And it must be made clear that even individuals — if their thought (prayer, hope, wish, dream, fear) is amazingly strong — can, in and of themselves, produce [miracles]. Jesus did this regularly. He understood how to manipulate energy and matter, how to rearrange it, how to redistribute it, how to utterly control it. Many Masters have known this. Many know it now.
It's perfectly obvious that time has a direction. All we mean by that is that the past is different from the future in lots of different ways. We were younger in the past, we will be older in the future. We remember the past, we don't remember the future.
The surprise is that the difference between past and future is nowhere to be found in the deep down laws of physics. Time is actually a lot like space. If you were out in a space suit flying around, there would be no difference between up, down, left, right. Likewise, there is no intrinsic difference between the past and the future in the laws of physics.
Now that's not completely a mystery to us. We know that what actually happens in the real world is that you're not just made of one or two particles bumping into each other. You're a very, very complicated collection of many, many particles, and they're becoming more disorderly with time. This is to say that entropy [disorder] increases.
The interesting thing is that every difference between the past and the future can ultimately be traced to the fact that the entropy was lower in the past and is growing. That's the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The universe was orderly, it's becoming more disorderly.
And that's not a surprise. There are more ways to be disorderly than to be orderly. The surprise is that the universe was ever low entropy to begin with. If we go all the way back to the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago, the universe began in a highly-ordered state. So, modern cosmologists are trying to understand right now why the early universe was in such a precise state, why it was so low entropy.
Once we understand that, it will make perfect sense to us why the arrow of time stretches as it does from the past, to today, all the way toward the future.
The universe has used every contrivance to place this Truth before you. In song and story, in poetry and dance, in words and in motion — in pictures of motion, which you call motion pictures, and in collections of words, which you call books.
"Magic" — Yennefer, her eyes fixed on the sky above the hills, rested her hands on the pommel of her saddle — "is, in some people's opinion, the embodiment of Chaos. It is a key capable of opening the forbidden door. The door behind which lurk nightmares, fear, and unimaginable horrors, behind which enemies hide and wait, destructive powers, the forces of pure Evil capable of annihilating not only the one who opens the door but with them the entire world. And since there is no lack of those who try to open the door, someone, at some point, is going to make a mistake and then the destruction of the world will be forejudged and inevitable. Magic is, therefore, the revenge and the weapon of Chaos. The fact that, following the Conjunction of the Spheres, people have learned to use magic, is the curse and undoing of the world. The undoing of mankind. And that's how it is, Ciri. Those who believe that magic is Chaos are not mistaken."
"Magic," Yennefer continued after a while, "is, in some people's opinion, art. Great, elitist art, capable of creating beautiful and extraordinary things. Magic is a talent granted to only a chosen few. Others, deprived of talent, can only look at the results of the artist's works with admiration and envy, can admire the finished work while feeling that without these creations and without this talent the world would be a poorer place. The fact that, following the Conjunction of the Spheres, some chosen few discovered talent and magic within themselves, the fact that they found Art within themselves, is the blessing of beauty. And that's how it is. Those who believe that magic is Art are also right."
Not much more can be said about the civilizations of these subtle realms, save that individuals who are privileged enough to visit them universally report seeing many vast and celestially beautiful cities there. NDEers, yogic adepts, and ayahuasca-using shamans — all describe these mysterious metropolises with remarkable consistency. The twelfth-century Sufis were so familiar with them that they gave several of them names.
The most notable feature of these great cities is that they are brilliantly luminous. They are also frequently described as foreign in architecture, and so sublimely beautiful that, like all the other features of the implicate dimensions, words fail to convey their grandeur. In describing one such city Swedenborg said that it was a place “of staggering architectural design, so beautiful that you would claim this is the home and source of art itself.”
On the long bare hill which protruded from the heath like the back of some lurking predator lay an enormous boulder supported by a few smaller stones. The magician guided her horse in its direction without pausing her lecture.
"There are also those according to whom magic is a science. In order to master it, talent and innate ability alone are not enough. Years of keen study and arduous work are essential; endurance and self-discipline are necessary. Magic acquired like this is knowledge, learning, the limits of which are constantly stretched by enlightened and rigorous minds, by experience, by experiments and practice. Magic acquired in such a way is progress. It is the plough, the loom, the watermill, the smelting furnace, the winch and the pulley. It is progress, evolution, change. It is constant movement. Upwards. Towards improvement. Towards the stars. The fact that following the Conjunction of the Spheres we discovered magic will, one day, allow us to reach the stars. Dismount, Ciri."
Yennefer approached the monolith, placed her palm on the coarse surface of the stone and carefully brushed away the dust and dry leaves.
"Those who consider magic to be a science," she continued, "are also right. Remember that, Ciri. And now come here, to me."
People who visit these [light realm] cities also frequently assert that they have an unusual number of schools and other buildings associated with the pursuit of knowledge. Most of Whitton’s subjects recalled spending at least some time hard at work in vast halls of learning equipped with libraries and seminar rooms while in the between-life state. Many NDEers also report being shown “schools,” “libraries,” and “institutions of higher learning” during their experiences. And one can even find references to great cities devoted to learning and reachable only by journeying into “the hidden depths of the mind” in eleventh century Tibetan texts.
[...]
The second thing the [light beings] emphasize is knowledge. Frequently NDEers comment that the beings seemed pleased whenever an incident involving knowledge or learning flickered by during their life review. Some are openly counselled to embark on a quest for knowledge after they return to their physical bodies, especially knowledge related to self-growth or that enhances one’s ability to help other people. Others are prodded with statements such as “learning is a continuous process and goes on even after death” and “knowledge is one of the few things you will be able to take with you after you have died.”
The preeminence of knowledge in the afterlife dimension is apparent in another way. Some NDEers discovered that in the presence of the light they suddenly had direct access to all knowledge. This access manifested in several ways. Sometimes it came in response to inquiries. One man said that all he had to do is ask a question, such as what would it be like to be an insect, and instantly the experience was his. Another NDEer described it by saying, "You can think of a question… and immediately know the answer to it. As simple as that. And it can be any question whatsoever. It can be on a subject that you don’t know anything about, that you are not in the proper position to even understand and the light will give you the instantaneous correct answer and make you understand it."
Some NDEers report that they didn’t even have to ask questions in order to access this infinite library of information. Following their life review they just suddenly knew everything, all the knowledge there was to know from the beginning of time to the end. Others came into contact with this knowledge after the being of light made some specific gesture, such as waving its hand. Still others said that instead of acquiring the knowledge, they remembered it, but forgot most of what they recalled as soon as they returned to their physical bodies (an amnesia that seems to be universal among NDEers who are privy to such visions). Whatever the case, it appears that once we are in the world beyond, it is no longer necessary to enter an altered state of consciousness in order to have access to the transpersonal and infinitely interconnected information realm experienced by Grof’s patients.
The more you remember, the more you are able to experience, the more you know, so to speak. And the more you know, the more you remember. It is a circle. [...]
Yet you are always limited by your knowingness — for you — we — are a self-created being.
You cannot be what you do not know your Self to be.
That is why you have been given this life — so that you might know yourself in your own experience. Then you can conceive of yourself as Who You Really Are, and create yourself as that in your experience — and the circle is again complete… only bigger.
And so, you are in the process of growing — or, as I have put it throughout this book, of becoming.
There is no limit to what you can become.
You mean, I can even become — dare I say it? — a God… just like You?
What do you think?
I don’t know.
Until you do, you cannot. [...]
Can you conceive of yourself as one day being a God?
In my wildest moments.
Good, for I tell you this: You are already a God. You simply do not know it.
Have I not said, “Ye are Gods”?
The girl swallowed and came closer. The enchantress put her arm around her.
"Remember," she repeated, "magic is Chaos, Art and Science. It is a curse, a blessing and progress. It all depends on who uses magic, how they use it, and to what purpose. And magic is everywhere. All around us. Easily accessible. It is enough to stretch out one's hand. See? I'm stretching out my hand."
The cromlech trembled perceptibly. Ciri heard a dull, distant noise and a rumble coming from within the earth. The heather undulated, flattened by the gale which suddenly gusted across the hill. The sky abruptly turned dark, covered with clouds scudding across it at incredible speed. The girl felt drops of rain on her face. She narrowed her eyes against the flash of lightning which suddenly flared across the horizon. She automatically huddled up to the enchantress, against her black hair smelling of lilac and gooseberries.
"The earth which we tread. The fire which does not go out within it. The water from which all life is born and without which life is not possible. The air we breathe. It is enough to stretch out one's hand to master them, to subjugate them. Magic is everywhere. It is in air, in water, in earth and in fire. And it is behind the door which the Conjunction of the Spheres has closed on us. From there, from behind the closed door, magic sometimes extends its hand to us. For us. You know that, don't you? You have already felt the touch of that magic, the touch of the hand from behind that door. That touch filled you with fear. Such a touch fills everyone with fear. Because there is Chaos and Order, Good and Evil in all of us. But it is possible and necessary to control it. This has to be learnt. And you will learn it, Ciri."
It's easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But every time we create something new, we go from 0 to 1. The act of creation is singular, as is the moment of creation, and the result is something fresh and strange. This book is about how to get there.
Why has so much of our society come to believe that there are no hard secrets left? It might start with geography. There are no blank spaces left on the map anymore. If you grew up in the 18th century, there were still new places to go. After hearing tales of foreign adventure, you could become an explorer yourself. This was probably true up through the 19th and early 20th centuries; after that point photography from National Geographic showed every Westerner what even the most exotic, underexplored places on earth look like. Today, explorers are found mostly in history books and children’s tales. Parents don’t expect their kids to become explorers any more than they expect them to become pirates or sultans. Perhaps there are a few dozen uncontacted tribes somewhere deep in the Amazon, and we know there remains one last earthly frontier in the depths of the oceans. But the unknown seems less accessible than ever.
Along with the natural fact that physical frontiers have receded, four social trends have conspired to root out belief in secrets. First is incrementalism. From an early age, we are taught that the right way to do things is to proceed one very small step at a time, day by day, grade by grade. If you overachieve and end up learning something that’s not on the test, you won’t receive credit for it. But in exchange for doing exactly what’s asked of you (and for doing it just a bit better than your peers), you’ll get an A. This process extends all the way up through the tenure track, which is why academics usually chase large numbers of trivial publications instead of new frontiers.
Second is risk aversion. People are scared of secrets because they are scared of being wrong. By definition, a secret hasn’t been vetted by the mainstream. If your goal is to never make a mistake in your life, you shouldn’t look for secrets. The prospect of being lonely but right — dedicating your life to something that no one else believes in — is already hard. The prospect of being lonely and wrong can be unbearable.
Third is complacency. Social elites have the most freedom and ability to explore new thinking, but they seem to believe in secrets the least. Why search for a new secret if you can comfortably collect rents on everything that has already been done? Every fall, the deans at top law schools and business schools welcome the incoming class with the same implicit message: “You got into this elite institution. Your worries are over. You’re set for life.” But that’s probably the kind of thing that’s true only if you don’t believe it.
Fourth is “flatness.” As globalization advances, people perceive the world as one homogeneous, highly competitive marketplace: the world is “flat.” Given that assumption, anyone who might have had the ambition to look for a secret will first ask himself: if it were possible to discover something new, wouldn’t someone from the faceless global talent pool of smarter and more creative people have found it already? This voice of doubt can dissuade people from even starting to look for secrets in a world that seems too big a place for any individual to contribute something unique.
When I was a kid I read all these stories that I thought were known to be the same story, but different versions of it. And I called it The Portal story, and it was always the same. Somebody is trapped in a humdrum existence, in an ordinary world, until some kind of magical portal either accidentally or on-purpose enters their life. And either they go through a wardrobe, they go through a rabbit hole, a looking glass, platform nine-and-three-quarters.
And I came to believe that this story is actually an unkept promise for most people; that in their adult lives they don’t find these portals. If you look at a wall, how do you know that the wall doesn’t have a door? How do you know there isn’t a panic room behind the bookcase if you just pull out the right book?
We learn to stop looking for The Portal, and I think that what I do differently is that I became obsessed with exits. That there are other worlds, and that they’re real. That this mythology of the looking glass and the rabbit hole and the Matrix is a metaphor for a very real thing.
The exception, as ever, was the children. Freed from the constraints of silence which had been enforced during the bard’s performance, the children dashed into the woods with wild cries, and enthusiastically immersed themselves in a game whose rules were incomprehensible to all those who had bidden farewell to the happy years of childhood.
The year was 2015 — a good eight months after 99dresses went down. I was out for my daily jog around town, finishing up on Princess Street — the cute little road where I grew up. When I was in primary school, my brothers and I used to step off the afternoon bus, place our backpacks over our heads, cover our eyes, and run as fast as we could back home.