Shaping the World in Your Image: The Mirror of Reality

You wake up in the morning and look in the mirror as you get ready for the day. You brush your hair, fix your collar, and then step back. You don’t reach into the glass to fix your hair or straighten your collar. You know the mirror is a reflection. A flat, two-dimensional image of the three-dimensional reality on your side of the glass. If you want things to be different in the mirror, the changes must come from you and not from the image.

This mundane, ordinary activity is a key to understanding a powerful, often misunderstood secret of our existence: the mirror of reality. It has been claimed by some that our objective three-dimensional world, the very substance of space and time in which we live, is a mirror of sorts. What we project into this screen of space and time is reflected back to us. We then interact with this reflection as if it were the causal reality.

The reflection, unlike a two-dimensional glass mirror, is 3D, solid, and seems very real. We can go “through” it and “feel” it, and its effects appear to have the solidity of fact. Our entire immersive sensory environment is this way. Our world is a carefully constructed illusion, yes, but it is an intelligent, learned, and most useful illusion. We train ourselves from birth to take it all for granted. Our eyes interpret various frequencies of light as color. All our senses join together to create our world, but we are trained from a very early age to experience what is outside of us as not “us.” We believe what happens out there is somehow separate and immensely more powerful than our internal world. We are “happy” when the world is good, “sad” when it is not, and we learn to work a series of complex, transactional steps to try and “make” the illusion work for us.

Today, we will take a different approach. We will look at the world in a different way. We will see that the world is not an enemy to be battled and manipulated with anger and malice. We will see that what we call the world is a direct reflection of what we project onto it. We will see that this illusion is as unreal as a mirror reflection, and once we reclaim our power as creators, we can change the world in our image. We will talk about thought forms, the vital nature of faith in the face of our own senses, and most of all, the simple, powerful steps you can take to begin consciously building the reflection you see in the Mirror of Reality. It is time to stop trying to reach into the mirror and learn to adjust the source: you.

Seeing Through the Veil of the Mirror of Reality

If we wish to change the world in accordance with our will (i.e., "magic"), we must first fundamentally change our perception of the world. This process begins with a deep and abiding realization of the world's unreality. If you cannot look at all of the “fixed” objects and circumstances in your life and know that they are not what they appear to be, you will never be able to take yourself out of the position of a character in a pre-written drama, being buffeted about by circumstances of which you are only dimly aware. The only way to move past this is to recognize the inherent unreality of the world we have all come to believe is real. We must learn to see through the veil of sensory distortion in which we are enmeshed.

Take, for example, a table. You see a table. You “know” that it is a table, that it is solid, and that it has a certain usefulness to be found in the employment of its solidity. You have spent your entire life gathering information and understanding about tables. You don’t question that this is a table because the sensory information being gathered by your eyes and your touch receptors lines up exactly with all of the information that you have stored in your subconscious about what tables are and what they do. But what IS this table, really? If you could remove the veil of your senses, you would realize that what you call a table is not a hard, permanent object at all, but instead an entire universe of energetic activity and interplay all at the subatomic level.

You would “see” that it is nothing more than a dance of atoms, all spinning particles of subatomic energy, spiraling in space at inconceivable speeds, giving the appearance of form and solidity to a blur of light and movement so rapid that our eyes have only created the label “solidity” to understand it and your senses report the sensory experience back to the programming in your mind which says “table.” But strip away the veil of your sensory perceptions, and suddenly that solidity is not there at all. It is a dance of light, energy, and color, which we have only given a name to in order to understand it and give it meaning in our lives. Remove that veil, and it is gone. 

This is true of everything you see on the screen of space. The bad job, the wrong relationship, the empty bank account, the crumbling house, the imperfect body, the uncertain future are all mere energetic appearances, illusions so pervasive that the mind believes them to be solid and unchangeable and is incredulous at the mere suggestion that this is not the case. When we look out at the screen and understand that nothing is as it appears, we have gained an extreme position of power. We can begin to change things into the way we would like them to be.

As long as we are fooled by the projection on the screen, we cannot move. We try to change the world by reaching into the mirror to fix our hair, and we become infinitely frustrated when our hand slaps back at us on the cold glass. The first realization is that the mirror of reality is merely a reflection: things are only the way they seem, not necessarily the way they are. The minute you perceive this, you can turn your attention inward. You can begin to understand how the mind works, how the universe functions, and how to create the thought forms that will project a different, more pleasing reflection onto the screen of space.

Using Thought Forms to Create Your New Reality

The acceptance of the mirror of reality is the key that unlocks the door of conscious creation. If the world outside is a reflection, the source of that reflection must be inside. The source of all creation is consciousness, and its tools are called thought forms. A thought form is a specific, focused, energized idea housed in the mind with faith and feeling. A thought form is the blueprint that consciousness projects onto the screen of space, which then takes physical form.

We are constantly creating thought forms, usually unconsciously. Our worries, fears, judgments, and assumptions are powerful thought forms that faithfully manifest as life circumstances. To create consciously, we must learn to build the thought forms that represent what we want, while systematically dissolving those that represent what we do not. This is not the passive act of making a wish; it is a very active and focused process of magical construction and deconstruction. You are not asking a favor of some external power; you are learning to master the basic machinery of the cosmos.

This is a practice that requires concentrated effort, and above all else, faith. The Witches’ Pyramid is built on Faith, Imagination, Will, and Secrecy. Why is faith so important? Because when you are in the process of building a new thought form, your five senses will continue to report the reality of the old one. The mirror will continue to reflect the reality you wish to change. Faith is the ability to look beyond the evidence of your senses. It is the deep, inner knowing that says, “No, that is just an echo, an old reflection, based on a thought form that I no longer empower. My new reality is what is real.” 

This is the crucible of creation. You are holding the thought form of your desire—health, abundance, love, etc.—and the mirror of the world is reflecting sickness, lack, or loneliness. If you allow the outer reflection to deflate you, to fill you with doubt and disappointment, the new thought form will not survive. You cannot have two contradictory realities in the same place at the same time. Your doubt and frustration create their own powerful thought form that only strengthens the reality you are trying to change. Reciting affirmations or incantations is meaningless if you are vibrating in a state of emotional defeat underneath it all. These tools are there only to help you build, empower, and sustain a new thought form. If you are constantly knocked down by what you see “out there,” you are cutting the legs out from under your own creation.

For this reason, the work requires a temporary suspension of belief in the objective world, at least while you are in the process of your magical practice. Let your five senses report what they will. You must know, beyond the disproof of your senses, that your new thought form is the new dominant reality. It is actively at work, even as you do not see it, to replace the old reflection. It will succeed to the exact degree that you have faith in it and stop believing in the appearances of the old one.

Working Within Your Sphere of Influence

The above process of having faith despite all available evidence is incredibly difficult. It requires a great deal of inner fortitude to face a challenging situation and say, “You are not real. What is real is on its way.” Most of us have a limit to our faith. We hit an invisible ceiling where the desired outcome becomes too big, too implausible, to really believe in. That ceiling is the limit of your sphere of influence at any given time.

Attempting to manifest something far beyond your current sphere of influence is a path to frustration. If the end result is completely unbelievable to you, you will not be able to muster up the required amount of faith to create it. This is not to say that your desires are wrong or misguided. It is simply to say that your faith “muscle” is not developed enough. If you push too hard against the limit of your current sphere of influence, you are likely to suffer a disappointment that can erode your general sense of faith in your magic.

The solution is to start where you are. Operate within your current sphere of influence and work to expand it step by step. Think of it as a form of weight training. You do not go to the gym for the first time and attempt to lift 500 pounds. You choose a weight that is just heavy enough to build muscle but not so heavy that it's impossible to lift. With every successful repetition, you grow stronger and more confident, building up to that next weight. Magical practice is no different. 

Focus on racking up successes. Set your goals slightly beyond where you are now, but still within the zone of what you can conceive as possible. Say you desire to increase your income. If you make $50,000 a year now, $500,000 may sound completely ridiculous. Can you believe in $60,000? Can you create real faith for that? It is a reasonable stretch. A big one, but a reasonable one. You are allowed to want that. But it is up to you to manifest and maintain the thought form of “60,000 or more” long enough for that seed to germinate and grow, without being strangled by the weeds of your current experience.

As you achieve success with these more reachable goals, you build a body of evidence. You create a reservoir of success that you can tap into for the next, more challenging effort. Your sphere of influence begins to expand, and the impossible slowly becomes believable. This is when the mirror of reality starts to reflect what you desire.

A Technique for Stepping into the Desired Reality

If you want a very effective technique for building faith and stepping into your new reality, try this exercise. Think of a desire you have. Find something that is on the outer reaches of your sphere of influence but which doesn’t quite feel like a slam dunk for you. Get a good feel for what it would be like to have that desire fulfilled.

Now, look backwards. Think about your life so far and find a piece of it that you are already successful in. Find something that used to be a problem, or a struggle, or a pain point for you, but which is now easy and normal. Find a skill you have learned, an old fear you have overcome, a goal you have achieved, or a negative habit you have transformed. Remember how you used to be, and then feel the satisfaction of how you are now. Really connect to the feeling of that accomplishment and growth. Acknowledge to yourself that you are more successful in this area of your life than you used to be.

Now, while that feeling of successful transformation is fresh in your mind, turn your attention back to your current desire. The one that is still a stretch for you. Now, create the same “before and after” framework for your new goal. Talk to yourself as though the goal has already been achieved. Say things to yourself like, “I remember when making this new income was such a huge stretch for me, and now it’s just my normal reality. It’s so easy now.” 

This technique allows you to reframe your goal, not as a future uncertainty, but as a past success. You are essentially borrowing the feeling of accomplishment from a known victory and applying it to your current goal. You are stepping into the experience of the manifest spell. You are feeling what it feels like after the struggle is over, and the goal is just your normal life. It is one of the most powerful ways to “visualize” that I know, because it circumvents the feeling of wanting and vaults you straight into the feeling of having.

If you are having trouble finding anything in your life that is better than it used to be, that is where you need to start working. You need to rack up some small successes before you can go after bigger goals. Pull way back. Start casting spells for smaller goals that are just a little bit of a stretch. The point is to create the pattern of success. To build faith in yourself that your magic works. Once you have a few of these wins under your belt, you can use them as fuel for the bigger goals that seem out of reach for you right now.

Time and Detachment 

Detachment requires a completely different relationship to time. When you create a new thought form, a separate part of your mind immediately starts nagging, “Is it here yet? How long will it take? Why is it taking so long?” This is the venom that kills the creative process. This negative inner dialogue continually reinforces the thought form of “not having” because you only ask “how long” for things you are waiting for. It creates a hostile relationship with time itself, imbuing it with dread and defining it as a record of your failure.

Time, like space, is a construct of the three-dimensional illusion. It is part of the mirror of reality. When you project impatience, doubt, and frustration onto the concept of time, the mirror faithfully reflects that back to you. Time becomes your enemy, a yawning gulf that stretches on and on. The only way to collapse time and speed up your manifestation is to remove your anxious, micro-focused attention from it. You must become utterly unconcerned with how quickly or slowly things are happening.

When the screen of space is not yet reflecting your new reality, it must not bother you. When you look around, and all you see are the old, unwanted circumstances, don’t give them your energy. Do not fight with them, complain about them, or analyze them. To do so is to feed them, to reinforce their existence. Instead, withdraw your attention and return to the inner experience of your fulfilled desire. Remind yourself how fabulous it is that this new reality is manifesting, how uncanny it is that success comes so easily to you now, just like it did in other areas of your life.

The best thing you can do after casting a spell is to forget about it. Release it. Trust that the thought form is doing its work, and get busy with something else you love. Immerse yourself in a project, a hobby, or time with loved ones. Taking your mind completely off the “how” and “when” is an act of supreme faith. It tells the universe that you are so certain of the outcome that you don’t need to micromanage it. This detachment allows the manifestation to unfold along the path of least resistance. Time ceases to be your master and becomes your servant, collapsing and rearranging itself to bring your desire into being with startling speed.

Working a New Belief 

Just like any other creative skill, you need to practice regularly to improve. Whether learning an instrument, increasing physical strength, or developing magical abilities, consistent effort is essential. This type of skill is built through daily repetition. The important thing to remember is that practice doesn’t make perfect—perfect practice makes perfect. If you practice scales incorrectly every day, all you're doing is learning to play mistakes very well.

Magic, too, is not just about practicing ritual steps or fine-tuning spellcraft. Your daily work must involve an attunement to the world around you. If you practice magic through the filter of “me against the world”, that is the feeling you will continue to experience. You must work to see the world as it truly is: a mirror. Your spells are not guns to blast through reality and change it by force. They are the mechanism by which you select your new desired illusion.

When your sense of well-being is no longer tied to your current situation, when you can observe the mirror of reality without any opinion one way or the other, it all becomes easy. If you are mentally critiquing the world for not yet having delivered your heart’s desire, then your primary thought form is negative criticism. You are working against your own creation. But when you let go of your opinion, when you can allow the reflection to be as it is without any emotional response, you remove all resistance to your new reality. It will be a matter of moments before you are rewarded, because there is nothing left to oppose it.

Take some time today to go through your life. Consciously look for everything that is better than it used to be, no matter how small or trivial it seems. The very act of searching will begin to retrain your mind to see evidence of your magical power. Your past successes are gold. They are proof-of-concept examples you can use to reinforce your new reality, viewing your current desire as simply the next logical step in a series of magical triumphs.

Once you stop judging the external world and understand that the mirror of reality can just as easily reflect your desires as anything else, things will happen very fast. You are no longer trying to fix your hair by reaching in the mirror. You are simply brushing your hair, knowing the reflection in the mirror must be faithful. You are changing your world in the only place that it can actually be changed: in the fertile garden of your own magnificent consciousness.