I've lost my faith!

Over the past year or two magick has completed faded from my life and I have lost my faith, today while raking through some old stuff I found my old book of shadows containing notes of all my rituals from 2007 to 2010. I want to believe in it again but I simply can't and my mind is now dominated by atheism and non-believing. Can anybody help me restore my faith? I'm 17 and a Royal Marines Reservist, can it simply be that I have grown out of it?

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Not knowing the specifics of your life and experiences I will give my opinion.

Our paths are not straight lines, nor are they curvy roads. I have found my path to double back on itself many times and I have experienced a sense that I had lost my faith as well. I didn't believe in anything, and that did not feel right to me. I spent time looking at my mundane life, my mental state and the people around me. I started to address the things I didn't like, that required not communicating with people who left me upset and feeling negative. I went to therapy for my depression and anxiety. I got rid of the stuff in my house that upset me. Basically I cleared the 'clutter' out of my life that was making me feel negative. Once that was done I went back to the basics of magic to see if it still called to me or if I had moved on. It still called to me and I found better ways to incorporate my faith into my daily life. It is a struggle to keep the clutter out. I hope this helps you mate, however it may be that your path has changed as you walked it and it is time to reevaluate everything. Blessed be.

Only you can restore your faith.

I Know what you mean though, i went though something simular actually.
I Went about a year really unconnected from my craft and beliefs. After a while i tried again with different gods and goddesses and different paths. Nothing felt right. But I Stopped doing rituals and i took down my altar after awhile. Nothing felt right anymore. i was an agnostic for a bit and then after that an atheist. Atheist witch even. I Felt lost going around in circles. After some time i started following the Christian faith again. It finally clicked and felt right. Now, i am a Christian Witch and i am happy with my path and i feel that connection again.
Do what feels right to you. Even if it takes some time to find it. i know how you feel though, i was lost in that loop of non-belief too. You just need to trust in yourself and no matter what your beliefs are, what is important is that you are comfortable with them.

As a person who has followed many roads I think I can give you an advice - listen to your heart and mind. They will tell you what is right. Sometimes we are clouded by our emotions, so folloing the mind in these situations is critical. The oposite happens also.

I am a Christian. I have been an Atheist, Occultist and Buddhist. I have realised that if you are looking for the perfect church or faith you will not find it. What you need to look for is the truth. Religion is not solely based on blind obediance and fantasy. It is a life guide which shows you what will give you the best quality of living. So search for the truth and what seems the most logical thing (and yes, there is logic in religion).

With best wishes,

May the Light of God guide your path.

Magick doesn't necessarily need religion. There are athiest magickal practioners that practice magick just as well as anybody. If you look at it in a scientific perspective, magick is energy and everything is made up of energy. Using magick is merely tapping into that using our mind and emotions to attract specific energy to us or our subject. Like attracts like and magick is about creating the right state of mind to attract the same energy that we desire around us.

I suggest studying psychology (especially Jung), and philosophy to gain a more "logical" perspective on the mind, life in general and apply it to magickal thought.

There is very little "mysticism" or "myth" in magick unless you want to incorporate it. Think more in terms of mind over matter and focus on strengthening and controling your mind and emotions to create a stronger sense of self and positivity about you. That in itself is magick. Magick is about turning within to change that which is around us and to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves, people, and nature. Very few scientists are athiests. Why? Because in studying science, the intricacy of the world and how things work is so amazing, it couldn't have been created by randomness. Most scientists believe in intelligent design due to the complexity of our world.

There is so much to this world that is beyond our sight/grasp, for example http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13070896/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/physicists-probe-fifth-dimension/
that magick isn't that far fetched, nor are spirits when one understands that the world is far vaster than we could ever imagine. I personally believe that magick has utilized this without every truly knowing why it works, just knowing it does. Just like ancients believed a higher being dragged the sun across the sky, it doesn't mean the sun didn't travel across the sky, but the "why" changed as we learned and explored. In a few hundred years, we may understand fully why magick works. But in my mind, based off of my own experience and seeing that magick has been used over the entire world in similar ways, even within cultures that never once contacted each other, and they knew it worked, and how to make it work. It's obvious to me that it is very real, just not entirely understood. We try to place logic and reasoning on things we do not fully understand, it is within our natures to think we know the answers. But the evidence that it exists is there, we just can't touch it or see it in a scientific way....yet.

I agree with White. It is a valid point. Psychology does help us improve our ways of thinking and thinking more logically. However, since it is a science, their perspective on magic is that of fiction because of their lack of knowledge. Since you already know what magic is really is, then using psychology, you can incorporate it into your way of living. High magic is both a science and an art. You might be interested in looking into that. There's an introductory book called "The Secrets of High Magick" by Francis Melville which you may find interesting.