Doubt, Savior

[Kath]

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[Nahemah]

Yes,yes and yes again,to all three questions.

I explore everything,I doubt everything,until I have tasted,tested and examined it thoroughly.I am a naturally sceptical person,but I know there is much in this world I do not understand that is real and existential,so I seek out others to learn from and to share with: Occult forums are an inavaluable reference and learning tool for me.I do find some of what I've encountered online to be hilarious,some is rather sad and some a bit worrying...hmm....the acceptable behaviours of 'the group' in these places,the consnsus views that prevail and the clique mentality disturbs me,somewhat generally too.

I have found that even the frustration that you describe,especially for me, the levels of naivety that exist,re belief and tolerance,have helped me to grow and gain in knowledge,so all that negative can still be utilised positively,mind bending though it can be.LOL.

Doubt leads to self exmination and encourages exploration, testing the possibilities and rejecting the absurdities:however you may need to reason and wrestle with those is a leraning journey, working through those doubts makes us grow and evolve and that growth is often painful but it is a necessary catharsis.Doubt is a most human of virtues.A very timely topic snd a pertinent one too, I think Kath.

[I am a fan of Doubting Thomas also.My Gran called me a 'little Thomas' as I questioned her on belief all the time.Lol.
She also prayed a lot to St.Jude on my behalf.'The helper of the helpless,hapless and hopeless', those just like me,she said...ooh err,ta gran!]

[Spinel]

What's all this doubt all about? What's a person to do if they're doubting all day?

[Nahemah]

That person should stay up late and go for a 'long dark night of the soul' experience.Doubt sets us free,it allows us to seek validation and evidence,whether for refutation or definition. It can help us to consolidate and validate what we still wish to believe and clarify that which we should discard.Self examination is an important part of spiritual growth,as I understand it.

[Spinel]

I can see how doubt can be good in some circumstances. But a person who has an awareness of what is right is not someone who is filled with doubt for everything. For you see a person with the faculty to think for themselves has a keen perception amongst all sorts of beliefs, and this perception that can establish something into a belief of their own wouldn't necessarily be based on doubt, but faith. Like doubt and validating a something, you can't have your cake and eat it too, unless chronologically speaking.

[Nahemah]

"But a person who has an awareness of what is right is not someone who is filled with doubt for everything."

So,What are they filled with,certainty?For me the only certainty in life is death.All else is subject to change.It is in adapting to change that we evolve personally.My opinion on my own experience.

All I know for certain is that I am sure of nothing. I like this state of uncertainty,I'm a bit of a hedge sitter,you see.It can help with paradigm shifts,doubt aids in the letting go process afterwards.You can learn to switch it on.

[Spinel]

Yet it is with conviction that there is a tomorrow that we do things today. It's what makes human beings build tall towers and whatnot, lol.

[Mitch]

I feel what you're saying Kath. One used to see the occult referred to as "occult science", but not so much anymore. And yet, when a scientist begins to *expect* certain results, and uses the scientific method as a weapon instead of a tool, the result is The Amazing Randi. Randi dismisses anything that doesn't fit into Orthodox Science (capitalized because it is arguably a religion). But he has done really good work too, and seems like a great guy who wants to help people. He's just stuck in the cycle.

Doubting seems like half of healthy human believing/doubting cycles. When you get stuck at a point in the cycle with regard to a given subject, you get extremes of various kinds: dark nights of the soul, religious zealots, atheists, people who believe in all things 'magickal', James Randi, etc.

Doubting and Believing are organic opposites. Heck, they might even be the same thing, in the same way that a nymph is a dragonfly and vice versa.

[Nahemah]

'If'...Small word isn't it?

I hold it dear to me.I always make room for the 'What ifs...' and 'If... Buts' in my plans.

Rudyard Kipling's poem says it well.

http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_if.htm



IF.....


IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - 'nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

[Spinel]

I remember reading that poem at my Nan's house once, not knowing who had written it. Interesting to know ...

[VVV]

"Laiad Holq Ta Napea...

"It is my firmly held belief that people should not have deeply held beliefs." (Unknown)

"Greater Poop: Is Eris true?
Mal-2: Everything is true.
GP: Even false things?
M2: Even false things are true.
GP: How can that be?
M2: I don't know man, I didn't do it." (Principia Discordia)

The more confident I grow in my current paradigm, the closer I am to smashing it apart in order reassemble it.

One thing I am sure of is that reason without intuitiion results in cold, sterile cynicism, intuition without reason leads to blind acceptance. Neither of these options appeals to me. It is in the synergy created by such dialectics that we find true understanding. My goal is to draw from each opposite, and be compulsed toward neither.

...my 2p

VVV (210/3)
...Ds Praf Piap"

[Shaam]

Doubt keeps us curious.

Doubt also allows us to explore our inner selves and our beliefs.

Doubt keeps us learning.

[xcb]

I doubt the utility of doubt.

[The Cove]

There are times when one must not falter or one may die or lose what cannot be replaced. But this of course is pertaining to certain instances in life.

When it comes to the use of apprehension or skepticism in the various circles of Occult what not, this use is another tool for conviction in modulation. There is polarity in all things; a counterpart for everything - to consider, contemplate or meditate with this in consideration as a governing principle behind all thought, emotion and act of will or lack thereof is provident.

Do not question the appearance of dubious emanations in the self. Find an answer in what triggered your scruples and hence define and make full circle the quandary; once recognized one can do with it what one wishes.

Sun warmed raisins covered in lint in the pocket.

[xcb]

Hermetic polarity-gazing is all fine and well sometimes, but there are other times that it simply doesn't make any sense. Love and hatred can quite easy be the poles of a spectrum, but when one is talking of the existential property of things it all falls apart. There is no happy contemplative medium between existence and nonexistence. One simply has to choose.

[S33k3R]

These word were spoken in irreverence once to me, and became a motto of mine....

"Believe in he who claims to seek the truth...doubt he who claims to have found it"

Well, I suspect that the person actually telling me that said something like "don't believe the bullsh*t son"...but I just edited it in my head to sound, you know...cooler.

[Elystan]

When I was a catholic, I always liked saint Thomas.

I'm a fan of the other St. Thomas

[Ashley challis]

Dark night of the soul, golden dawn this is all good news to me.

Ash.