Sources of Magic
When I sit at the ocean I feel it, it welcomes me, it hears me, it heals my soul. It connects me to the spirit of Mother Earth. It nurtures me, it wants to teach me, it knows what I need.
None of this is real. If I choose to approach the Ocean Spirit as if it’s real then I can allow the power of my own myths to provide me with gifts. I do not need to pretend to believe in the Ocean Spirit, I just need to think and respond as I would if I did believe it.
I do not even want the Ocean Spirit to be real. I feel its connection even stronger because I know it’s completely in my control, my conscious choice. Its fountainhead of mystical power is entirely in me.
Very young kids often have a special object that gives them comfort. Stuffed animals, a small blanket, a special toy, etc. They hold it and feel love flowing from the object. Adults can see the power of the object but they foolishly are blind to the mystical lesson. Adults know that the stuffed bear was made in a horrible factory that creates thousands of identical objects and in no way anoints or consecrates them with magical powers. Wise parents will buy two identical bears so that one can always be in the laundry then secretly swapped with the other. The parents think they are clever to trick the child into being equally comforted by either of the pair. The most sacred occult gnosis is in front of them but is totally invisible due to their hubris.
The stuffed bears have actual magical power. That power is projected by the child, the child chooses to allow the power to be symbolically embodied by the object.
The parents might be wearing a gold crucifix on a chain around their neck. They naively believe that its power for them is endowed by a god that activates it for them if they follow some rules and perform specific rituals. Any magical power the cross possesses is only in the mind of the believer. That power is as real as the stuffed animal’s and hopefully as enriching.
Sedona Arizona is said to be at the intersection of numerous mystical energy vortexes. I don’t know of any reason to believe it’s true. It’s probably pseudo-scientific nonsense.
Yet, I have been to Sedona and I experienced a special feeling consistent with what’s described by proponents of the vortex myths. The vortex myths created a narrative that I was able to embrace as if they were true without ever actually needing to fool myself with the mystical explanation that in any event feels like a marketing ploy to increase tourism. The fact remains that I experienced and was moved by something special there.
I have been inside the Pantheon in Rome. I am a confident atheist, yet in that space I could feel the presence of gods. The geometry, architecture, history and sensual experience create the opportunity for a voluntary acceptance of something transcendent.
People can feel strong emotions while watching a movie. They are not confused. The entire experience is obviously a fiction created by writers, actors, set designers, musicians, and technical experts in film making and display. Part of the enjoyment for the audience is that they actively choose to be manipulated by the experience. They watch the movie as if it were a real event happening to them.
I have met some people who seem to have an almost-perceptible (sub-liminal) aura, or vibration, that makes the experience of being with them memorable. They might be described as having charm, grace, or beauty but it’s not linked to how they look.
Human senses have specific limits, but those limits are not correlated with the full extent of possible inputs. We see light or hear sounds in a narrow band of the available spectrum.
Very low frequency sounds fall below our hearing but shift to our sense of touch. We can feel the rumble but not hear the sound. Elephants use the large surface area of ground contact in their feet to detect very low frequency sounds from other elephants.
Other creatures have different perceptions. Hunters can wear bright orange hats because deer can’t see that color. The hunter is visible to the other hunters but not seen by the deer. Whose vision is real, ours or the deer’s?
Most insects can see UV light but humans can not. The “real” world they see is very different from ours but is just as valid.
I postulate (without evidence) that when we notice someone has a special “something” about them that we are detecting something that is just outside the range of our senses. A bit like not hearing a sound but instead feeling it’s rumble in our bones.
We can use technology to expand our visual perception from gamma rays to radio waves. I wonder if certain conditions make it possible to expand our perception range just enough to subconsciously notice but not enough to directly understand the mechanism. Someday science might realize that they have not used their clever tools to look for the right things.
Perhaps churches, caves, psychoactive chemicals, forests, mountains, ritual dances, campfires, music, art, and such manipulate or open us just enough to expand our sensual abilities. These things make us feel as if there were some sort of magic in the world, and therefore there is.
Through human history there have religions, myths, stories, icons, and rituals that apparently provided some sort of benefits to believers. I have always been confused at how people I know who are otherwise rational and intelligent can seemingly accept such utter nonsense from what ever religion they follow. I wonder if many of them accept ( or pretend to accept) the foolish stuff in exchange for a gift of magic that emerges from the structures and rituals. If this is correct, then approaching all of those things with an AsIf mindset could make gifts of magic available from not just one religion but all forms of all religions or mystical traditions past and future.
The greatest benefit of this way of accepting unexpected responses to experiences is that it allows an experience to be “real” without a need to understand the mechanism. Maybe it’s quantum entanglement, maybe it’s psychotic hallucinations, ghosts, or something odd you eat for lunch. Choose one and allow the experience itself to guide your response.
There is value in understanding the true, scientific, cause of the experience. It’s possible that combining the deep esoteric experience with the rational exoteric explanation will lead to some sort of ability to control or activate the experience at will.
That is Magic at it’s best.
