Real Magic Read online

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  CREATING A MIRACLE MIND-SET

  As our case is new, we must think and act anew.

  —ABRAHAM LINCOLN

  The final task on the journey to real magic is to set your mind, your invisible self, on the path of miraculous living. In the previous chapter you examined the idea of a purposeful universe and of you as a purposeful entity within that universe. You examined how to align your thoughts and actions with the divine purpose that brought you from a formless state in eternity into this world of form. Your awareness should now also acknowledge the existence of an available loving guidance that you need only learn how to use wisely. You may feel what Hazrat Inayat Khan meant when he said: “The mystic does more than quote scriptures, he not only says ‘seek ye first the kingdom of God,’ his whole life is absorbed in that seeking.”

  It is a whole life absorption, which does not, however, demand withdrawing from the world nor changing your living or working situation. What you will change is the invisible reality that is uniquely yours.

  What follows in this chapter is a guide for shifting your mind-set to experiencing a world where real magic is not only possible, but your birthright. With this shift, miracle making will become something that you not only believe in, but that you manifest in your everyday life. I have studied and spent time with those whom I consider miracle workers, and I know from their experiences and my own that this is the paradigm of the mind that consistently succeeds in creating that miracle mind-set.

  FOURTEEN KEYS FOR CREATING A MIRACLE MIND-SET

  Here are fourteen keys for creating an environment in which miracle making and real magic can flourish. Although these are all intentions for your mind, that invisible part of your humanity, there are specific, real-world things you can practice as well. After each key, I’ve listed suggestions for implementing this miracle mind-set in the physical, visible world.

  1. Reserve your judgment and disbelief. Like most of us, you have very likely been taught to be skeptical about anything other than what you can see and touch. You need to suspend that disbelief, just like you do while watching a movie or reading a novel.

  When you are watching a movie or reading a novel you willingly suspend disbelief. In this way you allow yourself to enjoy the story without constantly reminding yourself that you are the reader or observer. And so it is with the world of real magic. You willingly suspend your disbelief and temporarily enter a world of ultimate possibilities. If you do not like it, at any point you can discontinue the activity and rejoin the world of skepticism and disbelief. Let me share with you an experience I had recently.

  In Shirley MacLaine’s book Going Within there is a description of a gentleman from Brazil named Mauricio Panisset. She describes him as possessing miraculous powers, unlike anything I had ever witnessed in my life at the time of reading her book. All of my training had, in fact, led me to consider such claims with doubt and skepticism. Here is an excerpt:

  Mauricio Panisset was born March 6, 1930, in Minas Gerais, Brazil. He was the third child born into a family in which the father, a Methodist minister, was also interested in metaphysics. But shortly Mauricio’s mother claimed she couldn’t handle her son’s uncontrollable rebelliousness. Out of desperation, when he was nine years old, his parents sent him to live with his grandmother on a farm…. He often walked to the forest where he (later) claimed that “lights” followed him. The lights appeared as shimmering balls and “talked” to him whenever they appeared…. When he reached puberty the lights disappeared. In 1949, at age nineteen, he joined the army and one night while he was on watch the lights reappeared…. In 1969 the lights became so strong that they again began to “speak.” On April 19, 1969, one of the lights spoke so strongly that Mauricio could not ignore it. It said, “You must use your own light to heal the sick. You must go to the hospital and begin.”

  I was intrigued with Mauricio but I also have to admit I wondered whether Shirley had been tricked in some clever way, or even perhaps had “gone over the edge.” After all, we all know that lights do not speak and act in the way she describes in her book. My opportunity to suspend my disbelief was to arrive the following summer.

  Toward the end of our annual summer stay on Maui I was the guest speaker at the Unity Church of Maui in Hawaii. This is something that I do each year before departing, as my way of returning something to that beautiful, spiritual, Pacific Ocean paradise where I have received so much inspiration and divine guidance.

  After my talk, a woman came up to me and invited my wife, Marcie, and me to join her and her husband and a small group of friends at their home in the city of Lahaina. The woman, Gail Longhi, and her husband, Bob, own one of the most famous and successful restaurants in Hawaii. Gail explained that she had a very special guest, named Mauricio, whom Shirley MacLaine had written about in Going Within. Based upon what she heard me speaking about at the church, she thought we would enjoy a private meeting with this remarkable man. I immediately recalled the reaction I had had while reading about Mauricio’s talents and I happily accepted the invitation. Marcie and I agreed that this was an opportunity to experience firsthand the magic of this master and, equally important, to willingly suspend our disbeliefs and judgments.

  When we arrived we were told that Mauricio would see us in about forty-five minutes. He was having a session with Gail’s mother in a bedroom that had a window overlooking the patio. Suddenly, while we were outside on the patio, we saw what appeared to be lightning bolts in that bedroom—it seemed to be exploding with enormous blasts of white light—a literal light show! Gail’s mother descended the stairs soon after. She walked past us with a vacant, peaceful look and disappeared into another part of the house. Mauricio followed down the stairs a few minutes later in a sleeveless T-shirt that was drenched with perspiration. We met him in the kitchen where he was consuming large amounts of water. He appeared to be in his late fifties, was short, with magnificent white hair and a stocky build, and was gloriously serene and humble. Apologetic, he explained he would need another fifteen or twenty minutes before seeing us. We thanked him and he replied in broken English, “No, no, no thank me. God’s work, not mine.”

  About twenty minutes passed, during which Bob assured everyone that there was no possibility of fraud. He explained that the light show had taken place in his own bedroom and that he had escorted Mauricio personally into the room and had had the first session with him. He even discussed how he had searched the room. I was simply waiting with my open mind, my willing suspension of disbelief.

  Mauricio asked us to follow him upstairs. Marcie and I had decided to do this together so we could corroborate each other’s experience and share what we had witnessed together.

  We lay on the bed diagonally with our heads side by side and held hands the entire time. Mauricio started a cassette player and the room was filled with low-volume meditation music from a flute. He came up behind our heads and placed his fingers on Marcie’s forehead. He then spoke loudly the words “energia, energia, energia” and some words in Portuguese that we could not understand. He removed his fingers from Marcie’s forehead and snapped his fingers loudly, repeating “energia, energia,” again and again. Suddenly, miraculously, the room was literally lit up. Light emanated from his hands and it was as if lightning had struck right in the room. Marcie had her eyes closed but could still see the light through her eyelids. I never once closed my eyes and I was transfixed.

  Then Mauricio touched my forehead with his fingers. His hand was actually very hot. Again, “energia, energia, energia,” followed by some Portuguese words. I felt as if I’d temporarily gone to another dimension. The light and energy were electrical. My entire body convulsed with enormous shock. The room was aglow. From total darkness to a bright light from this man’s hands!

  We stayed in the bedroom for over twenty minutes. During this time he put his hands on the knee and the ankle of my leg, which I had injured in a bad fall on some slippery rocks the previous week. I felt enormous heat, and
the light again emanated from Mauricio and lit up the room. He did this twelve to fifteen times during our session. Then he left the room and walked downstairs drenched with perspiration. Before he left he asked us to stay on the bed for a few moments and let the experience sink in, explaining that we might experience some dizziness.

  We remained on the bed holding hands in silence for several minutes, feeling as close as we’d ever felt in our lives together. We didn’t need to speak. Slowly we walked down the stairs together, looking past the other seven or eight people gathered in the room.

  My wife is extremely close to our children. She totally devotes herself to her babies, and seems to become more and more intensely bonded with each of the seven she has given birth to. On the night of our meeting with Mauricio, our teenage daughter Stephanie was babysitting our daughter Saje Eykis, who was nine months old and nursing full-time. Marcie came downstairs after our session almost trancelike, with a totally different, peaceful look on her face. A few moments later the phone rang and it was Stephanie, telling us that she was having difficulty with the baby, who wouldn’t stop crying and fussing. At all other times, a phone call like this would have caused us to leave immediately so that Marcie could nurse the baby and give her the comfort that only she could provide. But Marcie was in another world after the experience with the lights. Her response to Stephanie shocked me out of my own trancelike state.

  “I’m sorry, Stephanie,” she said, “you will just have to take care of it. We’ll be home shortly, but in the meantime you do whatever you have to do to make her stop crying.” This was a different Marcie than I had ever experienced before or since. As we drove home we both agreed that we had just had an experience that was very special and beyond description.

  The next day I noticed that a bothersome growth on the skin of my collarbone, which had been there for several years, was completely gone, and the leg I had injured was no longer sore. In fact, the scabs were almost totally healed over and there was hardly any evidence of the injury.

  I had been meditating on writing this book for several weeks before this event took place. I kept hearing reassurances in my meditation that I would receive all of the proof that I required in order to write a book about manifesting miracles. I repeatedly was assured that the doubt would be gone and I would know. The presence of Mauricio and the actual experience of seeing the lights felt like convincing evidence that real magic is indeed real.

  I believe that I experienced real magic because I had willingly suspended my disbelief. I am convinced that suspending disbelief is the first step in setting one’s mind for miracle making. I encourage you to cultivate a new, self-declared openness to anything and everything being a possibility for you.

  The following riddle from the mathematician Douglas Hofstadter is a quick test of how open your mind is:

  A father and his son are driving to a football game. They begin to cross a railroad crossing and, when they are halfway across, the car stalls. Hearing a train coming in the distance the father desperately tries to get the engine started again. He is unsuccessful and the train hits the car. The father is killed instantly, but the son survives and is rushed to the hospital for brain surgery. The surgeon, on entering the operating theater, turns white and says, “I cannot operate on this boy. He is my son.” The question is, what is the relation between the boy and the surgeon? Take a few minutes to ponder this one before looking at the answer, which I will write in reverse: eht noegrus saw eht s’yob rehtom.

  Having an open mind and suspending our disbelief allows us to experience new vistas, while our closed mind and unwillingness to shed our disbeliefs keeps us trapped in our old ways of thinking and seeing. Real magic is available only to those who can imagine any and all possibilities, while letting the how-it-will-happen take care of itself. What I am asking of you here is simply to do that. Nothing more. Just open your mind and suspend your disbelief. This is the beginning of miracle making.

  Suggestions for Implementing This Mind-set:

  • Practice inner affirmations giving yourself permission to adopt new ideas. Say to yourself, “I will keep an open mind.” “I refuse to judge anyone or any idea.” “I am open to an infinite number of possibilities that are presently available to me.” “Just because I can’t see it, or don’t fully understand it, does not mean it is nonexistent.” “Today, for this one day, I will suspend my disbelief and be open to anything being possible for me.” “I will act on my new openness, rather than my old skepticism.”

  • Keep one little corner of your mind open to miracle making. Investigate the lives of others who have experienced miracles. Know this is possible for you too. Talk to your friends and new acquaintances and ask them if they have ever experienced that which you would consider a miracle. Read books and articles about people who have had these kinds of experiences. By allowing yourself to be receptive to these stories and genuine experiences, you will open up your mind to these very possibilities for yourself.

  2. Create a real-magic zone in your mind. Once you begin to suspend your disbelief and skepticism, you can begin setting your mind on miracle working. Make this a very private part of your life. Reserve a small piece of your consciousness exclusively for the purpose of testing yourself in this area. I have been able to manifest what constitute miracles for myself by having this very private zone.

  It was while taking a shower and quietly meditating that I considered being completely alcohol-free. Drinking wasn’t a major problem, but it was something I did each day—only a few beers after running, but still something I intuitively felt was not in my best interest. I asked myself (or my guide, Eykis), “Can I give up alcohol beginning January first of next year?” A simple pondering question in my mind. The answer was crystal clear: “Just don’t drink today, and ask again tomorrow. Just today. Now! You don’t have to look any further.”

  My private magic zone is reserved for questions like this alcohol-free query about what direction to take in my life. It never fails me. I recommend that you reserve your own invisible and formless zone in your mind. Treat it as your corner of freedom. Retreat there often to ask for the loving assistance and guidance that is there for you.

  Suggestion for Implementing This Mind-set:

  • Affirm to yourself out loud each day that you are a spiritual being having a human experience, and that in this spiritual realm there are no limitations. Affirm aloud that the universal intelligence that flows through all form in the universe flows through you, and that the universal law that has permitted any miracle to occur at any time in the history of this planet has not been rescinded. It is still operating and working today and is available to you. This affirmation will help you open yourself up to tapping into the universal forces, rather than continue being a skeptic and never allowing them to work in your life. Affirm it first, and then begin to act on that affirmation.

  3. Affirm yourself as a no-limit person. When you have developed this real-magic zone in your mind and trust that you can go there at will, begin to affirm to yourself privately that there are literally no limits to the powers that you possess. A great rule of thumb is this: If you can conceive it in your mind, then it can be brought into the physical world.

  At one time I believed I could not hit a backhand shot in tennis, and as long as I believed it, I saw that result. Today it is my steadiest shot. I changed my belief and my form followed that belief. Believe me, when I hit a winning backhand shot in a tennis match, for me that is a miracle. For you, the belief in any limitation, and I emphasize any, is a strike against you in your desire to experience real magic.

  The point is that you and only you have the ability to create magic in your mind. The choice is always with you. It has nothing to do with luck, but with believing in yourself as a part of the divine force that suffuses all form in the universe.

  As a child you most likely were on friendly terms with the invisible magic within you. You created what amounted to fantasies that you would crawl, you would walk, you would cli
mb a tree. You would swim, no matter how difficult that may have seemed. You knew you would do it, and it started in your mind. Invisible thoughts followed by whatever was necessary in the material world. You would learn to ride that bike, even if you did wobble all over the place and fall down repeatedly. In your mind there were no limitations. All of your accomplishments began with a belief. You weren’t physically different the moment you let go of the side of the dock and swam by yourself. Your physical self was precisely the same as a “swimmer” as it was as a “nonswimmer.” The difference was a belief. The same was true for you as a walker and a nonwalker. A climber and a nonclimber. You didn’t stop to say, “Nope, I’ll never be able to stand up, I’ll just sit here forever. I guess I failed to inherit the necessary standing genes.” There was no room in your mind for doubt about your own greatness in those areas. You conceived the impossible idea first in your mind and then you acted upon it.

  Somewhere along the way you began to doubt your ability to create magic for yourself. Never doubt that being able to walk from the perspective of a crawler is truly a miracle. You lost the ability to extend that belief to new and more “impossible” miracles. You began to buy into the misbeliefs of those around you who were “many limits” people, who said, “You must learn your limitations.” Or, “You can’t do that.” Or, “You are just like your father, and he couldn’t do those things either.” The list was endless, and so too became the limitations.

  To recapture that childhood magic and become your own miracle worker, you will have to change the thoughts that created your world of limits and boundaries. That takes place in your mind first, and since thoughts originate with you, you have the ability to re-create your own image of what your life is going to be from now on. Why not include the presence of real magic in your life as well?