Which Paradigm Do You Follow?
Are mystery curses and charms caused by the "energies" flowing through the universe, a simple case of mind over matter, or perhaps the actions of ghosts, ghouls, and things that go bump in the night?
I recall reading a copy of PostModern Magick a few years ago and coming across the author's explanation of the supernatural. Well to be honest the authors four separate paradigms concerning such things.
There was the Spirit Paradigm, evoking or invoking spirits, daemons, and other such entities to perform actions for the person in particular. Prayer would be a nice modern example of this.
The Energy Paradigm on the other hand dealt with positive, negative, and other energy being directed in order to have an effect upon the world similar to Reiki or Franz Mesmer's theory of Animal Magnetism.
A more logical or modern approach, depending on who one would ask would be to view such actions as psycho drama used to affect not the outside world of the practitioner but rather the depths of their subconscious. The infamous love spell for example would not in this case make someone fall desperately in love with them but rather afford them the self confidence and courage to ask someone out and get a date.
The final viewpoint mentioned was that of the Information Paradigm which dealt more so with memes, the concepts related to a word, chaos theory, and quantum physics. It was a bit of a mixture of some of the others I suppose but this line of reasoning attempted to mix science with magick similar with the views of Chaos Magick.
Either way what I am getting at, aside from attempting to pump some activity into SotD, is which of these if paradigms do you follow? Perhaps enlighten us concerning one's use of a mixture of them or none at all?
I recall reading a copy of PostModern Magick a few years ago and coming across the author's explanation of the supernatural. Well to be honest the authors four separate paradigms concerning such things.
There was the Spirit Paradigm, evoking or invoking spirits, daemons, and other such entities to perform actions for the person in particular. Prayer would be a nice modern example of this.
The Energy Paradigm on the other hand dealt with positive, negative, and other energy being directed in order to have an effect upon the world similar to Reiki or Franz Mesmer's theory of Animal Magnetism.
A more logical or modern approach, depending on who one would ask would be to view such actions as psycho drama used to affect not the outside world of the practitioner but rather the depths of their subconscious. The infamous love spell for example would not in this case make someone fall desperately in love with them but rather afford them the self confidence and courage to ask someone out and get a date.
The final viewpoint mentioned was that of the Information Paradigm which dealt more so with memes, the concepts related to a word, chaos theory, and quantum physics. It was a bit of a mixture of some of the others I suppose but this line of reasoning attempted to mix science with magick similar with the views of Chaos Magick.
Either way what I am getting at, aside from attempting to pump some activity into SotD, is which of these if paradigms do you follow? Perhaps enlighten us concerning one's use of a mixture of them or none at all?
Comments
If the results of whatever someone's trying to achieve1 show no statistically siginificant difference from a control, then they have, in all likelyhood, done nothing unusual. The scientific method can easily be applied to 'paranormal' abilities and they have so far been shown to be none-existent in terms of producing significant results. A mechanical explanation for how paranormal ability works is not required to demonstrate that it doesn't produce meaningful results.
1) ESP, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, etc...
IMO I think it has to do with your mindset, like how much you take into these things, how much you're receptive. So, for one one person it might be some supernatural being controlling things and for another it might be some different force working. For me it's none.
It's all in my head and it's the way my brain intercepts things. My brain is receptive and what it can't understand it tries to name it. There are certain things that science can't work out but it's only because we as humans aren't looking at the complete picture.
What I am trying to say. Demons, ghosts are nothing and everything. Our brains are just trolling us.
I could be wrong and I may be wrong but at least it removes the scare factor and gives your another angle to look at things.