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I grew up in a fundamentalist cult which was very shut off from the rest of the world. I didn't see television, hear secular music, or taste alcohol until I was 22. However as a teenager in the cult I became very interested in spirituality and would study books without my parents knowing. I remember back then I had such an open and receptive mind. I would take daily walks in the woods and felt so connected with nature. I read carlos castaneda's books, the key of solomon and other grimoires, and studied Jewish kabbalah (this one my parents knew about, as I'm Jewish). For my whole life I felt that there was something just beyond the veil that I was searching for and could almost reach.
I became especially fascinated with astral projection and lucid dreaming and tried to learn it. I successfully lucid dreamed many times, but never had an on-purpose astral projection experience. I have left the body on 3 different occasions, each while experiencing sleep paralysis during a daytime nap.

I've become quite the skeptic in recent years. I miss the way I used to think and I don't know how to get it back. Now I question and doubt everything. But I'm searching for a way back, so I decided to join this forum. I lurked here since I was a teenager and I'm happy to see it's still here. I didn't want to join the subreddit for occult as I personally feel there's a lot of fakeness there.

Looking forward to interacting with this community as I try to rediscover my spiritually curious side.

Spirituality is like cultivating a garden. A little bit of daily maintenance (Meditation, Prayer, Offerings....etc) is all it needs to thrive.

Gardening is a particularly useful practice. Learn to feel what plants want. I visualize what I am thinking of doing and I get an emotional response from the plant

Those skills operate across various species

Don't bother with Gods and Deities, they are people of power, not a force made to serve you. I too am looking for something real rather than worship or basic exercises with self-therapy like Qigong and Tai Chi.

My interest is in the system of Internal Alchemy, however, in a different way. Try an look for the key elements of several of practises, such as their charts of meridians and cinnabar fields, etc. Take your time and make your own hypotheses of the spiritual, is my advise.

Wow, dear Yehezkel! That was a very extensive and exciting introduction. Thank you for sharing it with us.

I guess that people whose spiritual mind wants to develop never lose their interest in spirituality. They sometimes run away from it or let disappointment guide them for a while, but the desire to develop is always there and brings them back to it.

Since you made the first step here, I am sure you will find the joy of spirituality again!