24. Impact, magic, hope, skepticism, alchemy, influence.

In this chapter, I continue to describe auxiliary reference points of our psyche.

In the previous chapter, I described the so-called thinking methods. I was inspired to introduce thinking methods in the Mandala of Characters by Lionel Snell. (He is using, among others pseudonym—Ramsey Dukes). It means he inspired me with his book titled “SSOTBME: Essay on Magic, Its Foundations, Development and Place in Modern Life”.

During the development of the Mandala of Characters, I added more concepts to thinking methods. In this chapter, I will introduce concepts that relate to the area of Introversion. That is, the thinking method, which is:
— magic (or hope).

“Hope” I placed next to “magic” because in life these concepts are often connected.

I think it is worth looking at the word “magic” again. Because this word can be controversial for many readers and it can raise a lot of doubts.

At first glance, the word “magic” may not seem to be the right word for work dealing with human personalities. It is because, magic is often associated with people like fairy-tales writers, illusionist, magicians, fortune-tellers, alchemists, etc. However, it turns out that the skills and discoveries many of magicians have been useful in many areas of life. They even contributed a lot to the development of humanity. Among many magical fields, probably it is best seen in the example of alchemy. To present this, I will use a few quotes. Here is the first of them.

The last sentence from the above quotation tells us that alchemists, based on the concept proposed by Aristotle, believed that transmutation of materials is possible.

Probably the most known works of alchemists are their attempts to make gold. These attempts, as we know, ended in failure. So, alchemists are often seen as crazy scientists or even charlatans pronouncing magic formulas. Alchemists, however, did not only deal with making gold. It was just one area of their activity. In general, alchemy was a very complex and advanced knowledge and highly skilled profession. For example, we can read about it in the next quote:

One of the lectures of William Newman, mentioned in the above quote, we can also find on the internet. That is his lecture about one of the greatest alchemist. I think for people who don’t know this alchemist, it will be an astonishing fact because it is about… Issac Newton. Below it is a link to this lecture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUhL1cli4ug

The title of this lecture—“William R. Newman on Why Did Issac Newton Believe in Alchemy”.

For this work, the most valuable is this, that alchemy was also very symbolic.

Personally, I am fascinated by Jung’s work. And Jung, among others, was fascinated by alchemy. For example, we can hear this in an interview with Jung.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfNKdI6iPJE

About Jung’s alchemy research we can also read in below quotation.

I think, therefore, that the words “magic” and “alchemy” in a symbolic sense are useful to describe types of human characters and describe our psyche in general.

In connection with human characters, I think that to the words “magic” and “alchemy” we can add the words “influence” and “impression” (or “impact”). It means, I think, that:
— in relation to “alchemy”, we can talk about “influence”,
— and in relation to “magic”, we can talk about “impression” and “impact”.

Thanks to “alchemy” we can influence someone, ourselves, or others. For example, thanks to a mode of action that is similar to the way of work of alchemists, we can do something interesting and useful for ourselves and others. Also, we can understand ourselves and others better by discovering the symbolism of alchemy. Because alchemy was based on the discoveries of ancient philosophers and alchemists developed their ideas.

In turn, people who use “magic” in interpersonal relationships try to exert an “impression” on others. In a sense, they do it like some magicians or illusionists who thank to what they do and what they say, try to exert a strong “impression” on others.

The example of making a magical “impact” is “impressionism”. “Impressionism” is a direction in the art that in some way, makes a great “impression” on people.

In life, we try to make a magical impact, for example, in business, science, religion, etc. So, we try just to make “impression” in some possible way. In a sense, we use “magical tricks” which will encourage others to think or to do what we need, we desire, or we dream about.

So, probably we can say that by using an “impression” we try to make an “impact” on others. Maybe it can be our definition of magic in life:

“Using an “impression” to make an “impact”.

Thus, we have two keywords here “impression” and “impact”. I was thinking about which one to choose to put on the Mandala of Characters. And I think I use the word “impression” because this is one of the ways to make an impact. Besides, I think “impression” fits more to “magic” than “impact”. Because we can make a lasting “impact” in many ways. And making a lasting “impression” is often “magical”.

During the development of the Mandala of Characters to the words mentioned above, namely: “impression”, “magic”, “hope”, “alchemy” and “influence”, I decided to add one more word. This word is “skepticism”.

I put “skepticism” because this word underlines the opposition to one of the words that are on the other side of the Mandala. That is the word “belief”. So, all in all:

• “belief” is associated with Extraversion,
• and “skepticism” is associated with Introversion.

Skepticism comes from Greek (σκεπτικός, skeptikos, in Latin. sceptici—doubtful, reflective). And skepticism is associated with the philosophical schools of ancient Greece. Skepticism has been constantly developed since ancient times, and there are many variations and trends. It would be difficult even to describe and embrace all varieties of skepticism briefly. Therefore, I will only mention the definition from dictionary.

Thus, the word “skepticism”, among others, is connected with the word “doubt”.

About people who do not believe in something, we are saying that:
— they have doubts, they are overwhelmed with doubts,
— consider different pros and cons, consider various eventualities,
— refrain from giving an opinion on a given topic,
— they are not willing to quickly support any arguments, truths, recommendations, commandments, advice, orders,
— etc.

I think it is very interesting here that the above mentioned “doubts” or “skepticism” are associated with “hope”. Hope” is also in this place of the Mandala, and, among others, I talked about it in the previous chapter.

At first glance, skeptical people may not seem to have much hope. However, if we think about it more, we can conclude that there is an interesting relationship between hope and skepticism. It means, to know what is worth to hope for, it is worth being skeptical. It is because, thanks to skepticism, we will not put hope in something that may not come true.

Thus, during the development of the Mandala of Characters, I created a set of concepts that, I think, describe the reference point of our psyche, which I write about in this chapter. It means the point where there is, among others, the adaptive-defensive mechanism, which is—Introversion. This set of concepts is:

impression, magic, skepticism, hope, alchemy, influence

In our diagram of four auxiliary reference points of our psyche, the above set of concepts will look like as follows. Please look at the bottom right corner.

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