Wild Card wrote:Get some hypnosis and suggestion style texts and emulate Derren Brown's
invisibility (the correct spelling
).
Face it, you Brits just don't know how to spell English words
When it comes to issues such as you are looking at wikipete, the idea of "invisibility" or even "levitation" is more metaphoric than literal. In fact there is an awesome Buddhist teaching about miracles and miracle workers that more or less condemns such practices as being the way of charlatans; the act of creating or demonstrating the miraculous typically being a matter of ego... especially for those gurus that make it a point. The real adept might be the channel through which certain miraculous things happen, but it is not something they accept credit for nor do they promote it.
In Transcendental Meditation they talking about Levitation and even Flying but in truth, it's just a form of ideomotor activity in which (pardon the term) the butt muscles flex along with the back side of the thigh and cause subjects to hop... it's rather silly if you ever see it demonstrated and yet, it's seen as a "higher state" of mental and spiritual evolution.
Pardon me if I don't buy into it... and when it comes to TM "BUYING" into it is the key word... they charge members for air half the time.
Levitation, when it comes to the spiritual side of things, refers to the lightness of one's soul and mind; being able to disconnect from the lower emotions and burdens that weigh us down in life.
Invisibility typically relates to some of what I've already said; being there and doing the work but not expecting glory and reward for it. To coin an old phrase, "being in the world but not of it".
Both of these are signs that someone has become an adept -- a "Master" of his/her own destiny and thus, risen above the chaos found in mundane life.
As has been pointed out (with the Derren Brown reference) there are ways to psychologically blind people so that they do not see what is obviously (to others) there or even cause to see things that aren't there. Though we see such things today as being an element of hypnosis, not so long ago (and still, in certain parts of the world) such were the prowess of the local shaman and gurus -- it was Magick and as such, could be welded either for the sake of good or bad... again, we are looking at the issues of ego, greed, a lust for power, etc.
Demonstrations (examples) of this sort is why I personally claim to be a "Believer" in things magickle and of the paranormal... just not in the same sense as most classify the term "Believer" i.e. those who are gullible and embrace things based on what they are told to believe vs. what they have honestly studied and learned as well as experienced for the sake of proven faith. In other words, I'm not one prone to blind faith, my testimony as it were is based on experience as well as perspective.
I believe that Magick is real but I also believe that what our ancestors perceived to be Magick or Miraculous, has more or less been redefined within the various fields of science. I also believe that science, especially within the Quantum Psychics side of things, will soon be explaining and defining many of the phenomena that remains debated... then again, most cynics will never accept a single explanation in that being a @rseh@le is what their entire existence is based on. Nonetheless, the magick of our ancestors is the science of our present e.g. what exist today within the minds of many as being magickle and even spiritual phenomena, will gain a logical scientific explanation/perspective in the years to come -- Magick being Science with different terminologies attached, little more.
If we were to look at the more ancient, less studied traditions of the Magician's craft you would find that the theatrical side of what we do was once married to the spiritual side of things. Even today you will find this in certain "3rd world" regions; something that was reviewed in the UTNE Reader some years ago. Oddly, you can even find it alive and well within the inner-cities of the U.S. where ethnic and cultural influences empower the scrupleless.
I hope this helps you gain a better sense of understanding when it comes to these things.
On the other hand... if you want to learn about Levitations I'd suggest the Sharpe Encyclopedia on Levitations & Suspension published through Hades in Canada. I'm not aware of a similar text when it comes to Vanishes but i do know there is a myriad of tomes out there on grand illusion, most of them with at least a single vanishing lady or two set within. I'd start with the Paul Osborne books as well as the works of Jim Stinemeyer and Rand Woodbury. Be cautions with the Andrew Mayne materials in that I personally feel they tend to be full of material that's simply rehash of older concepts more than "original" thinking... owning the complete Tarbell and Mark Wilson courses in magic will give you much of the same info and tons more for less cash layout. You would also benefit from the Gary Darwin "Inexpensive Illusions" book.
Hope this all helps.
(Someone please prove my scepticism wrong, I would love to be able to levitate and be invisible at will!).
