Posts tagged “Skepticism”
Magic in the 22nd Century
An essay of mine just went live at the Humanistic Paganism portal. It addresses a mainly skeptical, nonmagical crowd and asks the question, Let’s assume you believe magic never works. How then should you view people who practice or believe in it? /serious This may be the most important article I’ve written this year. Given that [...]
Three Magic Spells that Work
Yesterday I talked about the skeptic tests of magic. Skeptic literature is valuable, but focuses on entertainers and showmen rather than traditional, cultural systems of magic. Do living magic traditions have better results? In some cases, yes. Science has investigated a handful of traditional magical techniques, and found that some produce results. I’ve chosen three [...]
Skeptic Tests
Skeptics have launched hundreds – probably thousands – of careful, honest tests of a variety of magicians. In some cases these studies and tests were poorly designed; in many cases however, they are quite well designed and hard to argue with. Here is some disappointing news that most magic types do not want you to know: Every single one of these tests [...]
The Honest Magician
If you practice any kind of magic the most common question you get is: does it work? Magicians have stock responses for this. They’re actually pretty disappointing. The ones I hear most often are: 1:/ Well, I believe it works. 2:/ I’ve never had any complaints/never a disappointed customer. 3:/ Let me tell you my theory on why [...]