While I don't agree with calling these people "r*tards", I don't condemn you, and do feel your pain when it comes to this sentiment.
In the Piscean age, people tend to seek comfort, and have an addiction to light. They have an aversion to darkness. People tend to seek the books, media, and rhetoric that make them feel good, feel "positive", feel affirmed as to how they already feel. This pleases the ego and keeps it comfortable.
But this is an incredible problem, because it keeps us in darkness while pretending and proclaiming that we are basking in light, when we are simply and frankly deceiving ourselves. Some are better at avoiding this, some are not. Some communities, maybe you could say the Witchcraft, Starseed, or general New Age communities struggle more than others. But you can't say it's true for every single member of those genres.
And even in the areas of "occult", particularly the more Left Hand Path you gravitate, a lot of people have, contrarily, a fascination with darkness. And this still does not tackle the issue of ego, because in the unbalanced preference for one aspect, there is an aversion to the opposite. And so, the ego may develop an aversion to light, a rejection of light. This becomes a similar problem in the totally opposite direction and of a totally different nature.
Those who refuse to face darkness and display an addiction to light are stuck in delusion, "spiritual bypassing", failure to look at one's real, gritty shadow, dishonesty, people-pleasing, lack of self-development, frustration, and an aversion and unwillingness to feel pain. They want to feel happy and positive, and will seek out what makes them feel that way. If somebody challenges their chosen way of thinking and belief to the point of pain/discomfort, they will avoid, lash out, or seek another comfort. So they don't get anywhere. In fact, they go in the opposite direction — they build up their ego. They are affirming to themselves that they are becoming powerful, "ascending", progressing, perhaps without making any real and tangible progress.
Those who develop a distaste or aversion to light, on the other hand, start to sometimes develop an almost obsession with darkness, and a rejection of anything or all that could be light, or emotionally love. I don't blame these individuals, as the Piscean world has used "love" as a way to force behavior on people. When in reality, genuine love is synonymous with freedom, and is never forced from an external place. This is expressed deeply within the Eastern Traditions of spirituality which have heavily influenced the development Western Esotericism/Occultism. But the problem becomes the same fundamentally, but different in how it presents. By the Principle of Polarity, these are the same exact problems, but different in degree. The presentation is different. These individuals often do face pain more head-on, by delving into darkness. But again, the mistake can be made by bolstering the ego - thinking one is getting more powerful, progressing, getting stronger. A lot of anger can present here as well and people get lost.
Lost in light, unable to look at darkness. Lost in darkness, unable to consider any merit to light. They're ego, naturally as a human mechanism, protects them from that pain, and shields them from breaking down the ego by challenging it and dissolving it, because it's incredibly painful. Those lost in light are too afraid to face the truest grittiest darkness. Those lost in darkness have often become so nihilistic and disbelieving in any form of light, they've also gotten lost in a different ego - they're often angry about the world that is delusionally addicted to light, and rightfully so. But then, when any form of actual light that isn't delusional comes up to challenge their ego, they may reject it as well, again, as a protection mechanism. They have been burned in the past, often painfully (sometimes while growing up), by structures such as Western Christianity and related paradigms which refuse to discuss darkness and forcefully push an idea of light onto people that can be incredibly violating and damaging, because oftentimes it wasn't light at all, simply labeled as such.
The willingness to face both paradigms of light and darkness, while also dissolving the ego, genuinely dissolving the ego, is what can lead to dissolving what holds us back from our greater selves. If you've been willing to look at darkness, you're probably already in a good position compared to those who are not. but you cannot seek darkness and ideas only in books. They are a material that teaches and gets you thinking. And yes, I would stay away from 3/4 of the books at Barnes and Noble written by another person going through their spiritual awakening, who decided to become an author so they could hopefully make that their new income, without doing any research, learning, or practice on anything. Those kinds of books have nice covers and titles, but are often written by someone who used "divine inspiration" or "divine intuition" to write the entire thing. When there's no sources, no work put into the research and development of the book, or many of the sources are citing themselves, you can begin to see through the charade. Again though, these types of books can be written by those in light-addicted spaces or darkness-obsessed spaces.
In the essence of sincerity I should be citing my sources for this post, but it is just a forum post so the element of time-consumption comes into play. It takes a long period of time to organize, cite, and provide relevant and quality sources to back up claims being made. But those who do actually do that for a book are providing you with evidence that they have done some work ahead of time in producing what they wrote. They aren't just pulling it out of thin air. And this isn't a necessity for every book ever, but it is something to be noted and appreciated when it's there.
You have to be willing to face internal darkness to reveal your greatest self. Your limitations are your shadow - they are, quite simply, the most disappointing parts of yourself. The parts you wish you could do better at. The parts everyone else wishes you would be better about. We all have them. They are also a big part of the ego, which tends to always think it is right, and makes a fool out of itself. We all have that too. Dissolving the ego is like the sick feeling of death. It will hurt incredibly and takes time and a bold, daring effort to do what most can't or won't.
In dissolving, changing, or managing/integrating the ugliest parts of ourself that make us feel awful (the parts you don't want to think about), we can remove the barriers that prevent us from reaching more fulfilling things and doing more with our life. Everyone is typically averse to this because it involves defying the ego (which is trying to protect you and tell you not to look at these things), and it involves feeling truly awful by looking at our most embarassing, shameful things about ourselves truthfully, and honestly, without making excuses, without blaming others and putting ourselves too far into the victim position. It means we have to look our hardest, most shameful parts in the face without looking away. Everyone is naturally averse to this.
This is, however, the pathway to empowerment. The power is already there. We stand in our own way. Every day, we wish we could do more, have more, be better (the ego wants this), and yet when it doesn't happen, it was generally us who carried out that conclusion. Things happen, other people can mess things up for us, but our failure to adapt and overcome in that day is what led us to that evening without getting done what we wanted to get done. And as the days add up into weeks, then years, we may feel sicker knowing we didn't get the result (more fulfillment, achievement, etc.), and yet it was us who brought ourselves there in the end.
Everyone wants the power. Nobody wants to suffer. "Everyone wants their savior, but nobody wants to get up on the cross themselves." -Daniel Schmidt
Except that it is that darkness of suffering (in a purposeful, logical, planned direction) that brings us to the result of light.
It becomes an impossible process — when those wishing for only light cannot ever be brave enough to face darkness head on, and those enamored with darkness believe darkness is the end goal, and cannot ever believe in or discover any form of light after being betrayed.
Sometimes, like in the Witchcraft communities, you see a mixture of both. An attempt to harness power from within darkness to fix pains from the past and feel more powerful, and sometimes an aversion to facing darkness in oneself, which is in fact, paradoxically, the thing that would bring the power they want. But no community out there, of any kind of practice, is immune from this. It all stems from the foolish, not-very-smart, human ego. Dissolve the ego, and underneath is where the power lies. It will feel like your are going backwards, but this is not the case. The ego hijacks our control and lies to us.
