God is the supreme magician. It is said that for him the impossible is possible, while for an unbeliever even the possible is impossible. A prisoner of his own consciousness and reason, man tries to pick up the trail of divine magic through paradoxes: can God create a stone so big that he cannot lift it? The answer is surprising: yes, he can create a stone so big that he cannot lift it, and yet he can lift it. Yes, he can pour the sea into a little bottle without changing the size of either the sea or the bottle, yet as a rule he does not.
The magician dazzles everyone. His tools are matter, the word and imagination.
He has hidden energy in matter, life in materia, a pearl in the shell and Sun-power in the coal mine. Science says that the smallest part of the universe is visible matter, a larger part is dark matter, and by far the greatest part is dark, invisible energy. When particles split, energy is released, but when they fuse, greater energy is released. The breaking away of souls from the divine harmony also releases energy, which necessarily demands the creation of the material universe, and this is a mighty force. But how much energy, then, is released in finding the way back? How powerful is the reintegration into the divine order? Materia is the receptacle of life, and this is in truth the meeting of matter and antimatter. Matter does not live, but because of the presence of the soul the signs of consciousness and life appear in it. The true pearl is the shell's magic: it coats the impurity with something precious, it builds a pearl upon the dirt. What an alchemical transmutation! And magic hides the shining disc of the Sun in the coal mine – the pyrite sun, this bright, disc-shaped piece of mineral magic, is found in only one coal mine in the world. The Sun hides away deep in the shafts…
The word is a magic weapon. It embodies concepts, calls man and flower by name, and gives us our bearings, so that all things do not run together. In creation, sound – logos, word, mantra – plays a decisive part, able to shape an ordered cosmos out of chaos, and so the word must have a matchless part in salvation too. At the same time, the word can also be negative magic. Mute the most convincing film, and you will see: it is false. We know that a good painting speaks to us and comes alive, but without sound the artifice, the unreality of the moving picture becomes plain. That is, sound can activate the visual illusion, and the magic of the spectacle can be heightened by sound. The spectacle is an obvious magic, and moreover one plain to the eye, while sound is a deeper, more hidden, secret magic, which works beneath consciousness and heightens the mirage of the spectacle. But in the bazaar, believe not what you hear, but what you see…
And imagination… in the world of illusion, imagination knows no bounds. Man feels free and soaring, though he is bound to the soil. He believes himself happy, though material existence is, from first to last, nothing but lack, limitation and failure. He believes himself immortal, yet he will die. Magic makes man believe even the unbelievable, while it makes the believable seem wholly unreal. Vain daydreams, barren imagination only strengthen confusion and bondage, but the positive power of imagination, creative imagination, is a real creative force in man. Do not merely create your inner demons through imagination, but pave the road to salvation as well. If the spell sweeps you off the path, might the divine magic that overcomes illusion be the very means of liberation?
Such is the magic carpet too. A carpet is not for a sense of comfort, still less for us to sweep things under. For a dervish it serves rather for prayer, which is an obligatory spiritual practice, while a mystic needs a magic carpet so that, the moment he sits on it, he is whisked away into another dimension… and lets himself be enchanted by the divine illusion, which is not error but clear sight, which is not a dead end but an open field, which is not a deceptive illusion but the plumb line of truth.