Why is there no satisfactory answer forthcoming about Bohemian Grove??

Science can't explain everything. Surely not. There are so many questions science cannot come close to explaining.

In fact, I bet you didn't even realize, OnceReturned, that most of science is deeply rooted in occultism. Much of chemistry to alchemy, astro-physics and astronomy to astrology, math to numerology...
there is so much going on nowadays with symbolism and the sciences, which you seem to regard as something very real, yet, science hasn't proved ANYTHING. Anything. No, it hasn't proved a single damned thing. Everything you THINK you know is just that. You THINK you know it and really, not much else.

You cannot at ALL 'accurately' predict the outcome of certain events. You can say, "I predict that when I let go of this brick, it will fall to the ground." but you cannot say "When I let go of this brick, it will inevitably fall to the ground."
You might think you can, but, what happens when you let go of the brick and, say, by some freak accident an eagle flew right under the brick and carried it up to a tree. Or, say you let go of it and it just flew upwards into space.

Science has become such a metaphysical subject nowadays that it may as well be a religion.
Black Holes cannot be observed yet they are most definitely scientifically accepted, due to... 'theoretical evidence'... please. This is so lame.
God and some Magic may not be necessarily observed, yet, they are almost always rejected... for no reason other than 'well science like science man explains everything man in the world man you know man science man."


No! I won't stand for this non-sense anymore from you science-lunatics. AND this is coming from a Science major! You have to realize that science doesn't even ATTEMPT to explain the real world. That's not the point of science and if you think it is, you have stepped into a cage and closed it on yourself.
Science is about questions. For every question you answer in science, there will be three more that pop up. Answer those questions yet more questions will come. Answer yet more, and you will soon go insane - if you're looking for answers.

But I'm NOT looking for answers. I'm looking for discoveries, for questions, for my own curiosity, not because I want the world explained away.

Originally posted by SpectreDC
People who have an almost irrational devotion to science are nearly as bad as people who have an almost irrational devotion to well...anything actually.

What, exactly, is irrational about it? I'm devoted to the method, which is very clearly the best method for understanding the world that human beings have. You can't possibly deny the successes of the scientific worldview, yet you will have an impossible time trying to demonstrate the success of any mystical/magical worldview. Is it irrational to accept what works and reject what doesn't?

Science is just a way of figuring things out. We form rational beliefs by constructing logical arguments based on premises. Generally the premises are observations/evidence. We publish our theories and experimental results so that they can be confirmed by other scientists. We do experiments and try to control the variables so we can be sure of what we are measuring and so that we can connect cause to effect most directly. None of this is bad or irrational. We make observations and try to explain them, and then test our explanations. Isn't this the right way to go about it?

It's all well and good to resent the superiority complex that the scientific worldview seems to instill in its believers, but are you going to try to tell me that there is anything better? Anything which makes more sense? Anything which has been nearly so successful? Science is the most rational explanatory method. Devotion to it is not irrational. I care about whether or not my beliefs correspond to reality. Doesn't that provide me with a rational basis for my devotion to science and my rejection of mysticism?

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


William Domhoff wrote about the Bohemian Grove decades before Alex Jones came around. Domhoff talked about the Cremation of Care; it was not set up for Jones to find.

sociology.ucsc.edu...

Originally posted by TheNewAeon2012
reply to post by OnceReturned

 

The post underneath yours answered it better than i ever could have.

See above.

But, anyway, the point is that it's not possible to "prove" something on a forum, whether science, magick, whatever. We'd need to be face to face. And when I say magic do not not confuse it with mysticism. I mean Magick! It is the highest science of them all, which is why the Illuminati will never tell us anything about it...

You're right, its not possible for you personally to transmit the evidence for magic over this forum. But, why don't you tell me about what you would do at least, and I'll try to figure out how I would explain it. One of my problems is that psychics and magicians who claim to do magic always end up having some trick. The field is seriously tainted with hoaxers and pseudoscience. If it's real, why don't people do real magic instead of tricks? If you can prove it to someone face to face, take this test and get a million dollars, and settle the debate once and for all:

The Foundation is committed to providing reliable information about paranormal claims. It both supports and conducts original research into such claims.

At JREF, we offer a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event. The JREF does not involve itself in the testing procedure, other than helping to design the protocol and approving the conditions under which a test will take place. All tests are designed with the participation and approval of the applicant. In most cases, the applicant will be asked to perform a relatively simple preliminary test of the claim, which if successful, will be followed by the formal test. Preliminary tests are usually conducted by associates of the JREF at the site where the applicant lives. Upon success in the preliminary testing process, the "applicant" becomes a "claimant."

To date, no one has passed the preliminary tests.

Source and link to challenge

Now, for some reason I think you won't do it. Why wouldn't you though? If it's real you can prove it once and for all and make a million dollars while you're at it! If people could do magic, wouldn't someone just prove it?

I use "mysticism" to describe any beliefs which are based on a non-materialist, non-physicalist worldview. This include magic and religious beliefs.

If magic worked, why hasn't anyone ever been able to do anything that cannot be explained scientifically? If you think they have done these things, why can't they do them under experimental conditions? Why is shamanic healing so ineffective compared to modern medicine? Why do cultures which embrace mysticism and magic and reject the scientific worldview still live in mud huts and herd goats? Why don't they fly around and do magic? Every mystical society is completely powerless compared to every rational society by virtually every measure, look at tribal cultures versus developed ones. Why don't the starving tribesmen with AIDS in africa just use magic to make things work out for them?

How do you explain what happened to the world when Copernicus adopted a scientific worldview of astronomy, and Newton of physics? You do see that something happened. Why didn't mysticism develop or progress at all for the hundred thousand years preceeding science?

My main problem with magic/mysticism is that there is no room for it in the scientific worldview. It's got to be one or the other. Either reality is purely material, physical, reducible to its underlying physical constituents, or it's not. Magic and mysticism is based on the belief that there are non-physical, non-material forces at work, and science rejects this claim. But, look at all of the science that has been done. Energy is always conserved, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, objects are made of molecules and atoms which are made of subatomic particles. These ideas have never been found to be false in any of the countless number of scientific experiments which have been done over hundreds of years. Don't you think that if magic/mysticism was actually effecting anything that it would turn up in experiments? When they make ipods they don't have to take into account the magical forces at work, only the physical ones. We only have anecdotal accounts and poorly controlled experiments as our evidence for magic. I think that evidence is weaker than the evidence which tells me that physics is right, and since physics is incompatable with magic, I think magic doesn't exist.

If it were real, why doesn't someone just walk into the physics department at Harvard and start doing real magic? This would settle the debate and change the world.

I know that we don't agree, but you must at least see where I am coming from, right? The case against magic seems pretty strong to me. I know you're not convinced, but can you at least see how I am convinced? I know there is no substitute for personal experience, and if you've had experiences which you accept as magical/mystical then there is likely no way for me to change your mind. But, I haven't had any of those experiences, and you telling me about yours just isn't enough for me to reject the science which I am so confident in.

Surely this makes sense, right?

I'd like to hear what personal experiences have convinced you. But, yes, it makes sense. I understand what you're saying. It's just that I disagree. I think my position makes more sense, and whether or not you agree, if you read what I wrote above you'll understand why I believe what I do about magic.

Originally posted by LususNaturae
Science can't explain everything. Surely not. There are so many questions science cannot come close to explaining.

Well, this isn't really a testable claim either way. However, science seems to be moving along at a pretty good clip. With the exception of the hard problem of consciousness science has had successes in all of its endeavours. No, not every question can be answered by a scientific theory right now. But, it really seems like every question that can be answered by humans will be able to be answered scientifically. I'm not interested in the questions that cannot be answered by humans. Science is just the rational way of figuring things out. Make observations, propose an explanation, test the explanation. If that method doesn't work, then what possibly could? Guessing about untestable paranormal explanations isn't explaining anything at all, it's just making up an explanation and choosing the accept it because it satisfies your curiousity. This is what the ancients did. It's not very useful and can't be justified rationally.

In fact, I bet you didn't even realize, OnceReturned, that most of science is deeply rooted in occultism. Much of chemistry to alchemy, astro-physics and astronomy to astrology, math to numerology...

This claim is quite a stretch. The only thing that science and mysticism have in common is that they provide explanations for observations. Chemists and alchemists both try to understand chemicals and chemical processes, but their methods are completely different. There are mystical explanations for the weather, and there are scientific explanations for the weather. This doesn't mean that meteorology is rooted in the native american rain dance. These occult/mystical disciplines you have described seek to explain many of the same things as science, but that's where the similarities stop. Science is a method which is distinctly different from mysticism.

there is so much going on nowadays with symbolism and the sciences, which you seem to regard as something very real, yet, science hasn't proved ANYTHING. Anything. No, it hasn't proved a single damned thing. Everything you THINK you know is just that. You THINK you know it and really, not much else.

Every scientist knows this. It is trivial to point out that we have no way of being sure of anything; we could be dreaming, we could be in the matrix, whatever else. We get it. But since we have to live our lives we might as well come up with the best explanations that we can. That's what science provides: the best possible interpretaion of the evidence. We know that we could wake up any minute and everything we though we knew could be wrong, but since there is absolutely nothing we can do about this fact we proceed by trying to explain things in the best way we can. We know that we have nothing but beliefs, and that no one has access to "absolute" truths. Given that, it's working out pretty well for us to try to understand things as well as we can. Just because we can't be sure of anything doesn't mean that every belief is equal. Science provides a rationally justifiable interpretation of the verifiable observations, this is better than making up mystical expanations. We can and have proven that all belief systems are not equal just because they all have some inherent uncertainty: look at what happened when humanity embraced science.

You cannot at ALL 'accurately' predict the outcome of certain events. You can say, "I predict that when I let go of this brick, it will fall to the ground." but you cannot say "When I let go of this brick, it will inevitably fall to the ground."
You might think you can, but, what happens when you let go of the brick and, say, by some freak accident an eagle flew right under the brick and carried it up to a tree. Or, say you let go of it and it just flew upwards into space.

Of course I can make accurate predictions. This is a silly argument. I can predict that the brick will fall and then we can test it and I will be proven correct. That means I made an accurate prediction. Just because you can image hypothetical situations in which the brick doesn't fall, that doesn't mean the prediction can't be right. It's testable. You can talk about what "might" happen all you want. We can do the tests though, and one of us will be right.

Science has become such a metaphysical subject nowadays that it may as well be a religion.

No it hasn't. The public, mainsteam media conversation has become focused on the cutting edge issues in theoretical physics, like strange aspects of quantum mechanics and cosmology. This is not indicative of what science has become, it's just that the metaphysical issues are what people who aren't experts want to talk about because the real science doesn't make for very good entertainment. I assure you, the scientists out there in lab coats aren't doing metaphysics, they're doing real experiments and hard science.

Black Holes cannot be observed yet they are most definitely scientifically accepted, due to... 'theoretical evidence'... please. This is so lame.
God and some Magic may not be necessarily observed, yet, they are almost always rejected... for no reason other than 'well science like science man explains everything man in the world man you know man science man."

We can observe black holes indirectly. We can describe our very real observations of gravity at work mathematically in a very accurate way. If we apply these same mathematical ideas - which we can verify experimentally - to certain situations, they predict that black holes will form. The case for black holes is strong. I don't know who you're quoting there at the end of that paragraph, but as with any topic of discussion, idiots have little to contribute. If you want to debate science do it with smart people, and not people who talk like that.

No! I won't stand for this non-sense anymore from you science-lunatics. AND this is coming from a Science major! You have to realize that science doesn't even ATTEMPT to explain the real world. That's not the point of science and if you think it is, you have stepped into a cage and closed it on yourself.
Science is about questions. For every question you answer in science, there will be three more that pop up. Answer those questions yet more questions will come. Answer yet more, and you will soon go insane - if you're looking for answers.

The point of science is to explain observations as well as we possibly can. This generally means trying to develop explanations which correspond to the "real world." Scientists certainly don't set out to explain any other world. Of course, we only have our human minds and the perceptions therein to deal with, these are what we base our explanations directly on, but these are as close the real world as we will ever get. This is not a caged-in mentality. We do the best we can based on rationality and a seemingly successful method. From within this "cage" science has produced infinitely more useful ideas than mysticism has.

Questions inherently reference an answer. It seems that the scientific endeavour is infinite, we can make progress forever. The questions are the interesting part, but the answers are the useful part. Science is about getting the answers as right as we can and changing the way we live our lives in the process. What has had a more profound impact on humanity?

"I, for one, bet on science as helping us. I have yet to see how it fundamentally endangers us, even with the H-bomb lurking about. Science has given us more lives than it has taken; we must remember that." - Philip K. Dick

like strange aspects of quantum mechanics

It just so happens that these strange aspects of quantum mechanics are also the fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics and, as you were preaching on and on about, really does bring into question the existence of an actual, physical, objective universe.

Science is great, don't get me wrong. In fact it is the most rational way of inquiry. The problem with it though is twofold; one, science makes presumptions just like everything else. These presumptions can not be dealt with scientifically, only philosophically. And don't tell me I'm wrong, because I know I'm right and you know I'm right (you can try to deny this but lets face it; your credibility as a voice for science goes out the window then). Secondly, science does not tell us anything. It's an observation of phenomenon to gather information. What we use with this information and what it means can not be explained my science. That, again, is left to the field of philosophy.

Frankly this rejection of the metaphysical aspects of quantum mechanics is absurd, and I'll tell you why. It's because you're afraid. Your fear is no different than Albert Einstein's, and anyone else that rejected quantum mechanics. You desperately claw at the ground, attempting to not be taken aback by the fact that quantum mechanics heavily effects the scientific method. Science, which one of its presumptions is that an objective universe exists, is threatened by quantum mechanics because it shows that it may not be objective what so ever, and that right there dismantles the process. Scientific theory seems to be open to falsification until an observation is made that questions the very foundations of science. A majority of the scientific community has tried to back pedal ideas in Quantum Mechanics to rationalize it with their current world view and frankly, that's just ridiculous.

My problem stems from the fact that, while you can observe outwards and find answers, you can just as easily observe inwards and find answers. Esoteric traditions around the world have come up with ideas that, currently aren't so wild and in fact science has substantiated much of it. And the greatest of these examples IS quantum mechanics. Through meditation, The Buddha created a philosophy in which pretty much every fundamental aspect of it correlates with fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics.

I don't argue that science is wrong and again I don't argue that it is right. It's a process, a very good process, but a process that you can't stem all of our understanding, all our truths and all our knowledge from it. Because that just flat out denies possibilities that science fundamentally can't answer. Does this mean that because science can't answer it, it's wrong/doesn't exist/stupid? Well that's the question, isn't? And when you have a scientific theory that questions the foundation of reality and the concept of empirical evidence is shell shocked by these theories, there is a good bet of back pedaling that needs to be done else you're no different than a religious fanatic trying to rationalize everything into their own world view. You can't force things to fit into a world view; you need to change your world view to fit things in.



[edit on 17-4-2010 by SpectreDC]

My friends father is a member. My friend get to go as well sometimes...he says that it is just a big party, burningman for rich people....
with lots of camps all containing bars and lots of booze...

i am not sure if his dad is there when all the heads are there...I will prod him for more info later this weekend...

reply to post by LususNaturae


Lucusnature ur a GENIUS! You saved me the trouble of having to explain all that myself. I cannot fathom how "James Randi fans" can even BE on this site. people are brainwashed into seeing only 10% of reality (thru materialistic science) yet they cannot even realize they are being conned and, furthermore, defend their flawed positions with a fanaticism unheard of! The black hole example was gold!

By the way that a/hole Randi never considered that showing true magic powers in order to win a prize may be against Karmic Law. Of course he wouldn't consider this because he is a materialistic retard.

There's no point getting worked up over all this, though. This is the world we live in...The west is mired in a nightmare world of scientific materialism.

Btu I have only recently joined ATS (having being a reader for years) and I honestly expected more spiritually inclined people to be on this site. What went wrong???

Isn't this meant to cater for the "alternative" view? Oh well, one lives and learns.

I fail to see how Bohemian Grove is anything more than a modern day equivalent of the Hellfire Clubs of the 18th century. It is just a place that the elite can gather out of the public spotlight and perform acts that would earn them the ire of the public. The fact of the matter is that many business CEOs and politicians do possess traits similar to psychopathy, such as sensation seeking and if they were to feed these desires in public they would not remain in their positions for long.

reply to post by SpectreDC

The problem with it though is twofold; one, science makes presumptions just like everything else. These presumptions can not be dealt with scientifically, only philosophically. And don't tell me I'm wrong, because I know I'm right and you know I'm right (you can try to deny this but lets face it; your credibility as a voice for science goes out the window then). Secondly, science does not tell us anything. It's an observation of phenomenon to gather information. What we use with this information and what it means can not be explained my science.

These problems are trivial. They apply to every single belief system and cannot be overcome; they are a symptom of the human mind. The only way to make progress is to accept them and move on. . . which is what scientists do.

There is no belief system which contains beliefs "about" other things which is not founded on premises which cannot be proven within that system. You're right that science is also based on unprovable premises, but since every single belief system is, does that really count against science? This problem of unprovable premises is an argument against the validity of beliefs in general, it's not particular to science. It's also not solvable and I know that. So, what should we do, just stop thinking about things? Stop forming beliefs? Of course not, we have to try to form the best beliefs that we can while keeping in mind that they - like all possible beliefs - are based on unprovable premises.

Science does tell us "things." It's just not clear how, exactly, our scientific beliefs correspond to reality. For example science tells me that if I bring water to 100 degrees C at sea level, the water will boil. I can do this, and it will happen just like the scientific theory predicted that it would. In this sense, science has told us something. What's interesting though are things like physics equations. E = mc^2 is useful because it allows us to predict future observations under certain conditions. But if this equation is really a representation of something in reality, what, exactly, is it representing? The ontological status of physics equations and how, exactly, they are instantiated in reality is an interesting question.

That conversation is really just a game though. As with all belief systems, science only has perceptions and the human mind with which to work. Rather, our minds are what we have to work with, and so it is within the mind that we must construct our belief systems. Of course we are never dealing with actual reality; only perceptions and concepts. When I say "car," there are no physical vehicles involved, it's just a word which points to a concept in the minds of english speakers, and that concept hopefully can be use to reference something "out there" in objective reality. All beliefs are only beliefs and not absolute truths. Science operates in the realm of the mind, with the hope of creating a strong, direct correspondence between beliefs and reality. Scientific beliefs are definitely about observations; we use past observations to form a belief(theory) which allows us to predict future observations.

While science, like all other belief systems, cannot prove its correspondence with external reality, a strong piece of evidence for this correspondence is technology. If science wasn't in agreement with reality, I can't imagine that all of our gadgets based on scientific theory would work. It's not clear that we can make any progress on this problem through philosophy.

The issue of looking inwards for answers is an interesting one. My personal belief is that this process with be illuminated by neuroscience, but we'll have to wait and see. Science is more of an attempt to describe the objective world, by finding clues about that world within our subjective minds. Introspection is the experience of the subjective inner world without really attempting to connect this inner world to the outer world. Introspection and science are not in competition, because they don't purport to be about the same thing.

I don't ignore the metaphysics of QM. There are a number of deep metaphysical implications of QM theories, but the details of these theories really haven't been worked out. I think the measurement problem is interesting, and subscribe to the many worlds interpretation, which provides an answer to the deep metaphysical difficulties of QM. There is nothing spooky going on in this interpretation, there is still an objective reality. There are definitely some interesting mysteries, but nothing to get all worked up about. Science is still right; planes aren't going to fall out of the sky based on what they figure out about QM. We're not going to have reject our human scale scientific beliefs based on QM results. It's not a matter of fear for me; reality is the way it is, the only question is whether or not we know about it. Nothing in my day to day experience is going to change because of QM metaphysics.

I'm open minded and I try my hardest to not be a slave to my worldview, but that's really hard to do. Everyone interprets everything in a way that is consistent with the fundamental beliefs of their worldview, up until the point that something so undeniably incompatable with that worldview comes along that we just can't help but undergo a paradigm shift. Have you ever seen Shutter Island? It's a fantastic exploration of the power of the worldview and how we interpret our observations.

Check out this thead on subjectivity, too: www.abovetopsecret.com...

I'm under the impression that we're at an impasse. I'm not compelled by abstract philosophical hang ups with science, mostly because I it's not clear to me that there's anything to be done about them. Even if I agree that the problems are very important, what am I left with? Science is the best method for learning about the world, and the philosophical problems that I'm aware of are true for every belief system. So, what? Why not accept science? Nothing else is very compelling. It's not even like you're proposing a superior alternative, you're just telling me that I am too devoted to science. What would be the point backing off on science if there is nothing better on the table? I keep up with philosophy of science at a very high level, it's interesting to me, and I incorporate those ideas into my worldview to the extent that I am aware of the problems and I am aware that science doesn't grant privilaged access to absolute truths. What would you recommend I do? Accept that they are doing magic at the Bohemian Grove? I'm just not sure that there is anything valuable that can come from celebrating the inherent limits of human belief systems. Should we act differently? Should we be more open to absolute nonsense, because we ought to be unsure of all of our beliefs?

Originally posted by TheNewAeon2012
reply to post by LususNaturae

 

By the way that a/hole Randi never considered that showing true magic powers in order to win a prize may be against Karmic Law.

Of course, why didn't I think of that? You know, I think Karmic Law would made an exception if you used the challenge to open the eyes of the western world to the true nature of reality. No?

If you can't accept money for it, why not go to a respected scientific institution and prove to them that magic exists for free? Then you would free us all of the materialist blinders we have on. You would be doing the world a great service, there can't be any Karmic Law against that. The issue is this: the burden of proof is on you, claims without support are weak. If what you are saying is true - that magic is real - you could settle the debate quickly and easily. Why don't you?

And as far as being a skeptical person on ATS, I'm interested in having my beliefs challenged. I'm curious about paranormal stuff. Unconventional beliefs are interesting to me, to talk about and argue about and think about. That's why I'm here. I read your thread on purpose, you know. I'm happy to think about and discuss this stuff. Doesn't it make your unconventional beliefs more meaningful if they can stand up to a little criticism? If you have no response to simple, rational arguments, aren't you admittedly deluding yourself? What's the point, if all these ideas are make believe and can't stand up to even cursory criticism? Doesn't it matter who's right? If you're here to indulge in fantasy or play pretend I think you're in the wrong place. If your beliefs are of substance, you have no reason be hostile. Just explain yourself or ignore me, there's no need to become unpleasant.

You sound so sure of yourself; so sure that magic is real, and so sure that materialism is not a complete view of reality. How? How do you know? What makes you think this?

Alright, OnceReturned.
I see you are well-spoken and rather intelligent. I mistook your abrasive attitude towards occultism kind of harshly.

But --
I must digress.

That's what science provides: the best possible interpretaion of the evidence. We know that we could wake up any minute and everything we though we knew could be wrong, but since there is absolutely nothing we can do about this fact we proceed by trying to explain things in the best way we can.

Okay. That's all right. I understand this. Science cannot know anymore than the observer observes right? Certainly you will agree that if there WERE any mystical or magical forces at work, the scientist would attempt to explain these forces using scientific method? That's what you would do, if you came across a magical force? What's to say that gravity itself isn't a magical force, or, say, electricity or magnetism? Science on its own - without abstract ideas such as 'force' which may not always be directly observed with our own senses but can be observed by the 'reality' as it is.

Guessing about untestable paranormal explanations isn't explaining anything at all, it's just making up an explanation and choosing the accept it because it satisfies your curiousity.

Don't you think that that's exactly what modern day scientists are doing? The example on gravity that I used is quite fitting for this circumstance you have provided, which is similar to what the 'Ancients' did.
Scientists don't know WHAT gravity is. They made up an explanation (gravity) and chose to accept it because it satisfied their curiosity. They never did find out what exactly it was, or how exactly it worked, but they knew that they could put hard numbers on it... and that's all that mattered to them. It really is quite similar to how the "Ancients" did it.

Science IS a religion. Most students blindly believe every thing they are told in school and swallow it as fact - pure fact - facts that cannot be argued due to the sheer amount of empirical evidence there is to support it! Look - all these big names in science think that gravity is real - what the heck, why don't you? Remember - before gravity the universe was thought to be filled with 'ether'. Science itself has undergone intense changes since Galileo's time.

But it is clear that humanity has not learned its lesson since then. To shelter ones mind with 'physical facts' is when one stops questioning reality itself. I do not believe in magic, don't get me wrong, but I don't not believe in it either. If magic exists - and it might - i'm sure it would be 100% possible to give a scientific reason for why such and such might happen - and could infact, help speed up our scientific understanding of the world.

Thank you for your reply, OnceReturned. I look forward to hearing from you again.

reply to post by OnceReturned


Believers in "magic" have a rebuttal to that as well. If you read Franz Bardon's Initiation Into Hermetics he states that you cannot go out and perform this stuff in public. It is a secret practice and people must be introduced to it when they are ready. So, if someone did go to a university to work with scientists to show that this stuff is real then Karma or Divine Providence would prevent you from accessing the energy needed. They believe that these powers are to be used strictly for the benefit of mankind and not for any kind of personal recognition or gain. I'm not saying I believe in any of this, but these are their beliefs and these are the reasons they will give for not trying to substantiate their claims scientifically.

Well of course... if everybody knew about everything occult...

it wouldn't really be occult anymore, would it?

reply to post by Xcalibur254


Well, that's rather frustrating isn't it? I think we can explain their position in two ways. Either they can really do magic, but there is some force preventing them from proving to the world or the scientific community that they can do it, or, they can't do magic and so they make up an excuse about why they are unable to prove it.

It sounds to me no different than if I said "I can fly." Since you have no reason to believe that I - or anyone else for that matter - can fly, you may be inclined to ask me to do it. If I then told you that "I can fly, but only when there's no one watching," what would you say? I think you would undoubtedly dismiss my claim of flight. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not zero evidence.

I know you're not the one claimng magic is real, and that you're just explaining the position that they are likely to take. But, doesn't that whole line of thinking sound remarkably like the stories that children make up? If we believe that sort of thing, is there anything that we wouldn't believe?

reply to post by OnceReturned


I keep telling you, I can't explain it to you on a forum...but I KNOW it's the truth. I wasn't even aware I sounded that sure of myself, but that alone must've made an impression. I know you want to know...we all do. You seem curious. But I'm afraid it's impossible to put these things in words. I can write words, don't get me wrong, but they will be pointless without PERSONAL experience.

And, yeah, you're right I needn't b unpleasant. You are free to be skeptical, since skepticism is the road to finding the Truth. If u follow the trail to the end you will discover that the scientific model is incomplete, either because we are simply a backward planet or, worse, it is done by design, meaning certain people do not want us to know what Reality is. Otherwise we'd be able to challenge their power on equal terms wouldn't we? Do you not see that it's all about suppression of the True Knowledge of how the world works? This is how the Elite have amassed power, for millennia.

And, to settle this thing about "magic" once and for all: it's not Lord of the Rings magic. When we say magick, we mean controlling the unseen forces of nature. Someone else posted smth about gravity having a "magical quality". This is what we are talking about. The scientist and the magician are working with the same forces but the scientists understand less, that's all. The modern sciences all stem from the occult. Indeed, in ancient times there was no great differentiation between occult, religion, science, etc.

Look into Pythagoras if u want to get an idea of this. Or read up on your buddy Isaac Newton. Newton was an Alchemist as well as a Mathematician and Physicist, etc. This was the norm until a few hundred years ago, when we completely stripped away everything "supernatural" from Science and Philosophy and demonized it! This is folly and is a big reason that the world is fu***d right now.

I mean, another pet hate of mine, Psychiatry, is a direct result of this "the five senses is all there is" retarded mindset. No matter...the Age of Aquarius will reverse all this negative trend. After Dec 2012, the polarity will gradually shift towards the positive and towards accepting the "unseen" worlds of Spirit. Wait and see.

reply to post by TheNewAeon2012


You claim that the model for scientific inquiry is incomplete and that occultists see things the way they truly are. However, when one looks back in history it is the same occultists that you praise that essentially established the modern scientific world. Francis Bacon created the scientific method, Newton replaced the view of free will with a deterministic universe, and Paracelsus knocked alchemy off its throne and established the field of chemistry. So, if these men knew the secrets of the universe why would they lead us to where we are today if they knew their findings to be false?

reply to post by TheNewAeon2012

But what exactly is that truth is my question...

Truth is but a matter of perspective, friend. I too have read about the things you mention, and have seen the film by Alex Jones, which was very eye opening. Alex only discovered this, and shined a flashlight on it, so the rest of us could see it. Well, we all saw it. Now comes the time of Reckoning. We the People deserve some straight answers to some hard questions, and that is that. I am hoping that the Restore America Plan will soon come into full force, and some of these minions will be arrested and questioned, preferably by some country that doesn't mind torture when necessary. I think it will be discovered that at least some of these Rich Elite are not only direct descendants of Ancient Royalty, but are also blood drinkers and flesh eaters. Not to mention child rapers.

We are all beginning to wake up, at long last, but man is it a slow process! Wake up, America! Freedom is yours for the taking! So take it!