The God Realm Delusion: When the Sage Wears a Shadow
November 20, 2025
You know the room. You’ve felt the pull.
It’s the teacher who holds eye contact just a second too long, looking at you like they’re the only person who has ever really seen you. It’s the group that feels less like a class and more like a lost family finally reunited. It’s the intoxicating, electric certainty that we are the ones who finally “get it,” while the rest of the world sleeps.
This glow has a name. In Buddhist cosmology, they call it the God Realm—a state of ecstatic absorption where everything feels perfect, fluid, and divine. In Path of the Dragon, we map this allure to the Oneness Shadow (and the Ethical Shadow)—the tendency to mistake peak-state unity for integrated, ethical embodiment.
It feels like awakening. But often, it’s just an ego trip in spiritual drag.
In Path of the Dragon, I call this the Ethical Shadow. It’s what happens when power outruns integration. It’s the moment a leader stops serving the fire and starts believing they are the fire. And if you don’t have the antibodies for it, it will burn you down.
The Mechanics of the Trap
This isn’t just about narcissism. It’s a systemic pattern, an engine that runs on unintegrated intensity. If you look beneath the incense and the Sanskrit names, you’ll see the gears turning.
1. The Illusion of Specialness The delusion starts with a whisper: I have the keys. My transmission is the cure. The leader becomes the product. The group becomes the “chosen few.” This creates a vacuum where critical thinking goes to die. In the book, we counter this with the Serene Center and peer accountability. True authority doesn’t demand adoration; it is proven through embodiment and the ability to be wrong.
2. The Addiction to Intensity There is a pervasive lie in modern spiritual circles: If you aren’t screaming, crying, or shaking, you aren’t healing. This is intensity-chasing. It confuses a nervous system blow-out with spiritual growth. It feeds psychic inflation—the belief that because you touched a peak state, you are now superior to those walking the valley. But the book warns clearly: Intensity without grounding fragments what it seeks to free.
3. The Weaponization of Wisdom This is the sharpest blade. When you try to name a boundary or point out harm, the leader flips the script: “That’s just your shadow talking.” “You’re stuck in a victim story.” “Your ego is resisting the work.” They use the very language of healing to gaslight you into silence. This is the Drama Triangle dressed up in robes. The antidote isn’t more “processing”; it’s rigorous, boring accountability.
Stop Chasing the Dragon
Let’s be precise with our words, because language shapes reality.
There is an old idiom: “Chasing the dragon.” It refers to chasing the rush of heroin—trying to recreate that first, massive high.
In spiritual circles, we see the same addiction. People chase the peak experience, the next catharsis, the bigger download. That is the Serpent energy—raw, chaotic, rising.
The Dragon, as defined in this book, is not a rush. It is a vessel. The Dragon is integrated power. It is the capacity to hold fire within a regulated nervous system without burning your house down.
You don’t chase the Dragon. You build the capacity to become it.
How to Build Immunity
You don’t need to be cynical, but you do need to be sovereign. Here are the structures that keep the God Realm from taking hold.
1. Living-Consent Consent isn’t a waiver you sign at the door. It is a living, breathing agreement. It is specific, enthusiastic, and—most importantly—revocable. If you cannot say “stop” in the middle of a ritual without being shamed, you are not in a sacred space. You are in a trap.
2. The Wheel of Consent We use Dr. Betty Martin’s framework to ask two ruthless questions: Who is doing the action? and Who is it for? If a leader claims they are pushing your boundaries “for your own good,” but they are the ones getting off on the power… the Wheel reveals the lie instantly.
3. The Prism of Impact Intentions don’t matter as much as you think. You can have the purest heart and still cause harm. Maturity is owning the impact of your actions, regardless of your intent. It’s the shift from “I didn’t mean to hurt you” to “I see that I hurt you, and I am here to repair.”
A Note on Safety
Reading this might spike your pulse. If you feel a tightness in your chest or a spinning in your thoughts, pause.
This is the work. Stop reading. Feel your feet on the floor. Look around the room and name three blue things. Exhale longer than you inhale.
We do not push through overwhelm. We resource, we regulate, and then we return.
The Way Out
The God Realm thrives on our hunger—our hunger to belong, to be special, to be saved. The Dragon’s Path asks you to starve that hunger and feed your sovereignty instead.
We don’t need more gurus on pedestals. We need grounded human beings who can hold their own fire, own their own shadow, and clean up their own messes.
Stop chasing the rush. Build the vessel.
For the full protocols on safety, consent, and the ECC Lens (Ecstasy, Community, Catharsis), refer to Part VI: Ethics and Intimacy and Chapter 33: The Steward of Fire in Path of the Dragon.