I recently watched a recording of the pillorying of a revisionist holocaust historian on the Phil Donahue Show. The show’s host started with a flawless argumentation, claiming that because of countless eyewitness reports and the fact that Spielberg’s then recently released Schindler’s List moved audiences to tears, any kind of holocaust denialism is misguided as the former proves that the holocaust is real. When I told this to my wife over dinner, she quipped that magic is real, too, given how many Harry Potter books were sold. Of course, the flaw in the reasoning here is that the holocaust was a singularly evil even in history, which also spawned its own kind of epistemology, so whatever argument you use to irrefutably demonstrate that the holocaust is real, such as fictional movies, cannot be used to demonstrate that any other concept is real. This has to be decided on a case-by-case basis.
As I thought some more about magic, I recalled a few women I met over the years, club whores, acquaintances, and work colleagues alike, who believed in magic. They believed so strongly in it that it was real to them, no matter how bizarre their beliefs were. (Of course, this has nothing to do with holocaust revisionism.) You could not reason with those women at all, as I quickly learned when I tried arguing with them about the bizarre bullshit explanations and rituals they clung onto.
It is quite staggering what some women believe in. I recall one who saw “omens” in everything. If you hung out in a park with her and she later on put her shoes back on, then the presence of a little stone in one of her shoes supposedly meant that something bad would happen to her, and if she cut or pricked herself because she was clumsy (and probably borderline retarded), it meant that someone she knows would get hurt or get sick.
Some other chick engaged in rituals in order to “manipulate the future”. This was the most bizarre crap I ever encountered. She was heavily influenced by a book called “The Secret”, the main message of which was that the universe exists to do your bidding and that you will get absolutely everything you want because you deserve it, or something along those lines. In order to get everything she wanted from the universe, she had built a little shrine and made some kind of sacrifices, some involving incenses, others flower petals. This woman was highly educated, had an MBA, and was in a leadership position. If you spoke to her, you would not have guessed any of it, though, because women need to get hired just because they are women. You can probably see that chicks who get one promotion after another and never really had to struggle get primed for believing in magic. After all, if nothing really makes sense to them in reality, why not take it all the way and make up your own explanation for anything else?
Laying tarot cards is probably almost harmless in comparison to the above, but it is probably not an activity a rational person would engage in. I noticed a strong correlation between women who enjoy tarot and those who obsess over their horoscope, but this should not be much of a surprise. Several women I know, and this includes my mother, believe that certain stones have magical powers. Probably one of her friends told my mother about it, which convinced her that there is something to it. Among others, she gave me a so-called tiger’s eye, and told me to frequently rub it. I think I was only eight or nine back then and could not believe what was going on. Someone in my family once gifted me a faux-academic book on stones and their alleged properties.
Belief in magic is the diametrical opposite of rationality. Interestingly, people who believe in magic seem quite immune to the latter. They rather build up truly fantastical ideas in their mind, and reinforce them by looking for “signs” that confirm them, while conveniently ignoring anything that would disconfirm their beliefs. This complete opposition to rational thinking should give anyone pause. After all, modern society was set up by our social engineers on the principle that men and women are equal, despite copious evidence to the contrary. Yet, if you cannot reason with someone as they are trapped in magical thinking, why do you engage them in a rational debate at all, and what can you realistically expect to get out of it?
I recall that I felt genuinely alienated by my mother when she, surely with well-meaning intentions, handed me a tiger’s eye as some kind of good-luck charm. It surely did not help improve the relationship I had with her. Similarly, girls I hung out with and shared their belief in magic with me did not do themselves any favor. I find it almost sad, and there is a tragic note to it too, as they wanted to open up and share part of their world with you, and then you take a look and realize that the girl you have been considering dating is a moron.
“The Secret” (book and film alike) was all the rage 10 or 15 yeays ago. I had women telling me about it with a glow in their eyes, too.
It should be noted, and this probsbly escapes many people, that with its emphasis on the individual and its exclusivity towards “the universe”, it is highly gnostic in nature,. The idea, that a illuminated minority through special, exclusive insights or knowledge could gain access to the powers of “the universe” and have them fulfill their desires, is part of the very definition of gnosticism. Of course those dedites will first be mostly material and ephemeral in nature, but quickly transition to the immaterial, eventually culminating in apotheosis.
In the end it all ends with magic, with the desire to instrumentalize the unseen forces of this world to fulfill ones own will. I.e. the core dictum of Alestair “666” Crowley’s cult of Thelema: “Do what thou wilt shall be all the law.”
Would most people step back in horror and refrain from this, if they realized its true essence?
Suspension of reality is a coping mechanism I guess. Reality can be harsh. I still refuse to be irrational. The official narrative of the holocaust is a good example of mass delusion. Backed up by scam artists and propagandists.
Tell these same people that 20 million Chinese died in the war and they won’t care. They’ve been told what to believe in. Were not supposed to care about all of the suffering from that war. Just the chosen. The holocaust is the new religion.
I worked with a female doctor that was heavily into astrology and witch craft. She taught her daughter to be tolerant of gays and PoC and preached about it on social media. One wintery night, she excitedly explained how she was going to use the snow on which happened to be occurring during a super moon to create some kind of concoction (moon water?). Maybe instead of modern medicine she should have just cast healing spells on people, seems hypocritical to rely on modern medicine. I’m pretty sure she ended up quadruple vaxxed pretty early on.
Speaking of the vaxx: I recently had to go see a GP, and in walks some NPC who was asking for his forth shot. The guy looked almost like a stereotype as he was fat, short, and had nondescript facial features. As I was waiting for the doctor to see me, I overhead a conversation about a thrombosis in a patient’s leg. They had a diversity hire at that doctor’s office and this dude just walked into the doctor’s private office, which was right next to the waiting area, leaving the door open. That is when I heard the doctor say, “We have confirmation for a thrombosis in this leg.” This reminded me of the cynical view that doctor’s have an interest in keeping people sick. Here, you have NPCs come in to get vaxxed, only to get follow-up treatment for blood clots later, if they are lucky.
I worked in a hospital for some time, and something freaky they started doing suddenly after the vaxx had been widely distributed was using the overhead system to announce emergency stoke occurrences. It was definitely something new, as before it was reserved solely for cardiac arrests, traumas, and security/safety emergencies. Also, don’t rule out that the cold virus in question can be responsible for clotting issues on its own without the help of the vaxx.
I’m embarrassed to say in my younger years I was briefly involved in a new age community. The women were mostly in their 30s to 40s, former party girls who weren’t happy with where they’d ended up in life, but their fading cuteness and the post 2008 economy made it hard for them to do much about that, so as GoodLookingAndSleazy pointed out, wooism made for a good coping mechanism.
There were also a few younger women who were there because they were socially awkward or had some other malady that made life success elude them. It wasn’t until much later I realised the leader of this community brought it into existence primarily to prey on the better looking ones in this group of women.
The cult leader using it to get pussy is VERY common. In fact, I would say it goes without exception.
@GoodLookingAndSleazy Definitely. Aleister Crowley invented it – or adapted it for the modern age, others grifters who were just smart enough to read between the lines saw what he was up to and copied.
@ Parker: Crowley reactivated and recontextualized ancient cults and their occult tancric practices of “sex magick”, as he would call it. Think of Kubricks “Eyes Wide Shut” and Polanskis “The Ninth Gate”, but just more intense. The idea, that a cult leader or the “high priests” of said cult also indulge in sexual amenities is as old as Indian or Babylonian ritualistic temple prostitution. Now, as satanic a character as Crowley, he certainly didn’t mind cashing in those perks.
With other notable “gurus” like Bhaghwan “Osho” or Maharishi Mahesh Yogi from the TM-movement the situation is not that ritualistic actually. Bhaghwan espoused the liberating powers of sexuality, an idea he had actually borrowed from syphillitic Friedrich Nietzsche and the bulk of his followers was just too hypnotized or too uneducated (or maybe even just too stupid) to not notice that.
The sexual activities of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi were on a purely private level, as he tried to keep them shielded away from his followers and the public, to whom he presented himself as the asexual, pure “giggling guru”. He had several known mistresses, fucked Mia Farrow in his ashram, and he even tried to get his hands on the girlfriend of one of the Beatles when they travelled to Rishikesh to him. This apparently lead to the breakup between the Beatles and MMY, and the song “Sexie Sadie” supposedly is about this disillusionment and breakup.
Just a few days ago, at a social meeting, I caught up with a girl I had not seen for some time. She is in her mid-20s, kinda slutty, she has a bachelors degree and is working through a masters. She always struck me as smart, was known for good grades, and her field of work is related to technology.
During the meeting, a rather conservative, level headed colleague of mine mentioned going for a routine medical test and having a (female) doctor telling him that his chakras were almost certainly misaligned. He told the story in order to poke fun at the situation, but this girl jumped into the conversation, not only revealing herself to be a big believer in these unseen energies, but on top of that she wanted to recommend an expert in “invocation of angels” or something like that (she used a made-up word in spanish I cannot quite figure out how to translate). I rolled my eyes in disbelief
I hit “post” too soon….
I mean to add that, to be fair, a lot of men fall prey to magic beliefs too, like praying or making small offerings to “popular” saints (non-church saints but rather mythical people or entities). Those interested may google “Gauchito Gil”, “San La Muerte”, or “Difunta Correa”, these are popular with the rural working classes in the northern parts of my country.
One of my employees is a big believer in ghosts and supernatural beings existing in the rural contryside, and on occasion he has been known to go to a sort of witch doctor in order to have him “fix” some difficult problems in his life.