LESSON 2
Mercurial Sphere
Mind precedes thoughts, mind is their chief,
their quality is made by mind,
if with pure mind one speaks or acts
through that happiness follows one
like shadow which does not depart.
(from the Dhammapada)
TASK
OBSERVE PERSONAL REALITY SPHERES
What common sense refers to by the word "reality" is a composite concept. Most of what makes up an individual's sense of reality is in fact a mental space that individual has created and is constantly sustaining through their personal experience. The remainder of so-called reality is determined by the interactions between those individual mental spaces. What a person considers to be real depends entirely on the contents of their individual mind. Once a strong (i.e., strongly tied to emotions) belief is formed about reality, no philosophical arguments, positive facts or empirical evidence can make an individual change their mind. Note that there is no practical difference between "changing one's mind" and "changing one's reality."
This is not an attempt to psychologize practical occultism. Such an attempt has been done before by more knowledgeable individuals, and you are advised to review their work. What you need to learn here is that the "outside" of a person's head, their "external" reality, is the same as the inside of their head and their inner reality. Everything we perceive and think we know about the "external" world is created by the mind in a very literal way: all we have are mental images of the universe, and one person's picture not always matches the picture formed by someone else.
For the next two weeks, you will add one more category to the notes on your magic journal. Make daily notes about your interactions with others and try to label them as follows:
EE (eye to eye): your interaction with this person was mostly marked by agreement; you two seemed to "be on the same page" about your topics of discussion or, at least, both of you seemed to make the same basic assumptions about reality. This means that you mutually reinforced each other's personal reality spheres (the echo chamber effect).
UD (unresolvable dispute): your interaction with this person was marked by a conflict of opinion, belief or perception. The two of you found it impossible to agree on some basic aspect of reality. Perhaps the discussion got a little heated and/or either of you refused to listen at some point. This is a very common outcome of everyday (non-academic) discussions on politics, religion, or sports. It means you mutually challenged each other's personal reality spheres (and, most likely, neither of you changed your minds one bit).
RS (reality shift): your interaction with this person resulted in either of you readjusting your belief about an aspect of reality. An initial disagreement was resolved when new information was introduced by one person and accepted by the other. Typically, this happens in a technical context, where none of the individuals involved in the interaction are emotionally invested in the beliefs being challenged. A RS type interaction with another person means either this other person's personal reality sphere or your own have been challenged, but the collective reality of the interaction was able to cause a change in either or both. Needless to say, in an everyday context this is the rarest kind of interaction.
At the end of each week, go back to your notes and try to figure out what went right or wrong about each interaction. Try to understand how individual realities create collective realities when they come into contact, and try to discern the kinds of things that count as evidence or "proof" in different collective realities. For example: quoting the Bible may serve as strong evidence to support an opinion within certain religious congregations, but may fail to count as evidence to convince a non-Christian person.