What if we are all alone and every god, religion and magical system was an egregore?

[Robert Ramsay]

Yet sometimes people get results that they don't consciously believe they can achieve. They may try magic as a lark and then get results, for instance. Also, one can have extreme 'unusual' experiences outside of anything one has ever expected (I can testify to this), thus it's difficult to say one's self-conception shifted them to the universe where this could occur.

If you could do it directly with your conscious mind, what a nightmare that would be!

Intention-less magic happens all the time; mostly though it either cancels out or expresses as random synchronicities. This is why one is entreated to 'know thyself' - I believe the purpose of Zen is to make your consciousness and your subconscious (read: the two halves of your brain) as compatible as possible.

I find it easier to think of yourself as a very complicated ball of atoms. Each moment, all the atoms in your brain are in certain combinations. There are sets of those combinations which you would consider 'success', and you are aiming to literally become that version of yourself.