On 6-Apr-07, at 4:46 PM, Khem Caigan wrote:
>
> Gilbert Rouget ~ *Music and Trance Possession:
> A Theory of the Relations between Music and
> Possession*, University of Chicago Press, 1985,
> ISBN 0-226-73005-0.
Thanks - we have that at my University's library - I'll check it out.
>
> There is no need for 'spooky action-at-a-distance'
> if one is prepared to posit a model which employs
> physical forces that account for the phenomena in
> question.
I've looked over all of those links, and by providing them you have
singlehandedly melted my brain ;-)
I've heard of some of those things before (e.g., effects on random
number generators), but I didn't realize the studies were being done at
Princeton! Before that, I thought they were pseudo-science for sure!
But I guess the question for practitioners of magic is: Is the very,
very small effects of intention on random number generators *enough* to
explain the efficacy of magic? I agree that the experimental results of
PEAR open a door for explanations of magical phenomena, but it seems
that it is quite a jump from these extremely small effects they speak
of, to full-blown spell work. I guess for my part I'm very concerned
that I'll take some kind of mysterious phenomenon (like the effects on
random number generators) and infer: Well, if *that* can happen, then
*anything* can happen!
Of course, I must keep in mind that reducing magic to hypnosis, like I
was suggesting, doesn't really solve any mysteries, it just puts them
back a step and rephrases them into a different vocabulary. We have so
little understanding regarding the mechanisms of the mind that
suggesting something is "just hypnosis" makes it sound like we've got a
good handle on something that we really still find fundamentally
perplexing.
But you've given me so much food for thought I think I'm choking on it.
I must retreat into a fetal position for a while and have a good think.
Thanks :-)
Cheers,
Matt
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