Aerik ArkadianReconciling Paradoxes in Spiritual Practice
What do you do when you arrive at a point in your spiritual practice where something just doesn’t make sense? Maybe your personal experience isn’t matching an expected result. Maybe two things you’ve read seem to contradict each other. Or maybe you’re just faced with a truth that seems absurd. Either way, the world of spirituality is filled with paradoxes. Hang around long enough and you’re bound to encounter at least one.
And before you shy away, thinking “no, Aerik, spirituality isn’t full of paradoxes,” let me kindly remind you of a couple of completely contradictory things that at least 1/3 of the world’s population either accepts or is at least familiar with.
See? Those are paradoxes. And to be specific, a paradox is:
“a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.”
I’m not talking about science fiction time traveler stories here. I’m talking about things that people actually believe. And in the above examples, I am of course referring to Christianity’s Holy Trinity and Virgin Birth.
A Personal Story
When my spiritual journey first veered toward witchcraft, I completely rejected the idea of a personal deity. After all, I was still suffering from some traumas induced by my lengthy stint in Christianity. I knew there was a source of energy somewhere that was beyond our understanding, but I didn’t feel the need to personify it.
Language, in particular, was a rather large barrier for me. I shuddered any time I heard someone use the words “God,” “Him,” or “He” (the latter two with a capital ‘H’). When speaking of something greater than myself, my preferred vernacular was “the universe” — because… an infinitely-expanding collection of stars, planets, and empty space feels pretty impersonal to me.
Although I knew there were things I could not explain, I wanted to take as much of a scientific approach as possible. I chose to see spiritual energy like electricity. There is a flow in and a flow out. There are positive and negative charges. There is a source and a destination. And everything was just an unseen force, much like gravity.
The effects of gravity?You wouldn’t ever say “gravity wanted” or “gravity decided” would you? Gravity is a fundamental force in the universe. It operates on a specific set of rules. It doesn’t have needs or desires. It doesn’t have agency or the ability to change its mind.
My outlook was functional. Although simplistic, it worked for years without needing to be revised.
But then, suddenly… I started having personal experiences.
The universe spoke to me.
God Entity, as portrayed by FuturamaWell, those were the words that I first used to explain it, anyway. The universe… spoke… to ME! And without getting too far into the particulars of what was said and why… rest assured: impersonal forces do not carry on conversations. When something talks to you, it turns it into a personal contact.
I now knew two things to be true:
- My existing model of the universe was valid
- My present experience violated that model and was also valid
Those were two truths I carried with me for a long time. Beyond passing curiosity, I was never truly bothered by the fact that they contradicted each other.
One day, however, I had the honor of interviewing Christopher Penczak, a renowned author and teacher, who co-founded The Temple of Witchcraft. I’ve heard him speak of deity both as a fundamental force of nature and as an entity with which you can form personal relationships. He was captive to my questions for an hour, so I decided to ask him… which one is it, really?
“…in all mysteries, there’s great paradox,” he answered. “So I think it’s both.”
Such a simple statement for a potentially earth-shattering revelation. And that’s it! That’s the answer! It can be both.
In truth, I had known that answer all along. Maybe I just needed someone respectable to confirm it. Deity is an impersonal, fundamental force, which has no feeling, desires, or agency. Deity is also personal, has agency, and will form relationships and communicate with you.
That’s easy to understand, right?
Common Paradoxes in Witchcraft
Beyond the personal/impersonal nature of deity, there’s plenty of other paradoxes you might encounter in religion, occult studies, or really just any sort of spiritual practice in general. Please note, however, that the following examples are geared more towards witchcraft.
- The Wheel of the Year Model: The goddess, who births the god, is impregnated by the god. The god lives and dies. The goddess never dies. The whole thing is like one giant Bootstrap Paradox (causal loop paradox: the god is caused by himself).
- Cake: The cake is a lie and the cake is not a lie. (the portal paradox. also: a joke)
- Reincarnation: Souls can exist in the “summerland” and souls can also be reincarnated. These can both be true at the same time. We are both alive and dead. (the reincarnation paradox)
- Past Lives: Time is linear and time is also all happening at once. We have past lives but are concurrently living all of those lives in the present. (the past life paradox)
- Correspondences: Spell ingredients fit neatly into correspondences, but they can also fit into other boxes (the correspondence paradox)
Those are just things that I’ve personally encountered in my journey. I might not have done the best job of explaining them, but they’re my paradoxes. You might have encountered others on your journey. If so, please share.
Reconciling: A Principle of Hermetics
The fun thing about paradoxes is that they can all be reconciled. And for this explanation, I will reference the Principles of Hermetics:
“The Principle of Polarity: Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.”
Saying “all paradoxes may be reconciled” is, in and of itself, a paradoxical statement. But it’s true. And it doesn’t just happen in the spiritual world.
Paradoxes exist in science. Light, for instance, can be both a particle and a wave. Particles and waves would seem to contradict each other, but nope… the fact that light can be both is just something we have to accept. There are also plenty of theories and thought experiments that are based on paraxodical information.
A Common ParadoxWe sometimes just like to think of things in terms of their pairs of opposite. That creates a very black and white world. Things are either this or things are that. The cat is either alive or dead. Those are extremes.
In actuality, everything exists on a spectrum. Depending on how you observe a thing, it can be located at any point between the extremes. And sometimes… it can even exist in two different extremes at the same time.
As an easy example, consider the thermometer. We have markings to indicate “cold” and “hot.” An exact reading can occur anywhere on the thermometer, but it’s always a measure on the spectrum of temperature. For some further reflection on this, remember that cold doesn’t really exist. Cold is just the absence of heat. You can infinitely add more heat to any situation, but you can’t make something colder than absolute zero. And if you’d like to view this more esoterically, consider the fact that sometimes cold can feel like a burn.
Reconciling paradoxes is all about perspective. From where are you observing?
Flat Land
When I was a freshman in high school, my math teacher made us read Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott.
I hated it.
But now I’m grateful for the experience because it gives me a neat lens to view things in the spiritual world.
In Flatland, there is an entire society that lives in 2 dimensions. Social class is determined by the number of sides that a shape has, with circles being of the highest order. And unlike our world with it’s six directions (up, down, forward, back, left and right), Flatland only has four possible movements. The protagonist of the book is a square who encounters a 3-dimensional sphere. The sphere attempts to explain the nature of her existence. In one instance, she pokes the middle of the square (a location that would have not been accessible to flatlanders), which causes him to feel a shooting pain in his “stomach.” He is not amused.
Flatland by Edwin A. AbbottA sphere expressed in two dimensions is just a circle. If you lived in Flatland and a sphere passed through your universe, you would just see a growing and shrinking circle. You would only ever experience a sphere’s length and width. You’d never experience its height… because height, in this case, requires three dimensions.
How would you explain a concept like height to flatlanders? It’d be a pretty difficult task.
Likewise, how do you explain time to those of us in three dimensions? We can see the effect of time, yes, just like a square in flatland can see the growing or shrinking circumference of a sphere moving through the world… but we can’t walk across time. We can’t directly interact with anything outside of this present moment because time is the fourth dimension — it’s outside our grasp.
Our perception of time is obviously linear. It only moves forward. You started this article with the introductory paragraph. That was the past. You are now here in this paragraph. This is the present. And eventually you will be reading my conclusion. That’s the future. If you had more power over time, you would have perceived all of those moments in one single instance. All of the words would have been read at once.
There’s another dimension, too. The fifth dimension, by some interpretations, is about proximity to source.
So think of all these directions. You can move forward, backward, up, down, left, and right. You can have past, present, and future. You can be close to source or far from source.
But we can only truly perceive a fraction of those things.
This is one way of reconciling those paradoxes. Returning to the example of deity… deity can be of a personal nature or it can be an unfeeling force of the universe depending on which part of it is passing through our three dimensions at the moment. If deity exists on a higher dimensional level than we do, then we’ll only ever see a part of it… just like the square couldn’t see the whole sphere.
It’s worth noting, by the way, that the square in Flatland does not always react too kindly to the sphere’s wisdom. At one point, he shouts: “Monster, be thou juggler, enchanter, dream, or devil, no more will I endure thy mockeries. Either thou or I must perish.” It’s hard to think outside of the box sometimes. And expanding your perspective can be scary.
From Black and White to Grey
“Everything is either this or that.” I said that earlier, and although I was framing it as a limited and slightly negative outlook, I think it can be helpful in certain situations. (Please note: these situations do not extend to people, sexuality, and gender. That’s not what we’re talking about here.) When we’re very new on our spiritual journeys, looking at certain things in pure black and white terms might assist in learning and rote memorization.
For example, we might teach students that basil is a fiery herb. It has correspondences to Mars and can be used in love, prosperity, banishing, or protection magick. If you’re putting together your first list of magickal herbs, you now have a neat little box and you can place basil inside of it. Easy, right? Ten points for organization.
But today I might sometimes feel like basil is a watery herb. And yes, I’m choosing this example specifically because it contradicts the popular standards. There is just something about the smell of fresh basil that makes me think of water… and for that reason, I might use it for spells that center around ideas like healing, movement, and adaptability. And those qualities are in a separate box…
In Flatland, basil can only live in one of those boxes. Lucky for us, magick isn’t a two-dimensional world.
The “this or that” line of thinking was necessary for me at one point in my journey. I needed to understand deity as a fundamental force and nothing else. If I hadn’t arrived at that conclusion, I probably would have gotten very stuck.
Don’t miss out. Here’s what’s coming up…
More InfoBut as I’ve mentioned before, the world isn’t black and white. The world is full of grey. As we grow and change, the grey outlook is increasingly required. We learn how things can be different depending on when they are observed or who observes them. And very importantly… I must understand that your view, regardless of how different it is from mine, doesn’t take away from the legitimacy of my experience.
So… what do we do?
I’ve told you that paradoxes can be reconciled. I haven’t given you much advice for how they can be reconciled. And that’s because it’s different for each person. So what do you do when you encounter a seemingly absurd, self-contradictory situation?
In some organized religions, you might seek the advice of counsel — a priest, pastor, or teacher. They might tell you “that’s just how it is!” or they might enlighten you to further understanding. Who knows!
In less organized systems, like witchcraft, we’re often left to our own devices. Maybe you’ll need to spend a few hours in meditation. Maybe the answer will eventually come to you in a decade. Or maybe you’ll need to discover your own personal Christopher Penczak. I can only hope that reading this article helps begin to set things into place for you. Sometimes we only need to know that a thing can be done.
[Shortest Ever] Conclusion
In conclusion, paradoxes can be reconciled. It’s possible. The rest of the work, however, I leave to you.
#flatland #occult #paradox #paradoxes #perspective #reconciliation #spectrum #spirituality #time #witchcraft
Hacker News
Thomas Barrio
C.
Kemal ASLAN
Knowledge Zone
StreamRadar
Domingos Faria
Mick's Suite
EconomistaInsolvent
