MORE FOUNDATION, THE MAGIC THEATER
–for Jacob Levy Moreno, the inventor of Psychodrama
“A glass of water sits on a table. We see and say this glass is an object positioned in space. We can also see it is an occasion for action—we can pick up the glass and drink the water. With another adjustment, more daring, we can say the glass is a role. We can personify a glass. We can act the part of the glass. With imagination, we can speak as the glass. Nothing is stopping us. Suppose, if the universe could speak, it would say, “Go ahead, play the role of the glass. I never intended you to go so far with your perception that the glass is merely an object. I never thought you would give so much credence to objects. I made a mistake and you made a mistake. You took this cockeyed perception of objects to an extreme. You overplayed it. Now I’m stuck with you seeing me as all sorts of dead objects floating in space. Do you have any idea how strange that is?”
–Jon Rappoport, The Magician Awakes
NOVEMBER 3, 2011. In science, everything is calculated from the position of the observer. He is separate from the thing observed. Contrary to popular belief, “observer influence” or indeterminacy does not change this in any fundamental way.
Certain spiritual or mystical beliefs maintain that the observer can discard his position and “merge” with the object of his perception. He can then feel what it is like to be that object.
Thus, the two choices are: stay separate or merge.
The Magic Theater takes a different approach:
Play the role of some object or person that is usually perceived at a distance. Speak as that object. Engage in improvised dialogue with someone who is similarly playing another role. Then, after a time, switch roles and continue the dialogue.
Furthermore, a person can take the role of something that is never observed; in other words, an imaginative entity, an “impossible” entity.
In any event, there is no longer, in this game, an observer. He is replaced by the actor.
Think of these choices. A person can observe a tree. He can merge with the tree. He can act the role of the tree and speak. He can act the role of the tree and speak to someone who is acting the role of, say, “the dark side of the moon.” Why not?
The advantages of the Magic Theater formulation are increased dynamism; slipping out of the normal point of view; speaking as something usually thought of as having no voice; engaging in conversation with another person who has taken on a role himself.
This extends reality. Eventually, it breaks open the reality egg.
It does these things not merely through thought or contemplation or supposition or speculation, but through improvised acting.
“Being one’s self” is considered a virtue. However, as time passes,a person hardens that position and thereby excludes other channels of experience and perception. This process reduces available energy.
Even more importantly, aspects of self are ruled out of bounds and forgotten. The Magic Theater brings these aspects back into play. They are part of infinite imagination.
No-imagination is considered normal or average. But actually, imagination is the norm. It is the wellspring. It is what a person would be exercising to the fullest, were it not for cultural strictures and dedication to the status quo.
No imagination or limited imagination is the ultimate source of all chronic human problems. In this sense, society and culture can be seen as structures set up to produce unsolvable problems. And indeed, this is the case.
Within a society, those people who set themselves up as authorities are predisposed to protect their “territory of expertise.” From their platforms and towers, they project opinions masked as final words. But they are working from spaces within an invisible context of unsolvable human problems—and no matter how wise their opinions may seem, the Unsolvable remains intact—obscured by their “wisdom.”
The real goal should be to move outside the context. And this can be achieved in the Magic Theater, where among the many, many roles enacted are Authorities. In playing such roles, we experience their theatrical nature—and their importance dissolves.
In a similar vein, consider a rock. We know many things about it. Science tells us more about it. We could write a book, perhaps an encyclopedia about a rock. We could say: this is the total reality of the rock.
A certain aspect of self is geared, so to speak, to understand the rock in this way and no other. A certain aspect of self is accommodated by knowing that it knows everything reality can tell it about the rock.
And now, in the Magic Theater, we go further than reality can go. We play the rock. We act as the rock. We speak as the rock. We engage in dialogue with another person who is playing a man with a sledgehammer, or God, or a worm who lives under the rock, or wind that is slowly wearing away the rock, or a wolf who is sitting on the rock.
And in doing this, we are engaging another aspect of self that never considered reality to be the arbiter of what is possible.
And this aspect, as it turns out, is universes and universes and universes larger and greater than the aspect of self that accepts reality as primary and definitive of experience.
Imagine the wisest of the wisest sage-prophet-archetype-god-supergod in charge of knowing everything there is to know about ultimate consciousness.
Now play that role. Play it in improvised dialogue with The Eternal Seeker. Converse for an hour and then switch roles.
This is a distinctly different approach.
People want conflict because they can’t see any other way to live. But there is a greater aspect of self, presently unengaged, that views conflict as theatrical, and if that aspect can be brought into the picture, things change, become more fluid, and conflict is understood to be a plot device.
People are obsessed with secrets at all levels. They want to pursue them, root them out, expose them. Secrets on the level of family all the way to mysteries of the universe itself. The obsession is reflective of the self that wants “unlocked reality”–but you see, this is still reality. It’s expanded, yes, but it’s the same basic reality. Whereas, if you PLAY THE ROLE of The Secret, if you speak as the secret, you begin to see beyond reality. You begin to see the theatricality of secrets.
A basic principle could be expressed this way: every object, person, process, place, whether real or imaginary, can be played as a role.
Suppose, 20 years from now, scientists discover that, yes, the universe is actually a hologram projected from a two-dimensional surface, on which the bits of information that create universe are inscribed. And suppose these scientists figure out a way to change that inscribed information, so that universe automatically changes—radically. This would be momentous, yes? But you see, all these fantastic changes would be coming into us from the outside, so to speak, from alterations made on the machine that projects universe. How would this change US?
Though we would be perceiving something that is much different, we would still be perceiving reality in the same WAY we perceive it now.
There is another way to look at universe. It is a THEATER. It is the stage on which roles are acted, and we are the actors. We are largely unaware of this fact. So we need experience acting roles. All sorts of roles. We need to act the roles of elements of universe, and we also need to act roles of elements that aren’t and couldn’t be part of universe—roles we imagine.
Such a simple idea. Such far-reaching consequences.
If you were to do an encyclopedic search of every spiritual system and teaching that has ever purported to lead seekers to ultimate consciousness, you would not find the method I’m suggesting here. Yet it has been in front of our noses forever.
But most people see their lives in terms of gain and loss. They see their own behavior, their own first principles, their own opinions, their own positions, their own desires, their own pursuits as rock-bottom factors. Therefore, they believe, if they were to “play other roles,” they would lose what they already have.
So they say, “Play a role? That’s ridiculous.” They really mean, “If I played a role, I would lose the one I already have.” That’s an error. That’s not true.
Look at it this way. If you were suddenly given 50 million dollars, would you lose the house you’re living in now? You might move out and buy a bigger house, but you wouldn’t LOSE the old house. It wouldn’t be a matter of loss. You just have new options. You can stay in the old house. You can build a new addition. You can leave it exactly the way it is now. You can move out and buy a new house. But LOSS is not a factor.
I’ve made this statement many times: The universe is waiting for imagination to revolutionize it down to its core.
To that I add the following: The universe is waiting for infinite theater to begin.
I started the Magic Theater for both reasons.
Perhaps metaphorically speaking, the universe says, “Here I am. Look at all my things. Each thing is itself.” But the universe is also saying, “Each of my things is a potential role. You can play it, you can play them all.”
The It-ness of any It is just the beginning of the story. Yes, we see many Its. We know we are looking at this It and that It and the other It. We have language to enforce this position. A language of nouns which are subjects and objects, a language we use to describe what happens to the nouns, the Its. We believe that’s the beginning and the end of the story. But each It can be seen and acted as a role. And then the dynamics expand.
I’m fully aware that the kind of revolution I’m proposing isn’t going to take the world by storm overnight. After all, it’s not a drug you can ingest on your couch while watching reruns of The Brady Bunch.
But on a large scale, the transformational effects are really scoffed at in the same way that any form of art is claimed to be irrelevant to the life of civilization—people say it’s a “separate issue.” In other words, art exists in a vacuum. Paintings exist on walls of museums. Music is played in concert halls. Novels are read in living rooms. Poems are rarely read at all. Art is embroidery for the mind.
All this is nonsense of the highest order. Art always bleeds into the life of a society. In the same way, the Magic Theater changes consciousness of the nature of events in the so-called real world. More and people begin to see these events as theater. As roles being played out. And when a tipping point is reached, major actors (e.g, political leaders) will have to admit they are, in fact, on stage, speaking lines, hoping to gain an advantage over rivals. Authorities of all stripes will be exposed.
This is what’s called being “laughed out of court.”
You reach a critical mass eventually, where enough people see the overlap between “real” and “theatrical,” and the old sense of the way the world works is superseded.
Looking at it from one angle, we have a long way to go. This doesn’t disturb me in the least, because the Magic Theater already separates the wheat from the chaff, and doing that is no small thing. And it all starts with the individual and what his participation can bring to him. It isn’t about sacrifice and self-abnegation. It’s about more power for self. That’s the only way ANY lasting revolution can be built.
If you have experience with theater, you know the “ensemble effect” is created from the work of the individual actors—that’s the initial launch.
The Magic Theater is a new space, to which you are invited. The first workshop will take place in San Diego on December 10-11. To inquire about attending: qjrconsulting@gmail.com
Jon Rappoport