War Goddess.net - Knowing Where We Cannot Prove, by Karl Lembke

Knowing Where We Cannot Prove, by Karl Lembke

By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove.
Alfred Lord Tennyson

In the spellcasting class I teach, the Witches' Pyramid shows up almost at once. This Pyramid is the set of four things on which successful spellcasting depend. If any one face of the Pyramid is missing, the other three fall down.

One of the four parts of the Witches' Pyramid is called Faith. The other three parts are Imagination, Will and Secrecy. The Witches' Pyramid is also given as "to Know", "to Will", "to Dare", and "to Keep Silent". These are alternative ways of saying the same thing. Will is easy to match, and Keeping Silent matches up with Secrecy. Imagination is to Dare, since by conjuring a vision, we dare to look at things not as they are, but as they might become.

At first glance, we might not think of matching Faith with "to Know". Mark Twain called faith, "believing what ain't so." Twain often expressed a cynical view of religion. Perhaps he objected to the simplistic or outright stupid views of religion, and perhaps he was challenging people to look deeper and learn the true meaning of their own faith. Or maybe he was just a cynic about religion.

The point is, I don't think faith is about believing what isn't so. Believing the sky to be lime green with bright orange spots isn't faith, it's psychosis. Faith, as stated in the quote at the top of this essay, is about believing something which cannot be proven true. If we're going to work magic, we cannot hope it will work, or wish it would. We have to know, with certainty, that our spell will be effective, or it simply will not be.

And since Wicca is, after all, a religion, we deal with the divine, whose existence we take on faith. When we light a candle and call upon the Gods, we can't prove that They hear us, or that they even exist, certainly not in the way we can prove the candle exists.

We can show someone a candle. We can tap on it with another object, and hear the sound it makes. We can smell the scent of the wax, and feel its smoothness with our hands. If we light it, we can see the light of the flame, feel its heat, and smell the products of combustion. As the candle burns away, changes in the universe occur, rippling out from the center of action. All our senses confirm the existence of the candle, and the entire universe reflects its presence.

The Gods don't present Themselves for objective verification in this manner.

I took a course once, on the philosophy of science. The course spent some time going into the difference between "believing" and "knowing". The difference between belief and knowledge ultimately rested on evidence that could be shown to others. When I say I believe something, I am saying that in my heart, I regard that thing to be true.

When I say that I know something, I am saying that I believe that thing to be true, and I can point to things, visible to any other person, which I believe prove it to be true. The candle I can tap on with another object, that you can hear, see, feel, smell, and even taste, is one object, whose existence is supported by many different forms of experiential evidence. Belief, distinct from knowledge, is not supported by evidence. Ultimately, when we believe something to be true, it is because we believe it to be true.

The Gods are experienced, not with our external senses, but with our internal magical sense, the imagination. We may see in the universe the work of the Gods, but how much of this is real? What we may see as the handiwork of Pan or Isis, others may see as the blind workings of the physical laws that govern the universe. Even those who agree that the beauty and order of the universe is the result of Design disagree on the identity of the Designer. What one sees as the work of Jesus, another sees as the work of Isis. We may, in our best moments, agree that we're speaking of the same Being, known by different Names.

But we have no proof of that, either.

Recently, an article was published suggesting that the human brain is hard-wired to believe in the supernatural. This was seized upon by some to mean that God (usually the speaker's own concept of God) created us, and implanted in us the urge to seek Him. By others, it was taken as evidence that there is no supernatural aspect of the universe. When we see evidence of the supernatural, or when we find ourselves believing in it, it's because a quirk in our brains causes us to filter the data in such a way as to lead us into belief. Two groups of people, looking at the same data, reach diametrically opposite conclusions.

In this way, all religious experience can be seen as catering to a psychological need. The belief in an afterlife is a sop to our love of life, and our fear of its eventual end. The belief in some mechanism which bestows divine justice assuages our distress at seeing the innocent suffer and the guilty go free. But the mere fact that some entity satisfies a need or a craving doesn't make that entity an illusion.

Food satisfies hunger, and faith satisfies the hunger for the Divine. Hunger is a craving which arises from real physiological conditions. If we try to ignore these drives for very long, we will be much the worse for the effort. Rather than ignore physical hunger, we consume food, which is a source of energy, and ultimately, of light. When we feel a spiritual hunger, we reach out to the Divine, which is, in its own way, light.

It's entirely reasonable to assume that our drive to believe in the supernatural traces back, in just such a manner, to something real.

Whichever conclusion you arrive at, know that it is a conclusion based in faith, not proof.

The long form of the Wiccan Rede poem opens with the couplet, "Bide the Witches' laws ye must, in perfect love and perfect trust." These laws are not merely laws written on paper and copied into Books of Shadows. Rather, these laws are the laws that govern the universe, and especially the magical laws and the divine laws that govern the higher planes. We believe in the laws of reincarnation, of balance and the unending wheel between light and dark, and the law of love between ourselves and the Gods. It is the faith in these realities that sustains us through the dark times through which we all must go.

As humans, as magical beings, we walk between light and dark throughout our lives. Some times, we wander farther to one side than to the other. Sometimes, we fear we may be lost in the darkness, or in the light.

The magic of faith is the knowledge, known beyond proof, and beyond any need of proof, that our lives have meaning, and that the Lord and Lady placed us here for a reason. We are part of the plan, and ultimately, we will find fulfillment in that plan.

In the study of astrology, we learn that the progression of the signs of the zodiac represents the evolution of the soul through twelve phases. Each sign is a response to, and builds on, what was found in the sign before.

The keyword for Aquarius is, "I Know". Aquarius is the sign of the quest for knowledge, and proof. When an Aquarian says he knows something, he can point you at the proof of what he says. Pisces, on the other hand, says, "I Believe". Pisces is the sign of faith. The Piscean doesn't concern himself with proof. Proof is for other people, and some things are too personal, to singular, to be shown to others.

Faith resides in the land between the borders of "I know it's true" and "I can show you proof". Faith is for those truths which are for one person alone. Each of us is an individual, a unique expression of the Divine, and each of us has a path through the universe of possibility. No one else can follow our path or live our life.

As we move beyond the realm of Aquarian knowledge, available to all, we move into the realm of Piscean knowledge, which is personal truth. Since no one else can live your life, no one else can know your personal truth. Such truth is your personal link to the Divine, and no one else's.

In the evolution of the soul, we progress from Aries, "I Am, " to Taurus, "I Have, " through the signs until we reach Pisces. After Pisces, then what? I believe (maybe I should say "I Believe") that in Pisces, the soul learns to perceive its unique connection to the Divine. We hear the Gods, in a voice that only we can hear, and speak to Them in a voice only They will attend.

The next step is to move beyond, into Aries of the next cycle, where we attain fulfillment, and discover that special gift which the Gods have given us, to give to ourselves. We follow our link to the Divine, and from this perspective, we see our own unique place in the universe, our own special gift. In our uniqueness, we are as important to the Divine as the Divine is to us.

This I believe. This I know, even though I cannot prove it.