"Godphones" Don't Actually Exist

Certainly there are people on this Earth who have much easier times contacting "the Others" than other people do. But genuinely, I need people to understand that the concepts of “Headblind” and “Godphone” are not real. Not in the particular way in which Spirit Communication typically gets spoken about, and the way the common rhetoric makes it out to seem like they exist.

Even our Elders noted these facts very early on in our texts, for those who deigned to pay attention. More importantly, they noted the importance of keeping good checks on our Mental Health- and of understanding Psychology ourselves as part of the foundation of routine Shadow Work — which itself was a spiritually, magically, and religiously integrated practice which was considered integral to the process of Discernment (between “our voice” and “other voice”), and the Verification and Validation of experience (not just to ensure we were having legitimate experiences, but to ensure we actually understood the experiences we were having, and the proper lessons behind them).

In nearly every case I’ve read so far where it was spoken about, however, there was an explicit mention made of the Spiritual Metaphor, and the fact that the “other voice” rarely comes as literal voice- but instead most often comes as dreams, or as some other barely perceptible otherness that we must look for and interpret (or, in many cases, blatantly ask for). And it’s the mention of the Spiritual Metaphor in relation to Spirit Communication and how it’s often spoken about by older practitioner’s that’s incredibly important right now.

Now a days, what people don't seem to understand- or seem to blatantly ignore- is that most often when older practitioners say things like “hear” (as in “we ‘hear’ our Spirits in the Wind” or are “speaking to our Spirits”, or some such nonsense). We are being Spiritually Metaphorical; the reality is not that literal and we are not talking literally.

For me, for instance, when I say that I “speak” to my Spirits, I mostly just get ~vibes~; a feeling that, if I were being genuine in my speech instead of spiritually metaphorical*, I’d describe much closer to being a combination of the traditional descriptions of the Claircognizance and Clairsentience abilities: An innate and sudden emotional or extraperceptory awareness of metaphysical or other spiritual knowledge which is not gained through visual or auditory stimuli such as through other abilities.

Some might call or equate this with a lesser form of the more traditional concept of Gnostic Revelation. But it is much more convoluted and difficult and requires much more words to say it in these words- and doing so may cause other issues with conflation of dissimilar concepts. And it slows the conversation; it' i's much easier to say "hear" — and that didn't used to be a problem when everyone understood the concept of the Spiritual Metaphor. But now hardly anyone even knows it's a thing because no one is studying properly anymore. And that is an issue that is causing additional problems for people.

Regardless of what it’s called or how it’s more appropriately described in genuine language, that’s still the thing: Traditionally, though they’re spoken of using literal terms like “hear” in relation to Spirit communication, we do not actually usually mean that we literally hear the Spirit and are having full blown conversations with them— like Loki is legitimately looking over our shoulder every day making running commentary on the trashy tv show we’re watching… That’s just not what’s going on for the vast majority of us. It’s incredibly unusual (so rare it’s virtually unheard of, in fact, as the Elders themselves noted many times in our texts) for that kind of communication to happen.

This language is usually spiritually metaphorical, and among advanced or competent practitioners this is typically well understood and doesn’t need to be explained. The problem is that this understanding of the Spiritual Metaphor which used to be passed along inherently as a part of what used to be considered Spiritual, Religious, and Magical Mysteries at a point, simply isn’t being passed down properly to younger practitioners anymore as it should be; at some point the old intellectualism of people like Cunningham, even in NeoWicca, got scrubbed and sanitized, and people forgot their basics used to include the concept of the Mysteries and all that went with it (including the concept of the Spiritual Metaphor).

The result is that y’all’re being misled into thinking that people are having routine full on normal human-seeming conversations with their Divinities — and that this is not only normal, but is the desired communicative state. Furthermore, that being so called “Headblind” (or not having access to that direct, conversational communion), is bad or abnormal or unusual, or what-have-you… Instead of what it actually is: The default state for most practitioners; the normal states.

And the saddest part is that this state- this default, so called “headblind” state? Is very often nowhere near as "uncommunicative" as you think it is ... You’ve just been lied to about what Spirit Communication is and what it actually looks like in the first place. And so you’re unable to recognize anything that doesn’t look like the Tumblr-dominant narrative of Spirit Communication. And that is severely stunting your practice and your Spirit Relationships as a result.

And I love you guys. I do. But genuinely, from the bottom of my heart: If you legitimately think that you are having full on hours long conversations with your Deities during your waking ours? That they are doing things like literally making running commentaries on everything from what you’re cooking to the tv shows that you’re watching, etc? I need you to at least try to seek professional evaluation at least once. And if you cannot afford professional evaluation then I’m begging you to, at bare minimum, at least do a much better job learning more about the process of Discernment, Verification, and Validation; to understand that skepticism is good- incredibly healthy even- for a well rounded religious practice; that being critical of your own religious and spiritual experiences is not a bad thing and does not make you a bad person.

Everyone has an internal monologue, yes. And everyone can occasionally fall into the trap of projecting a pseudo-identity onto their internal monologue as a way of coping with trauma or loneliness or some other issue. Sometimes we can even mistake those identities as Divinities (I’ve definitely done it myself in the past) … But constant, active, communicative voices in your head like that, while not necessarily inherently bad by any means, are an easily identifiable early warning sign of several mental illnesses that can- if untreated and then subjected to a traumatic event you’re unprepared to deal with- become dangerous to your own health and safety. And if you are hearing these as actual, literal external voices, during your waking houses? That is an even more clear indicator that you may need to seek evaluation for such conditions.

That doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you, or that you are inferior as a practitioner, or anything of the sort — and never let anyone tell you, or even imply, that such is the case ... But I would much rather see people be safe and healthy rather than sorry, in pain, and potentially even in danger; regardless of what anyone has or tries to lead you to believe, your safety is so much more important than your practice, or your relationship with your Spirits or your Gods will ever be.