In a recent conversation about the topic it seemed a good idea to shed some light or rather bring viewpoints to the table.
Can you see the table in your mind that I am talking about when I say "to the table", btw?
You have an image in your mind of that table yet the image of that table is different for everybody depending on what kinds of tables you have seen in your life.
Look around, this is your reality. Look at an object that is close to you? What color does it have?
Now realize that there is no color outside there. It is a feat of the brain and your perception of color changes when the context of that object changes.
The color of the two slides are the same. You can see it when you cover the point where they seem to be different in the middle with your finger.
For the same reason square A and B or the same shade.
You may remember this dress as well.
What we perceive is context dependent. Even when you know that the two squares are the same you can't stop seeing it different.
We not only perceive in context but we filter out information that seems not relevant to our task.
This is beautiful shown in this task:
Another effect of context-dependent meaning making is Change Blindness. This occurs when a change occurs but the context seems to be the same so we interpreted it as no change at all.
We don't experience the world as it "is" but by the map our nervous system build of that world. This is our reality. What we perceive is the map. We update that map when we become conscious of a change.
We don't experience the world as it is we experience the world is as we are
and
The map is not the territory.
but...
As Alejandro Jodorowsky mentioned: Even if the word "dog" can not bite... it can bite in a way when we use it to insult others.
Our nervous system is a system of abstractions.
Language is thus a very important aspect of our reality and of what magick seems to be.
When we can't express something it is as if it isn't really there. That is why politicians over the time tried to erase certain words out of our vocabulary. When we can't communicate it is as if we don't exist.
The extent and power of that are to be seen in the history of the color Blue. We weren't able to perceive that color because it was not in our vocabulary, it was just seen as a kind of green.
Sources: http://www.iflscience.com/brain/when-did-humans-start-see-color-blue
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-color-2015-2
Changing language, changes how we perceive our reality.
Therefore, it is important to understand how language works.
We don't come with a blank slate of how we process and use language.There are fundamental basics found across the world.
We seem to operate upon metaphors all the time.
For the full hypothesis on Embodied Cognition go to : https://youtu.be/WuUnMCq-ARQ
Even the clothes you wear change how you are able to do a certain task. This is called Enclothed Cognition.
you begin to see how all what we perceive as reality is a matrix of context inside context.
Magick, as defined as changing the consciousness of yourself and of others, seems to be a really strong framework to start with. This is what art does! And Magick was first defined as "The Art. "
You can make from something ordinary something extraordinary. You can do a task that seems ordinary in a extraordinary way and you have made it into an art.
This Platonism and Neoplatonism thinking is a very early start of magickal thinking, in other words, to believe that there is an Essence in all that we perceive and that that Essence is the Real thing of what our Perception is the Shadow of.
It is this Platonistic thinking that I personally use to say that : " we can take something ordinary and make it extraordinary. " as if everything ordinary has the potential to be extraordinary.
(To come back on the idea of Platonistic thinking, you will see how animalism is very closely related to it. Animalism is the belief that everything has a personality and an a essence or soul. )
This idea of potential is crucial in understanding magickal thinking. The idea that we have in ourselves a part of God, the potential, is crucial for a kabbalistic magician.
In platonic thinking, the Idea is the immortal part of everything and that is what Allan Moore was talking about in V for vendetta :
The Strong concordance notices that the origin for the word Magician also has links with somebody with special knowledge, is intelligent and has great understanding (screenshot of the E-sword app below)
In other words, one might say an expert. Somebody who has special knowledge and understanding of the sciences or skill.
This might explain also why "blazing" was a Hebrew word for Magick.
One who sheds light on things, hidden things most likely. One with determination.
(The Mechanical Translation of the Torah - Lexicon of Hebrew Roots and Words
Edited by Jeff A. Benner - Published by Ancient Hebrew Research Center
Get it here free on his website: http://www.mechanical-translation.org (page61))
An expert can bring an "idea" to "reality" . Make a plan real. Be determined to get his/her idea into this world.
As Jim Rohn said, an Immobilien salesperson and in-house decorator can point to an empty room and say: " And here you can see a beautiful salon where the kids are playing" or "Here is a window where you can see your kids playing in the garden" ,ext.. while there is nothing there, while there is no window there yet.
So we are back to pictures in the mind as you can notice.
The age of Alchemy was an age of mixing our perception with daydreaming and the art of how to influence those daydreams. It was an art of how to make the pictures in our head become more real.
The abilities of an magician are thus greatly those of understanding our nervous system to a great extent. According to Robert Anton Wilson, is Spirituality an map of Neurology.
That is why Neuro Linguistic Programming is so important in my understanding. Understanding how we can work together with our nervous system to get the best results possible is an art of its own.
There are still pieces of the puzzle missing and those are "no pieces" at all.
The question I want to raise here is: Is there something magickal ?
The short answer is NO.
Why? Because there is no such a thing as "a thing" on its own.
The boundaries we perceive and make are arbitrary and a tool for convenience.
You can cut the cake up like you want.
We can not explain a system without explaining the observer, ourselves, also!
The observer is part of the system and influences the system!
(a further discussion of quantum mechanics should take us too far)
(a further discussion of quantum mechanics should take us too far)
So, think about it for a while when you say :" Fuck the system" .
Our universe seems fractal and that is why little things reflect the bigger things and big things reflect the little things or as Qabalist like to say : as above so below.
In this way also is the outer drama that is used for Ceremonial magick making changes in our inner dramas.
We can not change something on one level only. Belief systems, metaphors, neurons, atoms,.. these are all arbitrary boundaries.
The power we have lies in understanding and utilizing relationships!
The magickal circle has no power of its own. Spells have no power of them own. No item has power on its own.
Old grimoires speak of cutting your own wand from a branch of an elk with a silver blade in moonlight.
Why ?
Because, you had to cut the tree, this is a personal act.
You experience that you take a small part of something bigger.
The elk has a strong history for being strong, upright and reliable and was used because of that to represent Kingship and Kingship was a God-given privilege and thus was also represent of Gods power. (And that's True, Trust me ;))
So too had silver and the moon a connection to using our imagination, as well as other connections.
So you see that it are those relations and connections that gave it its power. If any of these changed the power that person experienced changed.
There is another effect of thinking like this and that is that of rethinking "effect" and "Cause" .
I challenge you to see all your magickal deeds and results in the light of the Post Hoc fallacy:
There is a the definition of magick as defined as The art of coincidences. To have coincidences that are conform with what we want.
What would happen when we take on the Buddhist assumption that Cause and Effect are instead two ways to look at the same thing. Just as we would see a Dogs head from behind a fence and then a dogs tail and conclude that the dogs head causes the dogs tail as effect, that would be crazy.
It challenges the same assumptions of boundaries we make.
So in order to explain what Reality is and what Magick is, I have put some "pieces" together to alter the way you perceive and create your reality. It is not complete but I am somewhat tiered from typing and will resume in another post asap this topic.
I wish you all the best in all the work you want to accomplish and may your life be wonderful and magickal.
So mote it be.
