Psychologists would say that magick directs all your unconscious efforts toward your goal. It also eliminates those unconscious efforts keeping you from your goal. This may not sound like much, but it is primarily these efforts that determine success or failure. It is easy to overlook because, for the most part, the conscious will is the same as the unconscious will. Thus, we succeed at endeavors such as waking up, getting to work on time and fixing dinner. This may seem silly, but when your subconscious doesn't share a goal, even simple tasks are exceptionally difficult. The power of the subconscious can either fight you or help you. Where ever you succeed, it's almost certainly helping. Where ever you fail, it's almost certainly fighting.
The subconscious represents everything the mind does that we do not think about. This involves a most of what we do. When you are driving on a familiar freeway in good conditions, you are usually thinking about the music on the radio or salient problems. At such times it is your subconscious driving. If you notice something strange in the road, it was your subconscious that brought it to your attention. This is very helpful, but that isn't necessarily the case. The subconscious can throw up all kinds of barriers, prevent-ng even the simplest tasks. It can make you late for work when it doesn't feel like going--you can wake up late, feel ill, misplace car keys or even have an accident. This influence sometimes goes to the extremes. People can even be paralyzed by hysteria, a condition that lies entirely within the mind. Pathological fears are another example. An agoraphobe, for instance, can have such an extreme reaction to being outdoors that he cannot leave his house no matter how badly he wants to.
The subtle action of the subconscious can be almost as profound. Even when the influence of the subconscious is indistinguishable from chance happenings, on larger scale the effect is dramatic. Psychologists try to ensure that experiments are "double blind" for this reason. They must set up an experimental group and a control group. In the latter, there is only the single element, the target of the experiment, that is different.
In drug testing, experimenters use placebos on a control group. The act of administering a substance can have a profound mental effect, even when that substance is inert, a placebo. When they expect effective drugs, people can have great results with a placebo. But the "placebo effect" is purely psychological. If either the experimenter or the subject think that they know which is being administered, that is enough to throw off the results. The subconscious of the subject reacts to what the subject expects. If the experimenter knows what he is administering, then the subject's subconscious reacts to cues from the experimenter's subconscious. This is sometimes called the "Clever Hans effect" after a horse which seemed to be able to do math. In reality, clever Hans but was reacting to cues from the people around him. When someone near him knew the answer, the horse could sense that person's expectation. It was sometime before researchers even considered these nearly invisible clues. Although such subconscious actions are very subtle, they can dramatically change the results of an experiment.
The subconscious similarly affects results in your life as well. Magick programs the subconscious to work for you. This is not as potent as the metaphysical concept, but it will make you as effective as you can possibly be in a mechanistic world. A unified will directs all your efforts, conscious and otherwise, toward your goal. Since the subconscious can present insurmountable barriers, working out these barriers is all it takes to be on the road to success.
Some may be disturbed to think that magick may be misrepresenting how it works, but that should not be a problem. In one experiment, scientists gave placebos to a group of subjects. After the placebos "took effect," the scientists explained what they were. Even when the scientists made it clear to the subjects that the placebos had no biochemical action, many subjects still wanted a prescription for them. (It would be interesting to see how much more effective prescription placebos are versus over the counter placebos.) Were these people stupid? Or were they wise to stick with something that worked?
Suggested ebooks:
Aleister Crowley - Magick In Theory And PracticeAleister Crowley - Book 4 Part Iii Magick In Theory And Practice
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