The position of reason and the intellect has always been a tenuous one in the realms of religious and spiritual pursuits. On first appearances, the reason (excuse the pun) for this seems obvious; rational analysis has a tendency to destroy the fanciful and often self-important delusions that often accompany these pursuits. Faith-based religions, for instance, have raised the objections to reason to the level of artform, faith being wholly opposed to reason by its very nature. As humanity’s understanding of the universe increases (or, at least, appears to) it becomes all but impossible to sustain a belief in, for instance, the type of god whose existence is asserted by the Abrahamic religions, whilst simultaneously accepting the validity of logic, reason and science. Although some extraordinarily weak and risible attempts to reconcile the two have been made – most notably in the various so-called “proofs” for the existence of such a god which have been presented from time to time – the most usual refuge is the assertion that the intellect is fundamentally unsuited to analysing the phenomena associated with the domains of religion and spirituality, and that attempts to do so are therefore invalid. This enables the religious believer, the new age spiritualist, and the occultist to brush aside rational criticisms of their positions as being mistaken and irrelevant on their very first principles.

This assertion demands closer investigation. It turns out that there are two essential components to it, only one of which is visible. The first is indeed that it is futile to attempt to analyse religious or spiritual phenomena rationally, as we have stated. However, the fact that this assertion is used in order to justify continuing adherence to whatever beliefs the individual in question wishes to maintain implies a second component; that there exists some other valid method of achieving this end. This “other method” usually itself comes in two distinct forms. The first is faith. The adherent to faith-based religions fundamentally asserts that religious phenomena simply do not need to be analysed or understood in any form whatsoever, that faith justifies itself. This position often seems absolutely incredible to most rational observers. The believer asserts the existence of his god, and the mere fact that he asserts it is all the justification he requires; no amount of rational doubt applied to that belief can shake it. Yet if asked whether he is merely assuming a truth, without any interest in whether it accurately reflects reality, the believer will usually flat out deny he is doing any such thing. His god does exist, and he knows that he exists. This assertion of both fact and knowledge is completely incompatible with a position based on faith and the rejection of reason, but such contradictions matter little to the believer, since his faith is indeed the only justification he requires. If he were to confess that he is indeed simply uninterested in the actual truth of his belief, then some semblence of consistency could be discerned, but the faith-based position in its fullest form can safely be included in the category of “lunatic,” and we need not consider it any further here.

The second of the “other methods” is usually described as experience, and it is the relationship between reason and experience that will form the subject of this entry. To begin, we will look at two aspects of this relationship. The first of these two aspects is the idea that, all else being equal, knowledge gained from direct experience is better than knowledge gained from indirect experience. Especially in the occult community, the phrase “armchair magician” is often heard to suggest a lack of knowledge from direct experience on the part of their detractors, but this distinction is certainly not unique to this community. The slaughter that occurred in the trenches of the First World War is often attributed mainly to the fact that the generals conducting the campaign had little or no direct experience of the actual realities of the new types of warfare the troops under their command were engaging in, the result being a series of catastrophic tactical and strategic failures. One outcome of this was that UK army officers were subsequently required to rotate between field and staff positions, precisely to avoid any future appearances of the dreaded “desk general.”

That there are a wide range of situations in which knowledge based on direct experience is invaluable should not be in doubt. A person who “learned to fly airplanes” on a PC-based simulator would, for instance, receive a brief and lasting lesson on this if he ever tried to fly a real one by himself armed only with this knowledge. There is often antinomy between academics and self-professed “real world” practioners in which the actual knowledge of the former is often decried, Fisher Black’s (ironically, himself an academic) comment that “markets look a lot less efficient from the banks of the Hudson than from the banks of the Charles” being a good example in the field of economics. Academic knowledge is inevitably somewhat idealised and incomplete, which whilst in no way detracting from its usefulness in its proper sphere, makes drawing practical plans in which those “missing elements” form a very important part a somewhat foolish task, all the more foolish if the academic in question has become so enamoured of the simplicity and elegance of his theories that denies the very existence of these elements.

However, the common belief that knowledge from direct experience is always better than knowledge from indirect experience is just as easily debunked, something that will be to the surprise of many. For instance, if we were to rank knowledge in terms of its “usefulness,” it should be a relatively safe assumption that, for instance, the knowledge that it is really quite a poor idea to deliberately step out in front of a fast-moving train would rank closer to the “useful” than the “useless” end of the scale. Yet, there can exist very few people living today who have acquired this knowledge from direct experience. We can include knowledge such as “it’s dangerous to push a wet finger into an electric light socket,” “it’s dangerous to run with scissors” and “it’s dangerous to fly a kite in the vicinity of high powered electrical transmission lines” in this category.

Further, people frequently place great and uncritical faith in knowledge from “common sense observation”; one of the most common arguments against moral nihilism – the position that all moral statements are false – is the “argument from common sense,” the argument that day-to-day observation demonstrates quite conclusively the existence of good and evil. However, this “common sense” is the same “common sense” that reliably informed humankind for thousands of years that the Earth was flat and that the Sun revolved around it.

In short, even on a simple day-to-day scale, there are many, many occasions where knowledge from indirect experience is found to be useful, and that’s before we even get to the fact that the production of modern computers, for instance, relies on knowledge gained not only from the most abstract of physical theories, but from physical theories which are known to be inconsistent with other widely accepted physical theories. It is quite simply a mistake to fall into the trap of believing that knowledge from direct experience is always more useful – or more likely to be correct – than knowledge from indirect experience.

However, we have been carefully using the term “knowledge from indirect experience” as opposed to “purely academic knowledge” to make the point that knowledge without any experiential inputs is highly unlikely to be practically useful. This distinction is important, because knowledge based purely on experience would have to be direct. Knowledge based on indirect experience must be communicated ultimately from one person who has had the relevant direct experience to others who have not. If people accept the communicated knowledge that “it is detrimental to one’s health to insert knitting needles directly into the ear” but they do not accept the communicated “knowledge” that, for instance, “there is a colony of tiny invisible gnomes living under your fingernails” then it must be because people have somehow become convinced of the truth of the former, but not convinced of the truth of the latter. Convincing is a logical and rational process, and therefore we must conclude that knowledge from indirect experience must comprise, at least partially, of knowledge derived from reason.

This observation brings us to the second of our two aspects of the relationship between experience and reason. Not only is knowledge from direct experience not always “better” than knowledge from indirect experience, but what is frequently believed to be knowledge from pure experience – as opposed to mere “intellectual” knowledge – is, the vast majority of the time, absolutely nothing of the sort. For anybody interested in knowledge, this is a critical point to understand. Our preceding discussion led us to the reasonable conclusion that, at the very least, knowledge based at least partially on experiential inputs is more likely to be valid than knowledge based on no experiential inputs at all. One implication of this is that we will likely place a lot more confidence in “experiential knowledge” than “rational knowledge,” and the previous conclusion would suggest that it is indeed reasonable to do that. However, if we are unable to distinguish “experiential knowledge” from “rational knowledge” then we are in danger of placing great faith in erroneous conclusion simply because we believe them to be based in experience when in fact they are not.

An example should make this idea clear. Suppose that in the course of composing this entry, I press the ‘q’ key on my keyboard, and I observe a lower case ‘q’ symbol appearing on the screen in front of me. I therefore conclude that pressing the ‘q’ key on my keyboard causes – in certain circumstances, an important one being that the computer has to be switched on at the time, for instance, another one being that the “caps lock” function must not be active – a lower case ‘q’ to appear on my screen, and I describe this conclusion as a unit of knowledge. Now, consider this statement: “I know that pressing the ‘q’ key on my keyboard causes, in certain circumstances, a lower case ‘q’ to appear on my screen, and I know this based on experience; I have pressed the ‘q’ key on my keyboard under these circumstances, perhaps thousands of times, and every time I have seen a lower case ‘q’ appear on my screen. Therefore the knowledge that pressing the ‘q’ key on my keyboard causes, in certain circumstances, a lower case ‘q’ to appear on my screen, is experiential knowledge; I know it via direct experience. It is experiential knowledge, and not rational knowledge.”

This conclusion is erroneous, and it is wildly and completely erroneous. This knowledge is not experiential knowledge at all; it is rational knowledge. All my experience has told me is that I have pressed the ‘q’ key on my keyboard, and that a lower case ‘q’ symbol appeared on my screen shortly thereafter. My intellect has inferred that the appearance of the lower case ‘q’ symbol was caused by the pressing of the ‘q’ key on my keyboard, and this inference is a purely rational process. If I pressed the ‘q’ key on my keyboard and a huge clap of thunder was heard shortly thereafter, I would be highly unlikely to draw the conclusion that the former caused the latter, yet the experiential inputs – that one phenomenon appeared shortly after another phenomenon – would be identical in each case. The fact that I draw a causal inference in the former case, but not in the latter, is due purely to the intervention of my intellect, of my reasoning faculty.

The reasons why I draw a causal inference in one case but not in the other may be varied. For one thing, since my keyboard is directly connected to my computer by a few feet of cable, whereas the thunderstorm is far removed from my computer, I may be naturally disposed to draw a connection between my computer and the keyboard, but not between my computer and the thunderstorm (of course, on the other hand, if I heard a loud clap of thunder and my computer suddenly turned itself off, I may very well draw a causal inference between the two). For another thing, I may observe that in the specified conditions, a lower case ‘q’ appears on my screen every single time I press the ‘q’ key on my keyboard, whereas I have only heard a loud clap of thunder following such a keypress once. This kind of observed consistency supports the drawing of a causal inference.

It is not necessary to belabour the point by trying to examine every possible reason for the difference in my treatment of these two phenomena, but it must be understood that the drawing of the causal inference is in all cases an intellectual process, and not an experiential one. We can go further, therefore, and say that there is in fact no such thing as “experiential knowledge”; experience may comprise an input to the process of the creation of knowledge, but that process is itself always intellectual and rational.

These observations may seem like playing with words, but they are extremely important. The person who, for instance, asserts that “I know God exists because I have experienced him” is wrong. He may indeed have “experienced God,” but his “knowledge that God exists” categorically does not arise in this experience; it arises in his intellectual interpretation of his experience. His experience, by itself, has no explanatory power whatsoever, and so cannot form knowledge by itself; his intellect is required for this to happen.

The enormity of the kind of gross error which failure to appreciate this distinction can engender can be seen in the following statement: “I know that magic is real, because I have seen it. I saw a man with a black cape pull a rabbit out of a hat where there was no rabbit before. I saw it with my own eyes. I experienced the reality of magic. Therefore magic exists.” There cannot be many people reading this entry who could not pretty quickly spot the flaw in our hero’s logic, and in doing so they affirm what we are here presenting; that despite appearances, this conclusion does arise from the intellect, and not from experience. It is said that “apperances can be deceiving,” explaining our man’s error, but this is in fact not true. The appearance in this case was not deceiving at all; first no rabbit was visible in the hat, and then a rabbit was visibly pulled from it. What is deceiving is the intellectual interpretation of that appearance, of that experience.

This, of course, is not new information; we began this entry with the very observation that reason has a shaky reputation, particularly in the religious and spiritual arenas. But the source of the fatuous beliefs which many religious believers, new age spirituals, and occultists fall prey to is precisely in the wrong response to this observation. In the face of an imperfect reason, of an intellect which cannot provide truth, these people search earnestly for an alternative faculty which can provide truth, and we have already seen that the most common faculties suggested for this role are those of faith and experience. But in their ardour to acquire such a faculty, they miss the fact that whatever faculty they may think they are resorting to, it is still their reason which is providing them with their “truths.” By rejecting reason, and believing themselves to be relying on experience, they are falling foul of the exact error they wished to avoid, that of believing their imperfect intellects because they fail to perceive it at work. This is inevitable; the statement that “reason is unreliable and experience is not” is itself a rational statement, and its acceptance implies an acquiescence in the reliability of reason. The religious believer who asserts that “faith, not reason, is supreme,” must first accept the validity of reason before he can sensibly make such a rational assertion.

In the case of our man at the magic show, it is his intellect that will come to his rescue, his reason that informs him that the conclusion he may initially draw rationally from his observations may not be reliable; skepticism is the application of reason to its own conclusions. It is indeed his intellect that may lead him to a faulty conclusion in the first place, but it is also his reason that can help him avoid making such a mistake. The religious believer and the occultist think themselves to be rejecting reason and accepting faith and experience respectively, but in fact it is their very rejection of reason which leads them to an acceptance of it, since they fail to apply their reason to the rational conclusions which they are drawing from their faith or from their experience. In “rejecting reason” they simply begin to emotionally deny the fact that all their knowledge is formed by a rational process, and this denial allows them to comfortably avoid questioning that rational process in selected areas of knowledge. In their rejection of reason, they blind themselves to its operation within themselves, and hence fall prey to its errors.

In the case of Thelema, many self-professed Thelemites consider verses from The Book of the Law such as “Now a curse upon Because and his kin!” (AL II, 28) “Also reason is a lie; for there is a factor infinite & unknown; & all their words are skew-wise” (AL II, 32) and “Success is thy proof: argue not; convert not; talk not overmuch!” (AL III, 42) as an injunction to believe in faith and experience, but it should now be clear that it is an injunction precisely to the contrary, an injunction to avoid believing in faith, experience, or in anything else, to be constantly skeptical against the possibility of inadvertently believing in the conclusions of reason, since we have seen that this is exactly what happens when one mistakes intellectual knowledge for “experiential knowledge.” Indeed, The Book of the Law anticipates exactly this kind of misconception: “There is great danger in me; for who doth not understand these runes shall make a great miss. He shall fall down into the pit called Because, and there he shall perish with the dogs of Reason.” (AL II, 27)

Those who would seek self-knowledge, therefore, would do well to question everything, to apply the reason until all beliefs and conceptions are destroyed, for it is indeed only outside of the intellect that reality can be perceived. It is a great error to mistake this perception for any kind of “knowledge.” Ultimately, the very concept of “gnosis” on which so much of occultism is based is a false notion. What is experienced directly in “gnosis” is not knowledge, and it is an error to describe it as such. It is the absence of knowledge, and an absence of the need for knowledge. To pretend that one has obtained insight or learning from this experience is the height of folly, for one is mistaking reason for experience, and proving that one never had this “gnosis” to begin with. The gnostic phenomenon appears to arise from a realisation that “intellectual knowledge” can never be perfect, but an emotional refusal to accept the natural conclusion that no knowledge can ever be perfect, and consequently to fall into the delusion of believing that “experiential knowledge” exists, a delusion that is made possible by the rejection of the only tool one has available for doubting the validity of that “knowledge”; the reasoning faculty. It is this rejection that opens the door to fantasy and delusion, exactly as faith opens to the door to the delusion of a belief in “god” when all the evidence points very strongly to the contrary. The entire foundation of the “gnostic” tradition is a colossal mistake.

Therefore as the Sun progresses through the final decan of Aquarius, take time to consider the role of reason and experience, to reflect that all knowledge is rational knowledge, and to understand that there is no “faith-based knowledge,” no “experiential knowledge,” and no “gnosis” which can take its place, any such notions inevitably leading unambiguously towards delusion. Take time to consider that experience is just that, experience, and that it is simply unnecessary to build theories of the universe upon its back. Rather than searching for some kind of “pure” knowledge, instead merely reflect that, in the presence of pure experience, knowledge of any kind is not inevitably required. One can enjoy the feel of the fresh Spring grass, savour the scent of the new flowers, and delight in the sound of the wind in the trees without needing contaminate this experience with false notions of “knowledge.” Knowledge, reason and intellect are imperfect, and should function in their place; outside of that place, avoid the temptation to substitute Choronzon in their stead.