In an interview with the BBC ("Face to Face") a few years before his death, the psychiatrist, Carl Jung, was asked, "Do you believe in God?" With a glint in his eyes and a gentle smile on his face, Jung unhesitatingly responded, "I don't believe; I know!"

Jung’s comment led me to pursue an understanding of the meaning of "belief." Webster defines belief, in part, as "a state or habit of mind in which trust, confidence, or reliance is placed in some person or thing. ... Conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon, especially when based on an examination of the grounds for accepting it as true and real. ... Immediate assurance or feeling of the reality of something."

For the purposes of this essay, "belief" will be divided into two categories:

• (1) "Confidence," "reliance," "conviction" or "assurance" without doubt, that is, an assumption of something as an absolute, objective fact without having personally experienced it.
• (2) Acceptance of the "reality of something" or "confidence" or "reliance" based on information from presumed reliable (repeatable) sources, but with awareness that since it is not a fact of one’s own personal experience, there is an element of doubt. Consequently, this category implies a concomitant allowance for uncertainty in the content of the belief and acceptance of risk when acting on the belief.

Here is a scenario that offers examples of category (1) belief. Mr. A observes his new green-skinned neighbor, Mr. G who has just finished weeding his garden and is going into his house (to shower). Mr. A thinks to himself, "Mr. G sure is dirty!" He tells his wife, "Mr. G sure is a filthy person." Mrs. A asks, "Do you really believe that?" "I sure do," he replies. "Not only that," he continues, "I saw his wife and child in their yard one day, and they were dirty too. I believe all green-skinned people are filthy! I don't want to have anything to do with any of them." "Well," Mrs. A replies, "I totally believe you when you tell me what you saw, and if you say they’re all that way, I believe that too. I’m sure you’re right."

Here is a scenario that offers examples of category (2) belief. Mr. and Mrs. X are having a discussion about smoking. Mrs. X asks, "Do you believe if John stopped smoking, he’d live longer than he would if he keeps on smoking?" Mr. X replies, "All the published studies I’ve read agree that the probability of an early death among smokers is greater than among non-smokers, so that’s what I believe." Mrs. X: "I tend to believe the outcome of the research as well, but what if other researchers came along and said smoking had nothing to do with expected life span?" Mr. X: "Well, then I would have to alter my belief. Heck, I don't really know. It’s what I read, and there’s lots of agreement among the scientists. I don't know it like I know I’m talking to you, but I accept it well enough to not smoke and urge those we love to stop smoking."

This essay focuses primarily on the first category of belief (without doubt), which may sometimes and for some people be very difficult to differentiate from the second category (with an element of doubt). Furthermore, when left to the undifferentiating, naïve, gullible Youth within us, beliefs may all be treated as if they unquestioningly fell into the first category, i.e., as if a personal conviction were unquestioningly true or real.

As in all my other essays, my primary concern here also regards consciousness and personal responsibility for our thoughts and actions. It is not my intent to impose this concern on anyone else. In whatever manner we approach our individual lives, our acts will always yield consequences. We can either live in a kind of mental chaos and experience ourselves to be the victim of consequences, or we can strive to understand how consequences might arise and approach them with acceptance and courage.

As with so many other words, "belief" may have several implications or intended meanings. The synonyms that come immediately to mind for the phrase "I believe ..." are

• "I know (I am certain) ..."
• "I would wager ..."
• "I feel confident in my conviction ..."
• "It is my guess (or hunch) ..."

In a court trial, a juror might say, "I believe the defendant is guilty." That comment could mean, "I know for certain the defendant is guilty," "I would bet the defendant is guilty," "I feel quite confident in my conviction that the defendant is guilty," or "I have a strong hunch the defendant is guilty." The difference between the first one and the other three is that presumed knowledge leaves no room for doubt. Unless our wagering, confidence, or guess is perceived as lacking doubt, those three DO allow for a probability of being in error. To repeat, then, the primary focus of this essay is on "belief" that lacks any doubt whatsoever, i.e., where belief and certainty or factual knowledge are treated as identical.

Because the kind of belief discussed here concerns believed ideas expressed as facts, let us take a slight detour to examine the definitions and description of facts and knowledge so that their relationship to beliefs can be discussed.

Webster’s has several definitions of fact. One is "an occurrence, quality, or relation the reality of which is manifest in experience or may be inferred with certainty." Another is "Something presented rightly or wrongly as having objective reality." (Emphasis added.)

Since we all experience things consistent with our abilities, capacities, and histories, "facts" must be individualistically unique. A "fact" perceived by one person may not be a "fact" for another. Consequently, the key word is "experience." "Facts" depend on subjective, idiosyncratic experiences and do not exist outside of the person having the experience. I do not see how it is possible to know or discuss so-called "objective" facts, i.e., an assumed condition existing outside human experience, since any reference to any fact must be made by a person who somehow relates to it.

If we were to rely on facts, as defined and described above, for making moment-to-moment decisions in a day-to-day existence, our behavior would be severely limited. That is because we cannot directly, personally experience everything. It would be impossible of us to develop a universal set of facts for ourselves. Consequently, to a large extent, our lives depend on information gathered and promulgated by others.

Empirical studies and strict scientific investigations yield potentially helpful information, but results from research in any area of science do not yield absolute conclusions. Rather, science tells us about the probabilities with which occurrences have been found to be related. Awareness of research findings and other well documented, reliable, and consensual observations enable us to make educated choices among courses of action we might take. Our behavior may be guided by that information. But no matter what course we take, every single one is a risk: the probability of success or failure is very rarely 100% or zero. The only forecasts we appear to be able to rely on with absolute certainty are

• (1) change over time is inevitable, and
• (2) everything comes to an end eventually. Actually, this is merely an extension of the first, since change can be viewed as a flow of endings and new beginnings.

It is our degree of consciousness of scientifically determined probabilistic relationships and reliable empirical findings that can determine our thoughts and behavior. When our choices and actions are based on scientific findings, essentially we are making a wager " a wager that the probabilities demonstrated in the studies play out in the future. But, since that conclusion rests on statistical evidence, there is a chance we shall lose the wager! There is no absolute guarantee of any specific outcome of our acts -- except the two mentioned above, although there may be others that have not occurred to me. Consciously or unconsciously, we take a risk with every decision we make, and I estimate that we make many thousands of them each day.

Each decision leads to an action that contains elements of "knowledge" and an estimate of probability. For example, when I move the switch on the wall intending to turn on the room’s lights, I "know" my finger touches the switch because I feel it. It is a direct experience. I may naively "believe" the light will go on when I flick the switch, or I may be aware that there is a probability -- even though my action has been successful every time in the past -- that the action might not result in the room’s becoming illuminated. Expectation of a consequence is not knowledge. Direct, immediate, idiosyncratic experience is what we can know as "fact." However, if expectation is undifferentiated from mental certainty, we are then faced with what generally is considered "belief."

Generally speaking, it is hardly likely that we would say, "I believe I see the sun in the sky." When we have a direct experience, we commonly say something like "I see the sun in the sky." As I write this, I am sitting in a chair. I doubt that it would ever occur to me to think or say, "I believe I’m sitting in a chair." What we directly experience is what we know; we don't have to "believe."

Take another example. Do you believe you can successfully put your left shoe on your left foot and do so within one minute? If you look into the depths of yourself, are you absolutely certain you can do it (belief), or is there some doubt? If there is doubt, the conviction that you can do it does not fall into the definition of "belief" discussed in this essay. Such doubt may include the awareness that something may occur to prevent your carrying out the intended task. There is a small chance that your foot or one of your hands will suddenly cramp or that the shoe will be found to have an unexpected sharp object in it. Belief is entirely different from wagering. I would give substantial odds in a wager that I could put my shoe on within one minute -- assuming my opponent has had no previous contact with that shoe -- but making that bet implies awareness (hopefully with acceptance) that there is a chance I might lose. By definition, wagering implies some degree of consciousness of potential loss as well as potential gain. It is not factual knowledge.

When Jung declared, "I know!" I understand that to mean that for him the existence of God is a fact of his personal experience. Jung did not explicitly state he knows that God exists for me or anyone else, although he certainly might have meant that. Knowledge, as stated earlier, is idiosyncratic.

In my experience, when a person says, "I believe ...," the statement usually expresses a certainty of something that cannot be demonstrated to be 100% reliable. That "something" is not a known fact -- even if it is believed without doubt.

Often, experience has a probability of consensual agreement. For example, if we look in the sky in the midst of a cloudless day, it is highly likely that most sighted people will report seeing the sun. That would be a common fact of our experience. But, just because the sun is a fact of my experience does not mean that it is a fact of everyone’s experience. To believe that others share one’s personal experience cannot be demonstrated as a fact, and consequently cannot be categorized as knowledge. Yet, some people might say with absolute certainty that it IS. How can they possibly know?

Such insistence kind of thinking probably arises because of the immediacy and certainty of our personal experience (our "facts") combined with an absence of empathic consciousness, i.e., the awareness that others might not share our personal experience. We each of us know the facts of our experience so immediately, directly, and clearly that it may often be difficult to even imagine or consider that others might not share the identical experience. When it is not only difficult but impossible, that is hubris: we are identified with the narcissistic inner Child and experience ourselves to be the center of the universe, i.e., all other persons revolve around us, just as the planets revolve around the sun. It can occur very readily, because our immediate, conscious experience is all that we truly know, so it appears to be reality. Well, undeniably it must be OUR personal reality, but it cannot be absolute reality, because if it were, everyone would always experience precisely the same thing. And that is not the case.

Most of our experiential facts lie within us. In other words, a large portion of direct experience is not one of sensation, such as seeing, hearing, or touching something. Rather, it is the world within us that determines how we experience and understand anything. (See "Projection" and "The Inner Drama" essays.) We approach daily life with expectations based on past experience as well as "imagoes," which are inner images of things with which we come into contact. (See "Expectation" essay.) Ultimately, our behavior is determined by the INNER image of an outer occurrence, not the other way around. We cannot possibly fathom what goes on outside of ourselves except as interpreted through images and symbols that reside within ourselves and give meaning to what exists "out there."

Essentially, the world is a mirror for what lies within us. We project what exists within us onto everything and everybody. For example, a televised public appearance of the Governor of California in the Spring of 2004 showed masses of people wildly screaming with arms outstretched toward him, as if he were something of extreme value to which they were drawn. Yet few people know him intimately as a person. What do they project onto him? We know from myths, fairy tales, and alchemy that the most highly valued part of ourselves is what Jung called the Self, the archetype that represents our wholeness. With such a projection onto "The Terminator" (Governor Schwarzenegger), people are likely to believe him to be a kind of all-powerful and all-loving deity that can do no wrong -- a savior. He would not be the first person to have the Self projected onto him.

All of us have a tendency to search for the savior outside ourselves. We are eager to believe that there is someone or something out there that can make our lives whole while protecting us from harm. That concept of a savior is paradoxical because, unless we can discover the inner sources of potential harm (e.g., the Destroyer, Shadow, and the Witch) along with the inner sources of strength and healing, wholeness remains merely an intellectual concept! Only through exploring, discovering, and accepting all that exists within our own depths can we find wholeness. Each of us contains all the basic elements for achieving the highest possible quality of life. We will not find those elements anywhere outside ourselves. We can believe them to exist externally, but wishing will not make it so.

To believe without doubt in a person or thing is to bestow one’s own power outside oneself onto a false god or godly idea, depriving oneself of access to one’s personal power. To know anything is to have a direct personal experience of it.

Each person’s fund of knowledge rests solely on personal, unique, idiosyncratic experiences. All conscious behavior represents a risk arising out of a set of inner images on which we make wagers. We bet that if we take path A, we are more likely to be successful or satisfied than if we take path B. With cautious awareness, each path is associated with an image of the likely outcome of taking that path. An estimate of the probability of achieving that outcome may be based on past experience, acquired information, or both.

Undifferentiated belief leads to behavior that is impulsive and unconscious and arises from the naïve inner Child. This belief represents hope for something desired, and is often based on fear of not obtaining what the inner Child wants or of having to deal with something unwanted. Through belief, the inner Child seeks security or certainty, which is generally based on the fear that one’s own experiences and capabilities may be inadequate to achieve what is sought.

There are times when one may use "I believe ..." to mean "I would wager that ...," implying consciousness of a probability of being in error. More frequently, statements are made in which belief implies absolute certainty.

What do you mean when you say, "I believe"?"

And what do you know?