Standing for Truth, Justice, and Beauty in a World at War with Consciousness
For the past four months, a pressure has been rising inside me—an internal tide pushing against the edges of my awareness. During the last new moon, between 12 and 3 a.m., the veil thinned, and I went through one of the most difficult initiatory states I’ve experienced. It was as if I was suddenly tuned into multiple frequencies at once—psychic noise with an underlying intelligence. My training helped me stay present, yet the sheer volume of input demanded a new level of awareness. I couldn’t sleep. My whole system felt exposed and reorganized.
The next morning, a talk by Igor Kufayev found me. I stayed up until almost 5 a.m., realizing how easily someone without my inner work might have spiraled into madness from what I had just lived through. Igor’s words echoed things I’ve known for years yet rarely hear expressed plainly.
Because I’m healing communication wounds as I undergo deeper initiatory processes, writing has become my primary way of giving shape to what moves inside me. I’ve always loved writing, but I don’t always give it the time it deserves—so lately I’ve been writing to decompress, integrate client work, and anchor visions and revelations that demand more than speech.
Listening to Igor’s conversation, I felt compelled to weave his insights with the shamanic lineages I walk—not only the Amazonian path but also the ancestral currents of Ifá, 21 Divisions, and Palo. What follows is my attempt to articulate my experience and place it within global technologies of consciousness that have always acknowledged an invisible war—not just in the world, but within the human psyche.
A war I circle often, hoping it is merely a delusional program that needs dismantling. Yet the more I work to deprogram it, the more undeniable its contours become.
The Warrior Ethos and the War Against Consciousness
Igor begins with an ancient warrior ethos:
A true warrior never kills for pleasure.
He enters battle solemnly, with the weight of necessity on his face.
This understanding—held by samurai, knights, Andean warriors, West African hunters, and Himalayan monks—stands in contrast to the cruelty we see today. The atrocities unfolding now are not acts of necessity but expressions of something deranged, possessed, dehumanized.
What is happening, Igor says, is a war across all planes—a war against consciousness itself. He notes that twenty years ago, he would have dismissed it as a conspiracy. I have done the same, even after years of deep, altered states of consciousness work—admittedly, I can be extremely stubborn!
In every global shamanic tradition—from the Amazon to West Africa, from Siberia to the Caribbean—violence is never only physical. There are wars of energy, perception, intention, morality, soul, and spirit. The visible world is merely the eruption point of conflicts occurring in the unseen.
Some Beings Cannot Be Reached
Igor references the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna tells Arjuna that some beings are so covered in tamas—distortion, darkness, unconsciousness—that they cannot change. Their inner light is too obscured. This is a crucial part of the conversation.
Ifá teaches the same: some have handed their Orí—their inner head, their destiny—over to forces that thrive on misalignment. Not out of malice, but because they drifted away from themselves, sometimes from ignorance or desire for power.
In Haitian Vodou, zonbi are not Hollywood corpses but living people whose will has been overtaken—their ti bon ange, or personal soul-force, displaced. As Wade Davis’ ethnography and the film The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) illustrate, zombification is less about the dead rising and more about the living losing sovereignty: the collapse of agency, theft of will, and displacement of self.
It evokes ancestral memory under enslavement—bodies alive, but without will.
The central teaching here is profound:
The most frightening possession is not an external entity, but the erosion of inner authority.
If you’ve seen The Stanford Prison Experiment, you’ll understand exactly what I mean.
I’d love to host a study group around this—a movie club instead of a book club—because films like these carry layers of symbolism, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, and spiritual insight rarely discussed. If time permits, it would be a powerful journey.
In Palo, some fall under destructive mpungo because they lack grounding, discipline, or protection. Across traditions, the lesson repeats:
When a person loses their inner seat, something else takes it.
Sometimes we were never in our inner seat—living through shadows full of attachments, codependency, or even entity interference—creating a perception of reality far from the truth. When someone approaches dismantling that reality, their inner world can feel like it is collapsing all at once.
This is not judgment; it is spiritual physics.
There Is No Neutrality in the Presence of Injustice
One of the most piercing parts of Igor’s message is his rejection of false neutrality. Someone accused him of “taking sides,” and he responded:
There are no two sides.
There is only the side of truth, beauty, and justice.
To stand in the middle is not neutral—it is to help erase what is real. This is not political commentary—it is metaphysical clarity. Neutrality in the presence of harm becomes complicity. Please note: this is not a political post. My focus is on archetypal and spiritual patterns, not current political debates, which I find too painful to engage with directly.
Igor stands with Palestinians because he recognizes an archetype—a wound repeating across history. When suffering is unintegrated, it replays in cycles. This is pattern recognition, the skill shamans, diviners, and mystics are trained to perceive.
Understanding this war requires acknowledging how unexamined shadows become entry points for distortion. This is why shadow work is essential.
I see this in clients, too: right before a breakthrough, something in them—ego, attachment, or an intrusive force—acts out of alignment. That incongruence is a doorway. If they see through it, a new reality opens. What we call collapse is often the ego defending the only reality it knows. Sometimes the saboteur part is loyal to what is familiar, even when unsafe.
The True Warrior: Feeling Without Collapsing
Despite the brutality he names, Igor insists: the true warrior does not hate. He does not collapse. He metabolizes reality in the heart—not sentimentally, but with grounded empathy that can withstand pressure.
In ancestral practices, we must sit in chaos without being overtaken, channel powerful energies without losing ourselves, understand that unclear intentions make us prey to our own spirits, and face visions and experiences without fleeing.
The Invisible War in Global Shamanism
Every lineage recognizes a multidimensional battlefield:
-
Amazon: virotes—spiritual darts
-
Ifá: ajogun—forces of misfortune
-
Vodou / 21 Divisions: maleficia—workings that bend destiny
-
Palo: destructive mpungo
-
Siberia: spirits that lodge in the body
-
Andes: hucha—heavy energy
Different names. Same reality. This war is not symbolic—it is existential.
Darkness as a Force Seeking Access
Darkness is not “the unknown.” It is a field with appetite. It feeds on confusion, envy, hate, exhaustion, grief, judgment, and disconnection.
Misalignment invites ajogun; envy, hate, and unhealthy desires allow unanchored souls to attract wandering spirits; ungrounded people become spiritually vulnerable; and when soul fragmentation occurs, other beings move in.
A person estranged from themselves becomes a doorway. Healing is the reclamation of bodily sovereignty. In spiritual ceremonies, when someone reaches the state of “I AM” or “I’ve Arrived,” they are reclaiming their body and their right to fully inhabit it.
Possession rarely begins dramatically—it begins with erosion. Darkness mimics intuition, distorts perception, and breaks the inner compass. When the bond to the soul thins, the person becomes porous.
This is spiritual physiology. What acts through a human determines what that human creates. The war is spiritual before it is political.
Confusion
Shamans do not fear darkness—perhaps it is better described as a deep respect for forces beyond comprehension. Darkness exists, but their work focuses on confusion, distortion, and disconnection from center.
The real battle is for clarity, sovereignty, and alignment. This is protection. This is how beauty, justice, and truth are defended.
Why I Share This
I write not to overwhelm, but to illuminate. We are living in a time that requires clarity, courage, and discernment rooted in compassion. Writing is my way of metabolizing what unfolds within and around me—a way of giving form to a war that is psychic, spiritual, cultural, and personal.
May we stand with integrity, knowing the intentions behind our thoughts and actions.
May we protect what is sacred.
May we feel deeply without collapsing into despair or powerlessness, knowing we are here for a mission as warriors of truth, integrity, and presence.
May we remain human, even as the world presses us toward the edge of madness.
With love and respect,
V.
To Watch Igor’s Video: https://youtu.be/ToFVn8g3HD8?si=44pIcVHWuxEDOuNi