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