Internet Book of Shadows: Physics and the Basic Principle...

Book of ShadowsHouse Cleansing RitualNeopagan PracticeWiccan Ritual Instructions

This is an essay from the *Internet Book of Shadows* (1999), a web-based neopagan/occult compendium, written by someone claiming graduate-level physics credentials who sets out to correct what they see as sloppy use of quantum mechanics in the magick community. The central argument is that the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics — specifically the idea that unmeasured systems exist in superpositions of all possible states until observed — provides a legitimate theoretical framework for understanding "visualization magick," the practice of manifesting outcomes through focused intent. The author walks through two canonical thought experiments, Schrödinger's Cat and Young's double-slit experiment, to establish that quantum observation collapses probability into actuality, then proposes that a magickal practitioner functions as a kind of "quantum observer" who can influence which outcome from a superposition manifests. A notable epistemic move is the author's insistence on keeping paradigms separate — arguing that "energy" in magick and "energy" in physics are different terms in different axiomatic systems and must not be conflated — which is meant to lend intellectual rigor while also shielding magickal claims from scientific falsification. The piece is representative of a late-1990s internet tradition of applying quantum physics to consciousness and metaphysics, distinguished here by the author's self-conscious credentialism and genuine (if selective) accuracy about the physics involved.

Internet Book of Shadows: Physics and the Basic Principle...

Related pages View as graph →