I said that I would show you how to take the first few steps in real magic- To put this another way, I will show you how to make the paranormal normal.

It may surprise you to hear that you already have these abilities, but only in potential form. They are still asleep, and for most people they will remain asleep all their lives and never be used. Such a waste of human potential! In fact, most human ability remains undiscovered and unused. If you doubt this, then just think about your potential ability to speak, read and write Chinese. If you did not have the potential ability to do this, then no amount of studying and practice would help. But we all know that when you put in time and effort to studying and practising anything, your potential ability comes to the surface, and becomes a useful part of your life. This applies to everything you can do, all your abilities. You are able to do them because you always had the potential to do them.

I speak from experience. It took me four years to master Chinese. My potential ability to do so eventually became actual. The point I want to make here is that what applies to Chinese applies equally to all your other potential abilities. They will remain latent, in state of potential, unless you release them and make them useful by studying, learning and practising. I trust this much is obvious. What may be less obvious is that this principle also applies to magic and paranormal abilities. They too will remain dormant until you start using them. I first discovered this in 1962 when I read Rudolf Steiner’s book “Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and How to Attain it”. I will say a few words about this, because it is very relevant.

Steiner wrote that we all have “organs of supersensible perception.” It’s a clumsy term, so I prefer to say “inner senses”. For nearly all of us, our inner senses are fast asleep, and will probably remain this way all our lives. Most people will never even know they exist, and this is because we live in very materialistic times, focusing almost exclusively on the physical aspects of the world. For a very few people, these senses wake up spontaneously, enabling them to see and experience what most people will never see and experience. We usually call these people “psychic”. The importance of Steiner’s book is that he shows that it need not be this way. All of us can, if we wish, take a conscious decision to “awaken” and train our inner senses, and use them in our daily life. I realised that if this was true, then it changed everything. For example, it would give us direct access to “spiritual dimensions”, the non-physical aspects of the world and ourselves. This in turn would radically change the foundations of our knowledge and what we believe to be true and possible. The world and the human being would no longer be just physical in nature, as claimed by science. Instead, we and the world would be seen to be both physical and non-physical. Both would be true. There would be no dichotomy between the material and the spiritual. Matter and spirit would finally be reconciled! That really would change everything. We would no longer be an exploiting, destructive, stupid species, bringing this planet to the edge of destruction. We would become what we are meant to be – a life-enhancing, truly intelligent species.

To cut a long story short, I confirmed for myself that what Steiner said was true. We do have inner senses. They are dormant. Then can be awakened and trained. And they do give us direct experience of the spiritual, non-physical aspects of ourselves and the world. With the use of my inner senses, I was able to see for myself that magic is possible, that the so-called “paranormal” is normal, and that what esoteric literature said about the world was true. All good and exciting, yes, but there was a downside!

The downside was that I learned the hard way that I could not tell anyone about my experiences. This was because I was trying to communicate things that were totally alien to most people. They did not know what I was talking about. They did not experience these things, so how could I? It was not until 1993, some twenty years later, that I felt able to go public. I gave a lecture at a meeting in France of the Scientific and Medical Network. The talk went down well, and the group set me a challenge. They asked me to design accessible courses, so that more people could learn to use their inner senses. That challenge set the tone for work that continues today.

Arguably, the most important thing to know in magic is that the Universe always responds to our questions and our requests. And I do mean always! This is the good news. The bad news is that the Universe will only respond in the precise terms of our questions and requests. The better the questions and requests, the better the responses! If you are not sure what I mean, then just consider the following question: will it rain tomorrow? If you know the answer, you have already taken your first steps towards magic. If you do not, I can help.

The correct answer is: Yes, it will rain tomorrow. And this is because it rains everyday somewhere on this planet. As you can see, the question did not specify a place! If your questions are ambiguous, then the answer given by the Universe will be equally ambiguous. When the King of Thrace went to the Oracle the day before the battle and asked: will the battle be won? He was happy be cause the Oracle said “Yes”. The next day the King was very surprised when lost the battle. He had forgotten to ask the Oracle who would win the battle!

Scientists do not know that the Universe always responds to their questions. They believe that the Universe is lifeless and that it just consists of unconsciousness matter. So they are surprised that when they ask a “particle” question (i.e. an experiment designed to elicit the presence of particles), they get particles in the answer. When they ask a “wave” question, they get waves in the answer. I sometimes feel that the Universe is playing with them!

Similarly, if your requests are unclear and not fully desired, the Universe will respond accordingly. You will not get what you thought you wanted. For example, when a man helped the Greek Gods, they told him he could have anything he wanted. He said that he wanted eternal life. That was a big mistake. Do you know why? Well, he lived forever, but he kept getting older and more decrepit. What he really meant to ask for was eternal youth, but, as happens so often, he got the request wrong. We need to be very careful what we ask for. I can illustrate this with a story about my friend Martin in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Martin used to run workshops for senior executives. He asked them all to say what they most wanted. One guy said: “a house in Mexico”. My friend told him that he would never get it. When asked to explain this, he said that you need to say exactly what house, in exactly what place. Even this was not enough. Your request also needs to specify exactly when you want the house. This is why visualisations do not usually work. People are not specific enough

One more thing – once you have made you unambiguous, specific request, forget about it! You have done your part. Trust the Universe to do the rest. The Universe will respond, but in its own way and in its own time. If you are doing this properly, you will always get a pleasant surprise when your request is granted. It will come when you least expect it, and it will come in a form you could not have imagined. Just try it!

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