I like to say magic is the world’s second oldest profession, a mystical and often awe-inspiring spectacle that, throughout the ages, has blended superstition, trickery and religion.
As for the long-term future: I am prepared to see in this a vision, not a mystical way but in a realistic way, of a population exchange on a much more important scale and including larger territories.
For some people, maybe my artwork just seems like fantasy or something. However, if you have had any kind of a mystical or cosmic experience, I guess, then people seem to recognize the territory.
In my research, I learned that the Boxers’ kung fu wasn’t all that formalized. The vast majority of them didn’t belong to some age-old martial arts tradition. They were basically poor, starving teenagers doing the best they could to figure out how to fight, relying more on their mystical beliefs than formal training.
My feeling is that writing is, for me, a pathological condition. That could sound like a mystical experience, and it may be a mystical experience, but I have learnt just to go with it.
Generating ideas isn’t some mystical talent that you have to be born with: it’s a skill you can develop.
When we cultivate mystical awareness or transcendent identity – which is a natural outgrowth of meditation and other practices – what happens is that we begin to take a witness position on our own lives, and that includes our minds.
Writing is work. It takes a lot of contemplation, concentration, and out-and-out sweat. People tend to romanticize it, that somehow your work appears by benefit of some mystical external force. In reality, to be a writer, you have to sit down and write. It’s work, and often it’s hard work.
For me, acting goes to a special place; it’s almost mystical. You have to let go of what you think is good; it’s a jump into trust, and trying to reach without wanting too much.
I feel very at home in an empty church. I feel the most protected. It’s very mystical.
Many of my fellow atheists consider all talk of ‘spirituality’ or ‘mysticism’ to be synonymous with mental illness, conscious fraud, or self-deception. I have argued elsewhere that this is a problem – because millions of people have had experiences for which ‘spiritual’ and ‘mystical’ seem the only terms available.
With sculpting, nothing is cloudy or mystical. It’s just about this object, and if you’re trying to depict reality, and you do it well, then the outcome is the truth.
I have a mystical bent, and I pursue daily meditations that follow the liturgical calendar – what are called the ‘daily offices’ of the church.
What I do is not some magical, mystical thing. I simply get up in the morning, get to work on time, say my lines, and do the best I can.
Probably every band – you get back to like, The Stones are kind of the tough guys, Beatles are kind of psychedelic, Led Zeppelin was kinda mystical, The Who are kind of mods. You know, you just go right through. Everyone’s kind of adopted their so-called persona or flavor if you will.
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