August 19, 2007

• Axioms of Magic: Laws I & II

  Belief = Energy

  Energy +/- Willpower = Reality

  Reality…. you’re soaking in it

  All rituals boil down to a belief in a goal. If you cannot believe in the possibility of your goal, you will never reach it. Rituals serve to focus the will on the goal, get the thoughts in the proper order to harness the energy generated by belief. This is why spells work for some people and not others. This is both the power of positive thinking and psychosomatic phenomena. We are just as likely to believe ourselves into a bad situation as a good one.

  Ritual is a mental tool used to focus the will on a desired reality, as opposed to accepting whatever comes your way.

  spellwork

  prayer

  affirmation

  meditation

  ceremony

  We use these tools of belief to create sufficient energy to achieve goals. Our belief in the possibility of our goals harnesses this energy and forces it into a channel. Doubt in oneself or one’s goals disrupts the flow of energy, almost guaranteeing failure. Belief creates energy, but without Will, it is just energy. It will follow the path of least resistance, consumed by channels already formed by past beliefs.

  Belief and reality influence each other. What we believe to be real, is real. The more people believe in a thing, the more real it becomes. I am not a Christian, but the Christian god and angels exists because people believe in them. The same goes for the devil and demons of the Christian hell. All gods, in all the pantheons, exist and are dependent upon our belief, shaping themselves based upon our perceptions. We sustain them and lesser spirits with belief. Even to say you do not believe in something contributes energy to its existence.

  Many lesser spirits were once gods in their own right until their worshipers were subjugated or destroyed. There are two theories regarding fairies in Ireland which indicate that some were once deities and others evolved from the deified dead. As belief in the fairies diminished, so too did their stature. This is where the belief in pixies and brownies and other small fair folk came from.

  Reality influences belief and vice versa. If a belief is strong enough, it can alter reality, but for the most part, it is reality that is stronger. We exist in a base universe upon which we all subconsciously agree. In order for really big changes to occur in the base reality, many people must unite in their beliefs or one person must convince others of the validity of a belief. But small, individual changes are also possible, and the more probably they are, the more likely they will occur.

  *The Law of Worldviews*
  The world we perceive is actually a mixture of the nominal world (the Tao, the objective reality that is unknowable but which underlies all that we think we know) and ourselves (the subjective). Changing your worldview does not change the eternal, real world, but it does change the world you perceive. That is, changing your worldview makes real changes in the world which is real to us. Because there are an infinite number of ways to perceive the world, there are also an infinite number of worlds we may assemble without awareness.

  The true underlying reality is unknowable to us as long as we retain our worldview of separateness and self. You can become one with the universe but you cannot step back and observe it, because you are in it. You cannot observe a phenomenon without altering it by your mode of perception. There is no such thing as an independent observer. You participate in creating the world by perceiving it.

  **The Law of Personal Universes** Every sentient being lives in and quite possibly creates a unique universe which can never be 100% identical to that lived in by another. So- called “reality” is a matter of consensus opinions.

  **The Law of Infinite Universes** The total number of universes into which all possible combinations of existing phenomena could be organized is infinite. Anything is possible, though some things are more probable than others and so are easier to enact.

  According to this law of magic, we live in a world of our own creation as well as an underlying or “real” world. Both worlds are real in as much as both affect us and our well-being, but the world you create through your perceptions is constantly changing based upon both the real world and your perception of it. Only your own personal world may be altered willfully. A good example of this is the use of positive affirmations. By convincing yourself of the possibility of change, you bring that change into being.

  True immersion in the *real* world would remove any desire to change the world. You might ask why you cannot live in the *real* world, and I would have to say you can… but it is the world we go to when we die. So, you can visit for short periods, but not stay, unless you are ready to move from this plane to the next and leave your body behind. If you should manage to dissolve the illusion of separation from the nominal universe, you lose the ability to observe or alter because you have acknowledged your part in it. Since you cannot live in this *real* world all the time, affirmations, meditations, and spellwork are still valuable tools to reshape the subjective world you must live in. Attempting to alter reality immediately removes the observer to the mutable universe of perception and creation. It is only in the universes of our finite perception that changes may be put into effect because they are mutable, warped copies of the underlying universe which exists independent of our thoughts and perceptions.

  Because the number of possibilities in any individual universe are infinite, so to are the types of phenomena you can cause through the application of will. However, since some phenomena are more probable than others, some will require less energy should you attempt to put them into effect. For instance, for argument’s sake, it would be easier to create a pig than a flying pig.

  It is also difficult though not impossible for two (or more) people to agree upon the same phenomena. Creation of phenomena is easier with one observer (the self) and becomes successively more difficult the more (outside) observers are included. Should you manage to obtain the cooperation of other observers however, either in suspending their expectations or in focusing their wills on a joint project (through agreed upon symbolism), the bending of reality to the Will becomes easier than with only one observer/magi.

  The Law of Worldviews is a valuable tool toward understanding the nominal universe and affecting the subjective universes of individuals. Application of this Law allows the creation or dispersal of energy in the form of phenomena through our selective perceptions and acceptance of possibility. If you believe you can see and communicate with fairies, angels, spirits, etc, then you will be able to by application of that worldview. If others share that worldview, they will be able to function partially within your world, and you within theirs. Shared perception creates a shared world through which you may affect each other. The shared world will become more real based upon the number of believers in that world. Thus if three out of four people believe enough in the presence of a spirit, they may be able to empower that entity to appear or cause phenomena the fourth non-believer may experience. It is not that we create a non-human entity (though it is possible to do so), but that we allow ourselves the option of perceiving it where others may prefer not to allow it into their personal worldview.

  The application of this Law is limited only by your imagination.

  *II Law of Attention*
  The more one seeks to support a given law, conclusion, or worldview, the more evidence one will find. Worldviews have inertia. Since we create our world each moment, we are constantly maintaining our worldview. This is done by means of a recursive internal dialogue of words and symbols with which we constantly edit our perceptions. By rearranging our attention, we rearrange our worldview.

  This law may be viewed as an extension of the Law of Worldviews, or something entirely separate. On the one hand, by seeking to validate your worldview, you may be creating the evidence you seek. Your subconscious provides the symbolism and signs to which your conscious mind responds. A kind of synchronicity occurs between you subconscious and conscious mind which results in coincidental observations. These observations make it seem that what you believe is true or increases your belief that something is true.

  On the other hand, by simply desiring a worldview to be true, your mind begins to discard any illusions between you and its validation. In other words, you see more evidence because you are no longer disregarding it. The evidence may have existed all along, but until you were ready to accept it, it remained hidden from you.

  In the long run, this Law is primarily good for strengthening your worldview. By stringing along events and symbols in a “logical” fashion, you can prove a worldview exists, and in doing so, make changing a previous worldview easier. What I mean is, if you are attempting to alter your current worldview to a new one, attempting to change your reality for something else, then use of the second Law will facilitate that change.

  This law deals specifically with divination and the interpretation of omens and portents as well as the use of sigils and symbolic systems.

  • 5:10 pm
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