CaucusInferredBulk

CaucusInferredBulk t1_j8dp7ix wrote

I don't get the warning

>WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains images of people who have died.

Its about people who lived 150 years ago, and from as far as I can see didn't have anything bad happen to them. Why does this need a warning?

Is there an aboriginal taboo about seeing photos of people? dead people? (The camera steals your soul?)

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CaucusInferredBulk t1_iujvd4b wrote

some things have slim basis in truth. Crystals do resonate and transmit energy. But believers give them attributes which haven't been proven out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_radio

How do entangled electrons communicate over vast distances? If you can answer that question you will be rich and famous for the rest of your life. But the fact that we can't explain it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I don't believe in sympathetic magic, because ive never seen it performed. But the fact that we don't know how it would work isn't necessarily sufficient argument against it.

Some of your questions there aren't really about how, they are exploring philosophy/morals. If magic were real, yes there would be crimes associated with love potions.

Why don't X do Y - Thats part of why people don't believe. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/12/new-york-psychic-arrested-zoe-fortune-teller

At a fundamental level its faith. And ignorance. But most people are also ignorant of the way their car works beyond the high level basics too.

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CaucusInferredBulk t1_iujt92y wrote

So first off it doesn't work, unless you have VERY wide definitions of magic and "work". But there are several general patterns of belief. (to clarify, im describing all of the things below as they are believed, im not claiming them as fact or my personal beliefs)

  1. Just directly influencing the universe via willpower. This was what was advocated for by Aleister Crowley, one of the more seminal semi-modern western occultists. Parts of it were watered down to the point where some of his "spellbooks" said things like "I was hungry, so I went to the store and bought some food and ate it, and that was a spell, because my willpower made those things happen". But also he claimed things that we would more readily identify as "magic"

  2. Causing spirits/demons/genies/gods/etc to do work for us. Either by trading them energy/soul/value/sacrifice for them to do the work, or as a reward for worship or by enslaving them via some mechanism (or relying on a new or ancient contract/treaty)

  3. its "nature". Crystals just store energy. things have resonant frequencies. Just because people don't understand it doesn't mean its not real. Amethysts prevent drunkenness/hangovers (the word literally means "not-drunk")

  4. Hacking the matrix. The universe has rules, and tools, and you can sometimes usethem in ways others don't understand. This can sometimes evolve into actual science. Before people understood magnets, or electricity, or lots of pharmaceuticals, people were doing these things and calling it magic/alchemy. But sometimes its "god left behind some passwords (spells) and I figured them out".

  5. Sympathetic magic. If you really squint at this you could pretend its quantum theory. I do something to object A, and something similar will happen to object B with which its entangled.

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