It's Not Magic

"Question: What is the scientific statement of Being? Answer: There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 468, Lines 8-15

"Miracles bear witness to Truth. They are convincing because they arise from conviction. Without conviction they deteriorate into magic, which is mindless and therefore destructive; or rather, the uncreative use of mind." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 1, Section I, 14:1-3

"Sickness, or 'not-right-mindedness' is the result of level confusion, because it always entails the belief that what is amiss on one level can adversely affect another. We have referred to miracles as the means of correcting level confusion, for all mistakes must be corrected at the level on which they occur. Only the mind is capable of error. The body can act wrongly only when it is responding to misthought. The body cannot create, and the belief that it can, a fundamental error, produces all physical symptoms. Physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion that made magic rests on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter which the mind cannot control." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 2, Section IV, 2:2-9

Hmmm... the belief in a creative ability in matter which the mind cannot control... the big bang, supernovas, the conception and birth of a child, the sprouting of a seed... all of these seem to prove an innate creative ability in matter that the mind definitely cannot control. Let's look more closely at this common error.

From the broader perspective of wholeness, everything is idea... there is a corresponding spiritual idea for every form and experience within the dream of materiality. When our minds are open and aware of our Oneness with God, with All, there is always and only harmony between the many spiritual ideas and their thoughts that populate our mind and experience. When our minds are contracted and we imagine ourselves as separate, then our ideas, too, are distorted and inverted, so that our corresponding forms and experiences are unstable and unpredictable and often unpleasant.

From the contracted, uncreative level of the unawakened ego, the story is that matter has it's own creative power... and we find evidence for it everywhere. From the awakened, expansive level of the awakened Self, we see that there is only One Power and One Creator, All-in-All. As emanations of the One, we are fully supplied with an abundance of Divine Ideas. These ideas are what reflect in the dream of matter as health, wholeness, and prosperity... Life, and Life more abundant and harmonious than we can now imagine. But the dream-forms are not the point, or the object, since they are nothing at all, nothing but shadows of the Real.

The Awakened Mind knows there is only One Power, One Self... for God is All-in-All. In Oneness there is only harmony and peace and joy. So the conception of life, the sprouting of a seed, the beauty of nature... these are shadow reflections of the Divine Harmony, the One Power that is Our Reality. This is not magic. This is Reality.

"All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson