The Poetic Terrorist

I feel a duty to find where science actually agrees with magic, where theory and logic can really help us grow and add to our spiritual experience of ourselves, and where the ancient texts highlight and prophesy new discoveries.

Ultimately, to move forward from broken, mistranslated and misunderstood traditions and dogma – available in any spiritual path new or old – we have to find a way these ideas can work in the present day. If humankind desperately needs to change bad collective habits, old beliefs need to be updated – contemporized.

You can see the beginnings of this happening in the New-Age market. There are thousands of books on wicca, energy healing, angels, runes, meditation and reiki (to mention a few), using thousands of buzz words and invented jargons. While it certainly attests to our imagination and creativity, and signals an age where anyone can write a book, it has its downsides.

A favorite topic, widely used and abused, is what the discoveries of quantum physics actually tell us about magic and reality. There is an attempt here in the New-Age media to bridge the divide between spirit and science. But I find it half-hearted and disingenuous. At worst, it is manipulative toward an audience who is seeking truth, but being fed make-believe.

It saddens me that warning bells go off in my head when I walk into a new age bookstore that I have to question whether an author or expert is motivated by a genuine desire to help or by conditioned capitalist greed. Can money and spirituality co-exist at all? I often wonder.

In my own stubborn desire to master myself I have arrived at one of the most powerful and practical paradoxes of my life. My quest for contemporary wisdom revealed to me that magic – real magic – and the sciences do not oppose one another, but compliment one another beautifully. I feel a duty to find where science actually agrees with magic, where theory and logic can really help us grow and add to our power and wisdom.

The advances in psychology, psychiatry, neuro-science and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) are incredibly fascinating, yet so often ignored by those with spiritual interests. Whether it be a Wiccan, a pagan, an ‘intuitive’ or what-have-you, it’s as if some people are afraid that parts of what they believe will be invalidated by rigorous investigation, and that would bring into question the whole thing. Certainty is a human need, but the desire for it can be taken to an extreme so easily.

The truth can be destructive, often in a straight forward way. But avoiding it brings a much more subtle and extensive ruin. If we do not value truth, our actions will reflect that fundamental lack. We descend deeper into unconsciousness – and are summarily used by the people and forces who prey on that.

It is no longer good enough for the New Age to restrict themselves and their experiences to ever more superficial spells, ‘meditations’, psychic readings or trendy visits to the yoga studio. It is bordering on the unethical to advance any spiritual or magical teaching without also cultivating a critical mind.

The New Age and practitioners of this so-called ‘awakening’ have a duty to cultivate a culture where thinking for oneself and critical pedagogy are both paramount; where proper methodology and extensive research are used to supplement claims; where practical application is valued more than semantics and imagination is tempered by pragmatism and a respect for reality (however harsh that reality may sometimes be.)

Should we fail in this, we deserve our fate: to be yet another easily exploited, impotent demographic, manipulated by marketing and by anyone with enough desire to make a buck from selling snake-oil.