Meditation is one of the most fundamental practices that all magicians should make habit of. There are a lot of reasons for this and it could take me pages and pages to explain why so I’ll try to narrow it down to a few essential points.
- 1. Meditation makes the magician aware that he is in the present moment.
- 2. Meditation teaches the magician how to quiet the mind and become an observer. Observation during magic is an important skill.
- 3. Meditation teaches the magician how to willfully enter different states of consciousness by making him more aware of his mind and body as well as the connecting breath.
- 4. Meditation teaches patience.
- 5. Meditation teaches self-control and discipline.
Scientific studies have shown that meditation makes people more creative. This is something every magician needs. Magicians, by their very essence, are creators. Some articles in science magazines have even suggested the meditation can make you smarter. A lot of people claim that meditation can also relax you and make you a happier person overall. I believe that meditation can make you understand your true will better and can help you better define your goals, create a course of action, and help you achieve them simply by making you more mindful and disciplined not to mention more self-knowledgeable.
This is why the magician should shoot for a regular meditation practice. This is even more important if you suffer from some sort of attention deficit. By regular meditation I don’t mean hours every day, just ten to fifteen minutes should do it. I think that’s enough, longer if you want to. Meditation also doesn’t mean not thinking. It just means becoming aware of your breath, how your body feels, being aware of what you’re thinking and how you’re feeling emotionally, and being able to observe all of this without reacting to it. This is what we call being mindful. It’s a start.
For those of you who have a hard time being that involved with yourself you have to remember that you can’t run from yourself because eventually you catch up to you. In the meantime while you’re reconciling not wanting to be alone with your thoughts, consider guided meditation as an alternative. There are some interesting meditation cds available that you can get online. Some places even have free guided meditations. Then, when you’re ready you can start practicing mindful meditation as described above. Maybe it will help ease you into the whole being alone with yourself thing.
Don’t laugh. Some people really hate being alone and that’s often why. They’re too self critical and being alone means they have nothing better to do than think about themselves and all the perceived things wrong with them and their lives. The trick there is to learn to observe these thoughts and feelings without reacting to them since that’s what makes the meditation mindful.
Some people say yoga before meditation helps put them into the right mind set before meditation. You should experiment and do what feels right for you. This concludes my serious post on the actual day it’s due. Let’s talk meditation in the comments. I’ll answer your meditation questions.
Great article, Nick! 🙂 I agree with everything you say here 100%.
Guided meditation is not good, alle. Meditating on your own Behalf and not through someone else’s “computerized” words is the most effective to moste and Alle, actually. In a meditation session you should sit down somewhere… Putte yourself into a trance while “outside”, in a sense that you are “outside” within your minde. Picture it all around you and feel it in imagery of you surrounded by your settings. That is most effective, because then you won’t be in Nothing-Land. By then, you will enhance your psychick vision two-folds and learn how to be more aware of your surroundings. Your sense of touch will also improve and you will be better able to access your energy field and make youself turn into a LightBody IF you choose to meditate in a… Let’s say, “Light” way. Believe me, this may sound very New Age-ish, and it is, butte it will improve lives big time. The butterfly effect applies to this, and the idea of thought — The Transition effect and the Ripple effect.
I don’t think there’s any better way of phrasing this. Hopefully this makes sense to someone. Thank you for reading.
I serve to Enlighten.
-Sable Siralira
Sable, since you’re inexperienced I’ll kind of explain guided meditation to you. Some people have a hard time focusing or sitting still and for people like that, many of them report that guided meditation can be a positive precursor to a productive, disciplined meditation practice. It’s a valuable tool. I think that may be the point Nick was getting at. Nick’s been at this for over 30 years and is a very successful magician, so I have no doubt he knows of what he speaks.