Yesterday I was speaking with another magician about transfer of consciousness (“ToC”) and it gave me the notion to write a blog post about it. In Franz Bardon’s Initiation into Hermetics, one learns transfer of consciousness in the Magical Schooling of the Spirit at Step IV.

We must understand how to transfer our consciousness into any object, any animal and any human being at our discretion…This exercise is complete when you have been successful in connecting your consciousness with every chosen object to the degree that you have taken on the form, size and attribute of the object…

Franz Bardon, Initiation into Hermetics

Many of the magical exercises outlined in this book can be deeply developed and refined. ToC is one such exercise one could easily spend hundreds of hours engaging with. All around your are objects, animate and inanimate. Each object also has a depth point (students learn to transfer their consciousness from an object in general to its depth point in Step V of Magical Schooling of the Spirit). Some objects have “life,” such as crystals, nature, vegetables, animals and humans. Other objects are inanimate, like a computer mouse.

If you want to develop empathy, understanding of rhythm and paths outside yourself, and gain greater perspective in general, learn ToC. This is an excellent go-to exercise, especially when one becomes overly preoccupied with the happenings in their life. You can literally step outside of yourself and gain a fresh perspective. For example, to transfer one’s consciousness into a squirrel is to become aware of its instincts, nature and place in creation. A squirrel pursues its day to day and fulfills its prime directive. A squirrel’s awareness and intents pursues a certain path – food, play, interaction with its environment, procreation, sleep, etc. It is running on a completely different operating program than what you do as a human (even if there are similarities). Yet, it is also abiding in this sphere, planet Earth, with you, while completely oblivious to things like economics, other countries, manufacturing, etc. To transfer into a tree is to grasp its relationship to the other trees around it, its photosynthesis process, its connection to heaven and earth via roots and branches, its longevity and even its perception of the world around it, for trees embody an awareness. Trees could have stories or messages to pass on.

Within twenty feet all around you are several objects abiding in their own microcosm within the macrocosm. From its depth point you may gain a sense of an object’s past, present and future. An object might give you insights to its origination at a factory overseas, and even the mined products that made up the composition of its components. To transfer into a crystal is to grasp its extremely minuscule evolution and continual refinement. Its attributes, properties & resonance. It existed several hundreds of years before you and will continue to be on this plane emitting its frequency and pursuing its purpose long after our physical bodies cease, regardless whether it’s housed in someone’s home or not. A crystal could sit in a landfill and it will still be complete unto itself.

To transfer your consciousness into another object is to retain your own awareness but also to abandon your prior identifications so you may be fully aware and present with the object you have merged with. You do not need to bring your ideas, emotions, etc. into an object (although you can load items this way). For all that ToC offers, it’s also an opportunity to awaken to the knowledge of the billions of microcosms of created things surrounding you at any given moment; a rock, the electric wires in the wall and awareness of the worker who installed them years ago, a coffee cup, a plant, the rug on the floor and its journey from being weaved, shipped, sold and now with you, the food in the fridge, the ants marching outside, the birds flying overhead, etc. We are all part of a much larger creation, with a profound magic to be found and respected in the microcosm of yourself and all else that is.

(I added this anatomical image for, even in oneself, transferring your consciousness to just your bones, your blood, your hair, your muscles, etc. provides defined awareness of one’s own microcosm. Two additional exercises I suggest are to focus your awareness on gravity and also on the rotation of the planet)