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THE MEANING OF MAGIC 26
Israel Regardie: The Art Meaning of Magic
night, determined to induce a relaxation that was as nearly perfect as they could obtain, and
attempted to enter the land of slumber while muttering sleepily the magical formula over and over
again. Others listened to music in dimly lighted rooms until they experienced some sense of
exaltation and then mumbled the healing phrase until they felt that surely some favourable result
must occur.
Assuredly some lucky people got results. They were, however, few and far between. Some of these
did overcome certain physical handicaps of illness, nervousness, so-called defects in speech and
other mannerisms, and thus were able to better themselves and their positions in the world of reality.
Others were less fortunate--and these were by far the greater number, the great majority.
What was the difficulty that prevented these people, this large majority, from applying the magical
formula until success was theirs? Why were they not able to penetrate that veil stretched between the
various levels of their minds.
Before we answer these questions--and I believe that Magic does really answer them--let us
analyze the situation a little more closely.
The unconscious in these systems of so called practical psychology, metaphysics, and
auto-suggestion, is considered a slumbering giant. These systems hold that it is a veritable
storehouse of power and energy. It controls every function of the body every moment of every day,
nor does it sleep or tire. The heart beats seventytwo times per minute, and every three or four
seconds our lungs will breathe in oxygen and exhale carbonic acid and other waste products. The
intricate and complex process of digestion and assimilation of food which becomes part and parcel of
our very being, the circulation of blood, the growth, development and multiplication of cells, the
organic resistance to infection--all these processes are conceived of as immediately under the
control of this portion of our minds of which we are not normally aware--the Unconscious.
This is only one theoretical approach to the Unconscious. There are other definitions of its nature and
function which altogether preclude the practical possibility of resorting to suggestion or
auto-suggestion for coping with our ills. For example, there is the definition provided by Jung with
which in many ways I am in sympathy, and it might be worlh our while to quote it at some length.
He wrote in Modern Man in Search of a Soul that "man's unconscious likewise contains all the
patterns of life and behaviour inherited from his ancestors, so that every human child, prior to
consciousness, is possessed of a potential system of adapting psychic functioning . . . While
consciousness is intensive and concentrated, it is transient and is directed upon the immediate present
and the immediate field of attention; moreover, it has access only to material that represents one
indivdual's experience stretching over a few decades.... But matters stand very differently with the
unconscious. It is not concentrated and intensive, but shades off into obscurity, it is highly extensive
and can juxtapose the most heterogeneous elements in the most paradoxical way. More than this, it
contains, besides an indeterminable number of subliminal percepions, an immense fund of
accumulated inheritance-factors left by one generation of men after another, whose mere existence
marks a step in the differentiation of the species. If it were permissible to personify the unconscious,
we might call it a collective human being combining the characteristics of both sexes, transcending
youth and age, birth and death, and, from having at his command a human experience of one or two
million years, almost immortal. If such a being existed, he would be exalted above all temporal
change; the present would mean neither more nor less to him than any year in the one hundredth
century before Christ; he would be a dreamer of age-old dreams and, owing to his immeasurable
experience, he would be an incomparable prognosticator. He would have lived countless times over
THE MEANING OF MAGIC 27
Israel Regardie: The Art Meaning of Magic
the life of the individual, of the family, tribe and people, and he would possess the living sense of the
rhythm of growth, flowering and decay."
Granted this kind of definition, the whole idea of suggesting ideas to this "dreamer of age-old
dreams" sounds utterly presumptuous. Only a simpleton, living a superficial intellectual and spiritual
life, would have the audacity to dare give this "being" suggestions relative to business, marriage, or
health. Such a concept then immediately rules out the use of suggestion, demanding more
sophisticated approaches.
For the time being, and only for the purpose of this disscussion, let us grant validity to the first
concept of the unconscious as being a titan who will respond to suggestions if the latter can be gotten
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