kitschchaos.com

Children of the Corn. This turn of phrase at this moment in time refers to sugar becoming popular again as high fructose corn syrup takes on blame for children’s obesity (I’m for it despite the idiocy, sugar is as fattening as corn syrup – but sugar is  a better tasting and higher quality sweetener).

The point of this blog post isn’t about obesity or sweeteners though. It’s about children, and why we fear them. Because ‘Children of the Corn‘ is most familiar as a Stephen King horror movie, featuring supernatural effects and spooky children. But that movie is hardly isolated in making horror monsters of children, the genre of horror movies has spooky dangerous dangerous children as a regular recurring theme.

Why do we fear children? And we do. Horror movies wouldn’t use children to scare us if we didn’t fear children. Children are small, relatively dumb, weak … what is it about children we find threatening?

It’s because children are magical. And if just instinctively, we know this. And that’s why they are featured in horror movies. It’s children that first see ghosts, have ‘invisable’ play mates, are the ones that see supernatural beings like fairies.

Some magicians will suggest becoming childlike is a key to being effective at magic. They are right. But they rarely explain what that means and why it’s a winning strategy.

First of all, the common eastern philosophical imperative, ‘be here now!’ is a mental state children are in very regularly – because the world is new to them and they have an awful or of information to consume- the privilege of not being present is less available to them.

Second, children have amazing capacity to believe, the monster under the bed is almost always a genuine conviction. The ‘psychic censor’ is underdeveloped in children, there’s little to get in the way of any given belief for a child.

Lastly, children pretend and play! The stuff of magic is exactly pretend and play!

Children are powerful and dangerous, and we go to horror movies to remind us why.

Now, presuming you’re an adult wanting to become a competent magician, what’s the point here? Well, the main point is that as an adult you are still a child, you had been a child, and the child you had been, you have that child’s memories and capabilities. You’ve grown and matured, but nothing you could do as a child is denied you explicitly – your access is limited because of other useful things you learned, which may be summed up as your psychic censor and your ‘identity’ as an adult.

My uncle is in his 60′s, facing mortality, and wants to live the next decade with a slowed sense of time, as he experienced as a child. How to do this? I believe it relates to magic as well, unlearning enough to become powerful in magic.  In my opinion, the idea of ‘be here now’ is key – children experience slow time as they absorb more experience in that time than an adult might.

To cut to the chase, the elements of childhood useful for magic, that a magician would want to reclaim: easy belief, awareness and willingness to pretend and play.

The simplest to accomplish is the willingness to pretend and play, what might stop you is the thought of looking foolish. Now there is a real insight that can make it easier. I’m not sure how best to communicate it for you to really ‘get it’ though. The thing to remember is that while human being is diverse, we’re also very similar. If you go out in public with the fear of being judged by those that see you – imagine they fear being judged by you. It’s just as real, there are people that really do fear being judged by you! And if you can understand irrationality of the fear -feel free to pretend and play and not care what others think.

Easy belief is much harder as an adult – but if you can reclaim the ability to pretend, the power of imagination can be pretty amazing. ‘Fake it till you make it’ is a cliche ’cause it works.

The ‘awareness’ of a child is a much larger goal if you seriously pursue, ‘being here now’. But it is also a key to mastery and magic.  Being present means knowing what the hallway you pass every day on your way to work, what it really looks like. Usual consciousness simply refers to all the hallways you’ve already experienced and only registered relevant differences, like the position of the stairs and elevator. When we do this with people it’s called a ‘steroetype’, but we do it anyway. usual consciousness works this way because it’s efficient. Being really aware at all times is kin to a 24/7 conscious meditation where the  mind is focused on being what you doing and experiencing right now. If you want to master this art of consciousness, regular Zen meditation will train your consciousness to be more capable – here’s where I explained the basics: http://kitschchaos.com/blog/?p=82

Related Posts

• MTV Cribs - and tying together LOA and Sigils Maria Carey has won another award! Her singing? Perhaps for...
• Obama's speech to school children here's the story Basically President Obama is intending to communicate...
• The Choking Game Here's a link to a 'Chocking Game' related news story....
• LOA and gnosis I'm working on stuff for this site. This site will...
• Creationist Museum accepts Darwin? check it out here This Post is not exactly about...

Related Websites

• Foundation Stage Curriculum The very idea of Foundation Stage Curriculum is based upon...
• You Can Play The idea of 'that is me'... I have an idea...
• Should You Pay for Your Child's College Education? Paying for college for yourself or for a child can...
• Seven Tips for Preventing A Dog from Biting Your Children [/caption]Even if your family already has a child-friendly dog, this...
• Shopping for a Child Size Guitar - What You Need to Know When it comes to purchasing acoustic musical instruments for children,...