Nondual magical thinking 🎱

Recently I was reminded about how infants can't separate themselves from their environment up until a certain age. This is a partial explanation for magical thinking—when you-as-a-baby figure out that you can actually control certain things like your arms, you start thinking you can control everything. And why not? As far as you can tell, everything is you. You don't even have a concept for things you're not aware of, or a self differentiation. People who fail to fully differentiate at this stage for whatever tragic reason tend to develop clinical narcissism.

Well, reading this I starting thinking about how some of the people popping off into nondual states of oneness make the same mistake. They feel a oneness between perception and perceived and then they think they can 'control' everything perceived. And it can be pretty convincing because magical stuff often does start to happen, but for other reasons which we're not getting into because I'm trying (and failing) to keep this one thing short. The only trouble is, this is almost always a mistaken identity.

Let's say a guy named Aaron recognizes his true nature is presence, God, mystery. He's not the body, mind, or self-identity called Aaron, he sees it as a helpful fiction. He feels one with all. When he's identifying as the universe, he sure is magical and is 100% capable of doing everything. That's categorically true. But he usually slips back into identifying with the limited self (Aaron) while still trying to claim the powers of the unlimited (the Universe).

Psychonauts: Let’s stay vigilant for the tendency to slip back into identifying with the limited self (Aaron) while still trying to claim the powers of the unlimited (the Universe). The I that wants to be able to perform magic can't, and the I that can already is so it doesn't need to.

With love, Jordan