by Michael Maciel

I owned a woodworking business for twenty years. Our employees ran dangerous machinery every day, tools that could take a finger or two in the blink of an eye. Fortunately, we never had a serious accident. There were lots of minor cuts, and one person lost the pad of one of his fingertips, requiring a skin graft, but no lost fingers or broken bones. In the world of commercial woodworking, we were fortunate.

I did notice, however, that accidents tended to occur cyclically. We would go for a few months, and then, seemingly out of the blue, we’d have to take someone to an urgent care facility. It got to where I could sense them coming—the accidents—like a build up of psychic pressure. I think everyone else could feel it, too. And as they became more and more aware that something was bound to happen, an invisible cloud would start to take shape in the air above the workspace. I swear, you could almost see it. The cloud was, for lack of a better term, a thought form. It was an energy potential of the mind, and it had a specific shape to it—an idea, an intention, a momentum. And it very clearly said, “Someone’s gonna get hurt.”

No one was intentionally feeding this thought form, but everyone was nevertheless giving it life. After all, accidents happen, right? But after a while, my priestly training kicked in, and I decided to do something about it. I decided that I would destroy the thought form before it could come to fruition. So instead of buying into the belief that accidents happen, I realized the truth: accidents don’t have to happen. As I sensed the feeling of inevitability arise in myself (which was the thought form taking shape in my own mind), I faced it squarely and said, “No.”

It wasn’t a dramatic “no”—I didn’t yell at it—I simply knew that it wasn’t going to happen. Interestingly, when that same feeling of inevitability arose in my own mind, telling me that I was the one “scheduled” to get hurt, I would say to myself, “I don’t have to do that. I don’t need to experience that. I’m not going to experience that.” Usually, I would wind up injuring myself anyway, but it would be so minor that it required little more than a band-aid.

We’ve all been there, that moment immediately following an accident where we wish we could wind the clock back one measly minute. What I was doing, in effect, was winding it back ahead of time.

Let’s look at what actually happens when we say, “No, this isn’t going to happen.” We aren’t changing fate, we aren’t stopping karma, and we certainly aren’t going against anyone’s free will. All we’re doing is dissipating a thought form, a thing that has no life of its own, no consciousness of its own, and no will of its own. It’s not a demon, it’s not an angry god, and it’s certainly not inevitable. It’s just a thought form, as substance-less as a hologram. The only power it has is the power that those involved give to it. It’s an idea that must first take root in the collective mind before it can manifest.

The belief that “accidents happen” has to be instilled in people’s minds before an outward manifestation of that belief can take shape. A belief is dependent upon the thought form that contains its idea. Destroy the thought form and you interrupt its cycle of manifestation. No one is hurt, not even if they are consciously and deliberately creating the thought form, as in the case of so-called black magicians and voodoo practitioners. They simply lose the energy they have invested in the thought form. These people have to rely on pre-existing beliefs in the collective mind upon which they can build a thought form that can cause harm. Change the beliefs, and you undermine the foundation. There will simply be nowhere for the thought form to take hold.

Now, before you pat yourself on the back and thank your lucky stars that you live in an enlightened age and don’t have to worry about any of that voodoo crap, I urge you to take stock of the beliefs that you do carry around in your head. Can you think of any? A good place to start is by asking yourself, “What do I habitually worry about?” Right there in that list is where you will find the voodoo that’s trying to kill you, or at least trying to make your life miserable. It’s in that list that all of your “accidents” and limitations have their roots. Every person carries around with them—like the cloud in my shop—a thought form that they encountered in the collective mind and adopted as their own. It’s a nameless, faceless thing, and you are hereby authorized to engage it with extreme prejudice.

“I don’t need you. I don’t want you. I don’t have to have you in my life. You cease to exist in my awareness. You are no more!“—these are the words you use. And if at any time you feel like you’re up against a monster, a demon, or some disembodied spirit, remind yourself that a thought form is just a thing. It doesn’t have a soul, it doesn’t have a mommy, and you have every right to terminate it. It’s as impersonal as a Dixie cup. Stomp it and put it in the recycle bin. For unless you accept it as your own, unless you think it makes up part of who you are, it has no power over you. None at all. It only has the power that you think it has. So stop thinking that it does and pull the plug. It’s only an idea, and a false one at that.