This is actually a well known thing in Buddhism and other meditative practices. Most of the old beliefs about yourself fall away (losing that ego), and then you just replace them with new beliefs (develop a new spiritual ego that usually feels nicer). And you have no idea how insidious and subtle it can be. You of course hear about he most extreme examples but it can also be very inward turned spiritual ego that’s mostly damaging to oneself. There’s a whole new level of practice in dissolving that too (which is actually why having a teacher and being a member of a spiritual community is useful because if it’s a healthy community, they will bring it to surface one way or another). There’s a vicious cycle where the unhealthy communities (cults) led by people who are in this god realm delusion are the ones that get the press, so people start avoiding communities because they think that they’re all cults anyway, and then they do practice by themselves and might gain some realization, and then develop a spiritual ego… and decide they should become teachers and then create an unhealthy community.

I think they literally are actually. I vaguely recall reading something about how if you spend a lot of time with someone as a kid, you’re less likely to be romantically attracted to them because we’re instinctively trying to avoid inbreeding (in the context of small villages). Even if true, that doesn’t translate to their claim though.

Bonus points if they also say something like “it didn’t use to be”.

Not through my adblocker.

I’m all for people singing to ghosts to soothe them. People should be doing more of it instead of making their issues everyone else’s problem.

old article but hate how they are intentionally fudging the difference between people who pay for a pirate streaming site vs. people who just torrent stuff. I too will bet my left testicle that downloading anime isn’t going to put money into trafficking.