WARNING: This may be an uncomfortable topic for some of my readers. I am a man of many interests and I don't fit into any particular stereotype except for possibly WEIRD.

I also dedicate this post to my new steemit friend @alchemage. This topic is for you. It may send some of my followers screaming and pushing the unfollow button. So be it. I am who I am.

Science

I believe strongly in the scientific method. So much so that I have entered debates with @gavvet and others when it comes to science and religion.

My stance is that science is a great and unbiased tool. It is great for doing certain things. It is really useful only when you can measure something, create experiments, and replicate.

What it is not good at is disproving things that we cannot currently measure. So called "scientists" that say something is not real because they cannot measure it are not practicing science.

SKEPTICISM: It is however good to remain a skeptic. So much of what we think about comes purely from our minds and I refer to as speculation. Science would refer to it as a hypothesis. It can still be real, it just can't really be proven or disproven beyond that point without being able to measure, replicate, publish and let other people challenge and replicate.

I do find this to be true.

That said... I also personally believe there are some strange phenomena that mankind has labeled and described many different ways. It is my hope that someday we will be able to measure and prove some of these things, because we do observe them now and we create many hypothesis about what they are and how they happen.

I believe in ghosts simply from personal experience and observations. I also can easily debunk many ghost stories. What and how ghosts work there are many hypothesis on.

I believe there are things that are OTHER than ghosts call them spirits, entities, demons, loa, whatever suits your purpose. They are something I've seen hints of and all the labels I see as hypothesis attempting to put a costume on top of them. Those of us that believe they are there and there are things we cannot yet measure do often speculate on what and how these things operate, exist, etc. These are hypothesis. That does not make the hypothesis wrong, yet it cannot be proven or disproven at this time via science due to lack of measurements. There are observable phenomena, but they do not occur on demand and we are very much in the infancy of trying to measure things. Televised reality shows have also given it a bad taste as their approach is to do the same thing over and over and use gimics that are appealing to the audience. This does make sense from a business perspective, but it is not particularly useful to the advancement of knowledge.

Occult

I've written two different articles on Word Hijacking ONE, TWO. The word Occult is actually one that was hijacked a long time ago. All it means is HIDDEN KNOWLEDGE. When something is CENSORED, technically it is OCCULTED. All of the top secret documents in governments is OCCULT because it is hidden knowledge. That is all it means. I bet a lot of people reading this did not know that.

Esoteric Knowledge

This can be something beyond the word occult. Though often the word occult is used to describe these types of things because they are often deemed as lost knowledge.

I have a heritage in this field. I also have an interest in this field deep at the genetic level. Yet I also believe that I look at it a bit different than a lot of people.

I do think there is some lost knowledge, yet I also think there is a lot of new knowledge that was not discovered in the past. I do not blindly view any studies of these fields as simply trying to relearn what people in the past knew. This is the same of whether you are Asian (Taoist), Wiccan, Druid/Druidiactos, New Ager, Alchemist, etc.

There is much to learn from the past, yet I don't personally believe it is to simply believe the same things they did. I see it more as learning new things to consider as we seek answers. When we are dealing with things in the hypothesis stage so much of it is intuition, speculation, and for some people faith. I don't put any belief into the concept of faith myself, it doesn't work for me. I operate from intuition and speculation (some might call it spirituality), yet I am often wrong so unlike faith I go into any of these studies with the idea that I am very likely wrong, maybe only a little wrong, or possibly completely wrong. Yet it is voyaging into the unknown with no flashlight (cannot measure).

Energy

Decades ago I did become to believe that there appears to be some ENERGY that responds to belief. The more strongly and focused the belief is the more effect it seems to have. The effect is generally not like the MAGIC USER throwing a fireball, or parting the red sea type of thing, but it can impact health, impart knowledge, and alter the mental landscape of people. How? This is where I differ from a lot of people.

I don't believe those practicing Enochian magic were right, and the Native American Shaman was wrong. I don't believe that praying to Jesus is any more powerful than praying to Shiva, or Gaia, or Diana.

The common factor for me is this idea of some energy we have not yet found out how to measure. I do believe it has been given a name. Some may call it Mana, others Chi or Ki, and me I liked to play with calling it Wyrd Force. I liked the spelling of the word Wyrd because that often means magical but it also has the connotations of WEIRD which really fits me.

So if there is a force that responds to concentrated belief that is focused how does magic work (for those that believe it does)?
I believe people's hypothesis often shared with others no longer are deemed as simply a hypothesis. They begin to have faith in these speculations. That faith is a shared thing. It is shared collective belief in a common thing. If this energy does indeed respond to belief then it seems that this form of collected belief would be particularly effective.

You could almost view this like The Force from the Star Wars fiction. Yet if it exists then I'd view it more like a tool and not good, evil, dark, or light. It is a tool and like any tool it can be used for benevolent, or malevolent purposes.

Enochian magic and other things Crowley and the Golden Dawn were into are very complex and focused systems. I believe the sheer complexity helps focus the belief so it may have indeed worked for them.

Yet this means that any belief system discussing this could have been correct. There is no one system that we've found to rule them all.

I came to this conclusion long ago. I've had so called witches curse my family and had weird stuff going on. I put an end to it every time. I just focus belief and make up whatever belief I need to formulate to counter such things. I realize it could be foolish, but if I am wrong then I've really got nothing to lose except for a little bit of my time.

History and Future Discussions

This is a topic I enjoy discussing. I realize some of my friends and readers here may not be comfortable with this topic. That is fine I will attempt to clearly mark when it is such a subject and you are more than welcome to skip it. I do not post these ideas to try to convince people, but simply because I've encountered some gifted minds that have similar interests and now I can discuss ideas with them that I haven't had such an opportunity to do so in the past.

Also I think @alchemage was writing about a similar thing in his POWER OF INTENTION post.