reliable is creative activity. Anything from music and writing to cooking and housework will do ...

John Michael Greer #magick ecosophia.net

… The other kind of spirit functions on the astral plane; we can use one traditional term for them, and call them demons, but there are many different kinds and classes and varieties of malign astral being. For reasons of their own, some of these beings seek to draw human beings into various unbalanced and self-destructive patterns of thought and action. They have no real power over us, except to the extent that we give power to them, but they can whisper thoughts into the minds of humans in vulnerable conditions, and if those thoughts are welcomed, more will follow. Each class of demon has its characteristic imbalance, and distorted sexuality is the focus of one such class. Yes, chronic masturbators obsessively watching pornography are in a vulnerable condition to such entities.

The hallmarks of demonic involvement are easy to recognize. First, there is something weirdly mechanical about these entities; people they influence do and say the same things over and over again in rigidly stereotyped patterns, and lose the ability to reflect on their words and actions and notice how bizarrely repetitive they’ve become. Second, there’s an emotional tone to demonic activity that, once recognized, is never forgotten: hot, inflamed, confused, excited, murky. Finally, the actions they inspire in human beings are always self-defeating and self-destructive.

How do you get rid of such beings? ... Religion is one of the two classic options—old-fashioned sacramental religious denominations of every tradition have robust methods of chasing these beings away, though the more watered-down modernist versions of the same traditions are typically as helpless as they are clueless about such things. Magic is the other classic option: daily performance of a banishing ritual such as the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram or the Sphere of Protection, or the use of other methods of protection and blessing, will typically do the job in short order. Of course you can combine the two.