Tom Roswell read my last article in this series and then commented under a photo I liked on X.
He wanted to see if I would respond in a magical way, because I said everything is connected and I treat everything as being related to me.
I replied: “Don’t try (relax)”.
I said that because a key component in magic is not to try—and it is very hard not to try, you end you trying not to try.
So he tried, he thought about it in rational terms and then thought, “Okay, let’s see if 738 will respond as he said he would respond if I make a conscious effort to connect to something I know he did—liked this picture.”
It’s a kind of trap or the act of a Pharisee that the scheming mind engages in—because for magical purposes you also shouldn’t think about the result or the consequences at all, you shouldn’t scheme.
What does it mean not to “try”?
You know when you forget a word and we say “it’s on the tip of my tongue” and you start to struggle to remember, to force your mind to remember—and yet the more you do it, the more it eludes you?
That is to try.
And you remember the word when you distract yourself and it just “pops” right back—well, that’s what we’re after.
Psychotherapists say it’s when something just “clicks” without any effort.
Perhaps you could also say it’s like those Magic Eye pictures where you have to “relax” your vision to see the picture.
So that’s what we’re after—Roswell struggles with that because he’s a scientific man who is fascinated by genetics, so his whole nature is against it.
He thinks this is a childish and silly way to be—and he thinks the left are childish and silly because they often think this way, because the left is more artistic than the right.
He really thinks religion is a trick and that he can “catch people out” with reason.