Posts Tagged ‘Manifesting’

Manifesting, Artificial Intelligence, and Genies

Sunday, June 12th, 2016

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Manifesting sometimes succeeds in unexpected ways. The canonical example, which probably never happened: Someone requests money and their uncle dies, leaving an inheritance.

But why? Why does manifesting sometimes find unexpected path? No, not the simple answer, don’t say that’s just how manifesting works. Look for the deep answer, the answer that explains this bug, lets us avoid it, and just maybe lets us update our ethereal software to eliminate it.

Discussing unexpected manifesting results with friends this week, I recalled an article on genies, written by artificial intelligence researchers. The genie fails not because of malice, not because of user error, but because the genie doesn’t understand human values, can’t align itself to the user’s true intent. It’s probably the best explanation of unexpected results I’ve seen.

(The AI researchers are concerned about an intelligent machine that wants something different than what humans want, by the way.)

The rest of this post assumes you’ve read that article. It’s short and fun and you’ll be glad you did.

Read it? Excellent.

That explanation feels right to me. It’s not that some gods / spirits made this useful tool, then occasionally create bad results to spite us. It’s not that the forces we’re using misheard us (“I’d like a 12 inch pianist”). It’s that understanding human values, and eliminating paths we wouldn’t ever consider, is a really hard problem, and the forces we’re using don’t perfectly align to human values.

Wherever forces are behind manifesting, they seem to understand some of what we value, but also miss some of it. They value some goals too highly, others not enough, and some not at all. The forces aren’t being tricky or spiteful or malicious, they’re trying their best at a really hard problem. We don’t need to specify an iron-clad goal that can’t be weaseled out of, but we do need to help them in figuring out what we actually want. Notice how those goals (iron-clad agreement vs clear guidance) result in different approaches.

In my own work, I find that manifesting over-prioritizes my progress in magick. Sometimes it’s small, like wanting me to stay home and work instead of going to a fun-but-not-amazing party. Sometimes it’s big, like recommend staying in a relationship with someone who supports my work, but is not a great partner otherwise. It’s never malicious, it’s just a failure to understand my full priorities. And when I talk with the spirits who made that manifesting ethereal software, they misunderstand human needs in similar ways.

What to do about this? A few ideas:

1. Specify good goals. This is an art — I can’t tell you exactly what “good” means, but there’s a sweet spot between flexibility and precision, and a certain way of expressing goals that these forces seem to understand. I like to ask for paths that “I will be happy with,” so it knows to look for my happiness and not just a state of the world. And in my current work, I’m watching my manifesting requests, asking the ethereal software what phrasing it uses internally and what data it accesses, so I can develop a better sense of how these requests function.

2. Make a request, then ask how that request is likely to come about. Note that this gives the highest-probability path, which may still be fairly unlikely: With a dozen possible paths, the highest-probability path might only have 20% probability. But it gives me some idea of how the ethereal software will approach my request, which is useful for debugging my phrasing. Note that this requires techniques to receive information from these forces, not just sending out one’s intent.

But the real reason I care is because, eventually, people are going to understand how these forces work well enough to reprogram them, fixing these bugs. And the first step is understanding where the bug comes from.

If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.

Divination & Manifesting (Notes for Upcoming Class)

Sunday, May 1st, 2016

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Tarot. Astrology. Magick for wealth, love, and success. Divination (predicting the future) and manifesting (creating luck) are cornerstones of most magickal practice.

This post is my notes for a new class I’m creating. It covers:

  • How to choose good divination questions and manifesting intents
  • Techniques for sending out those questions / intents
  • Techniques for hearing the answers
  • How to use this magick in healthy and safe ways.

I’m teaching this class Thursday May 12, 7-9PM at Wicked Grounds in San Francisco. It’s free — both to support my friends who run the cafe, and to test out the class in a more informal setting. If you’re in the bay area, I hope you’ll attend. RSVP here (facebook).

Choosing Good Questions & Intents

Here’s an example good request: Cause me to find a job that I’ll be happy with, and that will leave me the time and energy to study magick.

Let’s talk about some ways that it’s good, and some traps to avoid:

Make it general. I’m not asking for a specific job, I’m asking for any job with these properties. A few reasons for this. First, whatever is guiding this success knows more about the paths of fate than I do, so I don’t want to overconstrain the request and possibly wind up in a job I thought I’d like but that is actually bad. Second, manifesting seems to create lucky breaks. If I ask for a specific job and there’s path where I get it, the manifesting simply fails. We don’t want that.

Specify what “good” means. I find that if I ask for a “good job,” that’s too vague. Does good mean stable? Interesting? Has the chance of finding a good romantic relationship? The forces we’re channeling don’t seem to think quite like humans do, so it’s best to specify clear success criteria.

Make it positive. Think about making your request over a bad cell connection, dropping every other word. “Find job happy” is probably ok. But if you ask, “Find me a job that won’t exhaust me, and that won’t interfere with my relationship,” and some of the words don’t transmit properly, you could wind up with something terrible.

Time frame. Some people like to specify that it should happen within a certain time frame. I prefer to avoid specifying the time frame (what if I specify 3 months, and the perfect job would take 4). I trust the force I’m channeling to understand that sooner is better than later. But different people channel different forces, so this may have to do with the specific force I use — try both ways, see what works for you.

Sending Out Those Requests

Main goal is to engage the parts of your mind that drive energy and magick (your “ethereal muscles”), contact a force to channel (some “ethereal software”), and get your intent to that force. Many ways to do this.

By default, most people’s ethereal muscles are unconscious. So most systems of magick focus on getting the intent into the unconscious. Visualizations, rituals, sigils, etc all do this. Note: Even without a force to channel, getting your unconscious aligned with your intent will probably help you notice opportunities and execute on your goals.

The other half is having a force to channel. Usually not explicitly discussed. People are often connected to these forces during initiations. Forces can also be bound to rituals and sigils, so doing the ritual / focusing on the sigil will get the force to connect to the person. This only works for already-established rituals and sigils, not one you just made up.

Simplest method: Focus on the sigil in this post. (It also discusses testing we’ve done on this blog.) Focus on your intent, repeat it several times. The force is programmed to read and act on your intent. For more details, see this book-in-progress.

Hearing the Answers

This is the main difference between manifesting and divination (or psychic intuitions). Manifesting is usually send-and-forget, while divination is about getting info back.

But getting info back with manifesting is useful too. Find out whether the request was accepted, if there are reasonable paths to success, etc.

Responses can be hard to hear, like talking over bad cell connection. Yes / No is easier to understand than a sentence. This is useful: Turn an open-ended question into a series of multiple choice questions, then feel into each choice and try to notice the “Yes.” Systems that use this include tarot (where each card has multiple conflicting meanings, and the reader selects the “correct” one for this reading) and some systems of astrology (the reader selects which planets and meanings “matter most.”)

Some forces can create lasting connections to a person’s mind, improving the communication over months. The sources for psychic intuitions usually do this. There are also techniques in Direct Magick to create a clearer communication channel as needed.

Try using manifesting to guide decisions. “Cause me to create a good plan for…” (then spell out your goal and what “good” means.) Then sit down and plan your next steps, paying attention to feelings that the option you’re considering is good or bad. This makes it easy for the force to influence your decisions, ensures you’re paying attention to these intuitions when they come (much easier than listening all day, through conversations and other projects), and is super ethical.

Staying Healthy and Safe

Avoid goals that require specific people to take specific actions, both for ethics and for higher success rates. “Cause me to find a healthy, supportive relationship,” not “Cause me to date this specific person.”

Consider: Would you do this if everyone involved knew about it? If not, that’s a strong sign it’s unethical.

Some people are concerned about influencing others in any way. Remember, we influence others every day, both consciously and unconsciously, in how we dress, speak, and everything else we do. To have any impact on the world, we need to influence others. If you would work toward your goal through ordinary means, it’s probably ethical to manifest for it too.

A technique I use all the time: “Cause me to make good decisions for…” (then spell out your goal.) Restrict your manifesting to only influencing yourself.

Don’t blindly trust divination. A lot has to go right for it to work: Phrasing the question properly, sending and receiving the message, and the force has to see the future properly. None of this is 100%. If you think the path laid out is a bad idea, or feel a sense of dread about it, listen to yourself. (At the very least, try at least 3 other ways of asking the question.)

Come to the Class

I’m teaching this class Thursday May 12, 7-9PM at Wicked Grounds in San Francisco. It’s free — both to support my friends who run the cafe, and to test out the class in a more informal setting. If you’re in the bay area, I hope you’ll attend. RSVP here (facebook).

If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.

Superman, Time Travel, and Why Science Matters

Monday, February 8th, 2016

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To do energy healing, or manifesting, or other magick, we need a visualization that engages the unconscious.

Keep that in mind: Engaging the unconscious. Because that’s a different goal than understanding how magick operates. Not a bad goal, just a different one. And confusing those two goals (engaging the unconscious vs understanding the mechanism) derails so many people, smart insightful people who could otherwise be helping us build a deeper understanding of energy healing and magick, and helping us create the better techniques that flow from that understanding.

A simple example: Chaos Magick is famous for rituals to Superman. The idea is to engage concepts of strength and justice in the mage’s unconscious, and to tap into those same virtues in a collective unconscious. When one does that ritual, it might be useful to pretend to believe that Superman is real.

“Superman will fly down and help me stand up to this bully” is a great visualization, but a terrible model for how manifesting actually works.

We’re about to discuss a not-so-obvious example. But first, I want to explain how we could figure out that Superman isn’t a good model, if we didn’t already know that.

Imagine a friend believes that magick actually works by Superman hearing your ritual and helping you out. You say, “That sounds amazing. Let’s do a ritual, I want to talk to him.” Your friend replies that Superman doesn’t stay around long enough to talk, and moves so fast you can’t even see him. “I have a high-speed camera.” Sorry, he’s too fast for even that. “I know, we’ll hang ribbons from the ceiling, and we won’t see Superman, but we’ll still see the ribbons swaying after he leaves.” Your friend thinks for a minute, then says that Superman will pause to stop each ribbon from swaying as he leaves.

For each experiment, your friend predicted the same result we’d see if Superman wasn’t real. If your friend really truly believed Superman was real, he would say, “Awesome, let’s run the experiment, I want to see those ribbons swaying too.” But deep down, he knows how the world really is, and he knows what experimental outcomes he’ll see even before doing the experiment.

(This is from Carl Sagan’s dragon in the garage.)

Now it’s time for the not-obvious example. Synchronicity asks:

What about retrocausality? Do you think it’s physically impossible or it’s possible but some ethereal softwares don’t know how to affect the past?

There’s a Chaos Magick book that talks about reverse-time manifesting, where you send out your intent and it travels to the past to arrange things for you in the near future. I think it was Phil Hine. (Anyone know the book? Leave a comment. Thanks!)

I think reverse time is like a ritual to Superman. Great visualization to engage your unconscious. Probably not how magick actually works.

(And keep in mind, Chaos Magick’s motto is, “Belief is the tool.” The goal was to temporarily believe things to get your mind to engage and do magick, not to accurately explain the underlying mechanisms of magick.)

But why? It’s easy to pretend to believe in Superman, then drop the belief after the ritual. But reverse-time isn’t obviously wrong. It’s a fun belief — who hasn’t wanted to go back in time and undo a mistake? And doesn’t quantum physics predict equally weird stuff?

I see this as an opportunity. Separating good mechanisms of magick from useful ways to engage the unconscious is an important skill. So let’s practice it.

Imagine you fully believe your magick can go into the past and change time. When I do that, I notice a mental flinch away from predictions that are obviously silly. Fight that flinch. Imagine we just made this discovery, it was a new technology, never used before. What could we do with it?

Here’s what I flinched away from. (That’s usually a sign that an idea is worth exploring):

Ananael has talked about manifesting to influence lottery results. If reverse-time manifesting worked — if we could somehow change the past — then he should be able to change last week’s lottery results.

And immediately, I start making excuses. “Ananael already knows the lottery numbers. Maybe this only works if he hasn’t seen them yet.”

OK, so I’ll look at the lottery numbers but not show them to him, then let him do the ritual…

I could come up with some excuse, but I’ve spent years training my mind not to create those excuses, and I actually don’t want to develop that excuse-making skill.

But try it. Ask, “What would the world look like, if the world actually worked that way?” And see how much you immediately have to explain away.

That’s how we know reverse-time is a good visualization, but not a good mechanism for magick.

Why bother with this? Why not just believe in whatever speaks to me, as wholeheartedly as I can?

Because when we take a good mechanism and ask, “What could I do if the world actually worked that way,” we don’t have to create excuses. Every idea it gives us is a useful, working technique for energy healing, or manifesting, or something else we care about. (And instead of excusing failures, we use them to refine our model, so next time it gives us even better techniques.)

Gather enough good mechanisms and we call it a scientific model. And that’s why science matters: Not because having the right answer is cool, but because a good model suggests good techniques that give better results.

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Why Does Manifesting Fail? And 2 More Reader Questions

Sunday, January 31st, 2016

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Sharon, a new reader, experienced psychic, and curious scientist, asks some excellent questions. I’ll put her text in italics, mine in normal.

Hello Mike :-)

I came to your blog to help me link my magik with science. I am a natural psychic (still developing) who is looking to find the reason why I just “know” things. I am also uncomfortable with the pagan community telling us to do things (e.g. use a white candle or x oil when looking to purify x) and not saying what difference these correspondences make.

Welcome! A phrase I like is, “I simply refuse to believe there’s a special case in the laws of physics for a human mouth forming specific words.” Same with candles, runes, etc: There has to be some deeper mechanism at work.

A common answer is that those things are symbols, and communicate intent to the unconscious mind. My next question is, “What happens next? How does the unconscious act on that intent?” Part of why I write is to get more people asking those questions.

My questions that I have answered:
(Please feel free to question/debunk/comment on these)
1. How does magik I do at home affect events that will happen outside of my house?

Like most areas of science, there are many levels of answers. Richard Feynman has a wonderful talk on this, explaining why a person slipped. You might say, “Because there was ice on the ground,” or you might go deeper and explain why ice is slippery, or even how friction and gravity work. All those answers are true, and different levels are better for different problems. The job of science is generally to find deeper and deeper answers, while the job of engineering is to select the right level to solve a specific problem. Anyway, go watch or read Feynman’s explanation, it’s excellent.

I’d say this question is similar. Magick affects events outside your house because you got your intent into your unconscious. Also, because your unconscious contacted external forces that know how to create luck. Also, because those external forces somehow influenced your decisions (or occasionally the decisions of others), and somehow knew which way to nudge those decisions to create that outcome.

Most of my work focuses on going deeper down that causal chain: How do those external forces nudge decisions? How do they know which direction to nudge? How can we improve them?

But as I write this, it occurs to me that there are also engineering problems: How can we become more aware of those nudges, and listen to them more? How should we phrase an intent to produce the desired outcome? These don’t necessarily need the deeper exploration of how that external force functions. And for beginners, learning to use these forces probably matters more than a deeper exploration of why they work.

Well, that wasn’t really your question, but I hope you found it interesting.

2. Why do some spells not work? (Your intent vs about 12 other people looking for a parking spot for example, your intent is outnumbered.)

I think this is a plausible scenario, but since so few people use magick, this is probably a rare cause of failures.

In my own work, as I’ve gotten better at communicating with ethereal software (and in particular at receiving messages back), I now get error messages. So if I ask for an event (“find a parking space on this block”) but there’s no path to that event (all the spaces are already taken), the software tells me it’s not possible. In general, I take this as a guide to broaden my request (“cause me to drive such that I find a parking spot,” which focuses on influencing my decisions rather than on forcing the world to be a certain way).

3. Why do I just “know” things? (The ethereal software tells me)
4. How do herbs, crystals, and tools help me to get my desired effects? (They emit different frequencies e.g. when you hold a magnet to a crystal it makes a different sound. Every herb, crystal, and colour has different atomic structures and properties that enable them to work for certain spells e.g rose quartz for a beauty spell).

When I see answers like this, I reflexively ask, “But how?” Not to put the person on the spot (I try to avoid saying it out loud except with friends). But whenever I get an answer, I try to imagine all the moving parts in my head, see how they fit together, and I notice that I don’t actually have enough information to make things fit.

Herbs and crystals emit different frequencies — are we talking about sound waves? Light? Magickal energy? (Note: I use the term energy signature rather than frequency, but they’re synonyms.)

Each herb and crystal has a different atomic structure — true, but also true of everything. It sounds sciency, but hasn’t told us anything. Why is ice slippery? Because of its atomic structure. Great, but what about the structure?

I’m not saying these to put you on the spot. I’m saying them because that’s where my mind immediately goes, and since you love science too, part of your mind probably wants to go there too. So consider this a friendly nudge.

My answers:

Herbs contain medically-active chemicals. Aspirin is found in willow bark, for example. This seems like a good explanation for everything I’ve seen done with herbs.

If you asked me about crystals a few years ago, I would have said they were just symbolic, like using a white candle. But a few years ago, readers asked about it, and I tested it.

Crystals seem to absorb energy, then emit that energy in a particular signature. So there’s one signature for quartz, and whatever energy you send into the quartz, it absorbs then re-emits that energy in the “quartz signature.” Interesting side-note: This is also how color works, with objects absorbing light then emitting photons only in specific frequencies. Maybe “frequency” would be a better term than “signature”…

What’s the significance of changing your energy to “quartz signature” energy? Well, the sensation of energy has more to do with the signature than the amount. Your body has a signature, and energy that’s similar to your body’s signature only produces a small sensation, while energy that’s dissimilar produces a large sensation. So, you send energy into the quartz, it comes out in a signature matching the quartz (and not matching your body), and that energy feels much stronger because of the more dissimilar signature.

This, by the way, is one of my favorite things about Direct Magick: I routinely test something, and find that it doesn’t work the way I expected. If that didn’t happen, well what’s the point of exploring? (Other systems do this too, by the way.)

That, by the way, is also the essence of science: Run the experiment, let nature tell you about the world. It means you can connect every finding, every belief, to something you can experience for yourself in the world. That’s what I love about science: The exploration and connection to the world. And everything in the modern world, from medicine to sky scrapers to cell phones, rests on the power of asking nature how the world works, then listening to the answer.

That’s about half of Sharon’s email. I’ll do the second half coming up.

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Killing Skepticism in Magick: A Plan

Sunday, October 25th, 2015

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Skepticism dies via mature technologies.

Take Hertzian Waves. Invisible messages floating through the air, passing through solid objects. Sounds pretty woo, right?

Today, they’re better known as radio waves, and everything from remote controls to wifi to cell phones depend on them. Mature radio-based technologies are ubiquitous, and only a crazy person would remain skeptical.

Mature technologies produce obvious results, experienced by everyone. That’s what kills skepticism.

Here’s the rub: Energy healing and magick haven’t produced a mature technology yet.

Can an expert use sigils or beliefs or ethereal software to create luck? It certainly seems so. Can we do it with the precision and reliability to create an obvious, media-friendly demonstration? Do we have something a layman can experience themselves? No and no. So it remains limited to stories at magick conferences, only convincing the already-convinced, and laymen never get the visceral, proving impact of a successful manifesting.

What about energy healing? A decade or more of scientific research suggests that an expert in Reiki or Therapeutic Touch can reduce pain for 24-48 hours. This is a great first version of a technology, and I hope it continues helping more and more people. But a mature version? That would produce fast, obvious numbing, or invert the technique to produce clear sensations. Mature energy healing would affect the long-term outcome of a disease, convincing people by saving their lives. And the healing techniques we have today, which right now is applied by an expert at $60-100 per session? It would be tied to a sigil that anyone could meditate on and experience the energy healing themselves, for free or a low monthly subscription.

Skepticism in magick is rational, and it has many causes: A history of mages and healers making false claims, which continues today. The language we use, and our misuse of science, particularly quantum physics. How even our solid, well-researched claims would require new physics. And more. We’ll have to address all of that eventually.

But when I look for solutions, I look for something that’s both necessary and sufficient. And getting all healers to stop making false claims? That isn’t necessary, it isn’t sufficient, and it probably isn’t possible. Same with getting everyone to use less-woo-sounding terms, or to understand that the “observer” of quantum physics is a photon, not a conscious mind. And developing new physics that explain our results? That happens after we’re taken seriously, not before.

But a mature technology? That’s necessary, sufficient (or nearly so), and can be accomplished by a small group of experienced mages and healers.

If we want to kill skepticism, we need a mature technology.

Moving forward, I’ll be performing studies on this blog, based on healing energies tied to sigils. They’ll be double-blind, placebo-controlled, solid research. I hope you’ll help. (If you live near San Francisco, I’ll also be doing in-person research, publishing the results here.)

And if you want to copy my design and do your own studies, tell me and I’ll help you publicize. Because we all benefit from building a community of researchers.

If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.

Manifesting for Business Success

Sunday, August 23rd, 2015

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I’ve heard about being compelled by a psychic intuition. Friends who felt some force make them write a letter, or talk to a person, or take some other decision. They recall watching themselves, not knowing what was driving the decision. Far from unpleasant, it’s spiritual for them, good in a big way.

This month, I experienced that compulsion for the first time. It was excellent.

I was on a six-day consulting engagement, Monday through Saturday. By Wednesday, I knew the project was more complex than anticipated. I considered plowing through, doing as much as I could. I considered asking for extra time. It was 7pm Wednesday, and I resolved to make up my mind and email in the morning.

But I had also committed to practicing manifesting every day. I’d call one of my spirits, tell her what I wanted to manifest for, and she’d help me figure out the right way to ask. I started with, “Make me successful in this consulting engagement.” We ended up with, “Cause me to make work that causes both (1) the guys I’m working with to be happy with my work and (2) them wanting to work with me again. Both of those equally.” Yes, that’s awkward English, but the ethereal software I use is designed for spirits, for their language. The words don’t matter — it communicates in concepts, not sounds or writing — but apparently it works better if I use the syntax of their language. It certainly worked well here.

I got a mental nudge to email my client right then. I thought, “It’s late. I’ll email in the morning.” A stronger nudge: No, email them now.

I listened, and got more nudges as I wrote. Avoid this topic. Take the idea you just discarded, write it up. Rephrase that paragraph. OK, hit send.

I did. (I also read it in a normal, focused mental state — I’m not going to just hit send because an untested compulsion told me to.) It was after 9pm in Texas, where my clients live. I figured I’d get an answer in the morning. I wondered why it was so important to email them right then.

30 minutes later, I got a reply from the senior manager. Not the guy running the project day to day, but the guy who handles the money, a decidedly higher level in the company. He asked for more info about the difficulties, details on how the project was bigger than what he’d been lead to believe. He and the day-to-day manager figured out how to take some work off my plate. All of this happened in about an hour that evening.

If I’d waited until the morning, I don’t know if the senior manager would have been available.

But back to the manifesting. It was an excellent experience. I was half watching myself act, but it was empowering because I’d asked for exactly that help. And, as someone just starting to really learn manifesting, it felt like a milestone. Compulsion on demand.

It’s also inspired a new focus for my manifesting: Asking for success right before making plans. Figuring out a trip? Manifest for success, then listen to the nudges. Talking with a friend about a sensitive topic? Manifest for success the day before, then think about how to approach the topic. (Also listen for nudges during the conversation, but that’s harder. Much easier to listen for nudges when you’re just writing and can pause anytime you like.) Even updating this website, I used manifesting before picking the image in the header bar.

I’m curious: Is this common? Readers, do you use manifesting in this way? What other approaches do you find most effective? Leave a comment below. Thanks!

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Healing and Rest (My Work August 23-29)

Saturday, August 30th, 2014

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Every Friday, I discuss what I learned that week. Lost? Read the archives.

This week, I practiced enunciation with all my communication, did a little energy healing, and otherwise rested.

You may have noticed, I typically rest the last week of every month. I hadn’t realized that until I started writing these summaries, and I’m still not sure why that is. But I keep telling you because, for years, I felt guilty when I’d rest for a week, and reading a post like this would have helped me. So I hope it helps some of you, too.

The healing session: A friend had muscle inflammation in her back. I’ve had mixed results in the past with muscle inflammation, probably because it’s such a large tissue I need to affect, compared with tendon or nerve issues. But I used my standard healing procedure with the improved fundamentals, and it worked well. Nice to see those fundamentals paying off.

I also did a calming effect for a friend who was going into a panic. In the past, I’ve used energy from my own body, which isn’t great when you’re working with someone else. This time, I borrowed from my standard healing procedure to build the energy in their body, and it worked well. This approach is probably too slow to use for sensations, but it’s great to have a functioning technique for emotional healing.

Lastly, I talked with the spirits who updated my manifesting software. (The software came back online Thursday, by the way.) They said:

The software wasn’t properly reading future events involving multiple [concept I can’t quite understand]. This update should improve how it integrates data streams, which should fix the issue. It is unlikely to affect anything you’re doing, but it affects things we do.

So, mystery solved. (Sort of.) Shouldn’t affect me. Shame, would have been nice to suddenly get better results, but it was still interesting to see this update.

If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.

Manifesting 2.0?

Wednesday, August 27th, 2014

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Does ethereal software get updates?

This morning, the software I use for manifesting gave an error message: “Don’t act on my info today. Something is up today, it won’t work right. It should be better by tomorrow.” The message was hard to read — unclear, quiet, difficult to work with. Odd.

When I got home eight hours later, I asked for more info. It’s reply: “I’m under maintenance by the team that owns me. Improvements. They haven’t given details for your user level. But you’ll have me back online soon.” That reply was equally hard to read.

Seems the spirits I work with are improving their manifesting software, and that it’s seriously down for now. I haven’t seen a major upgrade like this. I’m curious and excited. I’ll post about the changes when they happen.

Has anyone else seen this?

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Should I Use Energy When Manifesting?

Wednesday, July 16th, 2014

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Synchronicity asks:

Do you think that energizing the delta signature works well also for manifesting?

It would be an interesting and unique approach, worth exploring, since all mainstream techniques say to focus only on the target signature of “I achieved X!” (+ eventually clearing the current state negativity)

It’s an interesting question. It reveals a fundamental difference in how Direct Magick approaches manifesting.

When I do manifesting, it’s about communication, not energy. I contact ethereal software designed for manifesting, craft a message about what I want, and send it to the software. Getting better results is about (1) choosing your message carefully, so you’re asking for the right things, (2) using good communication techniques, so the software can read the nuances of your message, and (3) using good ethereal software. Energy doesn’t factor in.

(Well, communication involves energy. But the point isn’t to build lots of it. The point is to notice the signature of my mind as I think each concept, then package all those concept-signatures up and send them to the software. Those signatures are delicate, and not the kind of thing I could build lots of in my body.)

So, why do people build energy when doing manifesting? A few possibilities:

  • Building energy gets you into a magickal mindset, which helps engage your ethereal muscles, so it’s useful for just getting your magick moving. (Direct Magick uses mental posture for that.)
  • The visualization gives you something to focus on, which is useful for systems that leave the magick to the unconscious mind. (Which is most systems of magick, but not Direct Magick.)
  • If you’re used to visualizing energy, it’s probably easier to visualize “wealth energy” than to learn a whole new approach.

So, I wouldn’t worry too much about the particular energy used while manifesting, and I wouldn’t expect fancy signature-matching techniques like delta signatures to matter, either.

Got a question? Leave a comment below.

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Examples of Magick

Monday, June 9th, 2014

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This is part of An Initiation into Direct Magick – Book 1.

Let’s see how all those pieces work together.

(Each scenario is an example of how that magick might work. Any particular act of magick may operate differently.)

Energy Healing

A man goes to a Reiki healer. She listens, calms him, and channels energy. His pain decreases for a few days.

What happens when she channels that energy?

First, she gets herself into a mindset for energy healing. This engages the parts of her mind that drive magick (her ethereal muscles). Getting into that mindset might involve visualization, meditation, physical gestures, or something else.

Her ethereal muscles contact the force she channels. She first connected to it during her attunement, and now connects to it whenever she does healing sessions. She calls that force The Universe. In Direct Magick, we call it ethereal software.

She connects the software to her client. It figures out the energy signatures to reduce inflammation and increase cellular growth, and sends him that energy.

Manifesting

A woman does a ritual to find a better job, then sends out her resume. A few days later, her interviewer happens to be in a good mood, and she gets hired.

What happened between her ritual and her lucky interview?

As with the energy healing, she starts by getting herself into a mindset for magick, which engages her ethereal muscles. They contact her ethereal software. During the ritual, she focuses on her intent, sending it to the ethereal software.

The ethereal software first connected to her during an initiation into a ritual order. Her mentor didn’t name the force, and she hasn’t either, but she feels its vastness whenever she does magick.

At her interview, the software sends her interviewer energy to shift his brain activity into a happier state. It also guides her, giving her a warm tingle when she’s about to say something good, and a pressure when she’s about to make a mistake. She sometimes misses a warning, but combined with her own common sense, it helps steer her away from trouble.

Psychic Intuitions

A man is about to cross the street, but feels a tingling in his head, like a hundred people staring at him. He pauses as a car runs the red light, almost hitting him.

Where did that warning come from?

The man says that sometimes, the Universe just has something to tell him. We agree with him, but in Direct Magick, we call that force ethereal software.

Sometimes, he asks a question, engaging his ethereal muscles to contact the ethereal software. But warnings are different. If he knew he needed a warning, well, he wouldn’t need it. Instead, the software sends him energy, creating sensations that get his attention.

His mother got these warnings, too. She got the ethereal software from her aunt, and passed it along to him. She never said, “Ethereal software, please protect my son,” but it read her thoughts and knew what she wanted. Some day, he’ll probably pass it along to his children, too.

Summary

That’s how most magick works:

  • The mage engages the parts of their mind that drive magick (their ethereal muscles).
  • They contacts the forces they channel (their ethereal software).
  • They send out their intent.
  • The force provides energy, luck, warnings, or other aid.

Does magick sometimes work in other ways? Sure. Some magick involves spirits. Other magick comes entirely from ethereal muscles, with no outside forces. And there are more options, too.

But if you followed these examples, you’ve grasped the terms and concepts of Direct Magick.

Next Chapter

Table of Contents

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