The Spell-like Nature of Belief and How to Receive Genuine Insight
Beliefs are Spells
In Peter Ralston’s masterpiece The Book of Not Knowing, he makes a brilliant comparison between beliefs and spells.
He says that beliefs are like spells because whatever we believe becomes our reality, of which every thought we have and action we take aligns with this reality the spell has put us in.
Some people are under the Christianity spell, and some the Atheist spell. Others may be under the “I am worthless” spell while another might be under the “I am God, bow down to me” spell.
I’m not trying to say beliefs are bad and that you should not have them, I just want you to recognize what a belief is so that hopefully you can overcome the unhealthy spells that have entranced you.
A belief is simply a hunch about what is true.
It is an ideal about what is true that exists solely within one’s own mind, but it is not the Truth itself.
No belief is the Truth.
Let that sink in.
Christianity is not the Truth. Islam is not the Truth. Buddhism is not the Truth. Hinduism is not the Truth. Atheism is not the Truth. A purely Scientific worldview is not the Truth. No one school of thought is the Truth!
I want to make it clear that I am not bashing any particular religion or school of thought.
I believe most (if not all) philosophies and religions have some value in them, but it is the way people orient themselves to these schools of thought is what I am calling out.
The #1 Pitfall of New “Spiritual” Seekers
The number one pitfall of new “spiritual” seekers is that they move from one belief system to another all while doing little to no inner work.
I don’t know how many times I have heard of someone leaving Christianity, only to adopt a new belief system, often a more New Age form of spirituality, where they wind up treating the new school of thought as absolute truth.
I have seen the reverse happen as well.
In my early teenage days I placed science and atheism on a pedestal, believing all religion to be hogwash and that anything that science could not prove to be an unworthwhile pursuit.
I’ve seen people fall into conspiracies that make no sense and worship gurus that clearly do not deserve to be worshipped.
But, through it all, they think that their way is the one correct way and that all others are wrong.
Merely changing the content of one’s mind will not do much to grow a person.
With true spirituality, one is primarily seeking a changing of the structure.
I view a key component of spirituality as being the transcendence of beliefs that have held us back from being our most authentic selves, have caused ourselves and others to suffer as a result, which have ultimately kept us from realizing our true nature.
As you progress, spiritual work becomes about breaking free of these spells entirely, not moving from one belief system to another, which is equivalent to breaking free from one spell only to become entranced by another.
To break free from the entirety of these spells, it is imperative that you learn to abide in a state of not-knowing.
The Role of Ego in Beliefs
Put simply, the ego is like the mind’s operating program.
The function of this program is to survive, persist, fit in, and thrive.
Therefore, it will want to believe whatever best serves this function.
This is why stepping into a state of not-knowing can be extremely difficult because you have to give up everything you believe, and what you believe forms your identity, and your identity (on the mental plane of existence) is literally your life.
For someone, say a Christian, who has attended church his whole life, has his entire family in the church, has a friend group of like-minded Christians, and makes his life’s work centered around Christianity, stepping into this state of not-knowing is literally like death.
To truly not know, he would have to turn his back on the very thing that had given him life in the first place.
The ego will scream at him to go back to his old way of life, the life that had given him so much comfort, meaning, and sense of permanence.
It is the ego that finds comfort in its sense of knowing. The ego wants to feel like it has the answers, like it has the Truth. It hates not-knowing. It hates uncertainty.
And who can blame the ego for this? The ego just wants to survive and feel secure.
But in this work, we must rise above our own egos and work towards something higher.
When we bite the bullet and walk our own deeper, spiritual path, we must allow ourselves to be free from the need to believe in anything.
The whole point of spirituality is about taking on a greater, more holistic perspective of the world and our own relation to it, and through this inquiry, our mindset, worldview, values, identity, and yes, eventually our beliefs, align in a way that is more selfless and more loving, and less selfish and less identified with ego.
But to do this you must first be willing to truly not know, to step into the dark void of the Unknown and allow it to consume you.
How to Truly Not Know and Receive Genuine Insight
“To experience the truth, we must be willing to experience whatever is so, whether or not it fits within the bounds of our logic or our beliefs.” - Peter Ralston
Remember, a belief is simply a mental concept about what is true.
And a concept is just that, a concept. It is removed from reality itself.
To let go and truly not know, you must get in touch with reality itself.
To get closer to reality itself, you will need some sort of practice that gets you into Witness consciousness, which is simply being the non-judgmental observer of all that is in your experience.
But this is harder than it sounds though.
At first it will be difficult, because your entire life you have been doing rather than being.
So, if you find getting into this state of consciousness difficult, don’t sweat it.
As with any practice, one improves with repetition.
The body-builder builds the muscles of the body, the meditator builds the muscles of mindfulness.
And you don’t have to just meditate in the traditional sense, you can also do stream of consciousness writing or a contemplative walk in Nature.
I would recommend a mixture of these practices, but ultimately go with what you feel works best for you.
With these practices, you leave behind the everyday, active, problem-solving state of consciousness (which sadly many people spend their entire life in), and you enter into a state that is simply observing whatever arises.
In this state, beliefs, which appear in the form of thoughts, are seen as objects in awareness, rather than being fused to your sense of self.
Your objective here is to simply witness these beliefs in your experience, not to cling to them, not to spiral into a thought loop with them, but to simply be aware of them while they are in your experience.
As you notice your beliefs, it may be healthy to question: Why do I have this belief? Where did it come from? How does it serve me? Is it really true?
As you step deeper into this state of not-knowing, you open yourself up to Genuine Insight.
And Genuine Insight is a sudden awakening in your consciousness that something is true and authentic.
You might feel a rush of excitement, or hit with dread as your ego reacts to what you know to be true, but through it all, you know that what you experienced is true, authentic, and needs to be followed.
Don’t “look” for this insight though, it will come on its own time.
October 2019 - The Synchronicity
On a tranquil autumn morning in 2019, I was taking a walk on the trail nearby my house.
Within the past month, I had endured my first couple psychedelic experiences which had made me question everything I believed to be true.
My most recent, ego-dissolving trip had torn me apart by having me experientially deconstruct my entire identity, see its falsehood, and opened me up to something I perceived as beyond the mind.
As I was walking on the trail, thoughts about Buddhism were coming to mind.
Now, at the time, I knew virtually nothing about Buddhism, except that the ultimate goal was to obtain something called “Nirvana”, which people saw as the ultimate liberation, or freedom from suffering.
I took a seat on a bench next to the trail and continued to contemplate my recent trip, asking questions like What happened? Did I just experience nirvana? This all has a very Buddhist undertone to me, is Buddhism the Truth? Should I pursue Buddhism?
As I was asking myself these questions, I realized there was a sculpture of the Buddha right in front of me!
What a synchronicity! On a completely random part of the trail, as I was integrating the most profound experience of my life through contemplating Buddhism, low and behold, a Buddha sculpture appears!
Upon seeing the sculpture, a strong energy jolted up my spine.
This energy spread down my arms to the tips of my fingers as it simultaneously went to the top of my head.
Oh my God. Holy fuck. I have to look into Buddhism now.
Of course, the skeptical mind came into play not long after this incredible synchronicity.
It’s just a coincidence. Come on, synchronicities are not real. You are just fooling yourself.
Whether divinely willed or not, I knew in my heart how deeply this whole event rang true, and to turn my back on what felt so right would be an enormous disservice to myself.
Sure enough, I looked into the teachings.
Now, I did not start worshipping the Buddha, and I did not start putting Buddhist philosophy on the pedastal of absolute truth.
I simply looked at the core teachings and integrated them into my life philosophy, and took up meditation as a practice.
Looking into the Buddha’s teachings led me to looking into other, similar, yet different perspectives, which lead me to new ways of looking at reality.
Now, 4 years later, my internal world has completely transformed.
I went from raging at video games, throwing my golf clubs into ponds after a bad stroke, often depressed, and constantly anxious about my appearance to others, to someone who has a strong sense of purpose, virtually never experiences anger anymore (technology not working properly still gets me sometimes lol), and whom people who know me often describe me as calm and zen.
Overall, my day to day life is far more harmonious than it was before this profound synchronicity.
While there is still plenty of internal work to do, had I turned my back on the insight, I could very well be a completely different, less mentally sound, person today.
Conclusion
You might be wondering: What does this have to do with beliefs? The belief that the Buddha sculpture was a divine synchronicity seems like it might just be another spell you are under. What does any of this have to do with Truth anyway? This whole Buddhism thing seems to be YOUR truth, not THE truth.
Well, I don’t believe strongly one way or another that the Buddha synchronicity was divinely willed, and I don’t really care either.
I simply followed what rang true in my experience. I knew so deeply that looking into the Buddha’s teachings was the right thing to do, so I did it.
I did not excessively entertain the whole idealistic notion of the universe giving me divine insight, nor did I excessively doubt what I had experienced.
I just did what felt right. I did what rang true, what felt authentic.
And over time, I was greatly rewarded as a result.
This has everything to do with truth because remember, a belief is not the truth, it is simply a hunch about what is true.
With truth, there is a deep knowing about what is so, and in my situation, there was a deep knowing that I had to look into Buddha’s teachings.
And yes, I recognize this is exclusive to my life path and that others will receive Genuine Insight regarding other matters.
I am not claiming to tell you THE Truth in this newsletter, but rather I am telling you how to receive Genuine Insight, which most people do not know how to receive because they are so deeply entranced by their beliefs.
This is not to say Absolute Truth does not exist, it does, but the mind cannot conceive of it.
And you will never know it if you do not first know how to Not Know and receive Genuine Insight.
But this is a topic for another time.
For now, attune yourself to deeper and deeper states of not-knowing.
Look deep within, become aware of the spells you are under, and work on breaking free from the ones that no longer serve you.
My Offers
If you have the desire to break free of these spells, consider booking a 1 on 1 call with me.
I will listen to you, ask you questions, and send other linguistic probes into your mind to aid you in your next step in life.
If this interests you, head to the “Coaching” section of this website.
With love and intention,
Wyeth