Compare magick to the natural sciences. In the latter, the knower is usually constituted as the Cartesian subject, a disembodied mind falsely imagined to be disinterested in that which it knows. With few exceptions, natural scientists proceed as though their investigations and results were value-free. In other words, they assume that by applying highly constrained logic to their evidence, they produce results that are valid for everyone. However, even when doing their best work, they construct models valid only to answer questions aligned to it through a network of common values.

To be clear, good natural scientists do exclude the influence of cultural values from their work, but this assessment ignores epistemic values. Epistemic values are contingent choices about how good knowledge is made in a scientist’s particular field. Epistemic values include things such as what count as worthwhile problems and admissible solutions. They also include shared units of measurement, background theories, and understandings about how their equipment operates.

Now, you may say, so what? But if you look at the nitty gritty of how science is actually done—as I spent nine years doing full-time, you might discover that scientists not only work to defend theories (or do studies with those already accepted), but must also package raw potentials as data. In other words, they name and measure in such a way as to create phenomena that the theories can address. This is not cheating. It’s just the nature of having a dualistic mind.

Contrary to what most of us believe because we have been brainwashed into seeing the world in ways that suit others’ interests, Nature does not divide Herself up into objects or phenomena. Phenomena result from the interaction of the Void’s natural potentials, unknowable in themselves, with human values expressed in action. No doer, no relationship of knower to known. No relationship, no phenomena. Simply put, although we can’t create just anything, anything we know we have to create.

To ignorantly push a piece of knowledge as universally valid is to Restrict others’ God-given freedom without even admitting it. People who do so project the universal Creative Power outward, onto Nature, disowning it. In the process, they inadvertently construct themselves as fearful, weak, and lacking access to meaning. Although harder to notice when natural scientists claim the status of latter-day priests, most of us smell a rat when some church or political party wields guns to make sure that everyone agrees with “the right answer”.