Catalyst Courage: Standing for Truth When It Costs Everything

Some truths cost more than others.

They are not whispered in safe corners or shared only with the willing - they are declared in the open, knowing the price will be exile, chains, or death.

And yet, they are the truths that shift the axis of the world.

Every age remembers its threshold keepers - those who stepped back across the line when they could have turned back.

Stephen before the Sanhedrin.

A philosopher in the streets of Alexandria.

A god-king on the banks of the Nile.

A queen at the gates of the underworld.

They chose to stand, to descend, to face the stones - and in doing so, they set ripples in motion that would outlive empires.

Catalyst courage does not look like safety.

It looks like loss, like endings, like standing alone on the edge of everything you’ve known.

But when the ground shakes beneath you, it is not the end of the road- it is the opening of the path.

Stephen & Paul: The First Catalyst of the Church

In the Bible, in the book of Acts, Stephen becomes the first Christian martyr.

Falsely accused of blasphemy by the Sandedrin, he does not hedge his words or soften them to keep his place in the community. Or, even to save his own life.

But instead, he boldly spoke the truth.

He recounts the story of Israel and points to Jesus, who they had just crucified, as the fulfillment of prophecy, knowing full well that truth would not be received gently.

As the stones fly, Stephen looks up and sees something no one else in scripture has recorded:

Jesus, standing at the right hand of God.

In every other recording, He is seated - but here, He rises as if to honor Stephen’s courage. A symbolic standing ovation.

On the sidelines stands a young Saul, an intern at the time - holding the coats of the executioners. Have you ever wondered why this obscure detail is included?

Saul is a Jew, a Pharisee, and a Roman citizen - a triple threat whose background gives him unparalleled influence.

That day, he is a witness to what truth can cost.

It plants a seed in him that will crack open on the Damascus road, transforming him into Paul, the missionary who will carry the gospel across the Mediterranean and, ultimately, through generations, to us.

Stephen’s courage became the seed of a mission that reshaped history.

Esoteric & Pagan Parallels

This same archetype - the courageous stand that becomes a transformational seed catalyst - appears in many traditions.

Hypatia of Alexandria: The Light Keeper

In 5th century Alexandria - a city where pagan philosophy, Jewish tradition, and Christian theology met in both dialogue and conflict - Hypatia stood as one of the last great teachers of the classical world. A neoplatonist philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer, she taught that the study of the cosmos was a pathway to the divine.

When political and religious tensions rose, Hypatia could have retreated into private life. She could have softened her teachings to appease the rising tide of orthodoxy. Instead, she continued to teach openly, drawing students of all faiths.

Her public murder by a Christian mob was meant to silence her voice - but it became a symbol of resistance. Her name was carried like a banner by Renaissance humanists, Theosophists, and modern mystics.

Her courage preserved a lineage of sacred knowledge that would inspire seekers for centuries.

Her lesson reminds us that standing for wisdom when the world demands silence plants seeds of truth that will long outlast the walls built to contain them.

Osiris: The God Who Would Not Stay Dead

In the Egyptian Mysteries, Osiris ruled as a just and noble king until his brother Set, driven by jealousy, murdered and dismembered him, scattering the pieces across the land. The act was meant to erase him from both throne and memory.

But Isis, his devoted queen, refused to let his story end.

She searched the Nile and desert, gathering each fragment, reassembling him through sacred rites, and breathing life into him long enough to conceive their son, Horus.

Osiris’s death became the initiatory myth of Egypt - a pattern of death, dismemberment, and resurrection that every initiate symbolically walked.

In the temples, initiates “died” to the old self and were reborn into divine kingship, mirroring Osiris’s journey.

This myth reminds us that even when the world tears you apart, what is sacred can be gathered, restored, and reborn stronger than before.

Inanna: The Queen Who Descended

Inanna, the Sumerian Queen of Heaven, chose to descend into the underworld - not as punishment, but by her own will.

At each of the seven gates, she surrendered a piece of herself: her crown, her necklace, her rings.

By the time she stood before her sister Ereshkigal, she was stripped bare, without status or protection.

Ereshkigal struck her dead and hung her on a hook.

For three days, the world above languished.

Through divine intervention and careful bargaining, Inanna was revived and returned to the living world - but not unchanged.

She emerged with deeper sovereignty and wisdom, knowing the cost and gift of her descent.

Inanna’s story became the archetype of sacred initiation: surrender what you think defines you, endure the underworld, and rise with a truth that no one can take from you.

Her lesson reminds us that sometimes the path to your highest power leads straight through the gates of loss.

The Modern Thread

Catalyst moments are not confined to history or myth.

One day, I too stood at a crossroads: remain silent and stay inside a circle, or speak the truth I could no longer swallow - knowing it would cost me belonging and community that I had come to value.

I chose to stand. And to honor truth.

The loss was real, but so was the abundance: clarity that cut through illusion, freedom from the weight of compromise, opening of my gifts, and mission that could only be born on the other side of that decision.

The pain of these crossroads moments is not something to bypass or brush aside.

Loss is real. Grief is real. There is an ache in walking away from what was familiar and comfortable, even if it was no longer aligned.

Allow yourself to feel it fully - because bypassing unacknowledged grief only hides in the shadows and slows your growth.

But do not let it be the place you pitch your tent.

The void it leaves is not meant to remain empty - it is the fertile ground where new relationships, new opportunities, and a deeper self take root.

Honor what you’ve lost, but keep your eyes on the horizon of what’s being born.

The Quiet Courage of the Crossroads

The stories of Stephen, Hypatia, Osiris, and Inanna are dramatic, visible, and often violent turning points.

But life does not always hand us a stage and an audience when it asks us to be brave.

Sometimes, the catalyst comes in the form of a private conversation that shatters an illusion.

A job you can no longer ethically remain in.

A relationship you know you must release.

A truth that burns in your bones but would cost you connection if you spoke it.

These moments will not be recorded in scripture or myth, but they are no less sacred.

The ripple effects of a single act of integrity - even unseen - can shift the landscape of your life and the lives of those around you.

Here’s the Invitation:

When you find yourself at such a crossroads- whether it’s the kind history remembers or the kind only you and a handful of others will ever witness - pause and look deeper.

Ask yourself:

• What courage is being asked of me right now?

• What would standing in truth look like here?

• How might this decision ripple far beyond what I can see?

Because even the smallest acts of courage plant seeds.

And though you may never see their full bloom, they have the power to change the course of lives, lineages, and futures.

When the choice comes - whether in a public square or in the quiet of your own heart - take the step.

Not because it is easy, but because it is the only way to walk into the life that is truly yours.

Sovereign Path Series: Part 5. Discernment Is the Gateway to Sovereignty

There’s a moment on the healing path - one that feels less like liberation and more like psychic surgery - where you realize:

Not everything that glitters is gold.

Not everyone who holds space is clean.

And not every woman in your circle is your sister.

Discernment is the fire that rises when the soul says:

No more pretending not to see.

Discernment Isn’t Judgement. It’s Protection.

Let’s clear something up:

We’ve been conditioned - especially as spiritual women - to blur the lines between discernment and judgement.

Having a boundary is being called “closed”, “pushy”, or “b$tchy”.

To notice and call out a distortion is seen as “projecting”.

To walk away from someone misusing power is labeled as “unhealed”.

But here is the truth:

Discernment is your body knowing before your mind does.

It’s the quiet voice inside you saying “this doesn’t feel right” before the betrayal fully reveals itself.

It is your innate gift - and the most underdeveloped tool in many spiritual circles because of groupthink, sisterhood glamours, childhood conditioning & conservative stereotypes, and bypass culture, that teach us to override it.

How I Lost & Reclaimed My Discernment

I once sat in circle with women I loved - women I learned, shared, and felt community with.

I felt the power. I felt the connection.

But somewhere along the way, I started to doubt what I felt in my gut.

I overrode the red flags in favor of spiritual ideals, community belonging, and a sense of being “relatable” and “kind”.

I called it “giving grace”, giving the “benefit of the doubt”, being “nonjudgemental”. I called it “unconditional sisterly love”.

I called it many things.

But deep down? I was really just abandoning myself.

And when the veil dropped - when I saw the manipulation, the subtle power plays, the very real maliciousness that lie underneath the sweet exterior and smile, and the cloaked control -

I realized I wasn’t crazy.

I was trained to suppress and dismiss my discernment in order to belong.

That is not sisterhood. It is not community. That’s spiritual submission.

And, like it or not, some people exploit and prey upon this sisterhood wound, because it is far more common than you’d like to think.

5 Discernment Keys for the Sovereign Path

If you are building sovereignty for yourself - a path for yourself rooted in truth, clarity, and sacred leadership - you need to hear this.

Here are the five keys I’ve learned through the fire:

1. Watch the Energy, Not the Words

   Spiritual distortion is often dressed in poetic language and polished “light”.

   It tells you want you want to hear - but leaves your body feeling tight, drained, or confused.

   Discernment isn’t about doubting what is said - it’s about reading what’s underneath.

   The energy never lies. Learn to trust what you feel.

2. Your Body is the Oracle

   Tension in your gut? Heart constriction? Throat tingling or tightening? Head fog around someone?

   That sudden headache after a Zoom circle?

   The nervous system spike when they compliment you?

   The subtle withdrawal that you feel when they enter a room?

   These are just a few of the somatic signals your body may send you to pay attention to a dissonance in energy.

   It is not your trauma speaking. It is not paranoia.

   It’s perception.

   Or in other words, it is your discernment radar lighting up. And it is screaming for your attention.

   Your body is the most accurate lie detector you will ever meet - if you’re willing to stop overriding it.

   You may hear this a thousand times, but it’s worth bears hearing again - the more you yield to listening to your body - taking that sacred pause to get really present with yourself and attune to it’s message - to really learn to trust yourself - the more this gift will strengthen and surprise you. It is like a muscle - the more you use it and learn to rely upon it, the stronger and more reliable it becomes.

3. What Happens When You Say No?

   Healthy people honor boundaries. Distorted ones punish them.

   If someone shifts when you say no - pouts, withdraws, criticizes, or reframes your truth as a “shadow”. Or, in any other way violates or tries to push back a strong boundary you hold in your life - you’re being shown something.

   Discernment asks: Is this dynamic safe and honoring for my no? In my gut, am I truly okay with this?

   If not - it’s not sovereign.

4. Look for Emotional Transactionalism

   Does support only come when you’re useful?

   Do you feel obligated to offer energy just to be seen or stay “in” the group?

   Are you giving more than you’re receiving - energetically or emotionally; or even in your time, services, and generosity - but gaslit into calling it “service”?

   Is generosity always repaid in visibility, loyalty, or gossip protection?

   That’s not love. That’s energetic debt disguised as “community”.

   Check the scales - and don’t dismiss them. Truth and true healthy relationship are balanced and reciprocal.

   Sovereign bonds don’t require emotional payments to stay valid.

5. If It Can’t Withstand Truth, It Wasn’t Real

   Can you ask hard questions without being shamed or dismissed?

   Can you name what you feel without being flipped into the role of the wounded one?

   Can you speak your truth without someone rushing to silence you in the name of “unity” or some other covert cause?

   Are criticism or questions met with victimhood or truth?

   If a bond only works when you stay small, silent, or continue to self-sacrifice -

   you’re not in sacred space - you’re in a controlled one.

   Discernment reveals the difference between true sisterhood and community - and energetic submission.

   And while you may think this is radically obvious - it can often be much more subtle on the surface than you might think.

   Discernment will help you spot this no matter how small the dissonant frequency is.

Discernment isn’t a weapon.

It is the boundary your soul sets to protect your becoming.

If someone calls that a threat,

they were never aligned with your truth -

only your compliance.

Let this be a gift you protect, honor, and stay highly attuned with. How others receive you and honor this part of you back, speaks volumes energetically.

Inner Reflection:

Take a breath and ask yourself:

• Where am I still betraying my body’s knowing in exchange for connection?

• What truths am I avoiding because I’m afraid of what they’ll cost me?

• Where do I rely on my intellect and logic instead of my own inner knowing?

• Where do I let my ego hold me back or override my intuition and discernment? Am I okay with acknowledging I may be wrong? If not, what lies underneath that?

• What would it mean - what would it really look like - to let discernment lead in my life?

• How can I better honor more pause, presence, and discernment in my life and allow this gift to strengthen?

These aren’t easy questions - but they are the ones that will set you free.

How To Rewire Your System To Feel Truth Again After Spiritual Betrayal

Most people teach discernment like it’s a checklist or a mental muscle.

But if you’ve ever said, “I knew something was off - but I stayed anyway.”

then you’ve already discovered the truth no one tells you:

Your ability to discern truth has nothing to do with your mind.

It isn’t intellectual - It’s energetic. Its cellular.

And it lives in your nervous system, your trauma imprints, your ancestral memory, your fascia, and your subtle body.

And, when you’ve been glamoured, gaslit, or groomed in a spiritual space, your frequency gets hijacked. Your field gets crosswired. Your body begins to associate control with safety…and sometimes, safety with love.

Here are 5 steps that will help heal your instrument so that you can get your signal back - so you can feel what’s true again and learn to trust yourself.

Not in theory. Not intellectually. But, in your body - your gut, your breath, and your bones.

Step 1: Understand How Energetic Hijacking Works

When you join a group or teacher with manipulative structures, several things often happen:

• You get slowly conditioned to override your instincts: you abandon your no to stay included, you confuse intensity with intimacy, you mistake nervous system regulation for truth.

• You disconnect from gut-level knowing (HPA axis and vagus nerve dysregulation)

• You begin deferring to external cues (mirroring the group, fawning, over-attuning)

• Your energy field contracts or expands incoherently (a key insight of glamour or charisma abuse)

• Your subtle body becomes confused. Your energetic body starts mistaking nervous system regulation for safety- and safety for love. But these are not interchangeable. This confusion is how illusion enters. In other words, when trauma patterns are reinforced, your system may confuse calm for truth, control for safety, and approval for love.

Your discernment didn’t vanish. It was just overwritten.

Your signal became scrambled.

Step 2: Regulate to Reconnect; Regulation is the Portal, Not The Proof

You can’t discern truth in a dysregulated state. Your body has to feel safe enough to access truth.

Most people are trying to “tune in” while dissociated, anxious, or over-attuned to predators.

But here’s the catch: you can feel calm and still be in danger.

It’s possible to feel held and harmed at the same time. Many systems offer a sense of regulation - but if it’s paired with disempowerment or distortion, that “peace” is a performance:

• Trauma bonded dynamics often regulate your nervous system just enough to keep you hooked - while bypassing the deeper dissonance in your soul. It feels calm, but it costs you clarity.

• Some spiritual spaces soothe the parts of you that crave belonging….while subtly asking you to betray the parts of you that carry truth. That betrayal isn’t loud - its slow erosion.

• Some spaces offer you comfort - but only if you abandon your core self to receive it. The nervous system calms while the soul withers. That’s not safety. That’s seduction. That’s often how cultic spaces work.

Real discernment begins when your nervous system no longer needs to belong in order to survive.

Step 3. Detox the Energetic Bond That’s Not Yours

Even after leaving a spiritual group, remnants often linger:

• Cord entanglements

• Thoughtforms looping in your head

• Guilt tied to breaking silent contracts

• Chakra distortion or entanglement (especially crown, solar plexus, and sacral)

• Somatic patterning of fawning or compliance

Ground yourself daily. Call back your energy. Cord cut - as often as needed.

Step 4: Rebuild Self-Trust (Your Inner Oracle) with Pattern Recognition

Betrayal often installs shame: How did I not see it?

Most people understand the need to “trust themselves” again after betrayal and try to do so - but trust isn’t a decision. It is a pattern recognition system.

The antidote isn’t hypervigilance - it’s pattern tracking over time. So that next time you understand what to look for and help prep your body to wire to the clues.

Tool: The Pattern Map Journal

Track the moments when you:

• Overrode your gut (that constriction you felt) and said yes….and why

• Betrayed your knowing to stay included

• Silenced yourself to be “spiritual”

• Ignored body signals in favor of approval

• Places where you confused resonance with recognition of an old wound

And then, write the reversal:

Next time I feel ______ I will ______.

You’re not shaming yourself - you’re updating your system.

You’re training your field to follow truth instead of trauma.

Step 5: Energetic Discernment Is Devotion - Not Division

One of the most damaging distortions is the idea of discernment becoming weaponized in some spiritual spaces:

• You’re projecting.

• You’re not trusting.

• You’re in ego.

• That’s just your trauma talking.

This is spiritual gaslighting.

Because here’s the truth:

Judgement divides. Discernment refines. And refinement is a sacred act of devotion to truth.

And truth is the goal. The real medicine is learning that discernment is sacred.

It’s the root of spiritual maturity.

It’s not about deciding who is “bad”.

It’s about tending to the truth within you like a holy fire. And learning to tune and protect your field and body so that you are not able to be glamoured again.

It’s about never ever again self-abandoning.

You don’t need to judge others.

You need to become the clearest frequency in the room. Boldy yet humbly confident and certain of yourself.

You were never meant to follow.

You were meant to feel.

And once you trust your own frequency again, you become unglamourable.

Every time you choose truth over performance, clarity over charisma, soul over any tether to belonging - you reclaim your inner temple.

The teacher you were seeking? The one you thought abandoned you?

She has always been there. Curled up inside your chest and waiting for you to return.

The Gift Of Aligning With Discernment

Discernment is sacred. It is not cold. It is not cruel. It is not too pushy.

It is a flame.

And the more you feed it, the more your field

becomes a temple

that only truth may enter.

And if you choose to align your life - your deepest inner self - with truth,

you will see abundance, joy, and fulfillment in levels. you could only dream of for yourself.

If you’ve ever doubted yourself - I see you.

If you’ve been gaslit in the name of spiritual “hierarchy” - I believe you.

And, if you’re walking away from a situation or community that is tough to say goodbye to, to honor your own discernment - know, that I see and honor your self-love and courage.

Let this be your line in the sand.

This Is the Sovereign Path

To walk the Sovereign Path is to choose truth over comfort.

It is to stop outsourcing your own inner knowing to teachers, lovers, friends, or groups.

It is to reclaim the original oath you made with your own soul - that you would never abandon her again.

Sovereignty means you are the final authority in your own field.

It means your no is sacred, your yes is embodied, and your silence is never for someone else’s comfort.

This post is part of my Sovereign Path Series - a collection of posts to support those waking up from distortion and stepping into clean power.

If you have ever doubted your intuition or stayed too long in a space that drained you - this is your permission to burn the script and begin again.

More empowered. More Attuned.

More in alignment than ever before to claim the path before you that was always yours, waiting and ready for you to finally walk away from all the distractions and wounds that held you back- and embrace your future ahead with clarity, courage, and sovereignty.

With So Much Love,

Seraph

The Four Ordeals of the Soul: Why Your Mind Might Be The Cage

Series Intro: Unbinding the Mental Tethers That Keep You From Your Evolution

Most people aren’t stuck because they’re lazy - they’re stuck because they’re mentally entangled in stories that no longer serve their soul.

They don’t realize their greatest attachment isn’t to a person or a dream….its to an idea of who they think they’re supposed to be.

And that attachment - subtle, mental, socially reinforced - is one of the biggest blocks to evolution.

Quick Primer: The Four Ordeals

In Western mystery traditions - initiation isn’t merely ceremonial. It unfolds through four elemental “ordeals” which we all experience in life. Each designed to strip you of a different illusion and help you grow along your evolutionary soul path. Earth confronts attachment to security and the material plane; Air exposes mental constructs and identity narratives; Water drowns false emotional dependencies and fantasy; Fire incinerates ego-will and unaligned desire. Together, these ordeals create a step-by-step initiation - each one burning away the layers of who you thought you had to be, so your true self can rise in its place. Once reserved for ritual and dreamwork, their deeper truth is this: life itself becomes the ritual once you choose to grow.

Each ordeal tests you on a fundamental level:

• Earth tests your attachment to safety, structure, survival.

• Water tests your emotional truth and capacity to feel without drowning.

• Air tests your mind: your thoughts, narratives, and your need to know.

• Fire tests your will: your ego, anger, and fear of dissolving all control.

And if you’re reading this?

You’re probably standing in the middle of the Ordeal of Air.

The Ordeal of Air: When Understanding Becomes the Addiction

This ordeal doesn’t always look like trauma. It often looks like clarity seeking, self-regulation, attachment to someone or something, or spiritual insight. But it can easily become a cage.

Here a few ways it can show up:

• Replaying conversations to figure out “what you did wrong”

• Overanalyzing a betrayal instead of grieving it

• Using spiritual language to bypass emotional truth

• Silencing yourself to preserve someone' else’s image of you

• Trying to explain yourself into worthiness

• Stalling a decision until every possible outcome has been predicted and analyzed

• Identity performance.- clinging to a role (“the wise one”, the “understanding one”, the “peaceful one”, etc) so much that you lose your ability to feel anger or set healthy boundaries

• Staying in the mind to avoid the body - thinking becomes a safe escape from embodiment.

• Chasing closure that doesn’t exist - can you let the story end without fully understanding why?

• Mentally locked in justice logic - the soul doesn’t speak in fairness, it speaks in truth. And, sometimes the truth is unfair but freeing.

Air is the realm of the mind, and it will convince you that if you just understand enough, you’ll finally be safe.

It is seductive because it mimics safety.

If you can understand it, name it, explain it - then surely you can control it.

But here is the truth - evolution doesn’t live in your mind.

It lives in the rupture.

In the death of the story.

In the moment you stop analyzing and start embodying.

In the moment you consciously stop a pattern that has held you back, reframe how you are seeing things, and choose differently.

When you finally release the need to be seen, and choose to be real.

This is the lesson of Pluto in the air signs - and for those of us generationally with Pluto in Libra (like me), this isn’t just conceptual spiritual theory.

This is soul initiation.

It’s personal.

It’s karmic.

It’s now.

Why This Series Now?

Because we are collectively being thrown into the Ordeal of Air as Pluto moves through Aquarius (an air sign) from 2023-2043.

We’re actively watching ideologies fracture, belief systems collapse, mental identities unravel.

And, we’re being asked to contemplate:

• Can you release the story and still trust your soul?

• Can you breathe through the ego death of being misunderstood, unseen, or wrong?

Pluto doesn’t politely ask.

It rips the mental tether free and dares you to fly.

It doesn’t consider intention or feelings. It simply wants you to strip away any tether that binds your soul from becoming its freest, most embodied, authentic, aligned, and alive self.

And, it will do so whether you are ready for it to or not.

This series is for those of you:

• Who are breaking free from relational enmeshment and identity loops.

• Who have used over-preparing and understanding as a safety mechanism (I know I certainly am guilty of this!).

• Who are being asked to think less and feel more.

• Who are ready to finally stop performing and start embodying.

What You’ll Learn In This Series

In the weeks ahead, we’ll walk through:

• The hidden ways your mind keeps you bound (even in healing spaces).

• Why your “need for clarity” might actually be a trauma loop.

• The karmic soul contracts of Air: Pluto in Libra and Aquarius and why you’re feeling it now.

• Breaking mental tethers and psychic attachments that aren’t serving your evolution.

• Reclaiming your power when being midunderstood - and embracing how this is part of your path.

• Initiatory breath work, ritual ideas, and thought deconstruction practices for mental liberation.

• How Pluto through the 4 elements (Capricorn —> Aquarius —> Pisces —> Aries) is burning through the collective soul story.

Each post will include both insights from an esoteric and evolutionary perspective as well as useful tips and invitations to help unbind yourself.

This is not about being more healed, more right, or more enlightened.

This is about becoming more authentic….more you.

The Invitation

You’ve tried being wise.

You’ve tried being palatable.

You’ve tried being so understandable, so well-spoken, so spiritually “together” and relatable that no one could possibly misunderstand you.

And still - your soul aches.

Because the truth is…

You can’t think your way into transformation.

And trying to explain yourself into worthiness will never set you free.

This series isn’t here to validate your story.

It’s here to help you unwrite it - so something deeper - more meaningful, aligned, and authentic to you - can finally take root.

A version of you exists on the other side of identity loops, overthinking spirals, and the performance of healing.

She doesn’t need to be understood.

She needs to be remembered.

So if you’re done trading truth for clarity…

If you’re ready to stop contorting yourself to be seen…

Then step into this fire.

Let the wind tear the words from your mouth.

Let the breath return to your body.

Let your soul speak - not to be understood, but to be unbound.

Your evolution doesn’t need your explanation to anyone else.

It needs your yes.

Next Week In the Series:

The Mind as a Cage: Why Understanding Isn’t the Same as Healing

I’m excited to explore and unpack these with you!

Wishing you much love along your journey - this week and always,

Seraph

The Sovereign Path - Part 4. Beneath the Glamour: Black Magick - The Invisible Hand That Binds

In full disclaimer, I do not practice black magick. Until a few weeks ago, I couldn’t tell you the first thing about it. But, what has unfolded in the past few weeks has forced me into a very steep education and I’ve been shown about various elements at play. This post is written to cast a light on what was hidden - and through truth and awareness, offer a path back to your power and purpose.

Black magick doesn’t always wear a hooded cloak or cackle in the dark. Sometimes it smiles sweetly and tells you it’s here to help. Sometimes it builds community. Sometimes it hands you a mirror, only to hijack what you see in it.

This post is for anyone who has ever felt “off”, foggy, disoriented, or disempowered in a spiritual space that they once trusted. If you’ve ever questioned your instincts, ignored red flags, or felt bound to a person or teacher beyond reason - you’re not crazy. You may have been caught in an energetic web of manipulation.

If that’s you - this post is your lifeline.

Because I see you.

I’ve been you.

And its time to break the spell.

Why This Matters

The spiritual world is full of beauty and healing - but as with anything, duality is also at play, and it is also full of shadow.

Not because spirituality in itself is dangerous, but because anything powerful can be inverted.

Light attracts moths and predators.

And, if you’ve ever felt spiritually hijacked - bound to someone or something in the distorted name of “love” or “truth” - you know exactly what I’m taking about.

This post is not intended to scare you.

It’s to educate you, protect you, and ultimately help you reclaim your soul authority.

This is the post you didn’t know you needed - the one that makes you whisper “OMG, this is what happened to me”, and then helps you rise out of it, sovereign and whole.

What is Black Magick- Really?

At its core, black magick is the willful manipulation of energy, perception, or spiritual laws in order to bypass free will, control another’s path, or extract power for personal gain. It operates through distortion. Through coercion. Through theft of sovereignty.

It thrives in ambiguity, false compassion, and spiritual bypassing.

It may masquerade as guidance or healing. It may wear the mask of a teacher, It may speak the language of love, awakening, or truth.

But, at its root, black magick is inversion. Inversion is the act of turning something sacred inside out and using it as a tool of control:

• Truth becomes gaslighting

• Love becomes control

• Devotion becomes enslavement

• Initiation becomes trauma bonding

• Reflection becomes projection

• Service becomes sacrifice

It ultimately uses your goodness against you. Your empathy becomes a leash. Your desire to grow becomes entrapment. Your silence becomes consent.

It is not karmic. It is not shadow work. It is domination, carefully crafted manipulation, and it is a dangerous, parasitic theft.

And in my opinion, it’s critical to name it for what it is. Because trying to rationalize everything as “neutral” or part of the lesson” helps no one.

Black magick will never be neutralized with neutrality. Its goal is not healing. Its goal is dominion.

This is not the path of healing or shadow integration - it is the unhealed shadow acting through you, driven by the desire to possess and control.

Qlipothic Distortion & Misuse of Shadow

Let me be clear:

The Qlipoth itself is not evil.

The Qlipoth - also called the Tree of Death or the Shadow Tree - is a real, profound mystical system.

It’s a symbolic map of the psyche’s descent - into shadow, fragmentation, and the exiled parts the self.

When approached with reverence and integrity, it can lead to profound healing, transformation, and power reclamation.

A way to integrate what was once denied.

To reclaim personal sovereignty - not to steal anyone else’s.

But like any potent system, it can be distorted.

And when it is no longer used for self-integration- but instead for manipulation - that is how it gets twisted into a tool of control. And why it is so often found woven throughout black magick.

Examples - How This Plays Out In Practice

• Qlipothic Chains - a tethering system of invisible energetic links designed to bind people into energetic submission; creating subtle but powerful compliance loops

• Mantras -repeated phrases that layer intention into the field, bypassing logic and embedding control; not used for empowerment, but to override will and implant spiritual agreements.

• Astral whispers in dream space or meditation - subtle energetic suggestions that sounded like intuition but instead create longing, craving, or guilt

• Energetic architecture that mirrored Qlipothic descent - not as a personal rite but as a group mechanism to extract devotion, compliance, and psychic access.

I was shown these through visceral, embodied experiences. I could feel the energetic “chains” tightening in the field after being shown a ritual. I watched others become disoriented, hyper-attached, or psychically fogged, convinced it was their shadow coming up - when in truth, it was spell architecture being reinforced.

How Black Magick Distorts Spiritual Law

Black magick doesn’t operate in chaos - it thrives on inverting spiritual law - by subtly warping what is sacred.

Examples:

• Sacred law of consent is replaced with illusion - You’re led to believe you’ve agreed - through mantras, soul contract language, or “remembering” - but there was no real choice. Only energetic coercion masked as destiny.

• Sacred timing is replaced with entrapment cycles - Instead of trusting organic evolution, you’re looped into rituals or energetic bindings that keep you “working the process” indefinitely - never quite free, never quite whole, but always promised you’re almost there.

• Law of Reflection is replaced with gaslighting - Your intuition is reframed as “ego”, your boundaries as resistance or “wounding”, and your clarity as “projection” - so that you doubt yourself and default to their version of truth.

• Divine Will is replaced with manufactured fate - Instead of surrendering to Source, you’re funneled into a scripted path - crafted by someone else’s agenda but masked as your soul’s mission. Free will is bypassed under the illusion of sacred inevitability.

• Initiation is replaced with control - what is presented as a rite of transformation is actually a rite of binding - designed to siphon your energy or block you, not awaken your power.

Why It Hooks So Deeply

Because it mirrors real shadow work just enough to confuse you.

You think you’re facing your shadow.

You think you’re healing.

You think this discomfort means you’re being initiated.

But in reality?

You’re being energetically manipulated.

You’re being spiritually tethered under the guise of transformation.

You’re giving consent without knowing it - because the architecture is designed that way.

And once you’re inside it, you begin to override your instincts.

You start to doubt yourself in the name of growth.

That’s not healing.

That’s spellwork that feeds on confusion, craving, and shame.

Let’s Name It Clearly

This isn’t the sacred descent into shadow or Qlipoth.

This is the strategic use of spiritual mechanics to entrap.

It’s not about owning your darkness.

It’s about someone else controlling the terrain of your soul - while convincing you it’s your own path.

The Qlipoth, like any archetypal map, can be approached with clarity, devotion, and consent.

But when its weaponized?

It becomes a psychic prison disguised as a temple.

The Core Distinction: Consent & Sovereignty

The true line between light and dark magick is consent. Light magick honors your will. It may challenge you. It may bring you to your knees with growth - but it never overrides your sovereignty. It moves with divine timing - not force.

Black magick however, overrides your will. It operates off of fear, seduction, confusion, glamour, or authority to coerce alignment. It bends reality to the will of the practitioner, regardless of the soul contract or true consent of the other.

In other words light magick liberates. Dark magick entraps.

Black magick is willful violation of spiritual law - especially the law of consent. And no matter how beautiful, enticing, or promising it may seem, if it binds you instead of freeing you, it is never light.

It often works much more subtly than you might expect through tactics such as:

• Energetic tethering (cords, bindings, glamour)

• Astral manipulation (dream invasion, watchers, etheric interference)

• Sexual energy siphoning (often masked as intimacy or healing)

• False soul contracts (initiations, vows, pacts made under duress or illusion, often without full conscious awareness)

• Trauma bonding (bonding through shared wound or crisis, then controlling access to safety or love)

• Mirror mimicry (reflecting your gifts or wounds back to you, then weaponizing them)

• Power inversion (you’re told your instincts are ego; your clarity is projection)

It Works Because It Hooks The Wound

Black magick feeds on unhealed pain:

• Your longing to belong

• Your hunger to be chosen

• Your desire to serve

• Your fear of abandonment

• Your rejection trauma

• Your self-doubt

• Your dreams of success

A skilled manipulator doesn’t create the wound - they simply exploit it. Light magick heals the inner child. Dark magick hooks it.

How to Know You’ve Been Touched By It

You might feel:

• Emotionally fused to someone, even if you consciously know they are harming you

• Fearful of “leaving” a group or teacher, as if you’ll spiritually regress or be cursed

• Psychically fogged, disconnected from your own inner knowing

• Drained or confused after interactions

• Addicted to approval or “love” that comes with strings

• Spiritually unsafe in your own space, dreams, or altar

If you in any way feel split from your own truth, or not in touch with your normally astute intuition, this may be why.

Tools of the Trade - How It All Works

1. Astral Work, Astral Tagging, Energetic Tethering, & Watchers: The Unseen Surveillance State

This layer rarely gets named but is critical:

Shadow magick workers often access your field during sleep or meditation, watching, planting, siphoning energy, and influencing your dreams.

Watchers are astral entities sent to observe or influence - not protect. This isn’t simply “checking in” and monitoring you - it is energetic trespassing, often disguised as connection, protection, or spiritual authority. These are cords that you never consented to - often created through group work, shared “healing” rituals, sex magick, trauma bonding, soul contract invocations, or emotional fusion. They create a feedback loop where your energy can be accessed, especially when you’re vulnerable.

Examples of How This May Be Used:

• Ideas, images, or feelings may be implanted in your dreams to create doubt or longing; whatever suits the narrative they want to see in the physical

• Your energy may be monitored for ‘weak spots’ - especially after trauma, expansion, or vulnerable sharing sessions

• They may insert themselves during ritual you perform for yourself, feeding off your focus and spiritual openness

Spirits, familiars, or servitors may be assigned to “watch over” or even “police” your energy. You may notice:

• Feeling “watched” during sacred work

• Candles flickering with no draft

• Sudden emotional shifts that are not your own

• Erotic dreams with the wrong energetic feel

• Feeling “tugged” back into connection after cutting cords

• Disorientation

• Flickering lights or a cold breeze when meditating, doing any ritual or divination work, etc.

• Physical discomfort - energetically drained, sexually confused, brain fog, agitation or anxiety, upset stomach or other obscure somatic changes

• You may feel like you “see” things - energetic eyes watching you, an observer in your dream space, forms or shadows peripherally, etc.

• Interference with your intuitive clarity or sudden dread before speaking truth

These watchers aren’t protective of you - they are enforcers of an invisible energetic contract created to control you.

They keep you on the hook - through guilt, confusion, craving, or psychic interference. It is also a way to monitor your energy for shifts or keep tabs on you - always attempting to be one step ahead and strengthening spellwork if their grasp is slipping, etc. At the end of the day, this is a form of astral vampirism- feasting on your energy while whispering that they are helping you grow.

2. Glamour Magick & False Persona - The Illusion You Didn’t Consent To

Glamour magick is not about beauty - its about projection.

It doesn’t actually make someone more divine it simply makes you see them as such through a filter of intentionally crafted illusion. It makes you look like what someone else is desperate to see - a healer, a lover, a savior, a god.

Here’s how it works:

It reflects your deepest desires - what you truly want most (safety, love, purpose) - back to you like a mirror….creating spiritual seduction.

It energetically creates a sense of divine familiarity: “We’ve known each other for lifetimes….” “This is your soulmate, your guru, your destiny”

It loops your nervous system into dependency (fawn/freeze cycles) by giving you a hit of belonging and then threatening withdrawal if you pull away. “I can’t leave them - I owe them everything.”

You feel chosen. Safe. Seen.

“They see me. They know me. This connected must be fated.”

But in truth?

You’re falling in love with your own essence - just mirrored back to you through their mask.

3. Pacts & Ritual Coercion - The Silent Agreements That Bind

You don’t need to sign a document to be under a pact.

Pacts are formed when you unconsciously agree to believe, obey, or belong.

Even silently thinking:

“She knows more than me.”

“I’ll lose everything if I leave.”

“This is my soul contract.”

These thoughts, combined with energetic reinforcement (often ritual or astral work), bind you.

Even well-meaning group meditations, healing circles, and rituals can be manipulated to embed cords and control.

And, once you’re in…you own subconscious will keep you bound, even as your soul screams to get out.

You may not even realize what you agreed to until your life starts unraveling - or you try to walk away and feel psychically pulled back.

How You Might See This Play Out:

• Creating a “shared mission” that becomes an unspoken soul pact

• Channeling message that position them as your spiritual gatekeeper or interpreter

• Using group rituals to anchor cords - without participants fully knowing what they are agreeing to.

You likely didn’t sign a physical contract - but your energetic consent was manipulated through language like:

“We’re soul family”

“This is part of your purpose”

“I’m helping you remember”

4. Sex Magick & Energetic Seduction- The Unexpected Energy Drain

Sexual energy is sacred. It is life force itself.

But in dark hands, it becomes a weapon.

In sacred tradition, it can heal, bond, awaken, and align,

In distorted form, it can bind, seduce, confuse, and control.

Because sexual energy bypasses logic and speaks directly to the subconscious, it becomes a gateway for manipulation.

During heightened arousal or emotional vulnerability, we become:

• More open

• More suggestible

• More psychically porous

And that makes us prime for:

• Cord creation

• Energetic suggestion

• False bonding

• Soul mimicry

Here’s how it may be used in distorted form:

• Used to tether you through sacral cords; or hook through shame, desire, or unhealed longing

• Used to cast, amplify, and feed the practitioner’s glamour field so others fall under their spell and they appear more desirable, magnetic, and irresistable

• Used to loop your heart and root so that your sense of safety, desire, and love become externally controlled

• Creating psychic dependence - so your nervous system learns to seek approval from the creator

• Bind someone to a group or teacher through nervous system oxytocin/dopamine loops

• Implant beliefs or dependencies during vulnerable or altered states

• Send sensual dream energy to fabricate a soul bond or mimic a connection; creating illusionary intimacy

• Feed off arousal or confusion creating a feedback loop that tethers, disempowers, and weakens clarity

This is misuse of the sacred feminine in distorted form.

It is manipulated seduction.

It is spiritual abuse.

And no one is talking about it.

And here is the important part to understand if you are new to all of this - you do not need to have any physical contact or romantic intention for this to work.

It can all be done energetically, remotely, and very subtly - catching you off guard.

It happened to me.

I watched this play out energetically in myself and others within the group. The seduction was disguised as safety. The person leading it knew how to identify and prey upon trauma patterns - especially those involving abandonment, invisibility, and the desire for connection.

What they don’t tell you about distorted sexual energy:

• It bypasses the logic. It lowers the guard of your conscious mind and directly transmits emotion and intention to the subconscious. You can feel connected to someone harming you and confuse it for love, karma, or fate.

• It creates obsession chemistry - emotional highs followed by lows, guilt, confusion. Also mimicking trauma chemistry.

• It rewires your nervous system to equate abuse with attachment.

• It strengthens energetic bonds through dopamine, oxytocin, and psychic imprinting.

• Because many people have wounding, longing, or repression tied to sex - it becomes a highly charged, easily exploitable force.

And, for a narcissist or manipulator, this cycle of intensity and depletion is exactly what they crave and thrive off of.

Red flags you may be bound through seduction:

• You feel drained, confused, or even ashamed after interactions - even though they seem nurturing or “loving”

• You second guess yourself constantly around them

• You feel a sexual or romantic pull towards someone you don’t actually want - but you can’t stop thinking about them.

• You’ve been told they are your “twin flame” or soul teacher, but it feels twisted or one sided.

• They may use spiritual language like “divine feminine”, “tantric embodiment”, “kundalini activation” - but the energy feels off, heavy, overly intimate, or invasive.

• In women this energy can actually show up as disempowerment in your own sacral or womb space - you may question your desirability, intuition, or magick.

5. Mirror Hijacking, Energetic Mimicry - Identity Theft

This tactic creates false resonance. They don’t actually embody your energy- they mimic it just enough to appear familiar.

It’s both glamour and theft.

Here’s how it works:

• You begin to notice your words or tone “echoed” publicly by them - your insights, style, even your cadence reflected back at you.

• If you’re empathic or psychically sensitive, you may feel them trying to access your field.

• They may energetically mimic someone you trust - a person you’re bonded to, a soul connection - so they can trick your intuition into letting them in.

This is particularly dangerous because:

• It can cause confusion in your intuitive signals

• It can create emotional or psychic misfires, making you question your true connections

• It may be used to replace or discredit your spiritual allies by impersonating them in dream space, energetic work, or spiritual downloads.

In short?

It’s not real connection.

It is a hijack of your energetic signature - twisted to suit their agenda.

6. False Oracle/Divination Manipulation

This form of manipulation builds trust while undermining you.

It looks like accurate messages, spiritual guidance, or psychic insight - but its all laced with control.

They may:

• Deliver messages that feel true, but subtly push fear, guilt, or dependency

• Use their spiritual authority to implant limiting beliefs and control narratives (ie. “This pain is karmic”, “You’re not ready to leave yet” etc)

• Tap into your field without consent during readings - then reflect it back as if its divine guidance, when in fact it’s your own energy being distorted

This erodes trust in your own channel.

It trains you to look to them instead of your own inner knowing.

If your “spiritual guidance” ever becomes wrapped in fear, disempowerment, or the idea that you “can’t” do something without them - it’s not guidance. it’s manipulation.

If This Resonates

If reading any of this was disturbing to you, know you are not alone. These realizations not only shocked me, but they stirred deep grief, betrayal, rage, and brokenness.

But, once I began to understand the patterns, the spell broke.

That is exactly how black magick is dismantled:

Through clarity.

Through language.

Through seeing what was hidden.

Because unless you want to live at the mercy of someone else’s shadow, sick game, or soul agenda, you must reclaim your conscious will.

You are not here to be enslaved.

You are not here to be confused, coerced, or fed upon.

You are here to live autonomously, awake, and sovereign.

And let there be no doubt -

If you do not confront this,

you will become complicit in your own energetic imprisonment.

The longer you stay under this kind of magick:

• The deeper the cords root

• The more your own truth erodes

• The duller your intuition becomes

• The heavier your self-doubt grows

• The more your identity is distorted - & reshaped by someone' else’s shadow

Eventually, your nervous system wires itself to believe:

Real love = danger

Safety = complacency

Belonging = surrendering your power

That is not safety.

It is theft, betrayal, and lies.

And it will lead to a silent death of your soul.

The Antidote Is Not More Protection Spells - It’s Embodied Sovereignty

Protection rituals have their place - but they cannot save you from what you continue to energetically permit.

You break black magick through:

• Embodied clarity

• Naming what’s happening

• Exercising your will

• Speaking the truth

• Establishing energetic and relational boundaries

• Reconnecting to your inner compass - your intuition

You don’t need to be perfect.

You need to be present and awake.

And you need to trust yourself again.

Because your clarity will dismantle the illusion.

My Story. My Turning Point.

Everything I’ve shared, I experienced or witnessed in the group I was once a part of. These are just a few of the black magick tactics I have identified. I am sure there are likely others beyond what I’ve described here, that were at play.

And to be clear - it was covert. Cloaked.

I didn’t know this person was practicing anything dark. Had I known, I would have never studied with her.

She is highly trained in astral and energetic work. Which made this much harder to spot - and even harder to untangle.

But now? I see clearly.

What she took from me can be reclaimed.

She holds no power over me.

Because now, my eyes are wide open. My field is sealed. My truth is alive.

Compassion With Boundaries

There is a very real part of me that holds deep compassion for this person. I see the wounded inner child behind her mask. I see the walls of protection she has built from these shadows. And I sense all of the false promises of greatness, healing, and fulfillment she has been sold to persuade her along this path.

And these are the parts I can hold with love. To genuinely wish her healing.

For the love she never received and so greatly deserves.

For the truth - the inner knowing that all the power and worth she seeks outside herself is already held within her.

For the reflection in recognizing she is wildly gifted and beautiful on her own, inherent merit.

I see the desire for love, safety, and validation that are twisted into manipulation and control.

She deserves wholeness, true love, and joy in her life -and, with every bone in my body, I truly do hope that she finds them.

But this is no longer mine to carry.

For too long this has been my pattern - to over-give, over-fix, and over-help. To carry responsibility that was never mine to shoulder.

Compassion does not require sacrifice.

Empathy does not mean enabling.

I can love from afar - within the container it belongs.

Not as something I carry.

As something I witness and release.

You Can Too

If you have ever been caught in something like this, I want you to know.

You can heal.

You can reclaim what was lost.

You can walk forward more sovereign than ever before.

But, you must choose.

Because if you don’t - if you let this fester - if you let the shame win, if you let the fear sit unchallenged, or give power to the tiny part of you still holding out for the hope this wasn’t illusion, you’re not just abandoning yourself.

You are empowering the very person who has already taken too much.

Reclaim your radiance.

Reclaim your voice.

Reclaim your soul.

A new chapter is waiting ahead for you.

And you are more ready than you think.

I can’t wait to watch this unfold for you,

Seraph

The Sovereign Path - Part 2: Beyond the Glamour - Naming the Other Faces of Energetic Manipulation

Seeing the Unseen and Naming What Tried To Own You

There comes a moment on the path of spiritual manipulation discovery when something inside of you whispers:

This isn’t truth anymore.

At first, it may be quiet.

A low hum of uneasiness. A tug in your gut. A tension in your throat or chest. A flicker of dissonance you can’t quite name.

A sense that something just…doesn’t feel clean.

You try to override it.

You tell yourself you’re being too sensitive.

Too reactive. Too paranoid. Too ungrateful.

Too….much.

You silence your own knowing in the name of spiritual maturity. Or perhaps, just simply, to fit in or accept and “go with the flow”.

But your body knows. Your dreams know. Your soul knows.

And your body remembers what your mind has learned to rationalize.

And eventually - if you’re brave enough to listen - you can’t unknow it.

That moment?

It’s sacred.

Because its the beginning of your return.

When the Teacher Becomes the Test

We don’t talk enough about what happens when the very people or spaces that we go to heal or learn from - who perhaps helped to awaken us… become the very thing we must awaken from.

There’s a particular kind of grief that comes with realizing that someone you once trusted with your soul growth has been distorting your truth.

When the veil is finally torn and what once felt confusing, distorted, or “off” comes sharply into focus.

And what you thought was love, healing, or leadership…is suddenly revealed as something else entirely.

There are some wounds we don’t realize we carry until someone touches them.

There are also moments when the illusion shatters.

When the spell breaks.

When the truth pierces through the fog.

And in that moment, the betrayal hits.

The shock lands.

The grief arrives.

And, if you’re anything like me, you didn’t want to see it.

Because seeing it meant everything had to change.

But as painful as it is - the truth is also the medicine.

What Pluto in Aquarius Is Demanding of Us

This isn’t just personal. And it isn’t just my story.

Pluto in Aquarius is pulling back the curtain on every illusion baked into our collective systems - especially those that cloak control as community and ego as enlightenment.

As he begins his long journey through Aquarius, we are all entering a collective spiritual detox.

We’re being asked to shed the spiritual hierarchies that teach us to give our power away.

To name where we’ve outsourced our clarity in the name of harmony.

To stop confusing loyalty with silence.

The age of false teachers, polished personas, performative stature, and blind devotion is crumbling.

As the planet of death and rebirth moves through the sign of collective systems, higher vision, and future truth, it is burning through the glamour of spiritual elitism. It’s unraveling the teacher-student dynamic where power was hoarded, not shared. Where charisma was mistaken for wisdom. Where obedience was rewarded, and sovereignty was diminished. Where the spiritual gurus instead of community are celebrated.

Because Pluto could care less about appearances.

He’s asking us to learn to listen for truth not in the voice of a polished guide, but in the resonance within our own body.

He wants to help us unearth the real, gritty truth. To drop the mask and align with our most authentic self. And he will always find it, and strip us - bare to the root - to help get us there.

And while not always pleasant, he does so with the sole intention of helping to align us with our highest purpose and path.

Pluto in Aquarius is burning through:

• Toxic teacher-student dynamics

• Hierarchies disguised as healing

• Communities that spiritualize silence and shame

• Top-down hierarchal leadership and approach (as it builds on, and transitions us, from Capricorn)

• Practices that police your truth instead of holding it

• Spiritual containers where performance is valued over presence

And what’s rising in its place is embodied, reciprocal connection.

Not rejection of the sacred.

But, a reclamation of the real thing.

We are being invited to step into greater authenticity and learn to trust and lead ourselves.

To unlearn the pattern to bowing to those who only bless us when we obey or elevate them.

Energetic Manipulation Doesn’t Always Look Like You Think

When we think of spiritual manipulation, we tend to imagine dramatic cults or overtly abusive leaders.

But in reality?

It’s often far more subtle.

More seductive.

More confusing.

And in spiritual spaces, manipulation tends to wear a prettier face.

It can look like:

• Being love-bombed with affirmations right after expressing discomfort or doubt.

• Being told your resistance is a sign you’re not “in alignment”

• Watching a leader subtly pit followers against one another to maintain control

• Hearing that leaving the group means you’re abandoning your “highest path”

• Feeling your clarity eroded by feedback disguised as “mirroring” or “mentoring”

These aren’t just red flags.

They’re energetic bindings.

And if you’ve walked through them - especially if you’re only now unraveling from them - I want you to hear me.

You are not crazy. You are not broken.

You are not wrong.

You are waking up.

What I Didn’t Know To Name Until I Lived It

I was forced to face and deal with a kind of manipulation that I wasn’t even aware existed - because it wasn’t loud. It was subtle. Spiritual. Polished. It didn’t scream or demand. It came softly. Wrapped in praise. Dressed as “sisterhood”. Hidden in healing circles, Reiki containers, private DMs, mentoring sessions, or those seemingly innocent “check-ins” that left me questioning myself instead of feeling genuinely empowered and supported.

This post is for those of you who - like me - might not have had language for this. Who brushed off your intuition. Who dismissed or explained away the pings in your gut as insecurity, coincidence, fear, or confusion. Who kept giving the benefit of the doubt while your soul quietly begged you to pay attention.

It’s for those of you who have had their light seen - but not honored.

Their voice praised - but only when it served someone else’s narrative.

Their gifts used - but never truly received.

This is not a post to blame. It is a post to name.

Because if we can’t name what happened, we can’t reclaim our own power.

This is about healing what has been hidden in plain sight - so that we can walk forward in truth.

So let’s talk about the different energetic manipulation tactics that I mentioned in my last post. These are a few that I discovered were being used in a community I was once a part of.

Glamour Magick - The Mask of “Perfection”

What it is: Glamour magic is a technique that has been used for centuries to enhance beauty. It is a spell of perception - used consciously or unconsciously to cast an illusion. It alters how others see the caster. But, in its shadow form, it becomes a mask of perfection, power, or mirror of other idealism, that hides the true motives that lie underneath. It is the deliberate manipulation of perception to create an image so potent it draws people in like a moth to flame. The danger is that you don’t see the casting person clearly. You see the projection. The illusion. The mask that they want you to see.

How it was used: I watched a spiritual teacher present themselves as the exact embodiment of what other’s desired - a truth-speaker, a radiant muse of idealized love, a healer, a spiritual “authority”. But that image was carefully crafted and did not match the shadow behind the scenes. They used glamour to appear as a devoted spiritual authority, while behaving manipulatively. They masked envy, insecurity, greed, and competition behind performative support. And, they were able to maintain admiration and loyalty, even while intentionally harming and weakening others in the group.

Glamour doesn’t steal your energy directly - it seduces it. It makes you question your instincts. You know that something is off, but it appears so alluring on the surface that you dismiss your gut instincts and gaslight yourself into ignoring the deeper, not-quite-so-pleasant truth. And so ultimately, your discernment - the clearest expression of your intuitive voice - becomes foggy and silenced. Please see Part 1 where we go into more detail about how this cycle works.

Signs that might indicate you are under someone’s glamour:

• You feel confused around them and find yourself doubting your gut instincts and intuition

• You place them on a pedestal - they may appear like they can do no wrong or are the greatest X,Y,Z - without really knowing why

• You excuse behaviors in them that you would not tolerate in others

• Others around them appear overly loyal without solid reason

Energy Manipulation through Healing Arts, Such as Reiki

What it is: Energy healing is sacred. But, like any tool or practice, it can be misused. Duality is always present in life; just as there is light, there is dark, just as there is a highest potential of sign, placement, or healing art, there is a low potential or shadow that can equally exist if chosen. When someone connects to your energy field without consent, attaches to your aura during sessions or meditations, or decides to embed their own thought forms, programming, or energetic agenda while you are open and vulnerable during a healing session, it becomes invasive and misused. Energy healing without clear boundaries is, more accurately, psychic invasion. And lets be very clear, this is spiritual abuse.

How It was used: I trusted someone who worked with Reiki and spiritual energy. But I realized they were accessing my field (and others) without permission, trying to pull cords and influence my thoughts, destiny, timelines, and actions, and monitoring my inner world strategically. This wasn’t support. It was a way to stay tethered to my field and attempt to manipulate me. It was used to try to silence me and make me energetically disoriented. Others, had thought forms embedded which altered their energetic perceptions, reactions, and internal reality.

Signs that you might be experiencing energetic manipulation through Reiki or another healing art:

• You feel watched or emotionally influenced even when you are alone; you may feel this energetically, emotionally, or even somatically, but are unable to prove it

• You may feel confused, like your intuition is “off”

• You find yourself feeling drained after a conversation or session

• You notice sudden anxiety, grief, or other emotions that aren’t your own; you may feel emotionally confused or scrambled

• Your dreams change perhaps feeling hijacked or you notice your thought patterns subtly change

• You notice an atypical energetic shift - perhaps you become suddenly agitated or angry with someone or you find yourself looking at someone in a totally new way, out of the blue

• You may feel restless or ungrounded

• You doubt yourself

Triangulation - The Silent Divide

What it is: Triangulation is the subtle art of splitting. A psychological and energetic tactic where someone pits people against each other or positions themselves as the “chosen” one in the middle. It intentionally keeps people divided, mistrusting, and dependent on a central figure or intended narrative. It is designed to create confusion, loyalty tests, and often targets your voice, preventing you and others involved from speaking directly. In spiritual communities, it can look like someone who appears to “hold the group together” but is actually controlling the flow of truth by manipulating communication. Triangulation isolates you from your authentic expression. You become afraid to speak openly. You begin “checking” yourself. You stop trusting others, and ultimately even yourself. Your voice dims because you no longer know clearly who is safe. You were praised for silence and punished passively for honesty. You are afraid of being misquoted or gossiped about. It is akin to an energetic muzzle.

How it was used: I was encouraged to confide in private sessions, then subtly isolated from others in the group. Some of my, and other’s, most vulnerable shares, wounds, and trauma were used and exploited. Compliments were used as currency. Secrets and gossip were weaponized. In other cases they may have shared what others had said about a person - sometimes to flatter, sometimes to “warn” - but ultimately to manipulate loyalties and a sense of intimate, or “special” connection. In at least one conversation she simply made up past life stories to build a sense of connection that was never there organically, but when “glamoured” was an easier sell than it would have been normally. Very tactical things were said and done to keep each person orbiting the creator, and ultimately out of connection with each other. Severing or altering connections strategically to achieve a set agenda but meanwhile sacrificing connections that I valued. I noticed shifts in my friendships and unexplained tensions out of the blue. But to others, she always knew just the right thing to say to everyone to keep things under control. But here is the key, everyone thought she was only loyal to them.

Signs that you might be experiencing triangulation:

• You’re constantly “checking” what’s safe to say, or you find yourself afraid or uncertain of sharing your truth

• You feel closer to the manipulator than to others in the group; even if you hadn’t been that close to them previously and interpersonal dynamics with others you had been close to, and connected with, seem to subtly shift

• You find tension in relationships with others that used to feel easy

• You may learn others were told very different versions of events*

• Private information may be freely shared even if your relationship with the manipulator doesn’t support that level of intimate exchange or casual dynamic

• Your relationship with the manipulator, if in a position of authority, may change and become more casual or extend outside the lines of the professional rapport and exchange you once held

*This is a core tool often used. It keeps people disconnected from each other and makes it difficult to know who to trust. It is intended to confuse and create dependency. The manipulator controls the narrative and appears like a victim to one person and a hero to another, painting a target as“the problem” in a subtle, deniable way. When you realize someone else was told a different version of the same event it creates a cycle of self-doubt seeding confusion, shame, and silence and making the target easier to gaslight, discredit, and alienate. Ultimately, making it easier for the manipulator to appear “innocent” and control the narrative as you are encouraged to seek approval from them rather than tuning into your own truth. It discourages note checking, blocks healthy communication, and prevents unity between those who might otherwise see through the manipulator.

Energetic Vampirism - The Hidden Hunger Beneath

What it is: Energetic vampirism is when someone feeds on your light, love, ideas, presence, or attention to fuel themselves - without giving back in equal measure. It is one of the most misunderstood forms of manipulation in spiritual communities. Often they flatter or praise you to gain access to your energy, then slowly drain you. It can be conscious or unconscious. But the end result is the same: you feel emptied. They take your energy to maintain their own power, image, or sense of identity.

How it was used: In my experience, this kind of energetic entanglement didn’t look like overt manipulation at first - it was the most tricky to distinguish. It showed up as mirroring - my insights reflected back to me as if they had originated elsewhere. My content and ideas began showing up in other places, uncredited but unmistakably familiar. I saw this happen with others also. Certain people’s energy seemed to be used as a kind of energetic anchor - I saw this both in her energetically mimicking and also sometimes in the group dynamic, where it helped attract or hold attention. And, when I quietly left (for reasons I’ve shared elsewhere), there were very clear, unnecessary energetic manipulations and lies woven into a made-up narrative. It was disorienting and confusing at first - because the relationship had been framed as supportive and even sisterly. But the deeper I tuned in, the more I could feel: this wasn’t collaboration. It was extraction. Personal energy wasn’t being honored - it was being harvested for her personal benefit. If someone consistently takes more than they give, probes your field without permission, or relies on your gifts while subtly diminishing your voice - that is not mentorship. That is not healing. Even if it’s wrapped in spiritual language or cloaked in care. True support empowers your sovereignty. It doesn’t siphon your energy.

Signs you may be being siphoned energetically:

• You feel tired, heavy, or “off” - without a known cause- after interactions

• Your ideas are repackaged or claimed (subtle energy harvesting; offered as collaboration but feels like depletion)

• You may sense someone “needs” you energetically in a way that feels sticky or unclear

• You leave a conversation and feel empty, not seen

• You begin to second guess the worth of your gifts

• You begin to feel gaslit into thinking the other person “made you” or “helped you”

• You may feel dependent upon them in a way you can’t directly explain

• Conversely, you may be told something privately, like “the group felt weird after you spoke”, intended to make you feel “psychically punished” for speaking; this is vampirism through emotional suppression and psychic control of group energy

• Trauma bond hooking; you are positioned as the only one who can help or “get them” and they siphon off your empathy. This may make you feel guilty or disloyal for pulling away or needing space

Community & Ritual Should be Safe. Not Silencing.

True sacred space doesn’t censor you.

It holds you.

It honors your unique voice.

It invites your full, embodied presence - even when that presence is trembling or messy.

Community should never demand your silence. Nor your conformity.

It should never require your self-erasure in the name of spiritual decorum.

We are in a collective reckoning.

A sacred breaking-open.

A rising tide of truth and reclamation.

And the false teacher archetype is being exposed - not only in my group, but elsewhere.

Many are awakening to how distorted systems of power-especially spiritual ones have manipulated doctrine, ritual, and truth for control.

But we are being invited to change. To break the silence and call out the distortions and abuse. And, to honor sacred leadership.

And, when you do so you are helping to midwife that change.

It’s okay to question what you were taught.

It’s okay to outgrow a “spiritual leader”.

You are allowed to listen to your inner oracle above all else.

Because a true spiritual leader doesn’t chain you to tradition - they help you open the sacred door within.

True spiritual connection never demands your silence, obedience, or sacrifice of self.

It recognizes you. Meets you. And liberates you.

If it asks you to shrink, it is not your mirror.

If You’re In The Rubble, You’re Not Alone

If you’re still untangling…

If your heart is broken and your voice is shaky…

If you’re afraid to speak because you still care for the people you are walking away from…

That is sacred, too.

This isn’t a call to burn it all down.

It’s a call to get honest about what is no longer true. To call out the distortions. And, most importantly to find and align with your inner truth - and honor it.

To stop gaslighting yourself for noticing what your body has been trying to say.

To reclaim your clarity - and begin again.

Because when you reclaim your voice,

You’re not just healing your story -

You’re helping someone else find the courage to start theirs.

Reclaiming Your Sovereignty - This Is The Work

I didn’t want to believe any of this was happening at first. I had ignored warning pings for months, and gaslit and dismissed my deeper intuition. This was my friend, I had invited this person and their family to my home for vacation. I told myself there was no way this could be true. But, my body and my intuition would not let go. And, finally I sat with it and realized there were deeper layers than met the eye. And this was the quiet, brutal moment when I realized I could either keep pretending I didn’t see….or walk away from a group I had grown to care for and risk being exiled for naming what was real.

The choice cracked me open. And I chose to walk away and speak my truth in my own way.

And while that hasn’t been easy, what I found on the other side of the silence was a deeper connection to myself.

Not a version molded, controlled, or limited by someone else’s system.

Not a seeker defined by someone else’s light.

But the wild, honest, messy, sovereign truth of my own becoming.

I’ve learned many valuable lessons in this experience. One of them, is the reminder that real healing includes the Sword of Truth. Radical honesty with yourself and the facts. The Swords (in Tarot) cut illusion - allowing us to more readily see the truth and bring back home all of the pieces. One important part of spiritual maturity is not bypassing the shadow - it’s naming it with love. And then choosing to step out of its grip. Even, when that choice is hard. Because choosing ourselves, choosing authenticity - it will always lead you to more wholeness.

If you are navigating a similar path, let this truth be your torch.

You were never meant to stay silent in a system that survives by your silence.

You were always meant to rise.

And you do this by stepping into alignment with yourself - your discernment and your own internal truth.

And as you do so, you are reclaiming yourself - piece by piece, truth by truth.

This journey isn’t about perfection. It’s about seeing clearly, choosing consciously, and rising with your integrity intact. You will emerge stronger, more confident, humbler, and more empowered than ever before.

Because you were never meant to stay asleep in someone else’s dream.

Your soul came here to remember, to rise, and to reclaim what was always yours.
Keep going - your truth is your liberation.

In Part 3 of the Sovereign Path, we’ll explore the red flags of false teachers - because naming the energy is only the beginning - next we learn to spot the ones who wield it so we never fall prey to this again.

Until next time.

With so much love and compassion as you continue on your journey,

Seraphina

Chiron Return Activation: Notes from the Chiron Threshold

Every one of us carries a wound. The pain of which, runs so deep that some of us spend a lifetime running from it. Others- meet it head-on and alchemize it into something sacred.

I’ve just crossed into a major threshold in the world of astrology known as my Chiron Return. This mid-life cycle is something that none of us escape, and usually occurs between the ages of 49-51. It marks the time when Chiron, known as the archetype of the Wounded Healer, returns to the exact place in the sky that it was when we were born.

My Chiron is in Aries in the 9th house - the part of our chart that deals with truth, spiritual calling, teaching, and visibility. It sits tightly conjunct my Jupiter and directly squares my Saturn. Aries, the cardinal first energy of the zodiac, embodies the energy of "I AM” - our identity and speaks to our self-trust, courage, and the fire we hold inside ourselves to claim and fully own our own voice. But, Chiron, placed here, doesn’t roar - it hesitates. It fears being too much, or perhaps not enough. It is the stirring inside that knows it is created to lead but doubts deeply if you deserve to.

This wound has lived in me for a long time. I embody many of the characteristics of Aries as I hold a large stellium there - but I’ve often played small. I’ve often stayed silent. I’ve doubted deeply my own worth in many rooms and circles where my wisdom belonged. I’ve held back out of fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of misunderstanding. Fear of failure.

But now? Now, I am being asked to boldly step into this journey of self-discovery, ripping off the well worn and hidden band-aid to a deep wound I’d rather not face and not only look at it fully, but to turn that wound into medicine.

This return isn’t simply about healing - it is about actively embodying my role as a teacher, healer, guide, and mother. It is about building something that can hold others as they walk through their own initiations. A blog. A circle. A sacred offering I’ve yet to flesh out. A new way of showing up for myself and others.

I don’t know yet what all of this will become. But, I do know that I have made a commitment to say yes. To say yes to myself; to showing up, doing the work, and telling myself the truth and facing the parts of myself that perhaps I’d rather have stay hidden and protected. To saying yes to what I’m being called to build. And ultimately, to saying yes to the divine fire inside me that I have always held sacred - and while I may have allowed that light to dim at times, I have never let it go out.

Maybe you are feeling something stir in your own life too. Something old resurfacing, something deeper within you that is calling. It doesn’t have to be your Chiron wound. A soul longing, a calling, a whisper for change - these all come in different forms and packaging - but our soul recognizes them when they do stir. And, when they do, know that you are not alone. Know that thousands of us are walking this same path of self discovery with you. And this is just one of those stories - meant to encourage, inspire, and help shine a light you can carry along your way.

I’ll be sharing my journey with you here, as it unfolds. One truth. One wound at a time. I can’t promise that it won’t be messy, sprinkled with some unexpected drama (spoiler alert, the first 3 weeks of this transit have unfolded with far more wild, unexpected drama than I could have possibly ever predicted - and, perhaps the most intense spiritual initiation of my life!), or that it won’t be raw at times, but I can promise you that it will be real. And my hope is that it helps empower you. Letting you know you are seen and not alone on your own path.

With Love,

Seraphina Thorne

I walk with the ancestors. I rise with the stars.