What is Magic?

            Creative visualization is used to change our basic beliefs – e.g. our beliefs that we are poor, or ill, or lonely, or unhappy.   Our basic beliefs are the armatures of thought forms which support our customary moods and concerns.  One common basic belief, for example, is the notion that we’re here on this earth to suffer.  Those of us who share this basic belief have a cadre of thought forms at hand to twist everything that happens to us around to support this basic belief:  e.g., since we’re so good and wonderful and don’t deserve this terrible fate that has befallen us, that just proves once more that we’re here to suffer. 

            The way to change our basic beliefs is by truly wanting to change them, in our hearts – not our minds.  We change beliefs in our hearts by simply deciding that isn’t what we want for ourselves anymore; and then the beliefs will change.  This is the purpose of creative visualization – to change beliefs.  It’s a matter of changing our mood from self-pity to eager expectancy.  Only after our own beliefs are changed can the universe be changed around.

            The first basic belief that has to be dealt with is the belief that things “just happen” to us, rather than that we have in fact called them to us.  It doesn’t even make any difference whether this is true or not:  only  fools would go in there on the assumption that they have less than 100% control over what is happening to them, and thus can get by taking less than 100% of the responsibility for it.  Once we have intellectually convinced ourselves of the truth of this axiom, or at least adopted it as a working hypothesis, we can then get down to changing specific beliefs. 

            Creative visualization is a form of self-hypnosis.  In fact, all magic is a form of self-hypnosis.  In fact, all waking consciousness is a form of self-hypnosis.  You hypnotized yourself into thinking that you are poor, or sick, or lonely; and you can just as easily hypnotize yourself back out of it again.  If you believe that the world is a drag, rest assured that the world will become a drag; conversely, if you believe that the world is magical, the world will become more magical than you could have ever dreamed possible.

            It is to be expected that you will be doubtful and hesitant at first; but if you have even a modicum of belief in the possibility that what you are doing is valid, that will be enough to make it happen.  Of course, the more heartfelt your belief, the faster and more impressive the result will be.  Creative visualization is essentially the same thing as casting spells, or prayer; and it has the same result, except that you don’t invoke a deity.  If you are accustomed to praying to a deity, then by all means continue to do so, since this can be even more efficacious than straight creative visualization (of course this depends upon who the  deity is and what you’re praying for).

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            I, personally, am possessed by a group of deities who belong to the pantheon of the indigenous people where I live (Guatemala).  I was originally working with these deities in a more casual fashion, with regard to agriculture, when my spirit guides suggested that I invite them to possess me, and I did so (spirit guides are just that – guides.  They have neither the power nor inclination to possess humans).  These deities help me in various ways.  They prop me up – help me accomplish things that I could not normally do by myself.  For example, they taught me how to hold my attention fixed on a single feeling moment-to-moment, all day long, every day.  At first they lent me their power, so in the beginning I found the exercise remarkably easy; then little-by-little they withdrew their power, which made the thing progressively harder and harder to do, but still doable, until I was able to do it by myself.  This training was part of their teaching me how to drop the obsession of everyday life by breaking its fixation. 

            Another thing they’ve done on occasion is show me scenes from my past and future in my mind’s eye, but incredibly vivid and emotionally compelling, not unlike what the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future did to Ebenezer Scrooge.  Sometimes they have altered my consciousness - like taking a psychedelic drug - to show me things.

            Also, the frequency and intensity of omens and portents in my life seem to have jumped exponentially ever since these deities took over the controls.  And they talk to me and tell me about all sorts of things, like agriculture, divination, healing, etc.  They also have introduced me to some interesting people.  They come to me in dreams and show me things.  Actually, they’re a trip.  But beyond the weird stuff, they’re also good friends.  I trust them and feel comfortable in their presence; and they’re omnipresent.

            The relationship between humans and spirits is symbiotic.  Possessing humans gives spirits embodied agents in the physical world through whom the spirits can extend the range of their activities.  Spirits cannot act directly upon the physical world;*  all they can do by themselves is wait until a fortuitous juxtaposition of circumstances pops up, and then give things a little tangential shove this way or that.  But they are not capable of acting in the world in a sustained, methodical fashion; for that they need human (or animal, or vegetable, or mineral) agents.

            The dilemma for the aspirant is that the spiritual path requires calmness, gentleness, and humility; and spirit possession militates against the development of these qualities.  On the other hand, the spiritual path also requires fierce determination and an unwavering sense of direction, which are really only available by means of some form of possession.  A human guru tries to prevent his or her disciples from indulging in excesses by constantly kicking the legs out from under their self-importance (which is why e.g. Don Juan, Sri Yukteswar, Gurdjieff, etc. were so harsh and abusive to their disciples); but with spirit possession there are no such restraints.  On the other hand, in this day and age there are very few true gurus out there, so the aspirant on the spiritual path has to make use of what tools are available.

            Being possessed by a spirit is like packing a loaded pistol.  Some people get a real charge out of having a gun in their hands, and it makes them act in all kinds of crazy and stupid ways.  People like that are a real danger to themselves and to others.  But there is such a thing as responsible gun handling; and there is such a thing as responsible spirit possession.

            The widespread fear and condemnation of spirit possession in our society is complete hypocrisy, considering the sizable percentage of the population which is possessed.  Just as up until very recently society made us feel ashamed of our sexuality, so too does society make us fear a perfectly ordinary and commonplace phenomenon such as spirit possession.  It’s about time everyone came out of the closet and copped to what’s really going on.

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* Actually, here and there spirits can act on the so-called physical world; poltergeists are an example.  But for the most part their interventions are hit-or-miss rather than deliberate and methodical.  Spirits need humans to make connections for them in the physical world.  This is the purpose of priesthood in all religions. 

(excerpted from Magical Living, Copyright © 2001 by Bob Makransky.  All rights reserved.) 

More of Bob Makransky’s articles are posted at:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files  

            In contrast to demon possession and societal (thought form) possession, which are usually unconscious, unskillful manifestations of possession,* the spiritual path is the conscious acknowledgment and employment of possession as a tool.  For people on the spiritual path who don’t have human gurus, spirit possession is about the only avenue open to self-transformation.  The spiritual path is sufficiently complex an undertaking – a maze with so many dead-ends, and requiring so much strength of will – that few people could succeed in following it without the guidance and power obtained from a possessing agent, either a human guru, or a spirit.

            Most religions recognize this, and provide a ritual for calling in a possessing spirit.  In Christianity, the aspirant is called to “make the decision for Jesus” or “invite Jesus into one’s life” or “ask Jesus to come live inside one”.  When the aspirant makes such a firm decision of his or her own free will, he or she is at that moment possessed by Jesus (or rather by the Holy Spirit, which is directed by Jesus).  Similarly, the Buddhist aspirant is exhorted to “take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha”.  The act of “taking refuge” is the same thing as inviting the spirits of Buddhism to take possession.

            Two points to remember about spirit possession are 1) spirits, whether good or evil, can only possess a host by invitation; although many people who are possessed by demons invited the demons in dreamless sleep – i.e. the invitation doesn’t have to be conscious; and 2) spirits can be exorcised by the same process of firm decision to cast them out as was used to invite them in.

            Like everything else, spirit possession has its advantages and disadvantages.  For a person on the spiritual path who does not have a human guru, possession by a beneficent spirit such as Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, etc. is de rigueur.   The spiritual path is just too tortuous and tricky to manage without a navigator who is outside of and above us, and who can take a detached and long-term view.  Indeed, the essential thing on the spiritual path is relinquishment of ones’ own will (decision-making).  Ironically, although possession can facilitate the relinquishment of self-will, when abused it has the effect of increasing self-will.

            To be possessed by a spirit is to tap into a source of great power, and few people have the sobriety and calm to withstand enslavement by this power.  Jesus, for example, is most certainly a good spirit; yet it is also true that some people who are possessed by him become intoxicated with power – with the certainty of their own salvation, with the imminent triumph of their dogma, with the compulsion to shove their trip down other people’s throats.  This isn’t Jesus’ fault:  he certainly tries to steer his votaries in the right direction.  Nor can he unilaterally withdraw his power from those who abuse it:  possession is a contract which can only by terminated from the human side.  Neither Jesus, nor Mammon or Bacchus for that matter, call on their votaries to destroy other people; but this has been the not infrequent result of possession by them (only demons call for the out-and-out destruction of others).

            Being possessed by a beneficent spirit is like having a bracing tonic for the heart and nerves available at hand whenever needed, to get through the spiritually dry periods when we feel like throwing up our arms in exasperation and crying, “How long, O Lord, how long?”  At those times it’s helpful to be possessed by a spirit, because there’s comfort in the sense that although everything may be spinning out of control, there’s somebody up there somewhere who understands what’s happening and whispers in our ears, “Leave the driving to us.”

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* The exception is black magic, in which demons are quite consciously called and manipulated.  Black magic requires great self-control and audacity, since demons will readily turn on the practitioner if given the slightest opportunity to do so.  But since black magic is the road to hell, the question of how skillful it is, is debatable. 

            Now, possession can be defined as the delegation of responsibility for making decisions.  Nowadays our tendency is to allow ourselves to be possessed by society – i.e. to let society decide everything for us.  This is so extraordinarily commonplace that we take it for granted, but in fact the overwhelming majority of what we call “our” feelings (like about 99.999%) are just the feelings of other people – parents, spouse, boss, teachers, peers, and the media – which we have accepted as our own.  Practically everything we like, dislike, desire, fear, sympathize with, disdain, etc. is just what we’ve learned to like, dislike, desire, fear, sympathize with, or disdain.  Advertising and politics are the two sciences of societal possession.  Society has us repress our own true feelings and dictates what we “should” feel instead.  About the only feeling it lets us feel for ourselves is pain.  Societal possession is the default option for people not possessed by spirits.

           Actually it is not society which possesses us, since society has no soul, but rather our own thought forms (habits and predilections) which are shaped by society.  Everything we have learned since the moment we were born is a thought form; and these thought forms are beings with volitions all their own.  This is why our habits and thoughts seem so uncontrollable to us – thought forms do indeed have wills of their own which can be at variance with ours.  Thought forms are not evil – without them we’d be as helpless as newborns – and it’s quite possible to utilize thought forms skillfully.  We don’t have to be mindless robots operating on social (thought form) programming.  In other words, we don’t have to delegate unconditional decision-making power to our thought forms.

            As is the case with all forms of possession, thought form (societal) possession is in essence a trade:  we trade power to our thought forms, namely the power to make decisions for us; and they give us power in return, in this case, the power to act in society.  Basically, the power we receive from any form of possession is the suspension of doubt.  E.g. our belief that society works (can be depended on to deliver the goods for us) is the result of our possession by our own thought forms.

            Of course the only reason it works is because of our collective belief that it works.  Society – our possession by our thought forms – depends upon our credulity, our willingness to put all doubts aside and give our hearts and minds to a system of belief without examining it too closely.  The reason we have difficulty making spirituality (trust in the Spirit instead of society) work at first is because of our initial doubt that it works, which is the residual effect of our possession by society.

            The reason we get on the spiritual path in the first place – no matter whether New Age or Christian or Buddhist or whatever – is because of our realization that society doesn’t  work.  Doubt creeps in and undermines our possession by society’s thought forms.  We realize that although our society has a lot of neat tricks up its sleeve, happiness is nowhere among them.  At that point we have to conjure up new thought forms – ideals and beliefs – to possess us; otherwise we’d go stark, raving nuts, as some people do when they realize that society has “failed” them.

            The point is that possession by society, like all forms of possession, gives us a sense of direction and purpose in life – an orientation and a force of will (lack of doubt) to sustain us.  And, like all other forms of possession, it can easily enslave us.

            Some societal possession does have a spiritual basis.  Obsession with money is often the result and cause of possession by Mammon; and many drunks are possessed by Bacchus. This is no metaphor; these sorts of deities indeed exist, in the same sense and to the same degree that Bill Gates, for example, exists; and they do indeed possess their votaries.  Neither Mammon nor Bacchus are intrinsically evil spirits; rather, a stout heart is required to resist enslavement by the power of any spirit, even a good one.

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            Here is a fictional example of demon possession from the children’s book Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, which shows how people call demons in to possess them at moments of great vulnerability.  In the story Harriet has just been rejected – deservedly –by all of her friends:

            “She sat very stupidly with a blank mind until finally ‘I feel different’ came slowly into her head. … ‘Yes’, she thought, after a long pause.  And then, after more time, ‘Mean, I feel mean.’            

           “She looked around with a mean look for everyone.  Nobody saw her.  She felt her face contorting.  It was an impressive moment that everyone missed.  It was a moment that Harriet would never forget.

            “When the bell rang for lunch, it was as though she didn’t have to think any more.  Everything happened as though she had planned it but she really hadn’t.  For example, when the bell rang Pinky Whitehead jumped up and ran down the aisle.  Harriet put her foot out and he fell flat on his face.

            “A terrific wail went up from his prone body, and when he raised his face his nose was bleeding.  Harriet looked extremely blank.  Inside she felt a sense of very personal satisfaction.”

            Note that calling a demon in unconsciously, in a thoughtless fit of undisciplined anger or self-pity, has all the consequences of conscious demon-possession (the demon won’t leave unless deliberately exorcised).

            In fact, our society is founded upon demonism.  The fundamentalist Christians are quite correct in their appraisal of the extent to which Satan and his minions run our society.  All our closed-heartedness to one another – the hard-edged snarl that underlies most of our interactions with other people – is urged on us by demon “advisors”.  The cartoon stereotype of a little angel and devil perched on the shoulders of a character alternately whispering in his ears, is 100% accurate. 

          Psychopaths are extreme examples of demon possession (not much humanity left there at all), but actually we’re all like that just beneath the surface, which is why we’re so fascinated by gruesome news stories:  that’s us.  We’re all allowing ourselves to be swayed by the blandishments of demons all the time, even if we’re not actually possessed by them, and the psychos we see on the news are just acting it out openly for everyone else. 

For example, when we are driving and another driver cuts in right ahead of us and we beep the horn in anger, that’s in fact an exchange between that guy’s demons and our own.  Our anger is like a little snack to the demons who hover around us constantly like mosquitoes waiting for a little dart of anger, fear, etc. they can suck.

            Only people who are completely at peace in their own hearts are not supplying fodder to the demons who coinhabit our sphere and live off of the seething emotions generated by the frustration and despair which living in an unjust society (such as ours) produces.  In a just society people are happy, and therefore produce little demon-food; and as a result such societies are not run by or bothered by demons.  This whole “problem of evil” jazz can be easily sidestepped just by not harboring evil intentions in our hearts, and by treating other people in the same way that we’d prefer they treated us.

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            The subject of spirit possession is not well understood in our society; moreover, it has a somewhat unsavory connotation and is not mentioned openly, nor considered a serious topic for discussion.  In fact, lots of people are possessed by spirits without knowing it.  In this essay we will take a quick survey of the whole subject of possession.

            The most common form of possession – which is also the most dangerous – is possession by other people.  This is because in the entire universe, including all the hell worlds, there are no demons which are as malignant, tenacious, and gratuitously cruel as our fellow humans.

            Possession by other people occurs whenever we let them impose their feelings upon us.  Any time we allow ourselves to feel another person’s mood, we are temporarily possessed by that person.  When we experience a great work of art, or even a gripping TV show, we are allowing ourselves to be possessed by the artist, and by the spirits who inspired him or her.

            Most children are possessed by their parents unless they’re super-rebellious hellions from the cradle on; and infatuation is a species of mutual possession.  These types of possession are called “being under the shadow” of another person.  This is not necessarily a bad thing; all forms of apprenticeship and learning involve putting oneself under another person’s shadow.  What is being passed from the teacher to the learner is wholly subconscious and emotional; i.e., possession entails a direct transference of knowledge (assurance), no matter what intellectual symbols – beliefs or techniques –  it may be wrapped up in.  To be possessed by another person means to allow oneself to be emotionally directed by that person.

            Being under the shadow of another person only becomes detrimental when the shadow is imposed by coercion, through fear or guilt.  Most parent / child relationships and marriages have at least a tinge of these elements.  Basically the only way of casting off the shadow of another person (once it’s in place) is by diminishing one’s own self-importance, so the other person is left with nothing to manipulate.  It is usually much more difficult, traumatic, time-consuming, and painful to cast off the shadow of another person than it is to exorcise a demon.

            Demon possession is also a common form of possession.  Most of the people who are habitually, obsessively angry, fearful, repressed, depressed, irritable, self-destructive, chronically ill, etc. are demon-possessed.  Mainstream psychotherapy’s rejection of the notion of demon possession is totally absurd:  it’s like trying to formulate a science of physics while rejecting the calculus – you can still do it, but are handicapping yourself unnecessarily.  Practically all mental illnesses are symptoms of demon possession, and while they can be treated without reference to the underlying problem, this is not a very skillful way of doing it.

            People call demons in to possess them when they feel vulnerable and in need of drastic protection and security.  Demons give them strength – rationalizations, shamelessness, hard-heartedness, self-pity – with which to fend off the attacks of other people and the buffeting of circumstances.  An infant may call a demon in at birth to protect him from his parents; a dying person may call one in to dull the emotions in the face of overwhelming fear.  Demons can be called in any time to cover vulnerability with hardness.  Usually the decision to call in a demon is made in dreamless sleep (i.e. unconsciously).

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The following excerpt from Magical Living has implications for a proper understanding of both cognition – the nature of consciousness – and of comparative religion.   From the point of view of comparative religion, the common denominator in most religions is channeling information and guidance from spirits.   The form of this channeling may vary from place to place; and of course the spirits being invoked vary from religion to religion; but the basic technique of spirit communication and interaction is pretty much the same throughout the world.  

For example, the Catholic mass is an invocation of Jesus and the Holy Spirit; and the Jewish Passover Seder includes an invocation of Elijah.  It is because the form of spirit communication is mandated by the spirits involved themselves that religious ceremonies the world over tend to be very similar in their rituals:  darkened rooms, candles and incense, repetitive litanies, etc.  These techniques, which derive from shamanism, put participants in a light trance state to make them more receptive to the spirits’ messages.  Trance channeling can be considered a temporary manifestation of spirit possession.  Priesthood is an example of benign spirit possession:  priests are able to perform magical operations (such as healing and casting out demons) because they can call upon the power of the spirits of their religion (Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, whomever) who possess them to assist them in these tasks.  

            From the point of view of consciousness, spirit possession is a fact which must be reckoned with in our calculations.  Merely because the society we live in pretends that spirit possession doesn’t exist doesn’t mean that spirit possession doesn’t exist.  As the essay Channeling Spirit Guides says, all we really are is a flux of thought forms (images, opinions, beliefs, and expectations learned from our parents and society) which is being urged this way and that by spirit forces.  That is all we are.  The sooner each of us as individuals wakes up to this fact, the sooner we can take command of our lives and destinies.  That’s what the practice of magic is all about.   

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Traveler’s Guide to Real de Catorce and the Peyote fields of Mexico 

You can get to Real de Minas de

Striving is what animates the swirl of the thought forms in the akashic records – what we take as time.  Striving is the real cause or source of what is going on; moreover, this constant change and flux is completely random and chaotic.  For example, it has nothing whatsoever to do with competition for scarce resources, as the materialists would have it.   So to try to conceive of it at all we focus on arbitrary levels, and divide the lowest (most “recent” or “closest”) levels of movement – those relating to humanness – into four, which are the Four Faculties or moods.  But this is merely a convenience to enable us to get a handle on the unspeakable. 

All any sentient being is at any given moment of time is a set of tendencies this way and that; and the force which makes them appear to be a single, separated, being which persists in linear time is death.   Death is what keeps separated beings separated.  First there’s birth, and then this happens, that happens, and the other happens; and then there’s death.  That personal history, or album of thought form snapshots, is made of death; that is to say, the collection of thought forms apparently taking place in linear time – which separated beings perceive as their lives – that matrix of individuality, is just death.   That’s all death is:  the sequencing of an arbitrary collection of thought forms.   Many of those same thought forms are bound up in other collections of other deaths and those are what we have termed probable realities (Body of Fate).  Death is what keeps these thought form collections or lines of memory separated.  

 The real movement or emanation lies beneath the thought forms.  Although it seems to Mr. or Ms. Sentient Being that they persist in time and space, in fact they are in a constant flux.  All there is at any given moment are tendencies this way and that, like schools of fish that momentarily are oriented in the same direction.  The tendencies this way and that we apprehend as the moods which inform the moment (mold the thought forms which sentient beings create, i.e., the events which happen to them in their lives).  These tendencies in turn are influenced by the complete pattern of evolutionary memory of all the thought forms which have ever existed and ever will exist; namely the akashic records. 

(excerpted from The Great Wheel, Copyright © 2007 by Bob Makransky.  All rights reserved).
More of Bob Makransky’s articles are posted at:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files 
 

Magic, for example, is a wholly different way of organizing basically the same thought form material as materialistic science.  A master magician can fly, read thoughts, communicate over long distances, etc.  A materialistic scientist can also do some of these things, but he needs a machine to do them.  He needs the prop of a machine thought form to perform these dream tasks because in his conscious, accessible memory humans can only do these things with machines.   But there are other possibilities of memory, other lines of memory which can be accessed, in which these feats can be performed as acts of intent, or magic, but still within the basic context of human memory.  And there are other levels of memory which can be accessed (that of cellular and even molecular feeling) which are even weirder.  But all these memories press upon, or shape, the present moment.  The Wright Brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, were all reaching out along one particular line of memory; but they were influenced by other lines of memory (the racial memory that humans – albeit magicians – can fly, communicate at a distance, see in the dark, etc.).  Which in turn is based upon memories of other possibilities of experience.  The whole thing is a turning wheel, with wheels within wheels.  And although it’s evolving, it’s not going anywhere in particular.

The collective memory of the human race forms and informs each new thought form created by any individual human; and each thought form gives a little tug to the direction that collective memory is heading in, just as each drop helps fill a bucket.  Memory is an anchor that holds us back in a sense, but also stabilizes our experience – grooves it – by providing us with a feeling of familiarity.   Without an underlying feeling of familiarity, everything would be truly bizarre.  Familiarity is what ties everything together for us, gives us a sense of continuity, etc.  Familiarity is to memory what importance is to mind – it stabilizes it.  Without a feeling of familiarity everything would be like new every instant.  Even a baby has a sense of familiarity to stabilize him, otherwise he’d be completely disoriented.

 Master magicians, unlike average people, have no sense of familiarity.  They find every minute totally disorienting.  They just don’t freak out about it as an average person would since they’ve gotten used to it.  They’ve learned to operate without a sense of self or center, in an environment that is totally unfamiliar.  In other words, they have familiarized themselves with the unfamiliar.  They use familiarity just like everyone else uses familiarity, to steady themselves, to provide a springboard to action.  But they don’t cling to familiarity and go bananas when they find themselves in a thoroughly unfamiliar and disorienting situation.

The world is completely new, startlingly new and unrecognizable, every instant.  To us it seems that this present moment is similar to a moment ago.  But this is a falsehood:  every moment is a whole new ballgame, with completely different rules.  Familiarity is a gloss or lie we tell ourselves that what is happening at this moment bears any resemblance whatsoever to what was happening a moment ago.  It makes us focus upon the features of reality which seem to persist – the thought forms.  Thought forms have no persistence either:  what they have is a little built-in tape recorder saying over and over “I persist!  I persist!  Look ma, I persist!”  Listening to this tape recording occupies our total attention, so that we never look around and notice that nothing persists, that every passing moment is utterly baffling and ineffable.   Familiarity is the basis of our sense of separatedness. 

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