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 [i.e. Near-Death Experiencers], 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."
In the eighteenth century and since, Newton came to be thought of as the first and greatest of the modern age of scientists, a rationalist, one who taught us to think on the lines of cold and untinctured reason.
I do not see him in this light. I do not think that any one who has pored over the contents of that box which he packed up when he finally left Cambridge in 1696 and which, though partly dispersed, have come down to us, can see him like that. Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians [...].
Why do I call him a magician? Because he looked on the whole universe and all that is in it as a riddle, as a secret which could be read by applying pure thought to certain evidence, certain mystic clues which God had laid about the world to allow a sort of philosopher's treasure hunt to the esoteric brotherhood. He believed that these clues were to be found partly in the evidence of the heavens and in the constitution of elements (and that is what gives the false suggestion of his being an experimental natural philosopher), but also partly in certain papers and traditions handed down by the brethren in an unbroken chain back to the original cryptic revelation in Babylonia. He regarded the universe as a cryptogram set by the Almighty — just as he himself wrapt the discovery of the calculus in a cryptogram when he communicated with Leibniz. By pure thought, by concentration of mind, the riddle, he believed, would be revealed to the initiate.
He did read the riddle of the heavens. And he believed that by the same powers of his introspective imagination he would read the riddle of the Godhead, the riddle of past and future events divinely fore-ordained, the riddle of the elements and their constitution from an original undifferentiated first matter, the riddle of health and of immortality. All would be revealed to him if only he could persevere to the end, uninterrupted, by himself, no one coming into the room, reading, copying, testing-all by himself, no interruption for God's sake, no disclosure, no discordant breakings in or criticism, with fear and shrinking as he assailed these half-ordained, half-forbidden things, creeping back into the bosom of the Godhead as into his mother's womb. 'Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone', not as Charles Lamb 'a fellow who believed nothing unless it was as clear as the three sides of a triangle'.
And so he continued for some twenty-five years. In 1687, when he was forty-five years old, the Principia was published.
None of this is really "real", is it?
No. You are living an illusion. This is a big magic show. And you are pretending that you don't know the tricks — even though you are the magician.
It is important to remember this, otherwise you will make everything very real.
But what I see, feel, smell, touch, does seem very real. If that isn't "reality," what is?
Keep in mind that what you are looking at, you are not really "seeing."
Your brain is not the source of your intelligence. It is simply a data processor. It takes in data through receptors called your senses. It interprets this energy in formation according to its previous data on the subject. It tells you what it perceives, not what really is. Based on these perceptions, you think you know the truth about something, when, actually, you do not know half of it. In reality, you are creating the truth that you know.
Including this entire dialogue with You.
Most assuredly.
I'm afraid that will only give fuel to those who are saying, "He's not talking to God. He's making it all up."
Tell them gently that they might try thinking "outside the box." They are thinking "either/or." They might try thinking "both/and."
You cannot comprehend God if you are thinking inside your current values, concepts, and understandings. If you wish to comprehend God, you must be willing to accept that you currently have limited data, rather than asserting that you know all there is to know on the subject.
I draw your attention to the words of Werner Erhard, who declared that true clarity can come only when someone is willing to notice:
There is something I do not know, the knowing of which could change everything.
It is just possible that you are both "talking to God" and "making it all up."
Indeed, here is the grandest truth: You are making everything up.
Life is The Process by which everything is being created. [...]
God is a process.
God is not a person, place or thing. God is exactly what you have always thought — but not understood.
Again?
You have always thought that God is the Supreme Being.
Yes.
And you have been right about that. I am exactly that. A BEING. Notice that "being" is not a thing, it is a process.
I am the Supreme Being. That is, the Supreme, comma, being.
I am not the result of a process; I am The Process Itself. I am the Creator, and I am The Process by which I am created.
Everything you see in the heavens and the earth is Me, being created.