S.:
My account on this would start with a very different model of objective vs subjective reality.
To get to another question: "Why don't people who use magic or who have the spirits/gods on their side use their powers to re-shape reality?" Who is to say this doesn't already happen, or that reality isn't already a magical construction? The implications are horrifying. Would you think that kings and statesmen who built temples and engaged in elaborate rituals to verify their power did not have the gods on their side who they were propitiating?
Reality is deeply personal. Gods, personality, and psychology are everywhere, and you can interact with reality as if it had an intelligence or was made of many intelligences (it seems). Sometimes those interactions seem mundane or easy to explain away if just a little suspicious, and sometimes they catch you by the neck and throw you into a psychedelic visionary experience (that can have real material consequences) that makes some of your prior doubts look incomprehensible.
aloha s,
That reality is a magical construction seems self evident to me. Hawaii is a magical place. If you look at a globe and place hawaii in the center, all around is only water, all the rest of the land is on the other side of the world. Very far away. "The mainland," mundanity.
Why don't people who have spiritual power reshape reality? There is a gross misunderstanding of reality (that is, existence) embedded in the question.
So-called "objective reality" is a delusion caused by ego-centric thinking. Without a subject there are no objects, no objective reality. All objects are like reflections in water, not only distorted but only seen by a unique and ever-changing viewpoint. The delusion is to imagine such objects are "real." Like a rainbow, there is a real colored reflection, only visible from a pair of eyes oriented in space just so, to water droplets and sunlight. Thus what we call "objective reality" is purely subjective, and the more we realize how subjective it is, the more objective we can be.
People see what they desire, what they want to see. Since the primary interests of the human animal are food and sex, we see objects related to those desires. Ways to make ourselves more attractive and wealthier. When these basic desires become satiated or unavailable, we seek other pleasures, and see other objects.
Kings and statesmen seek power; it is the nature of politics, to convince others they need to do as they are told. Religion is harnessed to this end. Always. It is what distinguishes religion from spirituality, that religion is diverted to social uses by those who would arrogate the powers of god to themselves. Roman emperors (chinese emperors) honestly believed they were gods (emperors of heaven), and ruled the world by divine right. They created religions (titus created christianity) in their own images and made people worship them, while suppressing competitors (eg jews).
In truth, it is as our self-professed atheist/materialist mat says, there is only this communication channel that itself creates existence, immaterial and theistic.
I object (!) to the assertion that "reality is deeply personal." The "person" is a social fiction. All we really have is the dependent co-arising of phenomena. All dharmas are impermanent. All objects, all objectivity, disappears with their subjects. Everything is empty. Objects are
such as they are: fluid aspects of reality entire, undivided, nondual. The upshot is that reality is the same for all beings, or they could not exist.
Thanks for your comments.
terry
Illusion and Reality
What is seen is not the Truth
What is cannot be said
Trust comes not without seeing
Nor understanding without words
The wise comprehends with knowledge
To the ignorant it is but a wonder
Some worship the formless God
Some worship His various forms
In what way He is beyond these attributes
Only the Knower knows
That music cannot be written
How can then be the notes
Says Kabir, awareness alone will overcome illusion