Do results matter more than belief in occult practice?

[Tryp]

I've found over time the whole psychological paradigm to be inefficient and awkward for me. Beliefs may still be there, same as the impulse to explain how something happened, but I much prefer to not give either a leading role in my practice. They unnecessarily complicate things, and if I look back in order to honestly judge whether my beliefs were useful, what I see is no different from the proverbial fixated clock that will regardless give the right time twice a day.

Carroll's extreme relativism was surely a great exercise to start with, but not one I've been able to sustain. I work first with what I know, regardless of the sense it makes and how convenient it is. I haven't quite found a "magical system" I can stick with, other than some sort of basic, pragmatic sorcery and an essentially relational view of the cosmos. So I guess that means results for me.

 

[Yvonne]

IMO the mechanism of magic takes place below the level of your conscious mind. Belief is a way to program that level, in the same way as you program yourself to ride a bike.

You will hear magicians say "It works even if you don't believe in it" and this too is a belief system. So even if you deny it consciously, it is still possible that at the level that really counts, you really want it to happen. You will know whether this is true because you will get results

I believe no explanation of magic can be complete if it depends on a single magical system - each system is a map, not a territory.

"It works even if you don't believe in it" is a belief that it works. The person that says that believes it will work. Si they do believe in it

 

[Robert Ramsay]

I've found over time the whole psychological paradigm to be inefficient and awkward for me. Beliefs may still be there, same as the impulse to explain how something happened, but I much prefer to not give either a leading role in my practice. They unnecessarily complicate things, and if I look back in order to honestly judge whether my beliefs were useful, what I see is no different from the proverbial fixated clock that will regardless give the right time twice a day.

I think I can see where the difficulty is here - it is the mechanism of belief, not the belief itself, that does the work. I think Carroll was trying to condition people into being able implement that mechanism at will. I like to think of it more like riding a bike - when you first start learning, you wobble all over the place and you have to think about what you're doing. When you've learned, you can ride about without hardly being 'present' at all. That's the level I'm talking about. The belief mechanism is just how you get your intent to the place where 'the rubber meets the road'.

Obviously, I'm not telling you how to do your practice I just thought your situation is an interesting one!

 

[Firetree]

A skeptical mind successfully eliminates the chance to experience any intuitive phenomena by rationalizing every subtle impression. In this state, magical training collapses because the skeptic practitioner’s own cognition rejects the very signals they are trying to cultivate.

It appears you do not know about this type of 'magical training ' then .

 

[Tryp]

I think I can see where the difficulty is here - it is the mechanism of belief, not the belief itself, that does the work. I think Carroll was trying to condition people into being able implement that mechanism at will. I like to think of it more like riding a bike - when you first start learning, you wobble all over the place and you have to think about what you're doing. When you've learned, you can ride about without hardly being 'present' at all. That's the level I'm talking about. The belief mechanism is just how you get your intent to the place where 'the rubber meets the road'.

Obviously, I'm not telling you how to do your practice I just thought your situation is an interesting one!

Thanks for the comment. I understand the logic behind Carroll's proposals (I did spend some time initially experimenting with CM) but it was precisely this implementation of X or Y belief at will that eventually became difficult and counterproductive for me -not because I couldn't pull it off, but because my need for consistency in practice was bigger and I wasn't comfortable under an arbitrary framework that simply wouldn't go smooth with whatever experience I gathered.

I think someone (HoldAll, IIRC) mentioned above how he wasn't able to make himself step into the shoes of, say, a Christian fundamentalist, even for the sake of the experiment. For me, the exercise of adopting rigid, potentially alien beliefs or ethical views was not necessarily a problem; I worked in storytelling for a long time, where the exercise of temporarily aligning myself with, say, a serial killer, was commonplace. But carrying that exercise to my practice was a different story. I'm aware that this can be seen as a limitation, but honesty and consistency are crucial to me in practice, and I find a big difference between the (inevitable) wish for things to manifest in a certain way, and the adoption of a belief that is not based on my experience.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Thanks for the comment. I understand the logic behind Carroll's proposals (I did spend some time initially experimenting with CM) but it was precisely this implementation of X or Y belief at will that eventually became difficult and counterproductive for me -not because I couldn't pull it off, but because my need for consistency in practice was bigger and I wasn't comfortable under an arbitrary framework that simply wouldn't go smooth with whatever experience I gathered.

I think someone (HoldAll, IIRC) mentioned above how he wasn't able to make himself step into the shoes of, say, a Christian fundamentalist, even for the sake of the experiment. For me, the exercise of adopting rigid, potentially alien beliefs or ethical views was not necessarily a problem; I worked in storytelling for a long time, where the exercise of temporarily aligning myself with, say, a serial killer, was commonplace. But carrying that exercise to my practice was a different story. I'm aware that this can be seen as a limitation, but honesty and consistency are crucial to me in practice, and I find a big difference between the (inevitable) wish for things to manifest in a certain way, and the adoption of a belief that is not based on my experience.

That's the thing about magic - because the implementation depends on the person you are, no practice is right for everyone - we may all be trying to get to the same thing, but there are as many routes to it as there are practitioners

I'll admit I too found Carroll's methods interesting, but ultimately not applicable to me.

I wonder how much we have been programmed in advance, by religious exposure or other teachings, to the "there is only one right way of doing things" idea?

 

[Tryp]

I wonder how much we have been programmed in advance, by religious exposure or other teachings, to the "there is only one right way of doing things" idea?

Probably much more than we all realize and care to admit.

Clearly, in my own conclusions about what makes sense, or even what works or not, my early conditioning will still work. Even if I abjured something, its structure still exerts some gravity pull that makes some things more likely to be adopted than others.

But I've learned how language shapes thought, and for instance I try to be very careful when pronouncing something "right", other than in the sense of appropriate or fitting to my current place and direction, which may or may not be the same in the future. I appreciate Carroll for his contribution to thought plasticity, maybe not as a goal in itself, but as a important tool for free will and decision.

 

[Pneuma_Purifier]

It appears you do not know about this type of 'magical training ' then .

If someone demands rigorous empirical proof before accepting an internal impression, their rational mind will always provide an alternative explanation. For a skeptic, keeping Tarot or intuition in the box of "harmless psychological entertainment" feels safe. It preserves a predictable, material universe where the mind remains entirely in control.

 

[Nembra]

A skeptical mind successfully eliminates the chance to experience any intuitive phenomena by rationalizing every subtle impression. In this state, magical training collapses because the skeptic practitioner’s own cognition rejects the very signals they are trying to cultivate.

Conversely, a naive minds is prone to illusion that satisfies shallow desires while obscuring deeper insights.

 

[beardedeldridge]

A skeptical mind successfully eliminates the chance to experience any intuitive phenomena by rationalizing every subtle impression.

Conversely, a naive minds is prone to illusion that satisfies shallow desires while obscuring deeper insights.

The dilemma of what we do.

 

[vulpes]

For me results have to matter more, otherwise belief can become a closed system where every outcome is interpreted as confirmation. At the same time I do not think belief is irrelevant. It can affect attention, expectation and the way a ritual is approached, which may change the result even if belief itself is not the mechanism.

What I find more useful is treating practice as something that can be compared over time. Keep notes, repeat methods and look for patterns instead of judging everything from one dramatic success or failure. If a particular ritual structure, timing or way of working consistently produces better results, that tells me more than whether I was intellectually convinced by the theory behind it.

I also think this is why older systems remain interesting. You can disagree with their cosmology and still discover that some of their methods are surprisingly robust in practice. For me the map can change, but eventually something has to happen in the territory.

 

[nunaphael]

I've been thinking about something that I rarely see discussed directly.

How important is belief actually supposed to be in magic?

For example, suppose someone performs a ritual while being skeptical about the spirit, system, cosmology, or explanation behind it — but the ritual consistently produces the result they were looking for.

Would you consider that person a successful practitioner even if they don't really believe in the system behind what they're doing?

On the other hand, someone might have complete faith in a system, understand all of its symbolism and correspondences, and perform everything correctly, but rarely get tangible results.

Personally, I find the distinction between belief, explanation, and result interesting.

Maybe belief itself is part of the mechanism. Maybe spirits objectively exist. Maybe rituals affect the subconscious. Maybe several explanations can be true at once.

But from a practical point of view, does the explanation even matter if the method works?

I'm curious how people here approach this.

Do you judge a magical system mainly by:

• the results you personally get from it,
• the tradition and theory behind it,
• spiritual experiences during practice,
• consistency over time,
• or something else?

And have you ever had a ritual work even though you were genuinely skeptical that it would?

It's a bit of a chicken and the egg thing. For one thing, you are not conscious of all your beliefs. You do not really know everything you truly "believe" until you come face to face with something that evokes doubt or fear within you. Even then, you don't really know the strength of your own convictions, you just think you do. It's the illusion of consciousness, it makes us forget that consciousness is just a tiny island in a vast ocean of the unconscious, and we dont really know what else there could be within us. Until we encounter things that trigger these latent parts of ourselves, they go unnoticed. All we have are our working assumptions.

Once you think about it like that, there really is no true distinction between doing something you believe in and doing something you dont bekieve in. Even your evaluation of the result, whether it "worked" or not, depends on your self awareness and level of consciousness. Perhaps it "worked" according to intentions that you didnt knkw you had which were in your unconscious, driving your behavior? You see?

So rather than agonize over belief and results, I see it largely the way Peter explains it in Liber Null. Belief is a tool. You believe something because the very act of believing in something aligns you to certain forces in a certain way, and being aligned in such a manner produces changes in your life that you choose to believe are beneficial. Again, it really depends on the level of self awareness a person has. It's almost like a high functioning state of pseudo-psychosis, where you are in a negotiation with the psychosis rather than just lost in it.

My main judgement criteria, then, is the spiritual experience. Because sometimes there can be results I was not conscious that I wanted, I have to be ready for anything. I never know exactly what will happen.

Another way of putting it is like this.

Imagine you are a farmer growing crops. You know what to do. You do everything right. You do this every year. But sometimes you get a big crop and sometimes you barely get by. You're never in control of every variable, there can be bad weather, a disease, anything can happen. If you just assumed that "farming doesn't work" simply because you had a bad harvest, or when you were first starting out you had a series of bad harvests because you were still learning, you'd be wrong.

 

[pointwithinacircle]

I once made an absolute commitment to a magical system that I was sure was going to fail. I did it because I was desperate for a specific outcome. I worked the system hard, committed large blocks of text to memory, searched for meaning in statements that I didn’t understand, and practiced group work with people I didn’t like. No one was more surprised than me when I got the outcome that I had not believed was possible. So for me doing the work is the important part. Belief is easy once you get the outcome you want.

 

[MorganBlack]

Let's flip belief around and look at the belief theory from the other end.

Look at Mitch Horowitz, an esoteric historian and author (who I think is wonderful), and professor of religious history and the paranormal Dr. Jeffrey Kripal (also wonderful) - both of them totally accept, teach about, and intellectually believe in the paranormal, the occult, magic, daimons - and yet they both experience none of the paranormal, except very tangentially, no matter how much they believe in it.

These are total believers who actively want and even long deeply for aparanormal experience , yet they receive none of it. No high-strangeness, no poltergeist activity, and no apparitions, much to their great lament.

I am starting to think this reveals a fundamental characteristic Patrick Harpur’s Daimonic Reality, and classical grimoire lore, in that the Sublunar realm actively fights being intellectually domesticated.

Let me add I think Mind Mysticism magic (New Though, Chaos Magic) , I feel this is not an an issue, and those practices are applied by all. (Less instincual / dharma / soul level material in them up front.)

A daimon is, by its Greek root, an Allocator of Fate. In both of their online laments for not being haunted by the spooky end of magic (here goetia or sorcery ) there is a distinct element of Fate in play here.

I am guesing they were not spooky kids, and no matter how much they want to beleive. Their Fate is still in play.

Anyway, not a big atrology guy, but in Hellenistic and Medieval astrology, a person's spirit-guide and natural calling can be identified by looking at the Oikodespotes, the Ruler of the Chart, which the primary planet ruling the Ascendant and some other aspects.

If this planet was Saturn (ruling Capricorn or Aquarius) or Mars (ruling Scorpio and Aries), or if Saturn was heavily configured to the Ascendant, the person’s life-path was bound to the Underworld, boundary-lines, unseen debts, and the dead. All the fun, spooky, weird-ass chthonic Sublunar (downward facing magic, I sometimes call it) some people are called to do.

This natal allotment of fate is probably what is being considered in Aphorism 5 from Turner's 1655 edition of the Arbatel de Magia Veterum:
"A man that is a true Magician, is brought forth a Magician from his mothers womb: others, who do give themselves to this office, are unhappie."

 

[Firetree]

If someone demands rigorous empirical proof before accepting an internal impression, their rational mind will always provide an alternative explanation. For a skeptic, keeping Tarot or intuition in the box of "harmless psychological entertainment" feels safe. It preserves a predictable, material universe where the mind remains entirely in control.

No you have it all wrong ( that is, what I am meaning and referring to you have wrong ) its actually a valid working magical tradition and something I got real value from ;

examples ; The magical school of 'Scientific illuminism '

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Look at the banner ;

I mean .... Crowley ! How could you miss something like this ? Regardless of opinions he DOES stand as a major modern influence !

or this ;

etc .

The rational provides alternative explanations ... except when it cant and avenues of exploration fail ... then you are left with a realisation that the other 'faculties' that often fool people or delude them have been dealt with .

For me it works fine . Check my post record , I dont think many would say I dont have strong practice and belief in magick . Also I have had real lasting beneficial effect from it .

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 11:28 PM

Conversely, a naive minds is prone to illusion that satisfies shallow desires while obscuring deeper insights.

Exactly ! Hence , why this tradition was developed .

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 11:29 PM

The dilemma of what we do.

No... not 'dilemma' ; ' Thelemma '

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 11:36 PM

It's a bit of a chicken and the egg thing. For one thing, you are not conscious of all your beliefs. You do not really know everything you truly "believe" until you come face to face with something that evokes doubt or fear within you. Even then, you don't really know the strength of your own convictions, you just think you do. It's the illusion of consciousness, it makes us forget that consciousness is just a tiny island in a vast ocean of the unconscious, and we dont really know what else there could be within us. Until we encounter things that trigger these latent parts of ourselves, they go unnoticed. All we have are our working assumptions.

Once you think about it like that, there really is no true distinction between doing something you believe in and doing something you dont bekieve in. Even your evaluation of the result, whether it "worked" or not, depends on your self awareness and level of consciousness. Perhaps it "worked" according to intentions that you didnt knkw you had which were in your unconscious, driving your behavior? You see?

So rather than agonize over belief and results, I see it largely the way Peter explains it in Liber Null. Belief is a tool. You believe something because the very act of believing in something aligns you to certain forces in a certain way, and being aligned in such a manner produces changes in your life that you choose to believe are beneficial. Again, it really depends on the level of self awareness a person has. It's almost like a high functioning state of pseudo-psychosis, where you are in a negotiation with the psychosis rather than just lost in it.

My main judgement criteria, then, is the spiritual experience. Because sometimes there can be results I was not conscious that I wanted, I have to be ready for anything. I never know exactly what will happen.

Another way of putting it is like this.

Imagine you are a farmer growing crops. You know what to do. You do everything right. You do this every year. But sometimes you get a big crop and sometimes you barely get by. You're never in control of every variable, there can be bad weather, a disease, anything can happen. If you just assumed that "farming doesn't work" simply because you had a bad harvest, or when you were first starting out you had a series of bad harvests because you were still learning, you'd be wrong.

Wonderful analogy ! Also I do 'hermetic gardening' a small scale of what I did as a job for a time ; preparations maker for biodynamic agricylture , it uses basically 'magick' and is a type of 'earth alchemy' and relies heavily on astological timing ; all types but spcifically moon saturn opposition and about a dozen different types of Moon cycles

Spoiler

some of these from an AI summary ;

1. Synodic Cycle (Waxing and Waning)

• • What it is: The 29.5-day phase from New Moon to Full Moon and back.
  • How it is used: The waxing phase (growing moon to full moon) increases moisture and upward energy, making it ideal for planting above-ground crops and applying liquid fertilizers. The waning phase (shrinking moon) pushes energy downward, favoring root crops, cultivating, and harvesting. [
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    ]

2. Sidereal Cycle (Constellations and Elements)

• • What it is: The moon's path through the 12 zodiac constellations, grouped into four classical elements. [
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    ]
  • How it is used: Each element dictates which part of the plant is stimulated:
    • Earth signs (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn): Root days (best for carrots, beets, and root care).
    • Water signs (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces): Leaf days (best for lettuce, spinach, and watering/composting).
    • Air/Light signs (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius): Flower days (best for broccoli, flowers, and herbs).
    • Fire signs (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius): Fruit/Seed days (best for tomatoes, grains, and fruit harvesting). [
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3. Ascending and Descending Cycle (Tropical Rhythm)

• • What it is: The daily vertical movement of the moon appearing higher (ascending) or lower (descending) against the horizon over a 27.3-day period.
  • How it is used: Ascending time acts like spring/summer where sap rises, making it ideal for harvesting above-ground crops and grafting. Descending time acts like autumn/winter where forces move into the earth, making it ideal for root growth, transplanting, spreading compost, and applying soil preps like horn manure. [
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4. Apsidal Cycle (Perigee and Apogee)

• • What it is: The point where the moon is closest to Earth (perigee) or farthest away (apogee).
  • How it is used: Biodynamic calendars mark perigee (and lunar nodes) as restricted or grayed-out times. The intense gravitational force at perigee can disrupt delicate seed germination and growth, so farmers generally avoid major planting or sowing during these windows. [
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still you can get it wrong , either with lack of knowledge (ie do not do any type of agriculture when Moon crosses equator , also a common traditon in a lot of Asian traditional agriculture ) , or as you say with 'random unknowns '

some say BDA is rubbish , other professional farmers swear by it, and say it saved their farm from ruin ( from using past bad modern mainstream practices )

 

[MorganBlack]

It's the illusion of consciousness, it makes us forget that consciousness is just a tiny island in a vast ocean of the unconscious, and we dont really know what else there could be within us. Until we encounter things that trigger these latent parts of ourselves, they go unnoticed. All we have are our working assumptions.

Nice. I don't want to overstate the Sublunar as your Fate too much, but that reminds me...

Carl Jung writes in The Red Book:

"The way is within us, but not in us, nor in our gods, but in the path. The path is the goal. Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."