How many practice telekinesis?

Gisteron wrote:

Yabuturtle wrote: I would just find it weird if people believe in a force or energy and that people can connect to it and believe in spirits or afterlives or other types of energy...

... and I don't recall you asking who here actually does. A few might, I suppose...

... why would they dismiss something like telekinesis or magic?

One would hope they do that for better reasons than the ones they give for accepting the former, I guess. What I find weird is expecting that a person with irrational beliefs in some areas would be perfectly consistent about at least that. I do not know what the fraction is of belief standards that would allow for one and not the other, I cannot begin to imagine how likely it is that any one person hit one and not any other.

I really think it's because when people think of magic, they imagine people hurling fire balls or something from the movies...

Oh, I'm sorry, I must have missed the part where you surveyed people on what they think of magic. Would you kindly link us to your results, please?

... when real magic doesn't work that way.

Oh, so you suddenly know how 'real magic' works, do you? Please, elaborate!

With Telekinesis, they imagine people using it like in the movies, flinging numerous objects all over the place, when telekinesis is a little more subtle than that.

And you know what extent telekinesis can take, too, do you? Why would you argue for open-mindedness (which is not what you think it is, btw...) or nonsense-belief-consistency, if the truth is so evident to you? Why not just go ahead and make it evident to us also?

People ask for proof but there are things that would be difficult to prove.

Yes, so let's just believe them anyway, right? Wrong. It's not our fault they have no evidence for their claims, and we sure won't be cutting them any slack just because their burden of proof is so heavy. If your product doesn't sell, that doesn't make the production cheaper either. If anything, it makes the advertisement all the more expensive.

Such as if you were casting a blessing spell on someone. You can watch it on film but the film wouldn't catch it, but that doesn't mean the person wasn't blessed in some way.

Nor does it mean that the person was. The time to believe that they were is after some evidence could be uncovered and no second sooner.

With Telekinesis some have video taped it and some will say they are fake and some probably are. The only way I guess would be if you saw it yourself. What can't be proven can at least be experienced.

If you trust your experience as a sole judge of what is real and what isn't, sure. I don't. If I saw something unbelievable, I'd first assume I was either mistaken or my mind was tricked in some way. Absolutely every illusion and every ever so rare drug is more believable to me than that I was a witness to genuine magic like nobody before even once in the history of mankind. I would have to cross confirm my experience with as many independant and unbiased parties as I could, I would test my body for possible malfunctions at that time and I would challenge the wizard to perform his powers again in an environment where better controls are implemented than my mere self. It's a matter of humility, you see. The arrogant thing would be to say that "since I saw it, it must've been genuine, because I cannot possibly be fooled".

Yabuturtle wrote: I was always open minded...
[...]
... things will be explained.

This sounds an awful lot to me like "we don't know everything yet, therefore magic is real". This is called an appeal to ignorance and is an informal logical fallacy.

But whenever you mention magic or telekinesis to someone, they assume you're talking about the stuff they do in movies.

I don't. That alone is enough to dismiss the quoted statement, because obviously it is not a "whenever", but I'm gonna be generous here. I do tentatively in those cases assume some variation on the telekinesis claims I know people made. I am however willing to entertain a different interpretation of the label, if you choose to suggest one, which of course so far you haven't...

That stuff in movies is exaggerated.

You don't know that. For all you know the movies may have picked a genuine telekinet and you may be witnessing the real thing. Or maybe you are correct. Or maybe you are correct and also genuine telekinesis is not actually something real. I phrased the third option deliberately in a way as to leave you with the burden of only having to disprove the first option. Can you do it?

Of course one should also mention that many of the great scientists practiced or at least had an interest in psychic abilities or magic or mysticism. George Washington Carver, Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, ect. did as well.

This is an appeal to origins, more specifically an argument from authority, another informal logical fallacy. At the risk of being too dismissive, I shall however nonetheless respond to this one in the following way: Neither any of the fine gentlemen you listed, nor anybody else had established their claims of magic on pure scientific grounds. Just as not every rational thinker and not even every skeptic is necessarily a scientist, so is not everybody who ever contributed to the progression of science a scientist and, more crucially, not every scientist is necessarily a perfectly rational thinker or at least a skeptic in fields that are not his own field of study; some are even struggling to be that well within their own fields.

These were scientists yet they didn't dismiss such things and these guys are looked up by scientists today, many of which that dismiss such abilities are fake. It's ironic to me.

A great thinker of the past is not the same as a prophet, you see. One of the key understandings to precede any and all of science is the recognition that anybody and everybody can be wrong about just about anything they ever think when it comes to matters of the real world. There are no prayers to Newton or Darwin, no altars to sacrifice to them, no shrines to them that we kneel to. They are fallible people as is the rest of us. We have no obligation to take anything they say seriously unless it serves as a sufficiently accurate predictive model of observed reality. Those things are helpful irrespective of what else came from the same mind, and the nonsense that might have come from that place is no more credible for being of that origin either. What you are asking is how I can possibly utilize the brilliant local Autobahn system without also believing that Aryans are supreme. Well, you see, science, much like transportation, is not a religion. I don't need to worship the guy who made my roads. And I don't need to buy into alchemy just because the guy who reinvented calculus did.

I think some times when people see fake magic users and psychics like fake fortune tellers, they automatically assume any such powers don't exist. Sorry but the scientists I mentioned actually made it pretty obvious that they were into magic, mysticism and psychic powers. George Washington Carver himself said he had a way of communicating with plants and knew of their emotions. Isaac Newton was a little more private than the others but he was known for conducting rituals, many of which involved magic. And Da Vinci, I couldn't begin to tell you how many times he's used hidden and magical symbols. I notice a pattern that perhaps that these scientists who studied paranormal stuff, is that perhaps what made them great scientists? Because they were willing to experiment and experience different kinds of energies and that gave them a better perspective of the universe.


There's also common sense, too. If such powers did not exist at all why would you see people even study magic, psionics, crystal healing, herbalism, alchemy shamanism, ect. If there was nothing to be gained from this in some way shape or form, why would people waste their time on it? Has anyone even considered this thought? I've not yet found anyone here giving me an answer to that question.

Nothing I say is going to make you change your mind. Look it up and find out as I did. And I used to be skeptical, too. Take it from someone like me who thought all of this was just fake fantasy

There are times I think maybe people are automatically afraid and immediately dismiss such powers don't exist because they don't want powers like this to exist. It goes way beyond their perception of reality, and the idea that perhaps such powers exist and they live among people that can use such powers, might frighten them to a degree. Sometimes people can shown proof and just don't believe it because they don't want to believe it.

Next time you want to completely ignore a response, Yabu, please, don't quote it in the same post you are planning on doing that in...

Edit:
I was going to ignore yours in return, but I just can't resist.

• I don't know what people assume. If you do, please explain how you do. And please respond to those who do, not to those who don't assume what you feel you need to dispell.
• Nothing about being unscientific ever made anybody a great scientist. Hence why we remember the great scientists for their science, not for their nonsense.
• Just because you cannot fathom a world in which fantasy exist or one where people might have an interest in creating any and selling it for thousands of frickin dollars, doesn't mean that the fantasy has anything to do with reality.
• I won't take anything from you on just your say so. You have "investigated" into this, so present your results or don't. Myself a scientist, I do believe I have better things to spend my time on than trying to find an undebunked claim of bloody sorcery among the billions upon billions of debunked ones. Since you have, I assume you do have the time, so please, look up what skepticism means before the next time you are about to say you were skeptical about anything. You weren't. And it shows. If you were, you wouldn't have arrived at your conclusion by means of fallacy and nothing else. And don't educate me about the rigidity of my mind either, thank you very much.
• I don't know about 'people', but seeing as you quote me, I'm gonna respond as if I was one of them anyway. It does sound rather condescending how you shrug genuine and explicitly reasoned disbelief to some sort of deep-seated emotion as if not only was your opponents' minds inherently less rational than your own, but also as if you had some deep Freudian insight into those minds, Mr. Again Ever-So Presumptuous... I don't believe what I want - maybe you do; I for one believe what I can. And I can't believe things just because another one committed an emotional appeal fallacy on the internet again and for no better reason. Sorry.

Gisteron wrote: Next time you want to completely ignore a response, Yabu, please, don't quote it in the same post you are planning on doing that in...

Edit:
I was going to ignore yours in return, but I just can't resist.

• I don't know what people assume. If you do, please explain how you do. And please respond to those who do, not to those who don't assume what you feel you need to dispell.
• Nothing about being unscientific ever made anybody a great scientist. Hence why we remember the great scientists for their science, not for their nonsense.
• Just because you cannot fathom a world in which fantasy exist or one where people might have an interest in creating any and selling it for thousands of frickin dollars, doesn't mean that the fantasy has anything to do with reality.
• I won't take anything from you on just your say so. You have "investigated" into this, so present your results or don't. Myself a scientist, I do believe I have better things to spend my time on than trying to find an undebunked claim of bloody sorcery among the billions upon billions of debunked ones. Since you have, I assume you do have the time, so please, look up what skepticism means before the next time you are about to say you were skeptical about anything. You weren't. And it shows. If you were, you wouldn't have arrived at your conclusion by means of fallacy and nothing else. And don't educate me about the rigidity of my mind either, thank you very much.
• I don't know about 'people', but seeing as you quote me, I'm gonna respond as if I was one of them anyway. I don't believe what I want - maybe you do; I for one believe what I can. And I can't believe things just because another one committed an emotional appeal fallacy on the internet again and for no better reason. Sorry.

You're not exactly being tactful here so it is pretty rude for you to say I am as well. I'm not ignoring any post.

Yeah I'll just show you magic and psionics exist right here. What are you talking about? This isn't something I can record that easily and if I did, you wouldn't believe it anyway. So why ask for evidence when you are just going to shoot it down anyway? Is there proof? Not undeniable proof, but people who have witnessed as well experienced such abilities can't all be making it up. Do you seriously believe every single one of those stories are just made up because they wanted to do it for the lolz? That doesn't make sense. There are clues hints and some evidence but evidence is not the same thing as proof which many people confuse with.

If I told you I was abducted by an alien and I couldn't prove it, does that mean it didn't happen? No that'd be absurd. Just because I couldn't prove such a thing happened, doesn't mean it didn't happen. There are some things not so easily proven or explained and there are some things science can't explain, at least with our science. People are not going to dedicate time and effort to making rituals that have no effect. And it's rather arrogant for you to claim I wasn't skeptical. Do you know me or what I've done and seen? Of course not. I was skeptical. I thought it was all nonsense and fantasy and I was wrong. But hey I'm just making it up for no apparent reason other than to get attention or to get lulz right? I forgot, you know me better than I know myself and have seen everything I've done and witnessed.

I already know such power exists. I've been familiar with it for some time. I know others than can use it. Can I prove it? Not so easily. Not exactly easily to prove that one has had visions or experienced deities, or used blessing magic or using telepathy I don't blame you for questioning it because I did as well. But it's rather presumptuous to say such abilities can't exist "Because I say so or it doesn't say so in our science text books so therefore such abilities cannot and will not exist ever." But do you really think your opinion is going to change mine? You have this unbelievably arrogant and pompous attitude that I don't even want to discuss it with you. You're free to believe what you want as am I.

Ok, so the first paragraph is essentially an appeal to popularity fallacy... No amount of believers counts for evidence, no amount of anecdotes does either. Unlike you I am not going to presume the motivation behind the made up stories, but their number has no bearing on their premise's validity.
You, sir, do not understand the difference between evidence and proof nor what either of those are individually. There is no such thing as proof of a synthetic claim. I would never ask for proof of such a thing. And what you give is stories about witnesses, which is hearsay. That is not even evidence.

If you told me you were abducted by aliens and had no evidence of it, of course that wouldn't mean that it didn't happen. It would mean that nobody has a reason to believe that it happened, but it might have happened anyway. But we aren't talking about alien abductions. We are talking about an abduction scenario where the aliens planted a device under your skin that we should expect to be able to detect traces of - and we don't.
I didn't say what you used to believe or not. I said you weren't skeptical, and I explained exactly why I would say that. A skeptic isn't a non-believer, a skeptic is somebody who wouldn't believe things for really really bad reasons or expect others to, and that is exactly what you do. The fact that you used to believe otherwise doesn't make you any more a skeptic if the fundamentals of skepticism have been alien to you all along. If you could kindly quote me saying what you did or did not believe, please do. If you could kindly quote me talking about the motivations behind your changing your mind, please do. Again, similarly to before, if you are going to put words in my mouth, don't quote what I actually said in the same breath. That way everybody can see what I did and didn't say.

If you can't show it, then you don't know it. How sincere or how convinced you are matters not to anybody but yourself, and that's fine. To the rest of us the most that can matter is why any of us should believe it, and you have given us nothing but logical fallacies to go on. That is not good enough.
I never said such abilities couldn't exist. Read again, I really never said it. I didn't refer to science text books ever before in this thread either. Look it up, I really didn't.
I do not seek to change your mind, I seek to change my own, reason permitting. I usually presume that people are convinced of things for some reason or another and I figure maybe that reason would convince me, too, and then I would learn something. Call me arrogant for explaining why I think your reasoning is flawed - which it is. Call me untactful for not quite fitting into your image of what "people usually assume". Call me pompous for calling you out on your presumptuousness about anyone of a different opinion and call me rude for noticing how you misrepresent the very thing you quote. I don't need to defend myself this time, I trust whoever reads this will come to their own conclusion regardless.
Did I not rather explicitly explain that I am not free to believe as I want? If your wishes is how you justify your beliefs, then you are right, I am not ever going to change your mind and we can stop our exchange right here. I was hoping to walk away having learned something fascinating new. Instead I learned that not everybody is like me in this regard...

Gisteron wrote: Call me arrogant for explaining why I think your reasoning is flawed - which it is. Call me untactful for not quite fitting into your image of what "people usually assume". Call me pompous for calling you out on your presumptuousness about anyone of a different opinion and call me rude for noticing how you misrepresent the very thing you quote.

I just call ya a Debbie Downer...

I believe that some will dismiss it and understandably so is because they see many fake videos and shows of them performing such powers, like fortune tellers that are actually scam artists. But the thing is they witness so many of the fakes that they ignore the ones that actually can do something. I have talked to a medium before and while some mediums are fake this one definitely was not as he knew things that there was no way he could have known, accurately predicted things of yet to come and was almost spot on when it came to my relatives, my relation to them, how I talked to them over the years, ect. I highly doubt those were all just crazy coincedences and lucky guesses. Again can't prove it but it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Underneath a pile of fool's gold, there are some gold nuggests to be found and that psychic was a gold nugget.

Some I feel may be in denial because as I said there are some that will just refuse such abilities exist because they can't wrap their head around it, or explain it, but they try to come up with some sort of explanation as to why it happened that way. Honestly, wouldn't you freak out a little if you first saw that magic and psychic powers do exist? Wouldn't you be a little unnerved that ghosts, aliens and spirits exist as well? The idea sometimes frightens people and they go into denial mode. It happens a lot, more often than people think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6uj1ruTmGQ

I was a Pagan Priest for about ten years, and in that period, I've flirted with dozens of different Traditions from Druidism to Goetia, to Kheprianism and other stuff. I'm also a Candomblecist, and I've already seens hundreds of different proofs over the years of the existence of Spirits and life after death and how spirits can affect our lives and stuff, and how magick (using the term Aleister Crowley coined) works in the physical world. And if you consider the time where I wasn't officially a Pagan, but was studying different paths inside Occultism, that is about almost all my life, since my first contact with Divinatory systems, and they were the Runes, happened when I was 5 or 6.

And I can tell you that, in all those years dealing with many different things, there were two things I've never seen: telekinesis and alien abductions.

I mean, I've already seen things dropped and moved by spirits, like Poltergeist phenomena, and even at one time, someone directly asked a construct made in some kind of Ceremonial Magick to move something, and I saw it moving. But that's not telekinesis. Being able to move things with your mind only, that's telekinesis, and I've never ever seen it.

I would not be frigthened, I would be intrigued. After I'd made reasonably sure that I am not being deceived, I'd try to figure out how to explain these things and why nobody else so far has. We do have examples of educated guesses and of hallucinations, but we have none of genuine confirmed wizardry or ghosts. You are welcome to doubt the established and observed and believable in favour of something that is as much unconfirmed and incredible as it is inherently unexplainable and thus more or less useless for practical application... I would tentatively assume the former for practical reasons and, as with everything, reserve final judgement until after a sufficiently solid conglomeration of evidence is recovered.
Surely, denial out of fear is a common thing, but one shouldn't presume that this is what is going on in any particular case before even asking. Not everybody is driven by instinct in their quest for discovery, you know. Some have or at least seek to have genuinely good reasons to believe one way or the other.

Also, I apologize if I was getting more heated there than was appropriate, especially considering how neither of us is strictly used to the other much yet. I also apologize to the readers of the thread, if any of that caused any unease about voicing their own opinions on the matter. Rest assured that little to none of it was meant to either offend or attack on a personal level. It is not the discussions with peace but those with passion that we tend to grow most from, and eventhough the heat may not always be completely pleasant at the time, it has something of a cathartic effect in the end. In that spirit, perhaps this will come again soon; and no hard feelings

I think it was in one of the Thor movies, and I know this is just a movie but did say things that stuck with me "Your ancestors called it magic, you call it science. I come froma world where they are one and the same." Really I see magic, telekinesis just another form of science or another way of one can understand the universe. Aside from the numerous societies that have practiced magic or some kind of psychic power, ad one should ask if it was all fake and smoke and mirrors, why would groups even try to use it? If they read from a book that would bless and protect and bless the person and if it didn't actually happen, why would they do it? That's what got me interested in the first place with nature magic. I thought such abilities couldn't happen and I asked why would people read entire books and go through all of these rituals for nothing
Then I found they were gaining something from it, but just because I couldn't see it at the time, doesn't mean nothing was happening. And so I have read psionics and know that telepathy can be done and don't see why telekinesis can't be done. The mind is powerful, much more powerful than people think.