What is the psychology paradigm

It is a concept in Magick that basically says everything in the occult is done via your own unconsciousness, but I have also met with other things like "telepathic fields" etc.

The psychology paradigm is generally dependent on the collective unconsciousness which is some mass form of unconsciousness independent of any individual mind. Users of this concept then believe that you can tap into the collective unconsciousness and via this action cause a change in the external reality. The thing is that such a modification is limited, you either unconsciously change your own behavior or a behavior of another person.

In this paradigm it is also possible to tap into the common behavioral patterns called archetypes (and forget anything you know about Jung's archetypes because this is simply a crazy way to say egregore).

Advantages of the psychology paradigm

This paradigm is great in explaining some simple concepts like how to limit your bad habits, what is a self-fulfilling prophecy or what are desires. Thanks to that the psychology paradigm is an amazing way how to explain what you do to a person not versed in the occult. You will be perceived as a weirdo, but not a complete nutjob...

Disadvantages

There are also disadvantages that become obvious once you try to explain things like telepathy for example. So, there is this independent collective unconsciousness we can tap into and therefore we can relay a message from one individual unconsciousness to another. That's sounds logical, reasonable and scientific, right? Except the thing that it doesn't actually explain anything.

Let me explain on the telepathy example. For us to be able to pass some information from point A to point B, we need a "route", in case of the psychology paradigm it should be the collective unconsciousness which would require us to have another route, route from us to the collective unconsciousness. Of course you could argue that our individual unconsciousnesses are already parts of the collective one, but I will explain why that is an unneeded overcomplication in a minute.

Back to the tradition

As we said, we need another routes between us and the collective unconsciousness (CU from now on) to work. What are these routes you ask? Well, let's take a look at the more traditional approach, Astral plane. Astral is our route from person A to person B, but how does the route work? Simply both person A and person B exist on both the physical (empirical) and astral (transempirical) planes. This gives us the ability to communicate on the astral plane while being physically distant to each other. Of course you could define CU in a similar manner which would then mean the same thing. But why to use a different version of definition of CU, therefore making a doubled meaning of the definition and troubles in communication when we can use a time-proven terminology we all know and understand?

CU also has another problem, unliving objects. In the case of Astral everything has its Astral representation and we can manipulate with it, but CU doesn't have such a thing as it requires a living organisms to communicate, therefore CU doesn't really explain the talismanic magick or weather control to give some examples.

Nothing is true

There is a million of different opinions about how Magick actually works, some better, some worse, but if you nitpick for a long enough, you will find some loophole. I think my long time readers already know that I am a big fan of the meta paradigm. The thing is that you can follow anything you want as long as you get results. What works for you, works for you. If you are okay with the psychology paradigm and sending "spells" to the CU, be my guest. What I see as a problem is when someone becomes a fanatic and starts pushing his way of thinking as the only possible truth. "Dude, psychology model is the real one, it makes so much sense". Well, if it makes sense to you and it works for you, I am happy for that, just keep in mind we are individuals and what works for one won't necessary work for another. That being said, keep it mind it is always better to inform other of various ways and let them choose what's best suited for them instead of trying to push your own ideal on them.

When it comes to the individual practice this includes the psychology model same as the meta model and just like any other thing you can imagine, including hermetic laws, including spirit work, including ancestor veneration. If it works for you, be happy, just don't get angry if someone questions you, it is only a natural outcome of being a bit too pushy. Just like you don't like when someone steps on your foot, others hate when you stomp on theirs.