True Magic: Mind, God, Consciousness and You

By Ian McCoy

True Magic: Mind, God, Consciousness and You is a unique exploration of what scientists call the “anomaly” of consciousness, drawing on major works in philosophy, history, science, psychology and comparative religion. The conclusion is that consciousness is central to our understanding of the universe. A key aspect of that understanding is that most of reality is unknowable to us, which leads to that incredible state of awe wonder and astonishment.
Our logical minds require an explanation, however when faced with a situation that offers absolutely no explanation, something very interesting happens. Mystery induces astonishment and awe. Astonishment is a real brain state which induces an emotional response, a fascination in awe and realisation that something is truly unknown, truly a mystery which cannot be explained. However, we have a cosmic paradox. It is in unknowing that we come to know. In essence, the human Brain is hardwired for God.
The contention of this book is that the three most important concepts which constitute reality are Soul, Mind and Consciousness. Through the magic of evolution both cosmological and biological, consciousness has arisen. “Matter” became alive and then became conscious. This is profound magic. We are the Universe becoming aware of itself and so arises the ultimate True Magic – God Consciousness – the beautiful unknowing which embraces the Mystery. This is a wondrous thing, an awesome thing, even a scary thing. But it is probably the most important thing of all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robin Beck
• Release date: Jun 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781928234272

Ian McCoy

Ian McCoy (www.ianmccoy.com) is a master magician and mentalist, a motivational speaker and teacher, a published author, a musician, singer/songwriter and a writer/journalist.For over a decade he was one of California's top magical acts and performed all around the world for blue chip companies, Hollywood celebrities, a cruise line, Las Vegas hotels and thousands of private individuals. . He also set up magic classes and camps teaching children of all ages throughout the Bay Area of San Francisco. He relocated back to the UK seven years ago and has performed around Britain and on TV.Ian is also a credentialed high school and junior college teacher in both the UK and USA. He has degrees in history and politics and post graduate degrees in education and theology. He is the published author of the book Magic in the Center : God Consciousness and You a work in Philosophy that examines the concept of the Soul. He has also developed an online environmental news and information service with his brother and sister called just4theplanet . Ian is lead writer.Ian's keynote speech Magical Values is a call for people to be their best. It is truly inspirational and incorporates entertaining magic and mentalism to illustrate some perennial wisdom and motivate his audience.In his Kindle books on the art of Mentalism and Mindreading, How to be a Mentalist , How to be a Mentalist II, How to be a Mentalist: Time Flies and In Mind, Ian takes his 35 years study and experience to teach this fascinating art. Every technique and performance has a video link. So as well as reading, the student gets to see both performances and live explanations.His related book Memory teaches incredible techniques to develop your mind to it's full potential.Ian has also published two books on the art of card magic under the title McCoy's Miracle's: World Class Card Magic and one book on mentalism with cards: McCoy's Miracles: World Class Mentaism with Playing Cards. As with his other work - they all have video links to performance and explanation.Ian's book Angels: An insight into their Existence, taps his academic insights from theology, science, philosophy and history. It is a fascinating study.Ian has two publications on the person of Jesus Christ.The Historical Reality of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ examines just that and argues that historians while agreeing with the historicity of Christ's life and death - have been blinded from the historical truth of the Resurrection by a philosophical stance that can not be justified. His other work Jesus Christ: Magic Man? examines the ministry of Jesus through his miracles.In his book the Atheism Myth Ian gives a robust defence of Theism - as a response to the militant atheists led by Richard Dawkins.Ian's largest and most ambitious project The True Magic: God, Mind, Consciousness and You is an all embracing piece drawing on all disciplines in defence of Theism.

Book preview

True Magic

Mind, God, Consciousness and You

Ian McCoy

Published by

Kima Books

Denmark,

Copyright Ian McCoy June 2018

eISBN 978-87-93886-80-3

Publisher’s web site

Author’s web site

World rights Kima Global Publishers. With the exception of small passages quoted for review purposes, no portion of this work may be reproduced, translated, adapted, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or through any means including electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher.

Table of Contents

Dark Night

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Magic of Evolution

The Anthropic Principle

No Accident

Consciousness Directs

Matter is a Product of Consciousness

Human Influence on Matter

Ancient Intuition

Human Beings as Microcosm

Evolution and Free Will

Two Natures of God

Fundamentalists are Wrong

The True Magic of Science

Survival of the Fittest

Proofs of God

Ontological Argument

The Trademark Argument

The Teleological Argument

The Cosmological Argument

Who am I?

Do you Prefer Good or Bad?

Evolved Beings

Survival Value of Religion

Modern History

Evolution from War

The Arab Spring

Cry Freedom

September 11, 2001

ISIS

Tolerance

Moral Absolutes

A New Politics

Change in the Individual

We are Meant to be Here

Create a New World

Wake to the Paradox

Chapter 2: The Magic of the Moment

The Child Within

Thinking about Time

The Mystery of Consciousness

Creative Imagination

You are the Thinker of your Thoughts

Stay in the Present

Psychology and God

The Child Archetype

Real Self

Being Itself

You are the Thinker

The Magic of Humour

Chapter 3: The Grand Illusion

View from the Physical

Time and Space

Finding What Is

Penetrating the Grand Illusion

Middle Kingdom

Progressive Complexity

Laws do not Create

Womb of Creation

Consciousness Affects Matter

Creative Mind

Faith Welcomes Science

Knowledge of the Past

Experiences of the Mind Behind

It’s All in the Head

Spiritual Plane

Beyond Man’s Imagining

Direct Experience

Sublime Truth

Chapter 4: The Magical Game of Light

Light becomes Matter

The Structure of Nature Reveals the Passage of Time

Quantum Field Theory

Both Science and Religion

Consciousness Adds

Image of God

Light of Religion

Challenging Concepts of God

A Cruel Game

Endgame: God gets to Know Himself

Chapter 5: The Magic in the Centre

Taking your Path

Meaningful Coincidences

Ponder Goodness

Beyond Science

Dawkins and Co

Disingenuous and Self Contradictory

Experiences of the Mind Behind

Shortcut to Truth

Test of Reality

An Atheist Response

Return from Spiritual Experiences

Faith of Atheism

Scientism is not Science and Halts Spiritual Progress

In a Mother’s Womb

Relationships

The Influence of History

Your Choice to Reside in the Centre

You Create your World

Choose Spirit Avoid Myth

Accepting Death

Be a Leader

Choose Consciously

The Mind Behind is the God Within

Everything is All Right

Knowing by Unknowing

Chapter 6: The Magic Man

Master Magician

Hypnosis

Focus on Christ

Miracles

Natural Law and Miracles

Faith can Produce Miracles but Miracles do not always Produce Faith

The Miracles of Jesus were never Denied

Jesus Brings His Friend back from the Dead

The Raising of Lazarus

A Mixed Response

The Opposition is Unified and Mobilised

Jesus’last Days

The Resurrection: Spiritual Myth or Historical Event?

The Debate

Theology

Free to Choose

Paradoxes

What did Jesus Himself Claim?

Who do they say I am?

Jesus Divine

Mysticism

Man may be as God

Inner Acceptance

Evolution

Chapter 7: Conclusion

Bibliography

About the Author

Dark Night

It began with an overwhelming sense of fear mixed with awe at an outside force that was clearly present and getting nearer. Three or four weeks of intense synchronicities, meaningful coincidences to coin a Jungian phrase, and now this: dread and unadulterated Holy terror.

As I lay down my soul trembles inwardly to the farthest fibre of my being as the Mystery looms before my mind. My brain is bursting with rushing thoughts; who am I? Are you your mother? Are you your father? You are nothing; you are the lowest of creatures, a bacterial microbe hardly worth existence.

My soul cries for help. Please stop. Suddenly there is an energy surge in my groin area which grows to an unbearable level. Pumping – intense pumping. I feel like I am going to explode. Extreme distress. Please stop.

The energy in my groin surges to my head. Thoughts are now running down a thousand tangents. Flight or fight – Darwin is right. Space time and light ….E = MC2, Relativity and Quantum mechanics, Mozart the Beatles and Nelson Mandela, the Buddha, Moses, Mohammed, and Jesus. Pick a card you phony magician, what is magic anyway you worthless piece of shit.

My mind, my soul cannot take any more. I move beyond fear. I want to die. Please let me die. I surrender to death.

Suddenly my consciousness surges outward, and yet inward. But is this me? My mind is a void, nothing, or rather no thing. But it is everything that exists. No fear now; just pure Being, Absolute Awareness, intense power and Bliss. I am eternal, beyond time: I am who I am. My name is I Am.

My consciousness shrinks and I am lying on the bed. I am myself, and all fear has gone. Wonder and awe remain. I open my eyes to normal consciousness. It is morning light and I realize about seven or eight hours have passed.

Then I feel a touch on my forehead, a Divine finger. Pins and needles, but ever so pleasant, spread from that point through my head and then like a wonderful blanket of golden rain falling down through my whole body, my whole being. I have an overwhelming feeling of love and joy. And then an inner and outer voice simply says; I Am here.

Preface

The Moment of Astonishment

The human mind requires an explanation. However when faced with a situation which seems to offer absolutely no explanation, something interesting happens, something very interesting. Mystery induces astonishment, awe, and wonder. Astonishment is a real brain state which induces an emotional response, a fascination with awe and realisation that something is truly unknown, truly a mystery which cannot be explained.

Performance magic/mentalism is, therefore, a metaphor; in fact, the ultimate metaphor, but it is more than that. A skilled magician certainly performs ‘tricks’ which are based on age-old methods of sleight of hand and misdirection. However the revealing of the brain state, that ‘moment of astonishment’ is very real.

The moment cannot be put into words. A coin disappears, a signed bank note arrives inside a lemon or the performer reveals something in the mind of a spectator which he cannot possibly know. What the eyes are seeing cannot be happening, yet it is. In a split second the brains of audience members trigger thought processes hundreds of thousands of times per second trying to explain in a rational way what has just happened. This cannot be. Billions of neurons are at work, going through millions of files for any experience they may have had that might provide an explanation. But there is no answer. The brain is ‘fried’ and the ‘moment’ happens. It is for most a very pleasant and wonderful experience.

Although the experience seems to be beyond words, often people will say I felt like a child again. This in itself is a profound thing. When barriers drop, when we are truly in the moment, when we wonder at the universe, we become childlike. Adults enjoy that feeling of being in total bewilderment. It makes them feel like children.

My argument which is the basis of this work is that as a magician I do not create a sense of wonder – I reveal it. Wonderment and awe are aspects of the human condition that are very real. Tricks are tricks. Astonishment is very real. This is part of the True Magic. A good magician challenges everything that seems to be and makes it a source of positive energy. He gets an emotional response and this experience is a world unto itself. He brings out the child in us, even if just for a moment.

So the moment of astonishment is a very pure moment of existence. Not knowing in a rational sense is an inherent aspect of being human. We have a lust for certainty even though unknowing is built into our condition. Performance magic demonstrates this in microcosm. But it is true in life and in the human search for knowledge generally. It seems we are framed to pose problems for ourselves which we cannot solve. Since the Enlightenment and scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries we, especially in the west, fell in love with an idea of absolute certainty that is unattainable. Most of reality is permanently unknowable to us. However human beings have a need to drive reasoning power to the point where they can go no further. Then the mind enters into a state of unknowing which becomes a source of astonishment, awe, wonder, and contentment.

Surrendering to something bigger is encoded into our being. The moment of astonishment is, therefore, metaphor and more; metaphor in the sense it points to a greater experience, more because the experience is real in itself as a microcosm.

The moment of astonishment as ultimate metaphor points to what theologians call The Principle of all Intelligibility, an aspect of the Almighty, a principle which we do not actually grasp with our finite intellect, but one which lies beyond that which we can grasp. In other words, we reach God as Infinite Mystery. Infinite mystery fills us with awe and wonder and fascination which are the characteristic effects of the Holy on the human mind. This is True Magic.

Introduction

"Two things fill the mind with …wonder and awe …the starry heaven above me and the moral law within me"

Immanuel Kant

Most of reality is invisible. In a very real sense what we cannot see is much more important than what we can see. This is True Magic.

Our brains have evolved to keep out all but a minute aspect of reality, the visible. The sciences of quantum mechanics (the study of the very small) and cosmology (the study of the very large) tells us that everything in the universe is in motion; from electrons swirling around the nuclei of atoms to the earth hurtling through space at thousands of miles per hour. Of course, we as conscious beings cannot ‘see’ or feel the motion of matter. Nothing is at rest and nothing is solid. Indeed atoms which make up everything we see are largely empty space, not dominated by ‘pieces’ of anything.

So the universe we perceive is like an amazing magic trick; the production of an appearance that is in some sense deceptive. The magic occurs in our perception, after all our senses tell is that there is a material world out there when in reality, what is really out there is a quantum soup of pure energy.

What about the Master Magician? What about the Mind Behind? What about God? It seems He has pulled off the greatest illusion in the universe. He is invisible, and yet millions of people claim to worship Him. Of course, there are many others who would argue that God himself is an illusion created by man. Perhaps we can have it both ways as the French philosopher Voltaire once said, God created us in His image and we have been returning the compliment ever since.

Until relatively recently many philosophers and scientists have promoted an atheistic or agnostic reply to such questions. Ever since the Copernican revolution in science (late 16th early 17th centuries) and the philosophy of Descartes, most intellectuals have assumed God was a human abstraction, an invention of the mind.

Those who posited a Creator assumed he was a Being who was outside the physical universe, setting in motion a rational and mathematical system that could be gradually comprehended by human beings. The world of spirit and the world of matter were completely separate orders of reality.

Over the centuries scientists, theologians and philosophers have attempted to tackle the big questions. Where do I come from? Is there a purpose? Are we immortal? What does it all mean? Whereas many scientists have ignored the Mind Behind, Universal Consciousness (God), theologians have tended to ignore science, and philosophers have largely concluded there cannot be an answer; that even asking the big questions is an absurd activity.

It is the contention of this book that the four most important concepts which constitute reality are indeed invisible, and ultimately linked. They are Soul, Mind, Consciousness and God. It is argued that God, or Allah, or Brahma, or Buddha Consciousness, or the Source, The Mind Behind, is connected to you and the part of your Consciousness we refer to as Soul. Many people, unfortunately, are unaware of the True Magic that resides at the very centre of our being, the invisible immortal part of us that holds no judgement or fear, a place of awe and wonder which is linked with a greater Reality which some people call God.

Of course, to many a scientistic (note not scientific) materialist account of everything constitutes the full story. Transcendent realities are illusory and imaginary. In fact, throughout the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first, a naturalist assumption has been integral to western culture, especially academia. To this day many take the doctrine of materialism to be established scientific facts, not just assumptions.

This book argues that it is a fundamental error to see such assumptions as necessarily true. Indeed science itself arose after centuries of belief in a God who combined the personal energy of Yahweh with the rationality of Greek philosophy. Man became scientific because they expected Law in nature because they believed in a Law Maker. Wisdom, as Socrates said, begins in wonder, and it increases when we become aware of our presuppositions and question them.

Philosophical Materialism may still be the dominant paradigm in the natural sciences; however, it is an unjustified dogma. We assume there’s a universe ‘out there’ separate from what we are, and that we play no role in its appearance. Yet since the 1920s, experiments have shown just the opposite; results do depend on whether anyone is observing.

Experiments in quantum mechanics tell us that unobserved particles exist only as waves of probability as Max Bohm demonstrated in 1926. They’re statistical predictions, nothing but a likely outcome. Until observed, they have no real existence; only when the mind sets the scaffolding in place can they be thought of as having a duration or a position in space. Experiments make it increasingly clear that even mere knowledge in the experimenter’s mind is sufficient to convert possibility to reality. So we ask, can minds be reduced to physics when physics itself presupposes the minds of physicists?

It will remain remarkable, said Nobel physicist Eugene Wigner, who laid the foundations for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the conclusion that the content of consciousness is an ultimate reality. This is the True Magic.

It is certainly an eye-opener when we realise that the old materialistic paradigm cannot explain, and will never explain, probably the three most important of questions. How did the universe arrive from nothing? As any first-year philosophy student has pondered, you cannot get something from nothing. How did life arise out of rocks? No scientist has ever been able to produce life from inanimate matter. Finally, how did consciousness arrive out of animal brains?

Certainly animal brains evolved to survive and reproduce, but why did brains develop an ability to contemplate higher mathematics and quantum mechanics, play music and produce great pieces of art? And what about the desire to touch the Transcendent? While accepting, largely, the theories of Darwin, these latter qualities have little to do with the concepts of survival of the fittest.

The True Magic can also be discerned in the Anthropic Principle, developed by award-winning scientists, which tells us that the structure of the universe isn’t a mere accident. The laws, constants, and forces of the universe, which could have any values whatsoever, are all exactly what they must be for you to exist.

God, Yahweh, Brahman, Allah, Mind Behind, or whatever you want to call Him/Her, is at work through history and evolution and in the consciousness of humanity. He/She accounts for the existence of our evolving universe, the scientific laws that operate within it and the panoply of life on earth, including human beings who are the cosmos examining itself. Using all the data from all disciplines we can move beyond the theories to the Source, the Mind behind, the Universal Consciousness who sustains everything in existence.

The True Magic shows us that life is not a series of random experiences taking you like a twig on a moving stream to destinations unknown. As you learn to understand the True Magic you will find synchronicity or ‘meaningful coincidences’ entering your perception. You will make more connections between seemingly random events. The old scientific worldview tells us there is no outside force. Coincidental events suggest otherwise. It is God winking.

Then there is the uncrossable threshold, which by Grace is crossed, where knowledge of God comes not from analytic reason or devotion but from the intimate embrace of Union whereby finite consciousness becomes Consciousness Itself; God’s gift to the created soul.

Mankind has always searched for truth. But he is not only wanting to know more facts (although this is an admirable activity) he also wants to find some meaning in the puzzle of life. The question of existence is real and unavoidable. Scientific research, philosophy and religion, all in their different ways attest to this reaching out to man/woman to grasp more and more truth. The full truth, however, will not be found just in pure science. We have forgotten a long-standing spiritual tradition that stressed the importance of recognising the limits of our knowledge, of silence, reticence, awe and wonder.

So ultimate truth lies in wisdom. Again referring to Socrates, it is wonder that is the beginning of wisdom. It is also a path to Spirit. An essential component of the ‘spiritual’ is the experience of won- dering and marvelling. An essential act of faith is also wonder. One who has never been bewildered, who has never looked upon existence as a phenomenon that requires answers, and yet paradoxically, for which the only answers are new questions, can hardly understand what spiritual reality is. Delightful surprise is the realm of the spiritual and paradoxically it is the not knowing which allows you a glimpse of ultimate knowledge.

The scientific paradigm based on naïve realism (what I can hear, see, touch, taste and feel is all that is real) is far from a vision of undeniable objective truth. As we said most of reality is actually invisible. So it is, in fact, a questionable belief system superseded by the development of the sciences themselves.

Atheists would have you believe that the ‘scientific method’ is the only true path to knowledge and that Theists ignore it. This, of course, is ridiculous. Any intelligent person recognises the value of the scientific method. In philosophy this is also known as inductive reasoning i.e. individual observations to build up general rules. Indeed knowledge can really only come in two forms. This is firstly a posteriori, a statement whose truth or falsity would indeed have been discovered by observation (inductive reasoning). Then there is a priori, a statement that is necessarily true requiring no verification by experience, also known as deductive reasoning. The reality is that despite what priests of the atheism myth say, much science is not just about hard facts.

Mathematics is based on deductive reasoning and an awful lot of science is based on mathematics. After all, when Apollo 11 was slingshot around the moon the astronauts were very brave because it had to be worked