An interesting post on Brainsturbator, on US Military Psi research and brain change.
The year I was born, in 1981, the US Government decided magick was real. Well, the “US Government” is of course an abstraction—specifically, Congressional Research Service was commissioned to do a report on psychic phenomena and offered the following conclusion:
“Recent experiments in remote viewing and other studies in parapsychology suggest that there exists an ‘interconnectiveness’ of the human mind with other minds and with matter. This interconnectiveness would appear to be functional in nature and amplified by intent and emotion.”
That sounds like a pretty accurate description of magick to me. Score one for the weirdos, right?
Of course, I don’t expect you to believe that. Ignore any claims that wouldn’t get made outside a college-level physics textbook. There is no need to believe in non-human or “extra-dimensional” intelligence, no need to believe in telekinesis, no need to believe in any of the claims made by the magick community. They are merely designing rituals to alter their perception and experiencing self-generated hallucinations.
The illusion of moving images is a puzzle that humans have cracked to great success, and by flashing sequential photographs at 24 frames per second or more, we get to watch movies—windows back in time. Humans have even learned to “fake” three-dimensional objects with holographic technology.
If it can be engineered, it can be reverse engineered. If these people are “merely” altering their own consciousness and then taking their own imagination at face value, these rituals can be modeled, measured and ultimately replicated. It is obvious, both to skeptics and to practicing magicians, that most of the words, props and staging involved with ritual is a matter of personal preference and probably not integral to the actual effects.
Remnd me to lend you “The Men Who Stare at Goats” on this very topic.