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Ciel
It's a little late in the day for me, literally and figuratively, to enter into this discussion now, although the topic actually interests me a great deal, as you may recall.
Let me just say that I am convinced we do encounter 'natural' magic, things that 'happen' for which we have no explanation, but my position is that an explanation must be possible in principle. And I am also willing to concede that we do not have a clear perception of the boundaries of the 'natural', and probably never will.
However, I do reject (and in that respect I fully agree with gomedome) the belief in any kind of force beyond nature, such as God, which acts haphazardly and at will, and works 'miracles' and 'magic'...
But while I reject that belief as unwarranted, I do recognize that for many people it is a comforting and quite possibly a necessary belief...
posted by
Nautikos
on July 26, 2008 at 7:33 PM
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Re: Re: Isn't it strange that ...
Interesting to follow the discussion. Something you wrote:
Any technology, in other words, so far beyond their comprehension, they cannot even imagine the mechanics of it, falls into the Big Bag of Unknowables: the label reads Magics, or possibly Miracles.
At once a miracle, a magic event is understood, it's no magic anymore. To know is to lift the veil of magic and understand that it's natural forces that make it happen. The science has more and more managed to explain what has happened in the past. What we earlier called magic and mystic will be understood as long as we can explain it and prove it scientific.
Healing, as you mentioned, is one of these areas where proof have been shown because of scientific explanations. Especially healing on animals - and much of the understanding has come from the energy effect on plants by pray, sending love and comapassion etc. - it's the focus and sending of energy that can be seen with electronical instruments (Kirlian photography etc.).
Another example to mention when magic and mystic are on the agenda is a man called Edgar Cayse. - But he's just one of many people - and it has been many people who has been tested - Matthew Manning is a good example of how much force a human can have, but, of course, others may have more force, but, he's been tested upwards and downwards and in all directions.
It has been written tons (?) of books about this, and it's still comming more litterature about it.
Still it's the area of the inexplicable - and it's about individuality, not only understanding by brain as I've written about above, but the experiences that occurs because some people are more sensitive than others - and then I think the area 'magic and mystic' are on the right track.
posted by
ggXpress
on July 26, 2008 at 1:47 PM
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Aah but zoo critters wear their uniquely beautiful patterns. Ha I Corinthians 13 lists the ingredients of a potion of love to me. It reads as magically as any potion that the professor of Harry Potter conjures up in the books. Indeed nurses seem to change sick persons into healthy ones sometimes with one of those ingredients in I Corinthians 13, love. In other words they raise the spirits of their patients. Your touch of objectivity to express your subjective opinions fits Blogit nicely. lol, BCA
posted by
BC-A
on July 26, 2008 at 3:37 AM
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Ciel, I agree...I think much that we attribute to the supernatural has to
do with the power of the mind...but again, like you said, we might be wrong. LOL
posted by
Ariala
on July 25, 2008 at 6:23 PM
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Re: Ariala, I am also glad for the mystery in life!
It's magic until you know how it works... And even then our explanations might be mistaken. We still know so little about the power of the brain, and the mind at all its many levels! And we can hardly claim to have the last word on how the Universe functions!
posted by
Ciel
on July 25, 2008 at 6:16 PM
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Re: Ciel - so you are saying that you didn't understand the question and you
It gives me great pleasure to make you laugh, Gome!
I am saying your question doesn't make sense, but that that is irrelevent because it is a rant, not really a debate or discussion.
And it makes me laugh--which I welcome very much this afternoon--to have anyone on Blogit suggest that I might think rants are inappropriate here!
As to your last question: No.
posted by
Ciel
on July 25, 2008 at 5:49 PM
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Ciel, and another thing...I have levitated before and so have my friends.
We were 14 and "playing around" with Oujia boards and doing the "light as a feather and stiff as a board" story telling. So, no matter what the skeptics say, I KNOW what I experienced and it wasn't hypnotism, a slight of hand or any of the so-called logical explanations these people come up with.
posted by
Ariala
on July 25, 2008 at 5:48 PM
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Ciel, good post. From experience, past dabbling, research and reading
of books by the following authors William Tiller, Fred Wolf, Lynne Taggart, Amit Goswami, Fritjof Capra, Masaru Emoto, Scott Cunningham, Laurie Cabbot and the Bible itself, I have come to conclude that energy CAN be manipulated with enough intention, focus and desire. Call it magic, call it answer to prayer, I have seen enough proof to convince me and me alone (which is all that matters at the end of my day) that there is something there and we are cocreators in this universe.
posted by
Ariala
on July 25, 2008 at 5:44 PM
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Ciel - so you are saying that you didn't understand the question and you
were mistakenly under the impression that rants were not allowed on Blogit?
I made a point of editing my blog. As writers in a public forum, we must recognize the possibility that not everything we post may articulate what we are intending to say in the manner that we wish it to. Unfortunately, my action of editing my post makes a few comments and a post or two irrelevant to it.
As for your final paragraph; am I correct in reading that you are challenging me to prove that Harry Potter style magic is not possible? Did you write that to make me laugh?
It worked . . .
posted by
gomedome
on July 25, 2008 at 5:22 PM
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Here we find a perfect example of being stuck on labels and linear thinking. Very productive blog from my point of view. Bravo!
posted by
AardigeAfrikaner
on July 25, 2008 at 2:28 PM
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Re: Ciel - I often wonder if my English needs dramatic improvement
Hiya, gome! Nice to see you here!
I can't say what that statement means to most people, but it didn't convey to me that this was your whole definition of 'magic.' It doesn't set any parameters for the term 'spells', to begin with.
Spells might be latin-ish bellows such as in Harry Potter's world. Or they might be intricate formulas of words and materials, or they might be the same as prayers or simply rituals, which themselves are not necessarily religious in nature. (The rituals of an obsessive/compulsive, for instance, are intended to make the world somehow safer--a non-religious magic? An alcoholic who does the same rituals, expecting different results--what sort of magic is that? Where are the 'different results' supposed to come from?)
Could be that some rituals/formulas/spells do, in fact, create an alteration of the realities of time-and-space (which might include objects). Especially those that you and I with modern era educations recognize as science in action, though others in the world would certainly consider them spells.
And you're still stuck with the disparity of what you ask for versus what you are giving. You give your opinion as if it is absolute fact; you demand that anyone disagreeing with your opinion provide proofs. That's not debate, it's rant.
All this said, I agree that the senses of human beings are readily fooled by things that seem impossible--but are not, though we can't see how the deed is accomplished by the stage magician. (I don't know how Bush won Ohio, but I know it wasn't magic.)
And that most 'magics' as defined by H.Potter's world are not possible in any practical sense to any of us folks living in the everyday present time world. But are they absolutely impossible? I challenge you to prove it! In the meantime, I will offer up the reasoning and science of one of my favorite books which I have mentioned before, Michael Talbot's THE HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE. It may not prove anything, but it certainly shows how quite a number of things assumed by people with a good solid modern era education to be impossible, are actually plausible.
posted by
Ciel
on July 25, 2008 at 1:12 PM
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Ciel - I often wonder if my English needs dramatic improvement
For example; what does this sentence from the post you are referring to mean to most people?: "Our modern era educations should tell us that the manipulation of objects, or time and space by the use of "spells" is nothing more than trickery or sleight of hand."
Nowhere in my post do I mention another common use of the word magic (used in a phrase such as: "as if by magic"), which is to describe fooled perception, things suddenly disappearing or appearing or that which is beyond comprehension. Yet you imply in this post that I was speaking of this use of the word magic.
Then of course this opens the door to the "lacking perception" argument and sends a handful of commenters off on their little tangents telling us how "magical" their worlds are and how we all could see it if only we had their special gifts of insightfulness.
Isn't Blogit fun?
posted by
gomedome
on July 25, 2008 at 12:04 PM
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Re: Isn't it strange that ...
Genio, only in some cultures are such feelings dismissed as impossible, therefore non-existent.
I look at religion as the various kinds of packaging that people wrap around spiritual things in order to carry it around, manage and control it.
It is also a fundamental fact of being human that we simply adore to think! And to figure things out, to find plausible explanations, is fun and exciting: arriving at true understanding or awareness is not necessarily so much the goal as enjoyment of trying to get there.
posted by
Ciel
on July 25, 2008 at 9:33 AM
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Re: AardigeAfrikaner,
Some of us have been raised within a world where spirit has reality, and is part of all things, and can celebrate not knowing everything, not being in control of everything. Taken with a certain optimism, or faith that things will turn out generally better than they might, it makes for a more fulfilling life, in my opinion.
Agreed, some people will stay in houses all day long arguing over labels, and never enjoy the feel of sunshine on their backs, let alone see the sun itself!
posted by
Ciel
on July 25, 2008 at 9:27 AM
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Isn't it strange that ...
... focusing on someone in front of you when the person has the back to you, the person can "sense/feel/be aware" of it. Also focusing with thoughts and feelings on a person when you sit in the same room, the person discover it. These energies has many names, as well as we have an 'electric' aura around our bodies. Yes, even the science has recognized it and, I can see magic experiences can have the possibilities to start when these energies can be focused and put in movements. --- I'm not going into this long and difficult area to prove magic but - I like to be open for what humankind may experience in the future.
I look at religions as fiction together with James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Star Wars etc. and I believe it should be diagnosed as fiction and not reality - but magic? Yes, it's connected to religions/fiction but, it's something more for me in aother knowledge than it's only fiction. Religion and spirituality are not the same, only emerge now and then, as everything else.
Thanks for your words, Ciel.
posted by
ggXpress
on July 25, 2008 at 8:57 AM
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Excellent post. I would even go so far as to say that those of us who perceive life as it happening without continuously trying to force it into little pigeonholes, conceived by others, can see "magic" in everything. But naturally, those who lack the vision will get stuck on the label and a specific definition thereof and never "look to see" and will therefore never really understand and know what we point to with these words.
posted by
AardigeAfrikaner
on July 25, 2008 at 8:49 AM
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