Magic is real: Katya was cleaning her house, when a mage’s construct cast a spell upon her. An unseen power took control of her body, she stopped cleaning, and she danced uncontrollably across her living room. She was then transported through time, into the past, where she watched her younger self fall in love for the first time.
Magic is real: Zain spent Sunday on his couch, holding a magical artifact. The artifact cast a spell that was hundreds of years old and, suddenly, his reality disappeared as we was mysteriously beamed to another planet, where he went on an adventure with a band of elves, dwarves, and dragons. He and this motley band, against all odds, saved this foreign land from an evil sorcerer, and he was home in time for dinner.
Magic is real. You were taught that magic is a superstition. But you have been lied to.
The two magical experiences shared above happen daily to billions of people, including you.
Mages of the light are alive and well, and they constantly cast beneficial spells upon humanity in an ongoing attempt to awaken more humans to the poetic, divine light. These mages see a beautiful world of virtue and goodness that is hidden to most of us, and they dedicate their lives, and their powers, to a desperate never-ending attempt to show us the truth of our reality. We are asleep. But their spells constantly give us glimpses of true reality and sometimes, miraculously, they do wake us up, even if just for a moment.
These arcane wizards have spent countless hours mastering the skills necessary to employ their weird instruments: their wands, their staves, their amulets, and countless other magical implements. They then use the skills they’ve mastered to cast energetic waves of virtuous light upon us. These magic waves ensnare and enspell us and, when we gift them our attention, they beam light directly into our souls. Since our souls are made of light, this is how we grow, and growth is how we awaken. Where attention goes, life-energy flows.
The reason we no longer believe in magic; in mages; however, is that we have forgotten the truth about them. We have forgotten the truth about magic. We have forgotten how their powers work. So, in the modern world, we willfully deny the existence of wizards, and, instead, we call these mages artists.
Even though we deny the existence of magic, these light-artists constantly remind us of the truth, through their Art:
Music holds the secret,
To know it can make you whole.
It’s not just a game of notes,
it’s the sounds inside your soul.
The magic of the melody
runs through you like a stream.
The notes that play flow
through your head
like a dream.— Triumph, Hold on to Your Dreams
Deep in the shared ancestral memory of our souls, we still vaguely recall the truth about these wizards. We reveal this truth in our language, when we use the term, “master artist;” for only the mages who’ve endured the arduous process of mastery; who have earned the right to be called a master, are able to cast truly powerful spells. A true master, as in master-Jedi, is one who has mastered himself. Mastering yourself is another way of saying that you’ve found, and authentically become, your true Self.
Elite masters, wielding the wand of a paintbrush or pen, weave their tantric castings of paintings or books. Through the infinite types of staves we call guitars, saxophones, or violins, they create long, complicated spells called music; amazing spells that channel the power of muses directly; for music truly is the voice of the muse. Such spells lead us to sing in the shower, dance across the living room, or smile as we drive along ugly streets toward mundane jobs. True masters, even with their bare hands, are able to cast their beneficial spells upon us.
These mages, these artists, work through various mediums, from air, to paper, to canvas, to movement. They enthrall us, either directly, or, more often, by creating amplifying magical constructs which continue to transmit the wizard’s magic energy for generations, even after the mage has passed on, leaving these shadowlands for the realm of true reality. We refer to these magical constructs by more pedestrian names such as paintings, albums, books and sculptures. In the opening stories, Katya was enspelled by a song, and Zain was transported to another planet by a book. Reading, and being transported to another world, by a story that is hundreds of years old; a story that was conceived in the mind of an author who has been dead for centuries, is absolutely magic of the highest order. It is literally telepathy, triggered by a spell of runes printed on a page. A book is a kind of pensieve that allows you to step into the thoughts and memories of the author.
Artists, you see, are the true modern day sages and mages. Art brings energy; Art brings love; Art brings The Kingdom to others and artists are the modern world’s sacred gurus who wield the holy power of beauty and virtue.
As Eknath Easwaran said in his translation of The Upanishads, the classic book of Hindu scriptures:
The constant concern of the artists is to reawaken us to the sacred nature of the environment, of living creatures, of one another, and finally of our own inner reality.
Okay. I admit, I changed one word in his quote. I changed his original word sages to artists to highlight my point that they are the same thing, serving the same purpose..
I implore you to think of yourself as a sage with a mission to awaken humanity the next time you find yourself despairing that your Art doesn’t matter because the truth is, it matters now, more than it ever has before; for if we are ever to get out of the mess of modernity; out of a realm of “dark mages” keeping a population of weak-minded trapped in hell; out of a society of thinking machines ruling non-thinking humans, then your Art; your human Art, is exactly what we need. The goal of this book is to show you how.
“I am interested in art and ecstasy, ecstasy which I would define as the sensation of the soul in ascent, art as the expression and sole means…of passing on that ecstasy to others.” — Ezra Pound
PS - This piece is part of my upcoming book, The Sovereign Artist. If you found it of interest, I encourage you to join the waitlist.
PPS - Remind yourself that music, and all Art, is magic:
Ace Frehley, RIP:
If you would like to support my writing, please take out a premium subscription (just $6 per month).
If you’d like to support my writing, but can’t join as a paid subscriber please click Like, or Restack which signals the algorithm and helps me reach new people. This also helps push back against the encroachment of AI because I do not write with AI and I only feature human artists (with proper links and attribution) in the images with my posts.
No AI Zone: Everything written in this post (and all my posts) is written 100% by me, Clint “Clintavo” Watson, a flesh and blood human seeking to grow my soul and come home my truest self; for that is the essence of creativity. Except for the rare brainstorming of ideas, historical research, or occasionally, character names and meanings, I do not use AI in my writing — that would deny me the very growth of my world through writing that I seek.
I only rarely use AI images with my (non-AI) writing. On the rare occasions I do use an AI image (usually fiction), I also feature at least one artwork by a human artist with image credits and links to their work or, if I can’t find a suitable image, I donate a free month of website service to one of our artist customers at my SaaS company, FASO Artist Websites.
Poetic expression, spiritual ideas, and musings upon beauty, truth and goodness should be free to spread far and wide. Hence, I have not paywalled the work on Clinsights. However, if you’re able to become a paid subscriber, I’d be eternally grateful. It would help, encourage and enable me to continue exploring these topics and allow me to keep it accessible for a world that is in desperate need of beauty, truth, goodness and love. — Creatively, Clintavo.
This harkens back to an open question asked by Clintavo a year or two ago, "what's your definition of art?" Now I say that it's this sort of magic, but kicked up a notch: "Art" is making someone else's neurons fire in the same sequence as yours through only the power of suggestion (painting, dance, music, architecture, etc...) Whatever the means, the result is magic. Yep, whatever our chosen medium, we intentional artists are magic.
Enjoyed this one!! Thanks for sharing!!! I hope it becomes more accepted and takes some of the embarrassment out of talking to others about how magic is real.