"Where intention goes, energy flows"

Denise Linn, The Power of Thought

You may have seen references in the popular press lately to ideas that are being explored at the moment about the law of attraction, cosmic ordering and a revival of people's interest in working with magic. All of these ideas have one thing in common; your thoughts are very powerful.

Ever heard the old line "be careful what you wish for?" A wish may seem like an innocuous thought, but put some energy behind it and you could just experience a manifestation of that wish. How you are feeling at any one time reflects how you are thinking, and if you don't like the way you are feeling, chances are if you change your thoughts, your feelings will soon follow. Quantum science is also looking at these concepts, and are showing some very interesting results.

Energy

If you look at a molecular level, every living thing in nature contains energy, and it is also thought by some that non-living things (like crystals) also contain energy that can be harnessed and used for your own purposes. Practitioners of magic have, over the centuries, worked to harness and use these energies to their own advantage.

One definition of "magic" is that it is the changing of events or situations by the application of will, or thoughts. The Sufis have a word "Baraka", which roughly translated means "blessing" or "breath" or "essence of life".

According to this tradition, this essence of life or Baraka can become infused into things that you give your attention to, for example, if I make an object, or use an object on a regular basis it becomes infused with my Baraka or life essence. This may sound like a startling idea, but actually it is more prevalent that you might perhaps think. I have objects that belong to my Mother or my Grandmother that I really treasure, as it helps me to think that something of them is around me even though they are no longer with me. You could say that these objects have become infused with their Baraka, and now that I am wearing them and loving them as well, they are also becoming infused with my Baraka, thus giving them twice the amount of infused energy.

Intent

By working with my own baraka, the energy of the crystals, and by thinking about the needs of the person I am making the object for, it is possible to make a piece of jewellery or a soap that is literally "made with intent" so that it has a secondary purpose as well as its decorative beauty.

For instance, I once made my sister a bracelet to give her added protection when she was in situations she felt vulnerable in. That bracelet won't have physically acted as a suit of armour, however, the fact that it was infused with my love, and the intent of keeping her safe, it gave her an added psychological feeling of not being on her own and being protected.

Sometimes in life you need all the help you can get, and whatever works for you is what is important.

Your Unconscious Mind

Did you know that you have at least two minds? You have your Conscious Mind, that governs your thoughts, speech, analytical thought processes and your ability to use logic, and you also have your unconscious mind.

Your unconscious mind is very powerful. It manages your body for you (it literally breathes you, and controls your muscles - imagine have to consciously remember to breath every few seconds! It would take all your effort just to keep from keeling over, let alone think and do more complex things) It runs the show when your conscious mind is asleep or otherwise engaged, it is what is in control when you are dreaming, and all thoughts, learning and behaviour are processes controlled by the unconscious mind.

The only complication is that your unconscious mind does not understand logic and language in the same way as your conscious mind; instead it tends to understand pictures and symbols. The use of things like colours and pictures can be an effective way of communicating with your unconscious mind, so wearing a necklace with the embedded intent of giving you protection will be a good signal to your unconscious mind that you are protected. This will in turn enable you to act as if you are protected, and "acting as if" is very important, as what you project out is what other people's unconscious minds read, understand and process accordingly when they interact with you.

It is as if their unconscious mind interacts with yours, without either of you being aware of it happening. This is how we read body language, and make decisions about whether we like someone or not. Those gut feelings you may get about a person come from your unconscious mind, which is busy processing, filtering and deleting 2 million bits of information per second.

These concepts are all quite complex on a first approach, but if you would like to find out more, please email me and I can suggest some further reading for you.