Welcome to Gaia! ::

I only skimmed through your post, as my eyes are crossing at this point due to severe lack of sleep (8 hour shift yesterday, about 3 hours of sleep and another 10 hour shift at 4am this morning, makes for non-functioning me sweatdrop ), so I promise I will make a more indepth post a bit later after some sleep.

However I think UPG is fine, the key is that if someone is talking about their own UPG, they need to say that it's UPG, and not try to claim it as some sort of universal view. Especially in cases where it is either totally unsupported by any available lore, completely opposite of the generally accepted lore, and/or where there are no cases of anyone else having similar experiences.

Too many people have an experience and think it should apply to everyone, which just doesn't work out too well.

I do use the term - my own personal experiences are just that, personal. I have often had experiences and understanding come to me that were solitary mysteries - moments not shared with others - and because of that I have Unsubstantiated Personal Gnosis. What gnosis I have gained personally I do not expect others to accept or acknowledge as fact.



Certainly. I believe that it's UPG that lets us know we are continuing on the path - a sign that we're still learning, and that the Gods and spirits want us to know them better through their revelations.



I never find it a burden. But I also tend to reject UPG that doesn't align well with lore, or that doesn't have its' own explanation for deviating from the lore.

For me the experience and the 'contents' of these moments are one and the same. I can't separate them. And no-one said UPG had to be useful. It simply is, and we make of it what we will. Different people will interpret the same things in different ways.



The start of my metaphysical and spiritual wanderings was very much making contacts with spirits, through dreams, or through journeying. It started when I was very young, but I didn't become formally aware until I was in my early teens. I'm a person driven by curiosity. I can't help myself. And so I kept journeying. I'm not sure the experience itself felt any particular way that drew me...but I am always looking for the underpinnings of mystery.



I wouldn't deign to tell people where to find their UPG. I imagine it comes in all forms, so long as that form is a way someone is seeking to contact, communicate with, or see where life's mysteries lie.

Just as sometimes a cigar is a cigar, sometimes a dream is just a dream. For me significant or spiritual dreams are obvious: they feel different; they have a different quality, a different light. My head's like any other; I accumulate a lot of overrun in my unconscious mind, and my dreams are sometimes just my brain emptying the cache file.

We're not so interesting a species for the Gods or spirits to constantly be trying to download information to us in some way. That would rather strip it of it's significance.



For me there are symbols and words I have been given, over time, that can work in ritual or spellcraft to create certain effects or to connect to certain energies. I don't use them often, but sometimes I feel guided to. As I said before, if I used these things constantly, they'd lose some of their significance.

Any tradition of witchcraft, or pagan religion, are going to have things idiosyncratic to their own ways due to UPG. That UPG can turn into SGG or CGG - shared group gnosis, or confirmed group gnosis - is pretty much a constant and desired turn of creating your own systems and traditions. That's what gives them their 'flavour'.



It's ok to hear your Gods. I do hear mine all the time, in perfectly mundane places. But it doesn't keep me from interacting with the world at large in a healthy and acceptable manner.

For me it's a level of function. When people aren't able to act appropriately towards themselves or others, then they may need some help from a professional. It could be delusion, undiagnosed mental illness, or another kind of illness affecting their mind. I have no problems accepting the idea that other people may have a hotline to their deities. But you need to rule out mundane sources first.



UPG doesn't always involve being in an altered state. Sometimes I can simply be standing and looking at something, and it triggers an understanding of something, or a particular image or thought in my mind. I don't often experience anything physical. Sometimes the spiritual world overlaps ours, in places, and then perhaps I have such effects. But I recognize them as such.

Time is tricky. For me, it moves in a spiral. And we may be touching events on the spiral far ahead or behind our current position. Relative to where we are now, such places may cause us to experience time dilation: moving slower or faster. I only tend to notice these things if I am actively journeying, and occasionally through meditation. Usually it's that I've been gone for only a few minutes, and it's been an hour or more in our physical time.



I question the hell out of everything. The unexamined life isn't worth living, and I am not a credulous twit. emotion_dealwithit I feel that the Gods don't want unquestioning, blind followers. You need to be able to sort things out for yourself. I take my experiences apart, look at all the components, and then try to understand how they're connected. If I can't think of anything I've seen, done, or learned lately that might be causing this to come up in my mind again, I generally accept the UPG for what it is. But then I start looking through available lore to see if it's compatible. If it's too far outside what I consider so, I discard it.



I've had a mixed bag. Some of it was for my edification, some of it messages for others, some of it merely bits of understanding from observing other people's situations not connected to myself (aside from observation).

I will generally tell people about the experience if it involved them, but I don't impart my own opinions, or judgements, or interpretations upon such. If I am truly just the messenger, all I need to do is deliver the message.

I don't generally consider messages for others UPG. I understand myself, at this point, as a person who walks in two worlds, and I may be easier to establish contact with than other people, for all intent and purpose. I don't have a name for it.



Personal experiences, sometimes. Some things act as catalysts, starting a chain reaction of understanding. Some are puzzle pieces, and they fill in the gaps in my understanding or perception. Others are like keys; they open doors to things I hadn't yet experienced or seen.

Because I test my own UPG rigorously, and try to stay within a certain degree of agreement or tolerance with lore, I get frustrated with other people who are not so rigorous. If your UPG really disagrees with what's available to us historically and anthropologically, or runs contrary to the factual knowledge we have about a culture's practices and beliefs, I generally disregard that UPG.
I'm not rude about it, but I will usually suggest to a person the factual reasons why I consider it unlikely. At the very least, I want to encourage people to test their experiences, to eliminate wishful thinking and self-delusion.




You run into the problem that more established deities, known and honoured by larger groups of people, have larger amounts of two things: confirmed group gnosis, and ritual resonance.

The first means that there's already a large pool of information out there, and experiences that don't line up with historical fact or cultural norms send up red flags for many - there are always attention-seekers or people trying to escape reality through magical fantasy, and you really want to avoid them, as well as keep them from tainting the public pool with misinformation and nonsense.

The second means that how you make contact with said deity or spirit, and what to expect when you do, is well-established. Done properly, you connect with the collective energy of that entity and their rites, and strengthen it. If everything you're saying runs contrary to established methods and experiences, it's again a red flag for people.

People who use methods that aren't a part of that resonance, may not actually connect with the entity they think they are. It may be something else, masquerading for their own purposes, or even an entity called a thoughtform, born out of an individuals projected desires and expectations. Generally speaking, if an entity only ever agrees with you, or acts in accordance to your thoughts, it stands a good chance of being a construct.

People find it easier to accept that which doesn't conflict with their current knowledge and understanding. It's easy to be less skeptical about things you really don't know anything about, or doesn't have established lore to conflict with. People will simply take your word for it until they have their own set of data to extrapolate from.

Your questions are in green.

In regards to UPG, do you use the term and if so when, why, and how? Do you agree or disagree with any/all of Sorita's thoughts regarding the term (youtube link to her 13 minute rant/talk

I do use the term. It is accurate to what I do. I didn't watch it. sweatdrop

Have you experienced a UPG or an experience with the divine or spiritual? If not, do you want to have such an experience why or why not? Would/is such an experience helpful to your practice or is it a burden? Is it the act of the experience that is or is not helpful or the contents?

I have experience such a UPG. It was spiritual and in regards to my Spirit Ally. It is very helpful to me. It helps me work with Energy and establish my own personal ability to work with such things.

Have you had more than one mystical experience or form of contact with some being beyond human's general perception? How did the experience make you feel, and did you seek to recreate it or have more of these experiences? Was having this experience intentional on your part or was it something other?

I have had more than one experience. Most of my Path is based on UPG and Research. It made me feel stronger and well safer..like My Bear is with me almost like a Guardian. It was intentional but happened on its own.

What forms do you consider communication between the divine or a provision of mystical experience? For example do dreams qualify, what about tarot readings, meditations, and trances? If any of these forms qualify, what separates them from dreams, readings, meditations that are not mystical experiences or are they always a form of UPG for you?

I think that anything can be considered a form of communication as long both you and your Deity understand one another. Thats really all that matters.

Are there rituals that will create or aid to create such an experience and if so what defines those rituals for you?

The Forest by my house is typically where I go for the most part to be 'closer' to my Spirit Ally.

Can you be going about your regular day and hear deity randomly while grocery shopping or performing a mundane task? Is this healthy and where is the line between respecting one's experiences and worrying over one's mental health or another's mental health when they make claims god is talking to them?

This has never really been a problem for me. Typically it comes when I am most open to it anyway.

Do your experience(s) include the use of your five senses or an unexplainable perception of those senses example: you're freezing while the experience happens even though it's 90 where you are and you do not have a fever and go back to feeling the heat after the experience is over? How long does the experience actually last and how long do you perceive it to last? For that matter is there a difference between the time it lasts and how you perceive it?

It depends on the experience. Typically its more mental with some unexplainable perceptions. When I physically go out and seek my Spirit Ally in the Forest then its more emotional, more all encompassing.

Do you question these experiences or immediately take them as authentic? Do you believe others should accept these experiences unquestioningly to any degree or magnitude? How long do you question these experiences before you acknowledge them?

Doubt is a major part of my Path to keep myself honest. So typically it takes a while.

Are your experiences all related to the self and how you should practice or view the world or are they messages/information for others? If it's information for someone else, do you tell them or how do you go about telling them? Does it vary depending on whether the person is courting a divine message? Is this mystical experience still something you qualify as UPG or do you have another name for it?

It all depends. But typically its things about myself.

Does the nature of the experience or who/what you experience change how you respond to your own experience or how you respond to someone telling you about his or her experience? For example: my mystical experience is with personal guides or land Gods and spirits. They never claim older worship or lineage and while I'm still reading history texts for my area, I don't believe the spirits I'm working with is the same as the ones the Native Americans may once have honored, or if these spirits/gods are the same, they have altered significantly and have not specified anything that links them to older traditions and rituals. Generally speaking the responses I get when expressing these interactions are people who are helpful/supportive or at least respectful and stress caution and research. I've noticed that people who contact or claim to be contact more established Gods get less curiosity and more claims that they are mistaken. I know I have a bias to be more open to people who tell me their experience is with new gods or with local land gods than with an established pantheon. I'm still parsing out my reasoning on this and whether their should or can be more qualifiers for those of use working without history or publicly recorded shared experience. I'm particularly interested in how other's of our community define their comfort level and why or why not they are more aggressive with some kinds of experiences than others (if they are more aggressive with some claims than others).

This is where Doubt comes in again. I question things a lot. It took like a good seven months before I had an actual vision of Thor that I accepted as true..and I still have dificulty accepting it as I tend to wonder why the interest. I don't question His Connection with me though. With My Bear its a lot more...easy. I don't question much from Him as He is with me more often.