Printed in the Fall 2022 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Horowitz, Mitch, "Optimism of the Will: Mind Power as a Philosophy of Life" Quest 110:4, pg 36-39
By Mitch Horowitz
It is a common assertion in alternative spirituality that mind power is the primary force in the universe and that thoughts are causative. If these statements are true, they place the practitioner in front of a daunting question: what is mind power for? Is it just a metaphysical ego trip? Or a mode of escapism?
I have wrestled with this question for many years. At this stage of my search, I have ceased to distinguish between what are considered to be eternal values and temporal ones. I believe that any such division is artificial, however deeply imbued in us it may be by the force of familiarity.
Much of Eastern and Western religious thought tells us that we live in a hierarchical cosmos, and things that are essential, eternal, sacred, and everlasting belong to the “greater you,” to a higher degree of existence. You progress toward this higher degree as you shed worldly attachments and illusions, sometimes broadly called maya or samsara, and realize that attachments foster suffering.
I believe that this idea, as foundational and familiar as it may be, does not suit the life and search of the contemporary seeker. In my observation, we have fallen into a rote and recitative division in which we think in terms of attachment and nonattachment, identification and nonidentification, personality and essence, ego and true self, temporal and eternal. At this point in my search, I have come to believe that the essential purpose of life is self-expression. Self-expression can take any number of forms that are intimate and necessary to the individual. This is not the same as consumption of a gross variety, which merely aims to salve a lack of self-expression.
I am opposed to any barriers that may have been thrown up between the seeker and his or her sense of self-expression. The only thing that I stand against—the only moral code I employ on the path—is that I would never intentionally do anything to block or deter another person from striving for the same human potential that I wish for myself.
Even in our age of decentered and discursive information, we imbibe too many homiletic ideas about what constitutes the search, what reflects progress on the path, and how one would evaluate that progress. I believe that the evaluation of the success (a term of which we should be unafraid) of a philosophy, therapy, religious, or spiritual viewpoint is the conduct and experience of the seeker.
In Scripture, we read that the creator fashioned the individual in its own image. In the ancient text called The Emerald Tablet, a similar note appears in the principle “as above, so below.” If we take these notions seriously, if these ideas actually mean something to us—and they are at the heart of the Abrahamic and Hermetic religious systems—they must mean that you, the individual, are capable of creating within your own sphere, as you were created.
Created from what? Hermeticism teaches that all of existence emanates from an infinite presence, from which nothing can be added or subtracted. This original substance has no proportion; it cannot be measured, limited, or contained within concepts of time, space, or dimension. The one thing that we consensually understand as fitting that definition is mind.
The Hermeticists used the Greek term nous to describe an Overmind, which they saw as the source of creation. These Greco-Egyptian thinkers believed that each individual emanates through concentric spheres from this higher mind. As a being born of mind, the individual is endowed with corresponding creative abilities within the physical framework in which he or she dwells. But this schema also holds that we are limited by the laws and forces of our cosmic framework. “Ye are gods,” the Psalmist says, “but ye shall die like men” (Psalm 82:6‒7).
Observation dictates that we live under immensely diffuse laws and forces—of which I believe mental causation is one. A law is, by definition, ever operative. This does not mean, however, that it is experienced uniformly. H2O is always water, but water can, of course, be vapor, liquid, or solid depending upon temperature. Gravity is constant—it is mass attracted to itself—but you will experience gravity differently on the moon than on earth, on Jupiter, or in the vacuum of space. The law of mental causation may work similarly: it is constant, but myriad forces mitigate your experience, sometimes deterring it from its apparent function. Hence we do not categorically flee from limits when experimenting with the mind power thesis.
Is there any difference between thought and spiritual appeal? The sensitized mind may be what we colloquially call spirit. We know from academic ESP studies that the mind evinces extraphysical qualities.* Extraphysicality is my basic definition of spirituality. As such, mind and spirit may be part of the same scale. Let me share a personal experience, which touches on that prospect.
Several years ago, I was part of a very demanding esoteric order. Many people in the group were intellectually refined, and the rigor of the search was deeply felt. Physical demands were placed on us. Seekers could be pushed to their limits. I can assure you that nothing does more, or works more quickly, to skewer fantasies about yourself than being awakened at an inconvenient hour in an unfamiliar or uncomfortable place to perform some difficult task: you discover your limits quickly. People who are accustomed to succeeding in familiar or comfortable settings, who are considered “wise owls” in their domestic realms, or who see themselves as spiritually advanced, become leveled when they are exposed to a very different scale.
One winter, we were planning a camping trip near the New York‒Pennsylvania border. If you have ever gone winter camping in the northeastern United States, you know it can be tough going. But this trip was planned for a purpose. We were gathering in the woods to join together in the search.
My teacher gave me a particular task in preparation. He mixed in a little humor with it, but it was nonetheless a veritable and meaningful effort. He said that the women in the group were going to sleep in tents in the freezing nights. The men were staying in a cold-water cabin—basically a large, uninsulated shack, which was little better. My teacher said that if the female campers had to get up at night to relieve themselves, in order that they would not have to venture into the icy woods, I was to go out and buy buckets for their tents to serve as chamber pots. But these buckets, he said with a glint in his eye, had to be of a particular type. They had to be pink and heart-shaped. If, after really trying, I could find no pink, heart-shaped buckets, it would be acceptable for me to buy red, heart-shaped ones. If I really found myself out of options, I could finally buy red buckets of a standard shape.
This was before digital commerce exploded, so the search for an unusual item required phone calls and visits on foot. I lived on the East Side of Manhattan, and I embarked on a search across New York’s boroughs for pink, heart-shaped buckets. I did not want to disappoint my teacher, and I felt that the task was important on several levels. I put everything into it. I called and visited bed and bath stores, hardware stores, home goods stores, and contractor stores, crossing myriad places off my growing list. I got nowhere. I could not find pink, heart-shaped buckets. So I decided to switch to plan B and look for red buckets, first heart-shaped and, if that proved futile, of a standard shape. That did not seem too difficult.
Oddly enough, here I was in New York City—one of the commercial hubs of the world—and I could not find red buckets of either type. Again, I called and visited hardware stores, paint stores, you name it. Nothing. Early one evening, out on a household errand, I told myself, “Well, it’s time to call my teacher and admit that I failed. I’ve searched everywhere for pink, heart-shaped buckets. I searched for red, heart-shaped buckets, and then just regular red, circular buckets—but came up empty.” Something told me to wait a bit longer: do not call him yet.
As this was running through my head, I was standing outside of a little neighborhood grocery store, someplace you run to pick up eggs or milk. I entered the store and headed toward the back to the cold foods section. When I reached the rear of the store, right there stood a gleaming, brand-new pile of pink, heart-shaped buckets. In near disbelief, I grabbed a stock boy and asked, “What color are those buckets?” He said, “Pink.” I asked, “And they’re heart-shaped?” Regarding me somewhat strangely, he agreed and volunteered, “They just came in today.”
I was astonished not only because the odds and circumstances of finding my hallowed item right then and there seemed infinitesimal (this is so even if you use the “law of large numbers,” which dictates that across a large population, weird things must happen to someone), but there was an additional factor. It is critical to recall that there is one thing that statistics cannot really get at: the emotional stakes and personal meaning of an experience. The individual is invested with a certain something in relation to the thing encountered—whether a yearned-for relationship, job offering, home listing, crisis averted, stranger who helps, or a friend who has been long out of touch. The emotional stakes and private meaning of a situation can heighten its rarity and pertinence beyond any measure of chance. That is what I experienced in this situation. It exemplified for me an ineffable truth: there is something lawful about mental exertion.
To focus on just one aspect of the mind causation thesis, it seems to me that the trigger of conveyance behind thought and circumstance is the uniqueness, dedication, and totality of an individual’s focus, mental and otherwise.
Why should this be? In Hermetic philosophy, all actions, cycles, and events represent a kind of rhythmical swing. A pendulous, rhythmical swing necessitates a mirroring swing. To switch for a moment to standard mechanics, Isaac Newton made the observation, which has been validated in both macro and particle physics, that objects separated over vast distances exert precise mirroring effects over one another, a process for which we have been unable to fully account.
Contemporary string theory is among the theses developed to explain this mirror effect. Within the schema of string theory, all of reality, from the particulate to the universal, is joined by networks of interwoven strings, providing unseen and extradimensional antecedents for observed events, including those that we call chance.
In terms of human endeavor, when we dedicate ourselves to an ideal and we bring totality of effort—mental, emotional, and physical—to concentrate on that point, we set in motion a rhythmical swing. There must be a corresponding motion. That motion moves along the arc of your focus, provided there is no overwhelming countermovement based on another event, action, or physical barrier within your framework.
Is this more than supposition? To consider that, follow me briefly down a different path. It strikes me that our senses are nothing more than organic instruments of measurement. If we want to get down to definitions that even a philosophical materialist could love, what else are sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste than instruments of measurement, which transfer data to your central nervous system or psyche?
Over the course of more than ninety years, researchers in particle physics have amassed indelible evidence that a subatomic particle exists in what is called a wave state or a state of superposition: the particle appears in an infinite number of places simultaneously. It is not localized, or actual, until a sentient observer decides to take a measurement, or a technical device, such as a photometer, periodically takes one.
There exists debate over whether a device represents a method of measurement distinct from an observer, as well as whether the “collapse” from wave to particle results from an observer’s individual psyche or “transpersonal mind behaving according to natural laws,” as noted by Bernardo Kastrup, Henry P. Stapp, and Menas C. Kafatos in a May 29, 2018, Scientific American article, “Coming to Grips with the Implications of Quantum Mechanics.” This transpersonal mind, the writers continue, “comprises but far transcends any individual psyche,” a description similar to the Hermetic concept of nous. The authors compellingly argue that even if a device is used for measurement—and thus localization—perception and intent, either of the individual, the metamind, or both, remains the determining force.
Readers who look up this Scientific American article will find that my descriptions of quantum theory are, if anything, conservative. We are, in fact, witnessing a kind of reality selection in the quantum lab, pertaining not only to particle behavior but also to the nature of observation and creation—or, again, selection—from among infinite, coexisting realities. A decision to measure or not measure sets in motion innumerable possibilities. This is the “many worlds interpretation” of quantum physics. A law, as noted, must be constant, although it is not necessarily transferable to every situation or free from mitigating or surrounding circumstances.
Quantum mechanics has brought us to the undeniable conclusion that consciousness, or the psyche, cannot be extracted from physics and material existence. All is entangled or whole. Hence, if our senses function as devices of measurement, we are nudged in the direction of self-selection.
The implications of quantum data are increasingly important because we are encountering parallel insights in other sciences. Researchers in neuroplasticity use brain scans to demonstrate that thought alters neural pathways through which electrical impulses travel in the brain. Brain biology must be understood as the product of thought as much as the other way around. Hence I am engaging in more than metaphor when I speak of rhythmic correspondences, sensory measurements, and mental selectivity.
I believe that nothing on the path does more to stifle your sense of morale, purpose, possibility, and selfhood than being told what you are supposed to find, how you are supposed to live, what your spiritual values are supposed to be, or what the search is supposed to be about. Self-determination is vital to everything I have been describing.
In my observation, the ability to direct your mental and emotive energies requires a measure of assurance and hopeful expectancy. This is commonly observed in placebo studies. The belief that something can happen is critical. Another elusive concept, faith, is an umbrella term for these catalytic factors. Faith is bound up with, and in some ways equivalent to, persistence. That is the experience described in my story of the buckets. Through the passion of dedication and meaningful persistence, my full psyche was in play. The psyche is a compact of thought and emotion.
Nonetheless, thoughts, emotions, and physicality run on separate tracks. If thoughts ruled us, no one would have a problem with anger, addiction, or overeating. Emotion and physicality are often stronger than thought. We can use our minds (which run on a continuum with spirituality) to help circumvent mood or craving; but those things are enormously powerful, and they sometimes must receive their due. Moods and cravings are not just to be corralled and reorganized; they may have a valid claim on us. I point this out simply to highlight that thought is not the only mediator of power.
As an amalgam of thought and emotion, the unified psyche is powerful: it is the totality of your psychology. This compact entity forms only when you progress in the direction of a passionately felt need. That is why I consider desires sacred. A desire does not necessarily liberate you from things that are owed to others. But a desire points you in the direction of authenticity. As such, a desire should be carefully understood and, whenever principle permits, heeded. Do not allow a noninvasive desire to get taken from you. Because persistence in its direction summons the forces called faith, expectation, belief in self, and investment in the greater possibility of the individual.
In the afterword of The Culture of Narcissism, philosopher Christopher Lasch sharpened his critique of religious or social models that extol gratification and pointed to his vision of a sounder, stabler approach to life. He observed compellingly:
The best hope of emotional maturity, then, appears to lie in a recognition of our need for and dependence on people who nevertheless remain separate from ourselves and refuse to submit to our whims. It lies in a recognition of others not as projections of our own desires but as independent beings with desires of their own. More broadly, it lies in acceptance of our limits. The world does not exist merely to satisfy our own desires; it is a world in which we can find pleasure and meaning, once we understand that others too have a right to these goods. Psychoanalysis confirms the ancient religious insight that the only way to achieve happiness is to accept limitations in a spirit of gratitude and contrition instead of attempting to annul those limitations or bitterly resenting them.
My wish is not to foster an imagined escape from life’s obligations or a justification to bend others to our desires. Indeed, the chief sign of weakness masquerading as agency is when someone continually burdens others to repair his moods, support his psyche, or dispense rewards. Nor am I positing a system without limits or barriers. Unwillingness to bow to or acknowledge frustrations can become a form of theater in which the indestructible being conceals his or her own lack of self-belief.
I pursue experiential philosophies that elevate and encourage our expansion toward self-expression and heightened existence—without denying existential trauma. Such outlooks bring purpose, intention, striving, focus, and beingness to our existence. The philosophy of mind causation, on the terms explored here, not only abets authentic selfhood but forms its foundation.
As I see it, nothing in this approach abrogates or fundamentally conflicts with Lasch’s analysis. More importantly, the mind causation thesis contributes a defensibly greater possibility to the human situation than what appears in Lasch’s or many other secular psychosocial outlooks. As seeking people, we must avoid delusional excesses, which occur on either extreme—mystical or materialist—of how one views the psyche.
Within New Age culture, as Lasch justly observes, we are often conditioned to think in elusive or inflated concepts of self-development and its horizons. People of a spiritual orientation might use terms like realized, enlightened, or illumined. I find such language excessive. People of a psychological bent might use terms like well-adjusted, actualized, or fulfilled. Those concepts are more graspable; but, like the vocabulary of cognitive-behavioral therapy, psychological terminology can confine the individual to a life of diagnostic contentment rather than supporting a more expansive sense of attainment.
I reaffirm my contention that the true aim of life is self-expression. And we possess tools—including mind causation—that can help us in that effort. Such prospects are not to everyone’s spiritual and ethical tastes, but they do not require a break with philosophical sobriety.
* See, for example, a meta-analysis of psychical research data that appeared in the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association: “The Experimental Evidence for Parapsychological Phenomena: A Review” by Etzel Cardeña, American Psychologist 73, no. 5 (2018): 663–77.
A PEN Award‒winning historian, Mitch Horowitz is the author of books including Occult America, The Miracle Club, Daydream Believer, and Uncertain Places. Mitch is a writer-in-residence at the New York Public Library. His books have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Spanish. His work is censored in China. Mitch is a member of the Theosophical Society in America. He is on Twitter @MitchHorowitz and on Instagram @MitchHorowitz23.
This article is adapted from a chapter in Daydream Believer: Unlocking the Ultimate Power of Your Mind, published by G&D Media, July 2022.