Magic Question

2007-8-8 04:52:00

Larry asks a question:

"What really is magic? I know for a fact that many conservative Christians have great difficulty with this term, and rarely can conceive of anything good in it (as has been discussed before on the list).

"So again, my question is: What do we really mean when we use that word, when say that something is 'magic'?"

JJ:

First let us eliminate two things that are not real magic.

Magic tricks -- Magic as practiced by a professional magician is not magic but illusion.
Modern technology -- It is often said that if we transported a person from 1000 years in the past to our time he would think that out TV's cars, computers, and others are magic.

This may be true but that does not make them magical in the truest sense. Advanced mechanical or electrical inventions are not magic, understood or not.

What then is true magic?

It is the manifestation or the influence of things on the dense physical plane with power that does not come from this plane.

Example: Jesus turned the water into wine.

To do this he did not use an advanced physical technology, illusion or a trick. He used a power or force that is beyond physical to produce physical results.

Example: Peter and others received a revelation that Jesus was the Messiah.

For this miracle to happen a spiritual energy not from the physical descended upon them and moved them in a new direction.

The dominate energy of the White Magician comes from higher realms through the soul. The soul is the point where magical energies are touched because it is the point where spirit and matter meet -- the point which is neither spirit nor matter but opens the door for their interplay.

The Black Magician is too selfish to raise his attention to the soul but seeks to control and does this by utilizing the energy in the etheric web of matter itself and works with the elemental lives and some building devas. The Brothers of Light can also do this but do not use these as the dominating energy.

The Dark Brothers influence the behavior of men by bypassing the soul and appealing to the emotional nature and using the magnetic draw of matter and form to attract the unthinking to their cause.

They too produce miraculous results and influence through no visible physical means.

"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."
-- George Orwell (1903 - 1950), from "1984"