irrational magnetism or actuality

"I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright."
Henry David Thoreau (Excursions, Poems And Familiar Letters V2)

Wild he was; a very sight of sights to see; yet I began to feel myself mysteriously drawn towards him. And those same things that would have repelled most others, they were the very magnets that thus drew me.

Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)

"Actuality is when the lighthouse is dark between flashes: it is the instant between the ticks of the watch: it is a void interval slipping forever through time: the rupture between past and future: the gap at the poles of the revolving magnetic field, infinitesimally small but ultimately real. It is the interchronic pause when nothing is happening. It is the void between events."
George Kubler

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shape_of_Time:_Remarks_on_the_History_of_Things

The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things