Ah, it goes without saying that learning metaphysics, occultism, psionics, witchcraft, etc is difficult and one long rabbit hole chase. And it doesn’t help that there’s a lot of what can easily be called “fuzz”: misinformation, half-information, bias and straight-up falsehoods. Sometimes they look real, sometimes, they look overwhelmingly bogus but enough people said “ok, sure”, it eventually became accepted as fact. Then you have dabblers, fakers, money-grubbing opportunists and charlatans thrown into the mix and it gets even more complicated.

A lot of good information on these subjects aren’t easy to find. At all. It will definitely take a lot more than a cursory search on Google to find anything useful. Looking for books (which I always suggest) take even longer because some have spent years out of print and, thus, practically do not exist. Even some of the books I own are gone out of print or ridiculously hard to find. The sites I used to be on that were pretty decent are gone or completely plump with dabblers, newbies and people who just want someone else to be their personal genie. Good sources are hard to find.

A good way to determine if something is a good source is how little “fuzz” or bunk it has. If it seems to appeal more to emotion, then it’s got fuzz. If they’re selling you something, it’s fuzz. It it seems waaaay too simple: fuzz. If it has a biased lean: fuzz. There is no simple three-step method to do any part of these practices. At all.

What I tend to see a lot is there is either some micro-particle of good or substantial information and the rest is just nonsense, or it is completely made up total nonsense. That or skeptics being over-biased in their “science knows all, everything else is fake” skepticism.

About skepticism for a second: some of it is good, it’s how you determine what is factual and what is not. How to determine the wheat from the chaff. However, just like it’s not good to have your mind so open, your brains fall out, it isn’t as beneficial to have your mind so shut, nothing gets in, either. Also, science, while beneficial for the natural world, has a long, long history of not always being right simply because of human fallibility such as prejudice (eugenics, anyone? How about the entire history of gynecology, even up to now?) That and the topics discussed here fall outside of regular science realm so some things won’t add up straight from jump. Just because it doesn’t add up doesn’t mean it’s automatically fabricated, just simply different.

Back to topic!

Substantial information is hard to find but it’s not too difficult to sort through the fuzz if you know what to look for. For example, if everyone seems to be America fixated, no matter what (the issue is usually circulated around American events such as elections or American-centric happenings), that’s usually a sign the information you get is not that good. While America is one of the super power nations, it’s not the only nation on this planet. How come there’s nothing fantastical coming out or of revolving around Zimbabwe or Uzbekistan?

Another example: if it seems to not be unilateral across the board or isolates a particular group of people, usually in a nefarious way, it’s probably not good information. If the information seems like it goes “oh, women can’t do this because [abc]” or “Jewish people [xyz]”, either subtly or overtly, it’s flawed information. The thing about these practices is that anyone can do them. The only difference to look out for is cultural background such as, “This particular form of smoke cleansing stems from the [blank] tribe, the history of this extends back to….” That description right there is how you know you’re about to get satisfactory information. It talks about history, the where, the when and the why. There are reasons and histories tied to these many practices, good information will reflect that. Bad information will sound like half-baked Buzzfeed articles.

And the all-time favorite: conspiracy theories or metaphysical or occult concepts that stem from conspiracy theories.

Now, not everything that sounds grand or unusual is a fabrication. Things like racially steered police brutality, lead poisoning and cointelpro are very much real. However, things like the Illuminati and how they control the entertainment industry, fluoride being bad for you, and vaccines causing autism are very much completely made up. These stories are emotion based and usually with an aim in mind: to provoke fear and feel like there’s something out there pulling the strings and not simply the fact that the world is a pretty random place. And each fear-mongering story usually has some subtle hegemonic-instilling prejudice in there. If the information sounds very “end of the world” or “new world order”, then it isn’t good information. If it “punches down” somehow (Concepts: Jews are evil (antisemitism), autism is worse than death (ableism), White people are under attack (xenophobia and white supremacist belief)), then it is usually not good information either.

Then you have things like “Indigo children” and other more paranormal ideas that lean towards more of the fantastical. These beliefs lean more towards Westernized ideas that give people the belief that they are a bigger effect on this world than they actually are. It’s not 100% bunk but it definitely has its wishy-washy moments. And a lot of them.

All in all, there’s a lot of fuzz but with due diligence, knowing what to keep an eye out for and how to know that what you’re seeing is fact versus fiction are pretty useful in these practices. Yes, I sound like a broken record again and again about this but, wow, do I get a lot of emails about this very issue. Many write to me because they surf the net, see all these ideas that are absolutely wild and come straight to me regurgitating what they see. This all may sound very much like a broken record but it’s going to be said again and again until it sticks.