One of the questions that occupy way too many people in the esoteric community is whether divination or even magic require the person to believe in it in order for it to work. If you’ve ever watched the movie The Skeleton Key, you’ll know that this concept has seeped into the collective consciousness enough for it to find its way into mainstream products (I will not spoil the movie here, since it is actually a fun watch, but it depends heavily on its twist).

If you open most premodern books on magic, you’ll be stunned to discover that their content bears very little resemblance to the post-Golden Dawn landscape. This, by the way, is neither good nor bad. Things change. But we need to be aware of the change to avoid being unconsciously ruled by it. One clear difference is that the magician’s will¹ or his imagining/manifesting faculties are barely taken into consideration in older sources, at least outwardly.

This is not to say that there aren’t sources that encourage the practitioner to be of firm mind and clear intent (after all, you’d want your doctor to focus, too, even though their focus is not what make their science work), but even those old sources do not consider, generally speaking, the magician’s mind to be the cause of the change. Broadly speaking, when dealing with sources that date back to before the invention of modern psychoanalysis and psychology, we must be extremely careful when interpreting their concept of mind, soul, psyche, etc.

An example will suffice. In his De Vita, Neoplatonic Renaissance philosopher and magus Marsilio Ficino encourages us, among other things, to “think solar thoughts”, or jovial, or venusian, depending on the aim. Similar remarks are found, in various form, in many old sources. A contemporary practitioner might be tempted to interpret Ficino’s invitation as saying that we must envision solar things in order for them to manifest. But neither the language nor the substance of this interpretation belong to his worldview.

Ficino’s view of the cosmos is essentially the same as Agrippa’s and that of many other premodern magi: we are surrounded by chains of sympathy and antipathy between universal powers (typified by the planets). When we think “solar thoughts” we are doing essentially nothing except stepping inside a current of power that has its own metaphysical reality regardless of our attitude toward it. This is because in Renaissance naturalism, the mind is essentially like the body, i.e., a part of the cosmos, and a movement of the mind is like a movement of the body, and just like the body can create a talisman or a concoction, so can the mind shape images that allow it to shower in certain currents of universal power.

Thus, the invitation to think certain thoughts found in Ficino (and others) is not a precursor to manifestation, attraction and other modern concepts, but a natural consequence of the old view of the mind and the world.

On the other hand, from a postmodern standpoint, reality is for us to create at will. Yes, I am exaggerating, but not too much. Therefore, there is the widespread idea, or at least the widespread implication, that what happens happens because we believe in it.

Let us leave magic alone for now and concentrate on divination. Does divination work because we believe in it? Well, no. Certainly divination doesn’t require the querent to believe in it in order for it to work. In fact, it is my belief that, considering how many frauds there are in this field, a querent should be borderline psychotic to blindly believe in divination without a healthy dose of scepticism.

What about diviners? Do they need to believe in divination in order for it to work? That’s complicated, in my view. On the surface of it I would argue that, again, no, we don’t need to believe in divination for it to work. Divination systems work because they have their own internal consistency. The most obvious is Natal Astrology, which presents us with an objective set of symbols that have nothing to do with the manipulation of counters on the part of the diviner.

On the other hand, we need to allow for the fact that divination is not a mechanic set of behaviors, especially with the overwhelming majority of divination systems that do require manipulation (cartomancy, geomancy, dice, etc.) As I often repeat on this blog, divination is and remains something extraordinary. The honest desire for an answer, or at least for a picture of the future, tends to guarantee a crisp and clear answer. This is because the honest desire for an answer allows us to honestly connect with the symbols in a way that makes them fall in the appropriate order.

The querent doesn’t need to be honest in his or her desire, unless they are also the diviner. But if the diviner does not have at least a degree of confidence in what he or she is doing, then the question they put to the system is not the surface question (e.g., “Does X love Y?”) but “Do you really work?” which is an impossible question for the system to answer (if the answer is no, then the system does work).

Even then, I would be cautious in overexaggerating the importance of the diviner’s attitude. As I believe I have mentioned, one of the ways my teacher trained me was by asking me to discover secrets about her past. Clearly, the exercise was not meant to discover something new that might benefit my querent or me, but rather to build my confidence and skill. Yet it worked, and it worked well. Maybe the diviner doesn’t need to believe in divination (I know I am always skeptical until proven right), but they do need to at least be open to the idea that this is a legitimate way of receiving information, just enough to enter into the system rather than operating it from the outside as a scientist would manipulate a bunch of molecules.

My general belief at this point is that the esoteric arts do not require our consent in order to work, but they are also not the product of the mechanistic application of abstract principles. It is indeed a fine balance.

MQS

1. Let’s leave aside the fact that the concept of Will found in modern magic is actually more complex than what it appears to be on the surface ↩︎