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  • Commentary 20: Prayer with Practice “Personal Actions”

    Greetings from the Order and Ordinance. Today, we continue our series called Prayer w/ Practice and will talk about actions we, as Xyphoites, should take on our personal lives to remain pure and free of corruption. These actions align a lot with some of the goals of Project Sacred Hill. Let’s get into it.

    Care for the vessel itself is the start. While we recognize much of the physical purification of the body was based on ancient understanding of health and hygiene, most customs have nevertheless remained helpful to do. Cleanliness is a key part of those customs, and so keeping the body well-kept and clean is seen as a means to ward off corruption. Applying modern understanding, we can conclude that keeping yourself together physically is a goal-orientated motivator to keeping other parts of your Self together. Xyphoites will clean themselves, bathe or shower, shave their faces, wash or brush hair, and keep themselves in clean and neat order prior to conducting any type of Prayer. Putting yourself in a clean physical state helps to mentally prepare yourself. As they sometimes say “if you look good, you feel good” and Prayer is about feeling secure and well in yourself so you can give your spirituality to the Cosmos and begin helping others.

    Linking to that, mental health is tantamount to Xyphoist Action. Maintaining one’s inner Equilibrium is the key means of warding off corruption. A broken mind will lead to broken action. This part is a key goal of the Sacred Hill Project, aiding and giving better mental healthcare to those who would otherwise be without it. We can readily witness a global mental health crisis and can recognize just how many issues could be resolved through better access and care for mental instability.

    We, as Xyphoites, MUST care for our Minds. Doing so through the management of Unhinged Grievance and Shackled Misery—the management of raw emotional response versus muted sacrifice—is a tool we can utilize to keep our minds in check. A Xyphoite should not let the fear of their own head consume them. We shall confront our inner demons and our scariest thoughts, accept they are part of us, and seek help if we need it. Do not fear that which is you; Confront it. If such mental state is causing you distress, seek help for it. The lack of action on your own mental state will most-likely end up consuming you. That is the corruption we seek to ward off.

    Working off mental health, we directly move to some of its major consequences or poor decisions taken from it—specifically the habitual abuse of substances. Starting off, the Habitual use of Excessive Intoxication by physical or ideological substances is an Immoral Act. To elaborate better: using something that can be or is definitively harmful to the body or mind as a means to “escape” the mental or physical troubles of our world in such excess that it actively harms yourself or others around you is immoral. You not only give into corruption but you often let it hurt the lives of those around you by your corrupted actions.

    The most obvious examples are drug addictions, from hard drugs such as methamphetamines, cocaine, heroin,  all the way down to legal substances such as alcohol. We are pragmatic and realistic, and understand that its impossible to fully expect all of humanity to avoid every drug or substance all the time, as some of these are legal already, and we aren’t going to force or stop anyone from using them, but we do privately plead that humanity relies less on these substances—especially the harder ones—and actively plan to aid and one-day open our own secular rehabilitation facilities to help those with addiction issues who have decided they want to change.

    It’s important to say that, since we are realistic, we understand substances such as alcohol, marijuana, tobacco etc. are mostly legal in use, are used regularly by people without them being habitual and excessive, and therefore also recognize that, in a lot of cases, that recreational but not abusive use is NOT immoral in itself. Nobody is going to be tossed into divine condemnation for having a drink at a bar or smoking a joint, but the rampant abuse of these substances will mostly lead to unfortunate results and we do not condone the use of those substances in such manners.

    Working of this, the use of ideological or otherwise physical substances unrelated to drugs is also included. People will often attach themselves to extreme ideologies and ideas as a means to find that same level of mental security or escape. People will often using physical actions such as over-exercising, eating disorders, or other types of self-harm or bodily strain to cope with mental hang-ups. In many cases, even the use of digital media, such as addictions to sexual imagery, overuse of digital mediums as TV, games, social media etc. can be substances that psychologically intoxicate the mind.

    Now, to be clear again, we are not saying if you play games or watch movies or even watch adult content that you are immoral and worthy of divine punishment, but like all addictions, we recognize that addiction is not limited to drug use. Watching how we act and what we use as crutches to escape from inner pain is KEY to maintaining our personal lives, and we should put everything on a moderate use. A Xyphoite will maintain their vices, and not let themselves be consumed by them. There is no shame in human faults, there is no need for guilt to push you, but there is also no happiness or stability in intoxication—only drowning in it.

    —ruX, kyX, jzX, whX

  • Commentary 19: Prayer with Practice Discussion “Actions regarding Theigrits”

    Greetings from the Order and Ordinance. This week we continue with our Prayer with Practice Discussion and talk about how a Xyphoite should act or respond in cases of open theigrited action against them or others. Let’s begin.

    To start, we must first look at what the Lords themselves decree on the issue of theigrits and their action, and we can start by looking at those trusty seven major immoral actions a Xyphoites should never break. Immediately, we can recognize that Preaching and Proselytizing, using any such unwarranted belligerent force, and particularly attempting to administer punishment based off of morality to those not following Xyphoist Philosophy are all adamantly immoral actions. It would then be obvious that applying those decrees to the case of theigrits who are simply existing in their normal state—that hell-bent on serving Deceptuary’s ill-found desires—will warrant perhaps an internal dismissal and a talking of from within Sacred Grounds, but not action taken against these entities unless naturally war was declared against the Order and Ordinance directedly and Kurathmas declared. We are humans, we are not divine beings, and we are certainly not Lord Kurakku, so we shall not usurp His power of Divine Punishment.

    So, what does a Xyphoite do if they are the victim of an individual theigrited attack or are in the presence of such an active attack? Deter it. Defend yourself, protect yourself from any such attack without attempted to retaliate out of moral vengeance. In the case of witnessing such attack, step in and defend the victim. Shield them, offer help, or trying your best to use the institutional tools around you to insulate them from such attack whenever possible without propping your religious motivation as the reason. You are not acting as a savior or than acting out of those deeply held convictions. Offering defense for yourself or help to others doesn’t require having to disclose your reasoning for as the demand for action itself is so ingrained and empathetic behavior in general it simply coincides with Xyphoist Philosophy regardless.

    When it boils down to it, we as Xyphoites know the age-old tale regarding the actions and existence of theigrits and those who commit Great Acts of Theigritism and why we wouldn’t need to aid in their eventual downfalls anyway: “Theigrits will inevitably destroy themselves.” Trust that they don’t need our help in tripping into their own grave, our job is to mitigate the suffering caused by the corruption they spread, and any direct confrontation only takes place if we as an Order and Ordinance are directly maligned by any such nefarious entity wishing to declare war against said Order, and that action is called into fruition by the Arch-Hayles Grandurate with the declaration of Kurathmas.

    —ruX, jzX

  • Commentary 18: Prayer with Practice Discussion “Wealth Accumulation”

    Greetings from the Xyphokonic Order and Ordinance. It is the Caishon period of Auvriile, so we will be covering a short series of topics regarding the Xyphoist Principle of Practice.

    To recap, Xyphoist Practice is acting upon Xyphoist Philosophy and Xyphoist Prayer to enact tangible impacts to the goals of the Order. We actually Practice what we preach (without the preaching part, of course; that would be immoral except within Sacred Grounds). The very core of what we are supposed to do as Xyphoites is to put philosophy into action to help Maintain the Equilibrium. So this series will talk about a few actions we as Xyphoites should take in our daily lives—both as individuals and as a community—that will reflect on our philosophy and work towards those goals; this will be a period-long series. Let’s start.

    This week’s Prayer w/ Practice Discussion (as we’ll call it) is on the topic of wealth, whether it is moral to accumulate it, and what wealth represents or what should be done with excesses of it. Now, without dragging in the greater arguments that are crippled by politics, the act of acquiring wealth itself is not immoral. In fact, in terms of what Xyphoist Philosophy calls of us to do, acquiring wealth can be a part of our overall goals.

    To work from the back to the front, in our world, money and wealth are measurements of tangible power in one respect or another; people use money to project their power over their own lives or on others. We are a pragmatic bunch, and understand that in order to run our goals here on this planet, we are going to have to use many of the tools available to us to obtain those goals. However, the Self is always a pesky problem with obtaining any kind of tangible power; Hubris is always present in the Human buildup. It’s important to remember acquiring wealth cannot be of obsessive greed or selfishness, as both may fall into the sin of Worldly Obsession.

    So, how would acquiring wealth NOT be greedy? When the intended goal is to use the vast majority of the excess to mitigate worldly suffering—the Ordinance’s goal. We cannot depend on the governments of our world to use the wealth they collect to do this goal, so we must take matters into our hands both as an Ordinance through our humanitarian wing and funneled through our individuals Houses of Worship and global communities but also on an individual level.

    A single person or family that may have acquired great wealth can use much of the excess to help mitigate the suffering of others. It wouldn’t be uncommon for a wealthy Xyphoite to hear of a tragic situation of another—perhaps a story goes viral of a child who needs a life-saving surgery but cannot afford it and the family is asking for help—the wealthy Xyphoite will make a quiet, anonymous donation of excess height to either help or cover the costs without bankrupting themselves naturally. The key is that the donation is as quiet and anonymous as possible; we have NO interest in “promoting our brand” which is the sin of Proselytizing and Preaching unwantedly. We encourage all wealthy Xyphoites to do actions like these to mitigate suffering. That is the action of Practice with Prayer.

    On a community level, the Ordinance’s entire goal, many of the current goals listed on our sister website, are to mitigate worldly suffering through the same means only magnified. We hope to collect donations and take part of the profits from the sale of the Xyphokron to begin work on the Sacred Hill Project. This can be done both by any secular organizations we either father ourselves or work in conjunction with, but also from the internal community of Xyphoites who are part of the Ordinance through established Houses of Worship. Benefit events will be organized to raise money for specific causes, local or abroad, in the goals of mitigating worldly suffering caused by Deceptuary’s infusing of corruption in our world. These actions are what Maintain the Equilibrium, and are crucial to be enacted along with our more religious Prayer and time spent thinking and discussing philosophy.

    This series of posts are both a layout but also a call to action to those who believe in our Philosophy and would like to truly act upon it. This month-long series is ALL about ACTION. We ask that you, if within great wealth, ACT upon it and help the less fortunate who are going through suffering they didn’t bring upon themselves.

    —ruX