Just curious how much or how little the people here blieve in this kind of thing? I guess a 10 point scale would make this easiest..but please include some more info if you have a comment.
10 = Absolutely believe in this.
1 = Absolutely do -not- believe in this.
Ghosts/Spirits - 3/10: I'm open to the idea of ghosts and other spooky creatures. The evidence however has always been wonky, skewed or straight up falsified but there have a been a few incidents that make me wonder. My experience with "ball lightning" still kinda sits in my brain and makes me wonder.
Psychic Intuition/Powers - 10/10 - I do believe that some people have abilities beyond the norm and are capable of gaining information from a non physical source. At Dragon*Con (lol) they had several scientists on the panels including one group with state funding that looks into this. Through lots of testing, double-blind studies and other things the scientists themselves were convinced that some form of psychic intuition is possible but difficult to replicate under scientific tests. Plus numerous documented sources of Psychic leading police to bodies, People finding water with dowsing rods, predicting accurately earthquakes and other natural disasters has made me pretty certain that some people are the real deal.
Magic: 2/10 Magic as most people see it..I don't believe in. The human brain is pretty amazing as it is and just by convincing yourself of something you can do a lot of pretty amazing stuff. (One women had a quarter placed on her arm. The researcher told her it was hot, red hot, burning..over and over until she believed it and she actually got a heat bubble on her arm), (A guy believed he could nurse his child so he told himself every day that he wanted to lactate and nurse his child..within a few months one of his man boobs had grown and had begun to lactate..creepy), (Some buddhist monks can sit in caves on top of snow covered mountains all day and night with just their thin orange robes and not die..they've learned to stimulate their bodies to raise their core temperatures using meditation..thats just cool.)
So yeah..I don't believe in Magic persay..but I do believe the ideas behind magic/ritual etc cause a powerful placebo response in true believers which allows them to do amazing/beyond the norm things. Same thing with tarot cards..do they predict the future? I don't know for sure..what their real value is for me is that they cause you to critically think and perceive the world alot differently then you're used to which is helpful.
/done
Bookmarks