Saved me from crippling depression that was first diagnosed when I was a child (this was back before every other kid was prescribed psychiatric meds by the way, and it was dx’d again and again afterwards by different docs) - this depression had led to suicidal ideation and intent many times, so I’m going to say it definitely saved my peace of mind, opened up my life, and probably even saved my life.
The core of my depression were some basic and deep-seated traumatic beliefs, acquired from the ambient Xian/eastern/newage spirituality around me, and even things like my family’s political beliefs, plus my own discoveries studying RHP philosophies, that:
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there was something wrong with me - I was “fallen” and/or all my problems were karmic reactions for past wrongs (committed in a past life), and that material embodied life wasn’t the most desirable state, so any efforts to improve it were even MORE wrong and damaging; that I needed to constantly watch whether I was “evolving” according to some arbitrary set of precepts that I now recognise as highly likely to induce pathologies and neuroses, as well as being magickally more dangerous than demonic evocation; later as I dug into RHP stuff, that my basic flawed-ness meant I had to always take external guidance on the best way to handle literally ANY situation or even what I could think about things;
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there was something wrong with the world - acquired first from my family’s mainly left-wing politics* that encouraged me to actively look out for injustices and feel personally responsible for fixing them, and also to notice them whenever possible affecting me; from the semi-Xian belief that had permeated into me that the material world is sinful, shoddy, second-rate, compared to Heaven; later developed through studying yogic and Vedantic philosophies which lean towards the idea that the “desire world” (material reality) is a place to escape, by avoiding future karmic entanglements and especially actions for the benefit of the self or that increase attachment to the world;
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that there was something wrong about being innately psychic and interested in magick - that people like me have to burn ourselves out healing and serving others (that idea is HUGE in core shamanism, “The shaman serves their community”); that to have these things obligated me to a life as other people’s skivvy, cleaning up their mental and emotional messes as a healer, and the more power and skill I acquired, the greater the obligation; that too much involvement in magick and (after a certain point) even just healing people is creating those bad new karmic entanglements;
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that there’s something WRONG about every other fucking thing in my own life, that one should take a stance on (for example) social or political issues, like injustices, dictated not by my own heart but by the need to save and serve (poilitics + healing/white-lighty programminhg) or (yogic/Vedantic) strive to see them as part of Parasiva’s perfect universe, in which people and animals are only getting their rightful karmic comeback.
Fuck. That. SHIT!!!
Honestly the LHP for me once I explored it and the philosophy in a structured way (thank you Stephen Flowers) was like someone opened a safe doorway out of a burning and crumbling building, I wasn’t quite at my most RHP-fucked up when I found him, I’d started just going with my own lunacy of “Imma become a goddess then sort this shit out later” (which was a childhood idea that I kind of revived as a way out of RHP lunacy) but it formalised and strengthened my resolve.
And I’ll tell you what, I am a bit weird and I take things very much to heart, take things very literally and I over-think to an insane degree, but I promise you that what I internalised and what was destroying me WAS the logical conclusion of each of those philosophies, remains their logical conclusion, and while I can respect and even like people who proclaim they have RHP beliefs, I just think that’s because they’re not following them through enough!!
- Family politics - this isn’t a bash at anyone with any kind of left-wing beliefs, my own politics are complicated and don’t fall into any established easy label, but activism and discussion was part of the air I was brought up to breathe, and it was a CONSTANT onslaught, a 24/7 focus on what’s WRONG with society, the world, etc., so I’ll say it played a part in my earliest depression as a schoolchild because I used to not be able to sleep at nights for worrying about political issues and injustices that were way outside my scope.
The rest, like I’ve said, I have no objection to individuals who hold these beliefs, many of them are fine people, but I personally think they’re pathological and toxic, so please keep 'em to yourselves! 