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Return conversation with Dan Mitchell of Luminosity, on enlightenment aversion, cult fears, unhealed traumas, and the techno-social eradication of human community and soul sentience.
Part One: Trauma & Enlightenment (0 – 31 mins)
The value of contrast, a kick in the gut, the term “enlightenment,” crucial fictions, what Dave has, a time & a day for enlightenment, a seeker at 5, expressing emotions vs. catharsis, the Human Energy Field & Robert Monroe, a New Age feel, knowing oneself, enlightenment vs. embodiment, the life force, trauma, & the nervous system, the moment of landing, D. H. Lawrence, the loss of the cosmos, chronic illness and neuropathy of the feet, formative trauma, the quest for freedom from trauma, addressing trauma, through writing.
Part Two: A Burned Out Mind (31 mins – 1 hr 5 mins)
Ways to heal trauma, Prisoner of Infinity, passing on healing, Mogensen & Kalsched, a mental block, writing the way to the exit, the benign use of the intellect, keeping the mind busy, a burned out mind, a job in the military-industrial complex, unplugging, a time before Smart phones, an electric beast, what technology facilitates, out with the bathwater, under apartment arrest, movie language, phantoms of reality, the futility of the search, trapped in movie hell, liberal progressives in the mid-West, the death of humor, a world of robots, what’s wrong with a cult, a cult-like upbringing, the Playwall, radical freedom, banishing the incorrect, collective scapegoating, enlightenment predators, equilibrium with Nature.
Part Three: A Beleagured Seeker’s Track Record (1 hr 5 mins – 1 hr 36 mins)
Wholeness, branded enlightenment, a sheep among wolves, dying as a real thing, routing the enlightenment huxters, the persecution of an innocent, the best result, a visceral resistance, democratic resistance, a beleagured seeker’s track record, a sojourn in a bona fide cult, isolation from family, human groupings, a moving collective, unavoidable associations, the social program, the human project that has never worked (yet), damaged by modernity, faces in phones, unsafe to talk, increasing charge, increasing caution, disconnected parents, a dead culture, homesteading.
Part Four: The Final Human Product (1 hr 36 mins – end)
Hanging with Christians, the inversion of human language in the twilight zone, good people are hard to find, a sense of community, covid vs community spirit, lining up for the mark of the beast, secularized Christianity, invasion of the body snatchers in Hope, drawing out the elixir, community building in Galicia, humans in Nature, a mad prophet & techno-soul-destruction, a ruthlessly unflinching gaze, an exit, the opposite of violence, what we’ve done for thousands of years, talking about the demiurge, the synthetic cataract of the world, an unseen entity, prevalent self-fulfilling Gnosticism, conspiracy dead-ends, beliefs that stress the body, living in untruth, uncommon sense, simulation delusion, Glitch in the Matrix, peak-conspiracy theory, the final human product, a slow kill, the dawn of the human zombie.
Songs: “Primitive” & “Chasing Time” by Joy Zipper; “Pink & Black” by Terry Allen; “Fletcher Christian” by The Mekons
Unsure which is funnier, you once stating that you don’t think I am Enlightened or Dan suspecting a cult.
How such communal divisions happen and are repaired is worthy of study, with ourselves as the subjects.
Dan is correct: there are predatory cults, some are unobvious.
Only the burn-outs will appreciate my scrupulously non-coercive non-hierarchical stance, after circling “my thing” cautiously, sometimes for decades.
However, more urgently, since the apocalyptic train wreck has happened (acc. to JaHo and those who have eyes to see it), so we are now in triage mode.
Do your readers realise that their ability to see you, or each other, is not guaranteed and has multiple potential points of failure that could “yanked” at any time, even by midnight tonight?
The aim now is understanding what “making the most of life” means and doing it without being subverted or distracted.
The free forum on Zoom is open in a few hours: https://www.daveoshana.com/events/951-from-darkness-to-light-finding-the-love-open-to-all
Wonderful. Longtime listener, first time caller. There are a few kindred spirits, likeminded communities out there (on the internet at least) I will have to check Dan Mitchell because I do feel him to be a kindred spirit.
I don’t think any of the following are psyops. I came to the liminalist via Blanco Malic, check kalitribune. com. He doesn’t really offer any concrete solutions but I do find his podcast calming or comforting or reassuring.
Since have also found Owen Benjamin (trysearching Beartaria or “Tea Time with Gary and Terry” on YouTube ( for now, because he gets deplatformed often. Intense but has formed a community that might interest Dan or his daughter.
Also there is James True who is also forming a community or a campground.
All are Christian based, based and about getting back to the land, and roots.
Got my copy of 16 Maps of Hell. Amazing!
Feel Dan what he first thought about Dave O’Shana and too am a bit hesitant. But this podcast just now was great. I’m in a difficult time zone (Tokyo Japan) as well as being a bit tech-retarded but don’t want to get left behind.
hi PR; good to meet you and hear your thoughts
like the Irish spelling of Dave(known in East End circles as “The Leprechaun”)’s last name
Wow. Engrossing and “enlightening” conversation Dan and Jasun. I could have listened for another hour or two at least. You are both people who think quite a bit like myself. I can testify to the fact that there is very little depth in nearly everyone I’ve known here in Hope. We came here is 2004 seeking a country living experience.
Of course we never fit in and refrained from attempting that after only a year or two. Fortunately we had friends from outside of Hope who visited from time to time. They were our only company for the 10 yrs. before his passing.
Cult-like experiences were familiar and weird churches made me loathe to outwardly identify as a Christian. I’d never recommend a church to anyone because of my experiences in most of them.
You, Jasun invited me to one of Dave’s zoom meetings not long ago and I attempted the first one only to find myself balling my eyes out while attempting to connect. Why? because you reached out to me while the Christians I knew could care less about what was going on in my life.
I joined a few days later and felt immediately energized. I was walking faster, doing more fun stuff, eating a healthy diet of fresh veggies. Two days later I joined again, this time with the camera on. Mind blowing experience.
Dan, I hope you join soon, before the Zombies do something to render it impossible. There is power in love and acceptance that transmits through the ether. It by far surpasses the digital wave.
Cheers
what a lovely share, Jnia; your words never fail to surprise me
funnily enough, Dave referred to this talk also as “enlightening” in an email to me
I guess he didn’t reproduce it here in case Dan was offended 😉
No worries on the “E” word. I definitely wouldn’t be offended. Though I probably used “loathe” one time too many in this conversation. You’d think I have some kind of complex about enlightenment (maybe I do-not sure). The last few days since this conversation I have been bombarded with wild and odd coincidences related to both the words “enlightenment” and “cult”. I told you about one of them. So I can say that the Cosmos is speaking to me on some level, while something else is working against me on another. I was set to join the discussion today and ended up having someone show up at my house unexpectedly 10 minutes before I logged in. The weird part is that this isn’t new. Years ago when I used to meditate and do other practices, I would be moments away from what felt like a breakthrough only to hear my children start arguing or my wife needing me for some mundane chore. It was so disheartening. This is a definite pattern of experience for me unfortunately. I wonder if it is something in me calling this “bad luck” forth to protect my nebulous identity, is it simply a busy household, or is it something else? I do not know.
Thank you, Jnia. I know what you mean about church folk. I grew up around them, and used to be one. Beside church elders, the 2nd worse people I have been around are medical doctors. To me there is little difference between the two. One tells me I have to believe something in particular to have life. The other tells me I must take something to have life. I find both revolting to be around. That’s not to say all are this way, but in my experience this has been the majority of the modern “priestly class”. I can say with certainty that the people who have been the kindest to me were regular folks that expected nothing in return after showing their kindness and generosity. I never found this among Christians including members of my own family. Often times if I veered even slightly on a theological or eschatological point the heresy hunters were ready to flay me. Many people who told me they loved and cared for me abandoned me the moment I began to question everything.
Dan, bless you. I hear you at every point, having lived a somewhat parallel life to yours. I wonder if the “priestly class”, eat a lot of oysters. After all oyster shells make for the ultimate flaying tool. Ask a well thought out question and out comes the “tools of Mass destruction.”
In my opinion the institution of “church” is the most effective deterrent to salvation. And in my experience over more than a few decades the pulpit serves primarily as a virtual television program spewing their own flavor de jure.
That isn’t always the case but we are instructed to work out our own salvation and we are to meet together with others who are also working out theirs, which doesn’t mean going to church every Sunday.
The interruptions you experience when you/we need privacy seems to be a long standing pattern. These patters, I believe are there to inform us of something pertinent and relevant to our spiritual growth. They always inhibit us as we groan against the law of entropy.
I was planning to meet with some like minded people this morning but awoke feeling ill, today’s inhibitory force. It’s winning but at least I see it and will do battle against it.
Those of us who do think and ponder and grow are of the warrior class.
Many blessings to you Dan.
Dan M: “Often times if I veered even slightly on a theological or eschatological point the heresy hunters were ready to flay me. Many people who told me they loved and cared for me abandoned me the moment I began to question everything.”
Small wonder why “brokenness” is a key concept in enculturated Christianity. Aside from genuine repentance, humility and acceptance, which are difficult to affect, it points to (a) broken people needing something intellectual/emotive to feel somewhat whole, (b) predators seeking to create brokenness as soon as possible in their prey and (c) a combination of predator/prey, which is what society is.
This will surely have meaning for JaHo and Luke D. who were once psychologically bound as sacrificial lambs in two separate post-Christian cults.
Anything can be weaponised. A lesson for discernment. Hear endeth the sermon.
We had a great post COVID-19-fear love party last night. You would have been touched by the open sharing.
Maybe the next party will be around theme of Christianity. Is that even a real thing?
So far, we haven’t had any true polar opposites in our events, though grit for pearls is inevitable.
Let’s get to them with love before they get to us with hate.
Thank you, Dave. In my experience modern christianity leaves a pernicious imprint on the human soul. Brokeness is a doorway into the soul itself which the practioners of priestcraft know all too well. This was certainly true in my case. I was broken down at a young age by abuse that I was told was “godly” and “righteous”. From there my head was filled with teachings that were based on fear. So I became a fearful person.
The imprinting was so thorough that even today I still wonder (though rarely) if my thoughts, feelings, and ideas (even the most profound ones born from the innermost depths of being) will inevitably lead to my own damnation. This seems highly irrational even to me, but I cannot deny the power of this imprinting which I began to receive as early as age 4.
Getting rid of this imprinting has been brutal to say the least. Even after 20+ years of actively pursuing truth, I am still “unhealed” and “unwhole” though in a much better space than I was all those years ago.
All the more confusing when wholeness isn’t a known destination. By definition, one is either whole or broken. A broken condition cannot fully remember or deeply understand wholeness.
It’s a common condition suffered by virtually everyone (pun intended). There’s natural inclination towards integration. But there are tricks of the mind that obscure natural healing and progress.
Hi Dave,
This struck me:
“…predators seeking to create brokenness as soon as possible in their prey and (c) a combination of predator/prey, which is what society is.”
My father, bless his socks, used to have some pithy sayings along these lines.
One was: “There are only two kinds of people on this earth; those who get trodden on and those who do the treading.”
He never elucidated which camp he felt he was in – although, I often had a pretty good notion!
Did you preserve the blessed socks for forensic analysis?
There was no need: it was very quickly apparent they had no sole.
Shuffling along then. The angels like to keep abreast of things.
Hi Jasun and Dan,
Thanks! That was a fantastic discussion. I’m still reverberating with recognition at pretty much everything you covered.
I’d say both your analysis and your ideas about finding solutions are right on the (soon to be digitized) money.
I’m 56 and have been on a similar mission to you guys for all of my adult life.
Don’t worry, Dan, I’m not going to call it ‘The Quest for Enlightenment’ or any other pseudo-mystical bollocks like that! (No offence, Dave O!)
I don’t want to say a lot more here, because I’m focusing on something specific you said, Jasun, about the formation of – what can we call them? Intentional? – communities and your aspirations for something of the sort in the area you’ve chosen to live.
This is something I’d be very keen to discuss further with you, as I should be in a position to move in that, long cherished, direction in the not too distant future – assuming international travel isn’t abolished altogether, or only permitted with a health passport of some description.
At this stage, however, I imagine what you’d be most concerned to discover is the extent to which, if any, my philosophy and yours coincide, which feels like something that ought to be conducted in a more personal way than a forum like this.
Am I chasing shadows here, or is there a way for us to talk?
In any case, consider me (virtually, at least) a friend.
Best wishes.
hi Nick
there are a number of ways, as listed in the contact section of this site, including possibly ones not mentioned. Look forward to hearing more from you.
J
Cheers!
I’ll be on it tomorrow, first thing (UK time)
Nick
Another lovely fireside convo as I curl up next to a warm laptop.
The real and present threat of the death of conversation, humour especially is a cause I can get behind. Through humour and laughter I get the purest sense of embodiment
the mind is tickled the body responds, a natural alchemy occurs.
Dave’s very natural humour is a big part of his appeal to me.
When I’m laughing I feel love -the love of being alive
That old curmudgeon Schopenhauer put it this way
“a sense of humour is the only divine quality o man”
I also relate to many other things mentioned including Dan’s brain burnout from searching for truth and a desire to disconnect as much as possible from the parasitical electronic media.
Thank you Jasun and Dan.
‘When the whole world’s a cult, what’s wrong with joining a cult?’ made me laugh.
As I listened twice to this talk, and read the comments, I kept thinking, ‘I am Dan J…I am Nick…I am Suzie…(I’m probably Peter too, but for a bit more detail he could provide, with which to line myself up)…meaning, we all apparently share similar disdain for what passes as a culture, and a longing for authentic connection; an environment in which expression is encouraged, though be sure to bring the real. It’s even been ok for me to bring the stuff that I question as to its reality. As Jasun pointed out early in the talk about the ‘E’ word, “that’s half of it, the other half is being yourself, expressing yourself…”
I too bristled initially at the ‘Enlightenment’ term, and held back from involving myself for a while as I tested the waters with my ten foot pole and my hazmat spacesuit. As this conversation progressed and Dan elaborated on his history, I came to realize that my own trepidation and discomfort with what this thing is, was rooted in negative associations from the past, involving those who no longer can nor should have any bearing on how I perceive the world, and the occasional bits of goodness found in it. I’m learning not to cringe at the possibility that someone(s) achieved enlightenment, as defined by JaHo later in the conversation: ‘Knowing yourself….expressing yourself… embodiment, soul fully landed in body, a process of healing and re-integrating life force, deeper….to the point of complete alignment of body / soul; soul indwelling, body ensouled.’
That’s some poetry I can get behind.
& with any luck, hearty testimonies like this, coming from grizzled veterans who dared to take a chance on love, will let timid side-liners, still caught up in culturally-incepted fears and trapped in the safety of cynicism, just what they opting out of.
I hear you, Brother: the world seems crushingly prosaic, right now.
However, there’s a lightness and transparency in your thoughts that I find uplifting, poetic even.
We are all each other, in the final analysis – the ‘one big soul’ Preacher Casy refers to in The Grapes of Wrath.
Similar times, in many ways.
A spiritual dust bowl, perhaps?
Glad to be on the same road as you!
A side-effect of fishnets is that sleepy species waste away for no purpose.
BTW Notice that your subs hit 1K?
we have lift off?
In theory: quantum entanglement investments can only rise and never fall.
Only up
Dan knows both New Age and Christian.
Was this chat for Dan mostly about guarding and discarding than hunter-gatherer?
If I am understanding you correctly I would say largely discarding (with a little bit of guarding perhaps). Not only discarding unnecessary baggage in the soul, but discarding even my unnecessary physical possessions.
Yes, Dan. Though I don’t think those baggies are “in” the soul.
Enjoyed everything covered in the podcast. There was a great back and forth going on between Jasun and Dan that was very compelling. Being in nature, connecting to our natural self and with others feels right to me.
I will try to not beat a dead horse. From an email I sent to Jasun. A bit long:
I will try to not be too long-winded with this email. I have been very observant over myself after our conversation. A process has begun to stir up in me. I mentioned this when we spoke but couldn’t fully describe what was happening. I’ve had some breakthroughs recently (to use an over-used term). This breakthrough relates to thought processes that seem to be manufacturing my own nebulous identity from moment to moment.
I have recently noticed that when my thoughts are not allowed to flow freely (due to agitation, anxiety, stress), or if I linger on my thoughts for too long, there is is a backup of “mental stuff” that coalesces and enforces this faux-identity of Dan Mitchell with all of its various thought and psychological patterns.
For several minutes the other day I saw that my personal identity is a product of these stifled thought processes that are always arising and passing away. I was standing at my sink with the water running, and noticed something that really shook me up. I realized that my fleeting identity was anterior to a “timeless, invisible space” that held onto everything in my perception like a womb perhaps. This space was eternity without conditions amd it was very much alive. I could see no possible way that it could ever die or be other than it is. This timeless, invisible space felt like the truest form of nature and it was just behind my eyes, like looking out through my identity. I hate using this type of language because it’s so ambiguous, but this is the best I can do. I realize that in a sense there are 2 of me. One is Dan Mitchell and then this other very alive space without a face that had no possible beginning or end.
The realization of it scared me. When the fear started, the old mental processing began again, which kick-started my faux-identity back into place. I am convinced that the edifice of the entire modern synthetic world is created by this exact same mental process. Modernity is dis-orientation. The synthetic world unfolds in this eternal, timeless space and somehow (but how?) we get disoriented and misidentify ourselves. Thought seems to have some purpose in eternity, but perhaps we have mistaken and misidentified its true purpose? This could happen as an inherent process of nature. Are thoughts a natural rhythm in nature that are supposed to flow through us but eventually wobble out of control unleashing skyscrapers, insanity, and confusion? I bet thinking about it merely enforces it into place.
I am now catching daily glimpses of this eternal, unconditioned space. I can’t focus on it or it goes away. When I stop lingering on my thoughts, and let them just flow (without forcing them to slow down or quiet down) I see this eternal, timeless space re-appear. When I am outside in nature my mind is easier able to let these mental processes of identity-creation fade. Nature seems to reprogram the mind to a truer, healthier and even more receptive state. I wonder if this is the proper orientation of human beings
Short answer, Dan: Yes!
Mover and a quaker!
Do I hear a hallelujah or an amen or none of the above?
You remind me of another commenter on this blog who made the journey from mind to mass (body).
What a wonderfully documented insight you’ve shared.
Note that this series of sentences are just that and I’ve done my best to reflect the above commenters precision in sharing what is the pinnacle of life, so excuse the clunky nature but that’s how it is after the better part of 20 minutes formulating this.
I experienced similar at a Dave event late last year when he was using the language of ancestors.
The AG hosted by jasun today was very enlightening to the say the least. There’s such integrity to be found when a group of people give themselves over to creating a group centred on…goodness or, listening and receiving or, what have you. In attendance at today’s AG I held myself to a very high standard which has resulted in me sitting at my kitchen table after a long day filled with dance and love and me finally going to the dreaded supermarket to decipher what it is my body needs. The intimacy of these zoom meetings is a wild ride and requires of me to give all I can, particularly when I find myself rattled by my own bouncing energy or that of someone else’s.
Like above I’ll keep this short and neat and wish to sign off with recognition everyone’s personhood and the great informing spaciousness that is.
Thank you for the confirmation, Cameron. It seems very tricky wrapping the mind around this spaciousness because it feels like a much different orientation than normal. For instance it sometimes feels proper to say, “the body is in me” rather than saying “I am in the body”. But the body is still very real. I can feel its groaning and travails, but again I believe there is an error in the way we perceive our position. This isn’t transcendence or gnostic escape from earth as much as re-orientation into the proper position of the human being in nature. For me this state isn’t consistent at all. It comes and goes….and it goes away for days at a time.
I tried thinking of a rational question about how normal human orientation (mind is contained in my body) might be incorrect. All I could think of was “how can a mind with thoughts, emotions, and patterns without dimensions be contained in a human skull which has dimensions in time and space?” Or “how does something mortal contain the immortal” or “how can a limited human space contain spaciousness”? These seem like silly questions, but at least for me at this moment, they are very real questions.
Hi Dan,
I don’t know if you’ll ever see this but I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on an ongoing story related in episodes 106, 227 & 228 of the podcast Strange Familiars. These episodes detail the experiences of two women and their various encounters with an entity who has identified itself as Gwyn (perhaps Gwyn ap Nudd of Welsh mythology ). As I was listening to these accounts I was struck by some similarities between their stories and your experience with the Harlequin. Of course, the veracity of these claims are dubious, but it’s a compelling story nonetheless and I wonder whether it might not bring some small degree of clarity to your own experiences were you to give it a listen.
I enjoyed both of your discussions on The Liminalist and hope to see your return as you always bring a unique perspective to the table.
Be well and best wishes!
I cannot say what brought me to this website today. Out of thousands, nay, millions of pages online, I found myself here.
Dan, you and I spoke quite often, several years back now. It is good to hear you again, your voice and experience have been sadly missing from the narrative. I cannot imagine a time where your insight is more valuable.
I hope you’ve all been keeping well.
Warm regards,
– Christopher.
Dear Dan,
As you may imagine, I too have been courting this space lately. More than once, you have come to my mind – so it was both a great surprise, and no surprise to gratefully cross you here again today.
I hope you are doing well old friend.
– Christopher.
I sang a Hum of Pooh Bear in the last Guy Dance meet; perhaps t’was that which summoned thee?
The real Christopher Robin! It’s good to hear from you. Yes I remember we struck up a friendship when I was still writing online. Probably back from Transmissions From The Imaginal when the spirit of Henry Corbin kept hanging around me and whispering the way to Hurqalya. I’d love to catch up and see how everything is going with you. I use protonmail. At danm1976
Curious to note is that Christopher Robin was a name I posted under a couple times at this site. And the real Christopher has stood up. Welcome. What effect will this comment have?
Gday and goodnight
I can’t even adequately say how I came to this site, but, such is the way at times – we find ourselves empathetically where we need to be; not so much fate as simply the way the river flows, or the way the trees tremble in the breeze.
I am glad to come by this way, and to hear some subjects discussed that are near and dear to me. Dan, always good to hear from you, I’ll pop you a note over.
Be well all,
– Christopher.