The Magic of Believing

How our thoughts influence our experiences.

Lisa Bewley

3/15/20234 min read

It’s been a month since I’ve written. So much for one blog a week! What can I say, it’s been a busy month. I am deep in the depths of developing my online art program. Every time I start something, it leads to learning a new skill. I am a veritable sponge these days! Some of the new apps I have been learning are: Canva, ProCreate, Adobe, and  Teachable. In my art world I have been painting mandalas, poppies, leaves and lots of digital patterns. I love to look out into the world and see the beauty of nature’s patterns. But despite all of this, what has really taken over my thoughts lately is a book I’m reading called The Magic of Believing by Claude M. Bristol (1948).

One concept I truly believe is our thoughts are powerful beyond belief. This book talks about the science behind our thoughts. The ancients knew of this power and made rituals around setting intentions (think pagan spells). Now a days, we are taught to keep our heads down and work hard. Indeed, it’s much easier to control a population that doesn’t know how truly powerful they are! But times are changing, people are opening up. Spirituality has reached new heights. Woo woo is hip.

In 2006, The Secret was published. This book changed my life. I handed out copies to my friends and began the study of thoughts becoming things. I learned it is easy to manifest little things: parking spots, coffee, even small amounts of money. It is the bigger things, those that I don’t believe I can easily attain, which are much more troublesome. I have been experimenting with the power of my mind for many years, but especially for the last five years. Now I realize it as the ‘flow’. When you are in the flow, there is no doubt, no wobble, just a knowing. And from that state of pure belief, anything is possible. The challenge lies in staying in the flow and not letting fears, conditioning and other people influence you. 

Bristol’s book, The Magic of Believing,  is like The Secret on steroids! It is written in factual, no BS, 1948 language. Not  wordy, not patronizing, not desperate, just straight forward. In his no nonsense style, he cites scientific studies, testimonials and historic references to prove his point. I have long believed that we create our own realities. An individual’s truth is based on their world experiences. This is why we have so many problems seeing other’s perspectives. We look out into the same world, but see completely different views. Bristol says:

What you exhibit outwardly, you are inwardly. You are the product of your own thought. What you believe yourself to be, you are.

Which is why whatever you believe is true. If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you can’t. Your thoughts are powerful beyond belief. This is why mantras work. For thousands of years they have been used to focus the mind. By repeating the mantra over and over it keeps the vibration alive in your field, thus drawing the thought towards you. Words are the tools we use to express our thoughts. Watch the words you use. They hold immense power.

I have been paying special attention to words lately. We seem to speak without realizing what we are saying. But our words hold a vibration. Is you job ‘make you feel alive’ or is it ‘killing you’? Do you ‘love life’ or are you ‘sick and tired’? Pay attention to your words, notice what you are attracting. Our world is based on vibration. In our quantum world, we attract people and events with similar frequencies into our life. Like attracts like. Think of it as a radio dial. What station are you tuned into? Everyone and everything on that same frequency will be available to you. Want to know what your frequency is? Look around you. What you see is what you are attracting. If you don’t like it, you need to change your frequency. 

These ideas are not new. They are not mine. They have been around since the beginning of time. Bristol does a great job summarizing that part of our mind that moulds our being:

Nevertheless, it is there, and from the beginning of recorded time man has known that it exists. The ancients often referred to it as the ‘spirit’. Paracelsus called it the will, others have called it the mind, an adjunct of the brain. Some have referred to it as conscience, the creator of the ‘still, small voice within’. Still others have called it intelligence and have asserted that it is a part of the Supreme Intelligence, to which we are all linked. Hence the name Universal Mind—that which embraces every living thing, all human as well as plant and animal life.

In these tumultuous times, people are waking up to the ways in which our minds have been controlled by institutions. By keeping people distracted, the masses have been controlled and indentured to banks, credit card companies, car manufacturers, the health system and ultimately, their jobs. People don’t work to be free, they work to pay the bills. Unfortunately, these bills are not giving them more peaceful lives. We work to pay for cars to get us to work, to buy clothes to wear to work, to pay for fast food because our work doesn’t allow us time to prepare food at home! What are we doing? 

What if we lived on less? Grew our own food, cooked our own food, spent time with our loved ones and grew our own local communities? Imagine living in an area where people helped one another, where we bartered our skills, doing what we love, where leisure time was not limited to weekends.

I feel the pandemic has shown us a new way of life. Given us time to slow down. Let’s not be in a hurry to rush back to the old system. Let’s use our ‘universal mind’ to create a world based on love, care, kindness and a return to nature. Yes, this may be idyllic, but isn’t it nice to dream? The more we dream, the more we draw that vibration of a joyful life towards us. What kind of world would you like to live in? Please email and let me know. I’d love to hear from you! (lisa@LisaBewley.com). 

Picture Copyright Lisa Bewley, 2023