As a newly awoken individual, one can’t help but feel put off by the current state of the spiritual community.

While there are many genuine voices, a great deal of the "alluring" content, the stuff that sparks mass interest, is obsessed with extraterrestrial consciousness, control mechanisms, and the narrative that we are trapped participants in a hostile game.

One can’t help but feel that the premise of finding a character to blame is the key to these frameworks. Experientially, this sounds an awful lot like religion, just with different masks. We have swapped "Devils" for "Demons" and "Sin" for "Low Vibrations", but the structure remains the same: I am small, they are big, and I am a victim.

But what if consciousness is the raw matter of everything? Does it not therefore mean that the entities we demonise are just scapegoats for problems within our own collective field?

The psyche loves to use a specific trick: it externalizes elements to make them relationally clear. It projects internal conflict onto an external screen. But if "All is Mind", then the demon you see "out there" is simply a mirror of something "in here".

Instead of looking for angels and demons outside of us, perhaps we should internalise the premise. We need to look at where we are demonising our authentic selves rather than representing them.

My own experience upon awakening has been a whirlwind of wonder. After moving through tough inner healing, I felt called to nature and to learning Reiki, which I view as a form of practical awareness, a "consciousness technology".

In this process, I have witnessed a number of strange phenomena: dark entities in my room upon slumber, flickering lights, and high-frequency tones.

If I were to adopt the popular perspective, I would have labeled these as "demons" or "evil". But isn't dualism a human concept? If you identify as a spark of Divinity, are you not part of Unity?

What if the "darkness" isn't evil? What if it is the depth of potential? What if it is the absence of light in perception, but truly the pre-matter to the light, the raw clay of illuminated truth waiting to be shaped?

This leads to the obsession with the "Higher Self". Applying a dualistic perspective to spiritual growth often leeches into hyper-egoic behaviour. We let the mask dictate the experience, assuming it knows what "good" looks like.

As Alan Watts suggested, the Ego loves to play hide-and-seek. It will find a "Higher Self" above the Higher Self, endlessly climbing a ladder to nowhere just to feel like it is progressing. Most people are trying to embody a "higher ideal" without realising it is just another form of escapism.