Mental illness and addiction are inevitable in the world…

… as long as…

1) these carnal bodies of ours are vulnerable to biochemical and hormonal imbalances that can occur in some people at certain times of their lives… (read more) and

… as long as…

2) there’s a dismal, shadowy, spirit world blanketing the Earth like a dark cloud… populated by confused invisibles who move in and out of our world, entering our spiritual auras, sharing their troubled feelings with us living humans…. their grief and depression… their torment and annoyance… their frustration and desperation… their contempt and vulgarity. (read more)

That shadow world is sometimes called a holding place for confused people who carry their troubled thinking with them after they die. Until they can resonate with the good will and peace of mind that are pervasive in the various paradise afterlife worlds, they remain stuck in a confused place, close to the Earth in vibration.

Getting a glimpse into that crazy, dismal realm can make us… well, a little crazy and dismal.

Fortunately, our human minds and bodies have evolved over the centuries with effective spiritual blinders that block our view of the unsavory shadow world around us. The five senses and brain are keyed-in to the material world. All of the spirit worlds are invisible, and avail themselves to us only if and when we activate our dormant “sixth sense”… that is, if and when our spiritual blinders come down for whatever reason.

Having spiritual blinders is a good thing and a bad thing. On the up side, they protect us from the clamor and frenzy that roil just across the veil from us. On the down side, they keep us spiritually ignorant… caught up in the illusion that the material world is everything… that there is no spiritual reality.

Our built-in spiritual blinders don’t just protect us from the low-level spiritual riff-raff all around us; they also block our view of the vast, ethereal worlds of love and wisdom that hold the key to our divine destiny.

Like the dark, shadowy realms, those finer spiritual realms are also right here, all around us… but while the shadow world is dark and dismal, the finer realms vibrate at a subtler level in worlds of brilliant light.

In effect, our spiritual blinders block the light and stunt our finer spiritual growth, while providing sanctuary from the murky storm.

The Blinders Don’t Always Work

Some people grow up with faulty blinders, for no apparent reason. Many kids see and talk to invisible playmates, but while most kids lose that ability as their blinders kick in around age 4, a few never lose the knack. Communing quietly with spirits becomes a way of life. They might become psychics or prophets or mystics or inventors… or mentally ill… depending on the nature of the spirits who visit and influence them, and the support or pressure or fear the sensitive ones receive from their families and friends.

For other people, things can happen to damage the blinders.

• Physical or sexual abuse during childhood can disrupt the blinders. The sensitive spirit of the child might be pushed out of the body for a while by a tougher spirit more acclimated to invasion and defilement. These kids might grow up with multiple personalities, or “dissociative identity disorder.”
• Using drugs and alcohol can disable the blinders… in some people more than in others. Many taverns are inhabited by spirits of dead alcoholics, who enjoy entering the bodies of heavy drinkers to relive the experience of drunkenness. Alcoholics are often infested by many troubled spirits… one reason why they live not just without a home, but without a stable world to walk in.
• Some drugs (especially hallucinogens) can open the blinders wide. Even a few tokes of marijuana can induce paranoid schizophrenia in a few people… which is a breakdown of the blinders. They start hearing voices in their heads and seeing glimpses of bizarre spirit worlds, which seem like dreams or hallucinations.

Western Religions Like the Blinders Up, Easterners Down

Western religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) have built-in mechanisms to protect the blinders of their followers… to help them resist spirits or ignore them or disavow their existence. Christianity insists that its followers believe in the existence of Jesus, God, and divine spiritual forces, but reject the existence of spirits of the dead who interact with our world. (Read more)

Not so in the Far East. Mystical-spiritual traditions tracing back to ancient India teach aspiring monks how to meditate in ways to carefully unravel the blinders, to contend with the dismal riff-raff, and then to ascend to finer spiritual realms while in a meditative state.

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So… that’s the reality of things… a hodgepodge of spiritual realms all around us, some of them light and loving, others dark and dismal… a reality that most of us prefer not to dwell on as we walk the Earth.

Most of us have very effective, built-in spiritual blinders… and we’re glad, at some level, that we do.

Many people, though, have faulty blinders that create problems in their lives… and pose problems to society… homelessness, alcoholism, drug addiction, crime, mental illness….

Societies at a Loss

Society’s problems with homelessness and addiction don’t just trace back to the individuals with faulty blinders, but deeper inward to that dismal, shadowy, spiritual realm that blankets our world like a storm cloud… discharging its troubled thoughts and attitudes into our world by any available means… through any susceptible vehicle.

Some modern societies have programs in place to help the mentally ill, addicts, the homeless, and others who suffer from ineffective blinders and spirit-meddling, while others seem clueless.

The way humanity deals with the problem is sometimes exasperating… especially here in the States. There’s a small, very rich, very powerful network of people who spend billions of dollars bribing politicians and fixing elections and fighting legal battles to weaken the government… to strip away social programs that help society’s lost souls. There are even efforts underway in Florida and Texas to outlaw efforts to help the needy… imposing $2,000 fines on good-hearted souls who are caught feeding the homeless. (Read more)

It’s almost as if that vicious element within the rich 1 percent dismiss society’s lost souls as stupid, lazy people who have no business getting any help from society. And so the poor, the homeless… the hopeless… sink deeper into desperation.

Ultimately the finer spirit of these corrupt, callous capitalists will kick in (after all, they’re like all of the rest of us; they do have glorious souls deep within…), and they’ll regret the pain and suffering they’ve imposed on so many people, but in the meantime they stand at the pompous helm, driven by their egos… navigating their unconscionable yachts through the seas of society, leveling far greater destruction on the world than do the desperate masses whom they seek to crush.

Read more about the massive destruction by the rich 1 percent….

This situation does not bode well for humanity as we enter the twilight years of the Second Epoch.

Read more about the Second Epoch…

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Finally, one of the better sources I’ve found for dealing with addiction and its consequences from the perspectives of parents, kids, teachers, and community members, is the Prevention Coalition. Lots of good resources there. (Read more… )