How many practice telekinesis?

I believe in telekinesis and I have had limited success with the psi wheel, both covered by a glass bowl and not covered. Might have been heat given off by my hands, but I think it's neat.

Alright, time for another Skepticism 101 thread, I guess...

First, I haven't polled TOTJO on this yet, and I'm pretty sure nobody else has, so I cannot say of anyone what they do or do not believe in regards to spirits or auras.
Second, beliefs about said things are completely independant and separate from beliefs in magical powers. You can believe one or the other or both or disbelieve either and none of that would tell anybody whether it is fair to identify you as Jedi.

Now on to the substantive bits.
You are correct, the fact that each and everybody who ever claimed to have powers of this kind were either frauds or themselves deceived or both doesn't imply that the powers don't exist anyway.
Equally one could say that the fact some have gone out of the way to produce some fake recordings doesn't imply that there are such powers either.
Now, by a standard that would let one pass one would have as a matter of consistency also accept the other and would end up with two directly contradictory beliefs. Moreover, no evidence to the contrary of either would be enough to dispell one of them, because both rely on shifting the burden of proof and not on positive evidence in their favour. This is not the working of an open mind, but of a closed one.
In an effort to avoid cognitive dissonance one must either accept only one of the two or reject them both until such time when positive indication for one or the other is unveiled. That would be the open mind, the one that is impartial and intellectually honest and reserves its judgement until a fair albeit tentative judgement can be passed.

But of course the situation is even bleaker than I make it out to be. In a case where positive evidence is expected to show regularly a persistent lack thereof constitutes evidence to the contrary. And that happens to be just what the world looks like. Claims of this kind are made time and time again and all of them that were investigated into turned out false without even one single exception. Most of the rest of the world have long given up on carrying on testing these claims and the James Randi Educational Foundation grew a confidence to offer one million USD to anybody who could demonstrate genuine magic abilities. Most who approached them wouldn't even fill out the application form, most of the rest wouldn't end up agreeing on a reliable test of their powers or pass the preliminary examinations, and everybody who did get to the juicy bit ended up exposed as either sincerely mistaken or frauds.
Now, my skepticism would demand that this still doesn't mean that telekinesis is not a real thing. Being a skeptic I am still open to consider positive evidence of the claim. However, with the evidence we already have it takes all the more and more extraordinary evidence for this increasingly unbelievable claim. Whoever insists that such powers exist must also explain why his claiming so is any more believable than that of a fraud and propose a testing method equal or stronger in rigor than any previous one - and then also pass. Of course I am no stage magician, so I would not know many of the tricks and at this point I must rely on the judgement of those more qualified than myself, and it is them whom the claimants should seek to impress, not a bunch of innocent YouTube dwellers most of whom couldn't tell an editing trick if they saw it in the making...

Gisteron you have way too much time on your hands...

This channel is known to be tricksters
And they don't have much logic in their teachings
The typical manifestation to what telekinesis is is the following:

Telekinesis is the psychic ability to directly influence objects using our mind. We can use telekinesis to move objects, vibrate objects, but we can also use it to manipulate time, elements, space, and energy. Telekinesis can also be used to distort material items and has been cited as the power used to manipulate random number generators.
Telekinesis is the power to move objects with your mind. (Such as lifting an apple.) As we get stronger and better at it, we might be able to move heavier things. Telekinesis takes great focus and it would help to meditate and practice frequently though it is not required. A theory on Telekinesis is that energy flows where our attention goes and our attention goes where our focus goes. One idea is that we all are made of the same energy, so we could simply connect with whatever we are trying to move. Another is the Chaos Theory. No matter how small our focus is, it does affect the thing somehow, and greater focus equals to greater effect.

I remember seeing videos of that Russian girl that they studied for 20 years of her life. But after seeing this thread and looking it up they say that she'd been caught cheating before. Idk there's a lot of mysterious stuff that has claimed to have happened, but I just don't know about any of it and don't have much interest.

For fun I would think that if any of these indigo children and the like existed, the government and churches would have murdered them as soon as possible. To go even further, well, maybe this stuff is all possible and unfortunately we're all chemically lobotomized to the point of it never happening anymore. All the junk put into our bodies calcifies our pineal gland very fast, and the pineal gland is very mysterious and important to people who are into this stuff.

If this were possible, why isn't there any incontrovertible evidence for it?

It's not as if people don't claim to be psychic, make a lot of money from it etc. But people like Derren Brown (who make money from the same techniques, without claiming to be "magic") have done a lot to debunk those who use the same skills to prey on the weak minded or vulnerable.

As Obi-Wan put it...

The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded.

It would be simple to suggest the Force can perform magical feats because there are plenty who would happily believe it. However we have zero evidence that it can. The real mysteries are deep and fascinating enough, without the need for additional layers of mythology.

They're red herrings... I'd rather spend my time focusing on the mysteries we agree are there but know we're yet to solve.

During my last bought of psychosis I thought I was legitimately communicating with others telepathically and also able to control the flow of time.

Neither were based in reality.

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Lightstrider wrote: I remember seeing videos of that Russian girl that they studied for 20 years of her life. But after seeing this thread and looking it up they say that she'd been caught cheating before. Idk there's a lot of mysterious stuff that has claimed to have happened, but I just don't know about any of it and don't have much interest.

For fun I would think that if any of these indigo children and the like existed, the government and churches would have murdered them as soon as possible. To go even further, well, maybe this stuff is all possible and unfortunately we're all chemically lobotomized to the point of it never happening anymore. All the junk put into our bodies calcifies our pineal gland very fast, and the pineal gland is very mysterious and important to people who are into this stuff.

I don't know about that. If a corrupt government saw them do that, they wouldn't hurt all of them. Because if people saw some people who say they have powers disappear mysteriously, that would make things suspicious and people would start asking questions. More often than not a corrupt government would try to make the person look crazy and convince the people that the person who claims to have powers is crazy. It's more effective in the long run, cheaper and less suspicious. But even so, if a corrupt government would go through the trouble of making someone look crazy, they wouldn't do that in the first place unless of course the power was real

Despite all the chemicals I think it depends on how much one has. Someone in the rural area are less likely to ingest such chemicals. And ask yourself this. If psychic powers and magic wasn't real, why would people waste their time doing in the first place? If they didn't get something out of it, they wouldn't be doing it and going through all this study in the first place.

With regards to your last sentence... Many occultists practice magic of some degree... It's about the will... I know no goetic demon is going to answer my call, but the change of frame of mind can help me achieve the end I'm looking for...