Unleashing the Pandora's Box of Nothingness

Pandora with her husband Epimetheus (Sebastian Le Clerc, 1676)

No one is immune from the wish to have a genie jump out of the bottle. Just for the record, most genies emerge in the form of smoke as they wait to become anthropomorphized by a pregnant imagination. Deus ex machina is the expression often used to describe such paranormal events. Few people who read fairy tales realize what would actually happen if such powers were unleashed. It’s comparable to going back in time, ruffling a hair and thereby rewriting human history. Magical powers are an exception. Fellini represented the circus-like event that occurs when a child is deemed to have the power to see angels, but the end result is quite destabilizing since even the simplest things become potential power kegs. Even more troubling is what happens when one unleashes a Pandora's Box of Nothingness.

read "Of Mystics, Yogis and Dervishes" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and listen to "Do You Believe In Magic?" by The Lovin' Spoonful