The Omaha guide., 1936-11-21


He made trumpets talk and tables
walk And he was honest enough to
confess that it was not superna-
tural nor magic in the way we
think of these things. Self discipline,
swiftness and ihypmxslETAOINN
tools. Especially self-discipline. He
knew that the secret of what is
called magic is chiefly mastery of
ones own mind.
I II E M A GICIAN
COULD TEACH US MUCH
The Yogis who can sleep under
ground forty days and arise in good
health; the East Indians who can
walk across Goals of fire on bare feet
without being burned; the West
African fisherman who can, accord
ing to Gorer, stay under water
forty-five minutes without breath
ing as we breathe; the Egyptian
Seers who can read the mind as an
open book; the Dervishes who a
whirl countless times and plunge
swords into their sides without
bringing blood, all are the result of
self discipline. There is very little
you cannot make the body and mind
do if you concentrate upon it enough
Most of us would not care to take
the time to learn to do these amaz-
ing but useless things. But there
are countless useful things to be
accomplished by the same methods
MOST PEOPLE STILL
BELIEVE IN MAGIC
When someone breaks a mirror
and cries out about the seven years
bad luck which they think will come
because of it, they are voicing be-
lief IN magic. They don't know the
origin of this idea but the tradition
has been handed down from mother
to daughter for ages. At one time
all peoples believed that the re-
Election of the face in water or
glass was the image of the soul.
When a mirror you had gazed into
was broken, your soul, it was be-
lieved, was scattered and it took
seven always a magic number)
years to rerganize it, bring 1t back
to its former power and glory.
THE GOLDEN BOUGH"
Sir James George Frazer made a
collection of magic beliefs from all
the world. 1t took him twenty
years to make it and he called it
"The Golden Bough." Magic, he
says, is always sympathetic, that
IS, the belief that like creates ike
This sympathetic magic is divided
into initiative and contagious kinds.
The idea of the broken mirror, sup
psed to denote a shattered soul, is
an example of initiative magic. The
mirror and soul were Identified as
one and the supernatural initiated
the natural in breaking.
/ recently read that visitors to
the home of the Dionne Quintuplets
had carried off literally tons Of rocks
from the scene. They bellve that
these rocks coming from the vicinity
of multiple births win somehow be
endowed with this principle and that
the mere presence of the rocks
will sterile couples m~iraculousIy
fertile. This is a perfect example of
contagious magic
RELIGION AND MAGIC
Both religion and science origin
ated in magic. Primitive peoples
seeking to control their environment,
sought certain rules that could be
employed to do this. Not under
standing the actual rules of nature,
they perform what they thought
were the rules. When they wanted
a bontiful crop they sacrificed pre-
gnant animals upon the spot. Like
was supposed to produce like. 1t took
them milleniums to find out that ma
ture worked by other rules and on
the way they discovered both God
and science.
When modern folks hold seances
and try to talk to the spirit of de-
parted loved ones, they are trying
to apply the rules of ordinary living
to a different plane. 1t is as silly
as trying to compute the weight of
Uranus with elementary arithmetic
To imagine that the dead will speak
through a trumpet is as stupid as
trying to fertilize a field with a
pregnant animal Nevertheless there
is undoubtedly a great deal to be
found out about the spirit. 1t pro-
badly survives but not in the per-
sonal way in which people imagine.
People of great spirit personality
influence their own times and often
like Christ, Buddha, Mohamet and
others, reach down through the