Ex Christian Spirituality: The rough treatment

[Joshpantera]

Here it is, thick skin time. 

 

Ex christians believing in or practicing woo of any non-christian bent. Those against it, lay out the case. Outline the problems. Leave no stone un-turned. 

 

Is there some pressing issue with someone who wants to practice magic, dance naked under a full moon, cast hex's and spells, worship Zeus, or believe in their pre-christian ancestral gods? If so, then why?

 

 

[LogicalFallacy]

Alright you bunch of magical woo people, you are in the lions den now! No safe spaces, bring your claws and Armour or get out!

 

Nah, just joking, I love ya'll even if I don't understand you.

 

So leading with JP's last question: Is there a pressing issue (i.e. problem)? No, and I don't think anyone particularly thinks its a problem. I read about a bunch of witches casting a hex on Kavenaugh. I also read Christians were sending the spirit of Christ of combat it. I had a good laugh - it's all a bunch of hokus pokus. My only concern was that people may now view atheists in the same camp as those witches which makes conversing difficult. But overall I don't give a shit that some witch is placing some hex on someone. There is no evidence that it will do anything - well nothing more that the spirit of Christ does.

 

So (Bear with me, its 11pm, I've had a bad day and I've been thinking about this all day so stream of consciousness coming) I have no problems with people who use the word spiritual to mean something like finding a deep meaning in something, or along those lines. I possibly get a bit like this when out in nature - a deep reverence, wonderment etc.

 

Where I guess I don't understand the other mindset is where people have an understanding of spiritual as if it affects or is part of reality. Verbosity was talking about nature magic, and ok I'm not entirely sure what shes meaning when talking about magic, but she did use the phrase to the effect that it must be magic or spiritual because we don't know what else it is. Of course I tried to point out that even with a belief in the spiritual, that's still a flawed way of thinking about things.

 

@midniterider Said he believes because it makes him feel good. Now I'm not entirely sure what he believes, but this idea of believing because it feels good is an anathema to me. I can't do it, and that's part of the reason I left Christianity. As much as believing like Jesus loved me and I'm going to heaven sounds nice I couldn't believe it because I didn't believe it. So I guess my question to Midnite is how do you do it? Do you truly believe in the spiritual or magical, or do you just believe it because you want to. If so, how?

 

I was trying to see if I could line up whether people who were more feelings based were more inclined to accept the spiritual, but so far from my observation, this doesn't hold out. JP is similar to me in personality (So thinking trumps feeling... no not that trump!) Yet I have a friend who is very much a feeling person but has the same outlook as me on spirituality... I think. I should ask direct to confirm. So whether or not one falls to materialism on one side, or spirituality on the other doesn't seem affected by personality type.

 

Ok thought stream ended. I'd be interested in others opinions, and please just because I'm asking why you believe that, or what's the evidence etc doesn't mean I'm attacking you. It's just the way I think... though I'm sure all participants have that figured out by now.

[florduh]

8 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

Those against it, lay out the case.

 

As with Christianity the burden of laying out the case is with those making extraordinary claims.

 

And it's not a case of being against it anymore than it is being against Santa Claus. Just tell my why you think Santa is real. Perhaps the reason is your parents told you and you trust them, perhaps you stayed up on Christmas Eve and saw him with your own eyes, or maybe you found hoof prints and sled marks on your snowy roof. Personally I can't find that believing in Santa as an adult just because you want to or it feels good is compelling.

 

I realize that unlike many with a Christian belief nobody is trying to persuade me to conduct my life according to the stars or do a card spell on my kitchen table or heal my headache with magic crystals. But why would anyone else believe such things in the 21st Century?

 

We have run into many such topics in the Spirituality Forum, but I think the thrust of the forum is or should be spirituality as opposed to bizarre woo beliefs and practices. Most people, religious or not, atheist or not, experience what some call spirituality. Awe and wonder at nature and all that. The feeling that we are all in this together whether it's obvious or not. The suspicion that there just might be something for us after death, just maybe. Though a spiritual side to existence can't be scientifically proven this is worth discussing as it is common among almost all people. Is it worth exploring? Do we need any gods to go there? Many have a feeling or sense of knowing there is "more." Let's explore that. IMO, discussing Druidism, Ancient Gods, Satanism or the efficacy of the Tarot is counterproductive as such topics will always come with requests for further explanation and evidence.

[Joshpantera]

55 minutes ago, florduh said:

As with Christianity the burden of laying out the case is with those making extraordinary claims.

 

It's hard to deny this. I would advise spiritual thinkers that if strong claims are being made, a burden of proof is required IF arguing in favor of those claims is the objective. 

 

55 minutes ago, florduh said:

And it's not a case of being against it anymore than it is being against Santa Claus. Just tell my why you think Santa is real. Perhaps the reason is your parents told you and you trust them, perhaps you stayed up on Christmas Eve and saw him with your own eyes, or maybe you found hoof prints and sled marks on your snowy roof. Personally I can't find that believing in Santa as an adult just because you want to or it feels good is compelling.

 

Same thing. I guess it depends on whether some one is trying to argue that Santa is real, act as if they have proof when they don't, and trying to shame others for not believing. In that case it's hard not to let them get thrown to the wolves and learn the lessons that will come from it. But if they're not trying to argue the case, just simply admitting that they don't have evidence and understand that no one else would be convinced anyways, it seems like a different type of situation than the first one. Maybe they just want to discuss something woo woo that they find interesting, like magical practice or astrology. 

 

55 minutes ago, florduh said:

We have run into many such topics in the Spirituality Forum, but I think the thrust of the forum is or should be spirituality as opposed to bizarre woo beliefs and practices. Most people, religious or not, atheist or not, experience what some call spirituality. Awe and wonder at nature and all that. The feeling that we are all in this together whether it's obvious or not. The suspicion that there just might be something for us after death, just maybe. Though a spiritual side to existence can't be scientifically proven this is worth discussing as it is common among almost all people. Is it worth exploring? Do we need any gods to go there? Many have a feeling or sense of knowing there is "more." Let's explore that. IMO, discussing Druidism, Ancient Gods, Satanism or the efficacy of the Tarot is counterproductive as such topics will always come with requests for further explanation and evidence.

 

The idea here, in both examples, would be geared towards trying to help some one who sounds deluded. I think the intentions are good intentions and consistent with our site objective laid out in the sub forum headers. Overall we're here to help and encourage struggling ex christians across the boards. And I see where wanting to help people see the problems with delusion is part of that effort. But it's been pointed out to me that sometime's we (those who launch attacks on delusional thinking) may get too carried away in the process. So this is a nice place to air that out and see how it unfolds. I'm not opposed to standing corrected either way. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Joshpantera]

3 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

Where I guess I don't understand the other mindset is where people have an understanding of spiritual as if it affects or is part of reality. Verbosity was talking about nature magic, and ok I'm not entirely sure what shes meaning when talking about magic, but she did use the phrase to the effect that it must be magic or spiritual because we don't know what else it is. Of course I tried to point out that even with a belief in the spiritual, that's still a flawed way of thinking about things.

 

I've done a fair bit of reading and listening to lectures from Manly P. Hall on esotericism, secret societies, and the like. From what I've seen this isn't really a situation like thinking Harry Potter is literally true, you can make things appear out of thin air, or turn lead into gold literally. It could be taken that way, but I've found that a lot of this stuff is more about manipulating one's own subconscious mind into action. And seeing whatever connections may occur from that begin to unfold accordingly. Still, this isn't a rock solid case full of hard evidence, but it's not exactly what people think of when the word magic is used either. 

 

For instance, read this page from Quantum Sorcery: http://www.quantumsorcery.org/quantumsorcery.html

 

Quote

 

Introduction

Quantum Sorcery is a magical system which presupposes that an individual can cause desired effects to be manifest in the physical world via the exertion of will. This system makes no supposition regarding the existence or influence of any sort of divine creator; rather it is based upon the premise that the human mind causes minute changes in the behavior of subatomic particles and energy fields within space/time. These minute changes in turn cause a cascade of events to occur, which ultimately result in the desired effect........

 

 

......

Conclusion

I have proposed that the phenomenon of magick derives its source not from a supernatural or higher being, but through the process of human bio-energy effecting subatomic particles. I realize that this is a stretch. Practitioners of magickal systems which presume that results are the purview of extra-dimensional entities would no doubt find this theory to be rubbish, as would most traditional physicists. I myself am not certain that this effect is factual or probable. I do believe however, that it is possible, and that is the key. Even if magickal results are obtained through an as of yet completely unknown mechanism, and this theory serves only as the basis of visualization, it is still an effective mnemonic device. Quantum sorcery provides a possible explanation to the psychic censor, and loosens the parameters of what the censor will permit to be manifest in the personal reality of the magickian.

 

 

 

 

[Snipped from article]

 

After reading a lot of this I realized that what happened with "The Secret" genre, is basically that someone took this esoteric magical and sorcery content and decided to mass produce it as a self help genre. The words magic or sorcery are not used. But it's all about the sub conscious mind and the possibility of mind to mind and mind to matter based interaction. Worst case scenario, someone gets the idea that they're in the drivers seat of controlling their own lives by thinking positively and feeding what they do want, and positive feelings into their own sub conscious. Thinking negatively and being a Debby Downer all the time having the reverse effect by feeding a stream of negativity into their own sub conscious. 

 

So my thing is that permitting that we ever did find hard evidence of sub conscious mind acting in these ways, it would just be another advancement or discovery of how the natural universe operates with respect to it's living organisms, more specifically evolved organisms with this level of sub conscious mind and awareness. It wouldn't turn out to be all that spooky if proven correct. Now entertaining as much as I have above is probably unthinkable for many hard atheists. The dismissive knee jerk would probably arise from the outset. And that may be true. It would be  really hard to prove this sort of thing beyond happenstance and coincidence. But the author is aware of that and admits as much. 

 

So there's an example of something magical to point at and discuss. 

 

[mwc]

     Quantum sorcery. 

 

     So it says that it cannot be proven.  So, can't prove it.  Can't disprove it.  There's nothing to be done here.  I see no reason to bother with something like this.

 

     The stuff this guy (and half the crap that comes through here) has written is on the same level as the technobabble they would use on Star Trek.  It's not really meant to be anything more than some filler words to explain why they need to shoot the photon torpedoes at the energy blob.  It makes no real sense but it's needed for the plot. 

 

     So, quantum sorcery <blah blah blah science sounding stuff blah blah blah> and that's why quantum sorcery.  Shouldn't we at least consider it given my ad hoc explanation of the universe?

 

     Anyhow, the guy quotes Alan Turing who is actually referring to Laplace.  And Laplace had no concept of the quantum realm.  So he's very Newtonian.  You can pick any object in the universe and track it back to its source or forward to its destination.  This can be done for all objects in the universe.  It's a very handy way to describe the computers Turing is working with.  That you can know what will happen steps ahead in his systems.

 

      This then leads to Lorenz who came up with the Butterfly Effect.  His point was not that a butterfly could cause a storm, because he said that if one could cause a storm then one could prevent a storm and it would be impossible to know either way.  He really wanted to point out the idea of chaos in these larger systems and that it needed to be accounted for which is something that people are doing.

 

     Just this one tiny bit shows this guy is just picking things that sound good to him and sticking them together even though they're really unrelated.  Of course, if you believe in magickkkk (gotta get that 'k' in there or it's just an illusion) then it doesn't matter and you can just pick and choose whatever you like and blame me for being a wet blanket for not listening.

 

          mwc

 

[wellnamed]

Cliff notes: everyone may need a little woo in their lives, a bit of narrative, a horizon against which life can have some meaning. It's good to get all anthropological about that shit. But insist on a higher quality of woo than quantum sorcery. It's a buyer's market, we have options.

[TruthSeeker0]

7 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

I was trying to see if I could line up whether people who were more feelings based were more inclined to accept the spiritual, but so far from my observation, this doesn't hold out. JP is similar to me in personality (So thinking trumps feeling... no not that trump!) Yet I have a friend who is very much a feeling person but has the same outlook as me on spirituality... I think. I should ask direct to confirm. So whether or not one falls to materialism on one side, or spirituality on the other doesn't seem affected by personality type.

Right, well if you're referring to me, I think of myself as a spiritual person, but I wouldn't associate the word woo woo, or paganism etc with it at all. I likely associate my spiritualism with strong feelings. As Florduh said, for some people spiritualism is more like deep contentment, wonder, awe, or feeling connected to the universe and everything in it. That's about as far as my spiritual side goes. And I do see it as a very enriching side of life, without which everything would be quite boring and hum drum and cut and dry. I think some people may also associate it with a creative side of themselves, and others with what some of us here call woo woo. The way I see it, if it doesn't harm anyone, and enriches someone's life, then go right ahead and cast your spells etc, as long as you're not trying to get other people to believe in the woo or using it in any way to manipulate someone.

Also, I'm actually pretty logical in the beliefs realm nowadays. I used to be the opposite obviously, as my feelings led me there which is why I didn't escape harmful beliefs for a long time. But I think escaping religion has made me extremely cautious of any potential woo beliefs, and aware of the fact that all my fundamental beliefs should be examined critically. Also, I just don't feel any need to believe in any external, higher power, force, or what have you. Karma is about as far as I'll go, because you do reap what you sow in a lot of ways.

 

[midniterider]

7 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

@midniterider Said he believes because it makes him feel good. Now I'm not entirely sure what he believes, but this idea of believing because it feels good is an anathema to me. I can't do it, and that's part of the reason I left Christianity. As much as believing like Jesus loved me and I'm going to heaven sounds nice I couldn't believe it because I didn't believe it. So I guess my question to Midnite is how do you do it? Do you truly believe in the spiritual or magical, or do you just believe it because you want to. If so, how?

 

 

I was raised by agnostic atheists so I have a strong foundation of "woo is bullshit." But as a teen I found I was really drawn to a variety of woo/magick (lol) /new age stuff. My parents did not MAKE me follow any particular atheist or agnostic format of thought, they just heavily discourage me from Christianity. When I got married to a Christian I 'chose' to start believing because she did and it sounded like something neat to do. It turned out not to be that neat. I didnt deconvert because I 'couldn't believe' in it. I quit because it was pissing me off.

 

I didnt initially believe in Jesus. I had little faith. Over the years my faith grew as I was constantly exposed to Jesus in church and church activities. I had bouts of being on fire for Jesus but was most of the time kind of lukewarm...lukewarm in a Pentecostal church might be considered 'on fire' in some liberal church.

 

I was drawn to witchcraft a decade ago. It just sounded interesting and there is a lot to explore there. I choose to believe in magick woo for the purpose of casting a spell because it is something I like to do. One of the tenets of Chaos Magick is that you can use any belief system 'temporarily.' You only need to have belief long enough to cast the spell. Which is good. My default belief is agnosticism. I could be a Roman Catholic for 30 minutes to 'get something done' , do an Enochian working next week, and invoke Captain Kirk or some personal magical deity of my design as time goes on.

 

I hope the concept of temporary (30 minutes) belief doesn't mess with your minds too much. (haha) I know most think that a belief system has to be some long term concept that must be deeply held for years.

 

The left brain will ALWAYS come in and say, "Midnite, you know this magic stuff is bullshit, right?" So I take a few bong hits or achieve gnosis/raise power in some way where the left brain takes a little nap. http://www.spiralnature.com/magick/gnosis/

 

Then cast my spell while the rational mind is buried.

 

So if one subscribes to the idea that magic might be possible (but still has doubts), and believes that by temporarily suppressing the left brain it can pass a message to a very powerful subconscious, then I don't really have to have a strong belief at all. Just enough to think I can get er done. Even a philosophical materialist can do this.

 

Answering LF's question TL/DR:  I choose to believe magic is real (and my left brain poo-poos the idea quite a bit).

[midniterider]

6 hours ago, florduh said:

 

 

I realize that unlike many with a Christian belief nobody is trying to persuade me to conduct my life according to the stars or do a card spell on my kitchen table or heal my headache with magic crystals. But why would anyone else believe such things in the 21st Century?

 

Why do we still accept Newtonian Physics... that shit is from the 17th century. Why do we quote stuff from the Greek Scholars from 400 B.C. ?

[TruthSeeker0]

1 hour ago, midniterider said:

 

I was raised by agnostic atheists so I have a strong foundation of "woo is bullshit." But as a teen I found I was really drawn to a variety of woo/magick (lol) /new age stuff. My parents did not MAKE me follow any particular atheist or agnostic format of thought, they just heavily discourage me from Christianity. When I got married to a Christian I 'chose' to start believing because she did and it sounded like something neat to do. It turned out not to be that neat. I didnt deconvert because I 'couldn't believe' in it. I quit because it was pissing me off.

 

I didnt initially believe in Jesus. I had little faith. Over the years my faith grew as I was constantly exposed to Jesus in church and church activities. I had bouts of being on fire for Jesus but was most of the time kind of lukewarm...lukewarm in a Pentecostal church might be considered 'on fire' in some liberal church.

 

I was drawn to witchcraft a decade ago. It just sounded interesting and there is a lot to explore there. I choose to believe in magick woo for the purpose of casting a spell because it is something I like to do. One of the tenets of Chaos Magick is that you can use any belief system 'temporarily.' You only need to have belief long enough to cast the spell. Which is good. My default belief is agnosticism. I could be a Roman Catholic for 30 minutes to 'get something done' , do an Enochian working next week, and invoke Captain Kirk or some personal magical deity of my design as time goes on.

 

I hope the concept of temporary (30 minutes) belief doesn't mess with your minds too much. (haha) I know most think that a belief system has to be some long term concept that must be deeply held for years.

 

The left brain will ALWAYS come in and say, "Midnite, you know this magic stuff is bullshit, right?" So I take a few bong hits or achieve gnosis/raise power in some way where the left brain takes a little nap. http://www.spiralnature.com/magick/gnosis/

 

Then cast my spell while the rational mind is buried.

 

So if one subscribes to the idea that magic might be possible (but still has doubts), and believes that by temporarily suppressing the left brain it can pass a message to a very powerful subconscious, then I don't really have to have a strong belief at all. Just enough to think I can get er done. Even a philosophical materialist can do this.

 

Answering LF's question TL/DR:  I choose to believe magic is real (and my left brain poo-poos the idea quite a bit).

This all makes me think that maybe I'm on to something when I say that spiritualism to some people is just creativity in its various forms.

[florduh]

33 minutes ago, midniterider said:

 

Why do we still accept Newtonian Physics... that shit is from the 17th century. Why do we quote stuff from the Greek Scholars from 400 B.C. ?

Surely you're not seriously comparing these to assertions about magic.

[midniterider]

2 hours ago, florduh said:

Surely you're not seriously comparing these to assertions about magic.

 

No, just wondering about the 21st century part of your reply. You seemed to indicate that magic was an outdated idea, even though Newtonian physic is about 400 years old and Plato is 2400 years old and yet we still seem to find those things relevant. So just because something is old doesn't mean it has no value. Unless it's something you dont personally care for.

 

"I realize that unlike many with a Christian belief nobody is trying to persuade me to conduct my life according to the stars or do a card spell on my kitchen table or heal my headache with magic crystals. But why would anyone else believe such things in the 21st Century?"

 

 

[midniterider]

Do you feel a wooist is unable to function in society?

 

[florduh]

2 hours ago, midniterider said:

 

No, just wondering about the 21st century part of your reply. You seemed to indicate that magic was an outdated idea, even though Newtonian physic is about 400 years old and Plato is 2400 years old and yet we still seem to find those things relevant. So just because something is old doesn't mean it has no value. Unless it's something you dont personally care for.

 

"I realize that unlike many with a Christian belief nobody is trying to persuade me to conduct my life according to the stars or do a card spell on my kitchen table or heal my headache with magic crystals. But why would anyone else believe such things in the 21st Century?"

 

 

You are arguing a point I never made. Takes me back to the days of arguments with Christian apologists.The year something is discovered is not relevant. What is relevant is that Newtonian physics essentially got it right a long time ago. Right enough that it works time after time ever since. Failed superstitions that are thousands of years old seem an anachronistic throwback. Physics is not a belief. Beliefs - physics, not comparable in any sense.

[Joshpantera]

22 hours ago, mwc said:

 Quantum sorcery. 

 

Just when you thought we couldn't top Atlantis, Aliens, or even pre-civilized mortar, TA DA!!!!

 

Quote

Just this one tiny bit shows this guy is just picking things that sound good to him and sticking them together even though they're really unrelated.  Of course, if you believe in magickkkk (gotta get that 'k' in there or it's just an illusion) then it doesn't matter and you can just pick and choose whatever you like and blame me for being a wet blanket for not listening.

 

 

[Joshpantera]

9 hours ago, midniterider said:

I was drawn to witchcraft a decade ago. It just sounded interesting and there is a lot to explore there. I choose to believe in magick woo for the purpose of casting a spell because it is something I like to do. One of the tenets of Chaos Magick is that you can use any belief system 'temporarily.' You only need to have belief long enough to cast the spell. Which is good. My default belief is agnosticism. I could be a Roman Catholic for 30 minutes to 'get something done' , do an Enochian working next week, and invoke Captain Kirk or some personal magical deity of my design as time goes on.

 

I hope the concept of temporary (30 minutes) belief doesn't mess with your minds too much. (haha) I know most think that a belief system has to be some long term concept that must be deeply held for years.

 

The left brain will ALWAYS come in and say, "Midnite, you know this magic stuff is bullshit, right?" So I take a few bong hits or achieve gnosis/raise power in some way where the left brain takes a little nap. http://www.spiralnature.com/magick/gnosis/

 

Then cast my spell while the rational mind is buried.

 

So if one subscribes to the idea that magic might be possible (but still has doubts), and believes that by temporarily suppressing the left brain it can pass a message to a very powerful subconscious, then I don't really have to have a strong belief at all. Just enough to think I can get er done. Even a philosophical materialist can do this.

 

Answering LF's question TL/DR:  I choose to believe magic is real (and my left brain poo-poos the idea quite a bit).

 

This says to me that you're being realistic about the entertainment value of it. I suppose some would argue that even if you're just believing in something, for the sake of the experiment or whatever, that you're still deluded anyways. But I hear your, "so what?" argument. It is a bit of a so what if you've deluded yourself in a non christian way? Is there some reason you shouldn't be able to do it if you'd like? And what if you're not delusional, what if there's something to it? 

 

The same for astrology and any number of things. I used to look at the Dragon forecast every Chinese New Year just for the hell of it. I'd look at the favorable months, unfavorable months. And then I'd not look at it again until the next year. And then reflect on how it corresponded to the past year after the fact. I don't know why, for fun I guess. 

 

But after I started reading up on Chaos Magick after seeing it on your profile, and wondering what that was about, I see something that I wasn't seeing before. These magick spells often come as something that you basically ingest into your sub conscious mind and then burn up afterward, or fold and set aside, and don't look at or think about right afterward. That's part of the process that I'm seeing for manipulating the sub conscious. Well, shit, that's exactly what I was doing every year by looking at the Chinese zodiac and then leaving it alone until the end of the year! I didn't even realize I was doing basically the same thing as what these spells consist of in simple form. Taking something in, and then setting it aside. Then coming back to it later. 

 

I should have taken notes or something and checked for correspondences. But I wasn't thinking like that. I was just screwing around with looking at horoscopes after deconverting for shits and giggles. Wondering if it would line up or not, and if so, how consistently. But not serious to try and detail or document in a journal. 

 

How does one experiment with something like this if they were to attempt some type of scientific examination? Is that a thing in magick? Do people try and treat it like a scientific experiment and keep track of hits and misses or anything like that? Because with all the talk of James Randi and everything, I'm wondering how someone would go about trying to gather the evidence for something like this? And how, if possible, one could differentiate between happenstance and coincidence and actual consistency and strong hits in favor of the practice? 

 

 

[midniterider]

 

54 minutes ago, Joshpantera said:

How does one experiment with something like this if they were to attempt some type of scientific examination? Is that a thing in magick? Do people try and treat it like a scientific experiment and keep track of hits and misses or anything like that? Because with all the talk of James Randi and everything, I'm wondering how someone would go about trying to gather the evidence for something like this? And how, if possible, one could differentiate between happenstance and coincidence and actual consistency and strong hits in favor of the practice? 

 

 

 

Non-wooists close your eyes:

 

A magician is supposed to keep a log of his spellcasting and later determine if there was a positive outcome or not. For the magician, their log or 'book of shadows' isn't for the purpose of proving magic works to people who could care less, but determining what works for the magician. It's kind of contradictory though, to do that with sigil magick as the magician is supposed to forget about it after he does it. This is where I invoke the "Nothing is True, Everything is permitted" axiom and kind of ignore the belief that you need to forget about it. Still, I'm too lazy to keep a log. How to tell between coincidence and magickal efficacy? Good question. Try casting a spell for something very very unimportant yet very odd but very possible. Like, "I will see someone wearing pink roller skates within the week." Try a bunch of times. See what happens.

 

For me, I don't want to spend months or years doing my own spellcasting study to see if it works before I decide to  follow that path. I'll just cast something now and then, assuming it works.

[midniterider]

1 hour ago, Joshpantera said:

 

This says to me that you're being realistic about the entertainment value of it.

 

 

 

Should we do anything that redirects our mind off cold hard fucking reality?

 

Do philosophical realists ... drink alcohol? They really shouldnt because that will affect their logic and reason.

What about reading fiction? Ever get lost in a book? That is a redirect away from reality. They shouldnt do that either.

What about tv drama? Your mind should not be swayed from the facts, goddammit!

What about...yes, the dreaded VIDEO GAMES! Those things swallow you up and you end up pretending to be an orc for hours and hours!

 

I bet some if not all of the people on this thread participate in at least one of the reality numbing or reality altering things I listed above. Woo is no better or worse than those things. Unless you pretend that it is. Just use a little common sense and woo in moderation.

[Joshpantera]

46 minutes ago, midniterider said:

A magician is supposed to keep a log of his spellcasting and later determine if there was a positive outcome or not. For the magician, their log or 'book of shadows' isn't for the purpose of proving magic works to people who could care less, but determining what works for the magician. It's kind of contradictory though, to do that with sigil magick as the magician is supposed to forget about it after he does it. This is where I invoke the "Nothing is True, Everything is permitted" axiom and kind of ignore the belief that you need to forget about it. Still, I'm too lazy to keep a log. How to tell between coincidence and magickal efficacy? Good question. Try casting a spell for something very very unimportant yet very odd but very possible. Like, "I will see someone wearing pink roller skates within the week." Try a bunch of times. See what happens.

 

So it is a thing. A book of shadows you say. Maybe I'll read up on that a little. 

[Joshpantera]

I'll transfer the scientific experiments that I am aware of to this thread: 

 

 

This is something we've discussed in the spirituality section about 'mind to matter' interaction experiments going on. The experiments show that mind can affect matter on sub atomic scales. Bhim started looking for ways to debunk the experiments. Then never got back to it. So here it is for the Den. 

 

As it stands there's been a lot of confirmation testing going on discussed in the later part of the video. Which tests, what they consist of, who's ran the tests and published papers, etc. 

 

 

[midniterider]

2 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

So it is a thing. A book of shadows you say. Maybe I'll read up on that a little. 

 

You can get this beautifully handcrafted blank Book of Shadows at Amazon.com for $9.00.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Embossed-Leather-Unlined-Journal-AzureGreen/dp/B006T92BTO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1539928791&amp;sr=8-4&amp;keywords=book+of+shadows

 

[mwc]

     Is this a case where there's going to be an onslaught of things like videos posted where folks like myself are expected to debunk them when they haven't even been properly bunked in the first place?

 

     This is like being told by some xian how their prayer for a parking space, or the prayer for guy with the broken leg or any of that is all real and I'm just in willful denial because I can't prove they didn't work.  Telling them to prove these things and, not only that, but to prove that these things were caused by the very reasons they believe caused them isn't unreasonable.  It's extremely reasonable.  So the parking spot?  Getting one is highly likely.  Was it caused by what they said?  That's a hard ask.  Same thing with magick (with a 'k').  And healing a broken leg on demand?  Much less likely.  So a higher bar.

 

     I remember back in the 70's/80's when people were going on about aura's and magnetic fields.  They were saying we were going to be manipulating those before long.  Now that magnetism is out and quantum physics is in I'm hearing the same claims just with the new terms.  No one managed to do shit with magnetism.  It seems that would be the easier thing to work with.  Birds can sense it.  It's built in.  Go for that low-hanging fruit.  Or go back to bending spoons (just don't get caught this time).

 

          mwc

 

[LogicalFallacy]

16 hours ago, midniterider said:

 

Why do we still accept Newtonian Physics... that shit is from the 17th century. Why do we quote stuff from the Greek Scholars from 400 B.C. ?

 

Because it works, and it works reliably for our world. Newtonian Physics needed updating but it still works fine in our every day life. Drop a stone and it will fall 100% of the time. Cast a spell or pray and ehhh you are at about 50/50... so just random chance of the thing occurring.

 

I think there is weird unexplained stuff that happens, like premonitions and dreams of the future that come to pass eerily accurate to the dream, but the evidence is that this is more a function of our minds subconscious than woo.

 

8 hours ago, midniterider said:

Should we do anything that redirects our mind off cold hard fucking reality?

 

Do philosophical realists ... drink alcohol? They really shouldn't because that will affect their logic and reason.

What about reading fiction? Ever get lost in a book? That is a redirect away from reality. They shouldn't do that either.

What about tv drama? Your mind should not be swayed from the facts, goddammit!

What about...yes, the dreaded VIDEO GAMES! Those things swallow you up and you end up pretending to be an orc for hours and hours!

 

I bet some if not all of the people on this thread participate in at least one of the reality numbing or reality altering things I listed above. Woo is no better or worse than those things. Unless you pretend that it is. Just use a little common sense and woo in moderation.

 

From what I can gather you treat woo as I do the force or playing skyrim. I'll still occasionally try and pull an object to me, but there's no real expectation that the laws of physics will suddenly alter for me. I do it for a bit of fun. I wouldn't say any of those things are reality numbing short of if you decide to drown your problems in alcohol. The rest of the things are entertainment so I'm not getting the connection between them and spirituality?

 

However some people take their woo very seriously to the point they really think there is something to it. And there might be, but no one has demonstrated that yet.

 

8 hours ago, midniterider said:

Non-wooists close your eyes:

 

My eyes are closed... I am feeling the woo... my head is sinking.... oh shit I'm tired and falling asleep  

 

Quote

 

This is where I invoke the "Nothing is True, Everything is permitted" axiom

 

Ha that is the Assassins creed.

 

Quote

How to tell between coincidence and magickal efficacy? Good question. Try casting a spell for something very very unimportant yet very odd but very possible. Like, "I will see someone wearing pink roller skates within the week." Try a bunch of times. See what happens.

 

For me, I don't want to spend months or years doing my own spellcasting study to see if it works before I decide to  follow that path. I'll just cast something now and then, assuming it works.

 

Lets say you cast said spell once a week for a month and you did see said pink roller skates, how do you determine if its your spell having an effect on reality, or just random occurrence of seeing someone wearing a popular item in a popular colour, or as a result of heightened awareness. Its like you always remember seeing see the make of your car during a trip more than other cars. If the above is the criteria for determine spell efficiency then biblical prophesy has you guys beat! However doing this could be fun... might give it a shot.

 

 

[florduh]

Long video but some of you may enjoy this one. It's rather on point.