Original Magic: The Rituals and Initiations of the Persian Magi - Michael M. Hughes 2018

Go to Work

Why do we resist?

Why do we march in the cold rain when we could be sitting at home with a bottle of wine watching a great new series on TV? Why do we spend time knocking on doors and trying to convince people to vote for someone when we could be reading good book? Why do we give up time with our friends and families and risk arrest in direct political action?

And why do we do resistance magic when we could be doing magic for love, money, and pleasure?

Because, for most of us, we can’t not do those things. As spiritual beings, we feel deeply embedded in the ecology of souls around us. We have empathy and compassion for our brothers and sisters who are suffering, oppressed, and marginalized. As sentient organisms on a living planet circling a star, we understand our fates are interwoven with trillions of other organisms, from the microscopic to the macroscopic, in a lush, interpenetrating, interdependent, interrelated tapestry of consciousness and life.

When you become truly conscious of this interconnectedness, you realize there is no line between you and a child on the other side of the planet, the animals, insects, trees, plants, bacteria, rocks, clouds, rain, oceans, and even the atoms and subatomic particles. And as we become acquainted with higher aspects of reality, including the noncorporeal beings around us, our family grows exponentially larger.

And right now, our family really needs our help. Collective spiritual CPR, stat.

So I hope you will use this book to help carry the bright glow of your spiritual power into the nitty-gritty world of resistance and activism. Never forget that you are the embodiment of the creative, evolutionary force of the cosmos, an emissary of the Divine, a teacher of compassion, and a pioneer of a powerful new way of active, engaged, mindful, courageous, compassionate living.

Now light a candle and get to work.