From: Tagi@cup.portal.com (Tagi Mordred Nagashiva)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Benign magic spells (empathy?)
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 92 10:59:43 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
  <1992Aug18.233624.24848@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>
  <4eZ32ai00awQQ2fExy@andrew.cmu.edu> <1992Aug20.204808@cunix4.Prime.COM>

9208.21 e.v.


Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
The word of Sin is Restriction.


There has been talk about 'taking barriers down' so as to see more
clearly the emotional condition of others in an intentional way.
Nanci asked, very adroitly, how?, and Jason gave his ideas.  Here's
my response:


I've had a problem with this for a long time.  When I grew up, I was
taught (by an abusive father and a naive mother) to completely withdraw.
This was a defense-mechanism.  While it protected me, it also cut me off
rather completely from sensing other people's emotions (let alone my own!).
Over time I began to feel empty and lonely in a largely emotionless
experience.  There have been a few things which have 'brought me out of my
shell'.  These follow:


a) Lovers.  The people I have been drawn to were VERY emotionally expressive
and VERY intuitive about people.  Of course, this has problems of its own
(being overly sensitive at times, projecting upon those who are inexpressive,
etc.).  They showed me how to express my emotions in ways which felt safe
for me.  They guided me, by asking me about HOW I felt, to see what I was
really experiencing and to see what others were feeling about what I was
doing and saying.  Of course, being close to them, I was able to see their
emotions more clearly BECAUSE they were generally on 'high volume'.


b) Cults.  I investigated many organizations which I would call 'cults'.
These included Scientology, Krishna Consciousness, Nichiren Shoshu, and
Fundamentalist Christianity :>.  There were some very sincere individuals who
were helped by their experiences in these groups.  On the whole I found
that my exploration of them (mostly for information purposes, since I
felt fairly comfortable with my own path) allowed a experimental environment
in which to feel the STRONG emotional expression (often coercive) without
feeling that I HAD to shut down.  I was able to look at how these people
were feeling (BECAUSE it was so strong), yet used my conditioned barriers
as a means of protection.  

Many sensitive people have not yet developed very strong emotional shields.
I have had the opposite problem.  My shields were so strong and reactive that
I struggled to get past the triggers and see PAST them for a while.  All
of these things helped me to do this, some in different ways than others.


c) Arguments.  Of course I also engaged many intellectual and emotional
arguments.  Both with lovers and with people who feel very strongly about
their 'beliefs', I felt that I could maintain my balance but get a sense
of what they were feeling BECAUSE of its intensity.  I must say that there
have been times when afterwards I felt sorry for the person who was being
restimulated by my questions, even though I did not intend to 'change their
mind'.  They were used to people who had to 'be right all over them'.  My
intent was simply to understand them and engage a philosophic process,
especially with cults.

With lovers it was more difficult.  Those people who were close to me tended
to flame HOT.  Of course, this would trigger me into COLD, but over time we
began to see what was happening and slow the triggering process down.  I
began to use the shields to protect my deep hurt from my father, and let
them down in order to resolve conflicts with these people who I loved so
dearly.  This still happens with the people with whom I'm close, and we
try to keep clear on what triggers are tripped and how to get past them.


d) Psychoactive activities.  I honestly feel that some of the experiences I've
had in terms of art and/or psychedelics have allowed me to explore my emotional
barriers and wounds.  Poetry and other writing has sometimes felt like giving
birth.  Music in consonance with either was SO important in terms of feeling
my OWN emotions that I cannot recommend this too strongly.  Eventually I
began to use music as a magical tool to engage my emotional state or even
to shape my emotions, to a certain extent.


e) Computer Services.  My post reflects upon itself here.  It is not
only a convenient filter, this technological medium of communication.  I
type into a box and see the words upon the screen before me.  I send them
off into a 'virtual world' and see what happens.  The computer and the
distance become a 'barrier', welcomed or not.

Over time I began to HAVE to understand that there were REAL PEOPLE
on the other side of that box.  Live interaction, which is what I first
engaged, brought this home fairly quickly.  The medium allows MANY
misunderstandings, since there is no bodily or tonal cue to 'spin' the
expression (smilies help, but they aren't always effective).

Watching people interact via computer I began to understand that the 
communication which I 'didn't like' was largely emotional in content,
not intellectual.  People were connecting emotionally via computer,
however limited the medium, and eventually I saw that my preferences
were not THE RIGHT ONES.  To this day I tend to prefer intellectual
exchanges, yet am becoming comfortable with many types of interaction.

I've had online romances, some which did and some which did not extend
beyond the virtual world.  I've had online knock-down brawls, many of
which we were able to resolve within the virtual world.  I've tried
different 'voices' via live communication, changing my persona (culture,
sex, interests, expression-modes, etc.) and found that the way people
respond to me varies TREMENDOUSLY based on how I approach them.  Their
emotions are decipherable given a variation in MY style.  This is true
as well OFFline...


f) Transformation.   I've undertaken many experiments in changing my
appearance.  This has ranged from minor changes such as growing and
shaving hair/beard/mustache on regular and irregular schedules, to
tossing all of my clothes and only wearing nonwestern styles.  The
earring and the headshaving have been the most difficult until the
clothes change.

What these things allowed me to do is to see the strong emotional
reaction which people had TO ME.  I walk about and watch
people and things as a natural way of living.  Occasionally I'll
pick up on reactions (pleasure, disdain, curiosity, amusement, etc.)
to ME.  While I suppose this is very egoistically supportive (something
to which I'm not adverse) it is also very INSTRUCTIVE in terms of sensing
the emotions of others.  I CAN be sensitive, but my USUAL mode is to
withdraw into my own world.  Unusual looks can break me out of my shell
by virtue of its blatancy.


g) Role-playing games.  It has been a while since I've engaged a fantasy
realm, a defined role-playing game.  I played continually when a teen, and
found that it had a therapeutic effect.  In either fantasy role-playing
or in 'clinical' role-playing it is an advantage to BECOME attuned to the
emotions of others and is a context in which I feel I can watch them closely
without being so directly 'involved'.  These games, and even other games
(e.g. 'board' and 'card' games, for example), allowed a safe place to
interact without automatically setting off my triggers.  I've found that
games in general and role-playing in particular have been very valuable
in learning to sense how other people are feeling.

This one has some problems.  If I played with people who took the game
as seriously as they took life, then I found the same triggers being
tripped (largely mutual restimulation) in the game as I would find when
interacting with that person outside it.  The only solution I could
find was to blatantly trip it and hope to resolve it outside the game
or avoid games with these people until I could feel that the game would
be comfortable (and enjoyable!) to me.


h) Work.  Wow, what a different environment this has been for me.  Where
I worked it was 'function-oriented'.  That is, we were expected to overlook
or disregard emotional issues which arose during everyday work.  This was,
for most of us, impossible.  In order to interact effectively, I had to
learn to see the other person's emotions AND their emotional triggers.
Otherwise I had to confront them directly or avoid certain interactions.
The work environment was like a proving ground, or an experimental lab.
They were largely the same people on a daily basis, yet I was not (normally)
intimate enough to be tripped up by them.  Most of what went on there
was stepping on each other's feelings unknowingly.

Given clear communication and honest expression, most misunderstandings
and slights could be resolved.  Lateley I've been working alone, so I
don't have this lab in which to experiment.  Perhaps Usenet substitutes 
for me in this way. ;>



Well, that is what I can come up with.  Since it is a particular problem
I've had, I felt I might benefit by an in-depth reflection and that others
might also see something of value in it.  Good luck!



Invoke me under my stars.   Love is the law, love under will.


I am I!


Frater (I) Nigris (666)