Devil’s Advocate: Mystical Power Paradox
This is a conjuring of thought, a calling to discernment, curiosity, and perhaps even to belief.
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What if extraordinary spiritual capabilities were real—true intuition, clairvoyance, energy manipulation, and communion with non-physical realms? Wouldn’t it make sense that those who held such powers might not be loud or marketable figures, but instead quieter, and more withdrawn? Psychology shows us how people often retreat when their inner world diverges too far from the social norm. To feel something no one else can perceive isn’t always empowering—it can be very destabilizing.
Might authentic spiritual power feel less like some kind of revelation and more like disorientation? That’s what we’re accustomed to believe, so wouldn’t someone who experiences this, at first, believe what they’ve been told to believe? That it’s disordered and not reality? Rather than providing charisma or confidence, wouldn’t it provoke confusion, self-doubt, and even a questioning of one’s own sanity?
Alienation is a common human response when one’s experience cannot be validated by others. Most of us have felt a taste of it when sharing an experience that others dismiss, or holding a belief in a room where everyone else shakes their head. Imagine stretching that moment across a lifetime. In relation to mysticism, history is full of reminders of where this leads—visionaries branded as heretics, mystics silenced, women accused of witchcraft burned at the stake. Again and again, those who claimed uncommon sight met ridicule, exile, or death.
It’s human nature to avoid rejection, to seek belonging. To step into this unknown world immediately comfortable with such a burden would mean bypassing that instinct entirely—bypassing something fundamentally human. That’s why I tend to question the boldness of such a claim. It’s less to do with my belief or not, and more about the fact that when someone proclaims such powers with ease, it feels divorced from the inner struggle that would naturally accompany them, as if the focus is only on the outcome. In reality, it would take a lifetime to settle into and fully understand such abilities internally—let alone find comfort admitting them to a world more than prepared and capable of devouring you.
Devil’s Advocate Paradox:
Maybe the louder the proclamation of spiritual power, the less likely it is true. And, perhaps the most authentic depths might resist language altogether, choosing silence over spectacle. If someone truly carried such powers, wouldn’t they be more likely to turn inward—quietly guarding themselves from the noise of the world? Or just as easily, might they disconnect so deeply from their inner life that they hurl themselves into the external world, almost as a defense, forgetting who they are in the process and never dare breathing a word of what it is they feel or know?
And even if such capacities exist in all of us, the sheer practicality of modern life works against them. To reach that depth would require a belief, silence, separation, and a willingness to step away from the noise of ordinary life—something few can afford. Which is why the endless stream of self-proclaimed mystics feels suspect. Isn’t it curious that those who claim spiritual authority are so often polished, confident, and profit-driven? If the psychology of power tells us that visibility and performance thrive on external validation, couldn’t the opposite also be true—that the deepest, most destabilizing experiences would seek obscurity rather than attention?
And look, even I’m not immune to this contradiction—for fun, let’s take Queen Herby’s new release Medicine Women. She is as commodified and wrapped in mystic language as you can get. But the song is catchy, it’s marketable, and yes—I enjoy it! No shame! She makes me laugh, which might be its own kind of magic. Maybe the spirits sneak in through the beat or something? Who’s to say for sure?
But in all seriousness, this essay isn’t meant to steal away the allure or the mystery. I’d never deny the reality of such powers. I only believe they are rare—and nothing like the spectacle our commodified world has taught us to expect.
This is about a kind of discernment sharp enough to separate truth from show. Without it—without some level of logic applied to what we cannot confirm through science or otherwise—what’s real will always remain buried beneath the skepticism born by the illusory efforts to claim and commodify such powers.
“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” — Henri Bergson
Perhaps we’d be better served by exploring, by staying curious, open-minded, experimental and playful in this space, following history’s clues and seeking our own truths, rather than rushing to seek some kind of acclaim, or capitalize on what is sacred and deserving of our deeper understanding.
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© 2025 DISTILLIST.
Beautifully written! I think you're on to something here.