Czech magician, Franz (Frantisek) Bardon, had an approach that was holistic in terms of living a magical life. Unfortunately, I’m a mere mortal and often get sucked back into the humdrum everyday of the matrix and I forget to live the magical life that I would like to. But, going forward, I am renewing my efforts to adopt some of these ideas that come from Bardon…
Bardon saw life as an opportunity to make magic. Even what you might consider mundane activities could be used to make magic (change yourself, or the world around you, or both). For example, eating. We all eat – we must eat to survive but how about making this a magical activity? He called it conscious eating. The idea is to visualize the food as containing or indeed being the very qualities that you desired and as you ate, imagining and visualizing these qualities being consumed and therefore becoming a part of you. He did the same think with drinking… take a cup of tea but drink it consciously imagining or visualizing that it contains the qualities you desire.
You can also start to see daily routine actions as opportunities to make magic too. A bath or a shower can be seen as washing away unwanted aspects of yourself. Even going to the toilet can be used in a similar way – a magical dump I suppose! Indeed, every part of mundane life can be used as an opportunity for transformation if you really think about it. Life is a magical experience and an opportunity – perhaps your only opportunity – to change, adapt and evolve into the conscious person you want to be.
Now, the key part of all this magical living is visualization or imagination. This is how magic is done. Think of it as what scientists often call it – the placebo effect. The placebo effect is real, powerful and used in everyday life. So those who scoff at living a magical life and laugh at the idea that magic exists at all are essentially hypocrites, as they use the placebo effect all of the time whether they realise it or not. The engine of magic is imagination and this then can become part of our magical life – imaginative practice. Bardon suggests many exercises to sharpen our imaginative faculties as well as strengthen memory and observational skills as well. I often feel fortunate that, having been trained as a geologist, one of the most prized faculties of geology is observation followed by an ability to imagine in multi-dimensions…..
Bardon also used the breathe in a similar way. He suggested pore breathing in which one imagines breathing not just through the nose and mouth, but every pore in the body. Breathe in qualities desired and breathe out qualities undesired.
The other aspect of living a magical life is to see beyond the substance. Modern humans tend to see almost all things as inanimate objects, yet our ancestors saw all things as animate. By adopting a view that all things are animate in one or another – by endowing them with qualities – they take on a life and become powerful symbols and tools in the consciousness. What do I mean by this? Try seeing clouds as animate cloud-beings or sylphs. See water, fire and earth as animated by elementals with properties, qualities and faculties. Imagine the world is alive with consciousness and meaning.
At times, I get fleeting glimpses of such a world – when dowsing or meditating even if that is as a silent walk in nature. Suddenly, all is animate, part of the All and an extension of whatever it is that I am. In those moments, I am truly alive and I resonate connecting with the All around me. I become an adept magician in those instants. What is I can make those instants last a little longer by living a magical life until life does indeed become magic?
One sure sign that your life is becoming more magical is synchronicity. when you start to see synchronicities and coincidences in your life, you know that magic is at work. The more these occur, the more you know you are on the right path.
So, one of my objectives is now to try to live a more magical life. Giving thanks for the magic of life and gratitude for my existence no matter how fleeting. I suspect that in pursuing a magical life, many of the events in the world that cause me consternation will seemingly dissolve away into the distractions and irrelevances that they truly are.
First published on my substack – please subscribe there.