An interpretation of Ernest C. Rodwick's short story "The Psychologist and the Magician" (1920). Copyright © Ian Ellis-Jones 2021. All rights reserved.

1. The Illusion of the Self
An interpretation of the short story
The Psychologist and the Magician
Dr Ian Ellis-Jones
BA, LLB (Syd), LLM, PhD (UTS), DD, Dip Relig Stud (LCIS)
How often do you engage in self-deception … in denial? D-E-
N-I-A-L … ‘Don’t Even Notice I Am Lying.’ (And I am not just
talking about lies in the traditional sense but all forms of self-
deception including the very notion of ‘self’ … itself.)
Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the system of religious
thought known as Christian Science, wrote:
You command the situation if you understand that mortal
existence is a state of self-deception and not the truth of being.
Now, I am not into Christian Science, and I would express
that metaphysical truth slightly differently. I would say
something like this – ‘Each of us has an illusory sense of a
separate selfhood, a false and misplaced view of who we really
are. We cling to the ‘self’ as self, and we even manage to
convince ourselves that we ‘belong’ to that supposed ‘self’,
and that we actually are those myriads of I’s and me’s that
make up our waxing and waning consciousness. That is how
we spend so much of our ‘mortal existence’ – in a ‘state of
self-deception’ or self-hypnosis. The truth of the matter is
this---there is no ‘self’! Know that, and you will be free from
all bondage!’
Dr John Hughlings Jackson, who was the founder of the (then
known) British School of Neurology, wrote that there is
something intrinsically wrong with our notion of the ‘self’.
Consciousness is neither a fixed quantity or quality nor of
fixed duration, but simply ‘something’ quite intermittent in
nature that undergoes change moment by moment.

2. 2
The idea that there is no actual ‘self’ at the centre of our
conscious (or even unconscious) awareness comes as a great
shock to many (except to Buddhists, who rightly assert not a
doctrine of ‘no-self’ but the fact of ‘not-self’, and to various
metaphysicians), but it is the view held by most, but not all,
neuropsychiatrists, neuroscientists and other like
professionals.
The truth is our consciousness goes through continuous
fluctuations from moment to moment … which is the only way
we can experience life in any event. As such, there is nothing
to constitute, let alone sustain, a separate, transcendent ’I’
structure or entity. True, we have a sense of continuity of
‘self’, but it is really an illusion. It has no ‘substance’ in
psychological reality. It is simply a mental construct
composed of a continuous ever-changing process or
confluence of impermanent components (‘I-moments’) which
are cleverly synthesized by the mind in a way which appears
to give them a singularity and a separate and independent
existence and life of their own.
The Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote that we tend to
believe that the ‘self’ is real and one because of what we
perceive to be the ‘felt smoothness of the transition which
imagination effects between point and point’, but all that we
are dealing with, he said (as have many others over the years
such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Bertrand Russell), is a bundle
of experiences which have the illusion of continuity about
them.
The truth is that the ‘self’ is not an independent ‘thing’
separate from the various aggregates of which we are
composed as persons. Indeed, every attempt to postulate or
assert the existence of a ‘self’ is self-defeating [hmmm] as it
inevitably involves an element of self-identification.
(According to Buddhism, there are five such aggregates: form
or matter, feeling or sensation, cognition or perception,
volition or impulses, and consciousness or discernment.)

3. 3
So what gives us this sense of mental continuity? How does it
arise? Bertrand Russell and others have written that our
mental continuity is simply the result of habit and memory.
Each one of us is a person in our own right - I am not denying
that. However, the person which each one of us is recognizes
that there was, yesterday, and even before then, a person
whose thoughts, feelings and sensations we can remember
today ... and THAT person each one of us regards as ourself
of yesterday, and so on. Nevertheless, this ‘myself’ of
yesterday consists of nothing more than certain mental
occurrences which are later (say, today) recognized,
interpreted and regarded, and, more importantly,
remembered, as part of the person who recollects those
mental occurrences.
Now, let's get back to this supposed ‘I’ (and ‘me’). Actually,
within each one of us there are literally thousands of ‘I's’ and
‘me's’ ... the ‘I’ who wants to go to work today and the ‘I’ who
doesn't, the ‘I’ who likes ‘me’ and the ‘I’ who doesn't like ‘me’,
the ‘I’ who wants to give up smoking and the ‘I’ who doesn't,
and so forth. Think about it for a moment ... how can the ‘self’
change the ‘self’, if self is non-existent? It can't. End of story.
I love what Archbishop William Temple had to say about the
matter. He said, ‘For the trouble is that we are self-centred,
and no effort of the self can remove the self from the centre
of its own endeavour.’ Therefore, let us free ourselves from
all forms and notions of self-identification, self-absorption,
self-obsession and self-centredness. The question is – how do
we get out of this state of self-deception of self-hypnosis?
Now, when I first became interested in ‘alternative spirituality’
in 1984, attending lunchtime meditation classes twice a week
at the, sadly, now gone Unity of Sydney, a most enlightened
woman who ran the meditation classes gave me a tattered old
copy of a curious short story to read. (It seems, from what
I’ve read, that the same story has often been given to
metaphysical neophytes to study. One could do a lot worse!)

4. 4
The story was called The Psychologist and the Magician: A
Psychological Study in Story Form, and it was apparently
written by an American metaphysician by the name of Ernest
C [Christopher] Rodwick (1857-1944) who lived much of his
life in Santa Barbara, California where he also died. Rodwick,
it seems, was quite a creative fellow, and he even designed a
suggested international flag which was copyrighted in 1918.
The story The Psychologist and the Magician first appeared in
1920. Here, for your convenience, is a link to a copy of the
story:
http://www.mbeinstitute.org/Eustace/eustace.pdf
The story, which has been quite popular for many decades in
Christian Science and New Thought circles as well as other
metaphysical groups, was promoted and popularized by one
Herbert W Eustace CSB who was an independent Christian
Science teacher and writer and who had been anathematized
(‘excommunicated forever’ [yes] for daring to think
differently) by the Mother Church in Boston. Eustace had been
instrumental in establishing Christian Science in California.
Eustace wrote an introduction to the story in 1950 and
included the story in his book Christian Science: ‘Its Clear,
Correct Teaching’ and Complete Writings. He lectured all
around the word. His last tour was at the age of 90 when he
went to Australia where I live. He died in 1957. His many
books and pamphlets, as well as some spoken word voice
recordings he made, are still commercially available. (As a
sidelight, I am also aware that the story of The Psychologist
and the Magician is also included in James Carleton
Hollenbeck’s 1962 book The Radiant Glory of Living in the
Light.)
Now, as already mentioned I have no brief for Christian
Science, and you don't have to believe in Christian Science in
order to enjoy and derive some spiritual insight from this

5. 5
short but amazing allegorical story. Indeed, there is nothing
inherently ‘Christian Science’ about the story.
The story of The Psychologist and the Magician, which is set
in 1910, takes place in a certain mountain cave known as
Black Cat Cave, up in the Himalayan Mountains. The story
concerns, yes, a Psychologist (Professor Herman von
Scholtz), described as ‘one of the ablest scientists of Europe’,
and a Magician [or ‘Hypnotist’] (Marbado), who is said to have
‘no peer in India as a magician’.
Like so many spiritual or metaphysical stories, this one also
concerns a ‘journey’ or ‘quest’ of some kind. The Psychologist
(who is generally referred to in the story as either ‘the
Professor’ or ‘von Scholtz’) agrees to undergo what is
described as an ‘ordeal’ – the ordeal of life. And yes, there is
a ‘path’ of sorts, but it consists of moment-to-moment
experiences. In the words (‘instructions’) of the Magician, the
Psychologist must ‘go to the end of this cave and out again
regardless of what [he] will see, hear, feel or think, and
regardless of what becomes of me’. However, the Magician,
who is highly skilled in the art of illusion, assures the
Psychologist that ‘no bodily harm’ will come to him, saying:
The cave will be lighted by our own personal presence, but if you
are in any doubt, or suspect any trickery, take your light with you,
though you will find it a hindrance, as it will interfere with your
vision.
The Psychologist and the Magician is an allegory containing a
wonderful lesson about the power of the mind - as well as its
limitations and misuse - illustrating the way in which we are
so easily ‘hypnotized’, that is, deflected and led astray by
things that have no power in themselves at all except the
power we give them through our attention. One of my
favourite lines in the story is this:
‘This surely is not magic,’ thought the Professor, ‘but life itself.’

6. 6
The story of The Psychologist and the Magician also tells us
that every problem, difficulty or obstacle we face in life is an
‘initiation’ of sorts by means of which we can either progress
or regress, and reminds us that our environment is, for the
most part at least, a shadow cast by our consciousness.
I also interpret the story this way – the ‘tigers’, ‘cobras’ and
other horrible things supposedly in the cave represent the
thousands of I’s and me’s that make up our waxing and
waning consciousness (or ‘mental wallpaper’)—in other
words, the so-called ‘self’. We think those I’s and me’s
constitute who and what each of us really is, but that is not
the case. What the story is trying to tell us is that these I’s
and me’s, which take ‘shape’ in our mind as beliefs, ideas,
opinions, prejudices and biases of innumerable kinds, which
can and so often do cause us so much pain, distress and
suffering have no separate, independent existence. They are
certainly not the ‘person’ each of us is.
There is one thing more than any other which can blind us to
the reality of things and that is our beliefs. The Buddha
referred to beliefs as being in the nature of thought coverings
or veils (āvarnas). When our beliefs are not grounded in truth,
they are like ‘tigers’, ‘cobras’ and other horrible things, and
they can be the direct cause of so much suffering in our lives.
Now, if you bother to read the story – and I hope you will –
you will note that when the Psychologist first went through
the cave he saw that there was nothing in it that could harm
him. However, things turned out differently after the Magician
had started his ‘magic’. When the Psychologist and the
Magician first walk toward the cave, the Magician says, ‘Be
careful where you walk. There are snakes around here.’
What happens? Well, fortunately, the Psychologist had
already fortified his mind, and was (with only a couple of
lapses of attention) mindfully aware at all times of what was
taking place from one moment to the next. However, when
the Psychologist accepts the Magician’s suggestion he

7. 7
experiences difficulties … and pain. So do we when we identify
with our false sense of ‘self’. In the words of metaphysician
Virginia Stephenson, it is ‘as if we were in a cave, walking in
darkness’ such that we don’t know who we are or where we
are going.
Every time the terrific temptations to believe the hypnotic
suggestions of the Magician came - of real tigers, real cobras,
the real fiery pit, and on one occasion a real tiger even
appeared to his senses to tear his arm so that he nearly fell a
victim to the suggestion - what did the Psychologist do? Well,
he didn't focus his attention on, for example, the size or colour
of the tiger or cobra. Instead, he immediately turned his mind
to what he knew was truly within the cave, and the instant he
did that, the suggestion (or ‘hypnosis’) disappeared. The
Psychologist simply said to himself, ‘This is hypnotism. Just
walk through it.’ In other words, he refused to accept that
the various mental projections constituting the ‘self’ had any
separate, independent existence.
Now, I am not here to say that pain, whether physical or
emotional, doesn’t hurt. I’m reminded of an old limerick
which goes like this:
There was a faith-healer of Deal
Who said: ‘Although pain isn’t real,
If I sit on a pin,
And it punctures my skin,
I dislike what I fancy I feel.’
Silly stuff – the idea that there is no life in matter, or that
matter is not real. Of course pain hurts. Of course matter is
real. (Sorry, Christian Scientists.) In one part of the story The
Psychologist and the Magician we read this:
‘These are not real cobras,’ said von Scholtz aloud, as if addressing
Marbado, ‘and they have no place in a normal mind.’ And as he
spoke, he walked straight over their yielding bodies, but he
screamed with pain as the cobras struck from right and left, but
he kept right on going until he had passed over them.

8. 8
Pain and suffering are very real to our mortal senses, and, as
I have often said, no religion or philosophy which seeks to
deny their existence deserves to have any future – which is
one of the reasons Christian Science is in terminal decline.
Note that the Psychologist ‘screamed with pain’ as the cobras
struck. However, he made it through the experience just the
same. So can we, if we choose to live our lives mindfully in
the One Presence and Power active in the universe which is
the very Livingness of Life Itself … manifesting Itself in us,
and as us.
In the story The Psychologist and the Magician there was one
occasion where the hypnotic effects experienced by the
Psychologist seemed so real that he went back to look to see
if there was not actually something there. However, there
wasn't a thing! Interestingly, it was the so-called ‘good’
appearances that completely disorientated the Psychologist.
Herbert Eustace points out that the Psychologist was able to
resist every effort of the Magician to deceive him, as long as
the suggestions came as ‘abnormalities’, as things ‘out of the
blue’, so to speak, but the Psychologist was tempted to yield
to the hypnotic suggestions of things like the cravings
associated with ordinary hunger and thirst.
So it is with us. Somehow, most of us manage to surmount
the so-called ‘big things’ in life, such as bereavements, major
illnesses, and the like. It’s the ‘broken shoelaces’ that trip us
up. It’s the little things that bring us down and that we find
hardest to deal with. Like the Psychologist, we are so deeply
asleep in materiality and our false sense of ‘self’ that we lose
our dominion – as persons among persons.
At one point in the story, the Psychologist walks up to a wall
and slaps it with his open hand, then kicks it, then picks up a
rock and pounds it, all to no avail, ‘for the wall stood as solid
as the mountain itself’. The Psychologist immediately knew
what he had done wrong:

9. 9
‘I see my mistake,’ said the Professor, throwing away the rock as
if disgusted with himself at his blundering. ‘To try to knock the
wall down is to admit that it is there and but adds to its solidity by
hammering away at it. The truth is, the wall does not exist as an
objective fact. I should have walked on and not slapped, kicked
and hammered at it; and I should have looked on it only as a form
of thought which the Magician would have me accept as an
objective reality, but which I deny.’ So saying, he closed his eyes
and walked straight ahead and passed the apparent obstruction
without hindrance, the wall disappearing as mist before the sun.
Christian Scientists would love all that. ‘Subjective idealism’,
it’s called in philosophy. Subjective idealism asserts that Mind
is the only reality, and that there is no so-called ‘objective’
world independent of the human knower. I don’t accept that
view. As I see it, there is an objective world ‘outside’ of us
that is independent of us, in the sense of its not being
constituted by our knowledge of it. Anyway, let’s not get too
bogged down in the different forms of idealism nor take too
literally what was said above by the Psychologist.
The underlying spiritual significance of the ‘wall’ episode is
simple. It illustrates the metaphysical ‘law of non-resistance’,
which Jesus and all other wise teachers taught. ‘What we
resist, persists.’ In the words of the old Oriental maxim, ‘What
you think upon grows.’ There is another metaphysical law,
which is closely related to the law of non-resistance, called
the ‘law of indirectness’. That law says this – don't attempt
to put a negative or otherwise troublesome thought or
problem out of your mind directly but rather let the thought
or problem slip from the sphere of conscious analysis. That is
the ‘right’ ... indeed, the only ... way to proceed. Don't try ...
instead, let.
So, what are we to do, when we see snakes, lions, tigers and
deep crevasses? Remember, our snakes and lions may take
the form of cravings, attachments, obsessions and appetites
of various kinds. Simply say, ‘Who is speaking?’ Say it loud
and clear, ‘Who is speaking?’ No voice answers back, for
hypnotic suggestion is neither presence nor power. We must

10. 10
release our belief in the supposed independent reality of our
mental states, being merely hypnotic suggestions of various
kinds brought about by the illusory belief in the supposed
separate existence of an ‘I’ and ‘me’, made worse by sensory
overload.
And what are we to do in this life, when confronted by
difficulties and troubles? Listen to the instruction given by the
Magician to the Psychologist: ‘… [Y]ou go to the end of this
cave and out again regardless of what you will see, hear, feel
or think, and regardless of what becomes of me.’
Now, the ‘moral’ of this particular Cave story is this. In truth,
there is really no ‘Magician’. The Magician is not a person. It
is nothing more than our mistaken belief in the ‘self’, which, I
hope I’ve shown, has no real, separate, independent
existence. Know that you are this – a person among persons.
Be like the Psychologist in the story, and make a decision not
to identify with any of the thousands of I’s and me’s that make
up the ‘mental wallpaper’ of your waxing and waning
consciousness. To quote Mary Baker Eddy once more, we
‘must be oblivious of human self’. You can do no better than
to live mindfully – not mindlessly – being fully grounded in
the person (and not the ‘self’) that in truth you really are.
Rodwick, the author of The Psychologist and the Magician,
refers to that state of consciousness as one’s ‘rightful mind’.
I hope you enjoy the story as much as I have over the decades
... and please remember to stay mindfully aware at all times.
Be not deceived by anything other than reality. Indeed, don’t
be deceived by reality. You, too, can conquer illusion and
ignorance … and make it safely through the cave of life! All
power to you, as you proceed to de-hypnotize yourself on a
daily basis!