How to have a Truly Open Mind

Having an open mind is not the same thing as being gullible, nor does it mean you must discard reason and logic. I get those out of the way quickly because unfortunately when I hear people speak of open-mindedness they are absolutely promoting the belief in every New Age pile of waste that rolls out of the metaphysical sewer and into the daylight, and odds are they are also actively engaged in science bashing.

Open-Minded is the Opposite of Dogmatic – Duh!

Being entrenched and dogmatic about beliefs that are “different” is still being entrenched and dogmatic. What’s more there’s nothing different about the tired old anti-science and anti-religion rhetoric being regurgitated by today’s proponents of New Age dogmatism.

Most of the ideas parroted about how arrogant the scientists are or how evil the Christians are reached its zenith in the 1990’s and, for a time, was largely considered settled or forgotten about. Then we got YouTube and a whole generation (or two) of contrarians who missed the aforementioned 90s boat and took to the Web to (re)tell us all about how things ought to be.

I often think if young people who claim to be spiritual spent half the time they spend bitching about Christianity on some actual work and study, they could develop some real power. Work requires a little character and durability, of course, and that’s not as fun as complaining about a mostly fictional past or pretending to be persecuted by people who for the most part don’t care or even know what you’re doing with your time and energy.

Open-Minded and Objective

True open-mindedness is synonymous with objectivity. It is putting aside prejudice, or pre-judgment and personal opinions and actually listening or looking at the available information. Having an open mind means just that, leaving the door open for all legitimate possibilities and being willing to evaluate whatever is presented.

If the info presented is crap, fair enough. Knock it down and move on. As mentioned, having an open mind doesn’t mean having an empty mind and just rolling over for every proposal that comes your way.

I do think an open-minded person will take the time to look into even what seems to be obvious crap. Having done so, if it turns out we are right and yep this is crap all right, we can then state the fact with some actual points from the initial presentation instead of waving our hand like some know-it-all asshole and dismissing someone and/or their ideas without justification.

Be open but exercise and cultivate discernment. This can be challenging but it is also liberating.

Carrying around dogmatic beliefs or feeling like you must dig in and defend a position because your whole family votes a certain way or goes to a particular church or whatever can be exhausting work. This burden can be easily relieved by committing to an open mind and listening first instead of tensing up right away and preparing for battle because someone has a different opinion.

Ultimately the open mind is the true vehicle for learning and developing wisdom. Clearly you possess the trait or you wouldn’t be reading this material. Don’t become complacent and take up the New Age mantle to become the mirror image of the religiously or politically dogmatic population. Let your mind remain free and unfixed, ready to decide or act based on what truly seems right and appropriate to you, whether or not it fits into a neat philosophical outlook.

Magic is about discovery but there can be no discovery if you wall yourself off from new possibilities. It happens more often than you might think, as people in the magical subculture argue over issues ranging from ritual nuances and angelic hierarchies to elemental attributions and the rules for making talismans as they see it, to name just a few of examples. In the early 2000s a magician named Scott Stenwick proposed moderate adjustments to the way ritual magicians utilize pentagram and hexagram forms to open their work, and his writings on the topic enjoyed significant exposure online. Authors and experts came crawling out of every dusty and low traffic corner of the web to rebuke and rebut Stenwick, who had continually and carefully recommended his readers experiment and do their own research before adopting his methods. It reminded me a great deal of upheavals I saw in the church during my youth when preachers and elders came to odds about how to interpret various sections of the Bible. Personal and collective growth is threatened and stifled by the clinging and closed mind.

Many of the people who experimented with Stenwick’s proposal were amazed by the improvements a seemingly small adjustment made to their overall results. A few were unimpressed and stuck with the standard methodology. All who at least made the effort learned something valuable in the process.

I have heard it said that all a person risks by having an open mind is the possibility of being wrong. I can’t agree with that. I don’t see a legitimate risk. We are going to be wrong in life, maybe rarely or perhaps frequently but it is absolutely going to happen multiple times. If something is learned through our incorrect surmisal, and it occurs to me it is virtually impossible for it to be otherwise, indeed there’s a net gain instead of any loss.

P.S. Open Heart and Open Mind

I often hear these talked about in tandem. If were talking about esoteric knowledge I say open the mind first and the heart will come. If the topic is personal improvement or dealing with others I might open the heart first and then the mind. That's another article I suppose but did want to comment briefly on the point.