The Usefulness of Doubt
A lot of books on magic place a great emphasis on belief. Rock solid belief in magic, we are sometimes told, is the main ingredient in successful sorcery. If we believe it is so, we can make it so. In Chaos magic theory this was taken even further where belief was treated as a force unto itself that could be easily switched from object to object. Mr Spock was easily as useful as Mercury we are told, if we generate enough belief.
Belief also gets used as a really lame excuse by witches and mages who are too lazy to study. No need to learn the traditions of herbal lore before making that charm, “it only matters whether you believe in it”. The rituals and tools and formula that have been painstakingly preserved for centuries? These, we are told are merely props for the power of belief.
Now me, I don’t place a lot of stock in beliefs. The magic I do and teach works whether you believe in it or not. Modern religion is much more about what you believe in, than what you do. Sadly people also bring this attitude in to magic. I recently suggested that someone make an offering to local spirits. They informed me that it wouldn’t work because they didn’t believe in nature spirits like that. They were kind of shocked and I think maybe a little offended when I suggested that the spirits didn’t care about whether he believed in them or not, they just want the offering. He still went ahead and made the offerings and lo – the desired outcome came quickly.
Do you need to believe in Hekate to get her to answer your call? Not anymore than you need to believe in your car to get it to take you to work. But won’t she be offended if she is invoked by someone that doesn’t have strong faith? No. Honestly, I can’t think of anything more narcissistic than thinking that a god or spirit is worried about what you think of them.
So, no, I am not a big believer in the usefulness of belief. I am however a fan of doubt.
I think that occultists could use a little more doubt in their practice. Even notice that you don’t see a lot of blog posts about spells and magical experiments that don’t work out? Part of the reason for that is that we tend not to doubt that we are getting the results we ask for. We call a spirit, and get some kind of response, we instantly declare it a success. It’s rare that I see an occultist question whether they got the spirit they asked for, or whether they even genuinely made contact at all and are not just fantasizing.
Very often I see occultists taking synchronicity and gematric coincidences as proof of their work and direction. I do not often see occultists question whether they might be buying into a texas sharpshooter fallacy or suffering a confirmation bias.
Doubt has served me well in my practice. In the 90’s I did a series of enochian workings that sparked a fairly intense and detailed spiritual communication. The spirit had apocalyptic information, it insisted that I write it and share it, it insisted that I was a prophet. I was all kinds of excited to have my ego stroked and to join the ranks of people that were channeling Thelemic Libers, but decided to take a step back and take a look at it in a month with a cooler head. I asked myself, is the information useful? NO. Is there any chance that this might be incorrect? YES. I decided not to do what the spirit said, which is good because all the predictions were wrong.
In 2006 I received a few teachings from Hekate that were meant to go into the Hekate work that I have been collecting since 2001. These specific visions related to a very sexualized form of Hekate. Unlike most of the rest of the teachings, this had no root in her historical practice. While I am not reconstructing anything, I had, up until that point, had things I could point to as roots or historical confirmations. Rather than accept this communication, I let it sit for a bit and did some purification I then came back to it months later and determined it to be an outside influence – mostly from my own mind.
I think direct experience is great. It is the reason I do what I do. But some people escape the trap of placing blind faith in tradition only to fall into the trap of placing blind faith in their own experiences. A little doubt can be a good thing for the magician to hold on to.
