Lex Fridman: belief

Transcript context

…All roads lead to Aleister Crowley. Aleister Crowley and I’ve said this enough that I should be able to get it right, but I’m paraphrasing here, he goes, ” Magick,” which of course her spelled with a K or CK, “is the art and science of causing change to occur in conformity with will?” So in a way, that’s sort of mind over matter. But it’s the idea that one can through will, through intention bend reality to make something happen. Somebody once put it this way, it’s tipping the luck plane. So you got some kind of a level plane. What we’re just trying to do is just tip it just a little bit so the marble rolls over one side or to another. Now that presupposes a lot of things, that is there a luck plane? I don’t know. But it’s a good sort of idea to have. And here again, don’t become overly bothered trying to figure out whether you actually can bend reality, become bothered by the fact that there are people who believe that they can and will go to great efforts to do so and will often believe they have succeeded. So it’s this effort to make things occur in a particular way, maybe just to sort of nudge reality in one little way or another. And that’s where things like rituals come in. Rituals are a way of focusing will and intention. We’re all there. We’re all thinking about the same thing. And you have to imagine just how the pervasiveness of what could be called that kind of magical thinking every day is everywhere. So let me give you an example. You ever attended a high school football pep rally? Think of what’s going on there. Okay, your team is going to battle the other team. You’ve now assembled everyone in the gymnasium. You’ve got people who are dancing around in animal totem costumes. And what are you chanting? Everyone is supposed to chant that the other team dies, that you’ll be horribly defeated and that our team will be victorious. That is a magic ritual. The idea is it becomes into this idea that’s very popular today about visualizing things, visualizing, manifesting. I love this term. You need to manifest your success. Well, that’s just magic. That is trying to cause change in conformity with will. So these things can happen without you being even consciously aware of what’s going on. And you don’t need to be because if you’re all a part of a mob, which is there in the gymnasium and you get into this and you get worked up and a cultist would argue what you’re doing is you’re creating a huge amount of energy. All of these people are putting energy into something and that energy goes somewhere. And maybe you can. Maybe, just maybe, you actually can slightly increase the chances of your team’s victory. Of course, your opponents are having their own ritual at the same time. So whoever has the bigger mojo will apparently win on the team. So I would say trivial example of that, but a clear one. I do believe that there’s incredible power in groups of humans getting together and morphing reality. I think that’s probably one of the things that made human civilization what it is. Groups of people being able to believe a thing and bring that belief into reality. Yes, you’re exactly right. Bring to conceive of something and then through intention, will, to manifest that into this realm.…

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