Scruffie wrote:Didn't they decide ghosts were a particular resonant frequency that disrupted your corneas and made you see shit and also happened to cause a feeling of dread.
I haven't heard that one. Sounds interesting. But in my readings of various neuroscience books, there's a common and somewhat widely accepted theory out there that goes like this:
Your brain kind of does things in a feelings/instincts
first kind of way, then you
rationalize whatever your feelings/instincts did. More or less. So it's better for you to think "oh shit! danger!" then "hey was that a gust of wind right when the light bulb blew?" The theory is that it's more or less an ancient survival mechanism. Better to think there's a tiger in the bushes and be wrong, then to not think there's a tiger in the bushes and get eaten.
As to the preceding debate:
Derelict78 wrote:"A lot of it is just cold reading anyway" it is a very small amount of reading and a LOT of work
Maybe for the reader, but not for the subject of the reading. Some cold readers actually believe their own BS, some realize that they can trick people and make a ton of cash. I assume that it's accepted among most of us here (no offense if not...) that things like astrology work because we infer our own meaning. That's what devnulljp was getting at, I assume. There have been times where professors give their students each an individual horoscope (a Cancer horoscope for someone born mid-July, etc...) and told them not to share with their neighbors. They then asked the students to raise their hands if the horoscope was accurate, or described them well, or whatever. Most raised their hands. The professor(s) then delivered the punch-line, saying that each student got the same horoscope. People who are "cold-read" do most of the work themselves, because they
want to believe it.
My philosophy or whatever you want to call it, is that if something works for you, makes your life better, easier, etc then use it. If it doesn't work or makes things worse, take another route. To that end, if someone wants to use Tarot cards or runes crystal balls or dolphin spirits or whatever, who gives a shit, as long as they're not imposing on me. If people are dumb enough to follow the bad/stupid people out there, then it's their loss. Debunking things is interesting, but there will probably always be an element of BS in the world, and a group of people, who, for any number of reasons, choose to accept it.
I'll make the bullseye on my head even bigger....
On a similar note, the psychodrama-aspect of magic, or as devnulljp put it
pseudo pop-psychology
amounts to pretending, with a goal in sight. Once again, the practitioner or actor/whatever has to
really want their desired outcome, to the point where they become emotionally involved in the act. Next, one of two things typically will happen:
a: they feel a sense of fulfillment and no longer really want what they desired (like your lowered libido and indifference after masturbation or sex) and can thus go about their business without their goal hampering their thoughts.
b: they still are handicapped by their obsessions, and nothing seems to work, in which case, a smart practitioner will have learned something about them self. Namely, that they don't really want their desired outcome as much as they revel in a masochistic chase for it. Or else the adage "a perfect fantasy is sometimes better than an imperfect reality" holds sway.
That adage is another use of psychodrama-magic.
These are vague outlines of the general idea, and they sure as shit aren't for everyone. But they work for me, and when they don't, I learn something new.
Lastly, "I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid," should apply to these practitioners. Just because someone ritualized a profound desire for whatever doesn't mean that they should actually expect it to appear in their living room or whatever. It's about the psychological effect.
