Magical Approach Section Three

Section Three: Man and Other Species. Mistakes as Corrective Action. Definition of the Magical Approach.

August 13, 1980

I myself have heard it said that all other species preserve nature; while man has a propensity for destroying it.

I have myself heard it said that other creatures behave with a natural grace, save man.  I have myself heard it said that all of nature is content unto itself save man, who is filled with discontent.  Such thoughts follow “naturally” the dictums of so-called rational thought.  When you think such thoughts, you think of them at the most strained level of intellectual speculation – that is, the thoughts seem self-evident to the intellect that is forced to operate by itself, relatively speaking, divorced from the self’s other faculties.  It then does indeed seem that mans is somehow apart from nature – or worse, an ungrateful blight, almost a parasite, upon the face of the planet.

That view itself is a symptom of the intellect’s difficulty.  In the position in which your culture places the intellect, it does see itself quite alone, separated both from other portions of the personality, from other creatures, and from nature itself.  Therefore science, for example, says that creatures – except for man – operate by blind instinct, and that term is meant to explain all of the complicated behavior of the other species.  Therefore, the gulf between man and animals, the intellect and nature, seems to deepen.

In those terms, it is quite as truthful to say – as I have said before – that man’s intellect is also instinctive.  He begins thinking at once.  He cannot help but use his intellect.  The intellect, again, operates magically, spontaneously, automatically.  Its most keen reasoning processes rise as a result of that natural magical action.

The intellect has been taught to divorce itself from its source.  It realizes in that regard a sense of powerlessness, for to some extent it is philosophically cut off from its own source of power.  When it looks, therefore, at the world of political events, the problems seem insoluble.  Man makes many decisions that seem quite wrong to the intellect because of its belief systems, and because it is so cut off from other sources of information.  A goodly number of those mistaken decisions, or “poor moves”, often represent self-corrective actions, decisions taken on knowledge not consciously perceived, but this escapes your consciousness.

In the same way, some private-life decisions or events may appear disadvantageous to the intellect for the same reasons, while instead they are also self-corrective measures that you are not able to perceive because of your beliefs.  The rational approach, as it is now used, carries a basic assumption that anything that is wrong will get worse.  That belief of course is highly detrimental because it runs against the basic principles of life.  Were this the case in your terms of history, the world would never have lasted a century.  It is interesting to note that even before medical science, there were a goodly number of healthy populations.  No disease rubbed out the entire species.

When you believe that the worst will happen you must always be on guard.  In your culture people use the term “intellect” almost like a weapon to protect themselves against impending disaster.  They must be alert for dangers of all kinds.  They begin to collect evidence of danger so that any other kind of orientation to life seems foolhardy, and to be a realist means in that framework to look out for the worst.

First of all, if you realize that the intellect itself is a part of nature, a part of the natural person, a part of magical processes, then you need not overstrain it, force it to feel isolated, or put it in a position in which paranoid tendencies develop.  It is itself supported, as your intuitions are, by life’s magical processes.  It is supported by the greater energy that gave you and the world birth.  That power is working in the world, and in the world of politics, as it is in the world of nature, since you make that distinction.

When you follow that so-called rational approach, however, you are bound to feel threatened, divorced from your body.  Your thoughts and your body seem separate.  Divisions seem to appear between the mental and the physical, where again each are supported by those magical processes.  That rational approach goes against what I can only call life’s directives and life’s natural rhythms.  It is contradictory to biological integrity, and again, it does not make sense.

That rational approach is, of course, connected now with scientific ideas mentioned earlier: life surrounded by chaos, the struggle for survival, and so forth.  I do not mean to put down the intellect.  It is highly important, but it is, if you will forgive me, as natural as a cat’s whiskers.  It is not some adjunct to nature, but a part of it.

The magical approach takes it for granted, in the simplest terms, that the life of any individual will fulfill itself, will develop and mature, that the environment and the individual are uniquely suited and work together.  This sounds very simple.  In verbal terms, however, those are the beliefs (if you will) of each cell [in your body].  They are imprinted in each chromosome, in each atom.  They provide a built-in faith that pervades each living creature, each snail, each hair on your head.  Those ingrained beliefs are, of course, biologically pertinent, providing the impetus of all growth and development.

Each cell believes in a better tomorrow.  I am, I admit, personifying our cell here, but the statement has a firm truth.  Furthermore, each cell contains within itself a belief and an understanding of its own inevitability.  It knows it lives beyond its death, in other words.

The idea of heaven, for all of its distortions, has operated as a theoretical framework, assuring the intellect of its survival.  Science has believed to the contrary in the utter annihilation of the intellect after death, and since man had by then placed all of his identification with the intellect, this was a shattering blow to it.  It denied man a necessary biological imperative.

All of these reasons lie beneath man’s mass problems, and apply in each life.  I want to note, again, that Ruburt earlier decided to bank on his intellect as a child, rather than upon beauty, as he felt his mother had.  In his case also, as given in the past, he felt that the feminine qualities were those opposed to intellectual development.  He was gifted intuitively and intellectually, however, and naturally was propelled toward growth in both areas – areas that he felt stressed contradictory rather than complementary characteristics.

Now take any other person – or rather, more to the point, any other woman – in the so-called psychic field.  Ruburt tries to prove that he is reasonable, rational, where such people, he feels, have never learned to use their powers of reason, and instead trust every stray thought that comes into their heads.  So, to doubt himself was protective.

He also felt that the questioning power of the intellect was not just one of its functions – which it is – but its primary purpose, which it is not. In your terms the intellect’s primary function is to make clear deductions and distinctions involving the personality’s relationship with the world.  Your society, however, has indeed considered the rational approach to be the masculine-favored one – so Ruburt had an additional reason in that regard to be such a proponent of the rational approach.  All of the beliefs connected with the sex were of course erroneous, but they were part and parcel of that “rational” framework itself.

It is certainly simple to say what I am going to say, yet it is almost as if you would be better off turning the entire rational approach upside down, taking it for granted that all of its assumptions were false, for they are indeed more false than true.  The intellect is, again, the result of highly spontaneous processes of which it itself knows nothing, and the intuitions that are considered so undisciplined and unreasonable are based upon calculations far more spectacular than those of which the conscious mind can conceive.  The intellect could not follow them, so the distinctions are not basic: They are the result of beliefs and habitual usage.  Therefore, of course, I speak of them separately, as you think of them.

The magical approach takes it for granted that the human being is a united creature, fulfilling purposes in nature even as the animals do, whether or not those purposes are understood.  The magical approach takes it for granted that each individual has a future, a fulfilling one, even though death may be tomorrow.  The magical approach takes it for granted that the means for development are within each individual, and that fulfillment will happen naturally.  Overall, that approach operates in your world.  If the worst was bound to happen, as the scientists certainly think, even evolution, in their terms, would have been impossible, of course – a nice point to put somewhere.

You needed this background, for I want to build up the atmosphere in which this magical approach can be comprehended.  Then specific material can be utilized.

In your (Rob’s) dream you were, of course, in the process of forming new ideas about the nature of the magical self (through Rob’s art) and also in your way working that idea out through imagery.  The dream is above all an example of “work” being done at other levels of awareness.

Ruburt’s [recent] mental conversation with “Mary”, and your own dream about Mary with the sketchbook sheets – all of these experiences are indications of the exquisite kind of reasoning that goes on at the levels of awareness that are usually considered unreasonable.  That kind of material enriches the intellect and reassures it.

One note: Do have Ruburt tell you (Rob) how he is doing moodwise, for now you can help him there.  He must realize that relaxation is also a part of the creative process.  Left alone, he would do “the right thing”.  We will continue this discussion at our next session, and in the meantime, be on the lookout for other hints and clues that will bring you a better idea of the magical approach.

Note:  Conversation with Mary

Two days after delivering the first session for The Magical Approach, Jane made notes about her mental exchange with a longtime friend “Mary”:

“… last night, I became aware of a mental conversation between Mary and myself.  She was saying that she wanted to visit, and then said she wanted to stay overnight.  I became somewhat alarmed and the conversation bled off.  The feeling I had was that something had happened between Mary and her new husband, an argument.  She wanted to stay here for the night, perhaps leaving her son with her husband – which I didn’t think was a good idea.  I’ve picked up on Mary’s relationships before …

“This morning, Mary called.  She sounded very down; Rob, who also talked to her, agreed.  But I didn’t mention my experience, much as I wanted to check it out; I didn’t want to intrude …”

Rob’s Mary dream:

“Difficult to recall, and what I do recall makes no sense to me at all.  In vivid color: I dreamed that Jane and I were eating at a little table in an open-air restaurant or café-type setting.  It was a beautiful summer day.  Our friend Mary came up to us.  She was by herself and I don’t recall her saying anything to us.  She was carrying a large sketch pad, perhaps a 22-by-30-inch size.  One would expect the pages of the pad to be white, ready for drawing.  Instead, as Mary lifted the cover of the pad, holding the pad out for Jane and me to see, we saw that the top page was covered by a lovely large floral pattern of leaves and flowers, as one might see on bedsheets these days.  I examined several pages of Mary’s pad and saw that all of them were covered by the same design, in reds and greens, etc.  The pattern made the pages of the pad quite useless for their ordinary purpose.  I woke up several times with dream in mind, telling myself to remember it.”

Jane’s interpretation of Rob’s dream:

“A terrific little dream that beautifully states its message: Mary’s ideas of romance and making love (represented by modern-day flowered sheets) are being transposed from the bedroom into the area of her art, and in a way that mars the art itself.  The transposition of the flowered designs of bedsheets to sheets of paper is great; Rob chose a sketch pad rather than, say, typing paper, I think, because painting is his art while Mary’s is writing.  Also, perhaps to make connections with Mary’s sketches of her own life.  Maybe by using his own art symbol, the sketch pad instead of the typing paper, Rob reinforced the idea of Mary’s conflicts about the nature of her own work.

“Mary shows us the large sketch papers in an open-air restaurant – a setting where physical needs are satisfied in public.  The open air specifies this public aspect, meaning that Mary’s ideas are connected with social values wanting her needs satisfied in a socially acceptable public fashion.  This would refer to her recent marriage …

“As you can see, the dream states all this far more simply and concisely than I’m able to!”

Later, Jane called Mary and she’d decided to leave her husband.