What Do You Say When Someone Shows You Their Sex Dungeon?

One of life’s unanswerable questions and yet one that I came face to face with only a few weeks ago. Disclaimer: this story includes references to drugs, sex and a certain someone with a messiah complex.

As a gay guy with a pulse (although if I were without one probably wouldn’t stop some guys), I’m no stranger to perverts. I jest yet there do seem to be a lot of them around.

Since I started trying to live my life more in line with my “soul” or whatever you may want to call it, I’ve inadvertently given up sex. No intentional and perhaps I’m just allowing my ego to defend myself here by blaming my clear lack of sex appeal on my spiritual awakening. Hmm.

So anyway, I’m unsexy now. I used to be what one might call a complete fuckbunny. I’d literally hop from one guy to the other feeling all cute and valued because someone wanted to bone me. Sad where I used to find my worth but true.

So now I am a bit of a shocking prude. Shagging used to be my favourite topic of conversation but now I feel uncomfortable hearing about my friends bloody anus (genuine anecdote I was blessed with) or how the spare room renovation at my friend with the messiah complex’s house is evolving in to a rather unusual use of space.

Arriving at my friend- who-thinks-he’s-Jesus’ house, the atmosphere was a little tense. See, if you hadn’t gathered already, I find him to be the absolute source for spiritual narcissism. In fact, at one point he was claiming to be some kind of archangel and apologised to me (genuinely true) for the fact that the feathers in my garden were due to him malting.

I question his mental health and his alleged heavy drug usage.

So it’s awkward as fuck. He then breaks the ice by showing me the aforementioned spare room (a lovely room which he used to refer to as my room as I would stay there -drunk- often). Well, he called it a sex dungeon and I pretty much had an automatic OBE there and then.

Peering round the door, I was presented with a rather empty (and surprisingly light and airy) space with a pommel horse positioned perfectly in the centre. A selection of pencil sketched nudes hung proudly on the walls and what appeared to be a leash was neatly placed in the far corner.

The pommel horse threw me, I won’t lie.

The only thing I could think of to say was “Did you get this on Amazon?”

Out with the old, in with the new ritual.

2022 will always be a monumental year for so many reasons. The start of the ongoing tragic war in Ukraine which has caused such chaos around the globe. Even here in my own family, the impact of the overload of information surrounding the war has adversely impacted my father. Just the other day, the landline phone made some kind of siren sound due to not being replaced on its base and immediately my dad went straight to thinking it was the nuclear warning siren. Chill dad.

The death of Queen Elizabeth II will be forever remembered whether that pleases you or not. For me, I felt (at the time) and unexpected annoyance towards the entire thing and not for republican or antiestablishment reasons.

Michael is my mums youngest brother and therefore my uncle. He is also my godfather and also an alcoholic. 2022, for me, is branded onto my mind eternally due to the chronic weeping of hernias, recurrent hospital admissions and ultimate death of him. Two days before the Queen died.

Even in his death, Michael was upstaged.

Seeing as 2022 was also the year that “shit got real” in terms of my awareness of spirits and heightening of psychic awareness, it is only fitting that I end this year with some kind of witchy ritual (I’m not insane I promise).

My mum is a very intuitive lady and she knows things she shouldn’t and some things that I just wish she didn’t. She was recalling her grandmother’s annual party which was known as “Old year out, New Year in”. I asked my mum what happened during this party and was, naturally, thrilled to hear that it centred around this very ritualistic folk-magic tradition of opening the back door (letting out the old) and opening the front (letting in the new). Brilliant! Be it simply a quirk or odd hangover from times past, it’s these things that we can harness to bring more magic into our lives and I’m all about that.

So tonight, along with buggering around opening and closing doors, I will also be performing my (quite crude) New Year ritual.

Items needed

As many or few candles as seems right to you.

Incense (again, whatever you have or like or linked to your desires).

Drawings, objects or printed photos of those things you are hoping to banish and what you are hoping to manifest.

An egg!

Seeds of any variety.

What to do

Although this is going to be done in New Year’s Eve, I suppose it could work at any time.

Start by doing whatever pre-magic protection you would usually do. That might be sod all or it might be a full banishing, cleansing and circle casting. I just cast a circle.

Try to achieve a meditative state however you see fit. I appreciate that, given it’s New Year’s Eve, you might be a bit half-cut but do try and focus.

Once calm, speak aloud about all of the experiences, feelings, relationships, learning etc this year has brought forward to you. Be grateful for all of them. Even the challenging moments will have or will eventually lead to your own development somehow. Try and see the good in everything.

Set the intention. Say this aloud as your words carry energy. Focus on your chest. Your heart space. All your attention on your chest. Feel your heart beating and the energy swirling there (or imagine it). From this space (ie not your mind but your heart) state aloud “I am more powerful than I ever knew and have enormous control over my life. Now, I banish that which I deem undesirable and call in that which I desire with loving kindness and for the highest and fullest good of myself and all concerned.” Or similar!

Now, write a list of what you hope not to bring in to next year with you. This could be an addiction you want to overcome or a problem you want ridding of. Maybe even a person. An illness. Whatever resonates with you.

You now need to dig deep and feel all of the undesirable feelings that those unwanted things evoke within in. So, if you’re hoping to be rid of an illness, you need to conjure inside you the most severe symptoms of this and then also recall all the ways the illness has negatively impacted your life. How has it hindered your relationships? Your career? Your joy? What has it stopped you from doing. You want to feel as awful as possible here!

See the emotions and thoughts as a black goo or smoke inside your body. Watch how it stains and taints everything within you. Visualise yourself collecting this blackness in your chest and, with loving kindness, breath it out deeply into the egg. Visualise now that it is inside the egg shell. Contained. Take a deep breath in filling the empty spaces inside you with new, clean, white and sparkly energy. Really feel a sense of relief.

You can swear a lot at the egg now or cover it in banishing symbols or whatever you fancy to demonstrate that you do not want that blackness back. Do not smash the egg here though.

Now, take the objects or pictures or whatever of the things you DO want. Again, evoke the emotions and thoughts they would bring you. Really feel them. Imagine these energies entering the seeds ready to grow.

Out loud, invite them in to your life. Try not to feel silly here. Call out, “Love, my name is … and you’re so welcome here in my life. Please come, I invite you in for the fullest and greatest good of myself and all others concerned.”

Again, visualise these things entering your body, seeds and space. Swirling around you and entering every cell. Feel the feelings here. You could (if they’re not toxic) eat the seeds here or plant them when you have the chance. Don’t worry if they never actually grow, it’s just symbolic and tells the “universe” what your intentions are. The universe loves a bit of symbolism.

Try to laugh at how amazingly brilliant your next year will be. Like a sort of “Wow, can you believe it!?” laugh.

Whenever it feels right (the next day or next week even), take the egg and walk somewhere outside of the boundaries of your home and smash the fucker to pieces. Smash it, tell it it’s banished forever and must never return. Wish it well as it continues its journey away from you and then quickly turn your back and walk briskly away. Never look back. Never give it another thought. Gone. Boom.

Spiritsplaining (verb. To explain someone else’s spiritual experiences to them)

Spiritual narcissism. Wow is it rife! Take an I’ll-advised detour across the many spiritual videos on YouTube and you’ll soon see what I mean.

Living in line with your spirit means trying to allow the ego to die. Now, this is really no easy feat and believe me – I’m 70% ego, 28% caffeine and 2 % spirit. But I learnt the hard way not to take everything someone with a good camera and awesome eyebrows says as gospel.

When I (I really feel like a twat saying this) began experiencing things which signalled the start of my spiritual awakening (yep. Test), I had no idea what these experiences meant. I was seeing wobbly and sparkly air, hearing bizarre ringing, feeling like a jelly in my own body and pretty much tripping balls. YouTube gurus explained these things in so many different ways and yet not one of them said to simply experience these sensations and not immediately try to explain them. That’s the best advise I have ever received “allow yourself to experience without questioning”.

Disastrously, I sought the wisdom of some random person claiming to be some kind of divine messenger whilst I was reaching out to my spirit guides. Quick side note – I’m still not certain about what I think about the idea of spirit guides. I had had a couple of experiences during meditation where I felt that I’d encountered “something”. Initially it was a sudden and random blazing white light that called itself Amy. I shared this with the aforementioned divine douchebag and he told me “Nope.” And so I believed him and that was that. No more Amy.

Next, I literally saw (in my imagination) and heard (with my real ears) a woman who called herself Amina. She was elderly and had great banter. She wanted to sit down and was telling me to move over on my bed so she could sit with me. Now, did she give me any actionable advice? No. Did she make me feel very happy in that moment? Absolutely.

Again, I told another divine dickhead about her and they told me that in fact her name was Mina and she a black woman from West Africa who (according to the person who was spiritsplaining) was owned as a slave by a family member of mine many many years ago. The divine dickhead came up with this whole story and, at the time, it was convincing. I was new and it was possible I was wrong.

This led to me trying to connect to the new Amina – Mina. I never could though. She didn’t feel like a spirit I could connect with. I didn’t feel that she was my guide.

The outcome of all this is that I’m now even further away from meeting my spirit guides than j ever was. The influence of other people’s ideas of what my spirit guide should be like have created enormous defensive walls around the true identity of them. Now, do I even think they are a genuine thing? These people who speak so clearly and receive messages and even see their own guides; are they just mentally ill or telling lies?

The search continues!

Whatever happens along your journey, it is your journey. Anything you hear, read or are just told by someone else is potentially bullshit and spiritsplaining driven by ego. If it feels helpful and true to your own experience then consider it. Otherwise, thank them and chuck that chunk of nonsense out of your head for good.

A tree made me question my likability … Welcome!

To take inspiration from a podcast I thoroughly recommend (the guilty feminist), I’m a spiritual being but I have a sneaking suspicion my spirit guides just find me exhausting.

Welcome to The Guilty Spirit! A true safe haven for everyone, spiritually inclined or still living the boring way (wink), to take comfort from my many many failings, confusions, embarrassments and epic disasters whilst trundling along my super wobbly spiritual path and holding down a professional job which I despise. Yay!

Although, no brag, I have a huge array of genuine magical and, what you might call, supernatural experiences to enthral you with; I also share here how my attempts to befriend a tree have made me question my likability and how an unidentified spirit told me my breath smells.

This is no user manual or ego driven “look at my wonderful life” nonsense. This is real, unfiltered and often unglamorous learning.

Honestly, I never remember to set an intention and yet doesn’t everyone harp on about the importance of doing so? In the spirit of wanting to learn and improve, I’ll give it a go here now. My intention here is to bring comfort, hope and amusement to the word through speaking honestly about my spiritual journey – warts and all.