The Power of Magical Consciousness

I wrote about magical consciousness in Original Love, because I very much believe that magical consciousness is real. What do I mean by magical consciousness? I mean the ability to merge Universal will with personal will. Those possessing magical abilities can make things happen with their mind, things like psychokinesis, telepathy, and even time travel. I believe all of us have the capacity to express magical abilities, even if as an adult our abilities have been largely repressed or forgotten. I am no different. One of my Native friends whom I regularly do ceremony with read an advance copy of Original Love, and directly asked me: “Since you obviously believe in magical consciousness, can you harness these abilities for yourself?” I replied, “No, I cannot, although I used to be able to.” Then my friend did the most wonderful thing. She offered to help me. I was immensely grateful and readily accepted. We agreed to stay in regular contact and work on this together.

I did not share with my friend any specifics regarding the abilities I used to have, nor did I write about that in the book. I will disclose that now, in case my readers may have had similar abilities and want to share that with me, on Substack or privately. Until I was about 15 years old or so, I was able to control the roll of dice. My brother’s friends had a game called Stratomatic Football, which is based on statistical probabilities carefully plotted out by mathematicians. I rarely played, but when I did, I would choose the NY Jets, as my favorite player at the time was Joe Namath. Broadway Joe was a celebrity who was good at throwing long passes, but also threw many incompletions and interceptions if he had been out partying too much the night before. His card included many negative results along with the possibility of successful long passes. Yet if you rolled a 3 or an 11, a Long Gain was guaranteed (no matter what the defense called). I would sit there and repeatedly roll 3s and 11s. My brother and his friends were dumbfounded, for Namath’s card far outperformed statistical probabilities. Looking back, it is probably a blessing I lost this particular ability before I came of gambling age.

I also had the ability to bend spoons, although I did not discover this until I was in my mid-20s, while in graduate school at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. I attended a few spoon bending parties at the time that were then the rage in California. Everyone in the room was shouting BEND, BEND, BEND, wanting to assert mind over matter. I found I could bend spoons myself, but the children—–WOW—–the children—–were able to bend large metal bars. Why could they do that? Because nobody told them they couldn’t; their psychokinetic abilities were completely intact. Later I realized I could conduct classes “teaching” children to bend spoons, and I actually did that for a summer camp for children about twenty-five years ago. With rare exception, all the students could easily bend spoons. This was not because I demonstrated it for them or because I was actually teaching them anything. It was because they had the innate ability to do this. My real role was not teacher, but to simply grant them permission to do their stuff. That was great fun. I now believe that all children possess magical abilities, and the ones who retain them as an adult are those who were encouraged to do so.

Here is an excerpt from Original Love that talks about magical consciousness.

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THE POWER OF MAGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Magical consciousness can be defined as a state in which individual minds are seamlessly connected with Universal Mind, and personal will is one with Universal Will. The magical mind has the capability to seamlessly manipulate nature for its needs. To visualize a state in which there is no distinction between the personal and universal requires a suspension of logical beliefs, but is worth doing—for imagination itself is a property of magical consciousness. The power of imagination should never be underestimated.

We can look to modern infants for a hint of how magical consciousness once operated, but what we are seeing is only a vestige of what was once more formidable. According to Rudolph Steiner, the ancients had enormous capabilities of will/imagination. ^[i] The power of their imagination was such that they could move objects with their minds. Visualize thinking of lifting any object, and the object, however large, rises because you thought it so (without touching it at all). To most moderns, this sounds impossible, since nowadays any vestige of psychokinesis is minimal; but play along, dear reader, and temporarily suspend your beliefs. Imagine you can do this. What would you do if you were able to move any object with your mind? How about building a giant pyramid? The famous American psychic Edgar Cayce implied the Egyptian pyramids were built by the same principle that allows stone to float in the air. ^[ii] Did he mean psychokinesis? I believe so. Before you outright dismiss this idea, consider this: It has never been demonstrated that moderns, even with the largest of our most advanced equipment, could cut, move, and place with surgical precision the enormous stones that formed the Great Pyramid of Giza. The same could be said about other ancient monumental architectural structures such as Machu Picchu, where stones weighing over 50 tons are commonplace.

Nobody really knows how the Great Pyramid or Machu Picchu were built, and that is not my point. What I am saying is that magical consciousness might have once had enormous capabilities beyond what we are limited to today, even as other structures of consciousness, such as mythical and rational thought, had not yet been developed, but would in time possess unique powers of their own. It is a worthwhile exercise to try to imagine magical thinking at its zenith, because it might still be possible to access a vestige of it today and thereby expand your own capacities. …

LOVE AND MAGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

What does magical consciousness have to teach us about love? In my opinion, quite a lot. During the eras of archaic and magical consciousness, the boundaries between people and nature were permeable. Our bodies were essentially membranes connected to a larger self; our immediate experience was one of togetherness. Contrast this with the modern world. It takes significant courage to love someone else today because other beings are perceived as fundamentally different and separate from ourselves. This was not at all the case in antiquity, where the development of an egoic identity making us feel separate had not yet occurred. There is something vital and essential from magical consciousness that needs to re-emerge in a new way.

It is probably impossible to reestablish the thin veil of separation between people, animals, and nature that once existed. But in different ways, through modern science, meditation, entheogens, and so forth, we are rediscovering how radically interconnected we all are. These practices can inspire us to soften the boundaries between ourselves and our lovers, animals, plants, and more. We might even begin to understand what Ramana Maharshi meant when he responded to the question, “How should we treat others?” by saying, “There are no others.” His reply evokes the feeling of archaic and magical consciousness, but is also a realization of what is coming—the knowing that we are all in this together; we are all one.

This kind of awakening, this kind of inclusiveness, opens the heart, leaving space for a greater knowing to flower. This blossoming of awareness is difficult to articulate in words, because it is not measurable; it is not overt. It occurs on the subtle plane. This change in the overall field of awareness amounts to a change in vibration. This is what enables love to flourish, because love is ultimately a vibration.

THE ONGOING VIBRATION OF MAGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

The energy of love is an original vibration and, as such, continues indefinitely. The same is true for magical consciousness. It has never disappeared. Modern science understands that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Once a vibration starts, it never ends. Consciousness is energy. Magical consciousness continues to exist, if we could only but perceive…

The young believe they are one with creation until they are told they cannot be that way anymore. Our imaginary friends, our ability to change the world with our minds, spoon bending, affecting the roll of dice, seeing dead people and other spirits, remembering past lives, and many other capacities dissipate if not disappear as we age. Adults humor us for a period of time with stories of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the stork, the boogeyman, and so forth, until they determine that it is time to grow up. “It wasn’t real,” they say. But the magical world a child inhabits should not be dismissed as illusion. It is valid. It is real and important to remember. Most of us forget we ever were that magical child. The ones who remember continue to excel in creative pursuits.

Ultimately, a magical self is a portal to a loving, interconnected universe. Once we go through that doorway, all kinds of phenomena we previously dismissed as illusory come alive and reveal themselves as our support system, as our kin. A living, pulsating cosmos is real. Everything around and within us is vibrating; everything is intelligent and aware and potentially supportive—and all of it came into existence because of love.

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^[i] Steiner, Rudolph. Cosmic Memory: Pre-History of Earth and Man. New York. Harper Collins, 1981. p 75.

^[ii] Cayce, Edgar. The Sleeping Prophet. New York. Bantam, 1989.

^[i] Steiner, Rudolph. Cosmic Memory: Pre-History of Earth and Man. New York. Harper Collins, 1981. p 75.

^[ii] Cayce, Edgar. The Sleeping Prophet. New York. Bantam, 1989.