Hi Jesper and all,
firstly wishing speedy relief to your daughter, ear infections are
horrid (btw dryness in the ear has very similar symptoms, and responds
speedily to a simple dab of fine olive oil).
There is indeed no clear dividing line between religion and magic - or
no-one has been able to draw one successfully anyway! At the same time
my feelings on claiming the authority of science for either are that
it is fallacious. Much as I don't see the relevance of Randi or Geller
to magic, either pro or anti. ESP, telepathy, telekinesis etc. are
essentially scientific not magical theories, even when advanced in
relation to magic. A specialist in parapsychology or debunking same is
not a magician, nor really an anti-magician. Both are working solely
within a scientific paradigm, whether they do so well or not doesn't
matter, from a magical perspective they are simply involved in
something else. I'm reminded too of efforts to fit Pythagoras and
Empedocles into a scientific strait jacket, or to divide aspects of
their careers; which were really a unified whole in another discipline
entirely.
This is the problem really in seeking empirical evidence for magic, it
is like asking science to ratify the artistic qualities of
Michelangelo. Science is not the final arbiter in all things, and all
things do not have to fit a scientific worldview in order to justify
themselves; and in many cases they cannot and should not. Given that
the line between religion and magic is vague at best, the problem with
asking science to determine magic's validity involves more problems,
if less pain, than the old heresy trials. Magicians and Inquisitors
may have shared some beliefs and practices, even though of course this
sharing was determined largely by historic and geographic proximity;
it is not a requirement of all magicians that they share such with
'the other side'.
With science and magic there is no such common ground, at least, not
in my opinion, or my approach to magic. This notwithstanding that the
fabled bezoar stone might actually have a scientifically measurable
property of protecting from arsenic poisoning. This and similar
positive lab-measurable 'results' do not reduce the theoretical gulf,
nor the differences in goals and intentions. Science is not in a
position to say 'bezoar stone = good magic, line of brick dust across
threshold = bad magic', simply because one 'fits' with science and the
other doesn't. It is what fits with magic -constituting good technique
and/or traditional procedures - which determines that.
ALWays
Jake
On 8 July 2010 13:02, Jesper Aagaard Petersen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hello all.
>
> Although I have only read this latest interesting summer thread in passing
> (a small girl at home with an ear infection needs attention), I feel at
> least some arguments/opinions need a comment.
>
> In both "camps" of the science/religion divide (and for the sake of this
> argument, there is no sharp division between religion, spirituality and
> occultism) there are of course fundamentalists. But most of us inhabit the
> middle regions and find straw man arguments little useful. Most "moderate"
> skeptics feel fine about arguments like Jake's: "A long chain of
> coincidences, often bearing deep personal significance, is capable of being
> a gratifying life without constituting - or trying to constitute - 'proof'.
> More often than not it is the experiential process that really interests the
> magician, rather than the results or proving it is responsible for them." In
> other words, use crystals, homeopathy, ceremonial magick, humanism or
> whatever as you wish.
>
> It is when religious actors claim the *authority* of science in the public
> realm through harmonizing or intergrative arguments, or claim political
> authority to reorient the secular nature of democratic debate, a "skeptical
> community" forms to counter these claims. Remember that skeptics come in
> informed and tourist versions, as do occultists and other religious folks.
> The informed skeptics have actually weighed pros and cons through intensive
> studies and thus discard new evidence a posteriori, not a priori. Not the
> knee-jerk "no, because I'm an atheist"-argument of the tourist, but a
> statistical "not likely given the 1000 previous experiments discarding the
> theory".
>
> As to the use of science: The understanding of the heterodoxy and multiple
> developments of magic and esotericism seems developed on this list, so
> perhaps I should remind you that generally, the same is true for science.
>
> Science is polyvocal, with many disciplines and specialized languages. This
> is even more so in academia as a whole, with the famous two cultures of
> science and the humanities. Nevertheless, a common language and a common
> field of play has been developed, because science is *not* democratic. Or,
> it is in principle on the level of access and participation (everybody is
> invited to contribute), but not on the level of argument and theory (you
> need to know what you're talking about and present it the right way).
> Skeptics are among those who "patrol" science and public discourse to reveal
> fallacies and inconsistencies, not because science needs it, but because
> they want to.
>
> Personally I find their work very useful, even the more radical ones like
> Randi, Penn & Teller and Dawkins. While they all reveal a lack of
> understanding the subleties of religion, they do point out some potentially
> dangerous thought-patterns *on both sides*. And angry men are funny. When
> they miss the substance of religious claims, they also mirror pro-psychic
> fundies' lack of understanding science. For example, biology is *not* Darwin
> or the theory of evolution. It is not even Watson and Crick and DNA. It has
> progessed far from these fine starting points into genetics, chemistry and
> ecology. Similarly, physics is not Kepler or Newton. It is not even
> Einstein, Bohr and Schrödinger. Again, physics has progressed from these
> fine starting points into quantum field theory, experimental sub-particle
> physics and speculations on dark matter and energy. So the very vocal
> minorities on both sides have a very limited understanding of the
> contemporary intricacies of the other.
>
> As for Uri Geller, whom I have very little knowledge outside second-hand
> presentations, he might be a very capable magician. But to quote the only
> absolute authority in this aeon, Dr. Phil: If you see one rat, it generally
> means 50 more. In other words, I do feel that revealing trickery with
> Blavatsky, mediums or Geller discredit their "acknowledged successes" (to
> quote Marie). Which by the way seems acknowledged only by a limited group of
> tests. I agree that we should not dismiss anything out of hand, but we
> should be so open-minded our brains fall out either.
>
> Summer greetings from
>
> Jesper.
>
> ----------------------------------------------
> Jesper Aagaard Petersen
> Research Fellow, Dept. of Archeology and Religious Studies
> NTNU, Dragvoll
> NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway
> Tlf. 0047-735-98312
> email: [log in to unmask]
--
Jake
http://www.underworld-apothecary.com/
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