Modeling Reality: A New Magickal Paradigm

A Short Case For Magick

Light is made up of photons; which are subject to the laws of quantum not classical mechanics. Inconclusion, if our eyes are tuned to see part of the electromagnetic spectrum and the biological apparatus of our eyes turns electromagnetic waves into colors which we perceive, then color can be seen as a sensory illusion propagated upon us by our brains. 

It is the same with touch. According to Pauli's exclusion principle, two particles of the same spin may not occupy the same space or quantum state at the same time. Everything is almost universally agreed to be made of atoms which are made of particles. So, if two objects can not occupy the same space, what keeps them from doing so?  

According to classical physics, each particle has a charge which can either be positive, negative, or neutral. A positively charged proton is repelled by an other positively charged particle, atom, or molecule, this is same for negatively charged particles and unlike charged particles attract each other. This works all the way up to complex molecules. These charges called Electrostatic Charges enforce Pauli's Exclusion Principle and give matter its perceived solidity. Part of this electrostatic field is maintained by electrons which are considered particles of the quantum scale and hence are subject to quantum not classical laws of action.

The sensory apparatus through which we perceive touch is actually feeling these repulsion fields and not touching a solid object at all! Yet another illusion which is created for us by our brains, which we inadvertently believe to be true. As a learned person can see, that the magickal view of perceived reality as an illusion is scientifically verifiable in both provided examples. Now that we have established a basis for the suspension of your disbelief, let us move on to my next point.

Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr are responsible for the modern notions of the atom which show that solid matter as we understand it is mostly empty space. Rutherford formulated his theory of the atom, which included a heavy nucleus orbited by an array of smaller electrons orbiting in shells; similar to Ptolemy's celestial spheres. In a hydrogen atom, most of the mass is concentrated in the nucleus which 145,000 times smaller than the total atomic size. Later in the twentieth century, Niels Bohr completed the modern idea of the atom including complex electron orbits which defined the distance from the nucleus as proportional to the energy of the electrons. This deeper understanding was one of the many discoveries which paved the way for modern electronics and computers. Now in both models, there are large amounts of empty space held together by the complex patterns of energies between each particle. Again, it is held together by energy, just as magickal thinkers theorized as far back in human history as Leucippus and his pupil Democritus in Ancient Greece.

During the last part of the nineteenth century, modern science began to encounter strange substances; some known to folk healers and others the product of labs and experiments; which could alter the functions of the body. Some relieved pain and others could propel the user into a perceptional amusement park or a front row seat to Dante's visions of hell. In 1897, German chemist Arthur Heffter discovered that mescaline hydrochloride was the active agent of the Mexican cactus known as peyote.(4)

He was also the first scientist of the modern era to recognize exactly how liquid and plastic our human reality is. He observed on November 23rd 1897 that as little as 150 mg of this chemical caused "unique visions." Other authors have observed the ability, of which we still do not understand the mechanism, of a group of chemicals called hallucinogens to "alter perceptions of reality." If as little as 20 micrograms of LSD, the most powerful of the hallucinogens, can make marked changes in perceptional reality, then how far a stretch is it to ask if psychosomatically we can change our perception of sensation and affect the way the wave function collapses around us. The issue with this thought process is that these substances affect our perceptions or soft reality, but as one can see by a few minutes of reading in a medical library, the psychosomatic phenomenon can make marked changed in the physical or hard reality of the human body. Methamphetamines and other stimulants make marked changes in the subjective experience of time. Faced with the power of these substances, the nature of reality, itself, comes into question; how do we truly know what is honestly "real" anymore? In conclusion, the reality of various classes of drugs; their ability to change perception with as little 20 micrograms of molecules; the fact that they can do what they do, establishes that soft reality or subjective perception is as malleable as hard reality or sensation.