What KG calls a “primal obsession” and in Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God, he says, “Every magician must discover the word that conceals his dominant obsession, must vibrate it until its energizing elemental is awakened.” Myths are never intended to be believed. They are opportunities to restructure our values and lead us to new insights. Goblins need not be real in order to be real. No magician ever believes anything. That includes the current consensus. Gurdjieff went so far as to say, “Believe nothing, not even yourself.” Feelings, unless one has trained intuitional talents, can never be trusted to reflect reality. The alternative to believing is simply experiencing or knowing. – The Magician’s Dictionary
The above may initially sound like a good description for what is a belief, or at least a good statement for magicians that we should “believe nothing”. The problem with a statement such as “Believe nothing, not even yourself” is that it is also belief. It is not possible to exist and function as a human being (in a meaningful way) without beliefs. We can’t hold a belief about nothing having beliefs in a credible or logically consistent fashion – although it might sound “nice” and “magical”. It is not possible to “believe nothing” in the same fashion that it is not possible to think about not thinking (stopping “inner dialogue” aka “stopping the world”). However, it is possible to reprogram ourselves to have more flexible beliefs, ones which we do not cherish as intrinsically true or necessary to give our lives value and meaning. For example we could cultivate a belief that our beliefs are really “temporary working hypotheses” that we are willing to set aside when necessary for our continued evolution. The statement that “the alternative to believing is simply experiencing or knowing“, while being a belief, is also “correct” in that we can certainly enter non-ordinary states of consciousness where we stop thinking (stop the inner dialogue) and open ourselves to pure experience and knowing. However, there is still the problem that while in trance we can still colour our experience through our unconscious beliefs, and the symbols and entities we encounter will be interpreted to some extent by what we know (or think we ‘know’), and what we believe. What happens when you get to a stage in your path were you recognise that many things you believe are simply beliefs, that they are not inherently true (they are not necessarily universal or spiritual truths)? How do you assign a value or know what is right for you, or a correct thing to believe, or a right way to act? What then happens to morals and ethics? What do you really know? What do you really experience? What is reality – your reality? The practice of magical techniques can begin to dissolve and break down belief structures (groups of beliefs), yet at the same time many of the deeply rooted core beliefs remain hidden deep within the unconscious. It is all too easy to ‘think’ a belief has changed, yet retain the core belief which manifests as merely a variation on a theme.
The Magical Path website now offers a series of free lessons in Magic. These lessons begin by examining beliefs.
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