Pretext: Reality, Magic, and the MAGA Mindset
Reality
As mentioned in the above linked blog post, reality is how an individual realizes the actuality. What we individually understand to be the real world is, in fact, our own reality, which is itself only our physical body’s interpretation of the stimuli around it.
Think about that for a minute. We have spent our lives believing that what we see through our eyes is exactly the same as what every other set of eyes see. We believe we live in a physical, objective world based on facts and laws and math.
The truth, though, is more complicated. We, instead, have created a world built on the assumption that we are all having the same experience, and we have created language in an attempt to share said experience. To make sense of the experience, we have created systems and structures (like math) to act as scaffolds, allowing us to climb closer to understanding.
Our brains interpret stimuli that is collected by our sense organs (ears, eyes, skin, nose, tongue) and, together with the knowledge stored within it, our brains then turn all of that information into something we can make sense of: Reality.
It shouldn’t be difficult to see how my reality and your reality may be fairly different. Think about, for instance, how different a friend or acquaintance is from you. Does that difference have anything to do with your different lived experiences, do you think? Maybe your parents had a tumultuous marriage and got divorced early in your life. You may have felt jaded by love early on, and maybe even avoid(ed) romantic relationships. A friend, on the other hand, had a loving, close, and non-toxic family with whom they maintain a supportive and connective relationship today. This person may be a more optimistic person, since so much of their life was so pleasant. However, it’s not just that your upbringings caused you to exhibit different behaviors; Instead, your upbringings caused you to build unique structures and pathways inside your brain (physically!), allowing you to make sense of the chaos of stimuli around you. Over time, these structures grow and become more detailed. Of course, they change over time, and parts that no longer serve you fall away or are recycled into something else.
In the above example, you and your friend have built up unique understandings of the worlds around you, and are essentially living in two unique realities.
Sphere of Influence
In his book The Lords Prayer; An Esoteric Study, Rudolf Steiner describes “The Father” from the prayer as the divinity that sits in Heaven, the soul. Divinity, he says, emanates the Universe, represented in the prayer by “The Kingdom.”
Emanate means to “come out from a source.” Its use implies that, in this case, the Divinity and the Universe are one in the same, though, different. The Universe came out of the Divinity.
To visualize this concept, he asks us to see ourselves as The Father, as the central point. Around us is a hollow sphere, the interior of which is covered in a mirror. All around you, you’d see you. That reflection of divinity is The Kingdom: your reality.
This, I think, perfectly illustrates reality. Because all stimuli taken up by our bodies must be processed through the same brain that has millions of associations with every bit of stimuli, we are, in effect, seeing ourselves in everything. The world around us is what we make it, literally.
Another way to look at this Kingdom is as a sphere of influence. You are able to influence, to one degree or another, everything within this sphere. This is your Kingdom, your Universe, your Reality.
One’s reality is not, I don’t think, literally a sphere. It likely is an amorphous and non-contiguous, and impossible for us to conceive of in 3-dimensional thought. This “sphere” is highly localized to you, but also stretches to include the knowledge of planets, and even our galaxy. Your sphere includes everything you have some awareness of. It might contain a country like Australia, but may not contain a country like Andorra. And, if you go look up Andorra and learn the tiniest bit about it, it will then be within your sphere, as well. Knowledge is literally power.
In this way, we can see that our spheres of influence, our universe, must overlap with the spheres of every other conscious being. I can’t be the only person with Australia within my influence. If that were true I surely would be able to influence it in any way I could imagine. As it is, I can hardly argue I have even the tiniest scrap of influence over that, or any other, country. The 28,000,000+ people currently in Australia, not to mention the billions across the planet who are aware of that continent, also exercise influence over its concept.
Intersecting Spheres
As more and more people (in this case) gain knowledge of a particular concept, they each gain influence over it. As you can imagine, once this inflates to millions, or even billions of people, it becomes almost impossible for an individual to wield influence. Thousands, millions, even billions of individual realities are layered upon one another, swimming together to create the shared concept of a given thing.
This is beyond the scope of this post, but I believe that these layered realities that we have each emanated from our own internal divinity eventually combine and become a single, but fluid, entity. The term for this entity in many occult circles is egregore. An egregore can also be thought of as the spirit of a thing.
For more info on egregores, I recommend Egregores: The Occult Entities That Watch Over Human Destiny by Mark Stavish
Buy the book: Bookshop affiliate link
Borrow the book: Esoteric Archive link
Check your local library: WorldCat, OverDrive
On a smaller scale, this means that while you can have influence over anything you can think of, you are far more likely to actually wield said influence if the object of your focus exists in as few spheres of influence as possible.
This isn’t as easy as it seems, however. You exist in the realities of countless people right at this very moment. Learning the skill and discipline it takes to consciously influence your own life is, in and of itself, the Great Work for many of us. Well, I should specify that your physical appearance, the most superficial part of your being, exists in the realities of others. Your mind cannot be perceived by anyone other than yourself.
Magic is learning to create a reality within your mind that is so real that your body believes it and responds to it. Your mind, the act of thinking, is the microcosm of your sphere of influence, your reality, which is, itself, a microcosm of actuality, which is the most basic reflection of the most pure divinity. Divinity, by the way, does not represent a conscious being in this case. It is not a stand-in for “god.” Divinity is used here to mean “spiritual energy,” or, “prana,” or “life-force.” It’s the thing, the force that allows anything to even exist. Some aspects of that force that we’re familiar with are things like gravity, electromagnetism, weak interaction, and strong interaction. Occult paths, like Rosicrucianism, believe that these four fundamental interactions are simply four behaviors of one force; a single force that has innumerable other behaviors.
Silence
Especially in magical practices, silence is an important concept. In Wicca, for instance, a common aspect of spell-casting is that one should not speak of their spell to anyone else until the result has manifested. Esoteric orders like the Rosicrucians often manifested as a “secret society,” maintaining a “member’s only” kind of vibe.
For a long time I believed that this silence and secrecy was superficial. You can’t let anyone see your sigil, because doing so would decrease its power. You can’t share the reiki symbols, because people could use them for evil. This made sense to me because I believed that there was some sort of essential power within the symbols or words held to be secret. They must represent a sort of secret code that, if properly understood, can unlock doors instantly.
This view implies a fixed and shared actuality, rather than individual realities, since some sort of human-understandable structure must be at the heart of everything. Physical things and even shapes and symbols can have “power” on their own and, if we discover them, we can wield that power.
It’s clear that many of us have lived with that understanding of silence. For us, it felt like an unnecessary paywall, and several authors published the “secrets” of their various orders in hopes of spreading that power of good to the world at large (two big examples are Christopher Penzak and Diane Stein).
In considering this concept of spheres of influence, it’s evident that the only way we can have complete control over anything is by only thinking about it. Inside our mind is the only place where no other sphere of influence can creep in and take hold.
In case it’s not clear, or in case my words have manifested for you the idea that fewer spheres of influence = good/better, then I want to be specific: none of this has an inherent moral or ethical consideration and is simply a mechanic of our existence. Let me share a personal example to better illustrate my point:
Not long ago I was in the deepest depths of depression. I have struggled with depression for most of my life, and, as the result of many different circumstances, that depression has been raging. I found myself in my office job, thankfully the only person in my office unit on a day before a holiday. The waves of despair rolled over me and I openly wept; I couldn’t control it. My face was wet with tears, my ironed shirt rumpled, and my eyes red and puffy. I was a mess.
In this place of deepest sadness, I isolate from those around me. It’s almost like, instinctively, I know that this mental affliction could spread. Though, in my conscious mind, I isolate to save those around me from having to deal with me. Me: the most horrible, disgusting, abhorrent beast who has ever existed.
After years of therapy and introspection, I have learned that this depression brain only tells me lies. Despite them being lies, they are so, so convincing. These thoughts were winning on that day, so I reached out to a partner via text.
I textually vomited everything that was ricocheting around my brain and I could see he was typing back. In that moment I was gripped with fear. Would he accept my feelings? My reality? Would he validate it? Or would he dismiss me? Would he see how horrible I actually am and throw me to the curb?
Instead of any of my fears, he wrote something I could not have predicted: “Are you in danger right now?”
My depression existed only in my sphere of influence, only inside my mind. In making a choice to share it with a trusted friend, I gave him influence over it.
That question immediately shot cracks through the depression. I suddenly became aware of my surroundings and could sense no danger. The depression usually brings with it a feeling of mortal danger, like it’s trying to off me (though, I should mention that my ideations have never manifested in action). Suddenly I became almost embarrassed that I had fallen under its spell.
The low-grade depression lasted for some time longer before floating away, but that period of intensity and utter hopelessness was instantly broken by the influence of another.
That we live in this incomprehensible web of overlapping spheres is just a mechanic of realizing actuality. Sometimes we want and need the influence of others, and sometimes we need to avoid it.
Conclusion
None of us exist in a vacuum. You are not the main character in a world of NPCs. Instead, you are an artist, constantly adding your own interpretation to the great painting that is our shared reality.
It’s because of this mechanism that the occult axiom “Know Thyself” is the most important lamp on our path. You are the world around you, so the more you learn about yourself, the more you learn about your world. AND: the more you learn about yourself, the more you will, through no other effort of yours, improve yourself and improve your world. Remember, knowledge is power.
It feels more important to us, especially in this internet age when everything is connected and when we have the ability to be aware of more than ever before, to focus all of our efforts on issues outside of ourselves. This is, obviously, not a bad thing, and we need to continue to work to improve the world for our neighbors. However, to do so at the expense of the Self is to do more harm than good. It’s like taking the right meds, the right supplements, meditating, doing yoga, and drinking lots of green juice, but then only eating double bacon cheeseburgers from Sonic. You could be making much more long-lasting progress if you also addressed your diet.
And, in order to do this, you must understand the power and use of silence. Silence is important, not because of some silly idea of “secrecy,” but because your words, your thoughts, even, change your reality. Speaking them brings them to existence. Silence protects you from creating reality that you may not want. Silence also protects you from the sphere of influence from other people. If you share your desire with someone else, that person now has power over the idea.
In your life and in your work, silence can be an incredibly useful tool, but it can also be a horribly destructive tool. Don’t practice silence for silence’s sake, but also, don’t reveal everything just to spite silence.
Most importantly, remember that silence isn’t just the antithesis to noise.
Photo Source: https://morguefile.com/p/622757