Let's explore how consciousness influences, even create reality.

Most people are familiar with the Law of Attraction from The Secret. If The Law of Attraction works, why can't people who watch The Secret win the lottery all the time? Many people think the LOA is all about sitting on your couch and wishing real hard.

Shamanic teacher, John Moore gives a working definition of magic, links it to recent scientific theories, and helps you troubleshoot your manifestation skills.

You might already be performing more magical acts than you think.

Announcer 0:29

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, John Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's John.

John Moore 0:45

Hello, hello, everybody. Nice to talk to you again.

I know. So I, I recorded a podcast not that long ago, but it had been about three weeks since I recorded one. For good reasons I have been, I wrote a chapter of a book that is being published, I had a writing deadline, and fortunately met it. And I'll have more details about that, as the book nears publication, but it's a book about relationships. And I wrote a chapter about sacred relationships and how to deepen your relationship spiritually. So that's coming up. I've also been doing for some, some reason, I'll maybe talk about that a little bit today. I've been doing a lot of radio and podcast guest appearances. I have another one coming up tomorrow, I had several last week, I've got another one on Friday. So you know, it's fun, it's nice. I love to spread the word about the things I love to talk about, namely, spirit and shamanism and all kinds of stuff. So today is Well, I'll tell you this, it is very early, this is earlier than I usually record these, but I woke up earlier this morning. And I decided to do a little reading, perusing, you know, perusing the web as it were, and reading some things and, you know, I like to know, my mind goes in different places very early in the morning and very late at night. And so like, you know, and I am, though I teach shamanism and I talk a lot about spirituality. I'm a very scientifically minded person, I actually have I have a master's degree in a scientific field. You know, and I spent decades working in computer science, I realized anything, usually anything with the word sciences, and it is an art and not a science. And that's a little bit what computer science is, but you know, it, it informs my thinking, you know, the way that I solve problems and the way that I think algorithmically, they beat that stuff into you. So I got up and I started reading today. And there was an article in sort of a, you know, popular scientific website where they put out a lot of stuff about you know, new, new thinking around things, and new, you know, really big movements in science and that sort of thing. So this article came up for me this morning, and I think it's fortuitous because I just have been talking about things like magic and manifestation and law of attraction. And in fact, that's what I'm going to be talking about today. I'll call this podcast, magic manifestation and the law of attraction. And so anyway, this article came up, and I always pay attention to synchronicities when things come up better a theme or a rhyme with something I'm already looking at or doing. And this article says, is human consciousness creating reality? Interesting idea, scientifically. Not so new in the spiritual realm. And so this is an article about an article in how they write popular articles about science articles for for us lay people to understand although I very frequently will go and download, you know, science articles that I read, read popular articles about because sometimes they are misrepresented, but this is basically A paper about a paper that was put out by a bunch of authors, including a man named Robert Lanza, who is an expert in stem cells and regenerative medicine. And he, I don't know if he created or popularized the theory of biocentrism that says that consciousness is the driving force for the existence of the whole universe, particularly well, in his perspective, biological consciousness. Um, you know, this is where I might differ a little bit biological consciousness is I think biology is a receiver of consciousness more than a creator of consciousness, but we can argue there. So anyway,

A little warm liquid anyway. So the deeper you go into anything, the more spiritual becomes this includes absolutely anything in that. And I think that includes physics. I think physics is very mechanical, right. And I can tell you that, you know, Isaac Newton himself thought that the mechanical nature of the universe was proof of God's great design, yes, he was coming from a Christian perspective. But we should note that Isaac Newton, at least 10 to 15% of his journals were about experiments and alchemy. So he was interested in how the universe worked, and saw that, you know, this universe is very orderly, and that a lot of it was proof that of Intelligent Design. You know, fast forward to, you know, quantum physics and that sort of thing. And we get into really spooky things like quantum entanglement where two particles can affect each other, over great physical distances with no known connection between them. Right, we've sent we've essentially teleported information in the lab, through, you know, we've sent information from one place to another through quantum tunneling, without passing any of the space in between. You know, and we're just starting, we're, we are pre infants, we're basically in the fetal stage of, of figuring this stuff out and learning about it from a scientific perspective. But lots of you know, lots of the people who worked on things like the nuclear bomb and, and back in the day, and stuff like that we're sort of started to, you know, think in more spiritual terms, you know, still putting things in, in terms of physics, but stuff just becomes more about consciousness and the way that the Universe works, and the way that consciousness affects the universe, so consciousness affects the universe. We know this, we know that observation can change physical reality. If you are unfamiliar, there's something called the double slit experiment that shows if we, you know, pass light through a pair of slits in a piece of cardboard or something, we can cause that light to behave as waves or particles, depending upon how we observe it. How does light know that we're observing it? You know, how does it know? So consciousness or measurement in scientific terms, affects physical reality in ways that we can experiment with and use and not really explained at this point. Someday, perhaps. So let's talk a little bit about magic. I've given my working definition of magic before, but I will give it again, I always like to define my terms, just so you know what I'm talking about, not because my terms are better than anybody else's. But if I use a word in a way that's different, you know, it might cause some misunderstanding, and a lot of the ways that I think about things and use them or maybe not so common. So, magic. So you know, there have been lots of definitions of magic. I'm not talking about stage magic, though. I love stage magic. I love to watch stage magic, magic, beautiful performances. There's lots of new stuff being done. I grew up on David Copperfield and Doug Henning and Penn and Teller, um, but magic, real magic, the stuff you know, we might think of it as witchcraft, or wizardry or sorcery or all of these things, from a sort of non fictional perspective.

And I'll you know, paraphrase Alistair Crowley a little bit who was an I will say, an infamous magician, by all accounts, not a very nice guy but wrote some very seminal text that are still being used today to study occultism. And that his, you know, his wave of thinking called Thelema still exists, there are still people who practice it. So anyway, he, he said that magic is causing change in accordance with will. And, you know, I think that is a good, I think it's a good start. I think it's too broad. It's too inclusive, maybe because I can, you know, I can ask someone to pass me the salt, and they do. And is that a magical act? Maybe not? We probably wouldn't consider that magic. Maybe you do? Maybe. But I wouldn't, I would consider that a very ordinary act. Unless that unless the, you know, I was asking a god or goddess, for example, to pass the salt. And that worked. So I'm going to, you know, I'm going to change it up a little bit my definition is using non ordinary non physical means to influence reality. Influence, right. So in physics, in quantum physics, are talking about these fields of probability. And I think the things that we do that could be considered magic are working on influencing probabilities. Right? We can we can push probability around, you know, can I, you know, hold up my hand and do some magic and have a gold coin appear in my hand. Um, you know, that is a very improbable Act, is very improbable that that would occur. However, it's not impossible. According to physics, through quantum tunneling, there is a very small, infinitesimally small, but nonzero chance that that might occur. And, you know, maybe there are magicians who are powerful enough to do that I have not witnessed that particular thing, although I have seen some things that defy reality, you know, changed, changed my view on how reality works. But that's, you know, it's, it's much harder to influence things that are probabilistically very impossible. So or not very possible, I should say, not impossible. So, for example, let's talk about a little bit about law of attraction, which people know is a, you know, popular method of, you know, popular description of some Olds thinking that, you know, you can about this very thing that you can affect reality based on your thinking and your feeling. And this is all, you know, there's a truth to that, and I do like the pot, you know, the secret and all of that stuff. But I do think that that led people to sitting around and wishing real hard, and then wondering why the law of attraction wasn't working for them. And I boil it down in a nutshell for you, right here in this podcast. So hang on, I'm going to teach you how to get the law of attraction to work for you, or work better for you anyway. So you know, really, you know, if the law of attraction if manifestation, and magic all work, they're all things they exist. How come I can't sit on my couch and think real hard and win the lottery. Right. So first of all, I don't play the lottery. I don't, I don't buy lottery tickets. So that would make that next to impossible. Very, very improbable. But let's take take something like the Powerball which is if you don't know the Powerball is a huge multi state lottery here in the United States they've had jackpot some of their biggest jackpots are like half a billion dollars can't even imagine. So your odds of winning Powerball are like one in 300 and something million to win the jackpot that is a lot in and it's chosen by you know, having these physical balls that roll you know, that roll out of the machine that are picked very much physically at random.

So beyond the sheer odds of not winning, there is the you know, the the physical randomness, the chaos in the system, and trying to influence that by thought alone is challenging, it's far easier to influence things that are more probable, right? Like you might manifest finding a new job, you know, that sort of thing. So, let me talk about if you've tried law of attraction and manifestation, and it hasn't really worked for you. Um, let me explain a little bit why that might be and how you might have better results and things you want to manifest. And I will say that I don't like, ultimately, I think anything is possible in an infinite and expanding universe. Just probabilistically anything is literally possible. Probable is another story, right? So, you know, this is not to say you have to try to manifest easy things, but I have, I've worked in ways where you start with small things, and you manifest larger and larger and larger things, and I have experimented with that successfully in my life. And someday I will talk about that in, in a, in a podcast episode, not this one. But it's kind of a long story. Um, but you know, let's say I want to manifest a new job, I'm, you know, I'm out there looking for work, and I want to want to find a new job, you're going to increase your chances of something, if you get into congruence. And congruence or alignment means that all of your systems, or at least most of them, are working together. So let's say that I do want to find a new job. And I, you know, I want to manifest a new job. But I don't put my resume out there. And I don't go any job interviews. Well, that's not very congruent behavior, and my heart might be in the right place. But the chances of a job falling in my lap like that are very, very slim, I'm, I'm decreasing the probability that that's going to happen. Excuse me, if I want to manifest that I lose weight. But I eat two whole pizzas every day for lunch. That's going to be very challenging. I'm going to be moving out of congregants and alignment. So you know, the idea that you don't have to do anything physical, and you can manifest your dreams is nice, that will be nice if things work that way. And sometimes they do. But you're decreasing your odds. You want the odds to be in your favor, when you want to manifest something. So if you want to manifest, you know, the love of your life, you may have to get out there and meet people, you lock yourself in a closet, and never go out. Maybe people will send the firemen in to break down your door and one of them will be the love of your life. I don't know. But the chances of that happening, decrease. So you can so you know, magic manifestation Law of Attraction is all about dealing with probabilities, it's all about increasing probabilities until things happen for you. And, you know, there there does seem to be a skillet it to where some people can just step into the flow of the universe because they get they get what they want almost at a thought almost had an intention. Sometimes this takes practice because we have all kinds of stuff going on in our thoughts, we have unconscious thoughts, which is actually the majority of our thoughts, we have fears we have all kinds of things. So if you think about a human being, think about yourself as a as a system of systems, we have a body which is itself a system of systems because it has circulatory, nervous, digestive, reproductive, all of these different systems, endocrine system that work together, we have a mental system which has many, many parts.

We have spiritual systems, which have many, many parts. And if you know if I were driving down the road in my car and I'm trying to drive straight but I turn the wheel to the right So my two tires are facing to the two front tires are facing to the right, I am not going to go straight. So if I think really hard that I want to lose some weight, I want to drop some body fat. You know, that is my mental system. And I might even have some emotion behind that. You know, I might even get into spiritual alignment with that. But if I eat a couple of pizzas every day, I'm probably not going to lose weight, because a good portion of my system, in fact, the system I'm trying to influence, which is my body is out of alignment with that. Okay, if I buy if I pay for a gym membership, but I never go to the gym, I'm not going to get into shape. And I might do all the magic in the world, but it's far easier for me just to show up to the gym. That being said, if I want to lose weight, and we know that most people fail most diets, they'll succeed for a while, and they'll fail, they'll put all the weight on plus, plus more. And, you know, a big part of that is they're not bringing their mind and emotions along for the ride. So they're influencing physical reality. So again, like success in any endeavor, is much easier when you get get into alignment. When you take divine inspired physical action, it helps things in the physical realm. So if you're trying to affect physical reality, the easiest way to do that is by in physical reality in the plane, in the plane of existence where things are. That being said, you know, the spiritual plane, the astral plane, the mental plane, the causal plane, all interact, they all interact with the physical, and they all interact with each other. And so you can apply influences there. This is why we light birthday candles, make a wish and blow them out. Right, this is a wish, it's it's an act of magic, whether you think it is or not. This is why we throw a coin in a wishing well. And that is sort of about making offerings. It's really making offerings to like, you know, if it's, if it's a natural well, especially, it's about making offer offerings to water spirits. You know, but so you know, that you can affect physical reality through thought through emotion through spiritual means. But it's going to be easier if you do some physical work as well if you get into if you get into action. And I realized this runs counter to what a lot of people want to happen. And notice, I said, it gets easier. I didn't say it becomes possible. Because I do think that there have been times in my life where I have been able to create circumstances that I didn't do anything for physically. But I did a lot of spiritual work. So I'm not dissuading you from doing that kind of thing. But if you're finding, you know, you need to treat this stuff as an experiment. And most magicians, if you read the works of like, people doing alchemy and magic and stuff, most solo magicians from Renaissance back. were experimenting with stuff. Let me try this, see if it works. Let me try that, see if it works. So if you're not getting the results you want, you need to change your methods. And I'm trying to give you some pointers here. But the better you can get yourself into alignment and congruence, the more likely, the more probable your outcomes are going to be what you desire.

Hmm. So I didn't, you know, I'm not just saying physical reality. So there are lots of things we can do. There's dream work, right? We can influence dreaming reality. There is, you know, stuff we can do. We can wear, you know, talismans to help us increase our mental ability to pass a test or, you know, do some, you know, do some work or we can have something to increase our luck. And in many spiritual systems, luck is a an energy, it's a force. It's part of our energy anatomy. There's let's talk about luck. I'll do another podcast about luck. That'll be fun. Maybe I'll do that around. St. Patrick's Day. honor my Irish heritage looks a big deal and In my, you know, my Norse ancestors, my, you know, my Viking ancestors. There's, you know, there's an energy anatomy there that lock, there's something called the hummingbird, which is like this energy backpack that carries around your luck. Yeah, I'll do a whole podcast about that at some point. Talk about luck. That'll be fun. So but, you know, I wanted to talk about, you know, magic manifestation law of attraction, law of attraction. There is, you know, there's something to be said, there's a lot to be said for it in the kind of fake it till you make it. Attitude, right. So, act as if the thing you want is already present. Right. So if I want to manifest a new job, I meditate, I pretend I pretend like that job is already present, I imagine what it's like, I feel the emotions that I would feel when i As if I have this now. And the reason why that is and can be an effective tool is that it tends to promote this congruence, it tends to make us act and think and emote together. The problem comes, there is sometimes a problem. There is some research to show that positive, that unwarranted positive thinking, This isn't to say, Oh, I'm having a rough time. But I know I'm going to make it through here that is positive thinking, that's, you know, that works really well. But, um, you know, if I'm being evicted from my home, and about to live on the streets, and I'm thinking to myself, I live in a mansion, I live in a mansion, I live in a mansion. Um, at some point, I'm going to create some significant amount of cognitive dissonance there. And that has been shown in some research to actually lead to severe depression. So, um, you know, and in my mind is a form of spiritual bypassing. And spiritual bypassing is sort of pretending, pretending like we don't have any problems, because we're spiritual people see this all the time, it's maybe maybe the number one problem out there with spirituality. Oh, I am above anger, and I have no bad feelings because I have eliminated them. I am, you know, a level three master of spiritual emotion, etc, etc, etc. This isn't meant to put anybody down or be pejorative, but it it has become a problem, particularly in more New Age circles, where people don't recognize what's actually going on within themselves. And they're living

kind of in a deluded way. And using spirituality as a crutch. In the same way that people use drugs to escape reality. People can use spirituality to escape reality. One of the things I really like about the path that I'm on shamanism is that is very grounded. And, you know, even though I spend a significant amount of time in non ordinary reality, I am expected to walk in both worlds. And, you know, there's, there's an expression and I don't know where it came from, but I heard it on a shamanic podcast once, and I am so I'm sorry that I can't attribute this to anybody. But you know, it was a woman podcaster I can't even remember her name. And I feel bad about that. But if I can figure out where this came from, I heard it years ago, if we can figure out where this came from, I will, I promise, I will add some notes to this podcast or something. crediting people because I do like to give people credit where it's due, but I just think this is brilliant, and it stuck with me. And, you know, talk about a subject and then say, but does it grow corn? Meaning that, particularly among indigenous people in North America, you know, you're relying on your spiritual leaders Well, everywhere, in indigenous people everywhere, you're relying on your spiritual leaders for survival purposes, right? Okay. It's great that you can travel to all of these other realms, but in physical reality, Are you starving to death because you didn't grow corn or you weren't able to? hold down a job or you know, that sort of thing. And this is against this is sort of against the idea of using spirituality as an escape, there's a, there's a fine line between using spirituality as an escape and using it as part of a solution to a problem. So this is where this positive thinking can break things down, break down a little bit. Because if people are just ignoring reality, and not taking care of the things that they're supposed to take care of, not doing self care not doing, taking care of all of the various realms, we live in mind, body, and spirit. Um, you know that that's a problem, you are not just a spiritual being, your body is, is important, as long as you have one as well. I like to place importance on every part of you, your body is important, it is the vehicle that you're using in this reality, and someday you will shed that and not have this opportunity again, perhaps I mean, you'll, you know, if you do the reincarnation thing, you will be reborn into a different body, but you will never have this exact opportunity again. So take care of it. Take care of your body, take care of your physical needs, take care of your mental and emotional needs. And take care of your spiritual needs. You know, there's an expression from cars, firing on all cylinders, right? So if you know how, and you know, engines, gas engines work, they, you know, they have these cylinders, that have you know, that, that move up and down, and they, you know, essentially suck in gasoline, you know, as an aerosol. And then they compress it, and then the spark plugs fire. And that causes, you know, like little explosions inside your engine that keeps the pistons moving back and forth, right. And, you know, if you are, let's say you have a six cylinder car, and only three cylinders are working. You know, this might not be the exact math as to how that works. But, you know, you're only going to be working at 50% effectiveness. Maybe less than that, I don't know, I don't know the math for how engines work if but firing on all cylinders means that you're firing at full power that all of your cylinders are working, that your mind, your body, and your spirit are working together. When you get things into alignment. When you get that congruence, I think there's almost it makes, it makes the impossible possible. It makes things happen. This is where this is where magic happens. It's where magic is effective. And, you know, this is where the law of attraction comes into place.

So if you're just sitting on the couch, wishing really hard, that circumstances are going to change in your life, you may have some small influence on probability, but the act of sitting on the couch is probably going to have a greater influence on probability. Your inaction will have a greater influence on things and so you know, get into alignment get into congruence, magic will happen. Our consciousness does affect the universe, but so does everybody else's. Right, the 100 and 50 million other people playing Powerball each week, are also wishing real hard that they win. And, you know, part of the reason the jackpots gets so big is that there is not a winner every week. So I don't know if people are canceling out each other's wishes or that sort of thing. And that gets into, you know, the idea of ecological being ecological. If when I'm wishing for harms others or causes harms harm to me in some other way, you know, you know, I can give I won't give a personal example of that, but I can tell you that there was a period of time where something I wished for came true and it really kind of messed my life up for a while, because I didn't think of the repercussions of getting what it was that I wanted. And I paid for that for a long time. So you know, something to consider, be ecological because you just might be magic, you are magic. You can't help but influence the universe even on non physically you're doing it whether you were doing it unconsciously most of the time. So that being said, this is a little bit of a shorter podcast I hope this has been informative, giving you something to think about some, some tips if you practice manifestation. If you don't practice manifestation, you're manifesting anyway. You're just not practicing it. You're just not doing it consciously. So be conscious in your manifestation get into alignment, get into congruence, and things will happen for you. I know it I am an example of it and I wish you all the happiness in the world. I wish you good luck, I wish you to remain healthy and happy.

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, John more. For more info or to contact John go to maineshaman.com That's maineshman.com