One of the most fascinating human mechanisms is also one of the most destructive: the tendency to immediately assign meaning to that which we do not understand. We see something, we do not recognize it, we feel tension arise somewhere in the body, and before any real investigation has taken place, the mind has already decided what it is. Good. Bad. Safe. Dangerous. Light. Dark. Trustworthy. Suspicious. Spiritual. Occult. A cult. A threat. A truth.
But perception and understanding are two entirely different things.
We live in a time in which people have access to more information than ever before and, at the same time, arrive at conclusions faster than ever. That is a strange paradox. Greater access to knowledge has not automatically taught us how to investigate more deeply. Quite the opposite. For many people, judgment has become faster than curiosity. And that is exactly where a problem begins that reaches far beyond spirituality alone.
When people encounter the work I do within Esoteric Mastery and Casa de los Santos, they come into contact with traditions, symbols, currents, and forms of spiritual practice that often lie outside their familiar frame of reference. I work with different cultural and esoteric traditions. I teach about Hecate. I have worked with La Santísima Muerte for a very long time and am now becoming much more visible in that work, including the three-color system I work with. I work with ancestors, ritual, gnosis, mediumship, energetic work, shadow work, and different forms of initiatory development.
Within the Ashkara Ancestral Healer Training, I teach people, among other things, to work from shamanic, Latin Mesoamerican, and Afro-Caribbean perspectives. They learn about limpias, healing, ancestral work, the development of mediumistic and healing abilities, and how to responsibly establish a bóveda or ancestral altar. Not because everyone has to believe the same thing, but because different spiritual cultures have developed different maps for dimensions of human existence that cannot always be understood through a single philosophical system.
That, to me, is precisely the beauty of esotericism.
Esotericism should not become a prison.
It should become a doorway.
And yet something interesting happens when a person steps outside the cultural or spiritual framework that others already know. People see, for example, La Santa Muerte and their own associations are immediately activated. They do not know the history. They do not know the devotional practice. They do not know the millions of people for whom La Santísima Muerte forms part of their religious or spiritual reality. They do not know the nuances, the different devotions, or the historical development. They see a skeletal figure and project onto it everything they themselves have associated with death.
Fear.
Evil.
Danger.
And that is exactly where psychology begins.
Projection is a remarkable phenomenon. A person looks at something outside themselves, yet sometimes what they actually see is material arising from their own inner world. The outer world becomes the screen onto which the unconscious projects its film.
That does not mean every judgment is wrong. Discernment is necessary. Critical thinking is necessary. Abuse, manipulation, misuse of power, and self-deception absolutely exist within spiritual circles as well, and we should never become naive about that. But discernment requires investigation.
Judgment does not.
That distinction is fundamental.
Healthy discernment says, “I do not understand this. Let me investigate what is really happening here.”
Projection says, “I do not understand this. Therefore, I already know what it is.”
That is where ignorance begins to disguise itself as certainty.
When someone then judges a person they barely know, whose work they have never truly investigated and whose training they have never attended, something else happens. They believe they are saying something about the other person, while in reality they often reveal far more about the consciousness through which they themselves are looking.
Someone who constantly sees enemies must eventually ask why their nervous system is continually expecting threat.
Someone who sees evil everywhere must examine their own relationship with power, control, and shadow.
Someone who constantly needs to diminish others in order to feel spiritually pure must examine why their identity depends on rejecting someone else.
That is not condemnation.
That is psychology.
And this is where psychology meets bodywork.
Judgment does not always begin as a thought.
Very often, it begins first as sensation.
A contraction in the belly.
Pressure in the chest.
Tension in the throat.
An increased heart rate.
A subtle state of defensiveness.
The autonomic nervous system registers something unfamiliar and rapidly compares it with previous experience. When old fear, religious conditioning, trauma, shame, or social indoctrination is present, the body can react long before the conscious mind even understands why.
That is why real emotional bodywork matters so much more than simply thinking positively.
You can tell yourself a hundred times that you are love while your body remains in a constant state of defense.
You can use beautiful language about consciousness while your nervous system moves into fight, flight, or freeze every time you are confronted with something unfamiliar.
You can call yourself spiritually developed while still being governed entirely by unconscious projection.
Real development begins at the moment you notice that something has triggered you and you do not immediately point outward.
You stop.
You feel.
You investigate.
What is really happening in me right now?
Why does this activate me?
What am I trying to protect?
Which belief is being touched?
What fear is underneath my anger?
What insecurity is underneath my need to judge another?
That is shadow work.
And shadow work is not telling someone else how dark they are.
Shadow work is having the courage to discover where you yourself have not yet dared to bring light.
That distinction sounds simple, but it changes everything.
It is also one of the reasons I struggle with certain forms of modern spirituality in which almost every confrontation with discomfort is avoided.
Everything has to be soft. Everything has to feel pleasant. Everything must immediately confirm that you are doing well.
But initiation does not work that way.
Gnosis does not work that way.
Life does not work that way.
Nature itself teaches us something different.
A seed breaks open before it becomes a tree.
A snake sheds its skin.
A caterpillar disappears into the dissolution of its old form before the butterfly appears.
A human being who truly transforms must also be willing to lose parts of the identity they once depended on.
That is why, within our esoteric work, we work with both the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge.
The Tree of Life does not simply represent “good,” and the Tree of Knowledge does not simply represent “bad.” That would be a childish interpretation of a much deeper initiatory reality.
The Tree of Life teaches order, expansion, consciousness, integration, creation, and different archetypal levels of existence.
The Tree of Knowledge brings us into contact with, among other things, what exists beneath our civilized identity: instinct, power, fear, desire, death, chaos, taboo, repression, and the forces people would often rather place outside themselves.
Someone who only wants to ascend and never descend does not build enlightenment.
They build dissociation.
And that is one of the greatest problems I see in parts of the modern spiritual world.
Spiritual bypassing.
People use spirituality to avoid feeling.
They speak about high frequencies so they do not have to investigate their anger.
They speak about love so they do not have to develop boundaries.
They speak about forgiveness because they cannot handle confrontation.
They speak about light because they are afraid of their own shadow.
They call everything that feels uncomfortable “negative,” while discomfort is sometimes exactly the doorway behind which growth is hidden.
Real spirituality asks for more.
Real spirituality asks for responsibility.
And responsibility means breaking the reflex of looking outside yourself for the cause of every inner movement.
That does not mean accepting everything.
It does not mean never setting boundaries.
It does not mean tolerating insult, slander, manipulation, or destructive behavior.
Quite the opposite.
An integrated human being can set extremely clear boundaries.
But they do not need to create an inner war in order to do so.
That distinction matters.
When someone speaks about me or my work, they are free to have an opinion. People do not have to understand La Santa Muerte. They do not have to work with Hecate. They do not have to be interested in shamanic traditions, Afro-Caribbean spirituality, ancestral work, mediumship, sorcery, or any other form of esotericism.
Freedom also means the freedom not to choose something.
But that same freedom does not mean every accusation becomes true simply because someone says it.
There is a major difference between criticism and character assassination.
Criticism examines ideas, methods, and behavior.
Character assassination attempts to reduce a person to a story.
When people construct narratives, create dossiers or presentations designed to make someone personally suspicious, spread rumors, or consciously attempt to damage someone’s reputation, that is not a spiritual act, no matter how much spiritual language is used around it.
That is where responsibility begins.
Not because someone must be “punished,” but because every action has consequences.
That is karma in a far more grounded sense than the word is often used.
Cause and effect.
Someone who sows trust creates different relationships from someone who sows suspicion.
Someone who speaks truth builds something different from someone who spreads rumors.
Someone who continually produces conflict will eventually live in a world structured by conflict.
You reap what you sow.
Not necessarily because some cosmic judge is keeping records somewhere, but because behavior organizes reality.
People are sometimes surprised when the person they have been speaking about eventually draws a line or takes legal, professional, or personal action.
Then the response itself is suddenly used as proof.
“See?”
But maturity requires us to distinguish between cause and reaction.
If you keep pushing against a door, you cannot be outraged when that door eventually pushes back.
Every act creates a field of consequences.
That is why I do not believe in endlessly responding to every opinion.
My energy is too valuable to spend constantly defending my existence to people who were never genuinely interested in understanding.
My focus is on the work.
On the people who want to learn.
On the people who truly want to grow.
On those who are willing to enter their own consciousness.
The students who come to me do not encounter theories about transformation.
They encounter processes.
They are challenged to look at identity, projection, power, fear, pain, desire, boundaries, responsibility, ancestors, consciousness, and destiny.
That is not always comfortable.
But comfort has never been the criterion for truth.
And that is why I believe the coming years will reveal an interesting division within the spiritual world.
Not between “good” and “bad” people.
But between superficiality and depth.
Between those who consume spirituality and those who embody it.
Between those who only seek inspiration and those who are willing to undergo initiation.
Between those who collect beautiful concepts and those who actually change.
The age of spiritual packaging without inner substance is beginning to lose its shelf life.
People can feel the difference.
A person can read thousands of books and still be afraid of themselves.
A person can hold twenty certificates and still live entirely through projection.
A person can call themselves a healer, shaman, medium, lightworker, or teacher and never once have sat for five honest minutes with their own jealousy, helplessness, shame, or need for recognition.
Titles prove nothing.
Embodiment proves everything.
The most important initiation does not happen when someone gives you a name, degree, or title.
The most important initiation happens when life confronts you with yourself and you stop running.
That is where gnosis begins.
Not as information.
But as lived knowledge.
You know fear when you have moved through fear.
You know loss when you have truly lost.
You know power when you have discovered how easily power can corrupt.
You know love when love is no longer dependent on approval.
You know shadow when you no longer need to project it outside yourself.
And you know freedom when you no longer feel compelled to convince everyone of who you are.
Perhaps that is the most important message in this entire discussion.
People need to learn how to look again.
Not faster.
Deeper.
Before you speak about someone, investigate.
Before you condemn a tradition, learn its history.
Before you demonize a symbol, ask what that symbol means within the culture from which it comes.
Before you psychoanalyze someone else, look at which emotion was activated in your own body.
Before you place yourself morally above another person, investigate why you need that height in the first place.
Pride is a remarkably subtle shadow because it often disguises itself as morality.
“I know what is right.”
“I know who is pure.”
“I know who is dangerous.”
“I know who is spiritual enough.”
These become dangerous thoughts when they are not continually tested against humility, knowledge, and self-reflection.
True mastery has no need for a pedestal.
The deeper someone goes, the greater the awareness usually becomes of how much remains unknown.
That is the paradox of gnosis.
Knowledge can make an arrogant person bigger.
Gnosis makes the mystery bigger.
And that is why every serious spiritual path must eventually return to the same place.
Yourself.
Not narcissistically.
Not selfishly.
But responsibly.
What am I carrying?
What am I projecting?
What am I avoiding?
Where am I lying to myself?
Where am I judging because I am afraid?
Where am I using spirituality to avoid feeling my human pain?
Where am I trying to control others because I cannot regulate myself?
Those are more interesting questions than asking who is spiritually “right” or “wrong.”
The world does not need more people telling each other how evolved they are.
The world needs people who demonstrate evolved behavior.
Less projection.
More self-inquiry.
Less spiritual arrogance.
More humility.
Less judgment.
More discernment.
Less façade.
More embodiment.
Less escape into the light.
More capacity to hold both light and shadow.
That, to me, is where the essence of real esoteric work lies.
That is why Esoteric Mastery will never be about temporary inspiration alone.
I do not believe in spiritual sedation.
I believe in transformation that remains when the ceremony is over, when the music stops, when the teacher is no longer present, and when life truly begins to test you.
Temporary bliss is easy.
Embodiment is something else.
This is not a sprint.
This is not a relay race where someone takes the baton from you after a few miles.
This is a marathon.
And in the end, the ones who remain standing are not necessarily those who speak the loudest about consciousness.
They are those who can keep going when it becomes uncomfortable.
Those who dare to meet themselves.
Those who can carry responsibility.
Those who can fall without blaming their fall on someone else.
Those who can see their shadow without turning it into an enemy.
Those who can carry the light without placing themselves above others because of it.
Those are, to me, the hardcores.
Not the people with the biggest spiritual identity.
The people with the greatest capacity for truth.
Because ultimately, that is what this is about.
Not how much light you can display when everyone is watching.
But how much truth you can withstand when no one is watching.
Not how much you can judge others.
But how much of yourself you have truly investigated.
Not how spiritual you sound.
But how consciously you live.
And when we understand that, something fundamental changes.
Then Hecate, La Santísima Muerte, ancestral work, the Tree of Knowledge, the Tree of Life, shamanism, sorcery, or any other tradition no longer have to automatically lead to fear or judgment.
Another attitude becomes possible.
Curiosity.
Investigation.
Respect.
Discernment.
And above all, the willingness to recognize that reality is far greater than the small window through which each of us sees it.
That is not weakness.
That is maturity.
That is gnosis.
And perhaps true spirituality begins exactly there: at the moment you stop constantly dividing the world into boxes and become willing to investigate what your judgment is trying to teach you about yourself.
Don Rodolfo Marasci 🔱
Lumina Vitae 🔥