Magic and Science.

We live in a really interesting time. It's time that's also deadly, a time where the human spirit is being crushed tremendously. But it's a time where just by the entire condition of how things are, there are infinite possibilities.

You see, I've spent the last few years studying Marxism and self-help theories. And the thing that someone like Anthony Robbins says is that you can do anything, you create any future you choose.

And in a sense that's true. Raul Vaneigem said, in the revolution of everyday life, that just ten people willing to choose the lightning of violence over the horror of boredom would be all it would take to help a new society.

And he said that before the Paris, May of 68 general strike, where the entire decided one fine day that they had simply enough of modern life (of course, things didn't end that easily, but it is useful knowing how easily things can).

Acheivement in this society really is based on how much you think you are worth. That because a lot of the economy is based on simply exchanging lies. You make this lousy stereo in exchange for this idiotic automobile. It's all worth what the best liar says it's worth. The only thing that stops us from seeing of this is that the lies are nested inside other lies inside other lies.

Consider, you can lie you way into money, you can lie your way into sex, you can lie your way into thing because that's the coin of the realm.

The reason that the everything that society offers us is worthless is because we are still alive. We are physical human beings who breath and feel the presence of each other.

The most effective liar rises to the top but the most effective liar is the one who believes his lies - this the main princeple. It's not really each person creating their own reality.

I was at a self-seminar where the leader slammed panhandlers with the line that everyone creates their own reality. I respect some of what these folks do, mind you. Otherwise I wouldn't be there.

Creating "your own reality" has been described as designer psychosis. Believing exactly those things that seem useful. And the folks who rise to top often can do this. The problem naturally involves the fact that liar lies to himself. Indeed, I hope that our rulers become so-self referential, so confident that they can reach a point where they leave themselves open to destruction.

In anycase, the way that creating your own reality can be good is the way that we live in a society where social relations have become more and more of the determiners of existence. Think about money, the single object dominates our lives.

Money has been called an illusion because it's existence depends on our collective belief. But that's no a good word. Illusion only makes sense when I can close eyes and it just disappears. Money is social relation.

I don't know if you've ever seen a tensile structure. They have the configuration of poles and string, where the poles are tied together and none of the poles touching. The thing is held-up even though you think it fall down. Money is held up by the way we are ridiculously tied together.

Anyway the larger point to all of this is that the more modern society progresses, the more we are held together by our present collective activity.

What people do in China doesn't directly effect you but the conditions of life in China effect.

And that's very interesting considering that just two human beings have a much more powerful effect on each other than almost anyone realizing.

- Feeling auras,

psychic phenomenon. There are a tremendous number of psychic phenomenon. None of them have been shown to work effectively - just the opposite, really rigorous tests tend to show-up charlatans pretty decisively.

But what psychic stuff does show is how powerfully people interact without realizing it. Milton Erickson, a world-famous hypnotist, once went to a psychic and was able to control the predictions the psychic made by controlling the sub-vocal utterances he made. Of course had a tremendous control over his unconscious and reflexive activities. He once had polio and spent a year only being able to move he eye-balls. He said it gave him some interesting observations of people. 

The difference between magic and science. I have a lot of respect for both and I know that both of these disciplines have been used to advance hideous domination.

Primative shaman have been observed to use both transparently false tricks like sleight of hand and also to be able to make astounding predictions using far-sight. Now, even something like remote viewing, which was tested to work by the US Army, could quite likely be a cleaver sham. The indians a prime mover in their mythos the trickster. Maybe we have to look at exactly what tricks are good and which are bad.

But one thing that is interesting to think magic and science is they are reactions to the attitude of religion. Both science and magic with bring the forces of the world towards the grasp of people rather than asking how people can submit to these nameless forces.

But the point of beliefs is interesting. The question often is whether a belief is going to help you. Trueness is slippery and interesting thing.

[Special Place Induction].

An interesting thing is everyone does have a certain feeling about what's true. Now suppose you were to just stop and kind of just turn your inward, and find, deep within yourself, close to the essence of who you are, find a special place, a place where everything is true, a place where everything is possible and where everything is permitted. And doesn't feel good to know you can play with ideas, possibility and desires in that place without having to make them real YET.

Now the whole thing is that if a person imagine just being able to step out of the ordinary. When I really find myself in that place, I find I can open door that weren't even there before. And step through. Now when think about creating a possibility in that place and stepping of the ordinary, that can create an interesting condition the way you experiance your life.

Of course, this kind of truth is a thousand miles away from the truth that a scientist gets through intense skepticism.

One of the things about science is that it works best on things that are dead, things that have a uniform, easily predictable quality. It starts with the simple and works up. That's nice trick, course it doesn't work.

Now today, it's important to distinguish between science as a way of looking things and science as what the huge techno-scientific bureaucracies do.

It's interesting how indeed, science has been killed as much by success as by it's failure. The application of an incomprehisible machine to a problem cannot be science because it involves

A lot of people who attack science say it's become similar to religion. And a lot of the pronouncements of scientists have become similar to. But that's different.

Bureaucracy, generic bureaucracy, is a topic I'll come back to.

Anyway, the value of real science is very much being tempered by knowing the limits of what you know. And limits of science, real limits, often stop before it encompasses anything really, honestly, touching life.

Now, magic is just the opposite. Magic must start using the totallity first. The trickster.

Tricks are important. Television is piece of technology but it is also a trick, a trick that people pull on themselves.

But stage magic, sleight of hand, is really interesting. Being able to go into that place where everything is possible is important. And if reaching behind your back to get a rabbit can give the impression that rabbits come out of thin air, maybe that is a very worthwhile thing.

Of course, it all depends on how you will be using all this.