I remember asking, through a haze of trance and candlelight, "how do you believe in anything?"
It sounds accusatory, or skeptical - it was neither. It was desperate. It was pleading. It was, and is, a question central to the journey I'm on, however broadly you'd like to draw that map.
How do you believe in anything?
I'm not referring to belief in deities, specifically. That particular question has always seemed interesting, but generally irrelevant. My default cognitive relativism allows me to view personal relationship with deity as exactly that - one hundred percent personal. I accept your UPG without question, without hesitating - there is little reason for me to do otherwise.
That same cognitive relativism allows me to answer most questions of belief with the same answer: "Sure, maybe." You might say this sounds like an ideal operating paradigm for a magician, and you're probably quite right.
The problem extends beyond this hypothetical acceptance of, but reluctance to commit to, metaphysical concepts.
How do you believe in anything?
The problem extends to difficulties with object constancy, which is a developmental milestone passed by most lucky folks between the ages of two and three, when they realize that just because a parent is out of view, this does not mean they have ceased to exist.
People who lack the expected skills in the area of object constancy can experience overwhelming anxiety when confronted with solitude. This can manifest in obsessive or otherwise problematic behavior.
I don't tend to call people ten times per day. I also don't assume they've forgotten who I am if they've been away for a few days. I experience this particular concept with the nuance borne of tedious self-analysis that permeates most of my internal world.
In early journals I called it emotional amnesia or lack of continuity of consciousness. It meant that I perceived moments and distinct events without causative relationship. It meant that even though I knew something was important, theoretically, it never felt important until it felt immediate. It meant that even though my friend left six hours ago, and everything between us was peachy, I can't feel that everything is peachy now. Right now, I am pretty convinced that she hates me and always has.
Tasks are relegated to an unimportant status by their lack of urgency. People are convicted of apathy by their absence.
I know that I possess a certain skill in the moment in which I am using it, or receiving positive feedback. Outside of those situations, I have no proof. I have no evidence. I have no faith.
How do you believe in anything?
I don't, really. I read cards for a fundraiser a few weeks ago, and halfway through the evening remembered what it felt like to have some confidence in my ability to do intuitive readings.
I believe in the effectiveness of energy work when I am doing it, when I can feel it, in that moment. I believe in magick when I'm hip-deep in a ritual.
And in between? In between I am floating in a distinct lack of motivation. I am struggling to lay the foundations for future work. I am desperately trying to remember why one evening of being by myself is not the same thing as having no friends.
My daily meditation and yoga practices, respectively, fail to take off due to an inability to connect this moment (in which I say I want to do these things) with the moment in which I need to make the decision to meditate.
How do you believe in anything?
Understanding the connection between the lack of spiritual conviction and this particular bit of psychology has been a revelation, and I don't have those very often. Sometimes I think I've had all the revelations one is allowed in a lifetime.
But whatever else is true, I do have a magickal practice and a metaphysical worldview. Excessive relativism allows me to embrace non-linear time when it's useful. Lack of object constancy facilitates that process.
How does this moment connect to that one? How does this motivation connect to that? How does causality function?
How about this: any the fuck way I want!
If I don't perceive logical connections between A and B and C, and we've all acknowledged that the line is an illusion anyway, I can connect the dots in whichever expedient fashion I prefer. If nothing else, I've saved myself the painful deconstruction of linear causality that most people have to undertake before they can draw their own lines, webs, spirals, or starfish.
If I want a connection between my current desire to have a daily meditation practice and actually having a daily meditation practice, I can draw that connection. If I want to feel a connection between the last time I talked to you and the way I'll feel about you when we're not talking, I can draw that line.
Magick and madness each greatly facilitate the success of the other. I hope to post more about how this plays out ritually in the near future. Yarn and a calendar, maybe?
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