Part 6: Astonishment, magic, meditation and controversy

To deliver magic which leads the participant down the path to the final goal of astonishment – the magician / performer /entertainer must truly believe in what he or she does and not trivialise it with crap patter, unfunny jokes or a plethora of card flourishes. The performer must be 100% confident and congruent with the magic itself. Have you ever been standing a bus stop, totally immersed in one particular thought, one central point of focus? New people arrive but you do not see them. Sounds persist but you do not hear them.  Your mind has been so focussed on one thought that your sense channels shut down. At that moment they cease to function, and the mind has gone upwards beyond them . The mind has merged with the conscious state. You are left with a stillness of the mind (Except with that one thought you have been fixated on) – something likened to meditation. Fully conscious, fully aware but with magic where the prestige hits……there is not even that thought. You are left with that primal state of uncluttered purity of the mind. All competing thoughts, stress, worries, trials and tribulations dissolve into nothingness and the mind is still. Only when the external stimuli reawaken this moment of pure happiness do we come back to the ‘real world’ with a jolt and the conflicting views of the world come flooding back in as we seek to make meaning of what we have just seen. Skilled meditators can live in this pure, undeniably state indefinitely. With magic, it is a short sharp shot. I propose something controversial. When you take a participant on a journey to the plateau of astonishment, when they reach that point of pure undeniable bewilderment, they will find a happiness, and peace so pure, so rich and un-adulterated, nothing else in the world matters. Every person from every race, creed, religion and background leads their daily life wanting something. This may or not be something tangible but if you ask somebody what they want and really drill down to the very core of what they want – you will find peace. “I want to be rich and wealthy” And after that…. I want financial independence. And after that…. A beautiful wide and healthy children And after that…. Good friends, great family, feel safe and secure in my environment And after you have that….. Well…. I want to feel happy and content And after that? (If you drill, and I mean really drill) Peace. No matter where the person starts or what they want, no matter how much they want it will all end in peace. We value peace above all else, but because it is not something that is tangible or bought or sold, it is not something that we think about – only when asked, (or quizzed and questioned for a book about bloody astonishment and magic) do we get to the crux of the matter. So what exactly is this peace? Peace is when there are none of the aforementioned conflicting thoughts, ideas, or agitations. Peace is when the mind is still. To define the peace we also need to identify the movement. When we were very young. Infants; and as mentioned the world was unfurling before our very eyes are intellectual mind was not engaged. We were merely sponges, absorbing the information from the world around us. I hope you enjoyed this blog post as much as I enjoyed writing it – feel free to share it with your friends or tell your friends about it. If not, and you want to keep it for yourself, keep your eyes peeled for the next offering – part 7 I think we’re up to now 😉