Magic, Money and the Main Quest
How much does mind-over-matter really matter?
[This article has an 8.5/10 Woo Rating].
“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path.”
- Joseph Campbell
This time last year, I received a mysterious direct message on Twitter. It contained a book recommendation and the tantalizing claim that “my whole life I’ve felt like I was on the side quests, and this is the main quest.” The sender was a man who goes by the pen name
, who has since become a dear friend. The book in question was The Magus of Strovolos. It’s about a Cypriot mystic called “Daskalos,” who died in 1995. As I’ve cultivated my curiosity, I have an acute sense of when something is going to be interesting and useful. It typically comes in the form of a burst of energy at the time of a recommendation. This time it was off the charts, and I finished the book the next day, which is unusual for me.I’m well aware that one person’s confirmation is another person’s confirmation bias, but I’ve been surprised to learn how how many ancient mystical frameworks are increasingly aligning with leading edge science.1 Daskalos also described an internally-consistent mystical worldview that offers potential explanations for some higher woo-rating phenomena.2 Now, just because a framework is internally-consistent and logical has nothing to do with whether it’s actually true. For example, Star Trek has an internally-consistent worldview, but I don’t believe that Klingons are real. That said, many of these mystical concepts have meaningfully improved how I live my daily life. As I’ve written recently, the most beneficial concept for me personally has been the idea of Earth as a kind of school. Similarly, Daskalos viewed reincarnation as a continuous cycle of learning and self-transformation, where the soul returns to the physical realm to face challenges designed to promote spiritual growth. He believed that karma is not so much a punishment, as a natural law that reflects the consequences of past actions, providing the opportunity for healing and learning.
Daskalos spends a significant amount of time on the creative potential of our thoughts. He introduced me to the concept of “elementals.” This is the belief that every single thought or emotion we have is somehow given independent form. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the elemental. Once elementals are created and projected outwards, they eventually return to the subconscious of the person who created them. They can then draw on energy and persist over longer periods of time. Powerful negative thoughts can create mental illness or addictions. Elementals can never be destroyed, only dis-energized by no longer giving them your attention. Daskalos paints a picture of each of us walking around in shells of elementals created by the character of our thoughts.
Daskalos also talks about the power of deliberate imaginative visualization, especially for healing purposes. And yet, there’s also an extremely consistent focus on the idea of creating from love, not fear or ego. Daskalos’ teachings constantly stress the dangers of manifesting with the wrong intentions. This is one of the many reasons I’ve held off mentioning his influence in my public writing. I simply don’t understand quite how it works yet. Or if it even “works” at all. Maybe I need a few more incarnations. But, despite the dangers of my ignorance, the topic is still worth exploring, because it signals where the main quest might lie.
Train of Thought
If consciousness is the foundation of our reality, as many leading scientists now believe it might be, then it stands to reason our thoughts might influence the material world. The question then becomes: how much? The placebo effect is obviously a thing, our emotions can affect our daily experience and clearly our intentions lead to tangible real-world results. High-performing athletes, investors and celebrities swear by the power of deliberate imaginative visualization.3 But I don’t know of anyone who can just manifest gold bars out of thin air or anything. So I’ve really struggled to understand the power and limits of thought as a creative force.
One story that has really stuck with me also came to me via
. One of the non-speaking autistic mystics featured in The Telepathy Tapes, Asher, co-wrote a book with his teacher Jess, titled A Mind Beyond Words. While I also retain a nagging skepticism around The Telepathy Tapes, I also recognize a strong consistency in their mystical messages too (as does Bodhi).Jess and Asher are on a train and he tells her to imagine the water bottle on the table in front of them moving. She does, but nothing happens. A few minutes later, an attendant walks by to check their tickets. He inexplicably picks up the bottle and moves it to the exact spot Asher had asked Jess to move it to. Jess recounts the conversation that followed:
Jess: Did you influence the guard to move it?
Asher: The guard doesn't matter. If the bottle had simply teleported, that wouldn't have been consistent with our form of reality.
J: You avoided my question.
A: It's like playing chess. When you see an opening, you use it to your advantage.
J: So you did! You saw the guard come into the carriage to check our tickets and you influenced him somehow to move the bottle, yes?
A: Or maybe you did...
J: So you do it by brainwashing people?
A: No! It really isn't like that. It isn't the way it happens that matters. You have situation A. You intend situation B. You then wait for life to join up the dots between the two.
J: I've spent hours staring at candle flames, trying to influence which way they move. Can't do it.
A: *You've spent hours thinking how such things can't happen. It's time to stop doing that and to see the result you want. Then wait for the events to fall into place.*
J: I'm sort of getting what you're saying and I agree that conviction would help a lot. Any other hints?
A: Focus and intention and letting life join up the dots. You're far more powerful than you think.
This story helps illustrate the subtlety of our creative abilities, but also brought back to mind Daskalos’ warnings about using these gifts in a manipulative or egoic way. From the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, to King Midas, to Aladdin, “be careful what you wish for” is one of our most popular stories for a reason. Mysticism tells us we have these latent powers, but that we should be incredibly cautious in using them. But, in many ways we may have already collectively manifested too much “black magic” from ego. Daskalos said that, in an age of nuclear weapons, it’s more important to understand the depth of our powers than neglect them.4 In fact, learning to use them wisely might be the entire point of our existence. Some traditions speak of our lifetimes preparing us for a subsequent dimension where we can manifest on demand.5 We don’t get to graduate from art school until we learn to use our paintbrush wisely.
These possible risks are why I have no immediate intention of messing around and finding out if magic is “real.” But is the concept still relevant to daily life?
As often happens now, while I was writing this piece a remarkably helpful conversation synchronistically found its way to me.
interviewed Harvard sociologist Martha Beck in what’s already become one of my favorite podcasts of 2025. She offered a helpful framing:I came to believe very deeply in magic. And then I started talking too much about magic and people started using it in a very New Age “I want a new Ferrari” kind of way. That's why later I wrote a book on integrity because here's what I think now: if you strive for absolute integrity in every action you take. Even in your thoughts, you will have clarity and calm. You'll begin to experience another consciousness and all these miracles will happen all around you, but you won't really care because that's not what it's about. It's just a side effect.
Most of us can sense when our thoughts aren't aligned with our deeper values, but remaining in integrity is still a daily challenge. One of Daskalos’ pleasingly straightforward spiritual practices is to spend a few minutes before bed every night reflecting on the quality of what you thought and did over the previous day.
In today’s secular age it might be dissonant that Daskalos was a Christian mystic (although his definition is refreshingly inclusive).6 Due to my own exhausting skepticism, I am still not entirely sure what my relationship to God and prayer is. But my nightly reviews have increasingly been accompanied with the wish that “Thy will be done.” I have zero confidence that I have sufficient self-knowledge to manifest exactly the right path for myself, and the more I’ve leaned into surrendering control the better my life has gotten. But this surrender always seems to come with a fear of my family falling into material insecurity. The good news is that specific fear’s also a path back to the main quest.
The Side Quest IS the Main Quest
As a sociologist, Beck believes we are as little as two years from a major shift in global consciousness. It’s the same surprisingly specific timeframe I’ve now heard from more sources that I can count. Her forecast was further confirmed in an interview with Asher recently conducted by
.He likens human life at this time to being in a kind of escape room. We have purposely chosen to be shut into an uncomfortable, difficult world, with its emphasis on scientific, rational, non-magical, non-mystical living, surrounded by targets and trials, fears and separations, in order to test our own ingenuity at finding the way out.
Most people I encounter are specifically trying to find a way to reconcile the role of money in the pursuit of a more meaningful life. While each person seems to think they are struggling with it alone, this honestly seems like it might be the escape room “main quest” for humanity right now. In fact, it’s staying in a life that’s too small for you that’s like only playing the side quests. You’re grinding away in the dungeons accumulating a pile of gold and items, but never advancing the main plotline.
The good news is that the big dragons, fears around money and scarcity, are usually clear markers of the path back to the main quest. Because money tends to be one of the biggest barriers on our path to a life we truly love, our money triggers are critical indicators of precisely where we need to integrate our consciousness. Put another way: money often makes us do things that are out of integrity. My conversation with money coach Nadja Taranczewski from last year might help you identify where your own dragons are hiding.7
The next step came via another pivotal cold direct message last year, this time from coach and founder Brian Whetten. He revealed a practical method for making friends with our fears. This means integrating, rather than killing, the dragons. He makes the bold claim that ~99% of therapists, coaches and teachers are getting this process wrong. As we move further from fear, he shows us how to create from an increasingly loving and authentic place. It’s one of the most interesting and useful conversations I’ve had.8 He concluded his masterclass with fifteen steps on the path to making the transition from fear to integrity. This helps shift you from the black magic of “my will be done,” to the more subtle miracles of “Thy will be done.” If love is one of the most powerful forces in the Universe, coming into ever greater integrity with it will enhance the creative potential of your thoughts.9
For me, magic isn’t about manifesting safer stagnation, it’s being held by a path that appears as you walk along it. Like Asher’s train conductor, it’s the right information or people arriving at the perfect time to give you what you need. For example, those two cold messages from Bodhi and Brian, or the Beck podcast just as I was asking for guidance. These synchronicities and the energetic pulls are tiny miracles, just for me. In my experience, this only happens once you step off the well-trodden downslope to retirement and back into your own unique path of integrity.
The hero leaves the safety of the village, finds the treasure, and returns transformed. At this moment in time, that treasure is the path back to individual integrity. While each path is unique, every single person that succeeds provides a model for the next adventurer. They show the genuinely magical results of a life lived in integrity. Beck thinks it takes ~25-30% of the population to catalyse a phase shift in consciousness, and this one is moving much faster than any previous time in history. The idea that it may be imminent shouldn’t be a source of anxiety, but hopefully an encouragement to act soon.
Your job is to find the place you're out of integrity and align so that you can continue to be like a larger and larger conduit of this wildly loving, fantastically intelligent consciousness that ultimately we all are.
-Martha Beck
I strongly recommend my recent interview with The Fourth Way which catalysed multiple personal breakthroughs in linking science to mysticism.
Bodhi himself did an excellent compare and contrast of different mystical frameworks.
William Green’s interview with holocaust survivor and value investor Arnold Van Den Berg is what I think of most in the context of visualization. It still has a whiff of “the secret: around it, but Arnold’s entire philosophy is based on imaginative visualization.
Daskalos: “Ancient Greek philosophy, Egyptian philosophy, Indian philosophy and others, they have all very great depth. They all are ways to the truth. In the Christian religion and in other systems and religions we find the use of myth-making. The people tried to conceal the truth in order to avoid its exploitation by the profane. Today all is changed. The truth is, and it must be, the property of all. Today human beings can face their responsibilities. Moreover science advances. We have atomic scientists who can destroy cities in one moment. The danger exists. So, the researcher of the truth of today, unlike the Mystic of the past, does no longer have to conceal great truths by myths, out of fear that someone who would penetrate into the substance of reality could acquire powers that he might exploit and make bad use of against his fellowmen. And I wonder, are there not a thousand other ways or means to defraud your fellowmen? Weapons?”
In the Law of One Ra says “The fourth density is that density of love or understanding. It is beyond the limitations of polarities and is characterized by the direct influence of thought on matter.”
“Which is the true religion? Love! Christ came in the world to teach love. Nothing more than that! “I came to complete the Law”, He said. And so he did. The Christian religion as well as other religions are based only on this sentence: “Love God with all your heart and with all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself.” This is the meaning of Christianity.”
Full article. “One of her simplest and most powerful questions is simply ask you to complete the question “Money is….”
Try it yourself now.
She hears three broad kinds of answers: negative, positive and mixed. People with negative projections would say something like “money is dirty.” Somebody with positive projections would say “money is freedom, self-confidence, luxury or power.”
People who hold positive projections can suffer from the illusion that they must earn money to deserve their existence, and that running out of money makes them worthless. These projections often have deeply personal causes."
The real value of money is in showing you where your shadow is. Where the parts of you that need to be integrated are.”
Check out my recent interview with Dr. Julia Mossbridge on The Science of Love, Power and Precognition
This is so good, Tom.
It’s interesting that you bookended this essay with Campbell’s ideas of the Hero’s Journey, which I think is often misunderstood.
The journey is never really about slaying the dragon, finding the gold, or saving the world. Or even about discovering you’re a superhero. It’s about the hero discovering himself or herself—who they are already/not yet.
In that, they are surprised by their innate “magic” abilities. Skywalker becomes a Jedi (which he always was), Tom Anderson becomes Neo, Tom Morgan becomes himself. In a way we all become the boon, the gift, to our world. That was always the main quest.
Thank you for writing this. I’ll be contemplating it for awhile.
Excellent. This made something click for me. If we are to grow into union with God, the body of Christ, whatever…then it is essential that a being destined to be as powerful as God needs to learn first to act from absolute love and integrity before being handed such power. This makes the whole earth school idea click into place.