The Spirit of Magic and the Magic of the Spirit

[Guest guest]

Hi Ken,

 

Your article: " The Spirit of Magic and the Magic of the Spirit " by

Ken Rose [Chinese Medicine List at ]

is a fine piece. It lifted my Shen/Spirit.

 

I took the liberty of copying it from the Files area and I relayed it to

my Clan around the world to lift THEIR Shen. I hope that you don't

mind.

 

May I have your permission to relay your article to the LIKEM

[Love, Intuition/Intention, Knowledge, Empathy & Mysticism in

Healing] List?

 

Best regards,

Phil

Best regards,

 

Email: <

 

WORK : Teagasc Research Management, Sandymount Ave., Dublin 4, Ireland

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[Guest guest]

Ken

 

thanks for posting the name of the forthcoming book...

 

Marco

 

I admire your delingacy and as non chines speaker I am grateful for likeminded

people like you...

 

Marco

 

 

[Guest guest]

Phil.

 

Glad you liked it. Please do send it around,

and if you would be so kind, please include

my email so that anyone who has something

to say about it can reach me.

 

Thanks,

 

Ken

 

Chinese Medicine , " " <

@e...> wrote:

> Hi Ken,

>

> Your article: " The Spirit of Magic and the Magic of the Spirit " by

> Ken Rose [Chinese Medicine List at ]

> is a fine piece. It lifted my Shen/Spirit.

>

[Guest guest]

Hi Ken,

 

> Phil. Glad you liked my piece: " The Spirit of Magic and the Magic

> of the Spirit " . Please do send it around, and include my email so

> that anyone who has something to say about it can reach me. Ken

> Rose <kenrose2008

 

I will forward it to PA-L, PVA-L, LIKEMLIST and CHA.

 

Many thanks, Ken. It lifted my Shen and I hope it will do that for

others also.

 

 

Best regards,

 

Email: <

 

WORK : Teagasc Research Management, Sandymount Ave., Dublin 4, Ireland

Mobile: 353-; [in the Republic: 0]

 

HOME : 1 Esker Lawns, Lucan, Dublin, Ireland

Tel : 353-; [in the Republic: 0]

WWW : http://homepage.eircom.net/~progers/searchap.htm

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

 

See this piece by Ken Rose <kenrose2008:

 

Best regards,

Phil

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Hi Ken,

 

> Phil. Glad you liked my piece: " The Spirit of Magic and the Magic

> of the Spirit " . Please do send it around, and include my email so

> that anyone who has something to say about it can reach me. Ken

> Rose <kenrose2008

 

I will forward it to PA-L, PVA-L, LIKEMLIST and CHA.

 

Many thanks, Ken. It lifted my Shen and I hope it will do that for

others also.

 

Best regards,

Phil

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

The Spirit of Magic and the Magic of the Spirit11This is a draft of a section of

an unpublished manuscript, as yet untitled, dealing with Daoist sexual magic and

alchemy. COPYRIGHT 2003 BY KEN ROSE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

By Ken Rose, August 10, 2003, Beijing

Guo Zi Jian Jie

 

Magic, from Latin (and earlier, Persian ) “magus” (also related to

“magnus”) –great, cf., English magnum, magnificent,

magnanimous, magnify, etc.

 

That which is great within us…and without. That is magic. Its

explanations exceed our capacity to contain them. That is its

greatness. The Chinese call this quality shen2, and when we see

this word we often read it into English as spirit or wonderful,

marvelous, and though less frequently, magic.

 

In pointing out the equation of the two terms, shen2 and magic,

such a comparison allows us to see both terms more clearly. For

what is magic but the greatness, the unimaginable greatness of the

universe, that agency by which the things we don’t understand

come to pass? And what is the spirit, that which we are, that which

lives and makes us live, but the individual expression of this self-

same greatness? We recognize that something of the unexplained

vastness of creation dwells within us. In English we call this word

spirit, and in Chinese we call this word shen2. To be sure the

enlarged meanings of both words take on the colors of the

appended systems of belief. But both contain this recognition that

we are connected to things that we don’t understand. The agency

by which this connection is completed is known as shen2 in

Chinese, spirit in English. It, whatever it is, is magic.

 

When we bring these words together…and, naturally the ideas with

which they are associated in our minds, when they come in

contact, they begin to hum and vibrate at a harmonic that both

perhaps possess individually but that remains quiet if they are used

only separately. It is the comparison that excites this overtone. For

when we say that shen2 is magic or that magic is shen2 we do not

simply define but clarify and expand the meaning of both terms by

including the other.

 

This is an occasion where far from something being lost in

translation, something distinctive is gained.

 

But getting back to the spirit of magic and the magic of the spirit,

that things are possessed of a spirit is indeed the essence of

magic. When the woman’s head ends up in one box and her torso

in another and her feet in a third, all separated from each other

while she continues to smile and wiggle her fingers and toes and

somehow manages to get her bellybutton to twitch and tremble, we

are forced to ask ourselves as we hurry towards the boundaries of

the willing suspension of disbelief, whether or not there may be

some more essential essence of things than has been dreamt of in

our philosophy.

 

Even if we delegate the task of dreaming of essential essences to

something called scientists, we are forced to accept that when we

wake we will find that there is more than we can imagine. For that

we might comprehend the greatness of the universe is and remains

unimaginable.

 

Magic emerges from our own incompleteness. It is that greatness

that allows us to overcome our essential limits. We contain it. It is

us. The great religions all include some essential magic. The dead

rise. The virgins give birth. The limits of finite time and space are

surpassed. There must be something greater than ourselves. That

greatness is magic. That greatness is the spirit.

 

And what of the magic of the spirit? Well, what would you say if

you suddenly learned that the source of all creation, all existence

lies within your beating heart?

 

This simple, obvious truth has been obscured by religion in all too

familiar patterns for thousands of years. Blake wrote about it in

Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Thomas Paine painstakingly

delineated the characteristics of this obfuscation in Age of Reason.

 

As we have the leisure to consider…or you wouldn’t be reading

this…let’s just stop the world for a moment and consider what I

have called a simple and obvious truth: that the source of all

creation does indeed dwell in the human breast. Not only in the

breast, mind you, but in each and every cell, in every tissue organ

and system of the human body. Is it any wonder, given the truth of

this assertion, that healing the spirit, i.e., making the spirit whole

and fully inter-connected in all of its parts, can so effectively heal

the body? Or that improving the status of the body’s patterns of

inter-connectedness can significantly benefit the spirit?

 

The body does not merely house the spirit. It comes from the spirit.

It leads the spirit. It is the spirit.

 

Looking for a spirit?

 

Find a body. The inertia of the flesh. The gravity of the spirit.

 

Connect the two and something great can happen. When we make

great things happen in this way, people experience it as magic.

 

And it is.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Best regards,

 

Email: <

 

WORK : Teagasc Research Management, Sandymount Ave., Dublin 4, Ireland

Mobile: 353-; [in the Republic: 0]

 

HOME : 1 Esker Lawns, Lucan, Dublin, Ireland

Tel : 353-; [in the Republic: 0]

WWW : http://homepage.eircom.net/~progers/searchap.htm