The Dark Side of Ascension: Not Rapture, But Rupture

“Ascension” is sold as a spiritual upgrade, a rise, a compensation, a euphoric becoming. It is presented as the holy grail that arrives upon completing a spiritual path. It is a reward that everyone seeks but few actually achieve. What it actually initiates is a spiraling descent into harsh and difficult truth and clarity. It is not transcendence. It is not awakening. More accurately, it is a shock, a rupture that strips away illusions. I was promised peace, a “higher” state of being, revelations, and discernment. What came instead was total collapse into clarity.

The image above says it all: this is not a radiant ascent into light. It is a walk through fire. The Falling Tower is not simply metaphor; it symbolizes the wreckage of past spiritual and personal architecture built on false foundations of belief that were never true. The volcanic eruption is symbolic. It represents the internal detonation of every belief, every mask, every inherited misrepresentation. Ascension burns bridges. It destroys scaffolding. It leaves debris and scorched earth where myths and inherited beliefs once stood. The persona disintegrates. The performance collapses. The curated self dissolves. All of it burns to the ground, reduced to ash and ruin. What remains is not the enlightened figure rising skyward. It is the solitary one walking away through the valley, hooded, dust‑covered, still breathing, still burning. This is not elevation. It is evacuation. The sacred does not rise. It survives and persists.

Performance is acting for appearance’s sake or from indoctrination and false belief systems. Performance is the persona or curated self role-playing a consciously crafted image or illusion to gain recognition, acceptance, or applause. It is false roles, inherited identities, and the many masks we wear because of our fragmented ego and psyche. Performance is often deliberate and strategic, but it can also be unconscious survival scripts. Either way, it is the theater of the ego. The curated self does not only add; it also omits. It selects favorable traits, suppresses inconvenient truths, mirrors expected language, and performs belonging to secure proximity, approval, or access. It is a constructed presentation that edits reality to appear aligned, evolved, or useful. It optimizes for visibility and validation, not for truth. It is branding of the self under inherited programs, cultural conditioning, and imposed expectations.

This post does not reject or downplay spirituality. It refuses its distortions, misrepresentations, and fallacies. It does not offer comfort or fictitious mystical veneer It names the toll on the body, the psyche, and the relationships that could not hold. It does not speak in metaphor. It names the wreckage, the loss, the rupture, and the brutal clarity that follows this collapse or breakdown.

Ascension, as I lived it, was not an escalation into light. It was a downward vortex into revealed truth, into the cold, unfiltered reality buried beneath false belief, avoidance, and denial. Spirit did not rescue me. It leveled me. It did not elevate. It dismantled. When the scaffolding and architecture of old structures fell, I did not find peace. I found the remains of my old self and the bones of dead dogma. It was truth without comfort. It was identity without illusion or propaganda.

What is left after this destruction and restructuring is not just a valley. It is a scorched crater, a hollowed space where spiritual and emotional platforms used to be. What is left is a void absent the fallen myths, false identities, and archaic paradigms. We are taught to climb and ascend toward a mythic design and hierarchy of enlightenment. We cling to the misconceptions that we advance through frameworks that promise clarity, reward, and transcendence. The truth does not raise. It overcomes and persists.

“If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31–32) This is not a promise of comfort. It is a warning, a cost, and a consequence. Real freedom begins with the collapse of all your old defective foundations and structures. That is the liberation and sovereignty earned.

What Is This Truth?

The truth is brutal clarity. It is the unflinching realization of what is actual: yourself, your patterns, your complicity, your wounds, and the people around you. It brings to light every false identity, every inherited belief, every structure built to delay collapse. It uncovers exactly what you have been protecting, pretending, avoiding, denying, and bypassing. It reveals where and why you have been expending your energy into defective paradigms, inherited myths, spiritual fairy tales, and false promises of hope. The moment brutal clarity strips away illusion is your epiphany. The collapse into truth that cannot be denied is illumination.

And the freedom? These are all symptoms and actions of your programming, your conditioned self. The truth does not stop with you. It burns through the performance of others. Freedom is not peace and not bliss. It is the freedom to stop performing curated acts, to refuse repeating old patterns and ritualized enactments. It is liberation from chasing fabled contexts and results. It is release from clinging to prepackaged concepts that promise elevation but deliver misalignment and obfuscation. These are symptoms of programming, the conditioned self. The truth does not stop with you. It burns through the performance of others.

Performing is the curated self: selecting what appears to be the best to be seen, accepted, exhibited, and promoted. It is the persona fluent in spiritual language, rituals, and posture, designed to appear as mystical truth and the way. It is survival masquerading as preeminence. Collapse dismantles this flawed architecture. It strips away the costume and rips off the mask. What remains is not the enlightened self but the raw, unvarnished truth of who you are when performance, dogma, and indoctrination die.

You begin to see clearly and unapologetically the agendas, betrayals, and manipulations once cloaked in love, loyalty, or spiritual language. You see who stayed not to support but to extract. Collapse exposes opportunists who mirrored your collapse to elevate themselves, who offered proximity as tactic, not commitment. Revelation shows the cost of strategic attachment: the calculated use of emotional closeness to gain access to your clarity, your survival, your name, and the benefits you could provide. These were not partners. They were users and parasites. Their presence was not mutual. It was manipulative and scheming.

You see the patterns clearly. You recognize the ones who showed up when it was convenient but vanished the moment you named boundaries. You know the ones who praised your truth but never stood in it. You identify the ones who needed your hard‑won clarity to validate their own ascent but never honored the cost. You see  the ones who stayed close only when you were serving their purpose, pretending to serve yours.

This is the aftermath of collapse. You stop assuming being there means commitment. You stop mistaking attachment for support. You stop calling it friendship when it was only access. And you reclaim the sacred space around you, not as a stage but as sanctuary, not for performance but for presence.

Presence is not performing. It is not a role or a mask. It is not curated language or ritualized posture. Presence is the unedited self standing without strategy, without manipulation, without the need to be seen or validated. It is the raw authenticity of being with what is without fleeing, disguising, or performing. Presence is the opposite of proximity or closeness as tactic. It is the willingness to remain when truth is named, when boundaries are drawn, when the cost is acknowledged. Being present is attention in the moment, but presence is attention and authenticity embodied, the collapse of performance itself. When being present is stripped of performance, it becomes part of presence. It matures into the sacred ground reclaimed when performance dies.

Collapse exposes the surface illusions: the masks we wear, the roles we adopt, the performances we stage to survive. It reveals the fragmentation beneath: the fractures in psyche and soul that those masks were hiding. We arrive here already torn and separated from the Light, severed from the womb, indoctrinated into systems that splinter the self. We are programmed to perform, to behave according to conditioning, to please, to survive. We wear masks to be loved, adopt roles to be safe, and in doing so we splinter. The ego shatters. The shadow forms. The self becomes a mosaic of unmet needs and inherited distortions. We are no longer our true self. We fracture into multiple selves: personalities assembled to serve others, identities constructed to meet expectations, masks designed to secure belonging. Each self is a survival strategy stitched together for proximity, love, approval, or safety. The cost is authenticity, buried beneath the layers of cosplay we are taught are truth.

And it is not just the psyche that collapse reveals as fractured. It is the soul as well. It might be said that the ascension process mirrors Soul Retrieval, not as rebirth but as return. In shamanic tradition, soul loss occurs when trauma forces a fragment of consciousness to depart the body to cope or even to survive. That fragment is healed by Spirit before it is able to return, making Soul Retrieval the ultimate healing. In psychological terms, collapse exposes dissociation: the severing of entire segments of personality from the mainstream self. Revelation shows the deeper cost; the scattered fragments of identity that cannot reintegrate until the cause is understood and healed; not bypassed or rebranded. Ascension is the eradication of what exiled the soul in the first place. Healing comes only after exposure of illusion, rupture of false scaffolding, and revelation of the fragmentation that held the psyche in pieces.

In shamanic terms, trauma can cause the departure of consciousness from the body to survive what shocks or violates. Revelation shows the scattered soul, the torn fragments awaiting return. Either way, we are not whole. We are scattered. Shattered. Damaged. And here is the irony: healing begins not with repair but with deeper rupture. More exposure. More obliteration. More revelation of all that once was. The path to wholeness is paved with dismemberment. Those familiar with the shamanic dismemberment journey will recognize this terrain. Dismemberment is not poetic. It is primal. It is not a metaphor for transformation. It is ritualized obliteration that is sometimes radical and graphic. In Indigenous traditions, dismemberment is the severing of roles, untangling limited beliefs, overcoming inherited expectations. The initiate does not choose it; it is chosen for them. What I experienced was not symbolic. It was the lived severing of every framework I once used to navigate the world. Collapse exposed the spine of belief snapping. Revelation showed the void beneath, the silence, the raw essence that lives on after everything else dies.

Soul Retrieval is considered the ultimate healing. But this is not a simple reintegration. The soul pieces must be healed for reintegration to be successful. Few know this ancient method. Fewer still are ready to face this threshold and initiation. To retrieve what was lost, you must first destroy what kept it away. This is the paradox: the truth sets you free, but only by laying bare the illusions that concealed the fracture and tearing down the false scaffolding that held the exile in place. It releases you from illusion, but not from pain. It frees you from the need to be anything other than what survived: the authentic self. It is not the invented identity or the artificial role. It is not the fragmented persona. It is the post-apocalyptic truth of who you are when everything else falls away.

Ascension is not a rebirth or an elevation. It is a return, a return to the self before the fracture and after the exile. It is a clean slate that has been cleared of the imprints, masks, and inherited fractures that once splintered the soul. It is an emptiness of the scripts, bindings, and false scaffolding that once dictated your shape. It is freedom from the residue, the roles, and the soul scars left by indoctrination and survival. Ascension is not the arrival of something new. It is the reclamation of what was reprogrammed, distorted, and divided. It is the retrieval of the authentic self from beneath the rubble of performance and proximity. It is the self that survives when every false structure has burned away.

Ascension as Apocalypse

Ascension is an apocalyptic event, not with flashes and horsemen, but apokalypsis, an uncovering or a revelation. It is also devastation, the eradication of illusion, deception, and misunderstanding. It is a razing of all you built yourself on, a total collapse of everything that cannot hold or can no longer be carried. Collapse exposes the scaffolding that fails, the fractures beneath, the foundations already splintered.

“The sky vanished like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.” Revelation 6:14

“Then shall the earth be shaken, and the heavens shall tremble, and all the foundations of the world shall be laid bare.” Apocalypse of Thomas

These are not metaphors for divine existence. They are sacred blueprints of ruin, maps of collapse that mark the moment when myths fall, when illusion burns away, and when foundations fracture until you are left staring into the void. This is the threshold moment. It is not a portal to bliss but a reckoning. It is not a rise but a rupture. It is not an elevation but a fault line. And yet this is where the truth lives. It does not live in temples or teachings but in the vacuum of emptiness. The truth lives in the silence after the fall, in the unrecognizable self that remains when obsolete paradigms and flawed indoctrination lie in smoking ash, and there is no Phoenix rising.

Pulling Back the Curtain

Ascension is not emergence into light. It is the moment the curtain is pulled back and the blindfold is removed. Collapse exposes the fakery and spiritual performance. Revelation shows the wreckage beneath, the debris of fallen temples, erroneous beliefs, and fragmented egos. What you see is not euphoric enlightenment. It is ruin and wreckage. This is not wholeness. It is the uncovering of illusion and the revelation of fragmentation. And it is holy only because it sanctifies the ruin itself, the place where truth remains; and it unmasks all that was false.

What Is Holy?

The word holy (Hebrew qadosh, Greek hagios) means set apart, marked by difference. It is not comfort, not safety, not soothing. It is consecration, often through fire, rupture, or radical separation. In scripture, holy things are terrifying: the angels who strike fear, the burning bush that blazes without consuming, the mountain that shakes under divine presence. Holiness is not serenity. It is proximity to the authentic.

So yes, this collapse is holy. It is not holy because it is wonderful. It is holy because it exposes the myths and reveals what survived. It sets you apart from fairy tales and spiritual gloss. It is holy because it forges you in divine fire.

The Aftermath

Ascension does not leave you standing in a peaceful clearing. It leaves you in rubble and remains, surrounded by dead doctrine, the corpses of old relationships, and the skeletal remains of every false role once performed. Collapse exposes the scaffolding that failed. The crater is laid bare, forcing you to confront what was fractured beneath. This is not a meadow. It is scorched earth.

The worst part is that the spiritual world calls this progress. They glorify it, package it, and sell it. They do not tell you that Ascension can leave you in a spiritual identity crisis so brutal you no longer recognize yourself after the impact. They do not tell you it strips away every support system you once used to make sense of yourself. But then again, they cannot tell you what they have never lived.

Where Is Spirit God Light in All This? 

Spirit is right at the implosion. It is not above it and not after it, but inside it. Spirit does not arrive with trumpets and robes, and it does not rescue. It refuses distortion, the distortion of elevation myths and spiritual gloss that promise escape instead of collapse. Spirit is the force that incinerates the illusion of ascent, the fire that will not let you lie to yourself anymore. It does not soothe; it grinds away everything false, distorted, or glossed.

Collapse exposes the myths and lays bare the crater. Spirit is there in that crater, not as comfort but as presence. Presence means Spirit remains in the rawness, standing with you in the silence after the structures fall, refusing to flee or disguise what it is. Spirit is there not with answers but to witness; without distortion, acknowledging the cost, and holding the truth of what survived. You are not abandoned. You are unmasked.

Spirit does not arrive to save. It arrives to recognize and acknowledge. Not with approval, but with presence. Not to rebuild, but to bear witness to what survived. In the crater, when the myths have burned and the scaffolding is smoldering ash, Spirit does not hand you a new name. It waits for you to speak the one that remains. This is not the summit; it is the aftermath. Spirit knows you have done the work, not because you have ascended, but because you refused to live the lie any longer. Witnessing here is sacred. It is the nod that says: You did not bypass. You did not perform. You endured. And now, what remains is consecrated. Spirit does not give you a certificate. It does not wrap you in light or whisper affirmations. It stands in the scorched remains beside you, nods once, and says: “We know that was a motherfucker. Good job.”

Where the Real Work Begins

This is not the end of the journey. It is the beginning of a spiraling path that has no map. The real work begins here, not in a state of grace but in the grim repercussions of collapse. It does not begin in elevation but in embodiment. It is the daily practice of living without illusion, of being true to the essence of yourself, of naming what is genuine without performance. Collapse exposed what was imposed, the structures and identities forced upon me that never belonged. What remained was the void left after everything burned to the ground, the raw wreckage that left me reeling, licking new wounds while facing the old ones.

Spirit did not lift me out. Spirit moved in. I do not speak from authority or from doctrine. I speak from the aftereffects of reckoning, from the lived experience of standing in the ruins, crawling out of the smoking ashes, and confronting not only the repercussions of collapse but the overwhelming repair and restoration that followed. The work is rehab. It is starting from scratch, rebuilding a life and a self from the crater, carrying both the scars of what was lost and the weight of what must now be remade.

The Threshold · The Initiation · The Ascension: Shamanic Death Without Ceremony

This was not just dismemberment leaving behind some unnamed purified essence. It was a true shamanic death, violent, unchosen, and absolute. Not a shedding but an extinction. The axis mundi gave way. The spiritual spine snapped. Every framework and platform failed, collapsing under their own weight and leaving only the void beneath.

If you are seeking Ascension, understand this: it is not a rise, it is a razing. It is not for the spiritually seasoned. It is for the spiritually surrendered. No mantra, no lineage, no ritual will spare you from the hell walk if it is yours to take. Pablo Leon writes, “The shamanic death is not something to be feared. It is essential. But when we resist it, it becomes painful.”

But here is the truth. I am not totally broken. I am a wounded healer, qualified not by certification but by shattering and initiation. I speak from the crater and scorched earth because I survived it. I am stitched with scar tissue, lost dreams, hard lessons, and what the fire could not consume. And if you are standing at the edge of your own threshold moment or seismic spiritual event, I will not guide you with platitudes. I will meet you in the ashes and debris with duct tape and truth. See you there.

Ciao,

Steve.

Surviving the Collapse Before Ascension