Grass is Our Friend: Spiritual Bypassing Series #2

Hello, dear readers, and welcome back to another round of getting into the universe’s business and spilling the tea within. My tea this week is actually hot chocolate because why not and the topic of conversation is article #2 on spiritual bypassing and discussion of Mercury, Jupiter, Neptune, and Saturn all stationing blessedly direct and heading on their transformational ways. Sagittarius season is shooting along straight towards Capricorn, but as the practical darlings they are, they shall wait for their season. It’s all part of the strategy anyway, right? There is lots of heavenly movement happening over the next few months with a lot of squares and trines as the inner planets make their yearly circuits through the energetic fields of the outer planets, bringing transformational opportunities to all. Squares typically indicate moments of challenge whereas trines offer good fortune when in alignment with the self, so basically we are entering a time of personal challenge brought on by larger outer forces but through self-alignment we can gather that right place, right time energy and use it to our benefit in navigating those challenges. Go figure, what else is new? What’s new will be the moon in Capricorn, giving an excellent opportunity to plot a new course for this upcoming season. If we are gonna go through stuff, we might as well make it worthwhile stuff and have something more to say than “I made it,” right? C’est la vie.

Moving on, I noticed upon reflection that in my previous blog post I failed to actually explain what spiritual bypassing is, writing with the assumption that it is a well-known phenomenon and something actively discussed. This was not actually a fair assumption and though I’m sure many do know what spiritual bypassing is, I thought it might be helpful to actually define it for the purposes of this series and to provide clarity on the topic and my takes on it. My apologies for omitting this previously. Specifically, spiritual bypassing is utilizing spirituality or religion to skip (bypass) inner and/or outer work necessary for the understanding and/or application of various practices or theories. A simple, blog-related example would be using astrology to excuse undesirable traits rather than face and resolve those undesired traits. As a Libra, it is really easy for me to make jokes and say “I can’t make decisions! I’m a Libra! We’re indecisive!” However, if I truly believe in astrology and use it as a reason to pawn all or even most decisions onto other people, that is problematic. That is spiritual bypassing. It is me using spiritual reasoning to avoid looking at the true reasons I avoid or struggle in making decisions. It’s worthwhile to know if that stems from self-esteem or executive dysfunction or something else, friends. Regardless of in-born traits, I do hold responsibility for myself as an independent adult. The ability to make decisions for myself is a requirement for being a fully independent adult, regardless of my Libra stellium (triple placement). I cannot sit and connive and scheme and strike people just because I have a lot of Scorpio placements either. Those traits are still my responsibility to manage to utilize appropriately. Broadening the example, spiritual bypassing is also using literature or authority to undermine and/or block self-growth or growth in others. For example, “You can’t do that.” “Why not?” “ The (insert holy book) says you can’t.” is also a form of spiritual bypassing. The universe cares not for the morals of men. Books, no matter how useful and necessary, are not a replacement for real life impact and experience. Practicing therapy is a lot different than studying therapy. Imbuing inanimate objects with spiritual authority and then utilizing that spiritual authority to validate real-life acts of harm is problematic, friends. You can love Aleister Crowley all you want. I am not required to follow his rules nor am I bound to his theories. What works for you, works for you. If you want others to accept your practice, you must not only accept others’ practices, but we all need to strive to not be a nuisance to each other. You won’t be roasty toasting and you won’t be asked about those who will be. Let. It. Go. Ya know? Anyway, those are but a few examples of spiritual bypassing.

We are all familiar with the impacts of Mercury going direct. It is, as usual, an opening in the communication channel, an opportunity to release verbal constraints and apply healthy communication skills. Going direct in Scorpio/Sagittarius brings that inspiration flame to the table, with now being a decent time to plan upcoming projects and fine-tune strategies for foreseen challenges and maybe do some introspection into how you’re getting in your own way. Jupiter in Cancer brings a very similar energy, encouraging nurturing around decisions and putting emphasis on smaller details.  Saturn is direct and still in Pisces for the time being, bringing opportunities to developed some balanced responses when confronted with emotional situations. Rounding out this watery tide is the ruler of the seas, Neptune, who is currently hanging out in Pisces along with Saturn. My dreams have been vivid and full of processing content. How about yours? Here’s all that water I was talking about. Look at our planets being stereotypical and bringing about emotional revolution and resolution with themes of releasing the past hurts and building new futures during holiday season. How Hallmark can you get?

While we are on the topic of navigating challenges authentically and within alignment, let’s discuss something absolutely fascinating that I observe pretty often in the spiritual community, and not just the pagan one. Especially with all this water in the biosphere. Let’s talk about embodiment vs spiritual psychosis, shall we? And to avoid the mistake I made last time, spiritual psychosis is when spiritual bypassing has happens to such a level that a person has lost touch with the real life impacts of their actions and deeds and/or their humanity. This can manifest in a wide spectrum of behaviors from screaming about the end-of-days on street corners to starting cults as the living incarnation of a deity on social media to thinking there are spirits in AI that are talking directly to you and that you’re the new savior of the spiritual world. Slow down, precious, we’re getting a little tall there. The grass. It is still free to touch. Please do. Often. With bare feet if you can manage and it is safe to do so.

While spirituality is absolutely an important aspect of mental health, it is just that. An aspect. It is not the replacement for overall mental health and it cannot be used in lieu of all other practices. Why? Because both mental health and spirituality involve a lot of activation of the imagination, even when rooted in fact and history. A lot of spiritual practices, regardless of walk or background, involve visualization, inner speech, searching for and applying meaning, faith, believing without seeing, etc. These are all primarily right-brain processes, friends. That makes them creative rather than rational. I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty neuro-science of it here, but please feel free to dive into that. The overall application is that anything that involves imagination requires discipline and balance to navigate. Imagination is not all rainbows and unicorns. Sometimes it can be quite scary. I often call out clients who tell me they aren’t creative because they struggle with their mental health. Friends, you spend a lot of time creating negative scenarios, imagining the worst-possible outcomes, and ruminating on your past failures or cringe moments to tell me that you can’t visualize, meditate, or self-reflect. You absolutely can and, in fact, already are. We just need discipline here so that we can do those things in a helpful way rather than in a harmful way. Easier said than done by miles though. I know that. It’s why spiritual bypassing exists in the first place. Honestly though, who wants to integrate shadows and face insecurities and put forth tons of effort to develop skills? Blech. Much easier to say “Hecate told me to hex them!” than to just admit that you were in your feels and wanted to feel powerful and therefore wanted to hex them and you used that aspect of yourself to justify it when in reality, as an adult, you never need anyone’s permission to do anything. Spiritually or otherwise  you just have to be prepared to accept the consequences of your actions (next post will be about deities and entities, btw). Our humanity levels the playing field. Anything you can do…you know how it goes. Better at does not equate better than any more than knowledge can outweigh practice. 

So where does spiritual psychosis fit in? Well, as I was saying before I hopped on my soapbox of an explanation was that: when you are engaging in practices that shift your perspective, your perception, your way of thinking, your way of being, etc., that is going to have impacts on the reality around you. Being on a spiritual journey does not exempt a person from the harm of their impacts. Finding a new deity does not absolve someone of their real-world crimes or choices even if they have been spiritually cleansed. Achieving a new level of consciousness does not create superiority above others. Finding something that works for you does not mean it will work for others. Furthermore, in more extreme cases, this kind of mindset can be very, very harmful to people who are more vulnerable or open to suggestion. Getting into a space where we have separated ourselves from our inner monologue or the ability to develop an inner monologue or any other ability creates space for delusion or co-dependence to occur. Using spiritual experience as a basis for psychological phenomenon is dangerous, friends. I too can see a bridge between the spiritual and the psychological but it is not the end-all-be-all and there are limits to any belief set. Seeing or hearing things that are giving instructions to harm oneself is not a good sign. Believing ourselves to be invincible, above reproach, perfect, etc. is harmful delusion. This type of thinking, per the DSM-V-TR, is in line with mania, narcissism, and/or psychosis among others. We should not tell people who are experiencing unexplained phenomenon that their first stop is the occult. No, babe. Mundane before magical, always. The systems are flawed, not out to get you. It is absolutely necessary to seek assistance when dealing with something that is big, scary, or difficult to explain. No, I don’t think you’re actually going to summon a demon and deal with horror-movie events. I think you potentially might lose your grip on reality and run into traffic. Eyes on the stars. Feet on the ground, babes. For safety. It is ok to go slow and make sure that you are still able to function. That is the line. The line between belief and pathology is literally the ability to function safely and effectively. If we are dropping self-care, responsibilities, time, or safe-relationships, those are red flags. The cardinal in the backyard being a deceased loved one visiting you and bringing you comfort is totally fine. That cardinal being the sign to start your plan to dominate the world or join the deceased loved one is not fine. Make sense?

What are some ways to navigate and mitigate. Firstly and foremostly, please utilize mental health support systems. If you are in need of one, check out psychologytoday.com or 211 for resources. 988 is the crisis hotline. Secondly, there is value in separating metaphor from application. Most of the time, ancient writings were either straightforward accounts, accounting, or myths. Myths, friends, are metaphors that contain many layers of knowledge and they serve a purpose of creating a foundation for larger concepts that are explained and expanded upon later in life with training and education. Myths and folklore were used as parables to teach lessons around behavior, social expectations, and ancestral history. Most often, myths and folklore served as warnings against foolishness or dangerous behaviors, hence the absolute abundance of tragic endings to old stories. Happy endings only became common in the 20th century (for purposes that are worth looking up) and so recency bias has helped to erase the understanding of myths and legends as learning tools rather than dictatorial edicts. Personally, I miss the use of stories as learning lessons and have made personal efforts to bring this tradition back. I definitely did tell my daughter that tiny little gnomes climb into her mouth while she sleeps at night to eat all the sugar and leftover food from not brushing her teeth before bed and, because they are so small, they have to poop while they eat to finish their job, and that’s why her breath stinks so bad when she wakes up in the morning. She asked. She was extremely relieved to then learn that they hate the smell of peppermint and that, obviously if there’s less food and sugar in her mouth at bedtime, the gnomes won’t be as attracted to her and she therefore started brushing her teeth morning and night.  Of course, now she knows that the gnomes are bacteria, but still has the concept of their impact and no cavities. Plus her “good morning, momma”’s don’t knock me out of the park quite so badly. It’s a win for us all. If we stop at the metaphor though, that’s when the bypassing comes in. My daughter was 4 when I told her about the gnomes. When she asked me again and had a little more understanding, I told her that the gnomes were bacteria, just like I explained that the spirits that make us sick are germs and such. The metaphor is meant to be a placeholder, not a full stop.  This blends back into what I was saying in my previous post about rosemary and cleansing. We aren’t supposed to keep our first impressions, friends. We are supposed to dig a little deeper to better understand what is happening. And then we need to pull that back to reality and learn to apply it. Kind of like when I had a dream in which I was being taught to choose timelines. Spiritual bypassing would be me believing that dreams are messages and therefore that must have been a message for the collective and not for me. Spiritual psychosis would be me believing that I was the messenger for the angels and that I had literally been given the power to choose people’s timelines and/or the mission to teach people this skill. Integration and embodiment is me understanding that the dream was a metaphor for understanding the power of personal choice and the need to be ethical in practice due to ripple effects. Reality can be a fragile thing. There’s a reason why people react so hard to their viewpoint is being challenged. It’s a natural defense of the brain to maintain a functioning reality. It actually is that big of a deal to try to change someone’s mind. I have to be licensed for a reason, you guys. Therapy is heavily regulated because it’s the practice of helping someone shift their reality and we have to have as little influence as possible in that process to make sure we aren’t accidentally indoctrinating our clients or leading with our own biases. Common sense is relative to the reality it serves, let me tell you.

Overall and summing up (thanks for making it this far if you did), it seems like the impacts of spiritual bypassing are all around us, particularly in the form of using spirituality as a sword and chain rather than as a shield and skateboard. While planets in retrograde bring periods of pause, reflection, and attonement, planets going direct brings direct energy and action. This is the time of creation, of applying the insights we’ve gathered to our physical reality to bloom in the Spring. Winter is a time of rest and reflection still, yes, but it’s different in that this is strategic pause rather than the forced pause of a retrograde. We are currently looking at the outcomes of our choices from last winter until now. Are your current impacts in line with your January 2025 intentions? How much is that impact mattering right now at the end of it all? The time passed anyway, are you where you wanted to be or are you still at the beginning or maybe in transition? Use this winter chill to cool your jets and consider what you are wanting to plant this new year. Are you expectations feasible? Reasonable? Are they goals or expectations? What supports or barriers can you identify from here? Details details.

My details are: I still have openings for clients, be they spiritual, therapeutic, single session, or a series of visits. You can contact me at jessalyn@rainydayholisticservices.com, rainydayholisticservices.com, or at weatheredwillow.com. Stay cozy, out there.