New Thinking on New Thought
This piece was the first thing I put up on the Mighty Network. Now that I am ditching that platform, I wanted to make sure it got on to the blog. Seems timely again.
I really despise knee-jerk reactions. Thats really the only way I can describe the kind of bandwagon thinking that people jump to on… well it seems like most things these days. If the tribe you run with says “this is good” then everything about it must be good and any criticism of any aspect is treason. If the tribe says its bad, then everything about it is bad, has always been bad, and can never hold any good whatsoever.
This is how babies get tossed out with bathwater.
The reaction against “The Secret” and associated “manifestation” media has been strong, and rightly so. Anything that tells you that if you just think about checks arriving they will arrive is garbage. More than that though people have accused New Thought and its adherents of Victim Blaming because if you can conjure anything good in life by thinking positively, then it follows that everything bad that happens to you is also the result of your negative thinking. To these people you didn’t lose your job because of the bad economy, and you’re not disadvantaged because of systemic racism or bigotry: you just didn’t focus your mind “positively”.
Let’s make no mistake here: THIS IS RUBBISH. ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT.
The problem is that once you assign a term like Victim Blaming to something, that ends all discussion. I was once at a class talking about the need to keep your goals firmly in mind for success, and to stay immersed in the trajectory, and everyone was getting it and agreeing. I mentioned Mitch Horowitz’s books on Napoleon Hills system and the room instantly changed positions. “That is NOTHING BUT victim blaming.” I was told.
That’s a problem.
First of all, Napoleon Hill is not The Secret, and the ideas that Napoleon Hill presented (along with HUGE heaps of Bullshit about his own history) are not the whole of New thought. If you want more on the origins of New Thought you have to look at Phineas Quimby, Warren Fekt Evans, Mary Baker Eddy, L.W. de Laurence, and William Walker Atkinson. A mix of Mesmerism, Swedenborgianism, Emersonianism, Occultism, and Faux-Orientalism all went into it before Napoleon Hill ever got his hands on it. Its fasninating stuff, and here in New England it’s very much part of the Spiritual Landscape. But I don’t want to talk about it’s origins.
I want to talk about the mind and it’s roll in magic.
That’s the real message of New Thought, or Manifesting, or whatever you want to call it. The Universe is Aware (animism), Divinity dwells in each person, and our mental state gets carried forward into manifestation becoming our experience of daily living. That last one is something I find ABSOLUTELY TRUE. As long as you are not an idiot and believe that its the only factor in life. Thats where people go wrong. But you’re not an idiot are you? I am assuming you can use discernment to tell when people take a line of thought too far. Of course you can.
The biggest stuff I have ever accomplished in life have been things that I held as my definite chief aim, and kept my focus on day after day, month after month, year after year. You guys all know my teachings on MACRO-enchantment and MICRO-enchantment. This is like META-enchantment. It runs underneath it all.
Some people do this with a notebook. Hugh Jackman for instance starts every day writing about his day as if it has already happened. Octavia Butler made longer term affirmations in her notebook. http://www.openculture.com/2020/06/behold-octavia-butlers-motivational-notes-to-self.html?fbclid=IwAR2ayyGDJXMrE5c26trmi4KLGK3Ct3KCQvtBOMILwGDocSCQkbrGtZGGJBI. Scott Adams uses affirmations. Steve Harvey uses Vision Boards (I had one of those too actually, it was great to keep focus). Bruce Lee wrote his down and clearly modeled it on Hill’s writings.
Now, I am not much for reading something as if it has already happened. That actually messes up the way I do magic. Instead, my method is to make sure I consume information related to my goal on a regular basis and to make invocations each day during offerings and invocations for support in my Chief Aims. I also chart actions every day: in morning I write out what I am gonna do, in the evening I list what I actually did.
I don’t know if Aidan or Fabeku would agree but I think it’s worth considering the concept of Hyper Sigils as a way of keeping ones Chief Aim as well. Which brings me back to Sorcery and Occultism.
I am as happy as anyone that the last 20 years have seen a return to traditional thinking about Spirits and Materia, but we always seem to run to the extremes don’t we? In re-affirming the roles of Spirits and Materia and rejecting the idea that mind is the only thing necessary for magic, many people seem to reject the idea that Mind and Focus has any role at all.
I tell you this, your focus is just as much an element of sorcery as your High John Root or Seal of Malphas. There is a TANGIBLE power to potent mental and emotional focus that gives the spirits something to grab onto and work with, and carries the Mojo of Materia to manifestation. The altar of mind is just as key as the altar in your temple.
They key here is that there is more at work than JUST your mind. That is where the Secret goes off the rails, and some of the earlier stuff does as well, though no where near as dramatically. It’s where some other magicians go off the rails too, blaming the magician not following stale protocols or improper ingredients for a failure rather than just accepting that there are resistant forces as well as your own. Why spiritual and magical people lean towards solipsism is a topic for another day.
And as for Victim Blaming? I have a rule! My rule is to absolve anyone and everyone of blame. There is so much shit out of peoples control, including their own genetics and mental dispositions, that I can’t honestly look at anyone and blame them for their situation. But Blame is about who broke something, Responsibility is about fixing it. The Sorcerer should take as much Responsibility as they can get their clever little hands on. That’s what you can change with your Mind and your Magic.