What I want to address is something I believe lies at the heart of your struggle with spiritual work: you wear your pessimism like armor. You've been hurt, and in response to that pain, you've constructed a defensive wall of cynicism. You believe this pessimism will protect you from feeling more pain. This is the impression I get, and this is precisely what makes it difficult for you to truly open yourself to the spiritual realm.
Yet you are drawn to this work, and I believe that attraction stems from a natural gift. The tragedy is that even when you are giving readings, you don't believe what you're saying. There's a principle in sales that applies equally to spiritual guidance: you must believe what you're saying in order to successfully convey it to others. Without genuine conviction, your words become hollow, and people can sense that emptiness.
The Difference Between Critical Thinking and Closed-Mindedness
Now, I want to be clear about what I'm not saying. I'm not advocating for blind acceptance or abandoning critical thinking. I am actually very critical myself. But there is a fundamental difference between being totally closed off because of fear and being appropriately discerning. One stance comes from protection; the other comes from wisdom.
Similarly, I'm not suggesting that everything should be spoken openly without consideration. Of course we should be tactful in how we communicate. But what I am saying is this: you should have a genuine belief in what you are doing and what you are saying in order to effectively lead or guide people.
When you think to yourself, "These women will buy anything I say if I use words like feminine intuition," you display nothing but a purely pessimistic attitude. This approach is spiritually bankrupt. Rather than manipulating with language, if you are doing a reading, you should be opening up to the energy of each person and trying to read that person as much as the cards themselves.
The Oracle and the Tools
Here's what many people misunderstand about divination: it's actually much more about the talent of the oracle than it is about the cards, bones, runes, dice, or whatever tools are being used. These are merely instruments to assist the oracle. It is the energy of the oracle that actually matters. The tools are conduits, not sources.
This is why authenticity is paramount. We can be authentic and guarded at the same time. There are exoteric and esoteric truths, and understanding the distinction between what can be shared openly and what must remain hidden is part of wisdom. But beneath whatever level of revelation we choose, there must be genuine engagement.
The same principle applies when you receive a reading from a different oracle. It becomes pointless if you've already decided that the oracle is a huckster, that she is empty and hollow, and that the whole thing is just trickery. If that's your starting assumption, there's no reason to participate. Again, I'm not saying to abandon critical thinking. I'm saying to take each experience for what it is and connect with the energy. Move in the spirit. It's not about taking the oracle literally or even about what the cards specifically say. It's about the whole experience, the energetic exchange.
The Mirror of Divination
Consider the reading you had last night as an example. You were projecting your own insecurity, and the oracle reflected it back to you like a mirror. That's how these things work. You see yourself as a man who can't find a wife. You devalue yourself because of this perceived lack. You look at having a family as some kind of proof that you are worthy as a man or even as a human being. Because you do not have a wife or children yet, you carry pain and doubt, and you projected all this insecurity into your question. The oracle reflected it back to you like a mirror, as they are meant to do.
But here's what's valuable: what the oracle said was likely what you needed to hear, which is essentially "focus on yourself." Deal with your emotional and spiritual issues. Build your own energy. Then construct the life around you as you see fit. The family, the wife, the external validations you seek—these will follow from inner wholeness, not create it.
The Missing Element
This brings me to another crucial point about your practice: You are working with elemental divination, which is impressive. But you've forgotten the fifth element. You have earth, water, fire, and air, but you've neglected spirit. The concept of four elements comes from the Romans and Greeks, but they actually identified five elements, not four. The fifth is the animating spirit, the universal spirit, the life force that permeates all things.
Even if you choose to keep your system as four elements, you must recognize that the fifth element is still present in you as the oracle and in the person you are reading for. You must tap into that spiritual dimension. Without it, you're working with an incomplete system, like trying to play music while missing an entire octave.
The Poison of the "Broken" Mindset
Beware the Judeo-Christian mindset which manifests in many insidious ways in modern culture. One of the most common is the idea that everyone is broken, that everyone has something fundamentally wrong with them. This is simply the concept of "sin" wearing secular clothing, pretending to use data, evidence, and science while maintaining the same spiritually destructive premise.
Consider instead the Azoth Mandala. Europeans have mandalas too, not just Buddhists in Tibet. Azoth means Mercury, which offers you a significant clue since Mercury is the messenger of the gods. The purpose of studying such symbols is to realize the inherent perfection hidden within everything, to understand the unity of the material and the spiritual as symbolized by the philosopher's stone.
This is easy to say but genuinely realizing it is far more difficult. By "realizing" I mean truly grasping it, allowing it to change you, empower you, fill you with vital life energy, and then living it fully. This experiential understanding cannot be transmitted through words alone.
The Necessity of Personal Realization
This is precisely why esoteric teachings were kept hidden throughout history. Not because of elitism or gatekeeping, but because one has to realize them personally in order for them to be meaningful. No amount of intellectual understanding can substitute for direct spiritual experience. You can read every book on swimming, but until you enter the water, you don't truly know what swimming is.
Your pessimism keeps you on the shore, afraid of the depths. But the gift calls to you from those depths. The question is whether you'll remove the armor and dive in, or whether you'll continue to stand at the water's edge, describing swimming to others while never getting wet yourself.
The choice, as always, is yours.
The Azoth Mandala