First things first: if you hold to some sort of objectivist, rationalistic, physicalist notion of metaphysics,t hat is, of the ultimate nature of reality, then please either close this window now, or keep your intellectual infantilism to yourself.
I’ve been thinking about the ideas of the microcosm, free will, autonomy etc. quite a bit in the last week, spurred on by questions posed in these forums, trying to get at the root of why it is so easy to cause events to transpire by ritual when taken as generalities, but sometimes so difficult to achieve such desires when targeting a specific person. Now, if we can for a moment focus on the microcosm. Regarding some sort of notion of a ‘multiverse’ and universes branching off from one another, I’m faced with the following difficulty: if X, which I am experiencing, branches off into Xa, of which I am conscious, and Xb, of which I am not conscious, then what exactly am “I” in Xb? Clearly this is not actually “I” at all, or at least, with logical certainty, the two persons in Xa and Xb resembling the one in X are not identical. But, for certain, the I (I am speaking here of the true, spiritual self, not the transient ego, that transcendent being through which the temporal world flows, not that life which flows with it) in Xa is identical with that in X. Now, one might say that the identity “split”, so to speak, but this is absurd for me, once again by basic principles of logic, since this would imply Xa = X & Xb = X, implying further that Xa = Xb, which is obviously not the case. The conclusion that I draw from this is that this “person” in Xb is not really spiritually autonomous at all, but a mere lifeform. To bolster this argument I suggest that the universe branches upon a decision of the will that comes from outside of the universe to change it, and there can be, in the moment of this decision, one and only one decision that is made, and it is the universe that leads from this decision which the true self “follows”. In other words, the will in X decided upon Xa, not upon Xb, which is a potentiality that exists, but is not part of my microcosm which is now Xa.
So, what does this have to do with anything? Well, I’m thinking that all these microcosms exist out there, and they overlap and interfere with one another wherever autonomous existences meet, but that the humans existing about one are, within ones own microcosm, ones own branch of the multiverse, not necessarily conscious, willing, spiritual beings (such as they aren’t, generally, in ones dream world, although they might be!), and that one can, in fact, remove ones universe from those “humans” who are, thus circumventing any “free will” and changes to ones own reality coming from such.
It would seem to me that the more one changes ones reality with magic, and magic that goes contrary to entrenched group expectations of it, the more one is removing ones branch of the multiverse from all others, ultimately becoming the “God” of it, a necessarily “lonely” existence, because Godhood implies omnipotence and omnipotence implies being the sole power, and thus the one and only “God”. And this is part of the reason why, despite all magic basically being the same, it is the little, innocuous things that are at first easiest to change, but put together build such momentum that it becomes increasingly easier to change anything - there is less and less interference from other persons as one progresses down this route.
This is the decision for me. I can be part of this herd, mingling with the other microcosms, c’est la vie, or I can say sayonara, take it away, and meet only with those with whom I wish to out of choice. Waking reality is consensus reality, it is the reality of the masses, the herd, and it is my goal to contradict that consensus and blur the line, ever more, between this"illusion" that is forced on me by mindless idiots, and the unlimited reality of dreams.