Magical Approach Session Five

Session Five: Styles of Thought. Combining the Magical Approach and the So-Called Rational Approach

August 20, 1980

A continuation of our discussion.

The scientific framework of reference has become equated with the term “rational thinking”, to such an extent that any other slant of thought automatically seems to be irrational.  Thought has become, in that regard, too specialized, prejudiced, and inflexible.

Now there are styles of thought.  Each individual has his or her own style of thinking, a peculiar, rich, individual mixture of speculations, fantasies, ideocentric ways of using subjective and objective data.  Science has so dominated the world of thought, however, that many nuances and areas once considered quite “rational” have become quite unrespectable.  Science tries to stick to what it can prove.

Unfortunately, it tends to set up a world view that is then based upon certain material only.  You end up with separate disciplines: biology, psychology, physics, mathematics, and so forth, each with its own group of facts, jealously guarded, each providing its own world view: the world as seen through biology, or reality as seen through the eyes of physics.

There is no separate field that combines all of that information, or applies the facts of one discipline to the facts of another discipline, so overall, science, with its brand of rational thought, can offer no even, suggestive, hypothetical, comprehensive ideas of what reality is.  It seems that each individual is in effect isolated in certain vital regards – given, say, a genetic heritage and a certain amount of unspecified energy with which to run the body’s machinery.  Intent, purpose, or desire do not apply in that picture.

The individual is, again, a stranger, almost an alien, in his or her own environment, in which he must struggle to survive, not only against the “uncaring” forces of the immediate environment, but against the genetic determinism.  He must fight against his own body, overemphasize its susceptibility to built-in defects, diseases, and against a built-in time bomb, so to speak, when without warning extinction will arrive.  Science does not stress the cooperative forces of nature.  It glories in distinctions, specifications, and categories, and is quite blind, generally speaking, to the uniting forces that are of course every bit as real.  Therefore, when I speak of the natural person being also the magical person, it is easy to transpose even that idea into more isolated terms than I intend.

It is not just that each person has his or her source in a “magical” dimension, from which his or her overall life emerges, but that the private source itself is a part of the very energy that upholds the entire planet and its inhabitants, and the overall construct that you understand as the universe.

Fields, or planes of interrelatedness connect all kinds of life, supporting it not through, say, just one system – a biological one or a spiritual one – but at every conceivable point of its existence.  You are not just given so much energy, in those terms earlier mentioned.  “New” energy is everywhere available.  Again, there are no closed systems.  Again, the environment is conscious and alive.  There are constant communications between all portions of your body and all portions of the environment.

In your terms this means that you do not have to rely upon what you think of as your private resources alone.  Basically, value fulfillment is one of the most important characteristics of existence, so that all things act individually and together in ways that best provide for the overall fulfillment of the entire construct.

You were born because you desired to be born.  A plant comes to life for the same reason.  You live in a different frame of reference than a plant, however: You have more choices available.  You interact with nature differently.  Your intellect is meant to help you make choices.  It allows you to perceive certain probabilities within a physical time context.  You use the intellect properly when it is allowed to perceive physical conditions as clearly as possible.  Then it can make the most beneficial decisions as to what goals you want to achieve.

Those goals are usually conceptualized desires, and once formed they act in a fashion like magnets, drawing from those vast fields of interrelatedness the kinds of conditions best suited to their fulfillment.  The intellect alone cannot bring about the fulfillment of those goals.  The intellect alone cannot bring about one motion of the body.  It must count upon those other properties that it does indeed set into motion – that spontaneous array of inner complexity, that orderly magic.

When the intellect is used properly, it thinks of a goal and automatically sets the body in motion toward it, and automatically arouses the other levels of communication unknown to it, so that all forces work together toward the achievement.  Consider a hypothetical goal as a target.  When properly used, the intellect imagines the target and imaginatively then attains it.  If it were a physical target, the person would stand [bow and] arrow in hand, thinking only of hitting the bull’s-eye, mentally concentrating upon it, making perhaps some learned gestures – proper footing or whatever – and the body’s magical properties would do the rest.

When the intellect is improperly used, however, it is as if the intellect feels required to somehow know or personally direct all of those inner processes.  When the erroneous belief systems and negativity connected with so-called rational reason apply, then it is as if our person sees the target, but instead of directing his attention to it he concentrates upon all of the different ways that his arrow could go wrong: It could fall to the left or the right, go too far or not far enough, break in the air, fall from his hand, or in multitudinous other ways betray his intent.

He has switched his attention from the target, of course, completely.  He has projected upon the present event the picture of his fears, rather than the picture of his original intent.  His body, responding to his mental images and his thoughts, brings out actions that mirror his confusion.

In other words, the magical approach and the so-called rational one are to be combined in a certain fashion for best results.  People sometimes write you, telling of their intent to make money – or rather, to have it.  They concentrate upon money, so they say, and wait for it in full faith that it will be attracted to them because of their belief and concentration.  They might do the point of power exercise, for example.  They may also, however, have quit their jobs, ignored impulses to find other work, or to take any rational approaches, and rely upon, say, the magical approach alone.  This does not work either, of course.

As Ruburt uses the magical approach, and as you use it, you will see that it blends in perfectly with the rest of existence, inspires the intellect, inspires physical motion – for it activates physical properties.

I will continue describing the ways in which the two approaches work together.  The main point I want to make is, however, the fact that your private source of power is a portion of that greater field of interrelatedness, in which your being is securely couched.  It is not something you have to strain after.  It was effortlessly yours at birth, and before, and it carries with it its own emotional and intuitive comprehensions – comprehensions that can indeed support you throughout all of your physical existence.  If you understand that, then in a large manner many of your fears will jointly vanish.

Note: Point of Power Technique

Seth emphatically says: THE PRESENT IS THE POINT OF POWER. According to him, the point of power is where flesh and matter meet with spirit. That juncture embodies the actions and beliefs we choose to draw from all of our previous points of power. From our current present we project, for better or worse, those choices, plus any new ones we may decide upon, into each of the presents we’ll be creating throughout the rest of our lives. The contents of our projections, then, are of supreme importance.

As Seth suggests, through even a five-minute exercise, in which we sit quietly and look about, we can become aware that the present is the point of power. In his exercise, we gently remind ourselves that we aren’t at the mercy of our past beliefs unless we think we are. We have the full freedom to insert new creative goals in our point-of-power exercises. Next, we relax, to give our fresh suggestions time to begin working within us. Next, physically we make a simple gesture or act, no matter how modest, that is in line with our desires for the future. Periodically we repeat the exercise — but easily, without pressure, confident that we’re doing well. Action is thought in physical motion, Seth tells us. … in The Nature of Personal Reality, Seth deals extensively with the point of power, its exercises and meanings and benefits. See especially sessions 656-57 in Chapter 15.