5 From believing to knowing: The trip of a lifetime
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5 From believing to knowing: The trip of a lifetime
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About: Personal experience becomes our proof
What if we could have our own experiences that would reveal the truth to us? Then believing wouldn’t be necessary because we would have our own knowing.
This chapter explores the shift from simply believing something to actually knowing it through lived experience. Using philosophy as a bridge—especially ideas from Mark Manson and thinkers like Hume—it questions what we really know about reality and how we come to know it.
The core idea is that belief, on its own, is shaky ground. Real understanding comes when we experience truth directly, the way we now understand the sun doesn’t literally “rise,” even though it looks that way.
From there, the focus turns inward. Instead of looking to external proof, the author suggests we can uncover truth by examining our own lives—especially the patterns that keep repeating.
The catch is that much of what drives those patterns lives in the unconscious, in beliefs we don’t even realize we hold. And those hidden beliefs often contradict what we say we want.
The chapter lands on a grounded but challenging idea: everything in our lives follows cause and effect, and the starting point is always within.
The real “trip” isn’t philosophical debate—it’s the slow, sometimes uncomfortable process of discovering how our inner world shapes everything we experience.
Jill Loree is the founder of Phoenesse and a longtime student of the Pathwork teachings. She has studied the Pathwork Guide’s material since 1997 and completed four years of training to become a certified Pathwork Helper.
When she first encountered the Pathwork teachings, she described the experience as “walking through the doorway of an AA fourth step and finding the whole library.”
Through Phoenesse, Jill writes and teaches about personal transformation using the spiritual psychology found in the Pathwork lectures.
Her books present these teachings in clear, accessible language to help readers apply them in everyday life. Her work focuses on helping people move from the struggles of duality toward the peace of inner unity.
Raised in northern Wisconsin, Jill began her professional career in technical sales and marketing before discovering that her true calling lay in spiritual teaching and writing.
She lives in New York with her husband, Scott Wisler, who now works with her in sharing these teachings around the world.
