By the power of osmosis…
We all know how inspired we can be by certain people; even at a distance, and even beyond the machinations of time. Several deceased people continue to inspire me. And even living people who you might not know… yet. They can work just fine at a distance but also in close proximity if that scenario should unfold.
Then usually comes the dividing line: communication. As long as my projections are one-sided I can decide as a sovereign that he or she inspires me. And that’s that. But what happens if the person in question talks back?
Well, of course it could be a paradise of resonance and understanding, and new friendships might bloom. But it could also be a situation in which you might for the rest of your life regret that you ever struck up that conversation.
Sometimes the power of osmosis is a greater source of inspiration than a real two-way exchange. This is of course also valid for other essential “agents” of life, such as books. Certain books work wonderfully well as mere benevolent beacons on the shelves. But when you read them they can be major disappointments to such a degree that depression sets in and you might think heretical thoughts (such as getting rid of the tome in question in violent ways).
No matter what, osmosis is a real thing. When we are surrounded by books in some kind of library, we are exposed to the totality of not only the thoughts expressed in them but also of the minds of all those who wrote them.
We don’t necessarily have to read each book to fully integrate it. We can know to a greater or lesser degree what it’s about and how it’s written. Each book is a seed in culture’s soil, and that culture can be studied as a whole from a bird’s eye view or, preferably, sitting still in a library.
What we then choose to actually take in our hands and read will be a life changing experience (as each reading of each book is). It’s like food that isn’t processed, digested and turned to faeces. The book stays with us in our intellectual metabolisms, now and forever.
From a magical perspective, library building carries great potential. The shelves aren’t merely causal containers of already read material but can also to a great degree contain the desired. Meaning literally/literarily books we desire to read. The desired can also be more ephemeral or intangible, and dealing with things beyond the book in question. The book might perhaps never be read “as is”/in itself but rather serve as a transmitter of other kinds of energy; signifying its distinct quality as a spatio-temporal transcendent, and as a reflective surface of your own vanity/strategy. Or all of the above.
Everything we have in our proximity (that also goes for “everyone”) affects us, for good or bad. There are great wisdoms to learn from “intellectual feng shui” (such as re-arranging the books). For instance, what happens when a perfect alphabetisation is disrupted by one single erroneous placement? By several? Or when there’s a mix between the alphabetised and the thematic? Have you ever tried a totally chaotic, random order? (Proceed with caution!)
The energy beamed out from the bookshelves is massive as it is. And it’s yours to use as you see fit. If you’re aware of its rays of influence and inspiration, you can also use the library as a very pure and potent temple space. Not just for meditations and acquiring knowledge but more concretely to restructure yourself as a reflective mosaic of many different wisdoms and directions, all eternally and quaquaversally focused via the prism that is your mind.
