Magic at Work

I am a very heady person and have been so for as long as I have been on this material plane. I tend to live in a world of thoughts/ideas as opposed to a world of feelings or physicality. Such is the plight of a Gemini, I guess. It is no surprise then that my chosen life’s work was within academia. During my many years of study within those hallowed halls of learning, I came to acquire a vast knowledge about traditions belonging to “the other.” On account of my intellectual curiosity and love for these traditions, I eventually fostered a sympathetic understanding that lead me to feel as though I was somewhat of an insider (i.e., a practitioner or "doer of"). I mean, heck, I knew more about most of those traditions than the millions who belonged to their ranks. Yet, despite my feeling of belonging to these traditions, my relationship with them was strictly cerebral. I learned and thought about them.

Recently, the line between the “thinker of” and the “doer of” was made very explicit to me at work thanks to my practice of a form of mental magic that I shall call “mental compartmentalization” (a form of mental magic outlined in Franz Bardon’s Initiation into Hermetics, though labeled differently.) This form of mental gymnastics involves the flushing out of one’s mind any thought unrelated to the work at hand. I soon discovered that I could not (perhaps “would not” would be better) follow this practice to the letter if I did not want to be an asshat to the many coworkers who enjoy my company and wish to pass the unbearable time at work with such important topics of discourse as “who is banging who?” and “how drunk did you get last night?”, not to mention the fact that for several hours every night I engage in no work at all being that my share of responsibilities has been completed. Kind of hard to keep your mind on the job when you’re not doing anything work related (I fill this time by reading books. I sure hope my boss does not read this blog!). The practice would have to be modified. I would apply “mental compartmentalization” when I am working (rather than at work) and not engaged in trivial discourse with my work mates.

What I discovered very quickly with this form of mental magic was that my mind was slipping into thoughts about magic. These thoughts would have to be expunged from my mind. But wait… I gasped. How would I make any progress in magic if I stopped thinking about it for the amount of time I am at work? This was simply unacceptable. But then it hit me! I could either think about magic or do magic by removing magic from my mind. I chose to do magic.