What If?

In a recent interview, I found myself talking about the idea that if we give a thing our attention then it becomes real. In so many words, I was saying that we create our own reality through mental focus. You can, in fact, more or less prove this to yourself any time that you wish. Simply, think of something – something as bizarre as you wish – and give it your focus. For example, decide that today you will see a mouse dance. Keep on giving this thought your focus and attention throughout the day – keep looking for that dancing mouse. I guarantee that you will at some point during the day see a dancing mouse even if it is just a Disney cartoon on TV.

If you experiment like this for a while, you come to the conclusion that one of two things is going on;

1. You are actually creating reality using thought, or

2. By focusing your attention on something you are noticing it – it was always there, but you never registered it until the point that you gave it your focus.

Now, ask yourself this – is there actually any difference in the two statements above? We simply cannot know whether we created that reality of whether we simply started to notice something that was there anyway and, for us, it is essentially the same thing anyway.

In magical training, we are taught and we practice mental discipline and how to use our imaginative capacities. By learning to meditate for endless minutes with an empty mind or imagining that there is actually a matchbox on the table in front of you, we are actually training our mind to give attention to whatever we want to give our attention to. We may even use some tools to aid our imagination and mental focus in the form of ritual objects – we may even use a ritual to turn our attention onto something. There are many techniques but all are really down to one thing – focus or attention.

On my wall above my desk are two pen drawings. They are geometric shapes whose meaning is long lost to me. They are sigils. Whenever I look up I see the sigils and my subconscious mind focuses on whatever it was that the sigil means. Sigil magic is also about focus or attention but of the subconscious mind.

So, what if I could give something my proper focus and attention? After all, am I not simply a stream of consciousness and is it not the job of consciousness to focus attention? Faith can move mountains it is said. Faith is nothing but giving something attention and knowing that in doing so, whatever I wish will transpire.

So what if today, we gave some attention to our world. What if we all decided to focus our attention on the wonderful, the amazing, the miracle of life on Earth. What if we all sought out the good news and gave that our focus and attention?

Shall we try?