Home of Xenofact, Interdenominational Man of Mysticism
My third Xenofact Xine is out! 13 blog posts in print or PDF form with a few extras! Grab a copy, sit down, and have an asyncronous chat with me about cults, hypochondria, Taoism, and more!
Get it in print:
https://ko-fi.com/s/2224cca107
Get it in PDF:
https://ko-fi.com/s/ad269f9438
Whatever occult, mystical, or religious experiences someone has – including me – I am more inclined to listen to it if it shocked the hell out of whoever was having it.
All mystical ventures involve the mind, and we all know how much our minds can lie to us. You don’t need to even imagine an occult experience to deceive yourself – a good anxiety attack will do that for you. The imagination can be easily turned to build entire worlds inside our head that we start to believe, moreso if we want to.
If you’ve engaged at all in the world of occultism, you’ve encountered self-deceiving people, and let’s face it, we’ve all deceived ourselves before. My guess is we can remember other people’s self-deceptions a bit more easily as our own, which is one hell of a warning to our own ability to make stuff up. To engage in meditation or magic is to know you’re walking into your own delusions.
. . . and it’s also to easily forget those delusions.
At the same time, we’ve all had those magical experiences where something was really going on. That dream, that voice, that synchronicity-chain that just couldn’t happen, or something more intense. Something is out there, but sometimes you have to wonder “did I make this shit up?”
Where I pay attention, where I take occult experiences seriously, is when they shock the person who experiences them. Something unexpected, something disturbing, something more powerful than expected. Whatever happened, when it is outside of expectations and part of a mystic experience then personal making-shit-up is less likely.
I mean yes, you may have made stuff up, but it’s less likely. It may not be a truly occult experience, but a least it’s different and worth study. But then there are those moments where both explanations don’t hold up and you have to sit with what happened.
I value the shock of my mystical efforts. That’s the time to listen.
– Xenofact
In 2023 I encountered the Hexorian movement. If you’re not familiar with it (and you may not be) it’s from the freeform “Chaos” magic school, focusing on the idea of a god of cities, Hexorius. A diety of the undercurrents and foundations, Hexorius had a powerful effect on those involved in the movement – suggesting not something created but something deeper and primal.
I took to these ideas because it’s apparent that cities are living things, and because of my own interest in genius loci. However, the Hexorians also followed other dieties, other faces of Hexorius or a Power behind all of them. One was Valdas, the god that took on those who explored the city, but most fascinating to me was Arcadia.
Arcadia was a deity or ideal of a City To Be. A sorcerous solarpunk future, where man, magic, and nature were in balance, a place for everyone. She was a roadmap, a goal – and a goddess at the same time. A living future.
Though Hexorian magic and practices appealed to me based on previous experience, this issue resonated hard with me, and I wanted to explore what it says here.
Utopian dreams are nothing new to humanity – nor is their failure. Someone is always trying to build a utopia, and someone always has a plan, hoping to build a bright future on failed ones. In some cases, utopia seems to involve getting rid of a lot of people who don’t fit the blueprint. Other ideas of utopia live only as abstract plans, turning into something else when released into reality.
The idea of Arcadia a future regarded as alive, an idea I approve of as noted in my other writings. Arcadia isn’t a blueprint or an outline, but a goal of a future that was organic, balanced, a living thing, a god. It’s something you form a relationship with, not follow a checklist.
Be our practices mystical or not, the idea that the future is alive is critical to our own survival. We’re not going to hammer the future we want into place – the world and all in it are alive and complex, and nothing we do will change that.* We have to form a relationship with the future in order to have the one we want – or have one at all.
The future has to be treated as a living thing just to acknowledge the sheer size of it all and how connected it is to everything. To think of it in mechanical ways is to miss this.
It’s not much of a leap to regard the future as a god. Perhaps, from a mystical point of view, a very rational approach. As I note – again and a gain – I find the idea of a god to be useful if nothing else. The universe is big and compex.
(Of course, in this interlinked world, it’s not that hard to imagine a future as literally alive, manifesting through us.)
Thus in my daily observations, I sometimes close by saying “Unto Arcadia.” A way to acknowledge the living future we can aim for. Because our future, no matter how you think of it, will be like a living thing.
In fact, if we don’t recognize an organic future, we might not have one. Arcadia may be our only choice.
Unto Arcadia.
– Xenofact
* Well, if humanity wipes itself and all life on Earth out we might change it. But that’s not a future of survival for us.
For some Hexorian resources please refer to: