Ignorance breeds anxiety. Knowledge–of self and otherwise–supports clarity of perception. It eradicates ignorance and releases anxiety. Perhaps not for everyone, but for those of us who are perpetually hounded by the voice within that asks “why?”. Seekers of knowledge.

I don’t know for sure what the source of the Seeker is. Is it implanted in those of us who were subjected to horrific abuse while in the prime of our innocence?

What is it about innocence that evokes the monster?

The Beauty calling forth the Beast. The Prey enticing the Predator. Innocence is alluring. The innocence of Persephone luring the taker within Hades.

The existentially kinky perspective would be that in the moment of full Innocence, Persephone forgets her soul contract with Hades so that she could experience Shock. In a space of full self–knowledge, there is no space for this very human experience of being Shock.

Shock seeds the Seeker. Historically, and today, initiation rituals have always relied on Shock–this holds for sophomoric hazing rituals as well as the ISTA Shamanic Initiation.

Shock clears out preconceived notions and the hubris that knowledge can bring to make space for wonder. “What just happened?” “How could I not have seen this coming?” “If this is true, what else could be true?” “How do I make sense of this?” Thus, the Seeker is born.

In the Ayahuasca ceremony where I first recovered memories of being sodomized as a child, I remember my eyes bulging apart in shocked wonder at the first moment of feeling anal penetration. As a 5 year old, it was far, far beyond my scope of imagined possibilities. I do subscribe to the notion of soul contracts and believe I had a soul contract with all of my perpetrators (and to be fair, all those I have perpetrated upon). A contract that I forgot as I took birth in this life time, so that I may experience the Shock of what I had signed up for. I imagine the same holds true even if you were not anally penetrated as a child. Perhaps the first time child you received a resounding slap, a lash of a leather belt, complete heartless neglect when you needed to be held or witnessing the still birth of your newborn–horrific harm mingled with innocence is how the seeker is born.

Shock births the Seeker.