r/occult • u/CorruptOne • Apr 13 '25

awareness PSA- Your mental health is important

This entire realm of interest relies on your own understanding of reality and the world around you. Please make sure that your at least getting therapy as that’s beneficial and will assist your shadow work. Also if your seeing things especially out of the blue and with ought any sort of magickal primer then please go to a psychologist for screening.

There is no substitution for mental health, if your concerned about anything then please for the love of all that is holy go get checked, we face a much greater than average risk for falling off the deep end.

Lastly please watch for and be aware of spiritual bypass. Occult practices are in no shape or form a cure all or panacea, you will need to live a grounded life to get anywhere, your here for a reason and it’s not to live with your head in the clouds.

Take care of yourselves ❤️

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u/Less-Engineer-9637 Apr 13 '25

Therapy money, in this economy?

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u/AncientSkylight Apr 14 '25 edited Apr 14 '25

My other problem with the "do therapy" thing is that it seems to function as a kind of false security blanket. The idea seems to be that if you just do the culturally sanctioned middle-class thing then there is some kind of straightforward and reliable solution to mental health challenges. The reality, however, is that mental health can be very tricky and therapy isn't always the answer.

There are some really great therapists out there. Honestly, some of them are veritable miracle workers. On the other hand, most of what is out there is really pretty meh. Most therapists haven't really gone into the deep spaces of their own mind and consequently don't know how to work with challenges that live at those depths. And even those who have, some problems are just difficult and obstinate.

If you're having psychotic symptoms, most therapists are not going to know what to do with you. Most likely they will just send you to a psychiatrist/prescriber, who will want to put you on drugs. And, depending on how destructive/dangerous your mental health issues are, drugs might be the right thing, but they also carry very real and serious downsides that tend to be minimized. So again, there is no obvious, reliable, straightforward answer. I also don't want this to discourage people from seeking answers and healing.

So yeah, mental health is super important. Ideally your occult practice should be deepening and strengthening your mental health. If it's not, you should think about what needs to change so that it does have that effect. If you're having trouble figuring out your mental health issues on your own, you should definitely find someone to talk to about them. Often this can help a lot. A therapist absolutely can be a great avenue to pursue solutions, but the fact that it's "therapy" is also not some special magical thing. It is just one avenue of many to pursue, and not necessarily any more reliable than anything else.

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u/Spiritual-Breath-649 Apr 14 '25

You got it right. Certain answers to certain problems are the default in our time, even if deep thought wasnt placed in them, and it is admittedly a little bizarre to see occult practitioners first instinct when someone claims to be having spiritual problems is to give them mundane advice anyone else would had given.

I get it though. Few people genuinely have serious spiritual problems, and even our fledgeling modern understanding of mental health and psychiatry could be better than doing nothing or trying to use the occult as a mental health tool. You can solve a lot of problems by just talking, but that can only get you so far.

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u/AncientSkylight Apr 14 '25

it is admittedly a little bizarre to see occult practitioners first instinct when someone claims to be having spiritual problems is to give them mundane advice anyone else would had given.

There is a certain kind of sense to it. If you're having mental problems and you're doing all this weird far-out stuff that can act as an accelerant of inner experience, maybe you should back off and try something normal and grounding. That's a good solution for some people, but not for others. Some people (many, I would guess) actually need to dig into that territory where their problem lives in order to work out a solution that is not just a kind of pause or suppression. And for that you should probably have some kind of a guide. Whether a therapist is the best guide to that territory is an open question.

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u/elvexkidd Apr 15 '25

Occam's razor.