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| Are
dreams a gateway to magic? They are certainly a
way to include magical experiences in our lives.
Almost everyone has flown while dreaming. Visits
with loved ones and friends who have died are
common in dreams and often provide emotional
satisfaction. Some dreamers have had accurate
visions of the future and many people dream of
meeting angels, God, the Virgin Mary, or the
Devil in their dreams. If these visitations are
consistent with their religious beliefs, they may
even accept their dream as an epiphany. But
waking or sleeping, are magical acts such as
telepathy and astral projection possible or
impossible? |
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| The question of whether there
is such a thing as magic cannot be answered
simply. Those who embrace a scientific world view
usually think that those who believe in magical
phenomena are either ignorant or deluded. Some
scientific investigations have
documented incidents of magical phenomena such as
ESP, precognition, distant viewing, and
telekinesis, but because these phenomena cannot
be scientifically explained and tend to fail the
crucial tests of predictability and
repeatability, they are usually discounted as
aberrations, anomalies, and errors of
experimental design or observation. |
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| For people with a religious
world view that already includes such magical
concepts as miracles, life after death, angels
from Heaven, and demons from Hell, the issue is
not whether magic is possible or impossible, but
whether it's forbidden or acceptable. Zen
Buddhists, who believe that all creation is One
Mind, consider human beings capable of certain
magical feats, but disdain them as "animal
tricks," not even worth the time they take
to learn how to do them. Many contemporary,
serious, and intelligent thinkers do
believe in magic, including Deepak Chopra, Wayne
Dyer, Marshal McLuhan, Arthur Koestler and, of
course, Carlos Castaneda. |
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| If there is magic, it is rare
almost to the point of irrelevance.
Over-population, poverty and pollution plague our
planet. Isolation, addiction, and ambivalence
infect our psyches. The first order of business
in our dreaming and waking lives must be growth
and healing. There's plenty of magic in
transforming oneself, breaking the bonds of
habit, and overpowering our personal demons. But,
happily, even as becoming more aware in our
dreams and remembering our dreams helps us toward
self-understanding, it also makes our lives more
magical. A lucid dream (a dream in which we are
aware that we are dreaming) can be both
enlightening and a vivid, unforgettable
virtual reality trip to Oz. |
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| Whether or not we believe in
magic, many of us crave the excitement,
adventure, wonder and awe of magical realms and
magical powers. For skeptics and true believers
alike, in the land of dreams all things are
possible. |
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| More about: [ Lucid Dreams ] [Carlos Castaneda ] [ Dream Links ] |
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