Do we really use just ten percent of our brain?

We can now see inside the working brain.

Rufus Opus (Head for the Red) and Jason Inominandum (Strategic Sorcery) are kicking around a list of five things that western occultism needs to rethink (it is time to retool). For the most part, I agree with their comments (after all, they did hit one of my pet peeves).

And to their list, I would add a sixth item--"We only use ten percent of our brain."

This explanation for why we can perform magic, have ESP, and generally do the unexplainable annoys me. The reason it annoys me is much the same reason that people talking about the Observer Effect and the Uncertainty Principle annoy me; the people who use it take the sound bite and forget the context that the original statement was made in. Anyone who uses it to explain the existence of ESP and magic is using a false reason. It would be just so much better if they just shrugged their shoulders and admitted that they did not know why ESP and magic actually works.

(Personally, I lean towards a kabbalah reason--it is called a soul.)

The statement that we only use ten percent of our brain comes out of the early days of modern brain studies. And much like the parts of Quantum Physics that people use to prove New Age concepts, the ten percent rule is about an lack of proper equipment and sensors to see what was going on.

The original statement was about the fact that the equipment that early modern brain scientists were using could only detect what was going on (activity) in ten percent of the brain. None of the scientists involved believed (to the best of my knowledge) that only ten percent of the brain was being used--no, they merely could not detect what was going on inside of our skulls.

What we have learned in the last ten, twenty years with better imaging equipment and sensors is that no part of a normal person's brain is completely unused. Parts switch on and off as needed, but there is not ninety percent of it just sitting there completely unused. In fact, unused parts of the brain either get rewritten or disappear--there is no unused real estate in your skull. The only people with unused parts of their brain have suffer some form of brain damage. We use all parts of our brains.

Yet people still trot out the ten percent all the time as an explaination...when really we should be more concerned about the brain rewiring that is happening during our practices...but that is a post for another time.

Pet Peeve Oral Tradition as Documentary Proof

One of my big pet peeves is people who say that we cannot judge the history of the occult and the esoteric traditions by the paper trail alone. You know the people---those who insist that unless we know what the oral traditions were, we cannot know what was actually going on.

And always, they know what the oral tradition was, therefore their pet theory is right despite the fact that the paper trail tells a completely different story.

Now, I am not saying that the oral tradition does not exist. I am saying that the concept of the oral tradition is being abused nine ways to Sunday. There is a difference.

Take for instance, the oral history of my own family. This semester I got to work on a project that dealt with the oral history of my family. I got assigned to interview three family members about my family history, then write a small paper about it (I recieved a low A).

What did I learn? That when all four of us had heard a story or explaination for something, none of the four stories would agree with one another. I also learned that the stories being told to the younger members of the family were not the same stories that the older generation recieved.

Conclusion---you cannot trust the oral tradition.

Now, I would love some parts of the oral tradition of the Western Mystery Tradition to be true. Unfortunately, the very parts I would most like to see proven correct are the very parts that I suspect are the most false. And so it goes.

The reason I am thinking about all this is the fact that the Open Full Moon ritual that I am going to be conducting in June is going to be based on the telling of stories. And some of the stories are going to be changed to suit the purposes of the ritual that I am doing. I am currently at the stage where I am fine-tuning certain elements of the stories, much like my father used to tell the same jokes over and over while changing certain parts to heighten the effects of the joke.

Think about it. If I know that I change parts of stories to suit my own purposes (and what is the oral tradition if not a collection of stories and some rather strange ideas), then what prevented the previous tellers of the stories and traditions from doing the same?

Oh, I know there were all much more noble souls than I was. And if you believe that, please leave your email address in the comment section because there are some people who would like to sell you a nice bridge to nowhere---after all, they know the true oral tradition of the mysteries---they would never lie to you.

Pet Peeve: Blaming the Dead Guys

I had one of my attacks today. You know the one where I start foaming at the mouth because someone is dancing on one of my pet peeves. Today, it was a "Let's blame the dead old guy for the current state of things."

There are a lot of people who blame Regardie, Crowley, Mathers, etc. for the state of Golden Dawn today. Blaming a dead person is just as lovely as blaming one of the living people for the sorry state the tradition has gotten itself in.

I am sorry, but there is more than enourgh blame to go around. We are all guilty. Especially if we allow the dead guy to lock us into viewing Golden Dawn and magic in only one manner.

Yes, Regardie (or Crowley or Mathers) had one particular way of looking at the system. But that is their problem, not ours.

It is only our problem if we prove to be incapable of moving past their opinion. And it is definitely not their problem if we get stuck there.

Every writer, teacher, leader and student has some part in the sorry state of our system. Don't lay the whole blame on one person's doorstep; we are at this point because we allowed ourselves to get here.