Honesty is about authenticity and remaining true to yourself — which is such a bullshit phrase because I've heard it so many times. It sounds profound until you try to define it.
The problem is that words are incredibly difficult to understand unless there is already an experience behind them. We become attached to their sound, their definitions, and the ideas other people have placed upon them. We mistake these for the thing itself.
Honesty is just as it is.
Plain.
Transparent.
Direct.
There is no veil. There is no delay. It is simply there, and you know that it is how it is.
There are no outward characteristics of honesty. In fact, there is no certain way to tell whether someone is honest. Behaviour can be imitated. Words can be rehearsed. Logic alone cannot lead you to honesty, and that is precisely what is honest about it.
It simply is.
Reduced to its essence, honesty is saying what you mean — and perhaps doing it also, although that should really be assumed once something has been spoken. A word should carry its own momentum.
This reminds me of philosophical writings on the power of the Word and its spelling (out). A word may be spoken or written, but before the existence of paper, speech held far greater weight. Things depended upon words spoken into the world. Promises, agreements, memories, histories — they existed because someone spoke them, and others remembered.
The ease with which we speak nowadays is wonderful — magickal, even. Yet I fear we have forgotten the presence of speech and just how voluminous its weight can be when chosen carefully.
The invention of paper changed this relationship. Suddenly, knowledge could be stored outside the mind. Grimoires appeared. Scholars became scribes. Time itself could be recorded.
This required patience.
The secrets reveal themselves through waiting and observing, carefully recording that which first appears meaningless. Only with enough time can patterns emerge. Many religious traditions and great schools of philosophy were built upon precisely this discipline. They paid attention.
Without the willingness to observe, record, and periodically review the happenings of our lives, we fail to discover anything new. We repeat the same lessons over and over again, wondering why nothing changes.
It is a kind of madness.
This is why I write.
Not because writing creates truth, but because it allows truth to reveal itself over time.
And so I move on to the idea of lies.
Before hating on them, I must point out that they are necessary and incredibly useful. Without persistent error, we would never uncover truth. Lies provide contrast. They expose reality by eventually collapsing beneath their own contradictions.
Perhaps the goal is not to become incapable of lying.
Perhaps it is to become a bad liar.
Someone who finds it difficult to go against their own nature.
In today's world we lie about astonishingly many things. Some are harmless. Some are social lubricants. Some are habits we inherited without ever questioning them. Often I think how wonderful life already is, and then I remember how far we have drifted from ourselves. I find myself missing something that feels both ancient and very close, though difficult to describe.
When it comes to magick, however, lying becomes a genuine obstacle.
I do not necessarily discourage liars from practising magick, but I will say that you may be in for one hell of a punishment — one entirely self-administered.
The problem with lying is not morality.
The problem is contradiction.
Lies generate confusion. They divide attention. They force the mind to hold multiple versions of reality at once. Every contradiction demands energy to maintain.
Magick, like any worthwhile pursuit, benefits from clarity.
Whether you are attempting to open your third eye, solve a mathematical problem, compose a piece of music, or paint a picture, concentrated attention does wonders for the task at hand. The fewer contradictions present within the psyche, the greater your capacity to focus.
Honesty gathers attention.
Lying scatters it.
This is why I believe honesty is so important for effective magick.
People often imagine that spells derive their power from elaborate rituals, rhyming incantations, or beautiful words. Yet many recite them without ever inhabiting the meaning behind what they speak. The words become performance rather than expression.
An effective spell is one that is genuine.
It does not matter whether another person hears it.
Personally, I am a great fan of telepathic spell casting — or silent casting. Expressing ourselves outwardly can make us vulnerable in ways that create hesitation or self-consciousness. There is certainly value in gathering together, practising collectively, and sharing experience. But there is also something profoundly direct about saying nothing at all.
Sometimes the feeling itself is the spell.
Perhaps silent casting is more effective because it bypasses the need to translate experience into language. Before thought becomes speech, before speech becomes action, there exists a simple knowing.
Honesty lives there.
Perhaps that is where magick begins.