Have you had any significant personal, creative or spiritual development since discovering atheism, that involved actions, experiences or dreams that other wise that would otherwise be seen as unusual for atheists? Maybe you are a musician inspired by ancient religions interpreting them in your own way or a philosopher who maintains the effigy of the goddess Minerva to remind oneself of the pursuit of knowledge.

For me there was a point in my life when I called myself an atheist, but atheism for the most part is just the rejection of the god of Abraham and I considered myself a machine in a world of physically visible material things. That is not the end of the journey because philosophy and dharma teaches us new ways of looking at ourselves and the universe without violating material physics.

The Upanishads from ancient India refer to liberation from suffering and then wheel of life being like a drop of water returning to the ocean, there is a double meaning of spiritual ascension beyond the material being like the reference to death.

When I was young I remember walking in the rain on the way home from primary school and feeling cold and realizing I could relieve myself from the displeasure of the cold through focusing a state of mindfulness.

Most gurus merge some sort of "atheistic" science in with their spiritual ideas to make them more palatable to a modern skeptical audience and I think that's really dangerous. I am also an optimist, in that I think that if people are looking for a genuine spiritual experience, which I would define as, a largely introspective experience that enhances their character and changes their perception of what their relationship to the universe is. Then i think that is achievable.

I think everyone has on AR knows about people like Sam Harris who often blend atheism with Buddhism or new age things, I have also found Satanic philosophies to be quite valuable. I have found that drawing sigils and conducting affirmative rituals helps me correct my path in life, for example a most likely time for me to conduct a ritual is when I undertake something such as the creation of several artworks or another personal or work project that requires me to make sacrifices, time or otherwise. Collectively I call the usage of sigils, rituals, meditations, visualizations and gestures "casting", and the most practical application of these skills is the suggestion and exclusion of things from the sub-conscious.

For a while I venerated the deity Shiva and that produced vivid internal imagery, influenced my thoughts for several days and inspired me to stop eating meat, particularly beef. I ate tofu and beans for a while and I've always believed the vegans are right about reducing the suffering of sentient beings. After a while however I stop my veneration to lord Shiva because I am tired of eating things that taste like beans, and the veneration of the Shiva archetype does not produce those sensations of worldliness that lead to practical endeavors in life, because Shiva is a god of ascetics and spiritual mystics. With that being done, I evoke the god Thoth to my quarters and my mind and produce an image by hand Ink on A3 of the gods Thoth and Ptah, Ptah is a facsimile of the craftsman Imhotep. As I gaze upon the image of Thoth and Ptah I am reminded of my purpose through my senses in a way that is faster than words created by thought. For non creative people this sorcery may just be larping for something that seldom goes deeper than a self help book, however for creative people there is the desire to go deeper into the dream to find that sound or image that fills the void in your creative process.

Although I don't believe the experiences of Gnostics and occultists like A Crowley and HP Blavatsky, in their meditative trances, to be a literal connection to a consistent astral world or duat, or a literal case of the spirit leaving the body and going to some other-worldly dimension. I do enjoy the day dreamy process where every living person allows themselves to forgo reality and open a door to the Jungean means of understanding ourselves, fueling emotional experiences that become creative expressions.

I would like to finish with something colorful.

Om Kali, om namo kali kalika, all these stupid people in the world they're going to die, humanity will never be able to surpass the coming catastrophe of climate change, but maybe, maybe if we are lucky then a rogue state will develop a bio-weapon that kills most of the people on the planet, that's the only thing that could save us from death by environmental pollution.