Chapters 12 and 13 in Trungpa's book on Shambhala are perhaps of the
greatest interest to the readership of alt.magick. They address the subject
of magick directly. Chapter 12 is entitled "Discovering Magic". Chapter 13
is entitled "How to Invoke Magic".

Way back in the dimly-remembered, ancient 1990's, the architect of
alt.magick, Josh Geller, was fond of defining magick as "the manipulation of
reality". In Chapter 12, Trungpa clearly agrees with this definition and
goes on to describe it more fully.

In line with Trungpa's basic position that reality is not made by us but is
discovered by us, he talks not of performing magic or of doing magic, but of
discovering it. Magic is already there. It's the innate condition of
reality. By discovering reality, we discover magic. We interact with
reality directly and reality interacts with us. When this interaction is
intentional, what happens is magical. Magic arises naturally from our clear
perception of reality. It's not a learned set of special symbols that we
shuffle around. It's not spooky paranormal powers. It's a person who
really sees what's going on and acts on that.

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Trungpa talks about a primordial state of consciousness in which no thought,
no interpretation occurs. The mind is then like a cosmic mirror, it
reflects but does not evaluate. It is not confused by illusions because
illusions are mistaken interpretations of reality. Since the cosmic mirror
does not interpret reality but only reflects it, illusion is impossible for
it.

When one is completely immersed in reality, events flow obviously and one
simply flows with them. This can also be expressed as the Taoist term "wu
wei", action that is spontaneous, natural, and effortless. Doing by not
doing.