As a physical being you have some level of physics knowledge whether you realize it or not. Physics is the study of matter and the physical world, so existing and navigating this world requires physics knowledge, although you may file it under “common sense” or “natural movement”. For example you would expect that if you jump you will return to the ground. To break it down further, as you bend your knees you allow gravity to lower your center of mass towards the earth. As you straighten and extend your legs you create a downwards force into the ground as your center of mass rises. At full extension your center of mass continues to rise causing your feet to leave the ground briefly before gravity returns you to your starting position. At least that is one way to describe it. The beauty of imagination means that you can describe it in whatever way is most useful for you.

Take gravity for example. For the layman and most common sense applications it can simply be described as the tendency to be pulled towards the earth with a uniform acceleration. This works for almost any situation that the average earth dweller would encounter. Gravity is down, its always has the same effect. However as we expand what our model needs to describe it gets more complicated. What is “down” on what is essentially the surface of a sphere? Travel far enough and “down” could be perpendicular or even the opposite direction of “down” at your initial reference point. And what about on the surface of the moon? Gravity certainly pulls in a different direction and magnitude there. So we arrive at the conclusion that gravity is an attractive force between any two objects and the magnitude of its force is determined by the distance between the two centers of mass and the magnitude of the masses themselves. Now do you need to know that in order to walk or jump? Of course not, those activities predate conscious inquiry into why and how they work. So although to our best knowledge gravity works the way we just described, for our practical purposes our initial “alternate model” of gravity pulls down works perfectly fine.

So what then is an “alternate model” or “alternate physics”? It is when you create a model that describes physical phenomena that diverges from your best understanding. These alternates can be used as a mental or magickal exercise, and if they are feasible enough they can cause a paradigm shift in humanity’s understanding of the world. After all, all of our best models of the universe are just models, and before they existed they were “alternate models” themselves. Before the Heliocentric model there was the geocentric model. Before the round earth, there was the flat earth. It is important to remember the words of Socrates: “I know that I know nothing.” All of our current best models may be regarded with the same amusement in the future that we reserve for fields of study such as alchemy or phrenology.

So be creative! Imagine new ways to explain the phenomena around you. It’s okay to be silly, if nothing else you can take a mundane situation and turn it into a smile. Maybe there is no gravity and instead there is some sort of adhesive force holding us to the surface of this rock. Try to find reasons why your new model both does and doesn’t accurately represent physical reality. The adhesive gravity replacement crumples quickly when confronted with a scale measuring a downward force, but is a fun little diversion. Maybe the wind isn’t caused by pressure differentials in the air, but by microgravitational pulls. There is no limit to what you can imagine, and you can in turn build imaginary worlds where your alternate physics ARE the laws of the land and imagine just what that would be like. While you may not come up with a paradigm shifting new theory you will increase the flexibility of your mind.

Are you a spiritual, or philosophical person? Then mastering alternate physics is a must for you. To maintain your spiritual or philosophic beliefs in the face of cold hard reality you must be able to construct a model that can reconcile your various beliefs with your observations. The forces of nature we observe could be the machinations of some divine will, rules set by a being of such incredible intelligence that it would know everything that will ever happen based upon the laws it wrought. The howling wind could be the cries of a restless spirit, the energy of the spirit vibrating the air. If you are a metaphysical idealist, then perhaps the phenomena we call “matter” is just ideas coalescing into a stable form. Mentally bridge the gaps from physics to chemistry to biology, to anthropology. The more ideas you can draw from and mix to explain your reality, the more robust your experience is. Such is the power of alternate physics.