Tragick, in theory and practice

This all arose from a discussion I had with someone who contacted me again, we both agreed that the problem with mystics, psychics, witches…etc… is that their proposals are always of an internal nature, meaning that they can never really seem to prove what they do works or does anything outside their internal reality.

Which is why it is important to make attempts to prove how things work by understanding them better, this is why Crowley, for example, was a prominent figure in the area of occultism.

Tell me what you think.

Exhibit A:

I have been doing healings on people lately with success, don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner! Let me know if you ever want some free of charge.

You say you are feeling negative/depressed, wonder if you will let me make some energy shifts, but only if you want, offer is open… all for healing.

Exhibit B:

You know, honestly… I think it all sounds like a waste of time and that makes me think you might be bored or something.

It all sounds very new age-y to me and that just makes me want to spit the taste of it out of my mouth,

If you’re going to run things by me like this, you can expect me to put my two cents in… I just don’t see the point I guess… Perhaps you could enlighten me?

What is the point? I just don’t really see the validity in anything psychics claim to do… I mean…What is it exactly you’re trying to do here?

A:

It is proven by the smiles.

B:

Yeah, point blank I’ve had a lot of people tell me that my art is pointless. I had an instructor tell me, “I’m fascinated how you can have such interest in such meaningless and pointless things.”

Smiles isn’t going to cut it for me. Smiles don’t prove anything. People smile when they do cocaine but that doesn’t mean its good for them.

A:

I understand that you would be skeptical of the claims being made. In a spiritual sense, this is pretty much a case where there is not scientific evidence I can give you. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean there is not validity in what I’m doing, if you don’t want to take part in this that is fine but that is pretty much the choice you have to make, I mean it’s really not up to me to prove to you that this is all real. I’m not claiming that any of this is something you should believe. All I’m saying is that this is something that for me that has been proven to help with myself and others and that’s all I’m trying to do. I was not trying to push any of my beliefs on you, alll I’m trying to do is help you in a way that for me has been proven to work. I cant give you a point to believe in. I only can only tell you the point I have. Whether you find a point in it is something you have to find yourself. I can’t give that to you, I can only tell you its meaning to me.

In reference to the drug comment. It is unfair to compare the two. You are presenting an argument against something that I am not trying to give you. This does not even involve you to do anything, unlike taking drugs. So it would be unfair to compare these two things, whether you believe in it or not.Its true in a sense that many different things can make a person happy, but that is not what I am trying to do here, I am just trying to help you in a way that to me has been working. It’s true that there are negative ways to make yourself feel good, even if you do not believe the spiritual aspect there is no direct negative consequence for you.

So even if you do not believe in the spiritual aspect, it’s not logical to compare a third party action with something like drugs that require direct involvement.

B:

I didn’t present an argument… a point of comparison… I said to you, ‘How can you prove this?’ and you replied, ‘It’s proven by smiles’. Yeah, people do cocaine and they smile… a lot… It’s not a ‘good medicine’ though. Besides that, if person A is not psychic and wishes to have some sort of ‘psychic phenomenon’ to occur upon command, they seek out a ‘psychic’… Just like a druggie would see their dealer for their fix. My comparison is valid, a little harsh, but so is the rest of the world. Of course no one ever said the world is fair did they?

You admit that you have no evidence, you have smiles… but other than that you have little else to go on. You take no responsibility for your actions then, you have nothing to prove… You are relying upon others blind faith to validate your own. All right. You might not have to prove anything to me but what if someone starts asking you a lot of questions about what it is you’re doing specifically? What then? Are you going to tell them that you don’t have to prove anything because the last two people walked away smiling?

What is not rational to me is to make claims something works, when one can neither explain what is they are doing or how it is that mysterious action does … what it does… Something very wizard of Oz about that to me.

Delightfully irrational to naivety.

Here is another comparison.

A car is made because an engineer understood mechanics well enough to allow for its design. The engineer can explain to you how a car works.

I asked you, ‘What is it exactly you’re trying to do here?’ and you still haven’t answered that, I am still very curious as to what it is you’re going to be doing to help people with your psychic powers. Also, it’s not that I don’t have any spiritual beliefs, I just happen to think people that go around calling themselves healers are 99% completely false. They usually have a motive outside any standing claims of altruism.

A:

First of all, presenting a point of comparison is a method of making an argument. If you are saying it isn’t, than you are telling me that your point of comparison was meaningless, which you obviously aren’t saying. You’ve clearly formed an opinion about this. In fact, you just so happened to make the same argument that you were trying to put across before, but you decided to articulate it a little better this time in a simple sentence: “It’s not a ‘good medicine’ though”, which you associated with going to a psychic by comparing it to going to a drug dealer. It is a weak argument, and I can just as easily compare seeing a psychic with a more positive experience to make whatever I want to say seem plausible.

I did not say I have no evidence. I told you that I cannot show you scientific, or more specifically objective, evidence. It is a matter of experience, and I cannot prove my experiences to you, it is as simple as that. You have to have your own experience, and form your own opinion about it. Perhaps I should have said that the first time. I would explain my reasoning to someone if they asked and seemed to genuinely seek an answer, rather than fling their own negative moods at me and ask questions for the sake of argument, especially when I made an offer and not an argument, which you could have easily just declined instead of being rude. That would have been the rational thing to do if you found what I said to be untrue, otherwise if you wanted to know more the rational thing to do is not start with being rude.

You can believe what you want. Again, it is not a matter of belief. I am not obligated to argue with someone about something that was not an argument in the first place, and I definitely do not owe answers to someone who is disrespectful. Maybe you are stuck in an illusion of having a moral high-ground and you will simply try to argue more, continuing to miss the point. But, despite your assertion in an earlier post, I am certainly not bored enough to continue and entertain you.

The big problem I have with discussions relating to scientific justification of spiritualism is that people expect science to be pure, but it isn’t, further to that people assume that because something has be proved scientifically it is understood, which is not always the case.

Firstly, the purity of science.
There is actually a lot of published research “proving” the existence of energetic healing, psychic phenomena and other magickal practices such as evocation. Also there are some fairly powerful models explaining many of these practices that integrate with scientific understanding, how ever “science” hates being wrong and to that end it will do its best to bury and discredit any of these isolated studies even if their results are valid which then discourages people from doing further investigations and adding to the body of proof. In fact some scientists are so wrapped up i discrediting these phenomena that they will run experiments and then when they don’t get results they like, falsify their data.

I can’t find the reference to support what I’m saying at the moment, but if you don’t find a bit of entertaining reading, the occult blogger runesoup has made mention of it several times in his articles, you won’t regret searching for it as he is an excellent writer, I unfortunately don’t have the time to trawl it all now.

This sort of data falsification happens all the time in any sensitive area, beyond the occult there are many studies into “narcotics” that have been falsified for political ends, not to mention the whole body of Nicoli Teslas work which has beeen swept under the rug because science doesn’t like it.

Secondly we have understanding.
Lets take a rather mundane example, although one that I am extremely familiar with from a professional perspective. No one here is going to deny that as part of the average “normal” human (and many animals) development teeth are going to form in the jaws and the erupt through the gums until they are in position for use. You probably remember it happening to you, you have probably watched a sibling or your own child go through the process, it is an undeniable fact. But science has no idea how it happens, we don’t understand how the teeth know when to start erupting, we don’t understand the mechanism by which the use to propel themselves and we don’t understand what controls their trajectory.
So do we dismiss this whole teeth business because we don’t understand how it works even though we can observe it? No, but for some reason people are happy to do that with the occult, go figure.

For me the big issue is that Science has become a religion. People take scientific facts on pure faith because it has been written in a book and agreed upon by a bunch of scientists, which is no different that taking religious dogma on pure faith because it was written in a book by priests. Now ultimately science has its place because of the way it can be practically applied, but the way uneducated people carry it around like a new faith is sad, the way scientist do the same is terrifying, how can our knowledge move forward if we can’t question old ideas?
This is coming from someone who several degrees, the word doctor in front of their name, has been involved in research and applies science I understand at a deep level when ever I am at work, so I feel I am fairly qualified to make these comments.

Ultimately I feel that when it comes to the whole of spiritual practice one can only go by internal validation, and personal experience will carry you onwards. The idea that there is some actions that are or aren’t a waste of time in this life is a bit silly, I would argue that failing to develop spiritually is a waste of time but then I am not a caterpillar in denial of the butterfly.

I am person A friend is B will comment more later… gotta think on your response.

I figured that was the character break down.

One of runesoups more recent articles actually covers some of the things I’m talk about
[url=http://runesoup.com/2012/10/pray-for-a-better-wor/]http://runesoup.com/2012/10/pray-for-a-better-wor/[/url]

I recommend reading back through his post history though, he is a talented magus and writes alot about the crossover between science and magic. Also he is entertaining which is always nice in an occult author