Perchance to Dream

“I had a dream. Crazy dream. Anything I wanted to know, any place I needed to go...”
~ Led Zeppelin, The Song Remains The Same

Mage Music 86

Dreams aren't merely entertaining (or scary… or tedious) stories in your head with tidy beginnings and endings. But they also aren't just random neurological blips that the unconscious mind stitches together that, upon wakening, you may or may not make sense of.

Dreams are in fact something much bigger than either of those things. Dreams are your brain's tuning in to the infinite (what Edgar Cayce called the Akashic records*, the place outside of time and space that is the energy that is Magick). 

The infinite has no beginning or end, and neither do dreams.

Dreams are like turning on the TV in the middle of a long-running series, watching for five minutes and then turning it off. You don’t get an enticing beginning and a tidy ending watching for that brief amount of time, but you do get a glimpse of something much bigger than the fragment you perceived. From that little snippet you can generally figure out something about the ongoing story line. You also understand that the five minutes you watched was not the complete story in itself, no matter how complete it seems.

Dampers, filters and wah-wah pedals

The infinite is, of course, too much for direct human interaction. Fortunately for you and me, living beings are equipped with the innate ability to dampen down the information from the Universe to a more tolerable level. Over time the mental filters that do this are altered by experience and by stored emotional reactions to that experience. Like camera filters that distort color or guitar effects pedals that manipulate sound waves, the output – dreams – no longer resembles the original input.

So the “story” you think you experienced while you were sleeping isn't an actual independent story but is rather the memory of a finite segment of the infinite. What you remember, the dream, is only a filtered approximation of the long-running series that is the Akashic records. In order to make sense of this experience your mind, hardwired for pattern recognition, edits the package to make a story of it, a pattern. Thus the points where you started and later stopped tuning in seem like a beginning and an ending – although they aren't. You've tuned into an ongoing story.

Dream interpretation

The human mind not only reduces the saturation and filters the content of input so that the brain won’t be blown by contact with the infinite, but it also interprets what is received. Symbols are created as placeholders for infinite concepts that are simply too much to otherwise comprehend. Some would say these symbols are archetypes of the human unconscious, others believe they are entirely personal. They are both. 

The choice of symbols reflects the individual’s desires. The meaning of symbols reflects Universal truths. Symbolism is the human mind’s instrument that is used to get a handle on that which cannot be handled, on the microscopic and macroscopic levels.

The symbols and the artificial constructs of beginning and ending not only create a way for the human mind to interact with the infinite, but provide a way to remember the experience.  We call it story, melody, painting, dance. Vision. 

Magick. 

♫ ♪  ♫ ♪  ♫ ♪  ♫ ♪  ♫ ♪  ♫ ♪  ♫ ♪  ♫ ♪  

* “Akasha” means “aether” in both the elemental and metaphysical senses 

Mage Music Milestone

This morning Mage Music reached 30,000 unique pageviews... exactly. As if the Universe wanted me to take notice of that number. Okay!

Magick:  We are manifest in physical reality in order to create. Creation is life. Magick is creation. Magick is life.

Let nothing stop you from creating, not hardship, not age, not even lack of ideas. You have only to seek inside to discover the desires lurking there. Your Work is to follow the path those desires provide you and thereby to change your world.

Thank you to Mage Music readers for reading this blog and to thinking and creative people everywhere.  

Thank you most especially to Jimmy Page, whose music provides tangible evidence of Magick manifest in this plane of reality.

You and Only You

"Finding quantum 'lines of desire': Physicists track quantum system's wanderings through quantum state space."
~ Washington University, St. Louis, July 30, 2014

Mage Music 85

Summary of the above article:
What paths do quantum particles, such as atoms or photons, follow through quantum state space? Scientists have used an "artificial atom" to continuously and repeatedly record the paths through quantum state space. From the cobweb of a million paths, a most likely path between two quantum states emerged, much as social trails emerge as people round off corners or cut across lawns between buildings. Read more…  

At last!

Quantum physicists are just catching up to what Mages have known forever. Physicists are now able to demonstrate scientifically that quantum particles – the stuff that makes up “reality” as we perceive it – are influenced by the outside world.

Physicists can now observe the process of manifestation, though they don’t call it that. What they're finally seeing ishow the most likely path for a quantum system is established – in other words, how quantum particles change from what we might call a state of the infinite (where the potential exists to do anything but nothing has yet happened) to what we’ll call a state of the finite (where it can be predicted what the particles are going to do, and then they do it).

The first state of being is what in Magick we refer to when we talk about the Energy of the Universe. The second state of being is what in Magick we refer to as the Transmutation, or Manifestation from potential to actuality.

What is cool is that quantum physicists are calling the process they’re now observing…. [wait for it]…. A line of desire.

Sound familiar? Magick is a process of desire + will + ritual. The Mage desires, the Universe is influenced by that desire. The more the Mage engages will via ritual, the more the stuff that makes up reality is influenced by that desire, until eventually reality follows that line of desire to manifestation in the Mage’s reality.

Kind of mind blowing. And it explains a lot, too. 

As above, so below 

On the quantum level inertia and entropy and all sorts of things become clear, including, if you let yourself go with it, Why Things Exist. On the human plane there is an answer for why it’s so hard to go against the flow of other people’s expectations.

Billions of people creating billions of lines of desire that influence reality to take predictable paths -- and then there’s the Mage, wanting to change reality anyway. Talk about going against the flow.

Fortunately Magick doesn't have to be a group process. Magick is everything about the individual. The lines of desire that billions of people create and that influence the quantum state are, by and large, unconscious desire.  Magick, on the other hand, is about conscious awareness and deliberate choice.  

Obviously a Mage can’t expect validation from the unconscious choices of billions of people. Magick is a solitary quest. When a Mage fails to manifest desire, it is not that Magick isn’t working – it’s not even that there are billions of people desiring something else. When a Mage fails it’s a failure of personal desire and will.

Self-sabotage

Quantum particles don’t think -- they only react to the pressures of desire. They can’t “know” whether that pressure to manifest one way or another is coming from unconscious or conscious desire. So really, all a Mage has to do is want something… and then consciously keep wanting it until it manifests.

That sounds so easy, but it’s not.

Most of the time what happens is the Mage is thinking too much of what is not desired, not what is desired. Self-sabotage. This isn't all that surprising because it’s hard to wrench the mind from the unwanted reality and strictly focus on the wanted. 

Worse, it almost seems like life conspires to keep a Mage's attention on the wrong thing. 

Actually, that's exactly what's happening. The Universe's lines of desire tend towards the well-worn pathways. It's a Mage's job to nudge those quantum particles in a different direction (the line of desire), but the Mage is immersed in a path already, and that makes it a challenge.

How to not keep on keepin’ on

There’s a reason that acts of Magick are called Works (as are all acts of creation). The deliberate, conscious choice to create change takes effort and willpower. It’s easy to fall back into the path of least resistance instead of maintaining that effort to get those pesky quantum particles to enter into the Mage’s desired line or path.

It takes constant vigilance. Desire and will, in other words, constantly maintained (that’s the ritual part of Magick. That's work, all right.

Inertia and entropy are acting on the quantum level and on the physical plane to return a Mage’s reality to the old path. A Mage might not even be aware of a misstep or omission, a falling away from the desired path. 

 
A simple complaint, an analysis of what’s wrong, a negative emotion elicited by the past, a worry about the future – these are all so commonplace as to fall under the radar of a Mage’s awareness, but these are the things that sap the Magick. Every moment of attention on the unwanted thing is an influence on the quantum level, and quantum particles will be influenced. 

 
Conscious awareness. If it was so easy, everybody would be a Mage. Except for the physicists, of course, since they want to spend their time watching it all happen.

Next two LZ remasters available to order

So far I've only found the links for the Super Deluxe Edition box sets but this is a good start!

Led Zeppelin IV 

Track Listings

Disc: 1
1. Black Dog
2. Rock And Roll
3. The Battle of Evermore
4. Stairway To Heaven
5. Misty Mountain Hop
6. Four Sticks
7. Going To California
8. When The Levee Breaks

Disc: 2
1. Black Dog (Basic Track With Guitar Overdubs)
2. Rock And Roll (Alternate Mix)
3. The Battle Of Evermore (Mandolin/Guitar Mix From Headley Grange)
4. Stairway To Heaven (Sunset Sound Mix)
5. Misty Mountain Hop (Alternate Mix)
6. Four Sticks (Alternate Mix)
7. Going To California (Mandolin/Guitar Mix)
8. When The Levee Breaks (Alternate UK Mix)





Houses of the Holy






Track Listings
Disc: 1
1. The Song Remains The Same
2. The Rain Song
3. Over The Hills And Far Away
4. The Crunge
5. Dancing Days
6. D'yer Mak'er
7. No Quarter
8. The Ocean

Disc: 2
1. The Song Remains The Same (Guitar Overdub Reference Mix)
2. The Rain Song (Mix Minus Piano)
3. Over The Hills And Far Away (Guitar Mix Backing Track)
4. The Crunge (Rough Mix - Keys Up)
5. Dancing Days (Rough Mix With Vocal)
6. No Quarter (Rough Mix With JPJ Keyboard Overdubs - No Vocal)
7. The Ocean (Working Mix)

--------------


Remasters page has order info for all options.

But... It Looks So Easy

Yup, that's what I thought when I decided to make a quick video. Easy-peasy. Hah! What do I know about making videos? Nothing.

I gotta give a lot of credit to the people who've made all the great videos I've watched over time. This is my second attempt at a slide-show video and boy, is it crude (hint: watch in a small frame because it looks terrible full-screen... I don't know why it looks so fuzzy). But you know, I'm stubborn. I'll keep trying.

Just not soon. I'll stick to writing, I think.

Thanks for not laughing too hard, my friends!

RIP John Dawson Winter III

Another music giant passes into legend.

Ross Halfin says that this album cover of Second Winter by Richard Avedon is one of his favorite music photos, and that Jimmy Page always comments how great the photo is when he sees the cover.  RIP John Dawson Winter III (February 23, 1944 – July 16, 2014).

Think about it:  A blues guitarist born just a month after Jimmy Page, but born and raised right there, where the music was being played live, by the artists who were living legends in their own time. Johnny Winter got to hear live performances by classic blues artists such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and Bobby Bland, while Jimmy Page had to learn by listening to them on vinyl.

Listen to Rock Me Baby, from the ironically titled album, Johnny Winter: Still Alive and Well

Where's the Magick?

It seems so long since I last posted anything actually about Magick, so I thought I better fix that.

I'm veering off format, too - no image, no introductory quote - but hey, if I can't break my own rules... well, that would be pretty sad.  [The beauty of blogging:  I can edit after I've posted.  So I've added an image from a past post].

Anyway, here's what I've been thinking about, the Big Question: Where's the Magick? Because it seems that sometimes it's a futile quest, this business of Magick. A tilting at windmills. A frivolous delusion, perhaps.

Ironic, isn't it, since Magick is everywhere.  Except, it seems sometimes, in our own possession. It is the energy of the Universe, the stuff that everything is made of, and it might as well be nonexistant for all that it can evade us. It is the big M: The Mystery, the unknown factor. No - it is the elusive factor. But it's there.

And it's free for the taking. All you have to do is grab it. Haha, so easy.

And isn't that the trick

We're all so focused on day-to-day stuff that we get trapped in that mundane existence. A shame, really. So much energy of our day-to-day moments is spent resisting going down paths we'd prefer not to go down, pushing away experiences we'd rather not experience, and coping with the crap that flies at us, that we have no time to consider Magick.

But that is so very wrong. Even the crap is part of Magick. The trick isn't forcing oneself to expend additional effort to take a different path, but instead to see that all paths are Magick. And to see that resistance is futile.  

Resistance only blocks Magick. 

There is only one path to Magick:  The act of will. Choice. To block anything is to block all things. There is only one path to Magick. And there is only one person in your life who can choose to take that path. As Jean-Luc Picard says, Make it so.