Do you believe in supernatural magic?

cloudyday2 · Mar 7, 2020

HTacianas said:
I avoid using the term supernatural. If something exists it is natural.

But no, I don't believe in magic or spells or anything of the sort.

Do you believe in demons? Some of the early Christian beliefs on witchcraft imagined that sorcerers were requesting the services of demons to carry out their wishes.

charsan · Mar 7, 2020

cloudyday2 said:
What is that? I read them, but it was a long time ago.

Here are some links:

The Deep Magic

The Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time

Hope this is okay

SkyWriting · Mar 7, 2020

MehGuy said:
Although reminds me of this TV show I watched a while ago apparently based on a true story. This house was haunted and no one wanted to buy it.. until this one godless atheist women did. She laughed at the idea of ghosts. Then one night she was sitting in her bathtub talking to some woman on a corded phone mocking the idea of the place being "haunted" when suddenly some supernatural force pushed the phone into the bathtub and she was electrocuted to death. Lol.

No one has ever died from the low line voltage of corded phones.
When the phone rings, the voltage rises to 90V ac. But generally
it's at 48 volts or 9 DC volts when answered. And the tiny wires don't
carry the amperage needed to cause death.

HTacianas · Mar 7, 2020

cloudyday2 said:
Do you believe in demons? Some of the early Christian beliefs on witchcraft imagined that sorcerers were requesting the services of demons to carry out their wishes.

I have no opinion on demons. I prefer the idea of "logismoi", which is an invasive thought. It may be demonic or human in origin. The only thing a demon can do to a person is give them evil thoughts. But anyone can have an evil thought on their own. Acting on an evil thought is usually the cause of an evil act. It's evil acts we should concern ourselves with regardless of what causes the thought.

cloudyday2 · Mar 7, 2020

HTacianas said:
I have no opinion on demons. I prefer the idea of "logismoi", which is an invasive thought. It may be demonic or human in origin. The only thing a demon can do to a person is give them evil thoughts. But anyone can have an evil thought on their own. Acting on an evil thought is usually the cause of an evil act. It's evil acts we should concern ourselves with regardless of what causes the thought.

What do you make of the gospel stories where Jesus exorcises demons? Was Jesus exorcising the evil thoughts rather than the demons?

cloudyday2 · Mar 7, 2020

charsan said:
Here are some links:

The Deep Magic

The Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time

Hope this is okay

o.k., so basically you were saying you believe in God's plan for salvation of humanity that culminated in Jesus?

charsan · Mar 7, 2020

cloudyday2 said:
o.k., so basically you were saying you believe in God's plan for salvation of humanity that culminated in Jesus?

Yes, just a round about way. Though I do believe that magic and all that exist it id just modern man in first world countries are too skeptical and rational, so much so that miracles are very sparse and so is faith

awitch · Mar 7, 2020

I am a Witch, and no, we do not have supernatural powers. We're regular humans like everyone else. We cannot predict the future (because it is unwritten). Curses aren't real (they're a mind game). We don't summon demons (because they aren't real), and we can't shoot lightning, make people fall in love, turn into animals or fly (because that's Hollywood and fairy tales). We don't sacrifice people or animals (because that's obviously morally wrong).

At the absolute best, I'm willing to believe that the gods may bend the odds slightly in our favor if they see a good reason.

Jok · Mar 7, 2020

I’m afraid to answer. I just got yelled at in another forum for poking fun at a telekinesis argument lol

Jane_the_Bane · Mar 8, 2020

Supernatural? No.
That's silly superstition (like "answered prayers"/miracles).
I do, however, believe that our psyche is far more powerful than we give it credit for, exerting an influence upon our individual or even our shared reality that most people don't acknowledge or even realize. Nothing supernatural about it.
More along the lines of: if you believe yourself to be sick, you will experience real symptoms.

JackRT · Mar 8, 2020

cloudyday2 said:
What do you make of the gospel stories where Jesus exorcises demons? Was Jesus exorcising the evil thoughts rather than the demons?

The Jews of the first century regarded virtually all illness as demonic in nature. When Jesus drove seven demons from Mary the Magdalene scripture saying that she had been extremely ill.

SkyWriting · Mar 8, 2020

cloudyday2 said:
Do you believe in supernatural magic?

cloudyday2 · Mar 8, 2020

awitch said:
I am a Witch, and no, we do not have supernatural powers. We're regular humans like everyone else. We cannot predict the future (because it is unwritten). Curses aren't real (they're a mind game). We don't summon demons (because they aren't real), and we can't shoot lightning, make people fall in love, turn into animals or fly (because that's Hollywood and fairy tales). We don't sacrifice people or animals (because that's obviously morally wrong).

At the absolute best, I'm willing to believe that the gods may bend the odds slightly in our favor if they see a good reason.

I have sometimes thought about joining a witchcraft forum or subreddit in hopes of getting the opinions of a variety of witches on my odd experiences. Actually I tried this several years ago, but when I mentioned psychosis their knee-jerk response was to tell me to go to a psychiatrist and go away. Probably I should have pretended to be curious about becoming a witch for a few months so they could see that I was a normal person before mentioning psychosis.

The other issue with this approach is my tendency to "connect the dots" where no true connection exists. If members in a witchcraft forum began joking about casting spells to show me how they work (for example) then a portion of me would be thinking "maybe somebody really did that. maybe that dime laying on the sidewalk is part of a spell. maybe this crossword puzzle is speaking to me..." I have that tendency, and I suppose that is why I became psychotic briefly 10 years ago in response to odd happenings. The eagerness to see patterns that don't exist creates more evidence that something is happening that in turn creates more eagerness to see more patterns.

Unfortunately I am left with unexplained memories. In some ways the lack of curiosity and open-mindedness and the willingness to shrug one's shoulders with a giggle and ignore the data point that doesn't fit the predictions - that might be a healthy psychological trait. Everything needs to be balanced in a person of course, and a personality that is well-adapted to one circumstance might not be well-adapted to another circumstance.

summerville · Mar 8, 2020

cloudyday2 said:
Do you believe in supernatural magic? The key distinction between magic and miracles would be that a human controls magic whereas a god controls miracles. There is also a middle-ground where both a human and a god must agree. Some understandings of Christian prayer would be in that middle-ground, and some versions of witchcraft would also be in that middle-ground. ... Hmmmm, so I suppose it is difficult to define what I am asking.

To put it another way, do you believe a witch doctor (for example) could cast a spell to harm or help a person? Have you ever seen this type of thing or do you know somebody you trust who has seen this?

For a while I wondered if something like that had happened to me in the past, and it bothers me to have all these odd memories unexplained.

NO to all.

cloudyday2 · Mar 8, 2020

@SkyWriting , the book you posted ("Magician or God") doesn't answer the question in the OP. The author of that book is a stage magician challenged to investigate the miracles of Jesus for indications that he was also a stage magician. What do you think about the possibility of "real" supernatural magic? Have you ever experienced it or do you know somebody who did?

Carl Emerson · Mar 8, 2020

cloudyday2 said:
What do you make of the gospel stories where Jesus exorcises demons? Was Jesus exorcising the evil thoughts rather than the demons?

Jesus said He was dealing with demons not thoughts.

cloudyday2 · Mar 8, 2020

Carl Emerson said:
Jesus said He was dealing with demons not thoughts.

Here is a link I found that supports the likelihood that Jesus understood demons to be evil spiritual beings. To be fair to @HTacianas , he did not claim demons do not exist but merely that demonic activity is limited to inspiring evil thoughts (if I understood him correctly).

The idea that a divine assembly surrounds God did not disappear with the development of Jewish monotheism. On the contrary, the debate on the multiple dimensions within the Godhead gained new vigor during the Second Temple period, and in fact continues through the polemics of Kabbalah and Jewish magic until this very day.

Are There Gods, Angels, and Demons in Deuteronomy? - TheTorah.com

Jane_the_Bane · Mar 9, 2020

All "real" magic is performative, and all pre-modern healers (shamans, wise women, priests etc) employed ritual and theatralics to elicit a psychological response in their patients.
Heck, even modern physicians still do that.

That said, if you start to see parterns, messages and conspiracies where none exist, chances are that you are in the early stages of psychosis, and potentially suffer from schizophrenia.

Jonathan Walkerin · Mar 9, 2020

MehGuy said:
Although reminds me of this TV show I watched a while ago apparently based on a true story. This house was haunted and no one wanted to buy it.. until this one godless atheist women did. She laughed at the idea of ghosts. Then one night she was sitting in her bathtub talking to some woman on a corded phone mocking the idea of the place being "haunted" when suddenly some supernatural force pushed the phone into the bathtub and she was electrocuted to death. Lol.

So how would they know it was "sudden supernatural force" that electrocuted her. ?

She had time to say "[bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] supernatural forced is pushing the phone in to the water and I will get electrocuted argh" but did not choose to grab the phone or jump out of the bath ?

Of course if you believe these ghost stories in first place I guess logic is not your strong suit in first place. Rubbish.

cloudyday2 · Mar 9, 2020

Jane_the_Bane said:
All "real" magic is performative, and all pre-modern healers (shamans, wise women, priests etc) employed ritual and theatralics to elicit a psychological response in their patients.
Heck, even modern physicians still do that.

That said, if you start to see parterns, messages and conspiracies where none exist, chances are that you are in the early stages of psychosis, and potentially suffer from schizophrenia.

The key phrase is "where none exist". The person seeing patterns, messages and conspiracies thinks they might exist. Sometimes they do exist. Noticing patterns is fundamental to science. That is how humans develop the hypotheses that they wish to test experimentally. (And of course the data used to develop the hypotheses cannot be the same data that is used to test the hypotheses.)

In the Soviet Union if you questioned the virtues of communism then obviously you had "sluggish schizophrenia" and needed medication

EDIT: Something I noticed in my experience of psychosis it that "might" disappeared from my ideas. Instead of "this crossword puzzle might have a message" it became "this crossword puzzle has a message". Looking back it was strange how my ideas kept changing and evolving, but this never caused me to doubt my latest idea. To keep the uncertainty of "might" in your ideas is a sign of sanity, and this MIGHT suggest that the rock-solid faith of some Christians is somewhat insane LOL. On the other hand, many of them have strong faith due to personal experiences, and that is very sane IMO.

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