Perception so often tricks us into seeing our inner contents out in the world. The world so easily becomes our projection screen, a globe of a thousand mirrors reflecting back to us fragments of our fragmented selves. Most violence, physical, psychological, environmental, is done in a state of projection.
Imagine the following thought experiment. You enter a crypt filled with pirate treasure. The crypt is absolutely dark. You have a flashlight with you and switch it on. You gasp as the flashlight beam illuminates red rubies, glittering gold coins, green emeralds and cobalt blue sapphires. What beautiful colors these precious objects have!
Actually, this is the illusion of projection. These objects have no color, no light energy. The light, color and energy you perceive are mere reflections and refractions of the white light of the flashlight which contains all colors. Freud noticed something similar about the sexuality of the modern person as compared to the "primitive." The primitive worshiped the mysterious inner fire, and the object onto whom this might be bestowed was secondary. The modern person conversely sees all the magic and fire in the outside object (in another words, the Hottie) and fails to recognize the mystery and power of their inner fire. Some guy sees Britney on television and says, "She's so hot!" Actually, she's an odorless, touchless, two-inch pixel phantom moving beneath a glass screen. What's hot is his inner fire, the power that he forever gives away to the image, fantasy or person of the Hottie.
So many perceptions of things going on in the world, and especially with other people, are projections of our inner contents. Consider this a propitious time to reclaim some of your projections, some of your own light splintered into the colored fragments glittering in the outer world. When you recognize yourself as the source of your own projections, you take a giant step toward being an empowered magician.
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