Related stuff from "The Holographic Universe"

155-56
"...Don Juan and Castaneda are in the desert at night searching for a spirit when they come upon a creature that looks like a calf but has the ears of a wolf and the beak of a bird. It is curled up and screaming as if in the throes of an agonizing death.
At first Castaneda is terrified, but after telling himself that what he is seeing can't possibly be real, his vision changes and he sees that the dying spirit is actually a fallen tree branch trembling in the wind. Castaneda proudly points out the thing's true identity, but as usual the old Yaqui shaman rebukes him. He tells Castaneda that the branch was a dying spirit while it was alive with power, but that it had tranformed into a tree branch when Castaneda doubted its existence. However he stresses that both realities were equally real."

from chapter 46:
".....children having been indoctrinated from an early age to use the five physical senses to the exclusion of their inner senses are often told to stop "imagining things", and eventually lose contact with the greater reality of the Astral worlds and of all the wonderful beings residing there."

In "The Holographic Universe", Michael Talbot said something similar (well at least in one of his recorded seminars - I haven't read the book) - he used to be about to see things in the sky - until he was told that they weren't there.

I get the feeling that magic and the supernatural works a lot better if there aren't any materialists around who only believe in the physical universe.

Perhaps their belief in physical reality isn't letting the influence of higher planes of reality through.

I haven't read much on the subject of magic and the supernatural... I wonder if anyone knows of books/sites which relate to these thoughts.