Shades of Time
Extract from
Chapter One: Magical Reality
© 2001 by Richard Elen
Note: This is a work in progress. The final version may have significant differences.
Modeling Reality
Another
important theme I have already mentioned: the idea of “reality-models”,
and the term deserves some discussion early on. However hard we search the
Universe with the tools of science (or magic for that matter, or those of
any other discipline), the “ultimate reality” is one thing we cannot
stumble across: we can never know what “really is out there”. No,
I will not tell you that “reality does not exist” or even that “we
all create our own reality” as some “New Age” writers propose.
I would instead suggest that “we each create our own model of reality”.
If an “ultimate reality" does exist, we can never know it
directly: we can only experience it through our senses.
We each create
our own model of reality - what does this mean? When a scientist develops
a theory, they actually create a model of some aspect of the way the Universe
appears to work. They can evaluate this model with experiments - some in the
laboratory, and others, some equally valuable, in their own heads. The model
should not only explain existing observations, but in addition should predict
that if some previously untried experiment were established with certain parameters,
experimenters would observe some specific results. This prediction can be
tested by carrying out the described experiment and seeing what you get. With
luck, you will get the results predicted, and your model will become accepted
(assuming other people can carry out the same experiment and get comparable
results) until a better model gets proposed further down the line. Otherwise,
you must go back to the drawing board. Sometimes you can perform the deciding
experiment, or series of experiments, almost at once. On other occasions,
it may take many years - as in the case of the Einstein-Podolski-Rosen (EPR)
experiments in quantum physics - and still not know where you stand. Equally,
it may appear impossible to carry out the experiments at all, ever; or it
may seem impossible to devise an experiment that differentiates your model
from the previous one.
For the scientist, the new model generally represents only a part of the Universe as a whole. Scientific models usually represent some small change in the way we regard some natural process or other as operating. Underlying the model, the scientist’s overall view of the world remains essentially unchanged. This remains true for most of us, as models do not exist solely in the world of science: we encounter them in the world at large, all the time - but our models encompass our entire lives, and they thus seem far more important, far more fundamental than a scientific model affecting, say, the observed behaviour of a photon in an experimental apparatus.
Imagine a restaurant.
Tables fill the room, and each table holds similar contents: a tablecloth
of similar design; pepper and salt shakers; silverware; a set of plates; a
menu or two next to the candle and the flower in a slim vase at the centre.
Each table represents one person’s model of reality - and they all appear
very similar. But on another level each table seems very different. This table
lies under a spotlight; that remains in shadow at the corner of the room.
At that table a couple gaze romantically into each others’ eyes, while
at this table a business meeting goes on.
Each of our “tables” appears basically similar, yet each of us models reality in our own way. The contents of each table - our concepts - result from our upbringing, society and no doubt some genetic input. As a result, the contents appear similar. Even some things we believe to be “unknowable” we can find on the tables of many people - we may have a concept for God, for example, and we can find it on the table, even if we cannot describe “God” his or her self. The late Carlos Castaneda, in Tales of Power, has Don Juan use this restaurant analogy to contrast the tonal - the contents of our tables: our concepts, about which we can speak; with the nagual - that which cannot even be discussed and, as he puts it, lies between the tables.
Remember that our perception of reality cannot exactly equal “reality itself”, just as a map cannot exhibit complete identity to the territory it represents. I have on my wall a map of Topanga Canyon, in Southern California, where my partner and I live at the time of writing. The United States not seeming to have anything equivalent to Britain’s Ordnance Survey maps, I have had to get used to maps of a lesser order. But, if we think about it, maps must always show less than what they represent. If I wanted to create a map that showed every detail of Topanga Canyon, it would have to take up as much space as the real thing, and replicate every leaf on every tree, every grain of sand and a whole lot more. To create a map that did this, I would need a good deal more than magic! The real magic: that our heads can contain so much detail. To paraphrase what Marvin the Paranoid Android says of humans in Douglas Adams’ Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “How can you live in anything so small?”
We carry our own map
of “reality” in our heads, and that seems all we can carry.
Our map, or model, of reality develops from our perception of that reality,
as we can experience nothing else. But the map does not equal the territory.
For the same reason, it does not help to say that “we all create our
own reality” - this sounds like saying “we all create our own territory”,
when in fact our minds do create our own map: our own model of reality.
We should not confuse the map, or model, with the territory, or reality.
As we examine “magical” reality-models more deeply, we find certain premises on which most magicians base their work and that appear common to several magical disciplines. In a sense, these “magical axioms” constitute a broad world view, but they are eminently flexible. And unlike the scientific world view, the axioms go beyond the physical world.
Most magical models
include some version of the following:
1 There exist correspondences between the Universe, or Macrocosm, and the human individual, the Microcosm.
The human entity mirrors
the Universe, and any force present in one also exists in the other. We can
give “As above, so below” as the famous short-form version of classical
awareness of this correspondence. More accurately we may wish to write this
as, “That which exists below is a reflection of that which exists above”.
A magician can either
“call down” (or “Invoke”) a force or symbolic entity from
the Universe (eg an energy corresponding to a celestial construct such as
a deity - from any desired pantheon including imaginary ones - an astrological
constellation or a planet) into psychological and/or apparent physical manifestation,
or “call up” (or “Evoke”) a similar symbolic entity from
the depths of their own psyche. The correspondences between macrocosm and
microcosm generally take the form of colours, shapes, numbers etc and the
“forces” themselves are often ‘personalised’ into beings.
As one magician (who,
I can’t recall) put it, “Thus if the magician wishes to invoke the
spiritual principle symbolised by the entity, or God, Thoth, he would draw
his magic circle in various shades of orange, his lamps would be eight in
number, his sacrament would be white wine and fish, etc… for all these
things are associated with Thoth”.
We find such correspondence
systems particularly commonly in ritual magic, as in the example above, although
not all ritual traditions require such a rigid operational structure. Many
magical textbooks provide a complete list of the various correspondences,
although here, once again, the interpretations differ from one magician or
magical order to another. The final arbiters of correspondence remain the
practitioners themselves, not a textbook; here it is feeling that determines
much of the outcome.
2 The correctly trained human “Will” can achieve literally anything.
The magical “Will”,
which, synthesised with feeling here, relates to the magician’s ability
to change his or her personal reality-model, forms a fundamental motivation
for any magical operation, and such correspondences as those already outlined
exist almost solely to concentrate and direct the Will in a one-pointed manner,
through the use of feeling.
Before any magical
operation, there exists a series of preconditions. First, the practitioner
must indentify and understand the problem, along with the way in which it
presents itself in the “normal”, physical reality-model. Having
done this, the magician must, calling either on tradition, and/or on their
own feelings and creativity, locate another reality-model in which the solution
undoubtedly exists. This may be a pre-existing reality-model (for example,
a talisman that the Lesser Key of Solomon indicates will bring about
the desired result), or it may be model never before conceived, which is entirely
the invention of the practitioner. Finally, the magician devises and performs
an operation which brings about the existence of the required model or change
in the prevailing model.
A short word here
on the “prevailing model”. Magic ascribes distinct power to beliefs,
as we have seen. We often think of the Universe as a fixed thing, with laws
of which we may one day understand the totality. The legacy of science encourages
us to regard it as a kind of jigsaw puzzle of which we have assembled some
of the pieces - and as time goes by we hope to find at least most, if not
all, of the other pieces and fit them together. The magician might say, on
the other hand, that it appears like nothing of the kind: the Universe
seems the way it does because of an agreement. The vast majority of us
believe it to have that nature, and if we had different models the Universe
would follow a different set of rules. The “prevailing model” -
what the majority believes and agrees to believe - we could better describe,
after Robert Anton Wilson, as the “consensus reality”, and we could
imagine that the power of many people’s belief maintains its stability.
The analogy I would
use regards the consensus reality as a rubber sheet, held taut by the strength
of most people’s beliefs. Largely flat and featureless, the magician
can distort it locally, as if by pushing a finger up from under the sheet
to produce a peak in the surface above. But while the distortion seems impressive
at the point where the magical operation impacts reality, the effects fall
off rapidly as you move away from the magician’s finger, until quite
a short distance away it appears little different to “normal”.
3 There exist other levels of existence than the physical, wherein we encounter entities or forces (remember that forces are often conceived of as entities) other than those in physical incarnation or existence.
Many
magicians see humanity as occupying a place about halfway up the ladder of
Evolution, rather than at the top. Around us are several levels of non-physical
entities representing higher levels of development.
Of course, we will
find it difficult, if not impossible, to produce a good scientific proof that
these forces or entities exist. But the magician doesn’t require proof
in this sense. The magician’s own reality-model must contain such forces,
and he or she must believe implicitly in such forces to call upon them when
needed to do the job in hand.
Unfortunately, perhaps,
magicians and parapsychologists alike exhibit a tendency to rationalise, to
show other people how Magic fits in with everything else. Magicians often
try to persuade others that their pursuits appear just as valid and just as
“real” as those of conventional science. But a good magical operation
does not require such justification, simply a model of reality that the practitioner
can believe in (in which perhaps the rationalisation helps?). Most of the
time, the magician remains very conscious of working with a map and not the
territory - a reality-model and not the “ultimate reality” itself.
To quote a well-respected magician of the past, J.F.C. Fuller:
“The truth
is, it does not matter one rap by what name you christen the illusions of
this life, call them substances, or ideas, or hallucinations, it makes not
the slightest difference for you are in them and they in you whatever you
like to call them, and you must get out of them and they out of you, and the
less you consider their names the better; for name-changing only creates unnecessary
confusion and is a waste of time.
“Let us therefore
call the world a series of existences and have done with it, for it does not
matter a jot what we mean by it so long as we work; very well then; Science
is a part of this series, and so is Magic, and so are cows and angels, and
so are landscapes, and so are visions; and the difference which lies between
these existences is the difference which lies between a cheesemonger and a
poet, between a blind man and one who can see. The clearer the view, the more
perfect the view; the clearer the vision, the more perfect the vision. The
eyes of a hawk are keener than those of an owl, and so are the poets keener
than those of a cheesemonger, for he can see beauty in a ripe Stilton while
the latter can only two-and-sixpence a pound.
“A true vision
is to awakenment as awakenment to a dream; and a perfectly clear co-ordinate
vision is so nearly perfect a Reality that words cannot be found in which
to translate it, yet it must not be forgotten that its truth ceases on the
return of the seer to the Material plane.
“The seer
is therefore the only judge of his visions, for they belong to a world in
which he is absolute King, and to describe them to one who lives in another
world is like talking Dutch to a Spaniard…
“The vision
of the adept is so much truer than ordinary vision, that once it has been
attained to, its effect is never relinquished, for it changes the whole life.
Blake would have as soon doubted the existence of his wife, his mother, or
himself, as that of Urizen, Los or Luvah.
“Dreams are
real, inspirations are real; delirium is real and so is madness; but for the
most part these are demonic (ie. evil) realities, unstable, unbalanced, dangerous.
"Visions are
real, inspirations are real, revelation is real and so is genius; but these
are from the ultimate leve and the highest climber on the mystic mountain
is he who will obtain the finest view, and from its summit all things will
be shown unto him.”
And to paraphrase
an extract from a lecture on the Philosophy of Magic given by J.W. Brodie-Innes
in 1917:
“Whether the
Gods, demons or even God Himself actually exist is comparatively unimportant:
the point is that the Universe behaves as if they do.”
Magic, as much as
many another discipline, remains an empirical system, in which we judge a
magical operation by its results. Even the traditional elements of magic bear
more resemblance to an experimenter’s diary than to the religious beliefs
with which people often confuse them - see William Bloom's Diary of a Ceremonial
Magician for example. Much of this seems due to the fact that Magic shares
with science the use of observation as a source of basic information
about the Universe.
The techniques used
in the majority of magical systems bear quite a resemblance to modern psychological
techniques and means of persuasion. Magic has been called “an archaic
system of psychology” but its practitioners maintain that by no means
can it be called archaic. Many age-old mind-focusing ritual techniques strongly
echo the modern concepts of “reinforcement” and conditioning - and
modern advertising techniques! Reinforcement, magicians use in the setting
up of correspondences and the planning of the ritual work; negative reinforcement
they utilise in the process of “banishing” forces or entities afterwards.
Perform the procedure with a sufficient level of belief, and no way can the
desired result not come to pass. To recall Lewis Carroll’s Hunting
of the Snark: “What I tell you three times is true”.
We can consider the
direct re-programming of your own beliefs, at will, as one of the key principles
of magic. This re-programming of beliefs often operates in an expressly personal
way. Such “personal” magical operations are hard to demonstrate
as being magical at all. Often the only person aware of their magical nature
remains the operator themself; others regard it as nothing more than "coincidence".
And indeed, “co-incidence”, the occurrence of apparently connected
events with no causal relationship, forms a magical tool which we will examine
in more detail subsequently, in the context of Jung’s concept of Synchronicity
and its relationship to magic. For now, you can liken coincidence to the result
of being in the right place, at the right time, for an event to occur fortuitously:
and with magic, you pick the place and the time!
However, whilst many magical operations appear “magical” only to the operator, we do encounter events that manifest themselves in physical terms, as we’ll see later. In cases like this we may well believe that other forces are being called into operation, perhaps those of ESP - “Extra-Sensory Perception” - which usually we cannot call upon to carry out physical tasks. Once again, the key to all magical operations - including such so-called “objective” ones - remains an ability to construct a reality-model in which the things you want, you fully believe are possible, and where the forces you need do indeed exist. This differs from calling these forces into the consensus reality: in effect you enter another world, another reality-model, in which they do actually exist. The ability to do this hinges on belief: belief that this reality shift will occur, must occur, and indeed may even perhaps already have occurred. The various systems of magic offer no more nor less than tried and tested techniques for bringing this about.