Punch Your Readers in The Back of Their Head
Some well-crafted writing will cross unlimited space and time and bloom in the reader’s mind like the first flower of spring. While other well-crafted writing withers like a fallen leaf and joins the forest floor. Why?
When you experience that special kind of art; excellent writing, music, painting, etc., you feel it, love it, you want to — create like that. You need to know how it works.
You could analyze great writing to the last syllable, a masterpiece’s every brushstroke, or each note in a powerful song, and still not find the X-Factor, even though it is in all great works. Unless you know what to look for.
A lot of research went into the article Does Blessing Your Food Make a Difference? It is about amazing double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled experiments that demonstrated the power of intention.
I was amazed at all the experiments that used chocolate, tea, water, seeds, and more to show the positive effects of intention.
It was challenging to select only a few for the article. One experiment I included revealed that regular people like us (not just monks and Mongolian shamans) can also use intention.
Then I wondered, could the power of intention affect people through other things we consume; stories, music, paintings, etc.? Why not? Then I realized people are already using the power of intention unintentionally. That led me back to another article on discoveries.
You Can’t Get There From Here is about how people can only teach you what they are aware they are doing. They cannot teach you the unconscious elements of their success.
Meaning things successful people do that are so natural they are completely unaware they do them. Also known as; unconscious competence.
Combining the two articles in my head, Does Blessing Your Food Make a Difference?, and, Why Mainstream Self-Improvement Is Not Working For You, led to an interesting theory; unconscious intentions.
My next thought; if unconscious intentions are used by most highly successful people, why do we know so little about unconscious intentions?
We Have Not Because We Ask Not.
Look at all the interviews of highly successful creators. All the questions are the same. Our heroes dutifully answer, generously sharing their wisdom.
Our heroes can only answer the questions asked. And yes, a 19-year struggle for “overnight” success is always inspirational. As well as learning about all the obstacles they overcame.
I love learning the creative process they use too. But nobody asks our heroes questions like:
• Do you imagine what your reader will feel about each section of your work?
• What did you envision your readers would feel in their hearts and minds for this creation?
• What would it be if you could infuse something into your work for your fans to feel?
• Do you feel that you pour emotions into your reader through your work?
• Do you believe anything like “non-physical phenomena,” as Nikola Tesla called it, goes into your writing that is picked up by your readers? If so, what do you feel it is?
Writing with clear intentions toward your reader is many levels above the old saying about good writing, “don’t just tell your reader. Show them!” If you write with you in mind, that message is not addressed to your reader; they will feel nothing.
Trying to describe something you do unconsciously is challenging. The creators might need help answering. But no interview asked; why? Because we assume the writer’s books contain all the secrets of their success.
We need them to point them out it to us. Much of a writer’s secrets are in their books, but not all of them.
Medicine Man and the X-Factor
In the movie Medicine Man, Sean Connery is a scientist who found the cure for cancer in a flower deep in the jungle; once. After hundreds of attempts with the same type of flower, he could not reproduce the cure again.
After much drama, the village medicine man finally reveals to Connery that the flower is not the cure. The flower is only a house for the cure. The ants that lived in the flowers that Connery and his associate had been ignoring were their goal all along.
The pages you craft are the flower pedals. Remember, the cure your readers seek is not the beautiful flowers you write. The flowers are only the house or container to transport your intention to your reader’s heart, mind, and soul. But how do you get the ants to live in the flowers you write?
Putting Ants in Pages of Your Flowers
The intentions researchers used.
The chocolate intention: An individual who consumes this chocolate will manifest optimal health and functioning at physical, emotional, and mental levels, and in particular will enjoy an increased sense of energy, vigor, and well-being.
The tea intention: An individual who consumes this tea will manifest optimal health and functioning at physical, emotional, and mental levels, and in particular they will enjoy an increased sense of energy, vigor and well-being.
The water intention: The Arabidopsis that absorbs this water will manifest optimal growth; in particular it will have increased nutrition, energy, vigor and well-being.
Notice that none of the intentions were directed at the chocolate, tea, water, seeds, or the person saying the intention. Nor was anything said about who created the chocolate, tea, or bottled water.
100% of the energy was intended for the receivers, the people, or plants that would consume the intention.
They did not say anything like;
- This will be a best-seller.
- People will see how awesome I write (sing, paint, etc.).
- It will go viral and give me joy and an increased sense of worth and happiness, and importance.
The three intentions researchers used will give you a template to form your own intention for your reader’s experience. You will have to battle your ego, but it has no place in this.
Remember what you felt when you experience great work for the first time? This is way beyond “Don’t tell your reader, show them.” Your laughter or tears were not in the work that moved you; they exploded inside you, in your heart, mind, and soul.
You did not give one thought to the book, song, or artist that handcrafted the intention with you in mind. That is your recipe for intention. But will intention work for you?
Intention Just Works.
A visitor was at Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr’s house and noticed a horseshoe above a door and asked, “Niels, it can’t possibly be that you, a brilliant scientist, believe that foolish horseshoe superstition ?!”
The famous quantum theory physicist replied,
“Of course not. But I understand it’s lucky whether you believe in it or not.”1
The same goes for the power of intention and all the other Natural Laws of the Machine we live in. The Machine’s Natural Laws work whether you believe in them or not. Also, they are just as powerful if you use them without knowing.
Yes, You Too!
In my other article, (Does Blessing Your Food Make a Difference?), researchers did something different. They used an experienced healer and a person that said they had no healing ability, a “non-healer.”
The non-healer would only copy the process the healer did.
The non-healer’s intention was also successful in four out of five trials. The non-healer even outperformed the experienced healer on one of the five trials!
More Power to Ya!
The scientists exposed finished products (chocolate, tea, bottled water) to intention and had significant results. You should create your intention before crafting your art and as you craft it.
Weaving the power of intention into your work from start to finish will have a cumulative effect. It will also help you stay focused too.
A martial arts instructor once told me; if you want to punch hard,
do not aim for their face; aim for the back of their head.
The same goes for excellent writing. Do not aim your thoughts and feelings at blank pages. Skip that. Use the power of intention — aim for the back of your reader’s head.
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