{"id":10680,"date":"2018-08-19T03:00:42","date_gmt":"2018-08-19T09:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?p=10680"},"modified":"2018-08-14T18:05:51","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T00:05:51","slug":"knowing-through-practice-experience-and-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2018\/08\/knowing-through-practice-experience-and-results.html","title":{"rendered":"Knowing Through Practice, Experience, and Results"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Last weekend an atheist left a very good comment<\/a> where he took issue with my use of the word \u201cto know.\u201d The conversation went like this.<\/p>\n

John: \u201cI\u2019ve always known the Divine has a feminine side\u201d<\/p>\n

MNb: \u201cUnfortunately I only can guess what you mean with the word \u2018to know\u2019 here. But I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s not the same as what I mean with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

John: \u201cI use \u2018to know\u2019 somewhat hesitantly here, likely for the same reasons behind your comment. There is a qualitative difference between \u2018to believe intensely\u2019 and \u2018to be able to prove objectively.\u2019 But I have no other word for the kind of deep, intuitive, experiential understanding that something is true even though I can\u2019t prove it objectively.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then the next day, I led the Sunday Service at Denton UU where I spoke on Becoming Invincible: Overcoming Fear Through Reason and Experience<\/a>. Here\u2019s a key excerpt:<\/p>\n

Becoming invincible begins with reason \u2026 but reason alone is not enough \u2026 This knowledge does not come from reading books or even from diligent study. It comes from years and years of dedicated and consistent spiritual practice: meditation, prayer, and devotion.<\/p>\n

Or, it comes from a one-time first-hand ecstatic religious experience so powerful it rewires your consciousness, changes your foundational assumptions about what is and isn\u2019t possible, and basically turns your life upside down.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I didn\u2019t go into details. A UU Sunday Service is not the place to discuss entheogens and the Headless Rite \u2013 particularly not in August when lots of people are church shopping.<\/p>\n

Is it a contradiction \u2013 or even an outright error \u2013\u00a0 to say we \u201cknow\u201d in a religious context? I don\u2019t think so or I wouldn\u2019t use it. But it is a hard question that likely rises to the level of a mystery.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Believing is not the same as knowing<\/h1>\n

I grew up in a fundamentalist church where I constantly heard the preacher saying \u201cI know this is true!\u201d and \u201cyou can know this is true!\u201d Meanwhile, I was biting my tongue and screaming inside my head \u201cno, you believe<\/em> it\u2019s true!\u201d Sacred texts and church doctrines may be deeply meaningful to followers of that religion, but that doesn\u2019t make them factually true.<\/p>\n

A quote of dubious origins<\/a> often attributed to Mark Twain says \u201cIt ain\u2019t what you don\u2019t know that gets you into trouble. It\u2019s what you know for sure that just ain\u2019t so.\u201d In an era of fake news and of the dismissal of inconvenient facts as fake, it\u2019s important to know the difference between facts, theories, opinions, and lies.<\/p>\n

We can never know the true nature of the Gods in the same way we know truth of the Pythagorean Theorem. But that doesn\u2019t mean we can know nothing about Them.<\/p>\n

Hold loosely but practice deeply<\/h1>\n

There is no certainty in matters of religion. If you must have religious certainty, your only honest option is to become an agnostic. But many of us \u2013 myself included \u2013 find agnosticism unfulfilling.<\/p>\n

The solution is to hold our beliefs loosely. Never assume we know it all, never forget that we might be wrong, and most importantly, always remain open to new evidence and new lines of thinking. Our polarized political debates have shown that when most people are confronted with clear evidence that their beliefs are wrong, they deny the evidence and dig in defensively. Their fear of change (and their fear of admitting that they were wrong) is greater than their desire to actually be right. We must do better \u2013 hold loosely.<\/p>\n

But while we hold a belief, we act as though it is absolutely true. Do you believe the Gods are real, distinct, individual beings? Then act as though They are. Speak to Them individually, pour offerings to Them individually, and think of Them as individuals, not as \u201caspects\u201d or \u201cfaces\u201d or some other metaphor that assumes or implies that They\u2019re really all part of one God.<\/p>\n

Do you believe in magic? Then stop trying to come up with a \u201crational\u201d explanation for it, accept that it\u2019s real, and start practicing magic as deeply as you can.<\/p>\n

If you later find enough evidence to refute your beliefs, then change them. But while you hold them, act as though they\u2019re true. You may be surprised how deep that approach can take you.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mundane knowledge is still required<\/h1>\n

Like the problematic Mark Twain quote, the problem with those Baptist preachers was that much of what they \u201cknew\u201d was demonstrably false. The Earth is a lot more than 6000 years old. Noah\u2019s flood is the cultural memory of localized devastations at the end of the last ice age, not a worldwide event.<\/p>\n

Pagans aren\u2019t exempt from this. It\u2019s only been in the past 30 years or so that the majority of Pagans have understood that nine million witches weren\u2019t burned in the \u201cburning times\u201d (it was under 100,000, and the vast majority of them weren\u2019t witches). I still occasionally run into people who claim to be a \u201chereditary Druid\u201d with roots in antiquity. We have to know our own history.<\/p>\n

If you want to read omens and auguries in Nature, you have to know what\u2019s normal animal and plant behavior. Yes, sometimes a crow is the Morrigan, but most times it\u2019s a crow doing its own things for its own reasons.<\/p>\n

Ground yourself in ordinary science and history and don\u2019t pretend you \u201cknow\u201d something that isn\u2019t really true.<\/p>\n

Foundational assumptions control your conclusions\u2026<\/h1>\n

When materialists scream \u201cyou have no evidence!\u201d what they mean is \u201cyou have no evidence that aligns with my assumptions that nothing exists except for matter and the interactions of matter.\u201d Evidence that doesn\u2019t fit those assumptions is ignored or rationalized away. If you assume that the Gods are abstractions and metaphors then Odin could appear bodily before you and all you\u2019d do is wonder why that odd old man doesn\u2019t have a glass eye instead of a patch.<\/p>\n

Our experiences are undeniably real. Our foundational assumptions control which interpretations we will consider and which ones we will reject out of hand.<\/p>\n

Holding loosely but practicing deeply allows us to \u201cbracket\u201d our foundational assumptions and suspend them temporarily. We don\u2019t have to suddenly change our thinking about the nature of reality, we just have to be open to the possibility that reality may be bigger than we\u2019ve always been told.<\/p>\n

And then go experiment.<\/p>\n

\u2026But results add up<\/h1>\n

James Bond creator Ian Fleming had one of his characters say \u201cOnce is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it\u2019s enemy action.\u201d Fleming served in World War II \u2013 he knew what he was talking about. If you jump at every noise you\u2019ll never get anything done. But eventually, it becomes clear that something\u2019s there and you\u2019d better deal with it.<\/p>\n

Do you have a need where magic would be helpful? Something you just can\u2019t get through ordinary effort? Or something that\u2019s so important you want all the help you can get? Then work magic. If you don\u2019t know any other method, use sigil magic<\/a> \u2013 it\u2019s very simple and it\u2019s very effective. Don\u2019t think magic is real? Doesn\u2019t matter \u2013 magic works on action, not on faith.<\/p>\n

The first time your spell brings results, you\u2019re likely to dismiss it as a coincidence. The second time you\u2019ll dismiss it as confirmation bias. Throw in a time or two when it doesn\u2019t work (likely because you chose the wrong target \u2013 more in that in the coming days) and your materialistic assumptions are still firmly in place.<\/p>\n

But after the ninth or tenth or fiftieth time, those assumptions start to shift. The results add up. Now it\u2019s easier to assume that magic is real than to assume it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

After years of devotion, including multiple ecstatic experiences, it\u2019s easier to assume the Gods and spirits and ancestors are real than to assume they\u2019re not. If you follow your own experiences, the way you see the world will change.<\/p>\n

Knowing through intuition<\/h1>\n

I told the commenter \u201cI\u2019ve always known the Divine has a feminine side.\u201d This wasn\u2019t an experimentally verified result. It wasn\u2019t a logical inference. It was intuition \u2013 something I knew was true in the depth of my soul.<\/p>\n

Sometimes intuition is your subconscious spotting cause and effect at a level your conscious mind ignores. Sometimes it\u2019s the whispers of Gods and spirits. Sometimes it\u2019s something we can\u2019t explain even to ourselves, but there it is.<\/p>\n

We have to be careful relying on intuition. Sometimes it tells us what we wish was true. Sometimes it tells us what we fear might be true. Many times it simply repeats what we\u2019ve always been told is true.<\/p>\n

But when we know ourselves, and when we practice good discernment<\/a>, our intuition points us toward truths we would otherwise never see.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But do we really know<\/em>?<\/h1>\n

Here\u2019s what I know, by any standard of knowing there is:<\/p>\n

When I work magic, I get favorable results far more often than I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The more I honor the Gods the more experiences I have of Them, and the deeper those experiences get.<\/p>\n

My life is more meaningful, more connected, less fearful, and happier \u2013 though to be honest, not any easier \u2013 than before I started this Pagan journey.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s enough evidence to convince me that I\u2019m doing something right. So I\u2019m going to keep doing it.<\/p>\n

What does it mean to know? Is it to be certain, in the way we can be certain the Pythagorean Theorem is true? Is it to be able to win arguments with atheists and fundamentalists? If that\u2019s the standard then we can know nothing in the realm of religion. But experience shows that certainty is not necessary.<\/p>\n

And at this point, I\u2019m convinced it\u2019s all true.<\/p>\n

No, I can\u2019t convert atheists or fundamentalists. I don\u2019t need to \u2013 that\u2019s not part of my religion.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t \u201cmy truth\u201d \u2013 this is \u201ctruth as I understand it.\u201d Those aren\u2019t the same things, and that\u2019s important. When people say truth is relative and this is \u201ctheir\u201d truth, 99% of the time they\u2019re trying to deflect criticism \u2013 they\u2019re not being open to new evidence and new experiences. \u201cTruth as I understand it\u201d says \u201cthis is where I am right now, but that may change.\u201d<\/p>\n

I know magic works. I know the Gods are real. I\u2019m open to someone proving me wrong, but I don\u2019t see how that can happen.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s a very good place to be.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first time your spell brings results, you\u2019re likely to dismiss it as a coincidence. The second time you\u2019ll dismiss it as confirmation bias. But after the ninth or tenth or fiftieth time, the results add up. Now it\u2019s easier to assume that magic is real than to assume it\u2019s not. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":10689,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1101],"tags":[534,1923,1920,4,5],"class_list":["post-10680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-foundations-and-context","tag-epistemology","tag-ian-fleming","tag-knowing","tag-pagan","tag-paganism"],"yoast_head":"\nKnowing Through Practice, Experience, and Results<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The first time your spell brings results, you\u2019re likely to dismiss it as a coincidence. 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