I once read an article that described the classical Asian art tradition as “working to carve the perfect Buddha.” One starts with a block of uncarved stone. All possibilities lie within that shapeless stone – it could become anything. The Buddha himself sits within the rock, and its the artist’s job to bring the Buddha out.
Many classical Asian arts, whether painting, sculpting, martial arts, culinary skills and other things are passed down in specific traditional ways. The student follows the teacher – they emulate the form so the teacher can transmit a certain way of doing things. The master artist learns how to carve the teacher’s perfect Buddha. Once he does, maybe he’ll feel permitted to make some small changes to the design.
That’s one traditional understanding – it’s one that many world cultures adhere to. Americans, however, might as well have set fire to that model. How do Americans teach art? Radical expression. “Do it your own way” and find the art within you. Jackson Pollock splashes canary yellow onto his psycho-trip-out colorscape, and it’s the next multi-million dollar masterpiece. An American artist might carve a statue of Buddha screaming as he emerges from the belly of the Flying Spaghetti Monster – it’s all good.
I’m often critical of the American culture. I have many reasons to criticize the American culture. Yet, our artistry is one things I truly admire about this country. America is a country of innnovators. I believe that our radical sense of innovation is what America gives to the world. When we explore possibilities with a sense of freedom, we find new ways of doing things. Some fail and some succeed. But our successes can be huge – our creativity influences and inspires change throughout the world. Truly: Innovation is our greatest power.
However….somewhere along the way, a problem developed alongside this. It’s not a problem with innovation itself. It’s not even a problem with American art. Rather I’m talking about a mentality that’s so insidious and tricky to define. It’s like a parasite that crept into existence alongside our cultural experience of freedom. I call it “The Same Effects Fallacy” and it will take some time to explain what I mean.
A free-willed person will say “you can’t tell me what to do.” That’s good and fine. A lot of Americans exist in that space of mind, and many innovators benefit from it. Yet at some point, some people, take “you can’t tell me what to do” and evolve that into “you can’t tell me that one thing is different from another thing.” Actually, I can. That is the underpinning of The Same Effects fallacy.
This fallacy believes that “if I want a certain thing, I can do whatever I want in order to get that thing.” This is true only at times – all other times it’s simply not true. Let me provide some examples: A person with anger issues believes he can let go of his rage by drinking alcohol. Only when the initial relaxation of alcohol fades, and drunkenness takes over, the man explodes into violent anger. This happens every single time he drinks.
Or a person wants to lose weight by eating “fat-free” foods marketed in these healthy-looking packages. Only in reality they are highly processed foods full of artificial ingredients. This person diets on them and finds that not only are they failing to lose weight, but they feel physically terrible. What happens if you challenge what they’re doing? They say “you can’t question my method. I’m doing what works for me.”
Except you can question the method. And you most certainly can pay attention to what works and what doesn’t. Granted there are a lot of variables in this. There are many paths to a single goal, and the path that works for one person might not work for another. However, we can gauge the success by watching. All we have to do is pay honest attention. We may not know where an innovation will lead, but we can certainly pay attention to where it gets us. Those actions and results become patterns of cause and effect. So it doesn’t matter what the angry alcoholic tells himself, if every time he picks up a bottle he gets worse. It doesn’t matter if the fad dieter believes they’re eating healthy if the reality is that their diet habits suck.
The Same Effects fallacy rests upon the deep (conscious or unconscious) belief that “everything ends up being the same, no matter what you do.” This becomes a toxic and highly dangerous belief. Why? Because those that believe that all effects are the same, regardless of the choice or method taken, will not look at things with a discerning eye. This is the same as shutting down critical thinking. It’s resignation to a certain type of dogma.
People who believe in this fallacy may be found everywhere, but I’ve seen more of it in the New Age community than I could even describe. These people generally loathe being told what to do (for good reason.) Many of them escaped abusive religious situations, or otherwise, they are running from dogma and rigid ways of thinking. So unfortunately, many turn the empowering belief, “choose your own path” into “whatever path you choose will lead to the goals you want, and don’t let anyone suggest otherwise.”
This includes the people who smoke a ton of weed every day for “spiritual knowledge”, while failing to see that their minds have become clouded and incoherent. Or it’s the big bad witches who claim to know powerful magick, but fail to create any real or necessary change in their lives. Yet they are adamant that “no one can tell me that any method is better than my own.”
There are many cult leaders who have enticed a following with promises of enlightenment or spiritual growth, when underneath the facade, they’re running a sex trafficking enterprise. Or they coerce their followers into giving away their life savings. Or they convince people to kill themselves. All in the name of a spiritual path that the people will never actually benefit from.
So not everything is what it pretends to be. In this: not every practice leads to the same result.
Please know the place that I say this from. I am convinced that this reality is one of a vast spiritual dimension – and the spiritual world is powerful. I have seen real manifestation from acts of ritual magick. I’ve seen people healed without even being touched by someone’s hands or medicines. I’ve seen many incredible things from across the veil – and I believe there are many valid paths that lead people to real self-cultivation. So I’m not arguing against spiritual or new age practices – much to the opposite, I’m saying that many of them have real power.
But the belief that “you can’t question my methods or actions, because it all leads to the same effects” becomes another form of dogma. It’s a closed-minded way of looking at the world. It puts a person into a place where they won’t think or look at things deeply, because they’re afraid of judging or being seen as judgmental. So they want to be free. They want to do whatever they want to do, and not be questioned or judged. But in fearing judgment, they lose they ability to discern. And that’s dangerous. Without discerning, one becomes blind to cause and effect, and this places one in an abyss of potential disaster.
Because in truth: The world is full of cause and effect. Certains causes lead to certain effects – so to say that “there are no rules. It’s all the same – all causes can lead to all effects” is not a helpful range of beliefs. Instead, it’s something that will be disproven time and again through actual experience. The question is, will one choose to address the reality of cause and effect? Or will they continue to adopt this dogma that blinds them to discerning patterns?
At one level of reality, all things are possible. The universe is something like that uncarved block of stone: all manner of things come in and out of existence. Through this, nature is full of patterns. She is a flow of incredible rhythms – and in heeding that flow, and listening to those patterns, we can understand the ways of manifestation. If one is to draw things forth from a reality where all things are possible, then it’s necessary to listen to rhythms of cause and effect. For to pretend that “all results are the same” is simply to become swept away in the tides.