As cool as spacemacs is, there are some pain points with it. Try following the documentation to add the mega theme pack. Insert the line that the docs say to insert. (into the file in which they tell you to insert it) Restart Emacs, find yourself stuck in pure emacs. Google how to exit emacs... or open a file and edit it. (If you have no experience with Emacs previously) Yes this is a doc issue, but the point is any misconfiguration, and you find yourself without any Vim-ishness at all.