Free Strange Powers by Colin Wilson

and all the staff went to her aid, leaving them free... By this time the friend was looking worried. 'It's still coincidence...' 'All right, we'll do it again.' And they did. On the third occasion, they went into a shop and he warned that they were playing with very dangerous forces. They had hardly been in there for two minutes, when there was an accident in the road outside causing all the staff and customers to leave.
    If this story sounded astonishing, his next statement was even more so. In order to establish beyond all doubt that this was a 'power' of the mind he was using, he decided to do it a thousand times. And he claims he did. He didn't say how long this took him, but he did mention that he devoted his 'proceeds', such as they were, to charity.
    No doubt this anecdote will arouse more skepticism than any so far. I find it consistent with Leftwich's other premises. There can be no doubt that the chief fault we have developed, through the long course of human evolution, is a certain basic passivity. When provoked by challenges, human beings are magnificent. When life is quiet and even, we take the path of least resistance, and then wonder why we feel bored. A man who is determined and active doesn't pay much attention to 'luck'. If things go badly, he takes a deep breath and redoubles his effort. And he quickly discovers that his moments of deepest happiness often come after such efforts. The man who has become accustomed to a passive existence becomes preoccupied with 'luck'; it may become an obsession. When things go well, he is delighted and good humored; when they go badly, he becomes gloomy and petulant. He is unhappy—or dissatisfied—most of the time, for even when he has no cause for complaint, he feels that gratitude would be premature; things might go wrong at any moment; you can't really trust the world... Gambling is one basic response to this passivity, revealing the obsession with luck, the desire to make things happen.
    The absurdity about this attitude is that we fail to recognize the active part we play in making life a pleasure. When my will is active, my whole mental and physical being works better, just as my digestion works better if I take exercise between meals. I gain an increasing feeling of control over my life, instead of the feeling of helplessness (what Sartre calls 'contingency') that comes from long periods of passivity. Yet even people who are intelligent enough to recognize this find the habit of passivity so deeply ingrained that they find themselves holding their breath when things go well, hoping fate will continue to be kind.
    To actually believe, as Leftwich does, that you control your luck, could be a vital step in human evolution, a real turning point. And what is especially important is that he rejects the idea that you can 'push your luck' too far. He believes that this power to make things go well is as straightforward as any other physical activity. When a man sets out to drive to his office, he doesn't take a deep breath and say: 'Well, here goes. Let's hope I make it today...' There is a chance that he may not make it, especially in modern city traffic; but he also knows that if he drives carefully enough, he'll make it. He doesn't even think: 'There's a ten thousand to one chance I might meet with an accident.' He simply takes it for granted that he'll reach his office. A little late, perhaps, if the traffic is bad; but he'll get there. So Leftwich's assertion that he decided to repeat his performance a thousand times, to prove that the mind can control 'luck', is of some importance. He has laid down a basic principle of the next step in human evolution.
    In The Occult , I quote a remark Robert Graves made to me: that many young men use a form of witchcraft to seduce young women. I had been instantly struck by the truth of this. My own experience has not been wide or varied, but I knew exactly what he meant. A man wants a girl, and he begins to think about her in a