How often do you attempt to use preternatural abilities on the world around you?
I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.
I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.
If Iām in a mirthful mood, sometimes I will wave my hands in a magical gesture, causing the door to open before me, as I enter the grocery store.
All the time. I know it's not real, but it's fun to try to predict when exactly the bus is gonna come. It's right after this blue car! ... well, okay, maybe it's right after this white car! oh...
There's my people! Forget these party poopers. How do you know you can't spark fire from your fingertips, or make an icicle fall just by concentrating on it if you never try?
True --- you can't prove the thing that already happened had nothing to do with me thinking real hard about it!
I occasionally feel the need to crush some heads.
Taking a cat bowl full of water back to its spot on the floor. I remember I am the water, and it gets delivered without spilling.
Myself never, but there probably ... millions? tens of millions? of tiktok brained Americans that believe in 'manifesting', so being irrationally delusional is pretty trendy right now I guess.
Manifesting is a thing, though. It's not magic, but it is a way to trigger the placebo effect which is an observed phenomenon.
I can't manifest a jet, but I can manifest a new car. Just by believing I'm going to get one somehow, my brain is going to start doing a lot of subconscious things that are going to add up to getting one. You can manifest a promotion and you will start to work a little harder or more efficiently, maybe add new skills.
Why not just -do- these things? If you can, great! But if not, your subconscious is capable of things your conscious may not be... You could be in a cycle of self sabotage that manifestation can sidestep, for instance.
It's an incredibly powerful tool that people disregard as woowoo because even the people selling it don't know how it works.
Yes. Its all over Insta as well, though far more common on TikTok.
Its astonishingly popular, and just barely altered, but promoted via extremely effective and enthusiastic social media influencers.
That's kind of my whole point. You managed to understand and still be an ass about it. But throw stones if the world is too complex to understand from another point of view, I guess.
my brain is going to start doing a lot of subconscious things that are going to add up to getting one
Can hotwiring be subconscious tho?
Yep, no hoodoo involved. You can brainwash yourself, make things happen. One time dad lost a shitload of weight after I hadn't seen him for a long time. "I brainwashed myself into believing that being hungry was a good feeling."
I think you're the only person I've seen in forum posts that actually gets it.
Wait wait.
Its... an incredibly powerful tool, but people don't know how it works.
But also it works by triggering the placebo effect.
Ok so can you show me maybe something like a scientific study that shows that manifesting practitioners have a 'powerful', measurable, meaningfully different ... any kind of outcome whatsoever, compared to non manifesters?
Is there evidence that manifesting actually triggers the placebo effect, as you claim it does?
You dont manifest a new car. You either make a plan to figure out how to acquire one, and it either works or it doesnt, or maybe you get lucky and you get gifted one by a friend, or you randomly encounter a scenario where you stumble across a great deal.
Compare the number of people who are manifesting that they want a car and end up with a car and the number of people who are manifesting a car and do not end up with a car vs non manifesters who do and do not end up with a car, in a given timeframe.
Im not aware of any studies on something like this because the notion is dubious on its face, not even having a proposed causal mechanism as you say.
But I would be very strongly inclined to believe that if a such a study were done, what you'd end up with is that manifesting has no statistically significant relationship to acquiring a car, and probably something like overall income or wealth and maybe number of fairly wealthy friends/family do actually have observable effects.
Look I totally am for a reasonable amount of positive self affirmation and self confidence.
But manifesting takes it to literally absurd lengths.
Its... an incredibly powerful tool, but people don't know how it works.
But also it works by triggering the placebo effect.
The people "selling it" don't know. Or at least likely don't know. It's trendy right now, definitely.
After that, though, you're asking for studies that are virtually impossible to conduct as your bar for proof, reinforced your bias, drew your own conclusion, and dismissed my position as extreme.
I can't provide black and white data for you, with the exception of maybe placebo effect studies. But what I can provide for you is experience and understanding of how our brains work. And you can take it with a grain of salt, as I'm not classically educated, but it really is just breaking down common observable behaviors.
I'm not a "Manifester," but I've used the basic methodology to see change in my own life with things I've struggled with for years. You can call it manifesting, positive thinking, discipline, whatever. It just takes convincing yourself of something. This greatly increases the odds of that outcome by putting your subconscious to work on achieving it.
I can do it, you can do it, anyone can do it. And it. Kicks. Ass.
Look I totally am for a reasonable amount of positive self affirmation and self confidence.
But manifesting takes it to literally absurd lengths.
People. People take manifesting to absurd lengths. Also, you guys seem to be seeing this on TikTok? The app is designed to show you extreme positions that keep you engaged... You're gonna see the weirdos.
I don't have resources either, but I'd like to add that I studied biology and was taught about the mechanism of this at university during some classes. It's a proven thing.
Pulling my dad's finger always made him fart. Definitely not normal to have your finger connected to a pressure relief valve in your ass.
I often try to pull things toward me or send out damaging rays but it has literally never worked
Weekly. If there's ever a time for magical thinking, its during TTRPG sessions. Those funny math rocks will obey me one of these days, then its gonna be nothing but nat 20s until the end of time.
Every time I try, I swear I only rolls 1s. In a sense, that's a pretty special ability too. š¤Ŗ
I practice Chaos Magick. Since beginning my practice, I've noticed that things usually go my way. Not always, but I get what I want so often- and in such unlikely circumstances- that it's hard for me to just call it random chance.
The thing about it, though, is that there is no empirical evidence for it. Some people, like myself, have no problem accepting that we can't explain everything with science and data and math. Other people like to call themselves superior because they only believe what they can see for themselves.
It's arrogant to the point of hubris to think there's nothing beyond our physical reality. And, frankly, when all reality really is is a bunch of randomly vibrating particles, I don't think that inducing a change in conformity with one's will is that far fetched.
Just because a change can be made to your worldview, that doesn't mean that it should be.
That is a very deep statement. I partly agree. And it greatly depends on the individual and many other factors we humans mostly don't have the capability to understand or conceive of.
Scientists:
Other people like to call themselves superior because they only believe what they can see for themselves.
Scientific method: They implied that science has rejected mystical phenomena altogether (and due to arrogance no less!) when in reality they're tested fairly often. Experiments DON'T assert that "thereās nothing beyond our physical reality"; that's a misunderstanding of what an experiment does. Experiments only confirm that if there is something beyond our physical reality, it has no statistically significant measurable effect on that physical reality, for whatever combination of mystical effect and physical effect were being tested.
They only say "other people". They never said "scientists", that's your own extrapolation.
Can you not extrapolate from what's been explicitly typed? It's a pretty common skill
I certainly can, that doesn't make the extrapolation correct. It's particularly ironic that you've chosen to infer these conclusions in a conversation about the rigor of empirical study.
At no point did they characterize either science or scientists, the latter they never even mention. Their only mention of science is:
Some people, like myself, have no problem accepting that we can't explain everything with science and data and math.
Which not a characterization of the scientific method. The characterization is a non-empirical, unscientific inference based on your own assumptions.
Do you know about confirmation bias? That our brain is looking for positive example for something, and actively ignores the negative examples or gives them less weight?
What would interest me is, if there theoretically was absolute proof that there is no such thing as Chaos Magick, would you stop doing it? Or would you dismiss such proof?
I do know about confirmation bias. Maybe that's what is going on, but from my own perspective I don't think so. Course if it was I guess I'd still feel that way š¤
If there was absolute proof that it was a waste of time I'd probably keep my decor because it's all black pentagrams and shit and it's metal as fuck, but Bizzle don't dismiss evidence just because it disagrees with my worldview. I'm a weirdo, not a conservative š Fortunately for my practice it's pretty hard to prove that something doesn't exist.
As a counterpoint, if there was absolute proof of things beyond our physical reality- whether it's Chaos Magick or the Universal Consciousness/God or even something as mundane as higher spacial dimensions, would you accept it? Or would you keep your eyes closed to the truth? Honestly the more we find out about the fundamental nature of reality the more convinced I am of the supernatural.
Just regarding your use of the word "counterpoint", I mean if your (or anyone's) beliefs/actions have basis in your own conclusions, be it whatever they may, instead of just blindly following what other people said, I'm not about to try to change anyone really :) I was just inquiring about your state of mind really :D
If any kind of evidence is presented, I would consider it in my reasoning/belief process. I used "absolute proof" a bit tongue in cheek because there's no such thing, but there's nothing I believe that couldn't be changed by enough evidence. The base laws of logic/reasoning/math would be hardest, but even those might be possible to change :) which would then trigger a fun cascade of further changes, lol
Your senses take in more data that you could possibly consciously process. There is an unconscious portion of the mind that does a first pass on the raw data (excitations of the rods and cones in your eyes, of your eardrums, chemical receptors in your nose, etc), and processes it into concepts that your conscious mind can process (images, sounds, smells, etc), and that you personally find significance in (your friend's face, your favorite song, your partner's perfume).
Confirmation bias isn't proof against Chaos Magick, it's precisely the mechanism that makes it work. The raw data is the chaos, training your subconscious to attach value to particular concepts is the magick. It's nothing more than repeatedly assigning value to something in a ritualistic way, to train the raw-data-processing part of your mind to trigger the conscious part when the object of value is present in a large batch of data.
It's like recognizing your friend's face in a crowd out of the corner of your eye, or when you notice every car on the road that's the same make and model as your own. Chaos Magick isn't about creating something from nothing, it's about training your subconscious to recognize and alert you to what's already there, hidden in the chaos.
When I was a teen I was pretty much like Silent Bob in Mallrats but now my spirit is broken.
A bit of silliness makes the world a much better place. Have fun and don't take yourself too seriously
No, when people are praying to rocks instead of getting cancer treatment for their small helpless children the world is not being made a better place and you're a terrible person for thinking otherwise.