Question I thought of

[JamesDean]

I have read about many things that people can do that the mainstream would consider untrue or "out there". Some of these things are quite fantastic sounding, and the beliefs for these have been around for centuries or even longer.

I'm not saying what any of you guys do is untrue or imaginary or anything, but if all of this is true and has been for so long, then how come it isn't in the mainstream and isn't beleived by the mainstream? I would understand if it only were one or two things, but there are many things the mainstream disbelieves or says is fake.

I know some of it is due to ignorance and stubborness, and some due to how many Christians there are, and they ain't supposed to believe anything outside thier religion.

But take science for instance. For so long the church, in the past, has claimed many scientific things to be untrue (and that arguement is till going on today with evolution vs. creation), and the mainstream way of thinking followed what the church said. But what most of science said was true, and eventually became accepted even by fundamentalist Christians as fact. Everyone believes the world is round and that gravity and electricity and everything else exists because it does.

Many things that are pagan or occult have been around before many of the now accepted scientific truths were developed. So if it is true, and been true for so long, how come its never been accepted the same way many scientific concepts have?

I'm not saying it untrue, or questioning the validity of what you guys say, but this is something that doesn't add up in my head. I know there are things that are true that the mainstream says don't exist (such as spirits and the ability to communicate with them, which I am able to do), but if there is so many things, how could they have been ignored and unnacepted for so long?

[Sercee]

Fear.
People fear what they don't understand or can't control. This ends up being like X-men: it may be a tool but the person is suspect so they hide their abilities, keep them secret or don't develop them at all. Also, as you mentioned in another post, the church decreed that witchcraft etc was evil. The church equalled the government back then. Therefore the population who didn't know or practice feared the witches more and the witches feared prosecution/persecution.

[JamesDean]

I understand the church being against it as a part of it, but they were also against science, and often tried to classify it as witchcraft and such.

Science eventually broke through, but why didn't all these other beliefs? Could it be because its effects aren't as apparent? Or it is harder to prove? You also mentioned people don't like what they can't understand or control. Magic, spirits, etc., would be harder to understand and control than something like a car or a light switch.

Just trying to figure this thing out in my head.

[Sercee]

Try looking at it as a language barrier rather than an existence barrier.

Let's use out of body or near death experiences as an example.
Scientists did an experiment where they exposed specific parts of a subjects brain to different magnetic frequencies. Depending on where the energy was directed and at what strength the subjects experienced different feelings. Some were described as having their legs pulled across the floor then winding up the wall. Others described the light at the end of the tunnel and past memories. Therefore, science can create within the brain an environment that triggers feelings often described as supernatural.

Let's say the subject was in a car wreck instead of in a testing room. The person dies and is brought back. When a person dies or is exposed to any kind of trauma (or ecstasy for that matter) their brain starts acting differently by changing chemical and hormone levels and activity levels in the different lobes. This means that if the person had a near death experience we know they physically experienced 'something' within their brain. Spiritually, however, the part we don't know is wether that was a chemical hallucination or a hightened state of divine sensitivity.

I don't think science will be able to answer that, but given how often this phenomenon has happened I think it's likely to be the latter.

The point I'm trying to make is that the experiences and witchy phenomena do exist and do happen, it's just that they are described and explained differently depending on the speaker: Wiccan, Christian, Muslim, Scientist etc.

[thatguy]

I think your question is fair. I actually don't how to answer it. I guess you could start my trying to figure out how much science you yourself understand.

Here's a simple problem: in space there are three perfect sphere's: A, B and C, they have masses m_A, m_B and m_C (in kilograms). For simplicity, assume that mass does not warp space so that we may use a cartesian grid. Let P_A(t) be the position of sphere A (the position of it's centre) at time t (in seconds) expressed as a vector from the origin of our grid (where basis vectors (1,0,0), (0,1,0) and (0,0,1) all have a length of one meter). Let P_B(t) and P_C(t) represent the positions of spheres B and C similarly. Assume that at time t = 0, all the spheres are at rest (they have no momentum relative to each other) and that P_A(0) = P_A_0, P_B(0) = P_B_0, P_C(0) = P_C_0. Solve for the trajectory of Sphere A: P_A(t) in terms of the given constants: m_A, m_B, m_C, P_A_0, P_B_0, and P_C_0.

If you can provide a solution I will agree that you yourself have at least the possibility of understanding what science says about gravity (at least Newton's version of it). One hint: you will need to solve a system of differential equations.

If you've studied mathematics you'll understand how difficult this simple question is (after all, it's only asking you to use science to predict how three perfect spheres will interact under gravity if there were no relativistic effects). So I guess another question to ask is: do people en-masse (this includes people with science degrees) actually accept scientific truths, or is the thing that they really accept is that whatever the majority of scientists say is the word of truth? If it's the latter, how is this any different from believing a priesthood? As long as what the priesthood says doesn't directly contradict what you perceive to be occurring in the world around you, how would you know that what they believe is true or not?

I'm not saying science is wrong, I'm saying that most people don't know what science really says. I think that what most people accept is 'popular science'. I'm no different, I know a little bit about my own field, but I generally trust what the experts say at face value.

I guess the big question might be: why do you believe things? What causes a person to believe? Maybe you can take a few things that you absolutely believe and ask yourself honestly: "why do I believe these things?"

I can't claim to be any expert on the occult, in fact, I have very little knowledge of anything outside my own path. However, I think that I can safely say that some of what the occult has to say involves a person's own subjective experience. It talks about ideas/theories which are important but cannot be falsified, so by definition cannot be addressed by science. You might find that things like spirits and ghosts and energies may not be what you think they are. Maybe it's even possible that what you consider to be the 'objective world' is just your own personal delusion.

I know when I talk about things like this it might seem like I know some secret and that I'm trying to get you to want to know this secret too. I'm just like you though, I don't know either, and I certainly don't know any secrets. I expect the world to behave as my knowledge and beliefs predict it to behave. I'm only suggesting a few angles under which to examine your original question, and maybe you'll be able to find an answer.

Without a good answer of my own I think Sercee has a great point. A lot of it really does have to do with fear.

cheers,

T. Guy.

[juliaki]

There's a saying that the Mysteries protect themselves.

I don't want them to be mainstream. I'd actively work against the Mysteries being made mainstream or shown to the mainstream. My guess about why the stuff is ignored and unaccepted is because there's many people who share similar views.

[thatguy]

There's a saying that the Mysteries protect themselves.

I don't want them to be mainstream. I'd actively work against the Mysteries being made mainstream or shown to the mainstream. My guess about why the stuff is ignored and unaccepted is because there's many people who share similar views.

Wow Juliaki, those statements are, well, mysterious!

You're not part of some secret society keeping the rest of us in the dark are you? <shock!>

T. Guy.

[Exilus]

Sceince has proven over and over again, most of what we say exists does.


For instance something as small as an arua. By our beleif it is a color around you body, a feild of energy that can be seen by some. We have said this for thousands and thousands of years, yet everyone said its fake its not real. Then not even ten years ago it was proven that the electric that runs through our body radiates up to three inches from it, this is where static electric is formed. It was also proven that there are people with spectrum disorders they are called who can see this, and these people when tested showed that they could tell the mood of a person, because the energy changed color.

Now sceince presented this as this entirly new things they had found. Points at aruras.

Most of thetime sceince will learn something and prove it and it then falls on us to say hey waits a tick we have been teaching this for centuries, but we dont. We still alot of time hide for fear of what our families and friends would say. WHAT YOUR A WITCH. at some point we will all have to stop hiding, because when we do I am posative the world will change its veiws alot diferently

[Sobek]

i didnt read the above because im not in any mood to sift through so i hope what i am about to say isnt said already.

if the authority of mainstream would admit that the followers had the abilities such as these then would be the need for them to follow none other than thier god directly instead of through church heads or what have you.

[Vigdisdotter]

I'm not saying what any of you guys do is untrue or imaginary or anything, but if all of this is true and has been for so long, then how come it isn't in the mainstream and isn't beleived by the mainstream?

Fear is part of it, but the other big one is laziness. These things take a lot of time and effort to get even the most meagre of results in the beginning. And since that "beginning" can last a decade or more, most people just don't bother.

This is of course just IMNSHO