It also reminds me of the classic "Zen and the Art of Archery". This book tells the tale of an American who went to Japan to study archery. A couple stories from this book come to mind:
(1) The master tells a student to shoot a bird perched on a limb of a tree, but won't let him shoot until he only sees the eye of the bird, not the tree, not the compete bird ... then and only then can he hit the bird without missing
(2) The master takes the American to the archery range one evening to teach him that archery is more than sport, it's a Zen practice. He tells the American to turn all the lights out, then the master aims and fires one arrow which, or course, hits the centre of the bulls eye in complete darkness.
(3) The story of an ancient archery master who went to visit his arch rival. Sitting there in the house, at one point he fires an arrow through a thin wall to prove a point. They go outside and the arrow was lodged in the heart of a figure carved on the arch over the entrance way to the grounds ... without the master being able to see the arch.
These are examples of the intellect drawing upon the full resources of the psyche to produce magical results effortlessly.
“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.”
(The Magical Approach: Seth Speaks About The Art Of Creative Living, Session Five)
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