Do results matter more than belief in occult practice?

[fedighassen]

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?

 

[Dyn Hysbys]

If there are no results, then why practice?
I'd say results are the entire point of doing this.

 

[Calcinatio]

I'd say I judge it using all four of the options you provided. If you don't believe you'll get, or could get, results, why try in the first place?
But also, once you get into a practice, some devotion or rhythm or whatever, it's sometimes less about "I believe this" and more like chipping away at something like an artifact or a story you can see..
Once you start getting some kinda of consistent results and keep doing it, you usually lose whatever doubt you had hanging over you about the practice. Not that that means now you believe in all the lore available.
At least that's how things went kinda back and forth with me towards the beginnings.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

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?

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.

 

[HoldAll]

Chaos magic involves exploiting belief as a tool which in theory affords you the opportunity to use any system to your advantage. The philosophical rationale is that any belief is basically random, just as your personality - if you'd grown up under different circumstances or had different aversions and predilections, you'd hold different convictions, denied or affirmed the existence of god/the afterlife, clung to the One and Only Unassailable Truth, laughed at the very idea of that, etc. While I agree in principle, I've found it as good as impossible to accomplish in practice. Some belief systems I find so abhorrent I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole. For example, do I really want to try out the mindset of a fundie Christian for a week as an exercise as Peter J. Carroll recommends? Thanks, but no thanks. The same goes for systems that look implausible, have logical holes in them, or run contrary to historical facts.

However, what I'm able to manage is using a system I may not be wholly convinced of but somehow find appealing, so for the duration of the ritual, I'll be 100% confident that it'll work, which I think is more important than adopting an arbitrary belief system for a specific purpose. If I get results, my belief in that system will be strengthened; if I don't, I may discard it unless I have a suspicion that I made a mistake.

Another aspect is the incredible potency of narratives and tradition. Some systems have such a powerful backstory that you can't help being in awe of them, for example the Greek Magical Papyri - over 1,500 years old, discovered in Egypt by an Armenian antiquities dealer in 1827, sold to various museums all over Europe, first ignored by most scholars, then rediscovered again by a younger generation of classicists, what's not to like? Some people simply find the mystique of certain magical systems compelling which keeps them going although their results may not be so great at first. Others are so infatuated with certain authors that they're completely taken in by their opinions and believe every word they write. It's all part of the magic.

What happens if you do something you don't really believe in? You're going to do it half-heartedly. It will undermine your efforts. Why perform a ritual you secretly think is futile or ludicrous? How can you believe in your success if you doubt the very premises your results are to be based on?

 

[MacLu69]

Good dreams. Proper rest, the practice of silence. The practice of silence, in particular, promotes the development of magical power and healthy teeth. Healthy teeth are essential for the accumulation of magical power. Without magical power - Engaging in occultism is not recommended.
If you are not a magician, no one will give you magical power; this is the prerogative of magical castes... Chaos magic has its own consequences. If you want to live long, it's not recommended to practice chaos magic. Mystical, mysterious forces operate there, which magicians call "them."
For example, you've successfully created a ritual or rite called the Alatyr of Power. "Them" There's a counteracting force at work, which they call magic. They're trying to disrupt it. What you've accomplished is the force of order. Therefore, you need to learn to interact with both the forces of chaos and the forces of order, that is, to be somewhere in the middle and be able to balance and regulate them...Example. Let's say you've cleaned up a forest somewhere—you've released fish into a lake and restored the trees and bushes. A resisting force called the force of chaos has begun to act—it's already become a mini-ecosystem. And then, a few days later, a garbage truck arrives and tries to dump the trash in the very spot where you've cleaned up. These so-called forces—they—let's say we run up to the driver and say, "What are you doing?" But he's unconscious, having driven several kilometers from his spot. And he doesn't remember how he got there. That's how the force works—they—through the people around us—try to knock us down with the forces of chaos.

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If you, while practicing magic, have moved some worlds into some probabilities of reality or versions of your life, you can find your way back by calling upon the chains of the great teachers of humanity - for example, by quoting this mantra You can return back to your world
–AUM-KRISHNA-RATHA-RAMA-SITA-CHRISTOS- EVENTA-KALKI-AVATARA-MAITREYA-MESSIAH-FORAM...