Magic 501: The Pitfalls of Memory

Memory is, as any amount of research on cognition and perception has demonstrated, an entirely imaginary account of something that might have existed. There’s little truth to be found in memory, but we try to use it to know ourselves. We imagine what we feel should have happened, what we are convinced must have happened, and conclude from it what we are. Imagined experience becomes identity, becomes a tool we use to manipulate our environment.

We reference our imagined past to define our current experience, and reality has little to do with that process.

Because memory is chiefly composed of imagination and emotion, the same facility that spiritual entities have with introducing ideas and emotional states allows them to make changes to memory. It is possible for those entities to introduce memories, alter memories, and suggest changes to the emotional tone of memory when recalled. Perception, because it lies so fluidly and often about continuity, helps those alterations smoothly enter and persist in the memory and experience of the person.

Whatever is inserted becomes knowledge of the person about themselves: what they know themselves to be. This, in turn, becomes how they behave in the present. The imagined past becomes the imagined present, and both will be accepted as true.

Perhaps one of the most difficult lessons a particular kind of spiritual worker or priest can experience is that what seems most intimate—one’s narrative of one’s past and the knowledge of self which comes from it—is yet another tie which must be released. In order to continue to raw-dog reality, a priest or spiritual worker will need to cease defining self from the past and recognize that the familiar reassurance that many people find in reminiscing, nostalgia, and shared memory is something that serves to distract and introduce or reinforce delusion. The past must be stripped away, recognized as a source of false identity and comfort.

This is not to say that priests and spiritual workers do not have memory or a past, but that they no longer find these things a source of identity, comfort, or self-knowledge. Priests and spiritual workers remember their past, but it is not an invasive nor particularly frequent presence in their lives.

Getting to this state is yet another thing which cannot be done alone.