The Magic Wallet: The Ultimate Thought Experiment

Wouldn’t you love to have a wallet where 2, 3, or 10 euros would magically appear every time you gave some to someone? It would be a truly magical wallet, wouldn’t it? If you had something like that, would you still be so reluctant to donate money, or would you, on the contrary, seize every opportunity to do so, knowing that it would actually turn into a gain?
This wallet exists, and it increases something far more important than money, something for which money is actually just a simple symbol… but let’s analyze the issue in order.

Why New Age Rituals Fail Without Energy

In any bookstore, you can find books with all kinds of magical rituals and spells, books that in the not-too-distant past would have led us straight to the stake. Spells and rituals that were once passed down from master to apprentice only after years of study and discipline are now available to everyone, and they all share the same characteristic: if we try them as they are, they don’t work!

(Fortunately, I might add: for our own good, there is a protective mechanism that prevents us from accessing certain powers until we have sufficient spiritual maturity to use them only with positive intentions. Think for a moment what the world would be like if every person could fulfill their silliest desires with a simple ritual…)

Anyway, aside from that, the reason rituals don’t work is that they’re merely a kind of switch that activates the energy of the person performing them, which in turn connects with higher-level energies and sets them in motion. So, performing a ritual without taking into account the energy behind it is like building a car without an engine or a box shaped like a computer without putting the components inside.

But… when we talk about “energy,” what do we actually mean?

What Do We Actually Mean By “Energy”?

“Energy” is an extremely ambiguous word, widely used by all sorts of New Age sectarians and fanatics, where everyone assigns the meaning they prefer.

Moreover, being a “scientific” word, it seems useful for justifying anything, but in fact it refers only to the capacity of a physical system to perform mechanical work.

However, what few people know is that this word, “energy,” has only been used in its current sense for a short time, since the 19th century, following the discovery of the laws of thermodynamics and the conservation of energy (“nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, everything is transformed”) and, unfortunately, its application to mental mechanisms doesn’t really work. In fact, when applied to humans, the concept of energy is simply paradoxical and relates more to the meaning of “energy” from the perspective of Greek philosophy.

There is no room here to delve deeper, but it is worth mentioning that in Aristotle’s metaphysics, energy (energheia) is defined as an action (kinesis) through which something that exists only in potential (dynamos) manifests itself on the material plane; in this sense, every being contains a certain potentiality waiting to be expressed (entelecheia), and every being is a combination of potentiality and expression, except for God, who is total expression and pure energy.

So, as it relates to us, the concept of energy has less to do with the scientific definition and more with the philosophical one.

The Psychology of Energy: Perception and Power

Consider, for example, energy from a physical perspective: everyone knows what it means to “feel full of energy” or to be “completely drained of energy”; on the other hand, this has little to do with anything measurable: at any given moment, if we weigh 150 kg and stay in bed all day, we should be full of energy, whereas in fact the opposite is true.

(Speaking of personal physical energy: this isn’t the place to tackle the issue, but… it’s unbelievable how people poison their bodies and minds with all kinds of junk and then complain that their energy levels are low. So if you drink, smoke, and eat poorly, I seriously doubt your spells will have any effect… but we’ll talk more about that later)

Thus, “energy” is more of a highly subjective sensation regarding the ability to do a certain thing and achieve a certain result.

This is even more significant on a psychological level: from this perspective, things are even stranger and more paradoxical.
Think about it for a moment: how do you feel when someone pays you a compliment? When you receive admiring glances? And when someone criticizes you? When they discourage you?

Does your energy level change?

If you’re feeling a bit down right now, how would you feel if you heard you’d won a million euros? Or if you got a promotion at work? Or if you were told you’d been fired for incompetence?

And how do we feel when we find a new partner? Or when we work hard toward a goal that excites us?

Or, conversely, when it seems like we don’t get along with anyone, and we feel stuck in a job we don’t like?

Do you see how all of these actually relate to different levels of energy, as subjectively perceived?

But in that case, since feeling “energized” is something extremely pleasant, aren’t we chasing money, sex, and success just to feel that sensation of “energy”?

Could it be that “energy”—in the sense of perception, of being able to manifest a potential—is actually the only thing that truly matters? Our defining objective?

Energy Vampires vs. The Infinite Source

There are plenty of techniques for raising one’s personal energy level, and—regardless of the historical-cultural context in which they developed—they all have one thing in common: connecting with a higher-level energy (which we can call whatever we like: God, Kundalini, Prana, Ki, Tao,…) and aligning with its direction.
(Note: I know this perspective might seem strange, but when you go to church and pray, that’s exactly what you’re doing: connecting and aligning)

There is another way to obtain energy, so to speak: by stealing it from someone else. When WE criticize someone, want to have the last word in a discussion, boast in a way that makes others feel bad, or want to attract attention at any cost… well, we should be aware that we do it only to get a little energy, even if in this case we get it at the expense of others’ energy.

That being said, I propose we try to lay some groundwork:

-No action—“magical” or not—will have any result if there is no energy behind it

-Each of us chases after a multitude of things—money, possessions, sex, achievements—but what we actually want is the sensation of “energy” to which we connect

-We can obtain energy at any moment—in limited quantities and for a short time—by stealing it from someone else (through criticism, insults, discouragement,…)

-We can obtain energy in a healthier way using one of the well-known techniques for connecting and aligning with the infinite source of higher-level energy, regardless of how we conceive of it

There is, however, an extremely simple method for raising one’s own energy level, a method well-known to every religion, which relates to the paradoxical nature of energy, and which connects to our magic wallet that multiplies money (which, as I said, is nothing more than a symbol of energy…): to offer energy to others!

And if we have defined energy as the perception of potential, then “offering our energy” means nothing other than directing others’ attention toward their own potential, and this can be done through extremely simple means: a compliment, a helping hand, a kind word, a word of encouragement, a simple smile.

This will create within us an openness to the infinite source of energy, which will compensate us IMMEDIATELY. Try it, and see what happens.
(By the way: “enthusiasm” is also a Greek word, derived from “en theos,” the God within us. So if we “trigger enthusiasm,” know that we are actually helping the world connect with God. See how everything ties together?)

The Energy Paradox: The Real Magic Trick

So, instead of thinking about mysterious rituals and spells for personal gain—which won’t work anyway—why not move on to the next stage, specifically trying to raise our own energy level?
And this, though paradoxical, we can do by using—in the most self-serving way…—our own energy; by striving at every moment to raise the energy level of the world around us.
It doesn’t take much: a compliment, a smile, focusing our attention on something positive, a word of encouragement… maybe we’ll discover that such simple things have a more effective impact than 10 yoga meditation sessions, and how little it takes to make our lives better.

And… maybe this will help us discover what true magic really is.

Best regards,

by Bruno