Posted on by Kyle Roques

A Son Growing Up With a Mother Who Has Borderline Personality Disorder

This will be my attempt to describe what my childhood looked like being raised by a mother with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Part of why I’m doing this is because I want to open people up to different types of childhood experience. And, well, this was therapeutic for me to write out. This also gives people a little insight into why I am the way I am and why I expound the philosophy I do. I’m not looking for pity here.

For me, growing up with a mother who suffers from BPD, I have suffered through extreme neglect – physical, mental, emotional. A very strange form of neglect where you are actually very “close” with the parent.

I grew up in enmeshment with my mother, not with intimacy and connection. Enmeshment is a concept in psychology that describes a (typically) familial relationship where there are no boundaries, or, they’re very limited. Enmeshment is an extreme form of closeness between individuals. In children, this leads to a loss of autonomous development. The purpose of enmeshment is to create emotional power and control over the child. This tactic is so powerful that as a 33 year old who hasn’t had any contact with my perpetrator in over 2 years, I still suffer from emotional disregulation because of it. I’m toxically enmeshed with my mother in a way that she still exerts some level of control over me. At times, this makes me feel weak, sad, and hopeless.

She will provoke me to find my boundaries and then constantly push against them. Eventually just blowing over them, then coming back to a place where I was much further from before.  It’s completely draining to be in her presence. Every word she speaks, every move she makes, is an attempt at manipulating me for her own selfish needs. Looking back, I can honestly say that she has never engaged with me from a place of love – a place not selfishly motivated.

As far back as I can remember (3-4 yrs./old), my mother made it clear to me that she was burdened by being a mother. As a small child, I was shamed, punished, and criticized for being too needy or childlike. Punished in every way imaginable,  including cruel physical methods. Throwing whatever object she had close by at me, making me lay face down with my nose buried on a hard floor for extended periods, whipping me, and physically attacking my siblings while I helplessly watched. Also, regularly sleep depriving me by blasting music in the middle of the night, coming into my room waking me from my sleep, just to ransack the room and have me clean it all up while she berated me. Etc. Etc. Etc.
But to anyone who has ever suffered from physical abuse, we all know it’s typically nothing compared to the psychological abuse. Both of which are inextricably linked. The worst part was that her anger/rage and physical violence came with a smile. So I never really knew what to expect from her.

She simply used me for her narcissistic supply. I have always suffered from her “splitting” – cycles of idealization and devaluation. I would be the best son in the world at one moment, then the worst son in the next. Nothing I could ever do would please her, believe me, I’ve tried, I have given her so much. And I can honestly say with nothing in return. She has only ever taken from me, in the worst, most abhorrent ways.

My mother always wanted me for herself. Me having a girlfriend was always a problem for her. She would do anything she could to break us up. Including trying to turn my girlfriends against me (with some success). There were issues of seduction on her end – emotional incest that would occur – codependency, envy, and control. Emotional incest in this regard refers not to sexual incest (although there was also some of that), but it means that she emotionally treated me as a surrogate, husband like partner.
I was constantly judged, shamed, and controlled to feel like I was nothing… nothing without her. Yet, I still love her and, up until the last few years, would defend her.

In fact, she is still running a campaign against me, attempting to turn my entire family on me. Since I cut her off, I’m obviously the bad guy now. Even when I was her golden boy, very involved in her life, helping her with all her demands, she’d still badmouth me to my siblings and girlfriend.

She takes absolutely 0 responsibility for anything she has ever done. And that’s not an exaggeration. She has never admitted that she has done anything wrong at all to anyone in the family. Even though her abuses were so bad that my dad got full custody of 4 children and kicked her out of the house to the streets. Not only does she not take any responsibility, but she puts the blame on everyone else.

To maintain any form of relationship with her is to minimize and ignore any atrocity she has ever committed. And to allow her to constantly lie to your face. You have to live in her reality or you can not be in a relationship with her. Not without a lot of violence and conflict, then pretending like nothing happened. I will no longer pretend like nothing has happened. She rules with chaos. She will always win if you decide to engage with her.

I grew up very lost and confused. My emotional needs were completely neglected by my mother. I had to be the parent/caretaker for her. With only her chaos and complete unpredictability to mirror as I developed. I had low self-esteem, no sense of self, attention issues, anger problems, an inability to regulate emotions, trust issues, not feeling safe and comfortable in my skin, etc. I was never benevolently recognized for any of the good in me. Any good in me was only recognized by some form of punishment. I had to dim much of who I was, hide it from her, which meant hiding it from myself. Meaning showing no emotion to her – no fear, anger, happiness, no nothing. It would all only be used against me later. This is devastating to a developing child. Imagine all of this happening to a 4 year old, continuing into adulthood. Within the last few years as an adult, one of the hardest things for me to do in therapy was to look at pictures of myself at that age during the abuse… it still shakes me to my core.

The confusion I grew up with was the worst part of all of this. And not like a typical high schooler feeling lost and confused. Much deeper than that. It’s very hard to explain. I would have episodes of extreme anxiety that would verge on psychosis. Just totally losing myself and reality. Having nothing to ground me. Going to a really dark and numb place. Strobing white and black, but not the absence of light kind of black. A black void that sucks your soul out of your body, leaving you feeling less than human. Demons and possession are very real. This was all typically prompted by my mother’s brain washing – denying my reality, flipping it on me, and shoving it back into my face. I wouldn’t know which way is up or down. The most fundamental aspects of Being were just totally obliterated. Her manipulation worked…
And I do not use the term ‘brainwashing’ as a figure of speech. The techniques for brainwashing are simple: “isolate the victim, expose them to consistent messages, mix with sleep deprevation, add some form of abuse, get the person to doubt what they know and feel, keep them on their toes, wear them down, and stir well.”

Again, just imagine all of this happening to a 4-9 year old, a sweet little boy. I was shy, timid, non-social, did poorly in school, couldn’t focus on any task, and didn’t know how to connect with others. Not because that’s my proclivity, but because all of that, all of just being a little boy, was beaten out of me at every moment of my life. I didn’t know what feeling safe was. I was in a constant state of fight or flight during my development. To say that all had an effect on my development and becoming an adult is to almost say nothing.

She made me feel like everything bad about me is all my fault. That all the lies and hurtful things she has ever said about me (to me) are real and true. I was made to believe that at my core, I really am a bad child and that my mother is a good mom. I don’t think I need to get into all the details of how little self-worth you have when your mother hates you and acts that out. All the strength and resilience in me came from knowing I survived all of this. All my self-worth has been hard earned, nothing was given to me.

By now, I’ve worked through much of this. I see things more objectively. I know that I’m not crazy. I know that my feelings are valid. I know what the reality is.

These days, the confusion I suffered from is minimal. I know who I am, and I know that I’m not the person my mother made me out to be. Having people like my girlfriend and the fraternity reflecting this back to me has been vital to my growth. I no longer suffer like I used to. I’m no longer living in a constant state of fight or flight. But this has only been since I cut my mother off – as if she is dead – for the last couple of years.

All my anger and rage has turned more into guilt and grief. I still feel waves of guilt for having to completely cut my mother out of my life. I grieve and feel sadness for my mother because at the end of the day, she is deeply sick and hurting. I feel intense grief for the loss of a childhood I never had, I grieve for the hurt little boy in me, and I grieve for a mother that I’ve never had. I mourn her like I would as if she was dead, although she is not. I’ll never be completely “healed.” I’ll never be “over it.” But I am healing and will continue to. And I will continue to get through it and continue to live a rich, deep, and meaningful life.

Mike Tyson has said it best: “it’s never in the past.” Trauma is a lense that will forever color my world, relationships, and perceptions. But I find peace in knowing that I survived. And I will continue to be empowered by the choices I have made to pull myself out of the depths. I’ve stared into the abyss, met the devil at the crossroads, and carved out a new path to the light that was always buried within.

Posted on by Kyle Roques

The Craft

Freemasonrys secrecy is like a well. The men who built it know how deep it is. The rest of us can only peer over the wall that surrounds it and wonder. While we gaze downwards at the water, speculating on what might lurk below the black surface, it reflects back our anxieties. That, in essence, is why the craft has generated misunderstanding, suspicion, and hostility at every step.

Yet, until recently, Freemasons insisted on treating their history as confidential – a matter for masons alone. Cowans were refused access to the archives and libraries of Grand Lodges. Then, a generation ago, the wisest brothers realized that Masonic history is too important to be the exclusive property of the initiated. Because Freemasonry has had a role in shaping our world, its history belongs to us all. These days, professional historians who are not Freemasons are a familiar site in the archives of Grand Lodges. Their work, supplementing and challenging the efforts of the best Masonic historians, has maped out an exciting and ever growing field of investigation. One of the aims of this book is to bring some of that research to a much bigger audience.

John Dickie
Posted on by Kyle Roques

Never Look Away From Pain

Don’t look away. Don’t look down.
Don’t pretend not to see hurt.
Look people in the eye.
Even when their pain is overwhelming.
And when you’re hurting and in pain, find the people who can look you in the eye.

We need to know we’re not alone – especially when we’re hurting.

Brene Brown
Posted on by Kyle Roques

Mystery School’s – What Are They?

“Mystery School’s, the ancient Mysteries, Mystery traditions” – what does “Mystery” mean, and why is it sometimes capitalized?

I had the question myself the first time I heard the term. I use the term often when speaking about Freemasonry and it’s a term you’ll see often when studying esoteric/occult teachings. It’s definition is quite vast and can’t really be articulated, but I’ll attempt to be as succinct as possible here, with a few quotes to aid in understanding.

Taken from Wiki:
“Mystery religions, mystery cults, sacred mysteries or simply mysteries, were religious schools of the Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiates (mystai). The main characterization of this religion is the secrecy associated with the particulars of the initiation and the ritual practice, which may not be revealed to outsiders.”

“A ‘mystery’, as it was originally defined in ancient Greece and used in the Orphic and Eleusinian mystery schools, is a type of divine revelation that can only be conveyed by experience and is incomprehensible to reason. The revelation initiates or begins a cognitive change in the recipient – also known as the initiate – that alters the way he or she sees and interacts with the world. It is not based on information or even feelings and therefore, it cannot be put into words.” – Kirk C. White

Simply put, what all Mystery schools have in common, is that they just offer a circumstance dedicated to giving the necessary space one needs to start to understand who they really are, for one to discover their real Self. So it’s the study of the Self, as an individual endeavor, and cannot be learnt/learned from anything/anyone outside of yourself.

Some of the documented, original, most ancient Mystery School’s that some may know are the Greco-Roman Mysteries (ie. Eleusinian, Samothracian, Mithriac, Dionysian, etc.)

Historically, “Their primary mission was to protect and preserve the ancient systems of enlightenment, healing, manifestation, transmutation and transformation so that they can be continually used by humanity for its collective progression. Mystery School teachings are imparted by an oral tradition. Rooted in shamanic and mystic ways of wisdom, these teachings are handed down unbroken from teacher to student in an unbroken lineage that has withstood the test of time. … To understand GOD, we must first understand ourselves who were made in their image. Mystery schools exist to empower us to ‘Know Thyself’.

As you can see, the term Mystery, when used to speak about the ancient tradition of the Mystery School’s, is not defined as most people use the word ‘mystery’ today.
Hopefully this helps one to understand what the ancient Mysteries are and what the Mystery School’s impart. But like I stated above, the “Mysteries” can only be known and felt by the individual. No one can explain to you what it is. You have to have direct contact with diety to truly understand.

Posted on by Kyle Roques

Opulence

The Freemasonic ritual is intended to be a spiritually transformative experience. The initiatic aspect of Freemasonry is “intended to actually change the candidate; a rebirth with a new cognitive frame that allows him to see that he could not before – to behold the ‘mysteries’ of Freemasonry and not just the secrets.”

W.L. Wilmhurst writes:
“The purpose of initiation may be defined as follows: – it is to stimulate and awaken the candidate to direct cognition and irrefutable demonstration of facts and truths of his own being about which previously he has been either wholly ignorant or only notionally informed; It is to bring him into direct conscious contact with the Realities underlying the surface images of things, so that, instead of holding merely beliefs or opinions about himself, the universe and God, he is directly and convincingly confronted with truth itself; And finally it is to move him to become the Good and the Truth revealed to him by identifying himself with it.”

Part of how we make good men better is by this process of initiation. Which, when done right, fundamentally changes the way our brothers see, think, and act in the world. Mircea Eliade has this to say about the initiation process: “…the novice emerges from the ordeal endowed with a totally different being from that which he possessed before his initiation; he has become another.”

This is what happened to me when I was Initiated, Passed, and Raised through the fraternity. This is the main reason I stay active in the lodge, because this was so transformative and important to me. So now I am paying it forward to give new canindates the same experience. Because without me, new, and veteran Masons conferring these rituals, Freemasonry dies.

I get to take part in these initiations on a regular basis. I regularly have new canindates personally thank me and tell me that I helped in spiritually transforming them (since I typically perform very critical and involved roles) – as my brothers did for me when I was a new canindate. I’ve seen the transformations, sometimes even the very moment of epiphany.

This brings me a level of joy that I never knew existed. My life has never been more meaningful. I have never had so much direction, drive, and determination. I have never felt so powerful and strong. I have never been so happy. Words cannot convey my feelings. At the very least, all I can say is that all these feelings are felt with an intensity I never knew existed.

I now know the reason the Mystery School tradition has been passed down for 1000s of years. And I couldn’t be more honored to keep it alive and well.

Posted on by Kyle Roques

Operative Freemasonry

…Freemasonry is exceptional. That is, I believe that Freemasonry is something special. It isn’t the same as the Rotary, Lions, or any other civic group. Nor is it equivalent to your bowling team. It is a very specific system designed to effect the moral and spiritual transformation of its members. When done conciously and properly, it should actually change the men who join. It should set them in a lifelong journey of spiritual, moral, and mental growth that the average person can’t get anywhere else.

Kirk C. White
Posted on by Kyle Roques

Art – The Foundation of the Process by Which We Unite Ourselves Psychologically

Making something beautiful is difficult, but it is amazingly worthwhile. If you learn to make something in your life truly beautiful – even one thing – then you have established a relationship with beauty. From there you can begin to expand that relationship out into other elements of your life and the world. That is an invitation to the divine. That is the reconnection with the immortality of childhood, and the true beauty and majesty of the Being you can no longer see. You must be daring to try that.

If you study art (and literature anf the humanities), you do it so that you can familiarize yourself with the collected wisdom of our civilization. This is a very good idea – a veritable necessity – because people have been working out how to live for a very long time. What they have produced is a strange but also rich beyond comparison, so why not use it as a guide? Your vision will be grander and your plans more comprehensive. You will consider other people more intelligently and completely. You will take care of yourself more effectively. You will understand the present more profoundly, rooted as it is in the past, and you will come to conclusions much more carefully. You will come to treat the future, as well, as a more concrete reality (because you will have developed some true sense of time) and be less likely to sacrifice it to impulsive pleasure.  You will develop some depth, gravitas, and true thoughtfulness. You will speak more precisely, and other people will become more likely to listen to and cooperate productively with you, as you will with them. You will become more your own person, and less a dull and hapless tool of peer pressure, vogue, fad, and ideology.

Buy a piece of art. Find one that speaks to you and make the purchase. If it is a genuine artistic production, it will invade your life and change it. A real piece of art is a window into the transcendent, and you need that in your life, because you are finite and limited and bounded by your ignorance. Unless you can make a connection to the transcendent, you will not have the strength to prevail when the challenges of life become daunting. You need to establish a link with what is beyond you, like a man overboard in high seas requires a life preserver, and the invitation of beauty into your life is one means by which that may be accomplished.

It is for such reasons that we need to understand the rule of art, and stop thinking about it as an option, or a luxury, or worse, an affectation. Art is the bedrock of culture itself. It is the foundation of the process by which we unite ourselves psychologically, and come to see established productive peace with others. As it is said, “Man shall not live by bread alone”. That is exactly right. We cannot live without some connection to the divine – and beauty is divine – because in its absence life is too short, too dismal, and too tragic. And we must be sharp and awake and prepared so that we can strive properly, and orient the world properly, and not destroy things, including ourselves – and beauty can help us appreciate the wonder of Being and motivate us to seek gratitude when we might otherwise be prone to destructive resentment.

Jordan Peterson
Posted on by Kyle Roques

A Symbolist’s Vision

Partially what has inspired me, and led me to the path that I’m on, is watching and learning from the great Symbolists. People that can readily and pragmatically, extract meaning from, and interpret, esoteric/occult/religious symbolism, art and the like. People that approach dreams, the imagination and spirituality, with a more academic approach. I want to be able to see the world as they do, because they see the world in a completely different way than the lay person.

So one of the main focuses in my study is the development of my intuition, with the intention of being able to understand and interpret the universal language of symbolism. As you can imagine, or know from experience, this is very difficult to do. Partially because symbolism is intentionally vague, yet has to be interpreted through a certain framework. You have to train your intuition and study the roots of the symbology academically.

Starting out years ago, I wasn’t able to extract hardly any sort of meaning, from any kind of symbolism and/or art. I’d look at say a tarot card, and get nothing out of it without looking up what everything means, and relying on other people’s interpretation, which defeats the purpose of esoteric/occult symbolism.

I see a lot of people (and this was myself in the past) ask: “What does this image mean?”. No one can tell you what the image means. Esoteric and occult symbolism is intentionally vague to allow the individual to impart their own personal level of interpretation (again, still limited within a certain framework). The subtle aspects of our nature is what makes us more than who we are, more than just an animal, or just material elements in a meat sack. The things that you can’t quite explain, feelings and meanings you can’t articulate, phenomenon that can’t be explained by material science – it’s these aspects of our being that esoteric/occult symbolism is supposed to communicate with. It’s supposed to invite these divine, subtle aspects of our nature to step forward. The meaning has to come from within.

For years I have had the same problem I described above, about not being able to extract meaning from the symbolism. Finally, after many years of research, study and training, I have gotten to a point where I’m starting to intuit meaning from the art. It sort of just hit me out of no where. I guess a piece of the divine spark has touched me. So I’d like to share one of my recent interpretations. Partly because I’m very proud of myself, but majoraly because I want to let people in on how profound this ability is.

Below will be my interpretation of this image. For people not read on hermetic or qabbalistic philosophy, you’ll likely see most of this as gibberish. A quick Google search on the hermetic principle of the “All”, and a search on the alchemical “magnum opus”, will definitely help and for the most part, get you up to speed.

For me the raven represents sort of the most evolved intelligence in the bird kingdom – specifically noting how social and intuitive they are. Plus all the other traditional meanings birds imply. So in other words the most advanced state of consciousness in the bird kingdom.

Seeing the circle, encapsulated (or perhaps “nested”) in the square, the square in the triangle, and triangle in the circle, represents a totality of the structure of our material and divine constitution within the “All” (the hermetic and qabbalistic concept of the All).

I see the first circle as me (us – humans), it’s the “dot” or “point” (perhaps one individual seed of conciousness), radiating out, unfolded in its highest, most divine form, yet still encapsulated in this material realm.

The square, or us in the four fold material realm, is us realized to it’s most divine capacity, partaking or touching the higher, divine, trinitarian, ethereal realm of spirit.
So that threefold aspect of divine cosmic spirit is nested within the “limitless and boundless” All (again I’m speaking in hermetic and qabbalistic terms).

So I see this image sort of as a reminder of what is possible with our “baser” self(s). The raven also intimates towards the alchemical philosophers stone or the magnum opus. A reminder that with just base elements you can create something evolved to its highest potential (ie. the raven), something that takes part in, or something that becomes divine. That with mastery over the material and spiritual realms, we can bring ourselves back to unity with the All.

But the deeper meaning this image has for me, I can’t articulate. This is why I love esoteric and occult symbolism. Partly because with just some simple symbols you can convey truths and realities that cannot be articulated. As I stated above, just as the subtle parts of the raven is what makes it divine, and the subtle parts of our nature is what makes us divine, occult symbolism speaks to that higher more ethereal parts of our nature. It stimulates and invites out our divine nature to step forward. The universal language of symbolism is a direct path to diety and brings you closer to divinity with every step. This is a Symbolist’s vision.

Posted on by Kyle Roques

Freemasonry’s Priceless Heritage

The sanctum sanctorum of Freemasonry is ornamented with the gnostic jewels of a thousand ages; its rituals ring with the divinely inspired words of seers and sages. A hundred religions have brought their gifts of wisdom to its altar; arts and sciences unnumbered have contributed to its symbolism. Freemasonry is a world-wide university, teaching the liberal arts and sciences of of the soul to all who will hearken to its words. It’s chairs are seats of learning and its pillars uphold an arch of universal education.

The philosophic power of Freemasonry lies in its symbols – it’s priceless heritage from the Mystery schools of antiquity. In a letter to Robert Freke Gould, Albert Pike writes:

“In it’s symbolism, which and it’s spirit of brotherhood are its essence, Freemasonry is more ancient than any of the world’s living religions. …”

Though Zoroaster, Hermes, Pythagoras, Plato. and Aristotle are now but dim memories in a world once rocked by the transcendency of their intellectual genius, still in the mystic temple of Freemasonry these god-men live again in their words and symbols; and the candidate, passing through the initiations, feels himself face-to-face with these illumined heirphants of days long past.

Manly P. Hall