Talk:Magic (supernatural)/Archive 1

Subtle v Manifest
I have read this sentence a number of times, and I have no idea what is trying to say. The distinction between subtle and manifest has been lost in bad grammar.

Manifest and Subtle magic typically refers to magic of legend rather than what many individuals who practise the Occult claim to use as magic, where Manifest magic is magic that immediately appears with a result, and Subtle magic being magic that gradually and intangibly alters the world.

--chemica 16:14, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

NPOV?
I think the flow of this article should be checked for NPOV. While the individual elements might be when taken by themselves, and while those elements might be encyclopedic, the order they are in is very very biased.

It starts with the examples and goes into the next section. Starting at the examples, the main topics are: 1) Hurting others 2) Sexual practices 3) Magical belief as illusory control over nature

There needs to be some balance in here, because so far, it seems the article is saying that anyone who practices or believes in magic is an evil perverted delusional psychopath. --Arkayne Magii 22:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm considering deleting the examples section for general silliness. It reads like the intro to a wiccan instruction manual. I don't really understand its purpose.
 * Also, the etymology section states "Sorceress appears also in the late 14th century, while sorcerer is attested only from 1526." Unless I'm misunderstanding something, the late 14th century would come after 1526 as the 14th century is the 1500's. I didn't feel like checking all the references but what source does the etymology section reference? 68.166.68.84 11:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I certainly think the article could be better laid out, and this info might be more appropriate in a different section. However I don't agree that it reads like a "wiccan instruction manual". The examples given are pretty universal examples of magic, as written about by people like Carl Jung and James Frazer, as well as other anthropologists. Also, I take exception to anyone claiming to know what Wiccan training and methods might involve, unless they are an initiate. The popular books on the subject are almost all written by non-initiates, and most grossly misrepresent traditional Wiccan practices, pretty much as badly as Hercules and Xena misrepresent the religion of the Greeks. Fuzzypeg ☻ 00:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposal of cleanup of Talk Page
I would like to propose that this discussion page get cleaned up and trimmed back a bit. There are posts here that go back to 2003 to an antiquated version of the article that no longer exists, and most of the talk page is taken up by a ranting and hostile argument that took place over a year ago, and which are irrelevant to this article because the argument devolved into name calling and flaming.

Keeping the more recent and/or relavent posts is of course important so that the current direction the page is going can be preserved along with those suggestions and ideas that are still being worked on or actively discussed. --Arkayne Magii 03:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Misc Edits
--Maprovonsha172 02:48, 19 September 2005 (UTC)Cut from main article:

--- For more information, see: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=magic+neopagan+traditions+history ---

Note: the entry previously under this heading was a long, and poorly researched, theistic (christian) diatribe against magic. If you want that take on 'magic,' see the current entry for 'witchcraft.'

One slight problem I see in moving this page from Magic (paranormal). I was just writing a paragraph on Artifact:


 * In role-playing games and fantasy literature, an artifact is a magical object with some marvelous and alarming power, so great that it cannot be duplicated by efforts of the player characters, and cannot be destroyed by ordinary means. Artifacts often serve as MacGuffins, the central focus of quests to locate, capture, or destroy them.  The One Ring of The Lord of the Rings is a typical artifact: alarmingly powerful, of ancient and obscure origin, and almost indestructible.

A link to Magic (religion) just doesn't make sense here. The magic I'm talking about is definitely paranormal but I can't see it having a great deal to do with religion. -- IHCOYC 21:42 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)


 * I agree -- in fact, most scholarly studies of "magic" distinguish it very clearly from "religion" -- James Frazer suggested magic was more like science than religion. Slrubenstein

Moved back to Magic (paranormal) for that reason. The Anome 22:11 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC) --- "debased"? Where the Potter Stewarting hell did that come from? What happened to NPOV? And if we're going to redirect magick here, I feel compelled to change the definition at the beginning.


 * I moved the definition, and changed the discussion of Satanism slightly. But if you have something to say about magic(k) in Satanism, you may wish to say it yourself.  -- IHCOYC 14:33 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)


 * Not about Satanism specifically. (I gather that some satanists do more or less agree with me on this subject, which makes me question the truth of what this article says about them. However, I'm not sure I know enough to change that bit.) I think that while magick can mean Magic(paranormal), the latter term cannot reasonably include all meanings of "magick". Therefore, I find the current categorization unsatisfactory. What do people think about redirecting this article to magick?


 * With all due respect to Slrubenstein, I gave up any hope of trying to preserve the integrity of this article when it was moved back to Magic (paranormal). Notwithstanding the views of Sir James Frazer, this article does not in any way reflect what I learned about the nature of magic in the holistic context of anthropology.  To wit, magic is a religious belief and practice that is clearly distinct from other religious beliefs and practices, such as divination, as well as secular science.  In contrast, this article expresses a very inaccurate and ethnocentric secular viewpoint, common to Western culture, which puts both magic and religion in the realm of pseudo-science and/or proto-science and by some bizarre reasoning considers divination a type of magical practice.  Ultimately, Frazer's research and the research of Frazer's apologists argues for a less Westernized perspective on both magic and religion, a perspective wherein magic is totally subsumed under the topic of religion and need not be contrasted with science and the paranormal. -- NetEsq 14:23 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)


 * There is, of course, room for a separate Magick and Magic (religion), which are currently redirects. They need not be forever.  From where I see it, paranormal magic should cover all the several varieties of magic except stage magic, generally; including folk magic, religious magic, superstitions, and supernatural magic in fiction.  There is nothing wrong with adding a separate article to discuss Crowley's magic in detail, or magic in religion; just so long as any one can be found from the rest of them. -- IHCOYC 15:09 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)


 * Ihcoyc, thanks for cleaning up my contributions. I still feel unsure of what to do with magick. Why did people redirect it here in the first place? -Dan


 * What precisely is the problem? We have an article on magic, this one.  Magic is spelled in a number of different ways, including "magic" an "magick", but both spelling refer to the exact same thing.  Are you saying that we should have an article that exclusively deals with A. Crowley's particular understanding of magic? That is fine by me.  However, we need to realize that just because someone spells the word "magick" doesn't mean that they necessarilly are adherents of Crowley's system (or even have ever heard of the man!) RK


 * The problem is that magick has a broader meaning than magic(paranormal), and yet someone redirected magick here. Why? This seems comparable to defining 'quadrilateral' as 'square', but more emotionally charged. It would make more sense to me if we transferred this article to magick, since I don't see how it can avoid touching on the other meaning(s) of magick without giving a distorted picture.

No, this is a problem. Magick does not necessarilly have a broader meaning than magic. In fact, they very often are precisely the same word. People just choose different spellings for different reasons. I understand that some people use these words in different ways, but most people do not. Within science-fiction and fantasy literature, read by millions of people, the words are often interchangeable. So you need to clarify precisely what you are talking about: Who is it that uses the spelling magick to describe something different from magic? Who do they do this? In their definition, how do these terms differ? RK


 * Perhaps I used a bad analogy. The word magick has multiple meanings. Some of these meanings refer to magic_(paranormal). At least one meaning includes other practices. The latter meaning seems fairly common among modern believers in magic, at least the "western" ones. Certainly some influential people in this tradition (for want of a better word) spoke of "magick" in this way. (The article gives the main example. Crowley influenced quite a few religions, whether their adherents know his name or not.) Therefore, it doesn't make sense to me to redirect magick here. I feel unsure of what to do about it, especially since I still don't know the reason for the redirect. I'm considering redirecting this article to magick, since removing Crowley's definition or the explanation of it would leave a distorted picture and also because "magick" seems like a somewhat more common term than "magic (paranormal)". (And less cumbersome.) However, I'd welcome arguments for other courses of action. NetEsq, do you think the category of magick would fit what you describe better than magic(paranormal)? --Dan


 * I think the distinctions you make are great, and I really want to read more about them. But I am unsure that magick is always a super category, and that magic is always a sub-field of magick. For the moment, I would vote that we keep these discussions within the same article. However, I do want you to discuss everything you mention above; I do want you to make these distinctions.  Maybe we can treat this like the article on God.  This is the general article, yet it has sub-sections which show that different meanings of the word exist.  For detailed sub-sections, we then spin-off into new articles. But you could always start with a Magick article now. If you do so, please start it with a summary definition, and then explain how it is related to magic in general. RK


 * << NetEsq, do you think the category of magick would fit what you describe better than magic(paranormal)? >>


 * From what I remember of the original magick article, magick *seems* to fit the parameters of what I would consider a religious definition of magic. However, as everyone here seems to have a different operational definition of magic/magick, I think it is a mistake to try to aggregate distinct articles on magic, magic (paranormal), magic (religion), magic (whatever), and magick into a cohesive whole.  And I don't think that disambiguation would do the trick (pun intended) either.  Rather, I think that each of the operational definitions behind these potentially very different concepts should be developed as distinct articles and cross-referenced.  In time, we may then be able to recombine the content of these articles into a cohesive whole.  (And my apologies to RK if he is suggesting a strategy that is somewhat comparable but more straightforward.) -- NetEsq 00:20 Mar 18, 2003 (UTC)

We have to have one central article, or at least a well-organized disambiguation page. Otherwise no one will be able to find what they are looking for. Worse, people will find one or two articles on forms of magic, and then assume that they understand it, when in fact they might miss out on several other important articles. I think you still miss the central question: Why can't we simply explain that people use the same word to mean different things? If people use the word "magic" in different ways, then the article on magic must state this, and give examples of the different ways that people use these words. Our discussions here are not going anywhere, so here is what I propose. Please offer a summary, as you see it, of the different ways that people use the word magic. You clearly think that they use the words in such different ways that they effectively are different subject....so what are these ways? I know that you must have something in mind, but I really have no idea what it is. None of us can comment on how to split this article up, unless we are given precise proposals on what you mean. RK

For instance, do you mean to create articles on (A) non-religious paranormal magic, (B) magic in religions, and (C) magic in Alister Crowley's religious systems? Let us know how you want to split this topic up; give a short description of each form of magic; explain how these magical systems relate to each other. Only once you do this can we effectively comment. For now, everything just is too vague. RK


 * Personally, I don't see the need for a central disambiguation article. Rather, I see the need for several distinct articles, including one entitled Magic (religion), with each article providing its own form of disambiguation.  To wit:


 * "This article deals with magic in the context of religion. However, the word magic is used in many other contexts in other articles, some of which may be very similar to the one discussed in this article and some of which may be very different and distinct.  Similar to the concept of magic in the context of religion is magic in the context of the paranormal and magic in the context of fantasy fiction.  Wholly distinct from these concepts is magic in the context of stage magic.  Some people also use the term magick, with a spelling that is distinct and different from magic, to distinguish other concepts of magic from the one proposed by Alister Crowley."


 * What I mean to say here is that I don't think it is possible to reach a consensus on the "right" definition of magic, even in the context of disambiguation. The best that I think we can do is to say, "This is the way that this Wikipedia article defines the term magic; other Wikipedia articles may define it differently." -- NetEsq 01:59 Mar 18, 2003 (UTC)


 * I think you misunderstood my question; I was not trying to find the one true definition of magic: None exists. People use this word for many things. Rather, I was looking for a list of different ways that people use this word. And you just provided such a list:
 * Magic_(paranormal)
 * Magic_(illusion)
 * Magic_(religion) ormaybe Magic in religion?
 * Magic_(Crowley)


 * We already have a disambiguation page on Magic that has links to distinct articles on all these topics. We can just add new articles to this page. RK


 * As a side note, "magic" as used in science-fiction and fantasy is not distinct from these categories; rather, different sci-fi and fantasy writers use one or more of the above-mentioned understandings of magic. RK


 * I've attempted to write a couple paragraphs at the beginning here similar to what's at magic (religion) to call attention to that article from here. It also contains my own POV on what magic (paranormal) should contain, as a general overview to provide pointers to more specific kinds of magic.  I'm not sure now if this vision of the purpose of this particular page is shared anymore; if so, change it.


 * The section on the history of magic seems pretty inadequate now. I may try to add a bit to that.  -- IHCOYC 14:54 Mar 18, 2003 (UTC)

Netesq -- I agree with you that this article needs a lot of work -- I haven't done much here. But please see the recent changes I made to Magical thinking; I believe that article as it stands makes no claims at all about religion, only to say that it is different from magic; it certainly doesn't say religion is pseudo-science. As for anthropology -- anthropologists continue in general to distinguish between magic and religion. You are absolutely right that Frazer is calling magic pseudoscience, and that this is ethnocentric. But that is a fact (that Frazer considered magic pseudoscience). You are welcome to put in the critique of Frazer, that he is ethnocentric. Also, one can agree with Frazer's distinction between magic and science, and disagree with his further argument that magic is wrong (in other words, magic may indeed use the law of similarity and the law of congruence, but these laws may be real and effective) -- if you know of anyone who argues this position, by all means include it. Finally, by all means include definitions of magic different from Frazer's. But do not delete Frazer -- add important content, do not delete. Frazer and Evans Pritchard continue to influence many scholarly studies of magic. Many of these studies are more sophisticated than Frazer or Evans-Pritchard (for example, Peter Winch's Understanding a Primitive Society," and Horton and Finnegan's Non Western Societies) but they still work within the framework set out by Frazer and Evans-Pritchard, so F and EP's views are still relevant and need to be highlighted in an article. Slrubenstein


 * Thank you for your considered responses. As usual, your position is reasonable and defensible and addresses my concerns.  On that note, I agree that the work of Frazer and Evans-Pritchard is somewhat canonical to the study of magic.  As for the finer points of a taxonomical organization of religion, science, magic, magick, divination, etc., etc., etc., I no longer have the necessary temperament to deconstruct the impact of ethnocentrism on these topics, much less explain it to others, so I am inclined to leave such work to other, more resolute and stout individuals, such as yourself. -- NetEsq 05:43 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)

Touchée. I too do not quite have the energy (or time) right now to make those changes to the article -- but you are right that they need to be made clear and I will try to get to it soon. As I said, so far all I have done was include Frazer in the Magical thinking article -- I don't think I have done anything yet to this article but it does need work. Perhaps others out there can join in too. Slrubenstein

There are several paragraphs here now that have duplicates at Magick or Magic and religion. Some of the text at those articles is newer or extended as well. Should that stuff be removed here? -- IHCOYC 04:17 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)


 * Some duplication within Wikipedia articles is unavoidable; sometimes it is desirable. Although it is easy to click our hyperlinks to move from one article to another, each article is usually designed as something that can be read as a standalone.  A small amount of duplication can make it easier to follow.  However, too much duplication is a waste.  The trick is to find balance...  How much do you want to cut? RK


 * I was considering cutting at least part of the long quotation from Crowley's book on yoga, at least. It definitely appears on the magick page, which is explicitly about Crowley's magick.  -- IHCOYC


 * Sounds like an appropriate cut to me. That (and other things like it) is a very specific piece of information that is not necessary to add context to this article, and I agree with you that it should be deleted from here.  I originally thought that you planned to cut a lot more stuff.  That's the only reason I was sounding a bit cautious... RK

As far as I'm concerned, magic is magick is majik. If you want to make distinctions between the general field of magic and what Crowley wrote about, why not just make those distinctions under Thelema or the Ordo Templi Orientis etc.? RL Barrett 22:09 May 6, 2003 (UTC)

I have preserved some rather severe edits, some useful, others perhaps controversial, made by User:65.206.239.222 at Magic (paranormal)/temp. Some may in fact be valid tightening-up of the material on the page; others seem to me to be rather POV in nature, and omitting data provided by what was on the previous edits of the page. In order to preserve that data, I have reverted the page to the prior edit by User:Pakaran. -- Smerdis of Tlön 06:45, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Ye folk forgot magic (wonder). lysdexia 22:22, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

NPOV ?s

 * this was the cue for Gerald Gardner... he claimed to reveal the existence of a witch-cult


 * Gardner's new religion combined magic

New implies that he made it up, instead of revealed a long-standing (and hidden) religion. Is there any proof for that?


 * feminists led the way when some launched an independent revival of goddess worship.

Ditto.

Thinking about it, I'm just going to make changes.

-- ~ender 2005-03-13 11:10:MST


 * Is this the only reason for the NPOV notice now? The paragraphs at issue now read:


 * A further revival of interest in magic was heralded by the repeal, in England, of the last Witchcraft Act in 1951. This was the cue for Gerald Gardner, now recognised as the founder of Wicca, to publish his first non-fiction book Witchcraft Today, in which he claimed to reveal the existence of a witch-cult that dated back to pre-Christian Europe. Gardner's religion combined magic and religion in a way that was later to cause people to question the Enlightenment's boundaries between the two subjects.


 * Gardner's newly publicized religion, and many others, took off in the atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s. ..


 * Gardner's "cue" was the repeal of the last Witchcraft Act, which made witchcraft no longer a crime in England. He "claimed to reveal the existence of a witch-cult. . ." &mdash; is it contested that he made this claim?  "Newly publicized religion" is fine with me.  If this doesn't need further work, I'd suggest removing the NPOV notice.  -- Smerdis of Tlön 15:47, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Supposed" or not?
As an occultist myself, I'd like to bring up the following points: I think the "supposed" needs to stay. It seems reasonable and necessary, and I say this with a pro-magick POV. --Corvun 12:36, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)
 * [1] Magic has not yet been proven by any objective measure.
 * [2] Perhaps magic will some day be proven, or it may just as easily be that something in the internal mechanism or nature of magick will always cause it to elude objective scientific detection (in practice if not in theory).
 * [3] "Supposed" does not mean "fictional". Semantically speaking, something can be "supposed" and still be true.  "Supposed" is ambiguous.
 * [4] This page also deals with paranormal magic in fiction. Practitioners of chaos magick aside, I'm sure all would agree that this alone necessitates the "supposed" in the opening sentence.
 * [5] The afore notwithstanding, "supposed" in this context could be taken to merely indicate that the method of affecting reality doesn't always work.


 * Perhaps the first sentence might be recast to say, "Believers in magic (. . .) hope to influence the world. . . ." This gets across the idea that not everyone believes in the power of magic, while avoiding the fictional or pretended overtones of "supposed." -- Smerdis of Tlön 15:21, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

i suppose that some cchristians would be equally upset if they saw an aticle in here somewhere that said beleivers in prayer instead of just saying it like its fact (which i disputem personally) so i suppose if the whole wiki project is to be  npov, supposed must remaiin, as long as its added to any religion articles where it is currently lacking.

GabrielSimon

My main argument against the "supposed" is that if we put "supposed" or "alleged" in the opening paragraph you might as well put "Supposed" or "Alledged" in the wiki pages dealing with relativity, as in "Einstein's 'supposed' theories" or even in other pages. For that matter, we could also say "The alledged belief in Quantum Mechanics..." As you can see, it adds nothing to the statement itself, and relegates a widely accepted and practiced set of traditions to mere supposition. after all, it isn't said that "Judeo-Christianity is based on an aledged belief in God." And when dealing with the subject of Magic other than the entertainment variety, it should be treated with the same respect that any other field of learning or philosophy would be treated. The use of the term "supposed" or "alledged" used in this way is unnecessary.

As for your first point, "Magic has not yet been proven by any objective measure." this is not quite true. many studies have been done which do indeed indicate that focused concentration, will, prayer, meditation, etc. do have an effect on probability. There are many more studies that indicate this effect than not, but the ones that indicate a negative result are more pointed to, and those that indicate positive results are ignored out-of-hand.

As for the point about the "Use of paranormal magic in fiction" it already states that it is used 'in fiction' and thus the term 'supposed' becomes unnecessary.

And in regards to your third point, "Supposed does not mean 'fictional'", yes, that is true, but again, what matters is how the general reader will see it, and common usage of the term is not nessecarily the same thing as it's actual original meaning. That is a fact that cannot be ignored here. after all, how many people do you know that use the term 'profane' in regards purely to secular viewpoints (as opposed to the currently accepted meaning of blasphemous and offensive)? In common usage of the term what you are proposing to be said would most commonly be read as: "Magic is the hypothetical and delusional practice of influencing...etc." even if that is not what you intend to say.

--Arkayne Magii 19:17, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

NPOv header: why?
Apparently the NPOV header was attached to this page by Stevertigo, who objects to the "Changing attitudes towards magic" heading. Why? and what would make it better? -- Smerdis of Tlön 18:46, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I objected to it because it implies a fact regarding the state of mind of people - which itself is challengeable on many grounds: 1. it implies a "change of attitute" specifically to "magic" 2. where "specific" as applied to the generic term "magic" makes for a kind of dual-pov paradox: what is "magic," what does one mean by it and in what context? IOW its not well defined or commonly understood enough to talk about it as something which people have specific opinions about. Wheras you might say "magic" to mean something inbetween Crowley, Tolkien and Lovecraft, established religion fundamentalists might would view "magic" as a synonym for heresy, blasphemy, "paganism," heathen idolatry, etc. Not that the is really important to me, its just that the explanation of the term ambiguities, the history of the term, and the specific history of what the term means come WAY before any examination of "current public opinion." So facts first, pro and con public opinion represented as such, somewhere down beneath "magic in film." :)  PS Comment:reorderered sections - various hidden comments (edit page to view them) new top section "relating magic, religion, paganism and alchemy" underway. SV|t|th 20:57, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I see now. (Didn't even get this before.)  Would something like, "Cultural attitudes towards magic" be better?  since that's what the section seems to be about, chiefly.  I read it, not as an attempt to change anyone's mind about magic, but rather as an account of how people have held different opinions about magic in different times and places. -- Smerdis of Tlön 22:05, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * FWIW, I am not sure that the statement "As with all paranormal claims, magic has yet failed to be supported by credible controlled scientific experimentation, and can only be studied seriously for its influence in cultural or religious matters." that now appears in the introduction is NPOV itself. It would appear to assert that no one who studies magic to practice magic should be taken seriously, and assumes that controlled scientific experiments are the gold standard of truth.  -- Smerdis of Tlön 14:00, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I may or may not agree - in the sense that various aspects of "magik" cannot claim to be scientific: they can assert their "truth," but the relationship between magical/magickal phenomena and claims of truth as science needs a clear definition. This does not mean a disclaimer necessarily, but rather a note upfront which sets tone for the article: that 'people of magic view magic as an aspect of their faith, which is associated with blankety blank, and blankety blank etc. In the contexts of X and X magic has had confrontations with certain doctines held by people of science, and each claim that the other is a blankety blank, etc. Keep in mind also that "science" really means "methodology for the open study of knowledge" and does not itself assert truths, but rather observations of the observable (ie even M-theory is "only" philosophy if it cant be proven). You can say 'in the domain of faith and philosphy, magic has X and X conflicts with X and X doctrines of religion. In the domain of observable and testable phenomenae, magic has X and X conflicts with X and X aspects of science. Eh? -SV|t|add 08:14, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * a different definition of magic (well, maybe):::

to me, and others, magic isnt black, or white, good or evil, its just there, it is the mind of the wielder that makes it good or evil, in what they  use it for. kinda thought that belonged in the article some where, but im not sure where, so i tohught id mention it, a and see if anyone wold like to put it in, or to tell me where to do so.

GabrielSimon

"Generally speaking, there are two types of magic: contagious magic and sympathetic magic." According to who, or what theory? I think this statement is too bold without some backup. --Tubby 02:51, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Safeguards
One thing I miss here is a section about the different kinds of safeguards against magical "attacks" which are known.

Things from folk-lore to the writings of Starhawk (who states, that, for example, laughter can also be very effective) and many more things (there are quite many sharlatans out there, and people should at least know, that there are many approaches to this). (sprry for some germanisms...)

Wear a crystal arond your neck or as a reing. its simlar in princilal to a lightning rod. Khulhy 02:04, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Written invocations of daemons or deities in combination with the appropriate sigils or glyphs is highly effective. In general, silver and garlic have been historically used to ward off evil influence. --Corvun 05:05, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Patent Nonsense
There is a saying that we should trust those in search of truth, and be skeptical of those that say they've found it. That is an overly skeptical sentiment if taken literally, but we should generally be skeptical. This article is a disaster, full of patent nonsense and POV. Somebody should rewrite this with a healthy skepticism or we should delete it.

Why are we more skeptical of the old dogmas than we are of the new?

On the pages for established religions we're careful to say caveats like, "Muslims/Jews/Christians believe" or "Muslims/Jews/Christians say", but here we talk of magic as if it exists! The first sentence sets the tone: "Magic or sorcery are terms referring to the influence of events and physical phenomenon through supernatural, mystical, or paranormal means." That is the New Age equivelant of saying "the Resurrection refers to the physical event of the rising from the dead of Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, son of God and of the Virgin Mary, on the third day after his crucifixion." Clearly we wouldn't accept an article that said that.

The worst can be seen in 'Suppression of magical beliefs.' In that portion of the article it is claimed that the Hebrews were really suppressing magical beliefs when they (rather like the Vikings) raided their neighbors. This of course false, as the Hebrews themselves maintained magical beliefs. The conquistadors are also mentioned, likewise false for similar reasons. The conquistadors "mingled motives" were raid (like the Hebrews) and not to suppress magical beliefs but in fact to spread them (Catholic missionaires). The Salem witch trials are proposed as yet another example of 'suppression of magical belifs,' but, as it is well-documented, the people burned in Salem, Mass. were not persectuted for magical beliefs but picked at random by mischeivous girls. The girls were the ones with the magical beliefs! The girls had learned about 'occult magick' from a servant tending one of their houses of Carribean origin where much of these archaic magical beliefs still thrive. The Salem Witch trials were therefore not a manifestation of the suppression of magical beliefs but the dangerous spread of magical beliefs, as any American elementary school student could tell you. The next paragraph begins with patent nonsense: "The motivation of much scientific enquiry is similar to the motivation of magic: that it is possible to discover the underlying reality behind mundane reality, and that that reality may have laws and principles which may be discovered and controlled." Of course this isn't true. The motivation of scientific enquiry is uncovering of knowledge (about what the article calls this 'mundane reality'). Scientists generally operate with a methological materialism, just as anthropologists operate with a methological relativism. Materialists don't think there exists a "underlying reality behind [this] mundane reality". Likewise, the scientific method doesn't "correct errors," it is a method of enquiry. This is clearly misleading pseudo-scientific infomation.

I think this article either needs to be rewritten or deleted. Anyone care to volunteer to rewrite it (with a healthy skepticism suitable for an encyclopedia article) or second my suggestion that it perhaps ought to be deleted? Maprovonsha172 20:17, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sample votes (and briefly put why as well as Delete or Keep, please):

Delete. (see my reasoning above)Maprovonsha172 20:17, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Keep, duh. You seem to claim that the article should have a "sceptical" POV. An article about paranormal magic will necessarily go on at some length about what believers in such magic actually believe in. The business about the Hebrews conquering polytheistic tribes is the record we have from the books of Joshua and Judges. Feel free to edit the article as you see fit, but you might want to take a look at its edit history and the discussion above and its archives. Smerdis of Tlön 16:39, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * What is a skeptical POV? I said it should be either rewritten with a healthy skepticism (meaning without POV implications) or deleted. As for the Hebrews, it is ridiculous to say the Hebrews or the Christians suppressed magical thinking, both promoted it. It is certainly not the record we have from the books of Joshua and Judges that anyone was set out to take aim at magical thinking. If you read either of those you would know they are filled with magical thinking. Those defeated tribes you're talking about weren't just killed, say the authors of those books: they were delivered to the edge of the Hebrew's sword by Yahweh (a magical entity). So, if all this patent nonsense is left on the article and no one will rewrite it or vote to delete it, I'll have to go through it and remove all its nonsense myself, which will no doubt cause greater controversy. Why don't we just delete this nonsense?
 * Maprovonsha172 6 July 2005 00:40 (UTC)

The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article is disputed. See above. Don't remove the template unless these disputes have been settled. We should argue about things here, not resort to edit wars. It goes without saying that I'm re-posting it. Maprovonsha172 16:39, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

"Magic or sorcery are terms referring to the influence of events and physical phenomena through supernatural, mystical, or paranormal means." - in my opinion this is a perfectly acceptable statement, in terms of concision and neutrality. Magic is indeed a term which refers to such things, and just by stating this does not assert that magic is possible. In the christian analogy mentioned before, I see no problem with stating that resurrection is "a term referring to the physical revival of someone who was previously deceased", as that is what it is. It is not necessary to put such statements as 'these are unproven beliefs', as I'm sure the reader will be aware of that, and capable of making their own judgements. Also, I have put the definition of magic within the context of parapsychology, so at least the article contains a definition within a reasonably scientific discipline - but if anyone with more knowledge than me of parapsychology feels they can refine this definition I encourage them to do so. Panentheon 15:38, 13 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I also am very sceptical that anything here requires an NPOV marker of any kind, and I frankly find it rather difficult to figure where this claim is coming from. I'd suggest that we make a copy of this page at a temporary article at Magic (paranormal)/Temp where Maprovonsha172 can edit the introduction and anything else, so that he can make those edits that would satisfy him, and we can determine whether his version is an improvement.  People are going to disagree over the actual effectiveness of magic.  An article that assumes that magic is nonsense is as POV as one that recommends it.  The article as it stands now is chiefly a history and a description of magical beliefs, which strikes me as the best way to keep this NPOV.


 * I did not remove the NPOV tag that Maprovonsha172 placed here. But unless someone steps forwards and seconds him, or at least says that they also see his point, I would recommend that it be removed once more.  Smerdis of Tlön 14:52, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Section, Suppression of magical beliefs
The section "Suppression of Magical Beliefs" is mostly factually inaccurate. See my comments above. Maprovonsha172 19:13, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I will second your suggestion to delete the section "Suppression of Magical Beliefs", because most of its content does seem quite inaccurate, and also unnecessary, as I'm sure points about the suppression of magical beliefs and the 'underlying principles of mundane reality' can be mentioned in other sections of the article. Panentheon 00:25, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

If this is the main problem, I will third the suggestion. The business about suppression of magical beliefs is handled better in the historical section in any case, where it can be narrowed down by time and region. I thought you were talking about deleting the entire article. Smerdis of Tlön 03:20, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

So we're all in agreement that "Suppression of Magical Beliefs" is beyond salvagable? Maprovonsha172 16:48, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Suppression of magical beliefs
Examples of the suppression of magical belief and practice range from the eradication of neighboring polytheistic tribes by the early Hebrews, to the attempted suppression and eventual appropriation of pagan holidays by the Catholic Church, to the mingled motives of the Conquistadors, to the Salem witch trials of the Puritans. During such periods, the tendency of magic is to become more obscure and esoteric, with a certain element in society always managing to preserve lore and tradition, often in disguised or metaphorical terms. This pattern gave rise to the term occult.

The motivation of much scientific enquiry is similar to the motivation of magic: that it is possible to discover the underlying reality behind mundane reality, and that that reality may have laws and principles which may be discovered and controlled. Unlike the practice of magic, science has the scientific method to correct its errors. As the scientific method took hold, astronomy evolved from astrology, and chemistry from alchemy.


 * As per the above discussion, I have removed this section from the article in chief, and am preserving it here. Users are more than welcome to attempt to rewrite these paragraphs and attempt to improve them.  -- Smerdis of Tlön 18:52, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

this is FAR cfrom credible information, but persoinally what magic i practiose is based on memeories from centuries ago... its all rather complicated. Khulhy 02:03, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

page split
This article is currently 33k long and could probably use being split up a little. How would everyone feel about moving the 'History of Western European magic' section into it's own article? Lachatdelarue (talk) 22:57, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

This article needs to be split!!!! I think a big reason why there is so much disagreement between editors is because they are describing history, practice and sources of magic according to their own beliefs. Because magic is such an ephemeral topic it makes sense that there are completely different attitudes towards it throughout history and across the globe. Since many of these types of magic are completely unrelated (for example; neo-paganism is deeply entwined with the history of Christianity but has no relationship with indian beliefs in magic), they should be presented as such. A general page on magic itself should introduce only what magic itself is: Power over the normal laws of the universe (often believed to be spiritual in nature) which is often difficult-to-impossible to prove scientifically and therefore commonly disbelieved. Logistics of magic, such as sources, methods and effects should be presented along with the culture of magic they pertain to. These cultures of magic should be broken down by history. Some major traditions that I see are: Magic of neolithic cultures (agrarian based religions/rule by priest leaders) Magic in religions of the mediteranean ancient world (greek culture, roman empire, egyptian pharocies, middle-eastern cultures: relationship between rulers/ priesthood elite with common people) Magic in the christian mediterranean world (roman empire, byzantine empire, gaul region, roman england: relationship between rising christianity and deep rooted polytheistic religions) Magic in the Islamic world (Andalusia and the ottomans, arabia and medieval north africa : relationship between rising islam and tribal beliefs in n. africa and ancient beliefs of scattered middle eastern tribes.) Magic of tribal and kingdom africa. (west african south african, central african) Magic in pagan tribes of europe (gaelic magic, russian magic, norse magic) Magic post-dark ages (grimoire culture, scientific revolution etc.: the divergence of religion from magic and the view of magic as a pseudo-science) Magic circa the industrial era (, backlash from modern society [satan worhsipping]: science effectively solves mysteries of laws of nature and continued belief in magic is seen as a rebellion against social norms.) Neo-paganism (an attempt to return to older values with a focus on environment and peace, reintripretation of old texts) ok now i started rambling too but this just goes to show what SHOULDNT be on the page... rambling. please think about ways to break this up! If you do youll be able to express your voice more clearly whatever opinion you hold because of the larger space for the more minute aspects of your beliefs. 71.187.190.88 04:01, 23 October 2007 (UTC)Forcefieldmaker87

telekinesis
The following is a patent endorsement of telekinesis:
 * It is very likely, that power comes mainly by suggestion and the focusing of attention. It can be characterized as assertion of the will. Working of magic is often dependent upon being part of a social group which supports the belief.

In every one of these sentences the assertion that there is power and that magic "works" is implicit. I'm going to remove it, and I would suggest we set up a section for criticisms of magical thinking. Maprovonsha172 16:27, 23 July 2005 (UTC)


 * What would be the point? We all know the criticims.  Some self-styled "skeptic" who wishes to believe, contrary to reality, that the internally-consistent, predictible, easily pallatable world presented in text books and peer-reviewed journals, which represents only that tiny fraction of reality that is consistent enough to be readily available for scientific study, is somehow an accurate and semi-complete reflection of the real world, decides to accuse anyone who knows better of some kind of mental disease or self-dilusion.  Such "criticisms" might be entertaining and provide a good laugh, but they wouldn't really do anything to improve the quality of the article.  --Corvun 04:37, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

I think it would improve the quality of the article, because at this point the article seems to describe these fringe beliefs as if they are commonly accepted. Your sorry rant is full of baseless assertians, which I would like to see you argue for, if you would be willing. If you would like to go to e-philosopher.com, and start a thread on magical thinking, I would be quite happy to argue with you there. However, this is not the place. But I would be interested to understand why you think science, which studies reality, is in fact contrary to reality. Maprovonsha172 16:23, 24 July 2005 (UTC)


 * A few questions:


 * How could wasting page space by devoting an entire section to an obscure topic such as "criticisms of magical thinking" improve this article any more than wasting page space by devoting an entire section to "criticisms of evolutionist dogma" might improve the biological evolution article, or any more than wasting page space by devoting an entire section to "criticisms of the spherical-earth myth" might improve the Earth article?
 * On what basis do you consider a universal belief held by every culture the planet Earth has ever known since thousands of years before the dawn of civilization a "fringe belief"?
 * When did I ever even approach a rant?
 * Which "baseless assertions" did I make?
 * When did I say, or even so much as imply, that science is contrary to reality?


 * I have no interest in arguing about magical thinking, nor in debating the actuality of magick. You see, those of us who work and study in the fields of magick and occultism spend our time dealing with the whys and hows of it.  We have about as much interest in trying to prove the merits of magick to people who have absolutely no understanding, nor desire for understanding, nor the belief that such an understanding is attainable, of the basic concepts involved, as a cosmologist has in arguing with members of the Flat Earth Society.  --Corvun 18:32, July 24, 2005 (UTC)


 * A few answers:


 * There doesn't need to be a section concering criticisms of evolution (which you emotively called a dogma), creationism has its own article. The point you're missing is that evolution and that the earth is round are scientific facts, and magical thinking is in fact opposed to science.
 * It's a fringe belief among educated people. Educated people would know that appealing to the length of time however many people believed something in no way proves the belief.
 * Going on and on for nearly a paragraph in the same sentence comma after comma after comma seems like a rant when read on the internet.
 * I'd say the fact that you say skeptics believe things "contrary to reality" is about as baseless as it gets.
 * Skeptics believe things only after science and/or logic give them good reason to do so. You say that what skeptics believe as presented in the text books and peer-reviewed journals (of science, I'm assuming), is in fact contrary to reality.


 * You can't have your cake and eat it too. You say science is "contrary to reality" and you go on to make a false analogy between what you do and what cosmologists do. Cosmologists go by scientific fact. I'm not sure what you go by exactly (scripture, anecdotal evidence, intuition, etc.?) but I would be glad to argue about it on e-philosopher.com if you think your beliefs could stand the scrutiny.

Maprovonsha172 02:10, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I take it you've dropped the issue, as you haven't bothered to reply to my reply below. Just one thing though... you said that I "emotively called evolution a dogma". I don't consider evolution a dogma. You really seem to have a problem understanding context. You keep putting words in my mouth, claiming I'm saying things that I'm not saying, and thus far it seems you keep doing so out of an inability to understand context. When you read a word or a phrase, it would benefit you greatly to read the words and phrases around it. --Corvun 01:09, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Telekinesis is a Psionic abuillity, something psychics can do, not magic. Khulhy 01:58, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


 * The line between "psionic" and "magic" is blurry, at best. Magic is an all-pervasive, ever-present force.  Even so-called "psionic" abilities require magic, whether the "psionicist" has any knowledge of the arcane forces s/he's tapping into or not.  The problem with so-called "psionic abilities" is that they, not requiring the years of formal occult training and education that more complex works of magick do, are highly prone to both unintentional mistakes and intentional misuse. --Corvun 05:12, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

There's also a theory or two that state that psi talents are either people who are the next stage in evolution, or mutants of some other sort, or, as you said, people who are innately gifted in some fashion. Khulhy 05:29, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, that's not the way evolution works. There is no "next stage", only next possible courses.  For instance, a culture of human cervical carsenova (sp?) mutated into a strain of single-celled organisms; thus, these one-celled organisms have evolved from humans.  There's a tribe of people in Africa who are born with only two toes on each foot, as it apparently aids in traversing long distances.  A family in Sicily has a gene making them all but immune to harmful cholestorol.  Evolution isn't a progression toward some "higher" form of being.  It just goes in whatever direction the wind takes it.


 * That being said, I've found it to be the case that magick/psionic aptitude tends to run in family lines. So it is certainly possible that some human lineages will evolve in that direction, but only if causes them to produce more offspring than those around them.  I'd suggest taking a look at the page on evolution to get an idea of how it works. --Corvun 05:41, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

my magic coms from me, and every life it stilldoes, so i assume i generate it in some way thats not related to genetics. Khulhy 05:53, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I find it more useful to think of an interplay between spirit and flesh. It may not come from one's genes, but one's genes do determine things like personality predispositions, which would ultimately have some effect on the way one manifests magick.  Remember -- everything is connected to and intertwined with everything else. --Corvun 06:01, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

True, but some woho are made special, born special, or in my case ( t hank you for bearing with me for not questioning my beleif) reborn special, over and over, magic sorta follows me around, ive grown accustomed to it, and well, no matter how nutzy it seems it works. i can acceleereater my won healing, and many other things, ( not to mention the rather destructive sicde of it i have been told it was meant for) Khulhy 06:04, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


 * It's a widely held belief that the reason for reincarnation, is the maturation of the spirit. Some ancient Greek cults believed one had to be reincarnated at least 4 times to be worthy of entering Elysium (or being cursed to Erebus).  The Gardnerian Wiccan tradition originally held a similar belief: that upon death, the sould would go into the Underworld, be measured, and sent back to Earth, over and over again, until being mature enough to finally pass on into the Summerlands.  If one takes the idea of the "maturing spirit" far enough, the crazy and sometimes destructive magick that you say follows you around could be your spirit's adolescence.  Sort of like the idea of the poltergeist, but on a much more mystical level. --Corvun 06:38, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Thats Deninatly interestsing. Though i personally beleiove that reincarnation, at leat mine, is becaseu i have yet to fulfill some promises. Khulhy 00:35, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Science & Skepticism (re: Maprovosha172)
Firstly, if you wish to crticize magical thinking, then go to the magical thinking article, as that would be the place to do it (previously read: [f]irstly, if you wish to crticize magical thinking, then create a magickal thinking article, as that would be the place to do it, see below). If you wish to crticize magick specifically and on its own terms (rather than from the perspective of someone outside the field), I'm all for seeing a small section devoted to it in this article. Secondly, I never said that the length of time people believe something proves the belief -- but it has only been very recently that the literati have mostly abandoned beliefs in magick. In the context of humanity as a whole, disbelief in magick is an extremely recent trend, and the only majority that disbelieves magickal concepts is one very tightly clustered in a very finite period of time (the last 200 years or so). Looking at the "big picture", it's the disbelief in magic that is on the fringes. Thirdly, I realize my sentence was of a fairly nested construction. I appologize of it appeared to be a rant.

Now, as far as your statement that "the fact that you say skeptics believe things 'contrary to reality' is about as baseless as it gets" shows that you have a very poor understanding of science. Most skeptics do. The fact is that this century's scientific consensus on almost any subject will be next century's primitive, pseudo-scientific superstition -- and, in at least a small handful of cases, vice-versa. All knowledge in science is tentative, and all is subject to change. We can see this process taking place in any history book. Yet almost all self-proclaimed skeptics hold to contemporary knowledge as if it were gospel truth, and treat current consensus as their dogma, above reproach and immune to all challenges past and present.

Let's put science into some perspective here. Until very recently, lightning and tornadoes were very poorly understood phenomena. The idea that rocks could fall from the sky was ridiculous. The idea that hot water could freeze faster than room-temperature water when subjected to the same temperatures was considered an urban legend. Yet these are very, very common occurences. Evolution wasn't put into a realistic framework until Charles Darwin came along, and while it is now fairly well-understood, it is also constant, occuring all the time, all around us, every second of every day. Theories of gravity, while not having quite the predictive value as current theories of evolution, are still very useful and can be said to be pretty right-on. Yet gravity is a constant force that we experience every moment of life. Particle physics and, in particular, quantum physics, is a field that is only now beginning to make sense of things, and it too deals with forces that are constant. Now imagine that one of these things, let's say lightning, occured far more infrequently. Let's say that lightning only struck once every six months on the planet Earth. Now let's be generous and say that one out of every ten lightning strikes occured where someone would actually see it. That's about once every five years. Do you think reports of people seeing flashes of light in the sky every five years would be given any more credence than sightnings of Mary in burritos in Mexico? And let's say, just by chance, that a scientist actually happened to be present to see one of these flashes of light in the sky. What are the chances that he'd ever be able to find another one? Even if he spent his whole life chacing storms, the Earth is a big place, and it's very unlikely he'd ever be in the right place at the right time to see another, let alone have the slightest idea what sort of equipment he needed to study it, and have said equipment with him. "He wouldn't be the only one looking", you say? No, he likely wouldn't. There'd probably be others, all of whom would be labeled paranormalists or psuedoscientists, and whose evidence, if they managed to gather any, would be quickly explained away; "those burn marks on the ground are probably from a bonfire that was made by some campers", "that blotch of light on the photograph is just over-exposure of the film, it proves nothing!" Likely it would never find its way into textbooks, save for paranormal studies, and would never be taken seriously by mainstream science.

"Skeptics believe things only after science and/or logic give them good reason to do so." So you say. More accurately, they believe things only after the scientific community has reached a positive consensus on it. But you know what? There are a lot of things in this world that the scientific community hasn't even touched yet. Currently, our science has a somewhat adequate understanding of some of the known constant forces that we are subject to for every second of every minute of every day, and has barely a working understanding of even those things that are fairly predictable and regular, and which occur in relatively high frequency.

"You say science is 'contrary to reality'..." Again, I never said any such thing, nor could I ever imagine myself doing so. I love science, and have nothing but respect for the scientific method. I specifically said "[s]ome self-styled 'skeptic' who wishes to believe, contrary to reality, that the internally-consistent, predictible, easily pallatable world presented in text books and peer-reviewed journals, which represents only that tiny fraction of reality that is consistent enough to be readily available for scientific study, is somehow an accurate and semi-complete reflection of the real world..." The fact that you could equate one of those statements with the other further demonstrates your lack of understanding of science. Science = knowledge, science is finite. If you had any understanding of science, you'd realize that it is not the real world, but only an understanding of the real world held by people who use the scientific method as a means of interpreting data. That's it, that's all it is. There is an enormous, expansive world beyond science, and it is that world in which we live. Skeptics universally ignore this larger world, the real world, and choose instead to live in the finite version of it that's been published in peer-reviewed journals and science textbooks. Why? because it's more internally consistent, more predictable, and far more easily pallatable than the strangeness and wonder of the real world the rest of us live in -- and far less frightening than a world in which almost anything can happen.

The imaginary world of skeptics is a mock-reality, an entirely new "reality" they've constructed for themselves by mashing together those scant bits and pieces of the real world that science has managed to gather so far. You can call what you believe in "skepticism", "rationalism", or any other blatantly ironic label, but to those of use who don't need to invent imaginary worlds to live in, it's just plain ol' wishful thinking. It's you creating a safe little world in which the strange and disturbing is locked safely behind the bars of fiction where it can't hurt you (not very unlike the Christian wearing his "armor of God"), and it's you lashing out at all those who know better, because they're a threat. You construct your reality so that "magickal thinking" can be defined as irrational because it involves notions of a world in which almost anything can happen; a greater example of tautology I've yet to come across. In your world, the people who claim to know better than you, don't, because the very idea that they might know what they're talking about weakens the integrity of the safe little mock-reality you've created for yourself. And so, instinctively, and probably with little or no conscious thought, you attack. You attack to protect the peace of mind that your safe, imaginary world gives you. And there's nothing wrong with that. Really. Just...

Do it somewhere else! --Corvun 07:32, July 26, 2005 (UTC)


 * FWIW, we already have an article about magical thinking. Smerdis of Tlön 13:42, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Right on! So the critics of magic do have a place to put their criticisms.  Not that it will stop them from trying to fill this page with criticisms, as the creationists still try to insert "problems of evolutionism" into the evolution article.  But I, for one, feel it's important that these criticisms do have their place where they can be expressed.  No idea, philosophy, or theory should go uncriticized.  --Corvun 18:19, July 26, 2005 (UTC)


 * "In the context of humanity as a whole, disbelief in magick is an extremely recent trend, and the only majority that disbelieves magickal concepts is one very tightly clustered in a very finite period of time (the last 200 years or so). Looking at the "big picture", it's the disbelief in magic that is on the fringes."

Yes but we're knowing more and more of the world now. Joseph Campbell used the same argument for his New Age beliefs, it didn't cut it then and it doesn't cut it now. One glaring reason would be the problem of inconsistent relevations. If these magickal beliefs of the past were truer, why were they all so different and mutally exclusive? Your statement that "almost all self-proclaimed skeptics hold to contemporary knowledge as if it were gospel truth, and treat current consensus as their dogma, above reproach and immune to all challenges past and present" is ridulous and only reveals your poor understanding of the skeptical attitude. Scientific knowledge is subject to change, and that is its chief virtue. It's not a dead dogma, it's an ever-evolving wealth of knowledge.

I liked your thought experiment of the lightening, but it proves nothing. You ask, "Do you think reports of people seeing flashes of light in the sky every five years would be given any more credence than sightnings of Mary in burritos in Mexico?" Yes. One is a observable, measurable phenomena and another is an example apophenia mistaken for a miracle. Tons of people want pseudoscience proven, and many are trying, but it never happens. There is strong incentive, people obviously want to believe things and whoever could produce a UFO containing alien life forms(which I believe was part of the analogy you used) would surely become very rich. Granting that, I assume eventually many people would want to prove lightening exists, even if it were on the fringes, and would eventually do so, and it would no longer be on the fringes.

"There are a lot of things in this world that the scientific community hasn't even touched yet." Like what?

"There is an enormous, expansive world beyond science, and it is that world in which we live. Skeptics universally ignore this larger world, the real world,..." Again, provide examples, don't just make blanket statements.

"And so, instinctively, and probably with little or no conscious thought, you attack" This is slander, and it's more than a little ignorant. You should really grow up and research this stuff before you make all these hasty generalizations about things people you apparently know little about. If you want to argue, I'm a philosophy student, I'm down, but talking rubbish is childish and pointless. Maprovonsha172 17:58, 7 August 2005 (UTC)


 * You say I need to grow up, yet you've apparently never even left the womb. When you're ready to leave your warm, safe little fantasy world wherein you lock away behind bars anything inconsistent with the "reality" you've invented for yourself, then maybe we can debate the matter.


 * You seem to have a lot of difficulty with how little you truly know.


 * If you want to learn about evolution, then you go to a biologist.
 * If you want to know about fossils, you go to a paleontologist.
 * If you want to know how atoms stay together, you ask a physicist.
 * If you want to know about magick, you ask an occultist.
 * The so-called "skeptics'" criticisms of the belief in magick carry no weight or relevance, and are the equivolent of botanists holding pet theories on the extinction of dinosaurs. You haven't put in the years of intensive work and study and training needed for understanding even the most basic principles of magick and the occult, and it would take years just to get you caught up enough that those who work in the field would take you or any other skeptic seriously.  This is not your field, and your claims about magick are no more relevant to the field than a seafood chef's are to marine biology.  But I'm wasting my time here.  You haven't been reading for comprehension (else you would not have made the statement you did about lightning vs. Mary), and I've no interest in taking up valuable teacher/student time by arguing with skeptics on the internet. --Corvun 07:01, August 10, 2005 (UTC)


 * P.S. As for the examples you asked for, you will find an ample supply of them if you examine your own statements.  --Corvun 21:56, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry I thought you weren't going to respond after that long wait, so I haven't been back checking. Well, you're certainly back to your old tricks. This isn't my field? Please. I hope you know most of that last post of yours is irrelevant to what we're talking about. Of course you could study these things for years, be an expert among believers, and still be wrong. You say I'm in a fantasy world, and I think the same of you. But I've tried to display a little maturity (not to mention wikicourtesy) in actually arguing for my beliefs and not making irrelevant jabs. I've posted this before, I'm hopeful you'll answer it this time:
 * You say: "There is an enormous, expansive world beyond science, and it is that world in which we live. Skeptics universally ignore this larger world, the real world,..." Again, provide examples, don't just make blanket statements. Scientists aren't the ones ignoring the real world, they study the real world.

If you can't either retract that statement or back it up I don't see much point attempting to have an adult conversation with you. --Maprovonsha172 22:31, 16 September 2005 (UTC)


 * You want me to provide an example, and not just make blanket statements? Look in the mirror.   And as for me making "jabs"?  Howabout "This isn't my field? Please."  What's meant by that?  Obviously you don't consider magick a field of study.  In what way have these "jabs" of mine been irrelevant?  You know very well they're relevant and at the core of the issue at that, but you dismiss them as otherwise because that's the only way you can maintain your happy little fantasy world.  "Scientists aren't the ones ignoring the real world, they study the real world."  Give me a break; they study part of the real world.  This is a perfect example of the skeptic mind-disease.  What you can't explain, you must ignore.  You claim I'm making "blanket statements" without even realizing that the arguments you've been making, and arguments like them by other self-proclaimed skeptics, are the very fodder for my position.  Now in your happy little fantasy world it might be okay to just dismiss anything that makes you a bit uncomfortable, but not in the real world.


 * You've displayed anything but maturity here. So far all you've done is sit on an imaginary throne you call "skepticism" and attempt force those who work in a field of which you have no knowledge to "admit" they are wrong.  You'd make and excellent creationist.  You say, "I don't see much point attempting to have an adult conversation with you."  Obviously, or you'd have attempted to have an adult conversation by now.  So please stop trolling and grow up.  --Corvun 12:03, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

You continue to ramble in another insubstantial post. Please. And "Please" means come on. Even come on, you can't be serious. And I think I made my meaning very clear when I said, "Of course you could study these things for years, be an expert among believers, and still be wrong." I mean that of course you can learn things that are wrong. You and I agree about Creationists, and you say I would "make a good" one, but here I think you show that you would be far more likely to be a Creationist than I. Skeptics try to proportion their beliefs to the facts, as Hume said wise men do. The Creationist, like you, learns the wrong things. He studies falsities and holds on to them tooth and nail, as you do.

And when I ask you to provide examples and you tell me to look in the mirror, which is to say that I asked you to provide examples and you respond with a childish jab. If you continue with this sort of contrary, irrelevant nonsense I'm forced to tell you: you don't belong on wikipedia, you belong on a playground. Really. I don't intend to be mean, though I imagine you'll take it as such and respond in kind. I'm only trying to have a rational discussion, though you've repeatedly thwarted that (perhaps naive) goal. The following is a good example of your insignificant, malicious posting:
 * Now in your happy little fantasy world it might be okay to just dismiss anything that makes you a bit uncomfortable, but not in the real world.

Come now. I hope you don't believe that. If you must know I live in the cold, bleak hopeless real world. I'm often uncomfortable, it's perhaps why I've learned so much over the years (as Proust said, "Happiness is good for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind"). So please don't insult me and embarass yourself by making such blatently groundless accusations.

Also, you say Skeptics have a mind-disease, which I find ridiculous as you can imagine. I disagree because you say that we ignore that which makes us uncomfortable and not only can I find no reason to believe this is true, I have a great deal of reason to believe it's false. New Age Spiritualism makes me uncomfortable, as Creationism and no doubt Nazism make us both uncomfortable, but I'm not ignoring this article or this talk page. I'm a skeptic, but I'm not ignoring proponenants of these beliefs like you, I'm attempting to engage you in dialogue. You see that you've presented a self-annialating postion, you say I ignore you as I'm conversing with you. It's ridiculous. Not only am I not ignoring you, I enjoy not ignoring you. That's the true skeptical attitude. It's the oppositie of dogmatic attitude. I'm driven to find out the truth, and despite your baseless insults no amount of discomfort or unhappiness hinders that.

Let's not bicker, let's argue. That means we have to stop worrying about which one of us is more childish, and start worrying about which one is more right. We've established that you think I'm living in a fantasy world an I think the same of you. Let's start anew from there. You've made some outlandish accusations, now back them up. --Maprovonsha172 02:48, 19 September 2005 (UTC)


 * You say, "You continue to ramble in another insubstantial post. [...] I mean that of course you can learn things that are wrong. You and I agree about Creationists, and you say I would 'make a good' one, but here I think you show that you would be far more likely to be a Creationist than I. Skeptics try to proportion their beliefs to the facts, as Hume said wise men do. The Creationist, like you, learns the wrong things. He studies falsities and holds on to them tooth and nail, as you do."


 * And here we're bogged down in the same old crap. All you're doing is creating an arbitrary rule for what qualifies as the "right" things to learn and stating that anything outside of it is "wrong".  You claim I'd more likely be a Creationist than you, but whose practice is more like that of a Creationist?  It's as if you were to say that "everything in reality must be a sphere", and accuse all those who believe in rectangular prisms and pyramids of magical thinking for having "un-spherentific" ideas that are opposed to your more "sensible", "spherentific" view of the world.  Such un-spherentific things are not evidence that you are wrong, because as there is no "spherentific evidence" for these un-spherentific supposed "objects", you can safely dismiss their existence.  Like the Creationist you create an a priori criterium for what can and cannot be true, and all else is heresy.


 * You say, "And when I ask you to provide examples and you tell me to look in the mirror, which is to say that I asked you to provide examples and you respond with a childish jab." It's not a childish jab, as you well know.  The only reason you're trying to dismiss it as a childish jab is the discomfort of having to admit that you yourself have provided throughout your postings the very examples you ask for.  Read over them again.  Again you try to dismiss what does not agree with your position.  If your position were "right", you should not have to dismiss anything.  You say "If you continue with this sort of contrary, irrelevant nonsense I'm forced to tell you: you don't belong on wikipedia, you belong on a playground Really."  And yet again you show that you haven't the ability to read for comprehension nor even the slightest desire to see past the most superficial and distorted of all possible interpretations.  You continue, "I don't intend to be mean, though I imagine you'll take it as such and respond in kind."  No, I take at as you, being a skeptic, having little to no genuine understanding of, well, basically anything but that which fits into your narrow criteria of "reality".  This is the point I've attempted to drive across from the start, the point that you've repeatedly asked me to provide examples of while providing them by the boat-load yourself, and being completely oblivious to it.  How am I to respond to you in any way other than I have, when you unerringly back up my every claim about the skeptic mind-set and call me childish if I dare try to point it out to you?  You say, "I'm only trying to have a rational discussion".  No, you're not.  You haven't tried any such thing, at any point.  Well, perhaps that's a little harsh.  Perhaps you truly have tried, but your skeptic mind-set renders you completely incapable of anything resembling rationality. You say, "...though you've repeatedly thwarted that (perhaps naive) goal."  The only one thwarting this goal is you.  You simply have no comprehension of the fact that self-professed "skeptics" take skepticism, which is quite a healthy thing in moderation, to an irrational extreme, and that any attempt at rationalism goes straight past you, without you even seeming to notice.  This is why I've stated that I have no interest debating with skeptics on the internet: without exception, you always end up having to lead them like a child from Point A to Point B to Point C, explaining everything in finer and finer detail, using simpler language, simpler analogies, simpler everything; and in the end, the skeptic just thinks you've been playing some kind of "mind game", childishly accuses you of being dishonest, and refuses to talk to you again.  Why bother going to great lengths to explain even the most basic of concepts to a people so completely and totally incapable of grasping even the simplest of concepts?


 * You say, "The following is a good example of your insignificant, malicious posting: 'Now in your happy little fantasy world it might be okay to just dismiss anything that makes you a bit uncomfortable, but not in the real world.' " What in the world is malicious about that?  It's exactly what you're doing: dismissing anything that doesn't fit your "spherentific" criterium of the imaginary "reality" you've created for yourself.  And you're doing that same exact thing that all skeptics in your position do.  Do you even have a mind of your own, or has your philosophy turned you into a computer program?  Here, maybe I can get you to back off:  Everything I say is a lie.


 * You say, "Come now. I hope you don't believe that." Yes, I do.  In your terminology, I have come to accept what extensive and incontravertible evidence has unambiguously shown to be the only rational interpretation; barring future evidence that might falsify interpretations made, possibly incompletely, from the data collected so far, this is the determination I am forced make.  You say, "If you must know I live in the cold, bleak hopeless real world. I'm often uncomfortable, it's perhaps why I've learned so much over the years (as Proust said, 'Happiness is good for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind'). So please don't insult me and embarass yourself by making such blatently groundless accusations."  What groundless accusations?  Again you cross the line into the illucid.  Haven't you ever taken a psychology class?  If so, you'd have learned that the human mind is a painfully limited thing.  Give corvids a couple of million years to catch up to us, and you'd probably see that due to inherent differences in the avian mind, they'd reach conclusions about reality wildly different from anything any human — merely a chimpanzee-like creature with a grotesquely over-sized and sub-optimally efficient brain — could ever even dream of.  Like every other human being on the planet, including myself, you live in an interpretation of the real world.  The most fundamental principle of magick, mysticism, the occult, or whatever term you prefer, is to test what lies beyond the boundaries of human interpretation.  This is a realm that modern science is only just beginning to expand into, and is many a thousand years behind.  Perhaps the scientific method will aid science in making sense of this realm more quickly; perhaps not.  Only time will tell.  If you want my opinion, quantum physics is this millennium's alchemy: mayhap a verified prediction here or there, but ultimately a flawed persuit.


 * You say, "I disagree because you say that we ignore that which makes us uncomfortable and not only can I find no reason to believe this is true, I have a great deal of reason to believe it's false." Apparently you and the rest of the self-professed skeptics in the world have mistakenly neglected to demonstrate the ability to accept things that call their limited view of reality into question, and have gone to great lengths to give the impression of exactly what you now deny; you must routinely ignore your own outward comments to find no reason to believe this is true, and must be withholding any reasons you have for thinking it's false.  You say, "New Age Spiritualism makes me uncomfortable," as it does me as well, "as Creationism and no doubt Nazism make us both uncomfortable, but I'm not ignoring this article or this talk page."  No, you're dismissing it as fundamentally untrue and arguing that it has no basis in reality.  Same thing.  You say, "I'm a skeptic, but I'm not ignoring proponenants of these beliefs like you, I'm attempting to engage you in dialogue."  You're dismissing even the idea that anything that does not fit your ridiculously limited criteria for reality could possibly exist, and engaging in discussion merely for the purposes of flexing your intellectual nuts.  "You see that you've presented a self-annialating postion, you say I ignore you as I'm conversing with you. It's ridiculous. Not only am I not ignoring you, I enjoy not ignoring you. That's the true skeptical attitude. It's the oppositie of dogmatic attitude. I'm driven to find out the truth, and despite your baseless insults no amount of discomfort or unhappiness hinders that."  And yet again you leave the realm of the lucid and go off on a completely irrelevant tangent, nowhere coming anywhere near a rational thought.  When did I say you were ignoring me?  When did I say the skeptical attitude was to ignore people?  When did I ever say anything even remotely like that? I said only that they ignore the larger world beyond science, which you refuse to argue with in favor of this rather unpredictable straw-man your mind has created.  You won't argue with it, because in your mind, there is no "larger world" beyond science.  You seem fundamentally incapable of grasping this concept.


 * You say, "Let's not bicker, let's argue. That means we have to stop worrying about which one of us is more childish, and start worrying about which one is more right. We've established that you think I'm living in a fantasy world an I think the same of you. Let's start anew from there. You've made some outlandish accusations, now back them up." I have no interest in arguing with someone who has demonstrated an inability to grasp even the most basic of concepts, as well as a complete inability to comprehend the English language.  This isn't about bickering.  This is about me trying to get you to comprehend the fact that your dismissal of magick is equivalent to a seafood chef dismissing marine biology because it makes wild claims about shellfish not being fish at all.  You don't seem to understand the fact that this is not your field and that the views of self-professed "skeptics" have absolutely no relavancy to the subject matter whatsoever; at least no more than the views of Creationists have to the subject matter of biological evolution; in both instances, it is someone screaming that something his or her arbitarily limited criteria of reality isn't prepared to assimilate must be beyond the realm of reality.  This is what you are incapable of comprehending; this is what you ignore.  Here, you are a Creationist.  --Corvun 22:30, 20 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I like your "spherentific" idea; too bad it's a false analogy. If you disagree, tell me what the rectangular prism is analogous to.


 * You say:
 * I take at as you, being a skeptic, having little to no genuine understanding of, well, basically anything but that which fits into your narrow criteria of "reality".
 * You can keep saying that until you're blue in the face but it doesn't have any validity so long as you fail to point out anything outside of that "narrow criteria." Continually repeating childish jabs only proves you have no real argument. And you hardly seem the type of person to talk about reality.


 * You ask me what I find malicious in the following:
 * 'Now in your happy little fantasy world it might be okay to just dismiss anything that makes you a bit uncomfortable, but not in the real world.'
 * It's malicious in that it's an illegitimate ad hominem. It's meant to attack me in hopes that you can hide the fact that you have nothing to say about the issues. If you think scientists and philosophers don't live in the "real world," it's on you to support that claim. After all, as Carl Sagan said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."


 * You ask me:
 * Do you even have a mind of your own...?
 * To put it your way, look in the mirror.


 * That's interesting what you said about corvids, though. Have you written on article I might find somewhere on it, or could you direct me to the books/articles you've read on the subject?


 * You say:
 * In your terminology, I have come to accept what extensive and incontrovertible evidence has unambiguously shown to be the only rational interpretation; barring future evidence that might falsify interpretations made, possibly incompletely, from the data collected so far, this is the determination I am forced make.
 * This is absolute bollocks and you know it. Extensive and incontrovertible evidence? Then why is there an uncontested pseudoscience tag on this article? Why don't the people that rely on empirical evidence (scientists) believe as you do? If magick were extensively tested and unambiguously shown to be the only rational interpretation, belief in it would be the norm, but it's not, it's on the fringe and I don't think you could name a respectable scientist or philosopher of today in your corner. And if there were incontrovertible evidence for your beliefs, I and all rational skeptics would agree with you. But none do. Despite your dislike of science, you're obviously just trying to make your baseless beliefs sound scientific.


 * You say:
 * If you want my opinion, quantum physics is this millennium's alchemy: mayhap a verified prediction here or there, but ultimately a flawed persuit.
 * You've only shown you have no qualified opinion on quantum physics. First off, you seem to imply that quantum physics is expanding science into your fantasy world, mysticism or the occult. It doesn't. There are varied interpretations of it and often it's the fringe ones that people hear about (you probably only know New Age misinterpretations of quantum physics from Deepak Chopra or that "documentary" What the Bleep Do We Know!?). In truth, by experimental standards, quantum mechanics is the most highly confirmed scientific theory we have ever had. The range and precision of testing procedures that we have now is unparalleled by anything we've had in the past, and there is very little doubt among physicists about the empirical adequacy of the theory. So I suppose you've proven, as you tell me, that "this isn't your field."


 * You ask:
 * When did I say you were ignoring me? When did I say the skeptical attitude was to ignore people?
 * You said skeptics ignore everything that makes them uncomfortable. And despite your saying that New Age spiritualists make you uncomfortable as well, that seems like exactly what you are.


 * You say:
 * I said only that they ignore the larger world beyond science, which you refuse to argue with in favor of this rather unpredictable straw-man your mind has created.
 * Do you even know what a straw-man is? I'll give you an example of one. You've made a straw-man out of skeptics. You think skeptics are very different creatures than we are. This straw-man is comfortable for you, because while attacking it, you never have to attack actual skeptics or even concern yourself with the issues.


 * You continue:
 * You won't argue with it, because in your mind, there is no "larger world" beyond science. You seem fundamentally incapable of grasping this concept.
 * The burden of proof is on the prosecution. You're the one going against four centuries of accepted science and philosophy. Science, by definition, studies the world. The real world, if I must clarify. If you think there is a world beyond it, it's on you to show it's not a fantasy world. You seem fundamentally incapable of grasping that concept.


 * Another false analogy:
 * This is about me trying to get you to comprehend the fact that your dismissal of magick is equivalent to a seafood chef dismissing marine biology because it makes wild claims about shellfish not being fish at all.
 * It appears to be true what they say, irrational beliefs must be rationalized with logical fallacies.


 * Again you repeat childish jabs:
 * You don't seem to understand the fact that this is not your field.
 * This is an argumentum ad hominem. You can't articulate your beliefs, and justifications for those beliefs, coherently, so you irrelevantly say this isn't my field. Now, if you were arguing with a creationist, and you told him the Bible was written by men, he would tell you the exact same thing (in which case, of course, you would be a skeptic). He would tell you the Bible isn't your field.


 * You conclude:
 * Here, you are a Creationist.
 * That's laughable. You don't like science, and yet you don't like other people that deny science? When you think about it, your beliefs have no more validity than the creationists. This is what you are incapable of comprehending; this is what you ignore. I try to proportion my beliefs to evidence, as Hume said wise men do, but you and the creationists deny science when it disagrees with your respective faiths.

--Maprovonsha172 16:06, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Again you show no evidence that you have the ability to think like a rational human being. Again you make straw-man arguments and argue against things I never even stated. All you're doing is proving me right with every post you make.

You say:
 * I like your "spherentific" idea; too bad it's a false analogy. If you disagree, tell me what the rectangular prism is analogous to.

The rectangular prism is something that doesn't fit your spherentific world view. You deny that it exists because, being rectangular, there is no "spherentific evidence" supporting its existence.

You say:
 * You can keep saying that [skeptics have no concept of reality] until you're blue in the face but it doesn't have any validity so long as you fail to point out anything outside of that "narrow criteria."

Gods, Goddesses, Daemons, Ghosts, Goblins, Invisible Pink Unicorns, the Easter Bunny, Santa Clause and Baby Jesus, the Loch Ness Monster, fold-out doorways and portable holes; the list goes on forever. You could fill a library with what lies outside your criteria for reality.

You say:
 * Continually repeating childish jabs only proves you have no real argument.

You've demonstrated several times over that you're incapable of percieving an argument spelled out right in front of you, in small words and easy language. You continually twist and distort statements into something entirely different than what was written and attack things that were never said. It's obvious you're perceiving my statements as "childish jabs" because that is all your mind is capable of understanding.

You say:
 * It's malicious in that it's an illegitimate ad hominem. It's meant to attack me in hopes that you can hide the fact that you have nothing to say about the issues. If you think scientists and philosophers don't live in the "real world," it's on you to support that claim. After all, as Carl Sagan said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

Again you show that you have no concept of reality. "Ad hominem"? "Attack"? Do you even bother to read things before you respond to them? When did I ever say that scientists and philosophers don't live in "the real world"? I stated that everyone, every thinking being on the planet, lives in a perception of the real world; none of us can truly see the world objectively. If you believe that skeptics (or "scientists" as you call them, again showing your lack of understanding of reality by confusing two very different, albeit overlapping, groups of people) have some special, mystical, magickal ability to perceive the world objectively, that they are omniscient, omnipresent, infallible, can see the entire EM spectrum without using translating equipment, have no mental limitations whatsoever (infinite IQ's) etc., then I suggest you provide evidence for this, because you're the one making extraordinary claims.

You say:
 * To put it your way, look in the mirror.

And yet again you show that you have no ability to read for comprehension. What grade are you in? Kindergarden? I tell you to read over your own statements for examples of claims that you wanted me to provide examples of skeptics making, and you take it as "back at yuh"? Do you even know how to read at all or is someone reading this to you? Go back to school, take an English class.

You say:
 * This is absolute bollocks and you know it. Extensive and incontrovertible evidence? Then why is there an uncontested pseudoscience tag on this article? Why don't the people that rely on empirical evidence (scientists) believe as you do?

Firstly, I was responding to one of your statements, explaining that extensive and incontrovertible evidence had led me to believe skeptics lacked basic reasoning skills. How you could take that to mean that I believed extensive and incontrobertible evidence proves the existence of magick is insane. It boggles the mind that a human being could have such a poor grasp of reality as you do; you've yet to even follow a single line of thought, and have instead resorted to these imaginary inventions of yours, arguing against straw-men you've built, arguing against things that were never said! How long will you continue to prove that skeptics have no grasp of reality by showing your inability to comprehend or interpret a single, unambiguous sentence?

You say:
 * If magick were extensively tested and unambiguously shown to be the only rational interpretation, belief in it would be the norm, but it's not, it's on the fringe and I don't think you could name a respectable scientist or philosopher of today in your corner. And if there were incontrovertible evidence for your beliefs, I and all rational skeptics would agree with you. But none do.

When did I say that magick was extensively tested and unambiguously shown to be the only rational interpretation? When did I say anything remotely like that? You are extensively and unambiguously demonstrating that "rational skeptic" is a contradiction in terms.

You say
 * Despite your dislike of science, you're obviously just trying to make your baseless beliefs sound scientific.

When did I ever say I disliked science? I've repeatedly stated exactly the opposite. When have I ever even attempted to make my beliefs sound scientific (as attempting to do so would go against everything I believe in)? Where have I even expressed what my beliefs are? Where are you getting these ideas from?

You say:
 * You've only shown you have no qualified opinion on quantum physics. First off, you seem to imply that quantum physics is expanding science into your fantasy world, mysticism or the occult. It doesn't.

And again you show that you lack the ability to read or understand the English language. I stated that science is beginning to expand into the realm of things beyond the boundaries of human interpretation, and that the disciplines of magick and mysticism have many a thousand year head start. There's an ocean of difference between the two statements, but I doubt you'll understand even if you try to reinterpret it.

You say:
 * In truth, by experimental standards, quantum mechanics is the most highly confirmed scientific theory we have ever had. The range and precision of testing procedures that we have now is unparalleled by anything we've had in the past, and there is very little doubt among physicists about the empirical adequacy of the theory.

Physicists who perform 'experiments' on chalk boards and play around with particle accelorators. I'm sure that in the 1400's, by experimental standards, alchemy was the most highly confirmed scientific theory we had ever had. The range and precision of testing procedures that we had then was unparalleled by anything we'd had prior, and there was very little doubt among alchemists about the empirical adequacy of the alchemal theory. Again you show that you have no concept of science in the context of reality —- you place reality, laughably, in the context of contemporary science, without even realizing that today's science will be tomorrow's pseudoscience. What could be more insane than that? Comparing skeptics to Creationists was a low-blow —- to the Creationists. Get this through your skull: Just because someone believes in things outside the realm of science does not mean that person is arguing with science!

Then you say:
 * So I suppose you've proven, as you tell me, that "this isn't your field."

Please take and English class.

You say:
 * You said skeptics ignore everything that makes them uncomfortable.

Again, please take an English class. Learn to read for comprehension.

You continue:
 * And despite your saying that New Age spiritualists make you uncomfortable as well, that seems like exactly what you are.

Based on what evidence? When have I ever stated any such beliefs? You're making baseless assumptions and childish attacks, and attacking straw-men. These statements of yours are nothing but the typical Creationist, Fundamentalist garbage.

You say:
 * Do you even know what a straw-man is? I'll give you an example of one. You've made a straw-man out of skeptics. You think skeptics are very different creatures than we are. This straw-man is comfortable for you, because while attacking it, you never have to attack actual skeptics or even concern yourself with the issues.

And here we have an "I know you are but what am I?" argument. What do you think that I think skeptics are? I'm only going by your own statements and those of others like you. You've demonstrated over and over again that you aren't lucid enough to comprehend a straightforward and unambiguous statement: you continually respond to my statements by arguing against weird and distorted implications of those statements that your mind has created, you continually ignore the statements themselves and what they refer to by acting as though they are refering to something else entirely, and you respond to claims that were never made. I, on the other hand, am responding directly to your statements, as perpetually insane and illucid as they become.

You say:
 * The burden of proof is on the prosecution. (responding to my statement, "You won't argue with it, because in your mind, there is no 'larger world' beyond science.  You seem fundamentally incapable of grasping this concept.")

So, in other words, it's up to me to prove that science hasn't already answered every single question anyone might ever think to ask, and it's up to me to prove that there might still be some things scientists have yet to discover? Again you show your inability to grasp the English language or follow a single line of reasoning; either that, or you genuinely believe that there are no unanswered questions and that burden of proof really is on me. Either way, it doesn't look too good for you.

You continue:
 * You're the one going against four centuries of accepted science and philosophy.

Firstly, in the context of human history, four centuries might as well be four seconds. Secondly, in what way am I going against accepted science and philosophy? By stating that present day science hasn't explained the entirety of the universe and everything contained therein and (if applicable) without since the beginning of time until its end? Please don't respond by attacking a straw-man.

You say:
 * Science, by definition, studies the world.

That is exactly my point.

You continue:
 * If you think there is a world beyond it, it's on you to show it's not a fantasy world.

So you're claiming that the real world in which we live and breathe, the world that science studies, is a fantasy world, and that the portion of the real world that is relayed to us through text books and research papers is not merely a limited and potentially flawed presentation of known real world, but is in fact the real world itself in its entirety, and that it is up to me to prove otherwise? Typical skeptic. News flash: Textbooks and research papers are just ink on wood pulp. They don't contain the real world — they are contained within the real world. As I've said before, there is an enormous, expansive world beyond science that skeptics refuse to recognize, just as you are refusing to recognize it right now by trying to shift the burden of proof onto me to demonstrate that the world we exist in irrespective of philosophy or science does in fact exist. If you truly believe that the bounds of contemporary science (that is, the boundaries of current human knowledge) mark the bounds of all that is possible to exist, then the burden of proof is on you.

You say:
 * Another false analogy:
 * This is about me trying to get you to comprehend the fact that your dismissal of magick is equivalent to a seafood chef dismissing marine biology because it makes wild claims about shellfish not being fish at all.
 * It appears to be true what they say, irrational beliefs must be rationalized with logical fallacies.

What exactly is false about the analogy? Oh, right. You want it to be false. I forgot that anything you want to believe must be true. Typical skeptic attitude.

You say:
 * Again you repeat childish jabs:
 * You don't seem to understand the fact that this is not your field.
 * This is an argumentum ad hominem.

Do you even know what an ad hominem argument is? Do you honestly think that magick and science are the exact same discipline, equal in every way, and that stating otherwise is a "childish jab"? The above completely contradicts everything else you've said. How are you coming up with this stuff? Do you have medications you've forgotten to take recently?

You say:
 * You can't articulate your beliefs, and justifications for those beliefs, coherently, so you irrelevantly say this isn't my field.

This isn't about my beliefs. It's never been about my beliefs. I haven't tried to articulate or justify them because it's irrelevant to this discussion. This is about you claiming to have some authority on a matter you demonstrably know absolutely nothing about.

You say:
 * Now, if you were arguing with a creationist, and you told him the Bible was written by men, he would tell you the exact same thing (in which case, of course, you would be a skeptic). He would tell you the Bible isn't your field.

And he would be correct, unless I were a Bible scholar. You, on the other hand, aren't an Occult scholar. You don't even seem to have the faintest grasp of the subject matter at hand. It's as if someone who had never heard of nor seen the Bible (the skeptic, in this case) were arguing with a creationist/Christian over whether or not there exists such a thing as a 'Bible'.

You say:
 * You don't like science, and yet you don't like other people that deny science?

I love science. I've always loved science. Science is something I've always been very passionate about, which is why I try not to mix it with my spirituality, as doing so would be dishonest to both science and religion. I don't deny science. Again you lie and make up straw-men to attack. Are you capable of expressing your views without lying?

You conclude:
 * When you think about it, your beliefs have no more validity than the creationists. This is what you are incapable of comprehending; this is what you ignore. I try to proportion my beliefs to evidence, as Hume said wise men do, but you and the creationists deny science when it disagrees with your respective faiths.

Thank you for demonstrating beyond any shadow of a doubt that you haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about or what the issues even are. Where are you getting these ideas from? What makes you think I or any other Occultist would 'deny science' when it 'disagrees' with my 'faith'? What do you know of my 'faith'? Where does it 'disagree' with science? When have I denied science? This has gone beyond the realm of reasonable discourse; your grasp of reality is frighteningly inconsistent. Repeatedly you argue with claims that were never made and state without question things about people who dare to believe science doesn't give a complete picture of reality that have no basis. Repeatedly you claim that those of us who recognize science as a methodology for interpreting evidence, rather than as some holy infallible gospel that has already answered any questions that any thinking being might ever have, leaving no room for anything to exist outside of contemporary science's bounds, are in fact against science. While I've found the skeptic mind-disease to be benign in most people, you're taking your inability to grasp the concept of a reality that exists outside of text books and research papers to a horrifying and possibly dangerous estreme. --Corvun 23:29, 23 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, as Swift said, "It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into." And I do read often (with comprehension, despite your accusations to the contrary), and I have taken English classes (in response to your saying, "Please take and English class.") And as you can imagine I think it's your deluded attempt to understand the world that's been taken to a dangerous extreme. Remember, "Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring."


 * I would like to continue this discussion. But I don't want to do it on wikipedia (where there is no accountability), and I don't want to have to explain what logical fallacies are to you. So let's take it outside. Let's go to e-philosopher (a philosophy forum), where there are plenty of people who know much more than either of us about logic and the world, and would help us figure out which one of us is the more childish, creationist-like, irrational and generally out of touch with reality as we've both accused each other. If you're up to it (and think yourself capable), it's very easy to register with e-philosopher, just as one signs up for wikipedia or free e-mail. So register, and start a thread (call it Magick or whatever you want), and we can argue there, if you think your beliefs can stand the scrutiny.

http://www.ephilosopher.com/phpBB_14-action-viewforum-forum-4.html
 * Maprovonsha172 03:50, 24 September 2005 (UTC)


 * P.S. I notice you didn't respond to what I asked about corvids. Weren't you in the mood to discuss something (without dispute), or was that all just bullshit like what you said about quantum mechanics?


 * Please stop spamming Wikipedia. This isn't the place to advertise your favorite website.


 * What's this "if you think your beliefs can stand the scrutiny" bit? Are you really that out of touch with reality, that you think a person's spiritual beliefs can be "scrutinized"?  If you are any indication of the sort of folks that impest the e-philosopher website, then it's safe to assume it would be a waist of time to go there, as I wouldn't find enough intellectual stimulation to make the frustration of dealing with paltry-minded net-kooks worthwhile.  Why would I want to continue a discussion with you when you invoke the name of logical fallacies that you don't even know the meaning of, demonstrate a complete inability to make a sound argument or comprehend a simple English sentence, ignore almost everything I say as you instead proceed to argue with things no-one said, that you just conjured up out of nowhere. (Like your constant insistence that I accept "New Age" philosophies or that I dislike science)  You've claimed I'm "out of touch with realiy" simply because I reject the idea that we don't live and breathe in an actual real world but rather just some textbook. --Corvun 07:27, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


 * P.S. About the corvids: I'd have been in the mood to discuss it without dispute, but I felt the main point was already made.  If you wish me to ellucidate on what that point was, I'll gladly do so.

As for claiming that you accept a New Age spiritualism, magic seems rather like New Age bullshit to me. New Age beliefs are just ones which are pieced together from Eastern and/or ancient irrationalists. As for science, you said that today's science is tomorrow's pseudoscience, leaving little doubt in mind regarding your (lack of) respect for science.

And I'm not advertising for e-philosopher, I have absolutely no interest in doing so. I'm merely saying that if we go to their philosophy forum, we can have a rational discussion, along with people who know all about formal reasoning, and won't let either of us off the hook if we make ridiculous statements. And yes, I am saying "spiritual beliefs" can be scrutinized, if those beliefs entail such things as they validity of quantum theory, for instance, and other things you've called into question. Also, you want to talk about straw-manning. We could go there and figure out which one of us is living in the fantasy world. I don't imagine you will, though, because you've found a niche here on wikipedia. Wikipedia lets anyone in, and I imagine you could find other wikipedians that agree with you no matter what you say. There is zero accountability. On e-philosopher, however, there are very strict forum guidelines, and most everyone is either a philosophy student or instructor. So, if you want to continue this discussion, and think your beliefs can stand the scrutiny, start a thread there.

http://www.ephilosopher.com/phpBB_14-action-viewforum-forum-4.html --Maprovonsha172 16:36, 27 September 2005 (UTC)