What Makes Magick Work

by Jack of Shadows

Some writers of occult books assert that all one has to do, to use magic to affect external events, is to concentrate. This is a partial error. Concentration is a necessary skill to employ; However, it is not what makes the spell work. The magician must assume a state of consciousness, which, in the tech language of ritual, is called 'merging,' if he is to effect External events. A Work such as a wisdom spell, which only effects the operator, and occasionally the external world as a secondary effect, only requires concentration, because it is an act of self suggestion. Merging, however, is an altered state of consciousness which puts the magician in touch with the Akasha principal, the name for a Etheric substance which the objects of the physical world are only a small part of, the part that is solid enough(lower in frequency) to activate biological receptors, and can be seen in the visible light spectrum. Having a backround in physics enhances, rather than refutes an understanding of this principal, as long as the existence of metaphysics is understood.

As you know, the model explaining why a magnet has permeability is just that, a model. No one has ever seen all those atoms line up, pole to pole, to create magnetism; no one really understands magnetism, only how to use it. The reason for the elusive nature of magnetic force, is an illusion caused by our limited present knowledge of matter in general. To state the truth simply is: ( this will blow your mind off its hinges if you think hard enough about it), The magnetism comes from outside the magnet, not inside as has been postulated by other sources. The magnet is a transformer of the force, whose origin is in the Akasha principal, not the metal.

The same principal is true of all physical plane objects. This is the reason for all the herbs and stones used in magic; they are reflections of force aspects, of the Akasha Principal. They are hard representations of more rarefied energy. This energy is the force, which when acted upon, produces work in the form of external manipulation of objects and what is referred to by the ignorant as coincidence. .

As you know, Nuclear Force comes from the splitting of atoms, or does it? There is a point in the squiggle calculation of the propagation of Nutrons in a Reactor, where you must ASSUME that the energy is released. No one has an adequate explanation of WHERE it comes from, only theoretical models that SEEM to explain some EFFECTS. U-235, when subjected to critical mass conditions, transforms a type of force, which, in keeping with its nature, splits the atom After it is released. Take the time for each reaction and divide it into parts, then divide the parts, and divide and divide. The point where force is released cannot be accurately determined with 100 percent certainty when fission of atoms takes place.

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The Science of Witchcraft

(excerpts from Laurie Cabot's Power of the Witch)

The discovery that on the subatomic level all material things are composed of energy and radiation reinforces what Witches have always known about physical things - namely, they radiate energy.  They emit auras.  Herbs, stones, cloth, water, animals, the entire earth, moon and galaxy radiate energy.  Everything emits, refracts and reflects light.  By 'light' we don't mean just that spectrum of light visible to the human eye but X-rays, ultra-violet, infra-red and radar, the same electromagnetic energy found in television and radio waves.  The point is that light energy is everywhere, and science is discovering that everything that exists is composed of light.  Outside of light nothing exists.

Another mind-spinning discovery by twentieth-century physicists is that the universe is a shapeshifter. According to quantum theory, subatomic energy exhibits the characteristics of both waves and particles but not at the same time.  Although the two manifestations of energy seem to be contradictory, they are not.  They simply indicate the shapeshifting nature of reality.  As Fritjof Capra says, these 'concepts of quantum theory were not easy to accept even after their mathematical formulation had been completed.  Their effect on the physicists' imagination was truly shattering.'  I imagine it was!  The results of their studies required a radically new definition of the universe.  Einstein himself was stunned by the implications.  He confessed, 'It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under me, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere, upon which one could have built.'  The bottom line is that solid matter does not exist as it appears to us.  The particles of which objects are made do not behave like the solid objects of classical physics, like a chair or table, for instance.  Subatomic particles are abstract entities, and the way they appear and behave depends on how we look at them.  Sometimes they act like particles, and sometimes like waves.  The determining factor is how our consciousness perceives them.  And this dual nature is also exhibited by light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation.

An even more recent revelation is the quantum field theory, which completely replaces the traditional notion that solid particles and the space surrounding them are separate and distinct.  The quantum field, according to Capra, is 'the fundamental physical entity: a continuous medium which is present everywhere in space.'  Solid objects, then, are only temporary condensations of energy that come and go in that field.  This is very similar to what the oriental sages say about 'form' and 'emptiness' being the same thing.  What looks like an empty void can produce an object that is made up of the very stuff of the void in which it appears.  And consciousness is such an integral part of this process that some physicists, like Geoffrey Chew and Eugene Wigner, wonder if consciousness might not be essential for the 'self-consistency of the whole'.  In other words, intelligence becomes not just a human trait but an essential aspect of the entire universe.

At last physicists support and confirm an understanding of the universe that Witches have always had, and in so doing they make it immensely easier for us to explain our magic.  As Peat put it, 'The universe springs from a creative source ... out of which the orders of consciousness and the material world unfold.  The heart of this movement and hierarchy of levels is meaning' or knowledge.  Consciousness in all its forms - human, animal, plant, spirit - lies at the heart of the universe.  Consciousness lies at the heart of magic and is the reason that the power of magic really works.  In other words, a Witch's consciousness can effect changes in the physical world (or mental and emotional worlds) because, based on what we know from subatomic experiments, what we see and how what we see behaves depends upon our participation, our effort, our involvement.  Formerly it was assumed that scientists were merely observers of the universe who watched and reported what they saw.  The new physics disproves that.    Scientists are active participants even when they think they are just observing.  As physicist John Wheeler says, 'The old word observer simply has to be crossed off the books, and we must put in the new word participator.  In this way we've come to realise that the universe is a participatory universe.' 

      The human mind is truly powerful because it is a participator, not a mere observer and recorder.  The new physics has disproved Descartes' notion that has dominated scientific thinking since the seventeenth century - that mind and matter are two separate and distinct realms.  They are not.  As Capra says, the universe is 'a dynamic inseparable whole which always includes the observer in an essential way.'  There is no discontinuity between mind and matter, and no discontinuity between humans and nature.  For these reasons the Witches' belief that thought can be projected out into the universe and impact on external reality makes perfect sense.  Thought projections can become external realities because there is no separation of mental reality and external reality.

      Our minds can draw in information from anywhere in the universe because all things emit light.  Even black holes appear to emit particles of light, according to Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking.  Although nothing can escape what is called the 'event horizon' of a black hole, Hawking claims that there is light at the core of this seemingly utter darkness.  And so as all things display their patterns of information and meaning as they radiate energy and give off light, we 'observe' and we 'participate', and as we participate we share the energy, the knowledge, the meaning inherent in every created thing.  All things are interconnected, just as the sages and mystics in every religious tradition have been saying for thousands of years.  By our active involvement in nature we determine what nature is; we take physical things and turn them into energy; we take energy and shape it into material things.  In other words, we do magick.

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