The Intersection Of Faith and Science

While I consolidate my thoughts I want to share on the intersection of faith and science for the šŸ§‚ Weekly Witchy CHALLENGE - Salty Spellwork, Iā€™ve been listening to this song on repeat. My goal isnā€™t to attack my faith but to bring clarity to what Iā€™ve been adamant about since embracing Wicca.

In the meantime, I look forward to your thoughts. The song, and some discussion of it in the media, are below.

She emphasizes that this song is a satire and that sheā€™s playing a character in the video.

ā€œLadies, begin your sun salutations / Transcendental in your meditations / Love and light,ā€ she commands seductively as a culturally appropriating girlboss. ā€œYou can burn sage / And Iā€™ll cleanse the crystals.ā€ The world is burning, masses of people are dying, but thatā€™s in the periphery.

The New Zealand-born artist also talked in more detail about the meaning behind ā€œMood Ring,ā€ explaining itā€™s in part a ā€œmetaphor for the magical thinking we employ at times to feel well.ā€ She said she sometimes catches herself doing things like ā€œbendingā€ her horoscope to fit what she needs to be told in the moment, an example of how she relates to the temptation to buy into spirituality.

See also: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/mood-ring-lorde-releases-a-third-single-just-days-before-solar-power-is-released/RUWP6TTWC7R5ETRWS7YKDGUMKQ/

I put the link at the top of this post but Iā€™ll put it here too. This is the consolidation of my thoughts on the topic. Has a disclaimer Iā€™m speaking for myself and not the rest of the admin team or Spells8.

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The world is a lost and lonely place. Everyone is searching for a light but no one ever said it was easy. Grabbing a rock doesnā€™t make it magik. If these things are to have value I would expect if I am any indication a person should feel a bit drained when finished. I hear people say that looking to predict the future is a weak person as they believe they are at the whim of fate not making their own fateā€¦I say those who are searing the ship always value the weather forecast. I had a set of cards in front of me on Sunday that made zero sense in the world I thought was aheadā€¦Turns out the world I thought was ahead in the week was not the week ahead and as soon as events started to unfold I then knew what those cards were saying and what to do to keep the sails up and moving.

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No but itā€™s what you do with it thatā€™s magic! Maybe the rocks keep my sails up and moving! To each their own.

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This is something I have felt strongly about since embracing Wicca. Listed below are Conversation Starters and Responses To Other Posts concerning my beliefs on what magic is and how faith and science meet in real life. Before I share those, I discuss my journey from toxic faith to ā€œpureā€ faith. I follow this up with My Concluding Remarks. At the end of this report I share two new Videos To Consider.


As a reminder, this is what is said in the Energy Exchange Wiki. I do believe in mystery.

As members of Infinite Roots we cast a metaphysical circle around the earth, :earth_asia: covering our friends and families in light, love, and healing energy.


Growing up under extreme forms of Christianity, I have seen a lot of toxic (both ā€œpositiveā€ and negative) magical thinking in my life. Many people want to believe in something, anything really. I fought against this toxicity by trying to reclaim faith and religion for the better good of society. I firmly believe in The Divine and I see rituals as a means of connecting with what we desire to be true.

I was heading this way as I exited my former faith. The below comments are excerpts from things I have said in the past on other platforms.


For people previously wounded by the church, I am blurring this next bit. Warning: It's a "book" and a lot to absorb. Feel free to skip this to My Concluding Thoughts after you see how long it is.

This is from a blogpost I wrote.

It [the Protestant Christian Bible] teaches collective salvation - first of the Jewish state, then of the Christian body, then of the world as a whole. It teaches

  • when one member of a church is in ā€œsinā€, the whole church needs to come together.
  • when one member of a church lacks resources, the whole church pools resources together.
  • when one member of a church is sick, the whole church needs to come together.
  • when practicing rituals like communion, weā€™re told to make sure no ill will sits between the individual members of the church or the whole church will suffer.
  • when heading to worship, the church invites more to the table afterwards to eat and drink and be in community.

We donā€™t live lives alone and our choices impact the entire body of Christ/humanity. For those that arenā€™t part of Christianity, you may already understand this and you may wonder at the failure of the Christian church to recognize this truth. Our choices impact the lives of those around us. We are all connected in some wonderful, unexplainable way.

You, dear church member or eclectic spiritualist, do not have an individual path. You are not able to make up your own beliefs and live your own life apart from input from others. You take what works for you, sure, but that taking is only possible by first learning the language of the community and then learning what the community believes. You may do things in your own way, you may take your own steps, but the only path humanity is on is a collective path towards becoming more.

Pseudo-Spiritualism
This is the other part of the disease, the gangrene now begging for large portions of the church to be cut away. The Christian bible is clear that the body and the spirit are one. The body cannot live without the spirit and the spirit cannot exist apart from the body*(but by the power and grace of God-and even then only for a short period of time for resurrection)*. When a pastor preaches too much on the humanity of a person, they miss the spiritual. When they preach too much on the spiritual, they miss the humanity. This is a delicate balance.

Conservative churches seem to focus on the body and the mind. Donā€™t get involved with the things of the spiritual realm because you will be taken in by the devil. Make sure you have an answer to every question because mystery will lead you astray. This is the kind of thing you learn in a conservative church.

Liberal churches seem to focus on the spirit. I donā€™t need stories of how people met Jesus, tell me about how you met The Divine. I donā€™t want a formula. I donā€™t want a system or a theology. I donā€™t need to know the debates or be tied down to one belief. This is the kind of thing you learn in liberal churches.

By denying the body or by denying the spirit the church creates a fake idea of spiritualism that isnā€™t modeled in the Christian bible or in the concept of Jesus as the Cosmic Christ.

Thoughts and Conclusion
While in India in 2016, I met some of the most loving, faith-filled Christians I will probably ever meet. They were all children. When a group of them prayed, they all prayed together, out loud and in unison, but each saying something different. It was chaotic to my ears at first, especially so because it was not in English. But then I fell in love with the sound. It was music in spoken word. It melted my heart and it helped me see what we are missing in Western cultures and in the church.

We are missing community, oneness, and the knowledge that we were created to be social, communal creatures.

In a separate thread on Facebook I said this.

Science says the universe ends in entropy. Eventually every star will burn out. Every particle will break down. The universe will be empty and void. Yet somehow, I trick myself into believing I have control over my own life and that my life is meaningful in any way beyond the immediate impact it has on the people I love. This is only human. But what if there is something more and what if there is something that can bring meaning to our existence.

I am a human being.

  • My brain is dependent on the microbiome in my gut, the food, drink, and medicine I take in, and outside influences beyond my control. While I am responsible for my own actions, these actions are the result of decisions made subconsciously before I ever actually knew they existed or before I ever consciously decided to do them. My brain lies to me and says I made these decisions in the moment but the truth is my conscious self is a slave and free will is an illusion.
  • I am a walking pile of star dust (elements and minerals created by chain reactions birthed from the deaths of thousands of stars over billions of years before the earth was formed) and DNA from viruses, bacteria, other subspecies of great apes, and from all of the species that came before great apes in the tree of life.
  • My body is held together by forces I canā€™t fully understand and these forces are completely out of my control.
  • I exist on a planet that spins on its axis, around a star, which itself spins around a galaxy, all beyond my control.
  • The Milky Way Galaxy, our home, will one day crash into our nearest neighboring galaxy and because the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light, our Local Group (the home of our two galaxies) will be the final resting place for all of humanity.

With this in mind, it seems to me the only way to bring meaning to anything in light of science is by embracing mystery and loving others.

Finally, on another social media platform I said this.

People want to have faith in something. In this age itā€™s impossible to believe in almost anything.

We donā€™t trust our critics, our scholars, our scientists, our politicians, our neighbors, our news media, or our clergy.

Weā€™ve become so polarized in faith, in politics, in family matters, the list goes on and on. We want, we need, something to unite us. I believe that something is hope and faith. Hope in a better tomorrow for all people and faith in The Divine or a in savior that can lead us there.

I think many people understand this to be true. They long for saviors to come along for all sorts of reasons. Without getting too political, itā€™s why Obama was elected. Itā€™s why Trump was elected. Certain groups of people rallied around a candidate because they believed this candidate would save them from perceived threats. Obama was given a Nobel Peace Prize the first year he was in office because people all over the world wanted to believe he could bring stability to their chaos. In the same way millions of Americans voted for a man with many horrible flaws because they believed he could make America ā€œgreat againā€.

Itā€™s the same in religion with the Pope, with Jesus, and with other religious leaders. People look to them to save them.
I want a better way to live and I think I see the seeds of that in the Bible.

Here are two examples.

Example 1
Pentecost is a mostly Christian holiday celebrated 50 days after Easter. (And 40 days after Jesus went up to heaven.) Acts 2 has a story in it that says the disciples of Jesus were waiting and praying when the spirit of the Lord came down as tongues of fire above their heads. Suddenly the disciples could speak in the languages of the people visiting Jerusalem at the time. 3000 people became believers (were ā€œsavedā€) that day.

This story is almost completely lost on us in 21st Century. Three main things are going on.

  1. It is alluding to the time when God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses in the book of Exodus. The people waited 40 days for Moses to come back down the mountain with the law of the Lord. During that time they made a golden calf to worship it as the representation of God. When Moses came down he was furious and in his (and the Lordā€™s) anger 3000 people died.
  2. This story is also alluding to a prophecy in the book of Jeremiah where God says no more will people need to read the law on a set of stone tablets but he will write the law on their hearts. Acts 2 says that happens when the Spirit of the Lord comes to live within us.
  3. Finally, in 1 Enoch, a book not included in most Bibles but written about 100 years or so before Acts, has a story where Enoch goes to heaven and in heaven he comes to the temple of the Lord. The temple is made of tongues of fire. Inside the temple is the presence of the Lord.

The author of Acts (Acts was written after the 2nd Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem in 70 CE.) is saying we donā€™t need the temple to experience the presence and power of The Divine anymore because each person is part of a new, glorious, living temple here on Earth. The Divine resides in all people as proof that we are that temple.

Want proof? In a story a mere 10 chapters later, Peter sees that this temple is for all people. The previously mentioned ā€œwaiting for 40ā€ days is condensed into 4 days and on that 4th day these non-Jews experience the same tongues of fire as the Jews did in Acts 2.

The point of Pentecost is this: The Divine has chosen all of humanity to be its people. As children of The Divine, and as important parts of its temple, we must treat each other as holy. We miss all of this when we donā€™t understand the context of the stories. What a wonderful, powerful message! If only we could get all people to share that vision.

Example 2
After God created Adam in Genesis 2, he placed him in the garden of Eden. Adam was promised eternal life if he obeyed Godā€™s commands. Adam disobeyed and was kicked out of the garden TO THE EAST.

Eve created life: Cain and Abel. Cain killed Abel and was forced to move TO THE EAST.

This idea, TO THE EAST, repeats itself all through the Old Testament until finally the Jews, who were placed in Canaan (a land described as paradise), rebelled against God and were exiled into Babylon, a land TO THE EAST.

Isaiah ā€œprophesiedā€ (that is a whole other topic) that a savior will come FROM THE EAST to restore the Jews and their temple. This was fulfilled by King Cyrus when Persia defeated Babylon. But the authors of the New Testament saw King Cyrus as a shadow of someone greater still to come.

The authors of ā€œThe Gospelsā€ tell us Jesus visited Jerusalem during His last Passover FROM THE EAST. Then he went into the second temple*(the first had been destroyed in the exile)*. After he left the temple he went up to the Mount of Olives and prayed. (This story is alluding to the book of Lamentations where the Spirit of the Lord leaves the temple and goes to the mountain to watch.)

As mentioned in the first example, the second temple was destroyed in 70 CE, but The Divine now resides in all people. The Divine didnā€™t restore a man-made temple with another man-made temple. It restored the temple with a living temple made of people instead of wood, brinks, and stones. And The Divine didnā€™t restore the land to the Jews. It restored all the land on Earth as being holy for all people.

The main point is this: some people get caught up in a Creation vs evolution fight when they read the Bible. But the Bible doesnā€™t care about that. Itā€™s trying to tell a much grander story about redemption for all people. Almost none of this is taught in churches anymore but itā€™s all there and easy to understand if one understands first century Jewish thought.

I donā€™t know what you think about all of this (and Iā€™d love to answer questions as best as I can) but at the very least I hope you catch just a piece of my vision. I want to reclaim faith and bring it into the post-Christian era to help others heal and make sense of this chaotic world. Iā€™m done with people judging others and treating others poorly.

And I think Jesus and Paul had a vision for humanity that would be revolutionary even today: A world where we treat each other as equals and we love our enemies. A world where we serve each other instead of use each other for selfish gain. No more war. No more harassment. No more intentional mistreatment. No more labels that divide us into classes of people.

Iā€™m not saying weā€™ll get there in my lifetime. But I want to bring hope to people that we can get there someday.


My Concluding Remarks

If you read that mess of thoughts in the spoiler, or if you didn't, I will still summarize here. I was moving away from toxic thinking within Christianity to a more pure form of faith - a faith that embraced mystery and a love of humanity. I also started to wrestle with what it meant to have this faith in light of the science I was finally seeing was true. *(Please remember I was in a bubble that believed scientific knowledge was created by "demons" to destroy our faith.)*

These thoughts started to solidify as I embraced Wicca, a faith I saw as more down to earth. I started to understand that science responds to questions of the physical plane and faith responds to questions of the spiritual plane. The two cannot be separated. As my idea of magic became what it is today, I found a balance between science and faith that teaches me to follow what we know to be true and use ritual where we donā€™t know, but hope, is true.

Itā€™s been a challenge for me to learn how to be open to all sorts of ideas thanks to decades of programming while growing up, but I hope each of you sees in me a person that loves mystery and is open to learning from each of you.

As my entry into the latest Weekly Witchy Challenge, I am presenting two videos for our consideration.

  1. A video from Veritasium on YouTube. Derek Muller discusses the false beliefs surrounding salt lamps.

  2. A video from Season 3 of Vsauceā€™s Mind Field. In it they explore our behaviors and beliefs. From the description: ā€œā€¦Dr. Samuel VeissiĆØre helps me design and perform a placebo reverse exorcism, harnessing the power of belief in both science and religion to convince normal people that a spirit has possessed their bodies.ā€ Host Michael Stevens discusses the results with the doctor after the experiment and they agree there is a lot of meaning behind the rituals and tools we use and we can never say for certain whether we are communicating with The Divine but we can at least understand the underlying human psychology that a divine presence may use.

Before you watch those videos, I also list my previous Conversation Starters and Responses To Other Posts concerning my beliefs on what magic is and how faith and science meet in real life.


Conversation Starters

There is nothing triggering here but I am using the spoiler tool to keep this post tidy.

Alternative Medicine and Modern Science

MSN & Washington Post Article on Crystals


Responses To Other Posts

There is nothing triggering here but I am using the spoiler tool to keep this post tidy.

Banishing spells for a disease? - #6 by praecog29

An Ending or Beginning to a terrible year - #11 by praecog29

"I tried a $10,000 crystal healing bed..." YouTube Video šŸ“ŗ - #3 by praecog29

How do I know I am doing it right? - #5 by praecog29

What's your guys opinion on Black/Dark Magick? - #49 by praecog29

"Taking someones free will" thing is a myth - #6 by praecog29

https://forum.spells8.com/t/could-i-be-bound/11847/2

Black/dark magic? - #5 by praecog29

Is someone hitting me with magic or they just draining my energy? - #5 by praecog29


Videos To Consider

Do Salt Lamps Work?



Behavior and Belief

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I think you misinterpreted my meaning. In her video it is like she is looking to these things to give her answers. There is much more to it than that. I spent a good while yesterday charging a piece of quartz so it might be of use. Without us it is just a rock.
Just remembered my favorite example of this. When Tink discussed flight it involved faith, trust, and the pixie dust. That has always been my thought on it. We have a part to play in the magik.

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Ha, I love Lorde and I get it. The whole aesthetic thing. Well, if it makes you happy, then why not? I will say though, that dang, but the world is tough on witches. If weā€™re not evil, weā€™re ridiculous. Or insane. Anyway, no law that says we canā€™t embrace both science and magic. Isnā€™t all religion a form of magic? And maybe science, too, in a way? My practice hasnā€™t taken me farther away from my reality and science but it has brought me closer to my spirituality and creativity, and self-care. So, itā€™s all good. And I LOVE my mood ring :slight_smile:

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I love Lordeā€™s music, but I think itā€™s quite sad if sheā€™s using this song to make fun of people. Perhaps sheā€™s trying to poke fun at those who use it just as an aesthetic (like people who ride the trends without actually believing in what they are doing)- which, while not very nice, would still be better than poking fun at witches and people who do these practices as their religion.

Iā€™ve seen it time and again both in and out of the forum- spirituality and religion can save lives. Whether itā€™s Wicca, Christianity, meditation in general, or even just being more aware of nature- finding a path, a following, and a community can be huge changes in peopleā€™s lives and bring them joy and security despite hard times.

I canā€™t say for sure what Lorde was trying to do in this song, but it certainly doesnā€™t come across well in my opinion :woman_shrugging:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this, @Praecog29- it was interesting to examine! :pray:

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I love the song and sheā€™s pointed out that it is satire, not a direct attack on these beliefs. Sheā€™s even into some of the things that are mentioned in the music video.

The big takeaway that I am seeing inside the mediaā€™s reaction is we have these trends that seem to run in cycles where people try to look for meaning. Itā€™s a chasing after spirituality for the sake of being spiritual than for any other reason. It becomes trendy and everybody wants to jump on board whether they believe it or not.

Witchy ideas became the next big thing in Western culture during the pandemic because you couldnā€™t get into churches and temples. In America, at the very least, there was already this disgust of the Christian church so when chaos hit how were we supposed to find meaning and purpose and stability in our lives?

Iā€™m alive today because of some very special people in my life, my faith, and medicine/doctors. Itā€™s that combination that keeps me alive but I see a lot of people embrace magical thinking without the rest of the thinking. Thatā€™s extremely dangerous. At the very least it will cause a person to become disillusioned and at the worst it can cause them to either hurt themselves or the people they love.

In every faith that I have been a part of when I see people looking for answers in that faith exclusively I become concerned. The same is true within our family here. Iā€™m not the only one that has to remind people to go see their doctors and they go look for physical solutions on top of the spiritual ones. I donā€™t want to take away from the spiritual but I donā€™t want them to take away from the physical. How many people have died in countless other religions because they didnā€™t do what was available to them through science trusting that their magical thinking would take care of it instead? So Iā€™m trying to find that balance for myself and to lovingly share that with others.

Lordeā€™s a video is timed well to these thoughts Iā€™ve been having and to the latest challenge. I can post videos about the scientific truth behind certain ideas and then I can say while the science may not support ā€œitā€, whatever that is, it doesnā€™t mean ā€œitā€ canā€™t still be a used in a ritual as an important tool.

:flushed: I wrote another book. :books: Sorry.

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I was watching a interview to Wes Borland; guitarist of Limp Bizkit, in which he was sharing his experience living on a haunted house. The guy interviewing him asked, do you really believe in ghosts?
People from ages has been studying using science to reason things they canā€™t explain. Thereā€™s truth in science, but also limitations. On the other hand, thereā€™s this energetic matrix in everything that makes us to understand that thereā€™s a greater source that flows sustaining a atom. Now letā€™s see the definition of atom.

An atom consists of a central nucleus that is usually surrounded by one or more electrons . Each electron is negatively charged. The nucleus is positively charged, and contains one or more relatively heavy particles known as protons and neutrons. A proton is positively charged.

Has it can be seen on this small definition, science show us the existence of it, and of other ELEMENTS that helped create the universe and everything we know and see.
And thereā€™s us, that do can explain that other part that scientists canā€™t understand, but they canā€™t deny. Because all this; atom, proton, neutron, electron, comes from that same matrix that made us to be. Everything tangible and intangible, and on the intangible is where our faith moves. Maybe in our beliefs thereā€™s things we also canā€™t explain. And thatā€™s why we deposit our faith in it. Because all life beings will always seek, search to connect to that great source. We need it, and thatā€™s why we do our rituals. Some people might make jokes of it, but I havenā€™t see a person not asking the same questions. About life and god, scientists included.
Faith and science, we need both, so we can swim the vast sea of life.

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For me, I have my faith which runs alongside the scientist in me, I donā€™t see them in conflict.

I am fundamentally a scientist having taken A levels in Maths, Physics and Chemistry, then later an MSc in Forensic Psychology and Crimonology. I believe in science and that wonā€™t ever change. But I also believe there are things that science canā€™t explain, that thereā€™s ā€œmoreā€.

Not sure Iā€™ve put that well but you get the idea.

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I apologize for the misunderstanding :pleading_face: :blue_heart:

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Itā€™s all about the balance of both!! I completely agree with you!

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I couldnā€™t agree with you more! There are things that science canā€™t explain. Iā€™m big into the science would, too!!!

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