What if I'm going crazy? Hermeneutical injustice and community
What happens when they don’t fit within the parameters of the society we live in? Within the parameters of how we’ve been brought up? Within the parameters of what is seen as possible and impossible? (…) For some vocations, stepping out of current paradigms is a must. But then, where do we land? What do we build on? (my previous article)
“It is also worth considering that you could just have an overly inflateded (sic) sense of entitlement to your place in the world.
:)” (🍆head on the internet, 2026)
When I shared my thoughts on how if you struggle to find your place in the world, it might be more reflective of a systemic/systematic issue rather than you doing something wrong, I was ‘gifted’ with the above – very good – example of ‘how things are’ enforcement actually looks like in real life.
In my experience, close-minded people will most often try to ‘put you back in your place’ with this type of ‘be reasonable’-flavoured patronising crap, served with a passive-aggressive smile.
Translation:
Nah, I’m good.
As we still dust away the cobwebs of social norms and expectations shaped by whoever has been holding the most power, it is on us all to stand up and say “this isn’t really working for me”.
There is a lot of talk these days about humanity being in a supportive astrological chapter for social change. Be it Barbault’s Basket or any other planetary configuration at play, one thing is for sure: just because the astrology is supportive, our free will is what makes it or breaks it.
We still have to get off our 🍑 and actively move in the direction we want this world to go.
Social change only ever really happens when enough people are willing to say “this isn’t really working for me” and even “actually, I’m really fucking uncomfortable”.
The only snag is, when you’re one of the first ones to say these things, you will likely look and perhaps even begin to feel a bit crazy. Pointing out dysfunction in a room where dysfunction has been normalised doesn’t tend to go down well…
But alongside the controversy, there is also a magical thing that happens if you are loud and inconvenient for long enough:
Eventually, a few other people will begin to say “yeah, actually, it doesn’t work for me either. I just thought you guys were all ok with it”.
Finding these other people can be immensely validating and healing, and help you gain a level of understanding and integration that goes much beyond what you can achieve on your own.
So how do you find these people?
To find people like you, first you need to know what you are looking for. You need words to describe your experiences. There is actually a term for the injustice of not having the words to contain, validate and make sense of your experiences: hermeneutical injustice.
I experienced it firsthand.
When I was still integrating my attraction to spirituality with my scientific training and understanding, the main reason I was struggling is because I did not have the concept that science, like any other human activity, operates within a set of statements that are taken as given i.e. assumptions.
In the case of most scientific activity, one of those assumptions is that everything, including consciousness, ultimately boils down to matter, physical processes and physical properties. Nothing exists outside of that.
While it is usually presented as a fact, it’s in fact a philosophical stance called scientific materialism or physicalism.
My inner conflict stemmed from the incompatibility between this assumption (which I took to be fact, because it was always implied as fact in my scientific training), and what I came to know and experience as the reality of extraordinary human experiences (experiences of precognition, telepathy, remote viewing, NDEs etc.).
At the time, I did not have concepts such as “absolute presupposition” or “scientific materialism” or “postmaterialist paradigm” to plug my experiences into.
Because I did not have these concepts, the experience of opening up spiritually as a scientific person felt turbulent. It felt like I was abandoning empirical knowledge for a pull I couldn’t explain, for an unsubstantiated feeling. Trading sanity for insanity. Trading the identity of an intelligent person, that I worked so hard for, to being seen as unintelligent.
Once I had the right words for what I was experiencing, it made it easier to find other people like me. In other words, community.
I will never forget the first time I joined an online gathering of scientists who were also interested in spirituality. I actually cried, because it finally felt like permission to fuse these two parts of myself.
Immersing myself in these communities has really helped with solidifying my new philosophy of reality.
Had I not done so, my new paradigm would have never grown strong enough. It would have eventually been destroyed at seedling stage, by the blizzard of closed-minded skepticism that over-relies on scientific materialism as the only valid lens for reality.
This lens would’ve never been appropriate for making sense of my pull to spirituality, or my extraordinary experiences. Under this lens, my experiences such as dream precognition would have been immediately dismissed as not real. Under this lens, my sanity and intelligence would have been under question.
(And that’s not even starting with the connection between misogyny and looking down on spirituality.)
Under this lens, that plant would’ve never grown enough to flower and bear fruit. In my case, discovering that being an astrologer is part of my vocation.
Like all new life, an emerging paradigm is fragile. It has the potential to grow strong, resilient and self-sufficient, but this won’t happen on its own. You have to offer it the right conditions to thrive.
🌱
If you’re feeling a call that you don’t have words for, a vocational astrology reading might be your next step.
I use the data in your birth chart to identify the underlying architecture of that which calls to you. I then translate it into language that helps you make sense of it and decide how to integrate it into your vocational path.
£77 • 60 minutes • recording included • book here
Until next time,
Cristina