Magicians are an odd lot. While bending reality is what we do by definition, few seem interested in the building blocks behind this and why all of that matters. Faith is certainly a part of this, but that leaves a lot on the table so to speak and needs some elaboration.
This will be more of theory post than I normally put up on the web. However, after a series of odd conversations with students and friends it seems necessary to clarify the overt issues plaguing our community.
Consensual reality is basically reality as defined by the majority opinion of the population in certain geographic area. Consensus reality, a highly related term, is defined as:
“Consensus reality refers to the generally agreed-upon version of reality within a community or society, shaped by shared experiences and understandings. This understanding arises from the inherent differences in individual perspectives or subjectivities relating to knowledge or ontology, leading to uncertainties about what is real. While various viewpoints exist, people strive to establish a consensus, serving as a pragmatic guide for social norms. The term carries both positive and negative connotations, as it is viewed critically by anti-realist theorists but recognized for its practical benefits in fostering shared beliefs. Consensus reality differs from consensual reality, with the former representing mutual agreement about what is true. Artists and thinkers have challenged consensus reality, aiming to disrupt established norms and question the authenticity of the world’s reality.”
The big take away is that most people, particularly the over-educated, view the world being governed by an existing objective, and unchanging, reality. They may concede that human understanding is limited by technology and beliefs, but that reality itself does not change.
This is in fact incorrect.
At a minimum, the nature of reality changes with the background energies it is subjected to. Astrologically magicians use the Ages of the Zodiac as a long term guide to this process. The background energies of the Age of Ares (Mars and elemental fire), Pisces (Jupiter/Neptune and elemental water) and Aquarius (Saturn/Uranus and elemental air) are all fundamentally different and govern how magic operates even over the last 4000 years. On a micro scale, the phases of the moon directly impact how much, or little, astral energy is available for a given working at a given time. Then you have the planetary hours, sunrise/sunset and the list goes on.
And none of this addresses the very uncomfortable fact that sufficiently applied will, and faith, can bend, if not break, reality in any number of psychologically uncomfortable ways. The observer effect is a classic example of this in modern science.
The more physics based the alteration gets the harder it is to pull off. Interestingly though, manipulating a crowd is far easier than an individual in many respects. But that does back to the issue of egregores and ball-above-head as an access point. And those have been discussed enough for now in various media of mine.
So, if a magician wants to generate elemental fire at a physical level in their hand and set an obnoxious neighbor’s trashcan on fire in broad daylight that is going to take a fair amount of esoteric power and will. On the other hand, having a spontaneous electrical fire breakout overnight is a much lower bar. And an elemental would probably be more than willing to facilitate the job.
It is the difference between pushing a huge boulder up to the top of hill before rolling it down and choosing one already there to give a push to.
To learn more about all of this in-person, check out one of our Magic Camps: https://magiccamp.click/events/
Reality makes the second course of action much easier to accomplish.
Subtle tweaks to reality are a working magician’s stock-in-trade and when accomplished over time can lead somewhere rather profound and a little quicker than most would realize. A five to one acceleration in learning is pretty commonly considered the working bar. Assuming what you are doing is fairly mundane like learning a new language or starting a new business.
The less supported by reality the effect is the more likely it is to bottleneck at the astral. This results in some pretty wild and entertaining hallucinations. But does not generally manifest anything useful. Look at most of your practitioners of Enochian Magic for some outstanding examples of this.
So, Jim Carrey going down to Mulholland Drive and manifesting his stardom every night for ten tears works. But declaring yourself the King of Greater Digital Gonad principality is unlikely to cause anything other than the aforementioned hallucinations. Entertaining, but a waste of time.
However, things do not always stay static and the changes can happen abruptly.
When I began learning elemental magic (i.e. letter magic or Kabbalah) thirty years ago it took hours of holding posture to generate the smallest trickle of elemental water. Now this can be taught in a weekend. I have no idea why.
I do have some suspicions though.
Role playing games are a relatively new invention dating back to the 1970’s in North America and they didn’t become a worldwide phenomena until the early 2000’s. But those participating have built some impressive egregores in the last 30 years. Likewise, they have introduced ideas, and concepts, into popular consciousness that were not there previously in most of the educated urban environments the game players live in.
But enough people are pretending that wizards exist in the “real world” that the “real world” is now starting to support this idea.
Now that is a curious thing.
While bending reality has never been easy, things like Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which is really just low-rent mental level street magic, are increasingly coming onto the scene as credible and effective.
These were never issues in the “less developed” parts of the world. If you talk to missionaries who worked in places like rural Central America, or northern Mexico, they can tell some pretty wild stories of the supernatural.
Reality is quite a bit more plastic than most people would want to let on. But then again this is how, and why, officials in many societies place so much emphasis on the applying propaganda to their own populations. But that is a topic for next time.
