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                         On television and in movies magicians are portrayed as having special powers that they are born with, such as freezing or repelling enemies, making things appear and disappear, and so forth.  This is untrue.  Magicians are like everyone else, but perhaps are more psychic and intuitive than the norm.   The difference between magicians and most people is one of degree rather than of kind.  Magicians tend to be more rebellious than average, and less fearful of the consequences of their rebellion.  In other words, magicians tend to be more ready to fly with their impulses than are most people. 

This misperception about magic and magicians is a shame, since the truth about magic is far more interesting, compelling, and personally applicable in our own lives than the false stereotypes which appear in the popular media. It’s not that magicians have supernormal powers.  Rather, from the magicians’ point of view, most people are walking around with both hands – their intuition and intent – tied behind their backs.  They are in thrall to their fear – e.g. their fear of death, or of their own natural sexual desires.  They learn this fear from their parents and society, and they pass it on to their own children in turn.  This fear of not measuring up to society’s norms, or of being unmasked as phonies, paralyzes people’s wills and stifles their attunement to their own true feelings.  Thus, to most people, magicians’ use of their “hands” – their intent and intuition – seems like the use of supernormal powers.  However, magicians have no power beyond what most people possess – they just use their power.  They use their intuition to process incoming information, and they use their intent to influence the outside world.  Most magicians don’t even know that they are magicians.  They do not understand or consider what they are doing to be magic, since it comes so naturally to them.  Magicians who happen to be Christians or capitalists would scoff at the idea that they are magicians using magic.  But anyone who applies the techniques of magic to get what they want from life, anyone who has some degree of mastery in the use of intuition and intent, is a magician.  An excellent example is Abraham Lincoln.

When Abraham Lincoln was nine years old he was whipping a horse to make her get up saying, “Git up, you old hussy; git up…” when the horse kicked him in the head and killed him. He lay dead all night and then suddenly regained consciousness, saying “…you old hussy!”, thus finishing what he had started to say before he was kicked.  From that time on he had frequent prophetic dreams, and was attracted to psychic phenomena (he even held spiritualist seances at the White House).

Shortly after his election in 1860, Lincoln was looking in a mirror and was startled to see a double image of his face - one face alive and vibrant, the other face ghostly pale. He interpreted this to mean that he would have two terms as president, and make it safely through the first term, but would die before the end of the second term.

Lincoln believed that any dream had a meaning if you could be wise enough to find it. He always had the same dream - of himself in a strange boat moving very fast towards some indefinite shore - before every major battle (Sumter, Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, etc.); he had this same dream the night before he was assassinated.

Two weeks before he was assassinated he had a dream which disturbed him very much: he heard sobbing, as if a crowd of people were weeping, so he left his bed and wandered downstairs following the sound of sobbing, from empty room to empty room. Finally he arrived at the East Room, and was startled to see a bier with a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it was stationed an honor guard of soldiers, and a crowd of people mourning and sobbing. “Who is dead in the White House?”, he asked one of the soldiers. “The President. He was killed by an assassin!”, was the answer. Then a loud burst of grief from the crowd woke him from his dream.

According to his bodyguard, Crook, the president was intensely serious and depressed the day he was assassinated. He spoke of the likelihood of his someday being assassinated (usually Lincoln avoided all talk about his safety, and he never brought the topic up himself).  Although he was usually fond of the theater, he didn’t want to go that night; but he didn’t want to disappoint the public who knew he’d be there.

When they reached the door of the White House that night Lincoln looked his bodyguard in the eye and told him, “Good-bye, Crook.” Up until then it had always been, “Good-night, Crook.”

(The information above is taken from Carl Sandburg’s Life of Lincoln)

More of Bob Makransky’s articles are posted at:  www.dearbrutus.com  

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