Author Mitch Horowitz - 'The Miracle Club: How Thoughts Become Reality'

[MorganBlack]

Just a quick shout out to HoldAll for posting this so everyone has an opportunity read it.

I wanted to signal boost New Thought techniques as an addition to your usual magical routine. New Thought does wanting things the best.

Book – PDF - Mitch Horowitz - The Miracle Club: How Thoughts Become Reality

Following in the footsteps of a little-known group of esoteric seekers from the late-nineteenth century who called themselves “the Miracle Club,” Mitch Horowitz shows that the spiritual “wish fulfillment” practices known as the Law of Attraction, Positive Thinking, “the Secret,” and the Science...

wizardforums.com

Mitch's book one of the best introductions to New Thought 'Mind Manifestation" - using the Hermetic Highway of manifestation from Nous (Infinite Mind) to the visible world.

I love daimons, and as a 'hardcore' goetic magician I avoided all this "New Age crap" (as I thought of it) for many years after reading Shakti Gawain's absolutely horrible book on creative visualization many years ago. (Avoid, do not recommend.)

If it was not for Mitch I would have not given New Thought and Neville Goddard's work a chance. Mitch speaks my language, and New Thought really clicked for me, and got linked up in my head, after reading his work.

After Mitch read Neville Goddard. (Trigger warning for those with Christo-trauma, Nevile, who died in 1972, uses a lot of pre-WW II bible language as metaphor.)

 

[Lurker]

Thanks for the recommendation. I never would have considered a book like this otherwise.

 

[MorganBlack]

You're most welcome Lurker!

Yeah, agreed. The whole field is often just so off-putting. I’ve had tried a couple of "Creative Visualization" techniques over the years and never had anything I would count as a success, so I blew it off. I just don’t take that other school of New Thought (NT) in the form of the Law of Attraction , with all their gibberish about "vibes" seriously—it seemed like a childish take on magic.

But I had read one of Mitch Horowitz’s historical books 'Occult America' and knew he was smart and sincere. After listening to him on a couple of podcasts, I decided he was the real deal and not a pop occultnick blowhard.

So, I had a couple of things I wanted to happen and didn’t feel like going to the Verum daimons for it, so I decided to give it a try. I used Neville Goddard’s technique of going into drowsy "State Akin to Sleep" (SATS) - basically dozing off in a hypnogogic state - and for about 5 minutes for a couple of weeks, I basically played a first-person video game in my imagination where I had a scene of the thing I wanted having just happened, being in it as my lived reality. And it is very much - well, exactly like - being immersed in a video game level in my head, experiencing what is called 'environmental storytelling' of the exact scene JUST AFTER what i wanted had happened, doing saying, touching, experiencing it fully. That's really all there is to it. What Neville calls, "Living from the end."

And what I wanted to happen was a pretty "big" thing, something that seemed fairly intractable,. I was going to turn to the daimons for it, but it also wasn’t life-threatening, so I could take some time. At the time i had no idea how long it might take. To my shock it was all taken care of a couple of months later. In my mind, this was a near "impossible" thing. It was like reality just rewrote itself. I was like, "Damn, I guess we really do live in the Matrix." I'm joking, but not by much. It was that shocking. Everything became so much more fluid.

Since then, along with some pretty major life-changing events, I’ve caused a friend’s lost dog to be found—with enough synchronicities to make it much more than “just what was going to happen anyway.” I healed a very sick cat and helped a friend get a job after many months of unemployment. But all those are things I believed were possible. What more can we do if we truly believe? To that end, I think allying New Thought (NT) with a “faith” (a magico-religious framework) is not a bad way to rewire our sense of the possible. I suspect Gerald Gardner did exactly that with Wicca. Nineteenth-century romantic poetry about a lost pagan past, mixed with aesthetics taken from historical Goetia, was his personal video game.

That said, religious fervor often brings it's own issues, often n the form of anti-religious fervor for other myth, or other people's interpretation of myth and how it's reaction to the world. . What I like about Neville Goddard’s "Law of Assumption" (LoA) techniques is that they are presented as techniques, not as a worldview or religion, and they don’t require you to ingest a lot of mystical metaphors, memorize runes, dance around a maypole, practice astral projection, memorize various names of power, make offerings, light candles, or contort yourself into a pretzel. (There’s a place for those, but I’m full up.).

I’m an art director, writer, and visual artist by profession, and I think Neville’s techniques work best for those with a rich imagination and inner life. But apparently, they can work just using verbal techniques and intent. As Mitch often asks, "What if intent is enough?" And he believes so.

For more verbal written NT techniques, presented along with a modern quantum mechanics model for why this stuff might work— by collapsing super-position quantum states in a Growing Block Universe—see Royce Christyn’s book. Mitch Horowitz wrote the foreword.

'Scripting the Life You Want: Manifest Your Dreams with Just Pen and Paper'

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[Lurker]

You're most welcome Lurker!

Yeah, agreed. The whole field is often just so off-putting. I’ve had tried a couple of "Creative Visualization" techniques over the years and never had anything I would count as a success, so I blew it off. I just don’t take that other school of New Thought (NT) in the form of the Law of Attraction , with all their gibberish about "vibes" seriously—it seemed like a childish take on magic.

I stay away from New Age practices too. I mean seriously, how many times can you hear "We're all beautiful beings of light loved by the Pleides"? But then I ask myself if I'm really just in love with the complexity of rituals and the archetype of the sorcerer/mage (and the answer is "Undoutedly yes").

But I had read one of Mitch Horowitz’s historical books 'Occult America' and knew he was smart and sincere. After listening to him on a couple of podcasts, I decided he was the real deal and not a pop occultnick blowhard.


So, I had a couple of things I wanted to happen and didn’t feel like going to the Verum daimons for it, so I decided to give it a try. I used Neville Goddard’s technique of going into drowsy "State Akin to Sleep" (SATS) - basically dozing off in a hypnogogic state - and for about 5 minutes for a couple of weeks, I basically played a first-person video game in my imagination where I had a scene of the thing I wanted having just happened, being in it as my lived reality. And it is very much - well, exactly like - being immersed in a video game level in my head, experiencing what is called 'environmental storytelling' of the exact scene JUST AFTER what i wanted had happened, doing saying, touching, experiencing it fully. That's really all there is to it. What Neville calls, "Living from the end."

Okay, I'm bumping it up my to-read list. Hypnagogic states have, on and off, played a significant role in my practices over the years. But I've never found anyone who talks about them in detail, let alone harnesses them.

And what I wanted to happen was a pretty "big" thing, something that seemed fairly intractable,. I was going to turn to the daimons for it, but it also wasn’t life-threatening, so I could take some time. At the time i had no idea how long it might take. To my shock it was all taken care of a couple of months later. In my mind, this was a near "impossible" thing. It was like reality just rewrote itself. I was like, "Damn, I guess we really do live in the Matrix." I'm joking, but not by much. It was that shocking. Everything became so much more fluid.

Since then, along with some pretty major life-changing events, I’ve caused a friend’s lost dog to be found—with enough synchronicities to make it much more than “just what was going to happen anyway.” I healed a very sick cat and helped a friend get a job after many months of unemployment. But all those are things I believed were possible. What more can we do if we truly believe? To that end, I think allying New Thought (NT) with a “faith” (a magico-religious framework) is not a bad way to rewire our sense of the possible. I suspect Gerald Gardner did exactly that with Wicca. Nineteenth-century romantic poetry about a lost pagan past, mixed with aesthetics taken from historical Goetia, was his personal video game.

Man, that's great! We need more simple and effective methods of thaumaturgy. Not having to bargain with spirts is definitely and advantage, although everything has its place.

That said, religious fervor often brings it's own issues, often n the form of anti-religious fervor for other myth, or other people's interpretation of myth and how it's reaction to the world. . What I like about Neville Goddard’s "Law of Assumption" (LoA) techniques is that they are presented as techniques, not as a worldview or religion, and they don’t require you to ingest a lot of mystical metaphors, memorize runes, dance around a maypole, practice astral projection, memorize various names of power, make offerings, light candles, or contort yourself into a pretzel. (There’s a place for those, but I’m full up.).

Well that's another 'plus' in my opinion. I've committed myself to a system/systems of theurgy for some time, probably a couple of years, or maybe even a lifetime. So a dogma-free technique of practical magick fits in nicely.

I’m an art director, writer, and visual artist by profession, and I think Neville’s techniques work best for those with a rich imagination and inner life. But apparently, they can work just using verbal techniques and intent. As Mitch often asks, "What if intent is enough?" And he believes so.

For more verbal written NT techniques, presented along with a modern quantum mechanics model for why this stuff might work— by collapsing super-position quantum states in a Growing Block Universe—see Royce Christyn’s book. Mitch Horowitz wrote the foreword.

'Scripting the Life You Want: Manifest Your Dreams with Just Pen and Paper'

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Thank you for the recommendation, Morgan, and for the detailed reply. I look forward to reading this and putting it into practice.

 

[Diamond-otherkin]

I hav

You're most welcome Lurker!

Yeah, agreed. The whole field is often just so off-putting. I’ve had tried a couple of "Creative Visualization" techniques over the years and never had anything I would count as a success, so I blew it off. I just don’t take that other school of New Thought (NT) in the form of the Law of Attraction , with all their gibberish about "vibes" seriously—it seemed like a childish take on magic.

But I had read one of Mitch Horowitz’s historical books 'Occult America' and knew he was smart and sincere. After listening to him on a couple of podcasts, I decided he was the real deal and not a pop occultnick blowhard.

So, I had a couple of things I wanted to happen and didn’t feel like going to the Verum daimons for it, so I decided to give it a try. I used Neville Goddard’s technique of going into drowsy "State Akin to Sleep" (SATS) - basically dozing off in a hypnogogic state - and for about 5 minutes for a couple of weeks, I basically played a first-person video game in my imagination where I had a scene of the thing I wanted having just happened, being in it as my lived reality. And it is very much - well, exactly like - being immersed in a video game level in my head, experiencing what is called 'environmental storytelling' of the exact scene JUST AFTER what i wanted had happened, doing saying, touching, experiencing it fully. That's really all there is to it. What Neville calls, "Living from the end."

And what I wanted to happen was a pretty "big" thing, something that seemed fairly intractable,. I was going to turn to the daimons for it, but it also wasn’t life-threatening, so I could take some time. At the time i had no idea how long it might take. To my shock it was all taken care of a couple of months later. In my mind, this was a near "impossible" thing. It was like reality just rewrote itself. I was like, "Damn, I guess we really do live in the Matrix." I'm joking, but not by much. It was that shocking. Everything became so much more fluid.

Since then, along with some pretty major life-changing events, I’ve caused a friend’s lost dog to be found—with enough synchronicities to make it much more than “just what was going to happen anyway.” I healed a very sick cat and helped a friend get a job after many months of unemployment. But all those are things I believed were possible. What more can we do if we truly believe? To that end, I think allying New Thought (NT) with a “faith” (a magico-religious framework) is not a bad way to rewire our sense of the possible. I suspect Gerald Gardner did exactly that with Wicca. Nineteenth-century romantic poetry about a lost pagan past, mixed with aesthetics taken from historical Goetia, was his personal video game.

That said, religious fervor often brings it's own issues, often n the form of anti-religious fervor for other myth, or other people's interpretation of myth and how it's reaction to the world. . What I like about Neville Goddard’s "Law of Assumption" (LoA) techniques is that they are presented as techniques, not as a worldview or religion, and they don’t require you to ingest a lot of mystical metaphors, memorize runes, dance around a maypole, practice astral projection, memorize various names of power, make offerings, light candles, or contort yourself into a pretzel. (There’s a place for those, but I’m full up.).

I’m an art director, writer, and visual artist by profession, and I think Neville’s techniques work best for those with a rich imagination and inner life. But apparently, they can work just using verbal techniques and intent. As Mitch often asks, "What if intent is enough?" And he believes so.

For more verbal written NT techniques, presented along with a modern quantum mechanics model for why this stuff might work— by collapsing super-position quantum states in a Growing Block Universe—see Royce Christyn’s book. Mitch Horowitz wrote the foreword.

'Scripting the Life You Want: Manifest Your Dreams with Just Pen and Paper'

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I have tried SATS before but did not see good results. Maybe because I was a bit doubtful (also not into new-age stuff and I viewed it as new-age adjacent) or maybe because I did not do enough repetitions. I basically did a one off.
When you visualize the scene after what you want to happen has happen, do you make it "realist" or do you include in your visualization things you would also visualize in real life but that would not be visible to people outside your head?
Like for example when something nice happens to me I like to visualize the thing emitting a slight glow in my daily life. Should I include that in my after scene because I would most likely live it like that in my head ?
Will also read both recommendations when I get to them. Thanks for sharing in a very clear and detailed post though

 

[MorganBlack]

Hi Diamond-otherkin!

Medium answer:
I hope i understand your question. Here is my rule of thumb, but make it as real as possible and in a real-life scene just after the thing you want has happened.

There is no right way aside from emotional immersion in a realistically plausible scene. The process should be fun. Like playing a IRL video game in your head. No spiritual grind required. All of NT is only a series of techniques and keeps required worldview and cosmologies to a bare minimum, aside from what I think of as a very casual Folk Hermetic Quantum model for what is maybe going on.

My hot take, using quantum metaphors. You live in a number quantum realities and probably most of them to not include many of fanciful additions people like to add. Don't add them so as to not create yet another a separate reality. And don't talk about what you're doing with anyone , which splits off another you and creates yet another reality. Or something. I think.

Keep it plausible, emotionally and true-to-this world plausible. Close to real life. And example of what did not work for me.

Shakti Gawain in her terrible book has gives a technique where you visualized what you want in a pink balloon floating AWAY from you. So absurd. I am not sure what intellectual reversal could make that work. In NT emotion beats intellect. That said maybe some whose inner-sense-of-meaning is wired the opposite of reality where something moving away from you is actually getting closer, could make it work. But that is not a Law of Assumption technique. In LOA you are to feel-assume what you want is already a ground-truth fact.

Long answer:
I had the same issue with Chaos Magic sigils. For several years, I tried every technique under the sun: the classic letter removal method, scrying sigils, automatic writing sigils— and I never had what I’d call a single success. In contrast, Goetia produced obvious and dramatic results, so that’s been my focus for many years.

If I had found success with the Law of Assumption (LOA) early on, I might never have become a Goetic magician. Goetia can be incredibly dramatic and was probably what I needed to “break materialism,” as I like to say. I spent many years in corporate game development, and in that morality-free zone, you get very good at sorcery very quickly out of survival necessity. That sense of certainty I bring into my New Thought (NT) practice.

Neville’s LOA is incredibly simple. To "manifest" my friend’s dog returning (ugh, these words take a while to get used to), I spent time in a vivid, first-person 3D scene in my mind, watching my friend play with their dog in the front yard, clearly excited to be reunited. I observe them and feel pleased they’re together again, empathetic to the joy and relief my friend feels. I become immersed in the scene and feeling the feeling of these moments. The feeling is said to be important. Neville’s book 'The Feeling Is the Secret' emphasizes this.

For example, say you want a firetruck. In your imagination, spend time with your firetruck. See the red paint and run your hand across the hood. Grip the door handle, feel the cold metal as you open it, then climb into the cabin and sit behind the steering wheel. Notice the sunshine glinting off the hood, see the blue sky, and feel joy in the experience.

Although not required, you can layer on verbal techniques, saying something like, “Wow, I love having a firetruck! I’m so psyched! This is wonderful!” Use your personal emotional language. The specific words are not important in and of themselves.

LOA teaches that it’s important to eliminate any sense of time distance. The firetruck isn’t coming. It's here now. There is nothing to do and taking action that place emphasis not having the firetruck event only reifies you not having it. It’s already here and will appear in your visible world shortly.

You can embellish the visualization with details like glowing effects, runes, the sign of the cross. I sometime say "Fiat est" empathically three times. and then with a gentle hand wave, "And so it" - like it's just so obvious.

These words not magical in an of themselves, but they can make the experience feel more real to you and trigger emotions. But again, it’s already done—there’s no “doing.” A lot of modern magic is too mechanical and intellectual. LOA is touchy-feely.

I also highly recommend getting used to cheesy “normies” in NT space. It's extremely normcore. No paganism, polyamory, and runes to be seen.

In the past 10 years LOA has become very popular outside traditional occult circles, and just like here, there many people are trying to monetize it and get people hooked on the process , or join their little cult. In LOA there are fewer cringe edgelords but plenty of cringe normies.

Many go down a rabbit hole looking for the perfect technique, but stay close to Neville. Mitch too. Not glowing energy needed. That stuff is more Law of Attraction. Neville never talked about energy, or vibes, or staying high on positivity.

About how long does it take? the SATS immersion is usually done over a period of days, maybe weeks. A couple of videos may be helpful (below):

Ignore most of this guy's channel. Like alot of occult influencers he is trying to get you hooked on the process to monetize YT. But his grandfather was a VIP member of Neville’s circle in Los Angles and gives a very good eyewitness account of Neville freely sharing his technique with groups of non-occult normies. Those who "accidentally" manifest climbing a ladder get to comeback come back to his second talk.

Highly recommneded viewing, culture shock cringe aside.

Neville Goddard-My grandfather talking about the VIP Meetings and his testimony creating money.

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Neville Goddard - Explaining that what you fall asleep with manifests into your life.

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Best to you and yours!
~MB

 

[Diamond-otherkin]

Thank you so much for the very nice and detailed response!

LOA teaches that it’s important to eliminate any sense of time distance.

I think that may have been the mistake I did. Well that and a bit of doubt because I associated the technique with things that I would consider more day-dreaming than magick. -Here I should mention that I totally respect getting results/an experience through the available means and sometimes even if you could get let's say the supercar in real-life, as an environmentally-conscious magician you could actually chose to want the supercar to manifest in a very vivid dream state because you know you would get bored of driving it anyway and therefore that would be better for all that you get the experience without the actual thing-
However, yeah for that particular case I needed something to happen in the objective shared reality, including my perception of it but also others. And I think one of my mistakes is that in the scene I was seeing the moment after I got it but the scene itself was like a few months in the future. I did not think of it or verbalize it but the way the sun was going through a certain window is the type of angle that only hit in early summer. So yeah, maybe I just placed my limitations within the manifested reality and delayed something that will happen by visualizing happening around summer.... (if that manifests in summer it's going to be funny and a good lesson)

You can embellish the visualization with details like glowing effects, runes, the sign of the cross. I sometime say "Fiat est" empathically three times. and then with a gentle hand wave, "And so it" - like it's just so obvious.

I like that kind of flare. I do this kind of stuff in my head quite often when doing like 'daily life magick' in public. I'm personally not comfortable much with visible and obvious gestures but I visualize and feel myself doing them, or add glow or something. I find it makes the magick more fun to do after a while.

But again, it’s already done—there’s no “doing.” A lot of modern magic is too mechanical and intellectual. LOA is touchy-feely.

That's certainly an area I need to make progress in. Even outside magick I'm sometimes the 'overthinking' type from what I heard.

Highly recommneded viewing, culture shock cringe aside.

Will give it a watch haha