Dictionary.com defines Paradox as follows:
par·a·dox? ?[par-uh-doks]
–noun
1. a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.
2. a self-contradictory and false proposition.
3. any person, thing, or situation exhibiting an apparently contradictory nature.
4. an opinion or statement contrary to commonly accepted opinion.
Both in the Martial Arts and the Faery Seership working, we are looking to resolve paradoxes, defining paradox as “an opinion or statement contrary to commonly accepted opinion”. With these workings, we might be seen by others who participate in the group-think as paradoxical, as we are taking what is commonly believed to be “how it always is so it must be true” thought patterns and turning them on their heads to find the actual truth. These perceived truths are painted and sculpted by way we perceive and interact with the world around us. In turn, our concept of what is truthful is many-times based on our perception of reality.
When you merely perceive reality, rather than experience it, you have a different point of view from which to look at things. It’s like this picture:
Upon first glance, it’s just a normal elephant with 4 legs. But when you really engage the picture, actually experience it from more than just the periphery, you will see that this is no mere 4-legged elephant. This is akin to the difference between a truth based out of perceived reality (being referred to here as a paradox) and a truth based out of experience.
When we operate from a place of real truth, truth that we know to be true because we have experienced how real it is in some way, those paradoxical truths expose themselves like neon lights in Vegas, allowing us to navigate around them so that they cannot impact our lives and give us a false sense of truth.
So how do these paradoxes originate? How do they perpetuate? Are we born with them? Are they learned conditions?
We all are brought up being taught that different things are true. One truth that we all hear is that the stove is hot. But until we touch the stove and feel the heat, we are simply basing our assessment of the stove on someone else’s perception. The stove is not always hot, but there are times when it is. It’s only when we touch it when it is turned on that we can say, “Ah ha! That stove is hot!”
There are other thoughts that are accepted to be truth by the Group-Think that are not real. An example of this is the thought that all Black people are good athletes. Or that Asians are good at math. If you’ve never encountered a Black person, or an Asian person, you might believe these statements to be true if someone whom you trusted told you them. But in reality, when you experience interactions with various cultures, you will find that they are just like everyone else: not all Black people are great athletes, and not all Asian people are good with math. Until you have experiences that prove those truths to be contrary, you operate under the paradoxical notions, the perceived truths.
When you begin to have experiences that seem contrary to the perceived truth around you, you might question the validity of those experiences. Or the group might attempt to make you cow-tow back in line to accept the group truth. People hold many truths that have no basis in fact, and will cling to those truths despite what your evidence may be to the contrary. Truth is dictated often from the place of the observer. Like that Star Trek: Next Generation episode where Captain Picard is held captive by Cardassians who attempt to force him through torture to say that he sees 5 lights when, in fact, Picard only sees 4. Or in Nineteen Eighty-Four, when Winston is tortured into saying 2+2=5.
Sometimes we deceive ourselves into our personal truths. A gorgeous woman who truthfully believes she is ugly. A world-class guitarist who cannot hear the talent in his playing. A writer who believes their epics are slightly less meaningful than a “See Spot Run” story. Truth is subjective, and, as such, can serve to prevent us from seeing the core of the situation, the facts, the roots.
For those daring enough to find them, there are modalities of training that serve to help see past our own personal truths to the actual truth, or core, of a situation. In Broadsword, we call it Piercing the Illusion. In Faery Seership, we call it Dispelling the Spell of Forgetfulness. Both serve the same goal – to assist you in determining what is truth based on truth, and what is truth based on perception.
When you work with the sword, it is an amazing truth-teller. Nothing brings your focus to the here and now, devoid of all other distractions, like the movement of a very sharp blade in very close proximity to your very fragile personage. You may have convinced yourself of a “truth” that you know a certain move, but actively doing the move may tell you otherwise. With the sword, we cut away those ribbons that bind us to false truths to experience the real truths. It may start physically, but it ripples into your thoughts, words and actions. Once you have tasted the sweetness of truth, the bitterness of paradox and lies is quite apparent. You can not only see those lies that we tell ourselves, but you can see the lies which perpetrate as truths to others.
It is the same with Seership. Those paradoxical views, those false truths, cling to us, cling to our blood. It stagnates our progress from this life to the next. Our entire family line can be mired down due to the false truths of the distant past. Those paradoxes cling to the blood, causing entanglements that can only be unwoven with truth, real truth. Much like we cut away the ribbons of false truth with the sword, so, too, do we comb through the entanglements with our golden combs. By tending to the ancestral energies, we allow future generations to come into the world without the paradoxical truths that bound us. These paradoxes are the Spell of Forgetfulness, which is cast to draw us into societal morays, to forget the ancient wonders and powers within us. But through experiential acts, through tasting the sweetness of memory, by awakening that knowledge in the blood of what it is like to stretch and feel creation without the entanglements of paradox, we are able to pass a cleaner lineage onto those who follow us. We become redeemed, and redeeming, ancestors, whose wisdom can be trusted as it is based on real truths, rather than perceived thought-forms.
Believe none of what you hear, half of what you see, and all of what you experience.
When there is a problem, such as difficulty with a move or a concept, to resolve the issue, you must determine its cause. If it is a moment, what is there in the preceding movement that maybe did not set you up for success? If it is a concept, is there some element about which you are not clear about and need further research or information? In essence, we are looking to the root of the problem, the ancestor of the problem, to help us identify the best course of action to use to overcome the challenge the problem presents.
Tags: illusions, paradox, Seership, spell of forgetfulness
A rare document from the Salem Witch Trials recently went to auction, selling for $26,000 at Swann Auction Galleries in New York City. This document was part of a larger private collection of historical documents from the Eric C. Caren Collection.
My dear friend 
