All Is Mind, The Universe is Mental

There is a universal, Hermetic principle that says, “All is mind; the universe is mental.” This stands for the principle that consciousness, or awareness of the mind, is an inescapable experience of embodiment.

In astrology, we look to astrological natal charts as the starting point for our contracts with the Universe. We say that our consciousness agreed to experience certain challenges and benefits in this incarnation, and the astrological charts give information about how those mental agreements play out.

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In law, we say that rational judgment, reason, and logic of the mind brings judges and juries to true and correct answers, after they hear evidence. The spoken word of agreement can be binding and the spoken word of witnesses is core to legal process. Spoken word is one manifestation of the mental. Evidence in courts is based in testimony, so the minds of the participants in the legal system translate and convey their mental experience, and then judges and juries receive that information and use their minds to come to, ideally, true and correct conclusions about how the social agreements (the law) applies to facts of a case.

In most TV shows that talk about law, the judges and juries see DNA and real-time video in order to prove cases. TV conveys a mental concept and asks the viewer to make their own mental judgments like a judge or jury would. In real courtrooms, testimony and the mental impressions of witnesses are considered crucial evidence. Even if documents or video exist, they may only be offered through witness testimony. Because TV attempts to short-cut the mental telephone game of the court process, it simplifies what can be a complicated and also rigid experience.

In legal institutions we apply the principle of mentalism through legal reasoning (social agreements) and spoken word.

But, most of us are not taught how to effectively manage our mental experience and mental impressions, and this contributes to unreliability in the legal process. We begin life believing everything we see, but as we get older, we understand more that mental impression does not equal truth. When five people sit in a room, they will walk out with five different experiences.

Most of us are taught that additional learning equals mental management, or that knowledge alone creates an organized mental state, but that is not my experience, or, I believe the experience of most people.

An astrological natal chart is one step toward knowing ourselves and examining our mental experience of life.

Also, though, what I have found, is that in order to be intentional with the principle of mentalism, we need to take six steps (and this is a process I use at least once a day):

1. Neutralize the external. For the sake of the exercise, describe the external environment that is outside of our control in a neutralized way. (e.g. Instead of “I hate my boss,” say “My boss is a human.”)

2. Write down our thinking. When we can understand the difference between our perspective and a neutralized reality, we can start to be intentional. (e.g. Notice that the thought “I hate my boss” has charge and is my mental process, not just an observation.)

3. Test out how our thinking feels in the abdomen and the rest of our bodies. Yes, in order to be effective in intentionally using the principle of mentalism, we have to be aware of our bodies. (e.g. When I choose the thought, “I hate my boss,” I feel hate.)

4. Observe what the feeling motivates us to do or not do. Feelings create actions, and even if we don’t fully act out our feelings, that is still a process we are experiencing. (e.g. When I feel hate, I struggle internally, blame people, complain to my friends, do my work more slowly, criticize myself, and even blame myself.)

5. Be honest about the consequences of our actions. Even if we are interrupting our actions and not fully acting them out, our internal processes and thinking spirals have impact. (e.g. When I take the actions above, my work suffers, and my boss gets away with their actions.)

6. Understand our own themes and patterns. (e.g. When I choose the thought “I hate my boss,” and I act out against myself, I am self-abusing.)

Then, in my own work, I reverse that process and do an intentional model. I don’t ask, “What do I want to think” because the unconscious mind takes over if we do that and attempts to maintain its familiar paths. Instead, I ask, “How do I want to feel?” or “What is the impact I want to have?” and build the process around those questions. In my work, I call that the IMPACT Model.

Our relationship to our contract with the universe and our social contracts is only as good as our ability to manage our thinking and our experience of the mental.

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So mote it be!