Belief is your impression of the thing, not the thing.

Future Hi: Creating Belief:

"Even after the lessons of chaos magic theory (CMT) regarding belief as tool rather than operating system, some magicians still cling to the delusion that (for example) tracing five lines into a shape human minds recognize as the pentagram is by itself magically efficacious. Long-time practicing magicians (those who should most know better) are not immune to this phenomenon. Indeed, a tendency exists to imprint one's own tradition as the operating system of reality, lending their system an objective belief Robert Anton Wilson described as 'the death of thought.'"