boccaderlupo

Continuing to make my way through Manly P. Hall's whirlwind tour of Neoplatonism. This paragraph from Pathways of Philosophy, talking about the philosophy of Paracelsus, speaks to many of the points you raise on this blog (including the above one):

By visualizing inwardly the purpose of life and the goal of human effort man can bring to himself a good or evil destiny according to his use of the imaginative power. The human being images or imagines the form of the world in which he lives. We do not perceive things as they are, but as we imagine them to be. Thus if we imagine the world to be evil it becomes evil for us; if we imagine ourselves the victims of injustice this imagining will depress our spirits and cause us to interpret everything that occurs as a personal injustice to ourselves. But Paracelsus went still further; he believed that the imaginations of one person could be transferred to another through the mystery of the astral light. In this way our most secret convictions and beliefs have a power for public woe or weal. This is magic. It is not necessary to draw circles at crossroads or conjure up spirits to do our bidding; the supreme magical art is the control of the imagination by the will of the adept.