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funsway Inner circle old things in new ways - new things in old ways 9982 Posts |
Interesting that you offer three selection (opinions) that have little to do with either the topic of this thread (occult) or performance magic, the theme of the Café'
There are other authors with a different view of magic and history. So what? They would not be relevant either. Jesus didn't use a cellphone either. It certainly would have seemed magical at the time. Sorta joking. Why would a painting hundreds of years after Christ performing miracles indicate anything except the biased beliefs of the artist, or more likely, the expectations of the viewers? Yup, modern folks write about magic and Coptics wrote about magic. Therefore, Pop Hadyn must be a Coptic, right? You have now posted similar material on several different threads. We acknowledge that you can read and have opinions. How about telling us what kind of magic effects you perform -- you know, something of relevance on the Café'
"the more one pretends at magic, the more awe and wonder will be found in real life." Arnold Furst
eBooks at https://www.lybrary.com/ken-muller-m-579928.html questions at ken@eversway.com |
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miistermagico Regular user 154 Posts |
I try to perform magic that I hope is entertaining and produces a feeling of awe and wonder. Finally after mourning the death of my beloved wife of 42 years, who died almost eight years ago, I am attempting to do things that give me pleasure and trying to spark a desire to be among other people. It is not easy. There is still much depression and anxiety. I was crazy in love with Sandra. Magic is not always performance magic. The question was asked: "Is there real magic?" I have tried to present solid evidence of things that interested me from people I consider are acknowledged experts in their field by the judgement of their peers. Not my opinions. I know I am frequently wrong. I have a deep fondness for the study of human behavior and critical ancient history. I consider myself a puzzler like my mentor Martin Gardner. I have genuine curiosity. I have a fascination for the obscure. I know that there is a reality beyond the bounds of human imagination and science probes it and produces hardware. This indicates science is on the right track and that knowledge is slowly collected and sorted during each short span of a human lifetime. There will always be the unknown. I relish it.
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miistermagico Regular user 154 Posts |
Excuse me. I made a mess of things. The title of this topic is the Occult not the topic Real Magic. Got confused jumping back and forth. The occult (secret knowledge) and real magic (the belief in magic) are brothers.
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miistermagico Regular user 154 Posts |
Though the Wikipedia has been criticized for its scholarly accuracy, the "parapsychology" entry is quite interesting.
I also highly recommend that the link at the bottom of the parapsychology "talk" page to Annalisa Ventola be followed. Genuine curiosity and critical thought are worth fostering. |
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Arabus New user 2 Posts |
I think that Occult, psychic abilities, faith healing, and all other supernatural beliefs are rooted in the genetics of humans. The power of belief is a survival trait. Some studies indicate that the placebo effect is real and can truly heal some conditions for some people. The theory about the placebo effect is that ancient humans who responded to the shaman's magic survived and passed on this ability.
From another angle, some scientists speculate that the brain uses a quantum field which might be manipulated and may exist beyond death. Just food for thought. |
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miistermagico Regular user 154 Posts |
I disagree. I think people seek out and believe something they have concluded is potentially true.
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miistermagico Regular user 154 Posts |
We may find evidence of telepathy within Folie a Deux. If so, it is associated with a psychotic disorder.
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funsway Inner circle old things in new ways - new things in old ways 9982 Posts |
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On Feb 14, 2016, miistermagico wrote: Why disagree, both his statement and your scan be true. One might say that a person who buys a ticket to a Mentalism Show has a predisposition to find truth or validation in such a demonstration even if they know it is faked. It is also true that our brain treats all potential solutions to a problem as equal; direct experience, vicarious experience, imagined scenarios and things plunked into our herds by the divine or aliens. The we filter out millions of options based on several different mechanisms that evaluate the degree of certainty attached, risk to our person, emotional rewards/punishment and innate laziness to name a few. Only a couple of options reach the cortical level for rational evaluation. Some/many of the original options might be considered as magic by another (physically impossible, non-possible, not possible other than possible, or highly improbable). In Certainty, believed things can shift to "very certain," certitude or conviction based on actual experience and transitional learning to "knowing," or the level of trust for the source of the information. Most people (opinion) have some degree of higher certainty about a paranormal ability from either direct experience, anecdotal trust or emotion driven superstition. In today's Western Culture people are wooed towards false conviction over certitude and assign truth to believed things beyond rational justification. Some experts offer that we are so inundated by information that the mind works on overload mechanism that bypass the normal functions. Others suggest that being in "entertainment mode" is chemically addictive and many people never make a reasoned decision. Both processes could be considered paranormal to a clinical observer when compared to a thinker in the Age of Reason. .................. the attempts to scientifically (sic) prove or disprove paranormal ability are flawed by their basic presumption that any such "power" must be controllable to be considered valid. Why not alternatively assume that some human abilities are not controllable, but ebb and wane by factors we do not yet understand? The error of claimed psychics is not that they have an "other than normal ability" but that they can control it. All of the challenges and alleged test can only serve to prove that a given person cannot control an ability on demand or conditions ascribed by another. Actually, the "scientific method" runs contrary to the way our mind functions. There is also a possibility that those with "frequent inexplicable phenomena" in their experience can care less about proving anything, perhaps fearing that "knowing why" or "knowing how" will kill the natural gift. .... You do not have to prove to me that the claims of psychics are frauds. Neither will any scientific test prove that they do not have some special ability on occasion. The problem comes in when they attempt to charge for their "gift" and are lured to charlatanry, or believe their own press clippings and seek to expand their "power" into predictability. But, the real problem is those people seeking to tap into their "ability" as an alternative to accepting personal accountability for their choices. A person who accepts the word of a rock star as to how to vote or buy breakfast cereal is not better than a person who pays a psychic for a reading. Why are you not testing music idols, sports heroes, politicians and preachers for the "truth" of their claims? Not a one of them can "prove" their claims under scientific conditions. On the other hand, my dad could find buried metal with two bent coat hangers. Was this paranormal? Could he do it "on demand?" Would he do it "just for fun?" Di he ever get paid to do it? NO - to all of the above. He would ask, "Why can't you do it?" He could also wiggle his ears. Was that paranormal?
"the more one pretends at magic, the more awe and wonder will be found in real life." Arnold Furst
eBooks at https://www.lybrary.com/ken-muller-m-579928.html questions at ken@eversway.com |
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friend2cptsolo Elite user Spent all this time on the Cafe' and all I have to show for it is 445 Posts |
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On Mar 28, 2014, Jason Simonds wrote: I once had the same opinion ... thinking magicians would just have to not really believe in such things; but being on this forum I realize that is not the case. I think many magicians really believe in paranormal and almost any other conspiracy or strange accurances. |
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Terrible Wizard Inner circle 1973 Posts |
I think magi are pretty split, just like most other people. Some believe, some don't, some are inbetween or agnostic.
I do think there's slightly more incredulity and suspicion amongst magicians compared to lay people, though - and a bit more hubris regarding their opinions A lot of big name magi are, or were, quite outspoken and anti-supernaturalist: Penn and Teller; Derren Brown; Chris Angel; Paul Daniels; Banachek; Randi; Zenon; etc. |
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bbeishline New user 62 Posts |
Here's my biggest, and really my only, "psychic" experience:
This happened about 25 years ago. I had a deck of cards and decided to try to magically find the Queen of Spades. I had never tried to "locate" a card before. I shuffled the cards and dealt a bunch face down, then stopped on one and flipped it over. It was the QoS. Wow, a 1 in 52 coincidence. I shuffled the deck again, dealt out some cards, stopped on one and flipped it over. Queen of Spades. Now it's a 1/52 * 1/52, or 1/2704 coincidence if you look at the two occurrences as a whole. That's a pretty big coincidence. This whole thing was completely fair. There were no marks or indications on the cards or any kind of trick that I used. On the other hand, I didn't have any kind of feeling, psychic impression, or reason that I stopped on the cards that I did. I just stopped randomly and hit it twice. I was alone in my room just goofing around and no one can verify any of this. But it is true. What do I think it was? A 1/2704 lucky shot. If I'd really felt psychic I would have tried it again. As it was I didn't want to ruin a cool experience by trying again and missing. I've never tried it since, mostly for the same reason. I was listening to something a while ago, probably on NPR, where someone was saying with billions of people in the world with thousands of little things happening to every one of them every day, some pretty big coincidences happen occasionally. That makes sense. They mentioned someone dreaming about a plane crash, and the next day there is a plane crash. The person thinks they had some sort of premonition, but every day there are probably thousands of people in the world who have a dream about a plane crash. I don't believe in true psychic phenomena myself, but do realize that science hasn't accounted for everything yet. I went to an astronomy lecture about gravitational waves a few weeks ago, and it touched on dark matter and dark energy. Not that those are related to the topic, but just an example of something that's apparently real that science has no real understanding of yet. Ben |
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funsway Inner circle old things in new ways - new things in old ways 9982 Posts |
I reread the with some humor because of later posts. The last line is --
"We have only ill-documented and exaggerated claims of psychic or paranormal abilities" and we could also say, We have only contradictory documents and exaggerated claims of God and supernatural activities." Everyone who "believes in God" subscribes to the concept of supernatural agency, and is willing to accept "faith" as an argument in support thereof. Why then doe sa person who believes in an alternative supernatural agency require proof beyond faith? If that million dollars was offered for proof of the existence of God, who would collect? Even worse(better?) is required proof that one must demonstrate the ability to control this agency. (is that were 'demon' comes from??) Folks can become a Saint by anecdotal claims of sporadic inexplicable phenomenon wherein they were blamed instead of someone else. Just musing -- nothing should be inferred/projected of my personal beliefs, or my history to occasionally be blamed either. Everything I control/influence is "normal" to me and can't be paranormal, even if considered so by someone else. I can't be a psychic since I ma not pretending at anything or claiming any special ability or connection with whatever .. I just do it.
"the more one pretends at magic, the more awe and wonder will be found in real life." Arnold Furst
eBooks at https://www.lybrary.com/ken-muller-m-579928.html questions at ken@eversway.com |
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acesover Special user I believe I have 821 Posts |
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On Jan 22, 2016, miistermagico wrote: To be really fair. The million dollars is not worth it if you really have the ability. You can make so much more. I certainly would not advertise it if I had it, much less expose it for a million dollars. Just saying.
If I were to agree with you. Then we would both be wrong. As of Apr 5, 2015 10:26 pm I have 880 posts. Used to have over 1,000
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Wizard of Oz Inner circle Most people wish I didn't have 5150 Posts |
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On May 15, 2016, acesover wrote: I knew you were going to write this. And it is so true.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
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