On Faith!, and Magick Options

How do you think faith affect your magick?

How does faith works?

What is faith?

Looked like simple questions, but I seemed can't answer them fast enough even to myself.
Anyone care to try?

Hmmm..such as, faith in religion or faith in your ability and the magick itself?

What is faith? I have no idea..I'd say it's somewhere between hoping and knowing, maybe with a detour through unquestionable belief.
The outcome is not always certain, but you do know that in the end things will work out for the better. Sometimes, the word itself is an incredible piece of magick. I tell my husband, "I have faith you'll achieve your goal." "yeah yeah," he'll tell me, knowing that deep down, I'm right.

I always look at 'faith' as the contradiction or opposite of doubt. You know, saying "I have faith you'll get your homework done" to a teenager. It seems like doubt is just hanging around the corner, peeking it's little malformed head out and waiting for an opening to jump in and take over. Meaning, even though faith is an extreme feeling, there's always room for something to..malfunction. Faith isn't a certain outcome, it's a projected belief of a foreseeable effect.

Of course, I could be way off. I've been up for 17 hours, so I may have to come back tomorrow and edit my post.

I think faith does count to a certain extent, but maybe a skeptic would ask, if the magick is so real or powerful certainly the proper ritual should be enough itself. I think it might count especially with practices dealing with healing or energy or visualizations (which is a lot)

I think faith does count to a certain extent, but maybe a skeptic would ask, if the magick is so real or powerful certainly the proper ritual should be enough itself. I think it might count especially with practices dealing with healing or energy or visualizations (which is a lot)

The skeptic would be wrong there. Magick hinges on faith, at least at first. Even then - what magician goes his entire magical career without once doubting the truth of his experiences? Especially solitary magicians. It takes a great deal of faith to constantly remind yourself that the world you live in is more than just physical matter and sensations. No matter how successful your magick is, or what kind of spirit you evoke, there is always that nagging sensation it the back of one's mind: "Maybe I was just projecting my point of view on things, maybe there was no magick. Maybe I was just hallucinating a bit, maybe it was all in my head." Maybe this, maybe that... I find that the longer I go between magickal works of any type, the harder it is for me to have casual faith, the more I have to push it.

Faith does seem to be something that can be exhausted, though. It makes me wonder just exactly what it is, energetically. Under observation, faith seems to be a kind of energetic wind - similar to the solar wind in principle. My closest friends have the utmost faith in my abilities, even though they themselves are not magicians - and I must say there have been times when turning my attention to that source of faith has given me a sensation of empowerment before a ritual. When we do prepare for a ritual in which they take part, we pray together before hand to their respective deities, and state our faith in one another.

So, I think a question like, "what is faith" will be answered and reanswered again and again... and I don't think anyone is going to be 100% right or wrong. It is possible faith is an aspect of the subjective concsiousness, and different for everyone in purpose and makeup.

peace

Faith is the central component of the formulae Will + Faith + Ritual / Prayer = Magick

WILL <Mental World> 2cnd world

You want something to happen very strongly. You are trying to force it to happen with your mind. You refuse for reality to be anything except what you want. The will must be strong. If the will is weak then so is the soul. Will is closely linkeed to Faith.

Faith <Spiritual World> 3rd world.

You must believe what you want to happen WILL happen. See it in your mind. Day dream of the future the way you want it. Do not visualise bad things or say "Oh I hope something f@#cked up does not happen. Use your WILL to control your mind. The thoughts must be closely guarded. You must believe. If you do not believe in your self then believe in something higher than you that can make these things happen. The only thing that is impossible is what we believe to be impossible.

Ritual / Prayer <Physical World> 1st world.

Faith without works is dead. It is not enough to set things into motion in the mental and astral worlds. We must do something in the physical to show we are doing something to make our WIll + Faith come true. The ritual is not of great importance. Ritual can be anything. The important thing is to know that ritual is just a high form of prayer. Even if you are Godless the ritual is still a prayer unto yourself. For magick to swing full circle you must do something in all 3 worlds.

Faith is a stabilized Hope...

Faith is a means to bypass doubt. To freeze the concious mind's interference for the duration of ritual, so you can experience the magick. Faith is the absence of reason, and in some cases, the cause and justification of reason. It is a suspension of doubt. It is a means to experience the divinity within/without us, an avenue for direct experience which replaces faith once achieved. It's a bridge between the desired experience which we do not know, and only have an idea off, and our present state. For me, most of these are side effects of "Faith".

Faith really is it's own "thing". This is interesting, and I think V Dreamer is correct when he says none of us will be 100% "right" or "wrong" when it comes to describing it. I suppose one way to come close though is to note what faith allows us to do under various conditions, two of which are to move worlds, or destroy them.

-F.F.

Edit: Also, everyone here dscribed "Faith" wonderfully. I wonder how many variations we can find?

This post has been edited by Frater F.A.M.E.: Aug 17 2006, 06:21 AM

faith is the trust we have in ourselves our beliefs and our abilities as well as the abilities of others. It is personal to each of us and can be very powerfull. I have seen a family friend cured of terminal cancer because of his faith in Christ. And an employee regain use of her arm when she visited a sangoma. (but i must admit that his method was barbaric). I believe that anything is possible if you have faith

faith is the trust we have in ourselves our beliefs and our abilities as well as the abilities of others. It is personal to each of us and can be very powerfull. I have seen a family friend cured of terminal cancer because of his faith in Christ. And an employee regain use of her arm when she visited a sangoma. (but i must admit that his method was barbaric). I believe that anything is possible if you have faith (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

faith is the trust we have in ourselves our beliefs and our abilities as well as the abilities of others. It is personal to each of us and can be very powerfull. I have seen a family friend cured of terminal cancer because of his faith in Christ. And an employee regain use of her arm when she visited a sangoma. (but i must admit that his method was barbaric). I believe that anything is possible if you have faith (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)