Consciousness and Magic

[smcder]

I think of magic as a distinct body of knowledge - the earliest organized way of thinking about the world and still an effective one. The temptation is to say that science came out of and superseded magic (a vast amount of academic apparatus makes it almost impossible not to) and that the understanding of causality involved in sympathetic magic can now be dismissed in favor of ... well, I'll just say the alternatives - as causality is still very much an open question in science and philosophy. But I think magic might well be said to have come out of an innate sense of causality that is still robust.

I think many were disappointed when science didn't supersede religion (and a dogged few are still trying) but I think most would be surprised to learn that magic is alive and well. I'm tempted to quote from Jacob Needleman A Sense of the Cosmos but I won't ;-) (p. xi for the initiated!) I will paraphrase instead:

After referring the reader to Gurdjieff for the "law of three forces" Needleman argues that modern science was born out of an interior conflict but that its results, its concepts have been passed on without an awareness of inner conflict that gives rise to wisdom and this results in a split which he describes as "schizophrenic" between the spiritual and this received "common sense" of the world. We have knowledge but not vision - science is the conductor of only one force, the activity of one part of the mind - he urges that we must attract spirit, the unifying force between opposing energies. This he says is "esoteric".

 

[Constance]

As you know, Tyger, I have no background in 'magic'. I am curious about your opening statement in the above post:

"I think of magic as a distinct body of knowledge - the earliest organized way of thinking about the world and still an effective one." I don't think we can know 'what the earliest organized way of thinking about the world' actually was, but my gut feeling is that it was likely concerned with orienting oneself and one's core group in the local environment, and for a long period of time thereafter working out problems of survival, the protection and fostering of development of children, and how to live peacefully and productively in one's social group. In other words, I think that many practical life issues had to be organized and sufficient security established in one's niche before early humans began questioning the nature of reality and looking for magical ways in which to control it.

 

[Tyger]

As you know, Tyger, I have no background in 'magic'. I am curious about your opening statement in the above post:

"I think of magic as a distinct body of knowledge - the earliest organized way of thinking about the world and still an effective one." I don't think we can know 'what the earliest organized way of thinking about the world' actually was,

We have innumerable 'items' of evidence - in myth, legend, and some significant ancient architecture. We also have the evidence of ancient habitation and burial sites.

The transition from a pure instinctual life - a la birds migrating, our forebears instinctively knowing when to travel across the plains to the next series of fresh fields - to one modulated by nascent mind, where there is knowledge, however 'prinitive' - rather than instinct - of the seasonal changes - that transition is hidden to normal means of chronicling. Time -travel is necessary for that bit of investigation.

but my gut feeling is that it was likely concerned with orienting oneself and one's core group in the local environment, and for a long period of time thereafter working out problems of survival, the protection and fostering of development of children, and how to live peacefully and productively in one's social group. In other words, I think that many practical life issues had to be organized and sufficient security established in one's niche before early humans began questioning the nature of reality and looking for magical ways in which to control it.

Emerging from instinct means that 'magic' potentially preceded any such conscious 'organization'. Key to what you are saying is an assumption - the assumption that ancient man 'thought' the way we think and experienced the world - saw the world in fact - the way we experience and see it. We have evidence that it is not so.

 

[Tyger]

I think of magic as a distinct body of knowledge - the earliest organized way of thinking about the world and still an effective one. The temptation is to say that science came out of and superseded magic (a vast amount of academic apparatus makes it almost impossible not to) and that the understanding of causality involved in sympathetic magic can now be dismissed in favor of ... well, I'll just say the alternatives - as causality is still very much an open question in science and philosophy. But I think magic might well be said to have come out of an innate sense of causality that is still robust.

I agree.

I think many were disappointed when science didn't supersede religion (and a dogged few are still trying) but I think most would be surprised to learn that magic is alive and well. I'm tempted to quote from Jacob Needleman A Sense of the Cosmos but I won't ;-) (p. xi for the initiated!) I will paraphrase instead:

After referring the reader to Gurdjieff for the "law of three forces" Needleman argues that modern science was born out of an interior conflict but that its results, its concepts have been passed on without an awareness of inner conflict that gives rise to wisdom and this results in a split which he describes as "schizophrenic" between the spiritual and this received "common sense" of the world. We have knowledge but not vision - science is the conductor of only one force, the activity of one part of the mind - he urges that we must attract spirit, the unifying force between opposing energies. This he says is "esoteric".

Thank you! I resonate to the thinking expressed. (I could read your summation easily and getting the jist quickly, I can move with the conversation quickly). I think you sum it up beautifully. I am noting your cite and will seek it out when I can. Thank you!

 

[Constance]

I see that I mistook a post by Steve for one by Tyger. Apologies. I think I need an eye exam.

We have innumerable 'items' of evidence - in myth, legend, and some significant ancient architecture. We also have the evidence of ancient habitation and burial sites.

Myth, legend, the megaliths, etc. and burial practices all come after what I think of as the primordial experience of humankind moving toward mind. @Soupie cited somewhere recently the theory that the ancient Greeks lacked a concept of individual consciousness and mind, which Bruno Snell's The Discovery of the Mind supports. I'm just wondering where to locate ritual and magic in this lengthy spectrum of the development of homo sapiens, generally estimated to have taken place between 50,000 and 200,000 years ago. I think describing magic as "the earliest organized way of thinking about the world" is a large claim and I haven't seen support for it. That doesn't mean there might not be support for it.

The transition from a pure instinctual life - a la birds migrating, our forebears instinctively knowing when to travel across the plains to the next series of fresh fields - to one modulated by nascent mind, where there is knowledge, however 'prinitive' - rather than instinct - of the seasonal changes - that transition is hidden to normal means of chronicling. Time -travel is necessary for that bit of investigation.

I agree, time travel probably is required to undertake that investigation.

Emerging from instinct means that 'magic' potentially preceded any such conscious 'organization'. Key to what you are saying is an assumption - the assumption that ancient man 'thought' the way we think and experienced the world - saw the world in fact - the way we experience and see it. We have evidence that it is not so.

I haven't come across the theory that magic emerged from instinct. That's another claim I have to question. What is the background for this claim?

I see that I mistook Steve's post for one of yours. Apologies to Steve..

 

[Tyger]

Myth, legend, the megaliths, etc. and burial practices all come after what I think of as the primordial experience of humankind moving toward mind.

'Myth' is exceedingly old. Written down myths are recent.

How are you able to make the assertion about the 'primordial experience' of humankind? A logical belief or a logical assumption? If it's an either/or then neither matter to the idea expressed.

@Soupie cited somewhere recently the theory that the ancient Greeks lacked a concept of individual consciousness and mind, which Bruno Snell's The Discovery of the Mind supports.

They did, as shown in their plays.

I'm just wondering where to locate ritual and magic in this lengthy spectrum of the development of homo sapiens, generally estimated to have taken place between 50,000 and 200,000 years ago.

Try mainstream Archaeology if you want to go the academic route. Look up the caves paintings at lascaux - there one can see the evidence of many things.

I think describing magic as "the earliest organized way of thinking about the world" is a large claim and I haven't seen support for it. That doesn't mean there might not be support for it.

Perhaps you think me presumptuous for saying it with no 'support'?

I agree, time travel probably is required to undertake that investigation.

To be clear, I wasn't being facetious. Time travel - of a kind - is necessary for any research back into the past by the seer.

I haven't come across the theory that magic emerged from instinct. That's another claim I have to question. What is the background for this claim?

EDITED: I'm not sure this will be a thread where the academic will be debated - since 'magic' is a topic discussed in academia as a 'primitive' form of cognizance. I hope this will be a thread where people can just think their thoughts without being concerned with who in academia 'supports' the same idea. But maybe some will want to go that route. I wouldn't seek such 'validation' - or seek out that kind of 'authority' - in a conversation like this. We're playing with ideas imo.

I don't think my response will be satisfactory for you. Oh well.

 

[Constance]

Tyger, I wasn't trying to provoke you into an argument, only asking for the provenance of two claims. Excuse me. I'll depart the thread now..

 

[Tyger]

@Constance You thought we were arguing?

Tyger, I wasn't trying to provoke you into an argument, only asking for the provenance of two claims. Excuse me. I'll depart the thread now..

Honestly, nothing to excuse. You have a way of approaching these kinds of conversations that can be extremely rigorous - and imo that's a totally good thing. Much can be learned - and is. I stand in awe of the way you can parlez-vouz all the texts you link to. I can't engage in that way - for a variety of reasons, as I've always said. The moment I feel like I am doing Orals before a Doctoral Panel - - my mind goes into a slump.

I think it's possible for someone to have their own thought and have it be legitimate (on a particular playing field) without needing to know it's lineage - and at this stage of the game, after decades of playing around with all manner of spiritual/esoteric thinking, I do start to reassemble the individual parts in different ways. But I do understand wanting to know the context for certain thoughts. For sure. I like to know that myself. Saying that, I think I can say with assurance that the 'context' for me is always going to be the assumption of an informing and driving spiritual world. I think any discussion of 'magic' - of the nature intended here (not parlor trick or stage 'magic') - has as it's initial assumption the playing field of the spiritual realm - as a given. It's the only kind of conversation that interests me - that gets my bells ringing.

Having spent some years in the scientific milieu where one has to mind one's p's and q's regarding ethereal causalities, I have no wish to pander to that 'religious-like materialistic scientism' - examples of which we have many, as we know. It's why I won't take the bait for that kind of discourse - 'been-there-done-that' too many times already.

So in answer to your question about 'provenance of two claims' I suppose the simple answer lies in esoteric cosmology - and in the fact that one of my assumptions (based on some experience that I interpret through a certain filter) is that there is a spiritual component to our existence. For me, that is the a priori 'assumption'. One of the elements in Steiner's view that I find compelling and worth working with is that the 'spiritual world' - and by that is meant 'spiritual beings' - were and are and will always be - the flip side of the coin of what we see as a physical universe. That being the case these beings are active agents - whose purposes, intents and deeds can be perceived as the effect of the physical universe around us. In a way, the hardened minerality around us is the final expression of living spiritual forces. Our physical universe in the last stop on the universe train.

So saying - using that context, as distinct from any other - it seems evident that early man was more spiritual than physical, and this is what Steiner indicates from his spiritual research - or what I am calling 'time travel'. Keeping in mind that this fundamental context was there prior to Steiner's investigations, extant in esoteric societies and within ancient Sanskrit manuscripts, not to mention in the first books of the Hebrew Bible. I would say the provenance, therefore, is quite old - but would only ascribe such as being the inspiration for my rambling thoughts, not the raison d'être.

In fact, 'religion' itself as a word comes from religare = to reconnect. or to tie, to bind. Early man was automatically connected to the spiritual world, more so than to here. The myths represent real events played out but not necessarily in the physical universe, more likely in the etheric universe. Ancient man had complete every-day converse with the etheric realm. However, when the intellect became more and more dominant in humankind, the spiritual world receded from 'sight' - and religion became 'necessary' to maintain the formal connection to that receding 'world of the gods.' (This loss of the gods is spoken of in every mythic cycle as humankind gains 'presence of mind'). Magic is the remnant from a time before the need for religion. It's when magic becomes filtered through mind - as it should be in our time - there are necessarily problems. For after all, it is the mind itself that is the trickster. The mind is a tool - but it can easily become the sole fascination.

So, you wrote: "I haven't come across the theory that magic emerged from instinct. That's another claim I have to question." For me it follows that (originally) humankind - before the separation caused by nascent intellect - was guided in it's animal existence by 'instinct' - another name for the guiding intelligence of spiritual beings (as in the Group Souls of the birds, or the lions, or the bees). Separating off from the 'group consciousness' to become self-aware (and thinking) meant that access to spiritual guidance had to be invoked rather than simply experienced - and we have ample evidence that ancient man did just that through ritual magic. (As you know the early work of Julian Jaynes fielded ideas in this vein in his groundbreaking 'The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind' - however, what I am suggesting is very different, or goes far beyond his ideas, as there is a cosmology and epistemology 'attached').

You also wrote: "I think describing magic as "the earliest organized way of thinking about the world" is a large claim and I haven't seen support for it." (I see an Anthropology debate looming but I won't be able to cite chapter-and-verse from Claude Levi-Strauss anymore - even if I wanted to. He is a behemoth in the field but I found him unsatisfactory even at the time.) I don't know what kind of support you need - but I will offer my own (partial) reasoning - based somewhat from my early work in Archaeology/Anthropology and somewhat based on my work in esoteric thinking. Both 'streams' seem to agree that earliest man engaged in forms of ritual around significant activities - death and hunting for two examples - in a way that animals do not. In all 'primitive' societies magic holds a key place, usually as the informing 'science' regarding the manipulation of the world. Anyway - that is the 'lineage' of my saying such. For me it follows from all I have thought before.

 

[Constance]

@Constance

That’s a beautifully written essay, Tyger, and I appreciate what you’ve expressed in it. I’m closer to your point of view than is apparent, as will probably become clear in the responses I've drafted to your various points below..

I think it's possible for someone to have their own thought and have it be legitimate (on a particular playing field) without needing to know it's lineage - and at this stage of the game, after decades of playing around with all manner of spiritual/esoteric thinking, I do start to reassemble the individual parts in different ways. But I do understand wanting to know the context for certain thoughts. For sure. I like to know that myself. Saying that I think I can say with assurance that the 'context' for me is always going to be the assumption of an informing and driving spiritual world. I think any discussion of 'magic' of the nature intended here (not parlor trick or stage 'magic') has as it's initial assumption the playing field of the spiritual realm - as a given. It's the only kind of conversation that interests me - that gets my bells ringing.

I agree that it’s not necessary to know or discuss the entire lineage of a school of thought in order to be persuaded by its significance, especially when one finds the same symbols, concepts, and behaviors turning up over millennia.. And I have no doubt that spirituality is a significant phenomenon throughout human history and in prehistory. We find expressions of it as far back as we have yet gone in uncovering traces of how our forebears lived, and we’ll likely find others buried deeper at sites not yet investigated by archaeologists. I also agree that academically sponsored archaeology is a very conservative field, but there is strong evidence of its changing under the pressure of graduate students and faculty members who wish to pursue the roots of spirituality in our species. You’ll appreciate the downloadable sample chapter, preface, and table of contents of this recent book published by Springer:
http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/anthropology+%26+archaeology/book/978-1-4614-3353-8
I’m searching for but cannot find an online journal I read a few years ago focusing on spirituality and liminality in prehistory and developing experiential methodologies for investigating these qualities and ideas while living among extant tribal cultures.

So in answer to your question about 'provenance of two claims' I suppose the simple answer lies in esoteric cosmology - and in the fact that one of my assumptions (based on some experience that I interpret through a certain filter) is that there is a spiritual component to our existence. For me that is the a priori 'assumption'. One of the elements in Steiner's view that I find compelling and worth working with is that the 'spiritual world' - and by that is meant 'spiritual beings' - were and are and will always be - the flip side of the coin of what we see as a physical universe. That being the case these beings are active agents - whose purposes, intents and deeds can be perceived as the effect of the physical universe around us. In a way, the hardened minerality around us is the final expression of living spiritual forces. Our physical universe in the last stop on the universe train.

So saying - using that context, as distinct from any other - it seems evident that early man was more spiritual than physical, and this is what Steiner indicates from his spiritual research - or what I am calling 'time travel'. Keeping in mind that this fundamental context was there prior to Steiner's investigations, extant in esoteric societies and within ancients Sanskrit manuscripts, not to mention in the first books of the Hebrew Bible. I would say the provenance, therefore, is quite old - but would only ascribe such as being the inspiration for my rambling thoughts, not the raison d'être.

I certainly agree that esoteric texts and ancient texts in general are important sources for our understanding what was experienced in the past and what it means for us in the present as we attempt to trace the origins of our thinking and indeed our own nature.

In fact, 'religion' itself as a word comes from religare = to reconnect. or to tie, to bind. Early man was automatically connected to the spiritual world, more so than to here. The myths represent real events played out but not necessarily in the physical universe, more likely in the etheric universe. Ancient man had complete every-day converse with the etheric realm. However, when the intellect became more and more dominant in humankind, the spiritual world receded from 'sight' - and religion became necessary. Magic is the remnant from a time before the need for religion. It's when magic becomes filtered through mind - as it should be in our time - there are necessarily problems. For after all, it is the mind itself that is the trickster. The mind is a tool - but it can easily become the sole fascination.

I understand what you’re saying in the highlighted sentence. Ancient magical practices and concepts are thus a major source to be considered in understanding what humans have thought about the structure of the world before our species’ recorded history began to be written.

So, you wrote: "I haven't come across the theory that magic emerged from instinct. That's another claim I have to question." For me it follows that originally humankind - before the separation caused by nascent intellect - was guided in it's animal existence by 'instinct' - another name for the guiding intelligence of spiritual beings (as in the Group Souls of the Birds, or the lions, or the bees). Separating off from the 'group consciousness' meant that access to spiritual guidance had to be invoked - and we have ample evidence that ancient man did just that through ritual magic.

You also wrote: "I think describing magic as "the earliest organized way of thinking about the world" is a large claim and I haven't seen support for it." (I see an Anthropology debate looming but I won't be able to cite chapter-and-verse from Claude Levi-Strauss anymore - even if I wanted to. He is a behemoth in the field but I found him unsatisfactory even at the time.) I don't know what kind of support you need - but I will offer my own (partial) reasoning - based somewhat from my early work in Archaeology/Anthropology and somewhat based on my work in esoteric thinking. Both 'streams' seem to agree that earliest man engaged in forms of ritual around significant activities - death and hunting for two examples - in a way that animals do not, though we can find examples of such amongst animals but not in a sustained culture-driven way. In all 'primitive' societies magic holds a key place, usually as the informing 'science' regarding the manipulation of the world. Anyway - that is the 'lineage' of my saying such. For me it follows from all I have thought before.

You make a very strong case. I’m still not sure about ‘instinct’ being involved in earliest human ideas about the structure of the world. But I do believe that humans have subconscious access to knowledge about the nature of reality beyond what the rational mind can conceive. Thanks for taking the time to clarify things for me.

 

[Tyger]

@Constance FYI - I edited the post. You've quoted parts that have been subsequently edited by me. Might want to re-read the post for greater clarity. Just saying.

 

[Constance]

@Constance FYI - I edited the post. You've quoted parts that have been subsequently edited by me. Might want to re-read the post for greater clarity. Just saying.

OK, will do.

 

[smcder]

I agree.







Thank you! I resonate to the thinking expressed. (I could read your summation easily and getting the jist quickly, I can move with the conversation quickly). I think you sum it up beautifully. I am noting your cite and will seek it out when I can. Thank you!

You're welcome! On the strength of that approval, I'll risk more paraphrase and quotation from Needleman ;-)

In chapter six of A Sense of the Cosmos, entitled "Magic", Needleman writes of magic - as a sacred psychology that allows man to live in conscious accord with fundamental causal laws. Magic and religion are two languages that allow us to talk about man's conscious evolution.

Magic is the growth of will, religion is the development of man through the denial of egoistic willfulness.

Religion says:

"Surrender your trifling sense of ability which you magnify into something fantastic and grotesque, and allow the power of God to operate through you."

Magic says: "Create in yourself a will and an individuality that is an instrument of higher cosmic energies."

The point is that both deal with the transformation of man into a being who can consciously manifest fundamental power.

Needleman then discusses alchemy as the art of the transformation of the soul, he acknowledges that alchemists actually manipulated material - but he thinks that the connection between alchemy and chemistry came through the activities of the "charcoal burners" - those who took the alchemist's goal literally. This then, is the very interesting claim that science came out of not magic, but superstition.

After this, Needleman takes a turn through stage magic to the subject of attention and its critical role in magic.

 

[Tyger]

As always, much here I want to respond to.

That said, I want to post a video without giving an adequate summary - skirting my own parameter. It's mainly to bookmark the interview as I have found it filled with some excellent quick summations - and don't want to go searching for it when I have the time to do the summary of it's content.

This is an interview conducted by Richard Dawkins of Deepak Chopra - seemingly on-the-run, standing up. Have no idea of the context and why this took place in this way. Chopra seems to be initially hyperventilating, as though he is nervous. Was he taken unawares by the interview? Hard to know but he seems to shift gears and answers well imo.

What is being addressed in many ways is Consciousness. While this is not a dialog - Dawkins is asking the questions, not responding to the answers Chopra gives - I had a sense at various points that Dawkins was either unable or unwilling to 'bend' to Chopra's logic or insights. Dawkins 'gave' very little and so the impression is of a man hard-edged and possibly dogmatic. Definitely the interview outlines the two modalities well, I think - at least by Chopra.

Richard Dawkins interviews Deepak Chopra (Enemies of Reason Uncut Interviews)

The most critical problem revolving around these two world-views - if we can call them that just as a shorthand for now - is how the situation impacts medicine. One kind of medicine gets covered by insurance - the other does not, even though the latter is far less expensive than the former left on its own. But I suppose there would be an argument in that, too. It does, however, seem unfair that no matter my insurance coverage, I invariably must pay 'twice' for my medical care.

 

[Randall]

An article from John Michael Greer is helpful to me in terms of defining magic. I've posted it before.

"magic—the old art and science of causing change in consciousness in accordance with will"

The Archdruid Report: Clarke's Fallacy


"To understand what it is that magic does do, it’s crucial to look at the specific purposes for which magic is used in practice. Since every human culture known to history has practiced magic, this isn’t exactly hard, and the purposes of magic have varied remarkably little over the centuries. Why do people turn to magic? To tilt the odds their way in hunting, gambling, war, and any other activity that combines high uncertainty with high stakes; to establish, improve, and shape the whole range of human relationships; to heal illnesses of body and mind; to integrate the personality and bring it into harmony with the structures of the cosmos, however those are understood; and, not least, to deal with the fact that other people are using magic for these same purposes, and not always with your best interests in mind.

What do these things all have in common? They all deal with mental phenomena, individual or collective. Grasp that, and you start to grasp what magic is all about.

Philosophers and psychologists down the centuries have tried to bring our attention to two important but generally neglected facts:

we know more than we realize,

and we affect more than we realize.

Look at the human organism from an evolutionary standpoint and this isn’t hard to understand. Our rational, conscious, symbol-using minds are recent and rather rickety structures built over the top of a superbly adapted mammalian nervous system. The tangled relationship between the two shows up, for example, in the way that athletes have to learn to get their thinking minds out of the way in order to reach peak performance. It’s a dirty trick well known among tennis players to ask your opponent just how he holds his thumb when hitting backhand, knowing that the unwanted awareness will mess up his coordination and quite possibly cost him the game."

(does this follow protocol Tyger?)

To interject, what the above is saying is that a certain brand of magic ( not David Copperfield magic ), is a purely psychological consequence of the way our brains work and has nothing to do with the associated beliefs that go along with certain other brands of magic that would have us believe that we can simply conjure up some piece of objective reality through the use of some mystical ritual.

 

[Randall]

I think of magic as a distinct body of knowledge - the earliest organized way of thinking about the world and still an effective one.

An extremely dubious proclamation. The most effectiveness magic seems to have is to separate fools who buy into it from their hard earned money via 1-900 numbers.

The temptation is to say that science came out of and superseded magic (a vast amount of academic apparatus makes it almost impossible not to) and that the understanding of causality involved in sympathetic magic can now be dismissed in favor of ... well, I'll just say the alternatives - as causality is still very much an open question in science and philosophy. But I think magic might well be said to have come out of an innate sense of causality that is still robust.

That's rather vague don't you think? Robust in what way? How is causality "sensed innately"? The very definition of causality is where the second event is understood as a physical consequence of the first. It's therefore based on logical and measurable consequence, not some fuzzy notion of "innately sensing".

I think many were disappointed when science didn't supersede religion (and a dogged few are still trying) but I think most would be surprised to learn that magic is alive and well. I'm tempted to quote from Jacob Needleman A Sense of the Cosmos but I won't ;-) (p. xi for the initiated!) I will paraphrase instead:

Another dubious proclamation. Apart from blind faith, in what context has science not superseded religion? I think many would agree that science has superseded religion in many areas of inquiry. Those who still believe the world was created in 7 days and human history spans a grand total of only a few thousand years are by far in the minority.

After referring the reader to Gurdjieff for the "law of three forces" Needleman argues that modern science was born out of an interior conflict but that its results, its concepts have been passed on without an awareness of inner conflict that gives rise to wisdom and this results in a split which he describes as "schizophrenic" between the spiritual and this received "common sense" of the world. We have knowledge but not vision - science is the conductor of only one force, the activity of one part of the mind - he urges that we must attract spirit, the unifying force between opposing energies. This he says is "esoteric".

Sounds like more nonsense to me. Science was born out of logic, observation, and experimentation, and this has given us "vision" into the workings of nature that far exceed that of our ancestors who relied on magic. Even today the tragedy is that there are people who will turn to witch doctors in the vain hope that magic will cure them:

"Witch doctors” are exploiting sick and vulnerable Brits claiming they can cure illnesses such as cancer for tens of thousands of pounds. The “healers” promise to banish disease, fix fertility problems and overcome mental health issues – for a large sum. The Sunday Mirror can now lift the lid on this shocking trade that takes advantage of desperate people who feel they have nowhere else to turn ..."

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/british-witch-doctors-charge-3000-3247614#ixzz389PuelMY
​

 

[Burnt State]

Sounds like more nonsense to me. Science was born out of logic, observation, and experimentation, and this has given us "vision" into the workings of nature that far exceed that of our ancestors who relied on magic. Even today the tragedy is that there are people who will turn to witch doctors in the vain hope that magic will cure them:

I think some nurses are as magical as any Shaman. I don't think you can throw the witch doctor out the door when we know, here in Canada for example, that indigenous peoples need to have not just a scientific approach to healing an ailment. The holistic approach, that includes having their whole person, specifically their spiritual side, treated is necessary for full healing to take place. I don't think that things are as simplistic as merely addressing the logical part of us, but that in cultures where an established belief system requires an integration of mind and body, we must recognize the value of such a practice.

In the west we may subscribe to only biology, but anyone who has spent any serious time in a hospital knows that 'caregiving' is a central plank in the healing and treatment process. I love the advances that science provides, and the answers that it can give but without genuuinely positive bedside manner it's very difficult to believe in your own healing process.

So while that kind of personal conviction can not be measured logically, I'm a firm believer that the esoteric part of us is a critical component to how we heal. While science may have precise biological answers, addressing the value of an individual respecting their humanity and understanding how they fit inside their cultural community is what allows an individual to be recognized holistically, and yes, spiritually. I have no metrics for this but when you look at healing rates in Aboriginal communities they rise through a holistic approach vs. science only.

Personally I know I only want to interact with medical staff who offer hope and care. You can see it in their eyes. All others are like an anchor around your heart and that's no friend to healing. And where does that look in their eyes originate - science. It was science that told the ICU pediatrician that my daughter might not make it and he offered no hope, just resignation. I stopped looking at him and concentrated on the ICU nurse who provided optimism to both daughter and I. Things worked out better for us both that way.

 

[Randall]

I think some nurses are as magical as any Shaman. I don't think you can throw the witch doctor out the door when we know, here in Canada for example, that indigenous peoples need to have not just a scientific approach to healing an ailment. The holistic approach, that includes having their whole person, specifically their spiritual side, treated is necessary for full healing to take place. I don't think that things are as simplistic as merely addressing the logical part of us, but that in cultures where an established belief system requires an integration of mind and body, we must recognize the value of such a practice.

The mind and body are both recognized within standard academic practise and often go hand-in-hand when medical treatment is done. I know this from close relationships with people being treated in the system here. Also, if a person's psychology is such that it can benefit from continued exposure to their religious support structure, there are also on-site chapels. However let's not confuse the psychology that goes along with maintaining the personal sense of well being that a religious person feels as a result of their religious programming, with magic.

Religious programming isn't magic. It's just that people seem to do better when they aren't stressed out by changes to what their accustomed to. There's no convincing evidence that the religion itself has any magical power, and a non-religious person like myself would probably do worse if exposed to it when they didn't want it around. I would however add that strange things happen within religious environments, the same as they happen elsewhere, so when a religious person is exposed to something strange in a religious setting, the automatic response is to attribute the "magic" to the religion, when in fact we don't really know the cause.

In the west we may subscribe to only biology, but anyone who has spent any serious time in a hospital knows that 'caregiving' is a central plank in the healing and treatment process. I love the advances that science provides, and the answers that it can give but without genuuinely positive bedside manner it's very difficult to believe in your own healing process.

So while that kind of personal conviction can not be measured logically, I'm a firm believer that the esoteric part of us is a critical component to how we heal. While science may have precise biological answers, addressing the value of an individual respecting their humanity and understanding how they fit inside their cultural community is what allows an individual to be recognized holistically, and yes, spiritually. I have no metrics for this but when you look at healing rates in Aboriginal communities they rise through a holistic approach vs. science only.

All addressed above.

Personally I know I only want to interact with medical staff who offer hope and care. You can see it in their eyes. All others are like an anchor around your heart and that's no friend to healing. And where does that look in their eyes originate - science. It was science that told the ICU pediatrician that my daughter might not make it and he offered no hope, just resignation. I stopped looking at him and concentrated on the ICU nurse who provided optimism to both daughter and I. Things worked out better for us both that way.

Hope and care have nothing to do with magic. But while we're talking about hope: Hope is what's left when there are no better options. When we have better options we take those over hope every time. So while it's fine to have hope when the going gets rough, I'd sooner put my faith in a surgeon with a track record of cool-headed dispassionate scientific expertise and success, than a bush-doctor who offers little more than hope or magic.

Child Witches & Infanticide In The Name of Magic

​

 

[Tyger]

This is an interview conducted by Richard Dawkins of Deepak Chopra - seemingly on-the-run, standing up. Have no idea of the context and why this took place in this way.

What is being addressed in many ways is Consciousness. While this is not a dialog - Dawkins is asking the questions, not responding to the answers Chopra gives - definitely the interview outlines the two modalities well, I think - at least by Chopra.

Richard Dawkins interviews Deepak Chopra (Enemies of Reason Uncut Interviews)

The most critical problem revolving around these two world-views - if we can call them that just as a shorthand for now - is how the situation impacts medicine. One kind of medicine gets covered by insurance - the other does not, even though the latter is far less expensive than the former left on its own. But I suppose there would be an argument in that, too. It does, however, seem unfair that no matter my insurance coverage, I invariably must pay 'twice' for my medical care.

Dawkins begins by questioning Chopra's term 'Quantum Healing' - how does it work?
Chopra: It's a theory that proposes that a shift in consciousness causes a shift in biology. Example: stress produces adrenalin, etc. biological chaos; conversely, internal euphoria produces dopamine, etc, immune modulators. Creates homeostasis - not just in immune system but allows for spontaneous healing mechanisms to work.

Dawkins: Where did 'quantum' come in?
Chopra: It's a metaphor, as an electron is an indivisible unit of information and energy, so is a thought an indivisible unit of consciousness.

Dawkins: So it has nothing to do with Quantum Theory in Physics.
Chopra: Quantum has a lot to say about observer effect, about non-locality, about correlation. There is a school of physicists that believes that consciousness has to be brought into the equation in order to understand Quantum Mechanics.

Dawkins: Yes, your using it as a metaphor causes confusion as you use it as a metaphor with a tinge of what physicists are doing....
Chopra: There is a controversy. Quantum leaps - discontinuity. Creativity in consciousness is an example of discontinuity. Healing may be a biological phenomenon that relies on biological creativity, that at very fundamental levels it may be a discontinuity phenomenon, an unpredictable something that happens in the proliferation of uncertainty.

Dawkins: Sounds like a poetic use of the word discontinuity. Two different kinds of discontinuity - muddling them up.
Chopra: Maybe, your interpretation, but some really good physicists feel Quantum Physics is unexplainable in the absence of consciousness. Can't explain things like observer effect. Discontinuity may be consciousness itself.

Dawkins: You have said that there is more to the world than science can reveal. Elaborate.....
Chopra: Science is based on a purely objective observation of the world. Reality is both subjective and objective. Reality is the observer. Reality is the process of observation and that which we observe.

Dawkins: In science we have a particular method of observing which excludes subjectivity.
Chopra: So science becomes not an examination of nature itself but an examination of the questions we ask of nature and nature's response to those questions. If we exclude subjectivity we are excluding a major activity of nature. Our own subjectivity is a pageant of what we call nature.

Dawkins: Would you accept that in the activity of curing one can be subjective but when you want to test and demonstrate that method works, that there you have to be objective?
Chopra: I think we may have to revise our protocols because the purely objective method of study of medical outcomes excludes the very thing we are talking about - and that is consciousness.

[5:00 Limbic Response is mentioned. At 5:32 Dawkin's question shows that he is not really following Chopra's line of reasoning.]

Chopra: Cannot control 90% of patient control trials - in future, trials will take place by states of consciousness. Unless include consciousness impossible to have a fully mechanistic approach to healing.

Dawkins: How do you respond to skeptics that say your methods are not proven?
Chopra: "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." Can't convince a skeptic. There are over several thousand studies that concretely establish the role of subjectivity in the healing phenomenon.

Dawkins: Yes, subjectivity would include psychosomatics, placebo, etc.
Chopra: Subjectivity has an enormous role in infections. Infections are related to compromised immune systems. 90% of suffering is subjective. Internal feelings have very specific biological consequences scientific studies show.

Dawkins: I don't doubt that for a single moment. Doctors would accept undisputed subjective influences. More worrying is the use of mumbo-jumbo.
Chopra: If you can't understand language you call it mumbo-jumbo. Ancient shamans's language not understood, called mumbo-jumbo. Scientist/Medical Science uses Latin, not understood, mumbo-jumbo. If the vocabulary is not understood it is mumbo-jumbo.

Dawkins: What if it's deliberate so that patient doesn't understand....
Chopra: It's very important for the patient to understand. The big failure of modern medicine is the disgruntlement with modern medicine. The patient doesn't understand the doctor. A new vocabulary needs understanding.

Dawkins: Every time you use the term 'quantum healing' it sounds scientific.
Chopra: I can explain it. Critiques don't have the experience of what talking about. There are fundamentalists both in science and religion - and fundamentalist scientists have hijacked the word 'quantum' - behave as though only 'they' have the right too use the word. Another example of that is the term 'Intelligent Design' - Religious Fundamentalists have taken it up - and the School of Evolutionists to attack any form of creativity other than simple adaptation. You [Dawkins] are the world's expert talking about memes and other things that influence society - which are really examples of what consciousness can do.

Dawkins: Is there danger that you are giving credibility to old superstitions that are outmoded?
Chopra: I do my best with the wisdom traditions. There are a lot of superstitions in old traditions that need discarding - 80%. The Perennial Philosophy that Aldous Huxley spoke of stands on own ground and has a world view that is very holistic. If we understood it we wouldn't have all the eco-disasters we're having. Mechanistic approach posits that the human being conquers nature and is not an expression of nature.

Dawkins: If you reject 80%, how decide 20% is good?
Chopra: Experience. Experience of patients - main difference between and reductionists: mechanisms cannot explain origins of disease. Purely mechanistic approach has led to a lot of disasters: adverse reaction to drugs 10,000 a year in UK; 80% of drugs of optional or minimal value; 36% of patients in hospitals are there with diseases caused by cure, because they went to see a doctor. Mechanistic very good in certain situations but is not really the total answer. Mechanisms of disease are not the origins of disease. How we think, behave, interact - key. [at approx 12:50]

Dawkins: Agree a lot we don't understand. Science teases out the bits.....
Chopra: Science is arrogant in the premise has all the answers are in the mechanistic approach. We have gotten rid of much with the mechanistic approach - but we are seeing the emergence of epidemics that are the result of what has been done through science. Medical accidents equivalent of 3 jumbo jet crashes every other day. In any other industry had this record, we wouldn't tolerate it.

Dawkins: Unfair to blame medicine for that. Science not confident of answers but best way of answering questions...
Chopra: Science has focused on that which can be observed. Psychology has focused on the process of observation. No science yet that focuses on the observer. As the medical doctor I want to know the context of the person in front of me (the patient) who is responsible for the biology I observe.

Dawkins: You have talked about no meaningless coincidences....
Chopra: Jung's synchronicity equals quantum non-locality, correlation at fundamental levels of creation.

Worth listening to Chopra at 15:00 in regards the cells in our body. Brilliant exposition imo.

At 16:00 Spirituality and Supernatural

18:00 Chopra: Believe the diagnosis, not the prognosis. Statistics never tell you about individual outcomes.

 

[Tyger]

If you do listen to the above linked interview you can see the disjunct between the mechanistic world view of a Dawkins and the person - in this case Chopra - working with the idea of consciousness. I do not subscribe to all that Chopra says - as in the spiritual/supernatural dialog - but Chopra is an articulate expositor regarding the difficulties around a purely mechanistic approach in medicine. It is in medicine that people are most clearly reaping the whirlwind when it comes to the mechanistic approach to biology. What is more troubling is that money flows only to the mechanistic approach - a societal choice has been made - ensuring that illness continues and continues to make money.

For Chopra the key is consciousness. I would call it something else - and define it more precisely - but consciousness works just fine. It's a beginning. Chopra's suggestion that medical test trials in the future should/will take into account states of consciousness is exciting.

 

[Tyger]

One last bit: Dawkins does not really integrate what Chopra is saying in a living way into his flow of questions. Dawkins' intent is not to be informed with a new way of looking at the world, but to try to show someone as lacking in intellectual/scientific/mechanistic rigor. I think Chopra does a good job in dealing with Dawkins' slippery yet persistent onslaught.

The above interview illustrates the problems associated with talking with someone who never really listens or in listening doesn't really understand what they are hearing - or want to understand - and as a consequence endlessly repeats the same old objections but in slightly modified versions. It becomes an endless game of parry-and-thrust to no real productive end.

My hope is that those who can enter into the 'spirit' of this thread do so - but that those who have significant objections to the whole premise not haul on board in order to jeer with half-baked and simplistic ideas of what magic is. I especially hope that the constant mash-up of magic/religion/what-all be taken to another thread. Constantly trying to tease out someone's conflated thinking on these topics is both tiresome and time-consuming. I have engaged reams upon reams of text in dialog with one such poster who has recently started to post on this thread - yet to no effect. Not that anyone should 'believe' - but one would think that by this point there would be at least an understanding that the word 'religion' has many gradations of reference, as does 'magic'. Simplistic mash-ups, suffused with animus out of adolescent rebellion against 'religious' parents or a past personal choice that went bad, simply is not helpful to the discussion.

Thank you.