DISCUSSION: The Role of Faith/Belief in Your Pagan Path

[Xiao Rong]

There are some very interesting conversations about faith going on in another thread, and I'd like to give it some space to develop properly.

Pagans often discuss how their paths are defined by "orthopraxy" ("right action") over "orthodoxy" ("right belief"), emphasizing that it is what we do, not what we believe, that is important. This is often a reaction to the Christian environments many of us grew up in, where faith (often defined as "belief in the absence of evidence", usually in God or Jesus) was prized above all else. Witches sometimes talk about not needing to believe, because "we know".

Yet faith still plays an important role in some Pagan paths, and I'd love to hear everyone's opinions on the subject. Some questions to get us started:

• What does faith and/or belief mean to you?
  What do you put your faith in?
  How important is it in your practice?
  How do you gain faith/belief, and how does it relate to experience or evidence (or lack thereof)?
  Do you ever struggle with having faith or believing?

[HopefulChild]

Just being pedantic faith is defined as confidence, or trust, in a person, or belief, in the absence of proof.

I don't use the word faith very often. I don't feel that I have any. And I've spent the majority of my life wondering if that is an indication that I am somehow broken, or if Occam's razor applies and there is no such thing as faith.
I'm no closer to a personal answer today than I was 30 years ago.

I am a proponent of thought form, and the collective un/consciousness. Ideas and thoughts are a form of energy distinct from general electrical patterns and frequencies found in nature. That having been measured repeatedly and consistently by science for the last 50 years. We have reached an understanding of the complexities of the values and variables in the electrical signals our bodies make and use to the point that we can almost pull clear images from a sleeping persons dreams, and we can imitate the signals made by cochlea well enough to restore hearing to someone who has lost it, and even black and white versions of sight to a person who has lost that.

15 years ago, I would have been willing to argue on the premise of electromagnetic interference alone that the concept of faith was just an imbalance in frequencies of impulses in a specific part of the brain. Knowing now that those results were not only inaccurate but besieged from the get go with intellectual dishonesty means that I had to go back and review my model again. That happened years ago and is what helped drive me forward in what I had long believed was an adventure that had reached an impasse.
Kind of like being on a hunt for a great white whale only to find yourself trapped in the desert.

A thought just occurred to me. I believe in the existence of my soul. But at the same time I don't consider that faith. It's just a logical extrapolation of other things that I know and can prove.
So is that on it's own a form of faith?
I can't prove the soul by isolating it in a jar and pointing directly to it, but I can point to a 300 year string of discoveries and verifiable results that lead me to a conclusion that a soul is not only possible, but more probable than improbable.

Obviously I can't answer any more of those questions.. So I'll leave off here.

Thank you for this thread.

[HopefulChild]

Maybe I should change my name to "Thread-Killer" lol

[bluejay_1919]

Maybe I should change my name to "Thread-Killer" lol

Haha, that's kind of funny..."thread killer"-

On a positive, you are really full of information!!

[Imperious]

What does faith and/or belief mean to you?

The intellectual problem with orthopraxy versus orthodoxy is, essentially, that your beliefs will govern your actions. Sometimes those beliefs are absolutely instinctual, just "the way you are", where other beliefs can be a result of social influence or community upbringing. It's probably over simplifying, yet roughly accurate, to say that beliefs are "things you generally accept to be true".

To a certain extent, it's worthwhile pointing out the difference between faith and what I generally term "blind faith", purely by virtue of the fact that one is good and the other is bad. Faith, heuristically speaking, is a concept that allows you to plan or act depending on what you believe will happen, without ever knowing. If I, for example, set up a dinner party for my friends and they say they'll come, it's entirely reasonable to believe that they will... Even if a couple end up not making it.

Magically, belief forms a natural part of what witches and warlocks get up to. As I mentioned in the other thread, a working should be specific in detailing the problem you might have, rather than prescribing a solution. Due to financial difficulties, one witch might ask for financial relief and let faith, plus the balance factor, provide the solution. That solution comes in the form of locally imposed rent controls, a drop in local/income tax or a consolidatory loan offer at a surprisingly good rate, thus saving the witch money in that way.

Another witch has no faith, prescribes a solution in asking for more money, and the balance factor doesn't level it out.

Now, obviously, it's worth pointing out that the faith I'm describing has a catch - namely, you need to ditch it when the results don't outweight the efforts. All faith, or beliefs, should be a part of a functioning, and largely successful, world view. If you're doing things that don't work, and have a miserable success rate, then you're moving into "blind faith" or habit.

At that point, it's time for a review.

What do you put your faith in?

Ultimately, things that work.

I put faith in people who don't let me down, practices that mete out success (both magical and mundane), and my own nature when an important decision needs to be made. These things all have high batting averages, and it's reasonable to lose faith when that average starts to tumble. I think too many people are confused by the notion that you have to have faith no matter what, when that concept is demonstrably untrue.

How important is it in your practice?

It's vital, for reasons cited above. Without faith, I don't believe you can make magic work at all.

How do you gain faith/belief, and how does it relate to experience or evidence (or lack thereof)?

I'd suggest that faith is built up over a period of time or a series of events. We need to be clear with what we mean by "evidence" or "proof", as one person's evidence is another person's coincidence. Just over a decade ago, two of my friends and I were involved in a local paranormal group. Over several investigations, we learned that the testimony of one individual was always worth less than the others because of his tendency to exaggerate. He ruined a great many control tests, purely by virtue of the fact that he outright believed in the existence of ghosts, and applied whatever he saw into that belief.

Let's not forget that Nietzsche himself believed that everyone does this; rather than being purely objective, we start an investigation with a belief and then look for evidence to support that belief. Hell, we could argue that one of the most important scholars to modern Witchcraft, Margaret Murray, was guilty of exactly this type of bias.

If you ask a friend to do something for you ten times, and they do it ten times, then faith in that friend is justified.

If you ask another friend to do something for you five times, and they fail all but once, I'd imagine continually believing in them is going to leave you disappointed.

Do you ever struggle with having faith or believing?

No.

So long as faith is based on a tangible record of positive results, then it's a magically positive phenomena. If you end up having faith in consistent let downs, then you're going to end up the person who believes they can catch a train 10 minutes later than when it actually departed.

[Seraphin]

What does faith and/or belief mean to you?

Faith or belief for me is practice of the mind and action. Utilizing my experiences and encounters as a prospect to seeing real magick in my life increases my awareness of magickal presence in the world. I can use challenges as catalysts to come closer to my Deities, work with my intuitive/psychic abilities, commune with nature, etc. since I extract meaning and grow from the experience.

For example, after doing a safe travel spell and decided to travel by bus, I could sit back, relax and enjoy the view. I could be free from worry, knowing and trusting that the driver is professional and knows how and where to drive safely and appropriately. If I didn't trust the driver's skill, or I thought I could drive a bus better than him, I would sit on edge the entire ride, questioning his navigation skills and driving abilities, that's a pure sign of lack of faith in your magick. In contrast, with faith in my magick, I could calmly sit on the bus, enjoy the scenery and await my final destination.

Sitting in bumper to bumper car traffic is a perfect boot camp for strengthening my faith muscles. It doesn't mean my magick didn't work just because there are obstacles in the road. Some thoughts to ponder might include:

• I must be delayed for a good reason;
• Maybe there's a danger ahead (slippery road, road accidents, rallies, etc.) and needed to slow down or possibly;
• I need time to recollect my thoughts while waiting to reach my destination.

The bottom line –- there's purpose to my slowing down and it's all good for me even if I can't readily see the logical reason behind it. Faith for me is looking beyond the limited now and knowing that I may not fully grasp the meaning or purpose of what's currently occurring.

What do you put your faith in?

I also don't find credence in people's inclination to tell others to "just have faith no matter what". I think that in order to believe, or to have faith in something, you have to experience something, like intuitive feelings, your confidence in your magick, etc. which convinces you that the thing you are to believe in would work. Proof, if you will. For example, people could tell you all day that the Flying Spaghetti Monster Deity exists, but until you see it for yourself -- that means nothing. 'Perceiving' it is experiencing it for yourself. Perceiving doesn't actually mean seeing it but sensing, discerning and understanding it -- and I think that experience is key to belief and later to faith.

How important is it in your practice?

Very significant.

How do you gain faith/belief, and how does it relate to experience or evidence (or lack thereof)?

For me, you have to be a faithful person before gaining authentic 'faith and belief'. You have to develop faithfulness and trustworthiness traits first, so to speak. Only a faithful person is capable of absolute genuine faith in my experience. Only someone whose own word is untouchable and inviolable can have faith on mental, emotional and magickal levels. Only a faithful person whose thoughts, words and works are an absolute guarantee can accept the Universe's thoughts and works with a confident and untroubled heart.

An unfaithful person, on the other hand, for me, can never have absolute faith. If his own thoughts, words and actions aren't aren't an ironclad guarantee, if it's at all possible that he might not trust his own ideas and thoughts or might not honor an utterance that emerges from his mouth or continue to do mistakes and failures over and over again, if his own thoughts, words and actions isn't an absolute fact, an inviolate reality, then how can he have faith in the thoughts and works of magick and even the works of the Universe in general? If he doesn't know the meaning of true faithfulness from his own experience, how can he have faith in magick?

Absolute faithfulness is therefore in my humble opinion the key to gain absolute faith and belief. We want to have or develop this trait or character not only because it's the right thing to do, but also because if we aren't faithful we can't have faith in our own works (mundane or magickal).

Do you ever struggle with having faith or believing?

No. I always knew without a shadow of a doubt that my magick will work, my Deities and spirit community are there, I have psychic abilities and the Universe works mysteriously scientific ; this is because I experienced personal revelation and perceived them.

For me, I'm bidden with the task of examining the question of my magick, spirit community, psychic abilities and the reality and origin of the Universe. Realizing the deep significance of these questions, I delve into them with great openness and honesty.

And if I'm convinced that the evidence – and there's plenty of it for those who wish to look – points to magickal reality, then spell weaving, crafting, etc. is the time for me to declare faith. If my Deities say that I have to celebrate this feast to honor Them, then I embrace it. Even if sometimes I don't yet understand the sacrifices They require and some rituals they demands. And in the meantime, I just strive to learn and understand whatever I can.

For those people who are struggling I always ask them, "why do you feel you are struggling?" What are you imposing upon yourself? The thing is you don't "have to" believe in something you aren't comfortable with in order to be validated. If you try to force yourself to believe in something, it will never work. Trust me, been there, done that. Until you experience something that convinces you to believe -- there's no point in forcing yourself to believe in anything.

[Imperious]

Check out the thread-killers, El Oh El.

[Xiao Rong]

When I was growing up as an atheist in a Christian community, I had a lot of people try to convert me to Christianity. I had two big stumbling blocks to believing in God, however. The first was the problem of evil ("theodicy" -- how can a good God permit suffering?). The second was the role of faith, which they generally defined as belief in the absence of all evidence, or perhaps even belief in spite of evidence. It seemed to me that faith was being used as some sort of elaborate mental test: how much cognitive dissonance can one willingly subject themselves to before cracking? I did try to believe for a while, I really did, but I needed a convincing theological framework. I read a lot of Christian theology (as much as a little 13-year-old brain could handle, anyways), but none of them made a convincing case for belief. Some theological arguments actually made God less convincing to me, like Pascal's Wager, a hilariously utilitarian justification for why one should have faith. Anyways, none of it ever worked, so I gave up and called myself an agnostic.

I was drawn to the pagan path for many years but I also struggled with a similar issue of belief. When I was 12, I briefly flirted with Wicca, but I couldn't bring myself to do spells, even though of course I loved witches, magic, and spellcraft in fiction. I just felt silly calling quarters or summoning spirits that I really, really could not make myself believe in.

There was also a while (in this 12-13 year old phase) when I came across some thought-provoking literature that suggested that we couldn't trust anything at all. The only thing, the ONE fact I could know for sure, irrefutably, through direct evidence, was that I had a consciousness, by virtue of the fact that I was aware and thinking. I could be a brain in a vat, for all I knew, but I had a consciousness. I couldn't even be sure that other people were real, or that what I was seeing was real, because that could all be distorted by my brain (a la the Matrix). Now that really screwed with my head! Although it was also weirdly comforting in my teenage years when I was most depressed and unhappy, that maybe none of this world was real and nothing I did mattered, so it was probably fine if I screwed up. I honestly don't know how I functioned half the time, but again -- there were other things going on in my life that really contributed to my depression. So I've also been on the more extreme end of skepticism.

Eventually I came to Paganism in college via feminist spirituality and a the(a)logy that I could believe in, even if it wasn't the irrefutable scientific proof I yearned for as a teenager. It explained the world and the Goddess in a way that I could understand -- as a web of life, and as a vast network of relationships. This thealogy did not need the Goddess to behave as an omnipotent, omniscient being, and it explained that suffering was a natural and unavoidable part of being alive; it also offered a set of ethical principles that I felt I could live with.

This was really my first experience with another form of belief, the ability to choose a story. Sometimes we choose stories that we might not have proof for, but they are the stories that we need, the stories that serve us best. It reminds me of a book that I really like, The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. In this book, the titular protagonist Pi claims that he will make you believe in God, and spends about 90% of the book weaving an incredible and fantastic tale of how he survived a shipwreck by living on a lifeboat with an adult Bengal tiger. It is a magnificent tale of resilience and strength, but upon being pressed for answers by insurance officials, he tells a different story, in which [SPOILERS]the survivors of the shipwreck cannibalized each other, leaving him alone to drift until he came to land. He asks the officials which story that they prefer (since they cannot prove or disprove either story conclusively), and they wind up writing in the official report that it is remarkable how a young boy managed to survive on a lifeboat with a tiger after all. [SPOILERS END]. We are to led to imply that God is something similar -- we might not be able to prove or disprove the existence of the Divine objectively, but we need to believe in it in order to survive.

I think a big problem with my issue of belief before is that, developmentally, adolescents often have trouble holding competing truths in their heads and recognizing that both can be true and have merit, even if seemingly contradictory on the surface. I can now both recognize that the myth of Persephone and Demeter is not a scientifically accurate account of why there are seasons, but it is "true" in that I can see how it reflects some deeply profound understandings of human experience and appreciate the myth for its beauty. Whereas teenage Xiao might have simply said, "This is an inaccurate story so anyone who 'believes' it must be stupid".

Since then, I think I've developed a more complex relationship between faith and belief. All those years ago when I couldn't believe in anything but my own consciousness, I now realize that it was faith that sustained me -- faith that there was something outside of my consciousness and that those things matter, even though I couldn't conclusively prove it. There is always the (vanishingly slight probability) that the sun will explode today and the earth will be plunged into darkness and humanity will go extinct, but I have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow the same way it's done for every day in my life, and so I can make plans for tomorrow. I can never get inside my beloved's head and know for sure that he loves me (this is actually something I really do struggle with), but I have faith (or try to, anyways) that he means it when he says he loves me, and that's how we can plan for the future. From there, it's not a terribly large step to believe that plants and the Earth have consciousness, and that's why we should care for them (scientifically true? Not 100% sure, but it's the better story for environmentalism!).

So to me I guess belief and faith is the foundation for what lets me do anything at all. I can't remember where I heard the analogy, but it's like swimming in a pool. If you cling to the sides of the pool to what you know for sure, then you'll never get anywhere at all and you'll never enjoy the pool. Similarly, skeptics like me need to have a bit of faith so that we can be open to new experiences.

On the other hand, we need something to rein ourselves in -- stay too long or too deep in the pool, and we drown. We need the voice of doubt to keep ourselves grounded and not "go off the deep end". I like what John Beckett has to say about faith and doubt: "Good, honest religion is a constant tension between faith and doubt. Faith keeps us moving forward, while doubt keeps us humble" [source]. He also recommends that we "hold our beliefs loosely and explore them deeply" [source] -- be willing to change our beliefs to reflect our experiences, but also be willing to live out our beliefs and take them seriously. Beliefs lead to experiences, which lead to beliefs and more experiences.

And for the most part now, my criteria for a "good" belief now is largely, "Does it help you get through the day? Does it make you a better person? Does it encourage you to make the world better than it was when you found it?" And if that's the case, then I care less about the strict scientific accuracy or irrefutable theological arguments behind your belief, be it plant spirits, the Lord and Lady, Loki, Jesus Christ as the Son of God, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster (mmm, yumm ...)

I see a lot of this reflected in my journey with the Tarot. At first, I was so self-conscious about it ("Xiao, what are you doing? You can't seriously think that a random card you pulled out of the deck will mean anything, do you? What a waste of $20.") that I prefaced it with a million caveats -- I'm just doing this for fun, it doesn't mean anything, I have some theories about synchronicity and card-drawing but they're probably not true, it's probably all just random. I placated myself with enough disclaimers and reassurances to myself that it was "just to see what would happen" to let myself start practicing, and lo and behold, the cards always provided sound advice. I practiced enough that now I am pretty comfortable with them and I don't need so many disclaimers anymore -- I can now say that I know that they work (experience begets belief). I don't know the exact mechanism by which they work, but I can usually count on them to tell me the story that I need in the moment. And that's the kind of faith that I need.

[HopefulChild]

I'm certain I found my way to these forums because I've been so engrossed in "new media" and the instant pingbacks.
I'd forgotten the slower, calmer eb and flow of real forums. And I need to find the slow center of my river to appreciate the raw power that lies in the slow and steady approach.
Thread-killer aside (laugh).

Does that count as faith?

@Xiao Rong - I too use a Pool analogy when I discuss spirituality with my teenagers. It is this.

Regardless of what you believe in, you must be open to it. If you jump into a swimming pool and swim to the center and submerge yourself, then no matter how loudly your friends shout, you can't hear them. You've decided to sit at the bottom of the pool and the water is absorbing the sounds. If you want to be in the pool and still hear your friends then you can float face down, so that all you see is the pool but you can still hear the messages you are meant to hear.

I won't know for years if that sank in or not, but it's an appropriate analogy I think.

I never hesitated with the Tarot. As soon as I had a reading that seemed to line up with what was actually happening in my life, I had not problem understanding how that was practical in my model of reality.
A quantum potential matrix. Simple as that. There is nothing in all of science that says we can't predict the future. In fact every aspect of science is focused on the reality that with enough accurate information we can in fact predict any event. So my using tarot is less about faith and more about allowing probability based on my "known" decisions to be extruded into potential conclusions.

Is it inadvisable to allow myself to indulge the position that I can and will eventually understand faith?
Or is that on it's own a blind faith?

[Silversong]

Meep. //track for when I have time to read all this and write something close to that length XD

[HopefulChild]

Just a quick post on something I think is cool.

I went to fiddle with the tarot, no real goals or questions. After a few minutes I decided to ask serious questions.
I focused, I cleared my mind and asked about my person magical growth. The root question was "how will my magic progress".
I did a simple four card draw, but I counseled on each card as I pulled it. The first was the Queen of Swords. I considered this the "What am I really asking" aspect. I had no trouble discerning the meaning from that. The second was the Six of Wands. Easy enough again but I took a little time to consider if that was just my pride. The third card was the Magician. WoW, talk about blatant. I put the third card in the realm of "what's my part in this". So ok, I get it.
And the fourth card which I framed in the context of "what do I need to do to hold up my end of this"...was the Star. The card of faith and hope for the future.

If that isn't a pretty good indication that I need acknowledge the bigger functions of the big picture...well. Then I will probably never learn.

I don't remember where the line is from but I remember the line, "you can't practice witchcraft while you look down your nose at it"...

[Imperious]

I did a simple four card draw, but I counseled on each card as I pulled it.

You should absolutely always do that.

I don't mind admitting that I find it inordinately frustrating when people rote-learn Tarot correspondences, and then apply them regardless.

It's a one-way ticket to meaninglessness.

[HopefulChild]

My wife and I try to maintain, "Card a day", where we pull one card and read about it,contemplate, and look for other symbols. She takes a pack to work and I have the rest here at home. We don't nail it every day, but 3 days a week we usually remember. Sometimes it is amusing, sometimes it causes anxiety. It's hard to keep in mind that pulling a random card may not have a high level of significance per day.
It feels like it though. I have a hard time drawing a card and not feeling that it pertains to something.

[HopefulChild]

I have faith in something.

While writing in another thread it dawned on me that I keep insisting that the experience I had in my labyrinth was not a dream but something else.
I can't explain why it was different than a dream other than to point out subjective observations that only mean something to me as the one who experienced them, but against even the primary conceit that it probably happened inside my brain while I wasn't 100% conscious, I know to my core that it was more than a dream.
I don't know what.
I haven't been able to recreate it.
And I miss it like something was taken from me that I desperately want returned.

And I know that it was a real and tangible thing even though I have no way to prove it, and even the description of it sounds flaky even to me...once I write it out I read it and say, "Yeah I wouldn't believe me either, that sounds like crazy talk".

So I have faith in something. I don't exactly know why but I am really rather happy with myself right now.
Don't know what to do with that knowledge, but I'm sure it will come to me when it is supposed to.

Thank you again for this thread.

[MsMollimizz]

What does faith and/or belief mean to you?
All that one is working towards, one's dreams and goals
are all for not if one doesn't believe in one's abilities
and determination to see the spell thru to the end will
not come to pass. Knowing you are up to the challenge
to complete the task at hand against the odds presented
to you shows you have faith in oneself to get the job done.
What do you put your faith in?
In one's body to act in the manner prescribed by task.
Knowing one's body knows what to do when the time calls
for it to move in a certain way. Following the rhythm of
the drum beating in one's head to keep things flowing along
smoothly.
One's mind knows what is expected of it at each turn, let's
one relax so as to concentrate on the more important manners.
Putting one's faith into one's Deity shows there has been a trust
built between the two, shows one knows things will work out as
planned.
How important is it in your practice?
It is very important to the practice, otherwise one is just going thru
the motions without the desired outcome. If that happens one had
better go back and re-read the basics to find where one has missed
an important step that is necessary to complete the task at hand.
How do you gain faith/belief, and how does it relate to experience or evidence (or lack thereof)?
Knowing your efforts to create a specific happening and knowing it
pans out gives one the benefit of knowing it will work; allowing one to
hold on to what you believe in and to hold onto your belief
Do you ever struggle with having faith or believing?
As in question # 3 one must follow thru with each step
of the act being performed whole heartedly knowing
all will produce the desired outcome can lead to questions
of doubt starts to arise calling into question whether or
not what we're doing is all for nothing.

Gentle Light
MsMollimizz