The
author was writing a novel about four human beings in the
far future who are miniaturized and placed in the head of
an android that is sent to the past (our present) to save
the Universe.
The
android's mind is so powerful it causes the four humans
who plug into it with special helmets to lose their own
identities and become immersed as parts of the android's
identity.
The
android forgets its Mission but has a sense of wanting to
do something to improve planetary conditions. Intuitively
it begins to build a race of androids. Then it observes
how these androids gradually recreate the same stress syndromes
as the human race. This leads the original android in the
story to write a book explaining to the race of androids
it has built, how to emerge from their self-defeating mental/emotional
habits.
Called
THE BOOK OF PROGRAMS, this mini-book was supposed
to have fit within a sleeve on the back cover of the hard
bound version of the novel.
The
author's friends who had been reading the novel as it was
written chapter by chapter said to stop writing the novel
and to publish THE BOOK OF PROGRAMS, because it
was helping them.
One
friend, Erica Bertisch, put THE BOOK OF PROGRAMS
into a form resembling poetry. It had been written as one
100-page paragraph. Erica saw how it could be flipped into
a different format, which became MIND MAGIC.
The
name MIND MAGIC came from the fact that the book
consists of hundreds of "mind tricks" - today we call them
Solution Stimuli - things you can do with your mind that
makes it work better. The first time we take an aspirin
and notice how it takes pain away it seems almost like magic.
The book takes away pains that aspirin leaves. The way it
works seems almost like magic - but it is really based on
observation of computerlike processes in our selves - more
scientific than magical - more practical than perhaps either.
Taking effective action in the world and enjoying it means
more to us as people than scientific inventions or
hocus pocus.
MIND
MAGIC became FREEING
CREATIVE EFFECTIVENESS after 8 printings and use
as a course text at 34 universities, when the author decided
to make the book accessible to the widest possible audience.
Reference to "magic" might have kept some people away.
