This document summarizes and discusses the short story "The Psychologist and the Magician" by Ernest Christopher Rodwick. It tells the story of a psychologist named Professor Herman von Scholtz who agrees to undergo an "ordeal" with a magician named Marbado in a Himalayan cave. The psychologist must walk through the cave regardless of what he sees, hears, feels or thinks. The story is an allegory about how the mind can be "hypnotized" by illusions and beliefs that have no real power or existence. It illustrates how we identify with mental projections and concepts of self that cause suffering but don't truly exist. By refusing to accept the illusions, the psychologist is able to walk through

1. THE PSYCHOLOGIST AND THE MAGICIAN
SOME GOOD ADVICE ON HOW TO SEE LIFE AS IT REALLY IS
By Dr Ian Ellis-Jones
BA, LLB (Syd), LLM, PhD (UTS), DD, Dip Relig Stud (LCIS)
Former Lecturer, New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry
Former Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Technology, Sydney
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 neither is a fixed
quantity or quality nor of fixed duration, but simply ‘something’ quite
intermittent in nature that undergoes change moment by moment. 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

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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.)
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

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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?
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!) The story, which first appeared in 1920, was called The
Psychologist and the Magician: A Psychological Study in Story Form,
and it was apparently written by an American, Ernest Christopher
Rodwick (1857-1944), who lived much of his life in Santa Barbara,
California, where he died. Rodwick, a painter and paperhanger by
trade, was, it seems, quite a creative fellow; he even designed a
suggested international flag which was copyrighted in 1918. Anyway,
here is a link to 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 [sic]’ for daring to
think differently) by the Mother Church in Boston. He 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 at the
age of 90 when he went to Australia. 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 short but amazing allegorical
story. Indeed, there is nothing inherently ‘Christian Science’ about the
story.

4. 4
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.’
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

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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 blinds us to the reality
of things … and that is beliefs. Buddha Shakyamuni said, ‘Do not
believe, for if you believe, you will never know. If you really want to
know, don't believe.’ So, forget about belief-systems. Beliefs are for
‘spiritual cripples’ or the spiritually blinded ... that is, those who can’t,
or won’t, think for themselves. The Buddha referred to beliefs as being
in the nature of thought coverings or veils (āvarnas). They are ‘tigers’,
‘cobras’ and other horrible things, and they are the direct cause of so
much suffering in the world.
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 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.

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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.
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

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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:
‘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 do not 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
crevices? 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

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speaking?’ No voice answers back, for hypnotic suggestion is neither
presence nor power. We must 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: ‘… You 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. Forget all about your own supposed selfhood.
Simply 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!
Copyright © 2019 by Ian Ellis-Jones. All rights reserved.