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Study of Manual for Teachers 4-6-12

Day 97
9 The avoidance of magic is the avoidance of temptation. For all temptation is nothing more than the attempt to substitute another will for God’s. These attempts may indeed seem frightening, but they are merely pathetic. They can have no effects; neither good nor bad, neither rewarding nor demanding sacrifice, healing nor destructive, quieting nor fearful. When all magic is recognized as merely nothing, the teacher of God has reached the most advanced state. All intermediate lessons will but lead to this, and bring this goal nearer to recognition. For magic of any kind, in all its forms, simply does nothing. Its powerlessness is the reason it can be so easily escaped. What has no effects can hardly terrify. 

I was reading about Voodoo recently. The book says that sometimes a Voodoo priest puts a curse on someone with the intention of causing the person to die. I thought how silly this was, but when I read further it became clear that when the intended victim believes in the magic that person will die. On further consideration I realize that this is not all that different than the magic thinking we all do when we try to substitute our will for God’s Will. Its just as foolish and ineffective, but because we believe in it, the effects are real to us, even unto death.

Magic thinking is anything that is a separate will from God. I do this when I try to fix what I perceive as wrong or out balance by changing the form of things. Wishing for a lottery win to fix dissatisfaction with life for example. Believing unhappiness is caused by loneliness and trying to fix it by finding a mate who will give me whatever it is I think is missing in my life. Oh here’s a good one. Making someone else seem to be responsible for my guilty feelings and believing that this makes me innocent.

Any thinking that promotes the belief that pain, suffering, and death are myr deserved fates and unavoidable. And equally, any belief that this can be changed through the use of medicine, counseling, begging and bargaining with God, living a “good” life in the hopes of deserving something better.

Making plans and making decisions on my own. Trying to get people to like me by pleasing them. Acting humble and playing small so as not to tempt the fates. Giving meaning to everything according to whatever I believe will protect me in the moment. Defending and attacking to keep myself safe.  All these things are magical thinking.

When I was reading about the people who were fearful of the voodoo priest and what she could do to them and how much they were controlled by these beliefs, I wanted to say, “Wake up! This is not real and if you would just stop believing in her power, she couldn’t have any affect on you.” Well, I can say the same thing about myself.

If I stop believing in the crazy rules that I made up to take the place of complete freedom, I would be unaffected by them. I would no longer imagine I am trapped in a body, suffering sickness and death over which I have no control. All it takes to escape from this sorry state of affairs is to accept that I did it to myself in an effort to substitute my will for God’s Will, and that nothing actually happened. It seems to have happened because I am determined to believe in it, but really nothing happened, and I am safe.

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