Cloudscape

Spiritual beliefs need not be true; whether they are or not, they work if you believe in them. In this they are true to the spirit — in a spiritual sense — which is all that matters.

Spiritual beliefs are akin to hypnosis: similarly, hypnosis makes use of suggestions which, while untrue, still work. Hypnosis might visualize images such as light filling the body, or pain assuming a physical form, or, as means of hypnotic induction, of magnets on each hand attracting each other or a balloon tied to the hand lifting it; none of these things are real in the physical world, but they are real in the mental world. They are constructs of the mind, and so to the mind they are true.

Within, they exist as thoughts, which are quite real. When one considers this, one realizes that there isn't really anything which is not "real," and that apparently immaterial things matter as much as material things.

We may, for instance, conceive of things as though they were alive; from what we know this may be true or it may not be, but that doesn't really matter. From a certain viewpoint, one could say this is true because the things we perceive around us are themselves but our own perceptions, and therefore, part of our own mind, very much alive. As they are part of our own persona, it can allow us to more fully respect our persona if we deem them as if they were persons themselves.

It is unscientific to simply take it for granted that it is so, but one can nonetheless imagine that it is so. Thereby one can allow oneself to feel more connected to the outside world, even when one is alone.

On the other hand, it can be misleading to mix scientific and spiritual beliefs, though the two may be connected. If one merely imagines something to be true without knowing whether it is so or not, one will never be deceived; if one actually assumes it, however, then one will be easily deceived.