‘Rejectionism 101’
“When the fantasy melts, all that’s left is the self. And the thoughts of grandeur are like books on the shelf.”
“Man, know thyself” is not a slogan. It is a method.
Most people treat it like decoration—something engraved on stone or printed on a shirt. But as a method, it is violent. It dismantles comfort. It requires you to examine the agreements you carry and ask a simple, destabilizing question:
Did I choose this?
Religious rites. National pledges. Cultural loyalties. Political reflexes. Family scripts. Most of these were absorbed before consent was possible. Before you had the capacity to evaluate them. Before you could even articulate doubt.
That is not destiny. That is conditioning.
There is nothing inherently sinister about conditioning. Every human being inherits language, posture, bias, preference, fear, aspiration. The problem is not inheritance. The problem is unconscious participation.
As Castaneda framed it in the sorcerer’s revolution: no agreement is binding without participation. You may have inherited it. You may have been immersed in it. But it does not hold you unless you continue to enact it.
That is where rejection begins.
Rejection is not rebellion. It is not teenage defiance. It is not aesthetic contrarianism. Rejection is the deliberate withdrawal of participation from agreements that cannot withstand scrutiny.
And scrutiny requires discernment.
Manifestation is not mysticism. It is directed will. In older language, that force of thought in motion was called Fohat. We will unwrap that term later. For now, understand it simply: wherever attention and intention combine consistently, reality begins to shape around them.
If your thought is undisciplined, your life will be undisciplined.
If your will is scattered, your outcomes will be scattered.
Directed will without discernment is chaos with ambition.
Discernment is the ability to distinguish true from convenient. Structural from sentimental. Law from preference.
Without it, you do not manifest. You react.
This is where rejection becomes necessary. The emptying of the vessel is not poetic language. It is operational. You cannot pour something new into a container that is already full of unexamined loyalty.
You cannot demand truth while protecting the narratives that comfort you.
You cannot claim independence while reenacting inherited scripts.
Napoleon Hill observed that in every person there exist at least two diametrically opposed personalities. One moves toward expansion, discipline, growth. The other seeks comfort, approval, ease. Both live inside you. Rejection is not aimed at society first. It is aimed at that internal division.
Most people externalize this conflict. They project it onto parties, institutions, generations, systems. They fight symbols because they have not confronted themselves.
America, as an experiment, amplified this tendency. It elevated the individual as the base unit of civilization. Self before duty. Autonomy before obligation. That principle can produce innovation and courage. It can also fracture coherence.
When the individual becomes supreme without self-examination, selfishness scales.
Fractalized government is not mysterious. It mirrors the psyche. If citizens refuse discipline, institutions will reflect that refusal. If comfort outranks truth privately, it will outrank truth publicly.
Cruelty is rarely theatrical. It is usually administrative. It appears as indifference. As rationalization. As selective blindness.
The worst cruelty is not always overt aggression. It is the quiet tolerance of harm when it serves convenience.
When selfishness becomes normalized, cruelty follows. Not because people wake up evil, but because they refuse to examine their participation.
Systems persist because we allow them. Not as villains. As participants.
Rejectionism begins when you ask: where am I complicit?
This is not self-hatred. It is self-honesty.
I am not exempt from this process. I am not presenting theory from a pedestal. I have inherited contradictions. I have enacted them. I have defended them.
I have also rejected them.
I am flawed like everyone else. I examined those flaws and removed what could not survive scrutiny. Not because I am virtuous, but because undisciplined behavior compounds consequences.
Castaneda described stalking as the art of controlling behavior. The most advanced stalkers stalk themselves. They observe their impulses. They track their reactions. They eliminate unnecessary movements until only what is essential remains.
Warriorship is not aggression. It is precision.
Most people cannot tolerate this level of self-observation. They prefer alignment with tribe over alignment with truth. Tribe offers protection. Truth demands isolation before integration.
Rejectionism is not about attacking institutions. It is about withdrawing unconscious reinforcement.
If you believe something, examine why.
If you defend something, trace its origin.
If something offends you immediately, interrogate the reflex.
Discomfort is diagnostic.
This is not about becoming apolitical. It is about becoming conscious.
Equal and opposite reactions are structural. When one narrative intensifies, a counter-narrative emerges. When one pole dominates, tension builds. This is not ideology. It is thermodynamics.
Rejectionism does not align with one pole. It refuses to collapse into either.
It demands historical memory without selective erasure. It demands responsibility without sentimental escape. It demands that you confront the parts of yourself that benefit from the very systems you criticize.
There is no purity here. Only participation and awareness.
A teacher, if one appears, does not grant enlightenment. They hold a mirror steady while you dismantle yourself. That is all.
You will not be rescued from your contradictions. You will not be validated for your outrage. You will not be applauded for your allegiance.
You will be asked to examine.
The vessel must be emptied.
You cannot game self-actualization. You can only deceive yourself.
If directed will is the engine, discernment is the steering mechanism. Without it, force becomes distortion.
This is why “Man, know thyself” is a method.
Know your conditioning. Know your reflexes. Know where desire overrides discernment. Know where comfort overrides integrity.
Desire and discernment are always in tension. One seeks gratification. The other seeks alignment. When desire dominates unchecked, cruelty follows in subtle forms. When discernment governs, rejection becomes surgical.
You do not need to declare war on society.
You need to declare audit on yourself.
What agreements are you still honoring out of fear?
What narratives do you protect because they make you feel righteous?
Where do you excuse harm because it benefits your side?
Rejectionism 101 is not about burning structures down.
It is about withdrawing unconscious consent.
Once enough individuals perform that audit, structures change naturally. Not through spectacle, but through refusal.
This is not comfortable work.
It is not loud work.
It is quiet.
And it begins alone.
If you are still here, you are not afraid of that solitude.
FREE SHIPPING ON ALL ORDERS OVER $75.00 @
(written with the assistance of ChatGPT)
