Add a Comment
Email This
Statistics
RE: Burn the Witch!
I believe in magic.
Magic is an artful illusion that cause you to believe something happened that did not really happen.
If the illusion is effective, that is magic. It exists, but it is only an illusion.
To illustrate Scottb's point.
I have read convincing accounts of Australian aboriginal natives who believe in magic that can kill them, and it sometimes does.
As part of their law an offender may be sung to death. The tribe does certain magic chants intended to make the person sicken and die. For those who really believe in the power, it works. There are accounts of native servants living in white man's houses in the nineteenth century dieing like this in spite of good medical treatment.
They even have a law enforcement officer called a "Kaditja Man" he will track and follow an offender until he dies. He uses special body paint and feathered boots so he leaves no tracks, but to the natives he is invisible.
I think lie detectors are modern magic
RSS
RE: Burn the Witch!
As a Christian, I believe that it does exist and comes from Satan.
There's that wacky dualism again. I swear, you're about three hairs breadths from Marcionism.
Actually, most Christians don't believe in sorcery.
But, I'm going to stay off of that point and say that you and I differ in opinion there.
To call this merely "opinion" is a bit of an understatement. Since neither of us are relativists, it's clear we differ in realities here.
However, taken outside religious faith, studies have shown that a deep-rooted belief in magic will cause the spells to have the intended effect on the victim.
Mere psychology. And the degree to which it's effective is way overestimated. Such deep-rooted beliefs are quite uncommon. And it's clearly another reason why "faith" (an example of such a deep-rooted belief) is bad for you.
So, to answer your question-- even to a non-relgious person sorcery can indeed 'exist'. You don't have to be 'religious' to believe in Magic either.
Um, that doesn't follow, logically. Perhaps "religious" people are the only ones who can hold sufficient belief in magic for it to work, in which case you do have to be religious to believe in magic.
I'd even argue that's the case. People who are generally non-religious don't believe that nonsense. Note: I consider "new age" silliness like aromatherapy and crystals and such to be a religious belief.
Although, Anton Lavey says the opposite is true--that one who doesn't believe is more like to be affected because those who do believe will take precautions to guard against them.
That's a testable hypothesis. And almost certainly false, since the belief is critically necessary for the psychological effects to occur. In the absence of belief, LaVey's theory requires a non-psychological mechanism, which doesn't exist.
View Full Discussion