You spot fake witches because they believe in magic instead of Magick. Being a witch is a spiritual practice, if curses actually worked the world would be very different (and way, way more fucked than it currently is)
Wicca was invented in 1954. They’re all fake witches.
Nothing fails like prayer. Or magic, which is just a different flavor of prayer and vice versa.
When I used to be New Age I believed that not believing in magic gave you a resistance to it because Quantum…
Accepting the truth that magic ain’t real was tough
I wouldn’t ever do this because as soon as anything went wrong in my life I’d never be able to shake the question that it was super natural. I’m extremely skeptical and don’t believe in any supernatural things, but I have a fear of developing superstitions. Also when I get really stressed about my life and feel like it is particularly unfair I start to feel like there is some sort of external source of my problems and it’s malevolent. So, doing something like this would be a recipe for problems for me lol.
There has to be a fancy name for this phobia.
I have a fear of developing superstitions
Ngl that sounds like a good horror-comedy
is skeptical and doesn’t believe in the supernatural
has a fear of developing superstitionSounds to me like you’ve been cursed, mate.
Hopefully if I’m ever cursed it’ll be in a cool way, like it’ll teach me some sort of life lesson then either go away or be useful after the fact. Rather than some sort of eternal punishment thing lmao.
Television has taught me it’s usually resolved within 30-45 minutes of hijinxs and adventures … or two episodes if it’s something really major
Sounds like you have a superstition about superstitions.
They aren’t superstitious, but they’re a little stitious
What a whelming comment
Mediumstitious.
No, I don’t think it’s “bad luck” to think things are “bad luck”.
tbh I’ve just accepted that superstitions are part of the human psyche. I don’t believe in “chi” in the sense of some energy that can be measured but there’s definitely some kind of pattern recognition in the human subconscious that’s processing the flow of the environment around them and the people in it that way. And a lot of cultures worldwide have longstanding traditions that guide the way they deal with that both in the sense of soothing that part of the subconscious but also trying to address whatever threat or goal in the environment that that pattern recognition is trying to draw attention to. I really enjoyed “Feng Shui Modern” by Cliff Tan if you want a really great explanation of concrete ways in which principles of that practice tend to help people feel safer in a space. He talks about things like the most common paths people take take through rooms, wanting to have your back against something solid, and not liking having beams and lights hanging directly over your head.
And personally I just try to keep the less concretely beneficial things to fun cultural traditions and other stuff I can connect with people around and avoid things that have been like, objectively disproven by modern science in some way or that would be specifically harmful to some specific circumstance / situation. So like carrying around an evil eye talisman is fine but using an herbal remedy that’s been found to be harmful is not. And I find it’s also helpful to think of it less in terms of specific effects / outcomes such as hexing, and more in terms of good energy / bad energy or good luck / bad luck. So the evil eye ward isn’t protecting me from some specific thing, it’s just a general hope that I’ll avoid toxicity in my life. And there’s a big mindfulness component to these things too; the talisman is also a reminder to yourself to avoid negativity and try to put positivity out into the world around you.
I like your world view!
This reminds me of some work drama…
My coworker was cursed by our
bwitch of an ‘assistant manager’ for turning her down, and the next day his mom had hot oil splash up her whole arm and it looked bad.Not supersticious but he was and he was terrified. It was horrible to watch.
Sounds like a wonderful work environment
Did you burn the witch?
💧💧
Two sips of water counter the next spell cast your way, no wonder he’s having such an easy time avoiding themReminder that there used to be a $1,000,000 prize available for anyone who could display any sort of supernatural powers that remained unclaimed for 20 years. The challenge rules required that both parties agree upon the test setup, and several people actually tried to claim it and all failed. It astounds me that anyone still believes in this nonsense and that it seems to be becoming even more popular to believe in literal magic and other supernatural idiocy.
Ah yes James Randi, a man I have very mixed feelings on. He was a climate skeptic who would claim to have debunked people who never signed up for his challenge. A real scum bag in general. He was also a high School drop out with no training in the sciences.
Admittedly he called himself an “Honest Liar” and was motivated not by money but out of fear that people believed he had magic back when he was a magician.
Still given his character I tend not to take JREF too seriously.
There was that guy who could make almost anyone forget almost anything, he won the prize many times. :D
I am at the point where if anyone, ever, for any reason, asks me what my astrological sign is, I stop communicating with them.
They always turn out to be irresponsible, narcissistic idiots every time.
An exception would be if this interaction is taking place completely within the confines of an actually defined fantasy world like a video game or ttrpg.
But real life? People who actually believe there is, or could potentially be anything to astrology?
Dangerous morons.
devil’s advocate: there are people like me who don’t take it seriously. like I enjoy talking to astrology people because listening to anyone talk about anything they’re interested in is downright entertaining, even if I personally don’t believe planetary positions have any influence on humans
Astrology has one major and tangible benefit - it lets you easily remember when roughly are people’s birthdays coming up.
I’m not gonna tell you that you shouldn’t talk to, or shouldn’t enjoying talking to astrology people.
I just have a lower threshold for bs I put up, and do not personally enjoy listening to enthusiastic yapping about absurd nonsense, I infact fact it insufferable, assuming it isn’t a child who is in the learning/development process.
Were you and I to be friends, irl or otherwise, I’d respectfully ask you to not waste my time with astrology, unless you want to have a meta or academic level discussion about … the psych tendencies/profiles of astrology believers, the actual real world history of its growth and development (which is very often completely different than what many astrology practitioners believe), how you can track the general decline of literacy and critical thinking skills and the education system by using the proliferation of astrology as a proxy…
… I would find those topics interesting.
But generally speaking, in an irl, casual conversation scenario?
Yeah my rule of thumb is that if we are just recently met and you are ardently asking me what my sign is, you’re a person I would rather not know at all.
Nothing wrong with having a filter. I suppose mine is that I won’t be friends with anyone who insists on contact through social media apps instead of regular texting (maybe Signal if they’re cool)
I also have that same additional filter as well, haha.
Maybe… we could… be friends lol?
I am so very tired of trying to explain how awful social media apps are to everyone, how they don’t realize they’re addicted to a digital drug that makes them angry, depressed and misinformed…
And then you also try to explain how to actually do online security, and they usually get angry when you tell them that all the marketing and advertisments lied to them.
We of tend play choose your horoscope at work. We gather free or paid newspaper and around a coffee we read the horoscopes and chose the best or the funnier.
I’ve worked as a copy editor for a small newspaper.
You wanna know how the horoscopes are written?
Lead editor pulls them out of his ass, often laughing while doing so.
They tended to be based on the plots of, or scenes in movies he’d recently seen, shows he was watching.
I’m not even kidding, this guy would also bombard me with variations of the GI Joe ‘porkchop sandwiches’ memes, in all likelihood was an editor by day, 4chan shit poster by night.
My wife makes a newspaper about me for my birthday every year. She makes the horoscopes too and that’s one of the most entertaining parts for her.
Yeah and since we laugh reading them, we do full circle XD
Yep they are literally complete bullshit and you have to be an actual moron to take them seriously…
Also I edited in more to my original comment after you replied, did not expect you to reply so fast, haha.
He I see, yeah that what i though, their can’t be science behind this. I wonder when we will start to get “AI” horoscopes.
(I am waiting to enter a music festival, nothing more to do than speak or argue with people)
There are various complex systems, calculations, tables and such that people use… but there is absolutely no actual empirical science that backs up any of any of them.
Therr are no plausible causal mechanisms.
There is also an immense wealth of scientific evidence showing how the predictions are uselessly inaccurate, as well as a bunch of other studies explaining how and why such vaguely worded predictions are convincing to certain kinds of people.
If there is any science to astrology, it is a science of being a scam artist, of psychological manipulation tactics.
As for the actual purported mechanisms of generating a horoscope, they often have psuedoscientific levels of complexity that fools rubes who cannot think critically:
Its complex, and I had to learn it, therefore it’s true and worthwhile!
Nevermind that it often doesn’t even make testable, falsifiable predictions, and when it does, they are not accurate, they are wrong.
Throw it out like we did with bloodletting, ‘body humors’, ‘vitalism’, trying to solve disease with sacrifices and prayer, Lamarckian evolution, etc…
What if real life is a video game?
Then astrology would be the equivalent of an entire belief system that functionally is so complex it essentially contitutes a religion…
Astrology would be that, but built on urban legend, pre-internet era myths about older video games, like Mew being in the back of a truck in Vermillion city.
It would be fake cheat codes that don’t work.
You sound like such a typical Leo
grumble grumble…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=75g0fjX0r4s
You’re lucky I have a thing for classic rock.
With pipe organs.
Sooooo
Your sign? :)
Ophiuchus is usually my answer
This is the funny troll answer that tests whether or not the astrologer has modern, up to date levels of dedication to their woo woo bs.
Blawcked!
ïþæ
Everyone should read about James Randi he was a brilliant skeptic.
And he did special effects for Alice Cooper!
Also friend of Penn and Teller. Just a great guy all around.
I have an interesting opinion on this. If someone displays “supernatural powers”, then those powers are not supernatural–just unknown. Therefore, it is an impossible prize to claim.
If you read the article, the rules were only that both parties have to agree on a test and if someone passed the test they won the prize. There wasn’t a “gotcha” clause like “Oh since you did it it’s clearly allowed by physics and we don’t have to pay up!” So like if someone showed they had psychic powers sufficient to pass an agreed upon test it doesn’t matter if there’s a natural explanation for it, they would have still won the prize.
I remember seeing piece of some TV show that invited both Randi and some “psychic”. The psychic showed his power of bending spoons, then Randi asked to do the trick again, only using one of his spoons. The fraud failed.
Well, in seriousness, and more interestingly, I’m not really willing to call supernatural powers real or fake, currently. There exist some stories I’ve come across, which are likely real, which contain absolutely unexplainable phenomenon. Just this morning, someone in a Discord I’m in (who wouldn’t just fake stories) was explaining how someone they knew had a psychotic break on psychedelics, and, in the ambulance, narrated the paramedics’ childhoods with disturbing accuracy. A trusted moderator of that space responded to my skepticism with “psychics absolutely exist, but the vast majority are just grifters”.
Note: Without getting into all the context, this moderator is not the kind of person to simply believe in conspiracy theories.
I used to be a Reddit atheist (ew), and I’ve gone from thinking I know everything, to being very serious about accepting different views–no matter how absurd. We’re unaware of so many more things than we’re aware of.
I’m of the opinion that if psychic abilities exist, they can not be on command. They might. They might not. I would rather be honest than claim to be factual–I don’t know.
“it’s true, it happened to a friend of a friend of mine.”
Don’t be so open minded your brain falls out of your head.
Rude.
Just this morning, someone in a Discord I’m in (who wouldn’t just fake stories) was explaining how someone they knew had a psychotic break on psychedelics, and, in the ambulance, narrated the paramedics’ childhoods with disturbing accuracy
I think it’s entirely possible this person is being honest while also just not having a firm grasp over what actually happened, due to having a psychotic break from psychedelics. The paramedic simply agreeing to whatever they said (if the conversation did happen—I’ve been unsure whether a conversation I thought I had was real or not just from smoking too much weed) could have been interpreted as much deeper and more profound than it was.
None of this requires ill intent. The mind is just incredibly bad at making and retrieving memories in the way we want (infallible, like a video) even when you aren’t on drugs.
It could also just be cold reading. People who haven’t been exposed to that can find it eerily accurate, even though it’s just a combination of random guessing with reinforcing the guesses that got reactions. It’s the kind of thing that both parties could participate in without either being explicitly familiar with the technique.
This is the probable explanation. However, all I have is the surface of the story. If it truly was an accurate reading (as in, the paramedics adding to what was being said), I’m unaware of it. I don’t really like pressing for details in others’ potentially traumatic events, though.
Most of that is just mentalism, which is effective and useful but works off a psychological and stochastic approach but is absolutely explainable and not supernatural despite its applications in manipulating people. See: Jacob Wysocki in the one year later episode of game changer
I probably will watch that. Thanks!
There’s a term for this idea, “preternatural”. It means a phenomenon that is the result of the natural world, not magic or divine, but still unexplainable with our current understanding.
James Randi’s prize didn’t require proof of the supernatural, it was open to preternatural phenomena as well. Someone just had to prove it was a REAL phenomenon and not a hoax or random chance.
There’s a term for this idea, “preternatural”. It means a phenomenon that is the result of the natural world, not magic or divine, but still unexplainable with our current understanding.
So anything actually proven to exist would be “preternatural” then. Even it turned out to be the result of magic or the devine, it’s still something that exists in the natural world that we just don’t understand yet.
Sort of, assuming you don’t believe that God or magic are real. If I had premonitions of the future, and could demonstrate through testing that they come true, I’d be proving a phenomenon exists but not necessarily anything about the origins. They could be visions from God, making me a prophet. They could be something with a natural origin, like an energy or invisible spirits.
It’s a term used by occultists, ghost hunters, and other people who want to discuss / legitimize spooky shit without the religious baggage of the word “supernatural”.
I mean no one even managed to display “unknown” powers either.
They were all explainable
Removed by mod
This is a warning for rule 5
I looked for the video and came across a reddit thread about it. Here are two really funny comments:
I think its rather silly to say the least especially since curses require a certain amount of anger and hatred that im sure next to nobody feels to this person.
Oh yeah that’s why it didn’t work
Magic requires willpower and intention to use properly. I doubt any of these randos on the internet actually possessed the genuine desire or emotional investment to actually curse a random guy on the internet who had heretofore never interacted with them
Anyone who actually understood this likely didnt rise to the bait.
No true witch!
So, they’re saying that the magic is real, but I can’t just go to a crazy old crone’s potions shop and purchase a curse on someone because that’s not how it works? Well, that’s disappointing.
Edit: “no true witch” = hilarious
It’s a take on the logical fallacy: No True Scotsman
I got it :) It was hilarious.
Well, yeah. Didn’t you see that documentary The Craft? There’s also that really old documentary about life in like 15th century New England about that family that gets cursed by the witch and then the daughter joins a coven. They have footage of her flying. I think it was called The VVitch.
Honestly though, it does point out how stupid rage-baiting is. This guy genuinely thinks that they must care about his opinion and when they ignore him for being a weird little tit he spends a whole lot of effort to try to say that that’s proof that their thing isn’t real. For one it’s trying to prove a negative, and two it’s just such a weird, self-absorbed thing to do.
Chasing hate from others is such a weird thing to do. I don’t think magic is real but I’d still rather be friends with some random person who thinks it is than be anywhere near this fuckin’ douchebag.
I’m not defending the guy here (he does seem like a douchebag) but I think I’d rather hang out with a skeptic than someone dumb enough to believe crystals have healing energies.
Plus, the videos exist because the witches didn’t ignore him. No shortage of magic-believers in the replies.
None of this is newsworthy but I’m cringing harder at the angry replies than the fact that he’s rage baiting
The witches’ personalities are built on nonsense, sure, but I’d rather that than a person whose personality seems to be enjoying increasing hateful energy. It reads as someone who says that any and all criticism is “just people being haters”. I wouldn’t want to hang out with any of these people but I’m standing by my position that trolls are just pathetic, negatively impactful people.
I think I’d rather hang out with a skeptic than someone dumb enough to believe crystals have healing energies
In the absence of any other information at all, sure I guess I agree, but like basically anything else is more important than this, like being a caring person, being fun to talk to, etc.
You’re right but I was just using the criteria they were to decide
I have a made up word I have never said to anyone.
Nobody claiming to be psychic has ever been able to detect it.
While it’s a meaningless thing overall, it is endlessly entertaining to watch someone spiral from “trying” to discover it, to random guessing, to being angry and declaring that I’m lying and they got it the first time.
It’s kinda like my secret. I have a secret I have never told anyone. It’s another thing I will put before a self proclaimed psychic. Even once they progress to guessing, none have ever even thrown it out as an option.
And you’d be amazed how many self proclaimed psychics there are out in the world, and how many of them seem to really think they are psychic, to the degree that they’ll accept someone presenting one or both of those challenges.
The made up word would be a difficult guess for sure. But my secret isn’t something so rare that nobody could possibly hit on it as a guess.
I’m not willing to outright say that there’s no thing that could be called psychic ability. What I am willing to say is that nobody has ever exhibited such, and likely never will
“You have a very protective aura, which is a good thing, since it serves as a natural protection and everyone has it. But this also means that I am not on the same kind of energy like you, which is why it is difficult for me.”
Said a fortune teller once to my mother, who felt like she was being told bullshit. (Which is true, because fortune tellers and the like are a scam.) But such people will always find some bullshitty explanation to still save their face.
Bro you didn’t make up that word. You heard it on an episode of Always Sunny and forgot. I’d say it but honestly it’s so close to a racial slur that I’d rather not risk it.
You have said it before, it was the last thing you said to Brian before he went out that night and… well I can sense there’s a lot of unresolved drama there so I’ll stop talking now
Anyway don’t worry about Brian, in the great hereafter he became really good at Sudoku and is considering reincarnation on a planet in the Crab nebula. Interesting choice considering the people of that world are all female. Humanity won’t discover them for about two weeks but first contact will be surprisingly underwhelming
Naw I’m messing with you. This was all stream of conciousness… but maybe I freaked someone out who thought I was serious.
I fucking loved it!
🙄
Burrchismo
You stuck a hot wheel tire… '64 Corvette Stingray, up your nose as a child and it never came out
Easy peasy
Is it “frint”?
kwyjibo
Beans
Melphosia
thousanfolcut, mr samurai
Snork
Bro that was a TV show
The witch subculture is on the same level as kids who start channeling their chi to kamehameha a bully
Anyone who watched that episode where Gohan taught Videl how to channel chi and didn’t try it at home was probably too old to be watching the anime
… didn’t we all do this?
That’s not true, the kids will figure out they’re cosplaying eventually.
LIGHTNING BOLT
This is just a high effort version of “…Then may God strike me dead!” but targeting a spiritual minority instead if the hegemonic national religion. Shouldn’t the amount of un-smited politicians indicate that there is no God?
Not quite the same. God (hypothetically) has their own plan, so if I pray for god to smite you, and they don’t, then I can just say “well, I guess that’s not God’s plan”. Whereas, if you believe in hexes and/or curses as something fundamentally different to a bog standard prayer, then presumably the hexer and/or curser has more agency over the result than that.
It’s really funny how the “singular, omnipotent god” religions fucked up the logic behind prayers. When you had many gods and spirits and whatnot, a prayer not being heard could be taken as it not being stronger than another spirit/god, or the god of your choice ignoring you, or something else.
With omnimono, god has a plan, so prayers are either trying to convince him to change the plans (which, if assumed true, opens a very interesting can of theological worms), or will fall on deaf ears, as the plan won’t change.
it’s a risky thing to do,
the vast majority of cases, you’ll be right. but no one will care.
however, in the unlikely event where you suffer a immediate tragedy, like trip and break your nose, stroke, bird shits on you. you might start a new religion
Yeah, I got taken in like this for a while.
I grew up religious and one time prayed for a friend who was going to go though a couple of surgeries and would have to eat through a straw for a few months. I prayed that I could take some of the pain for him if needed. Turned out that I had a small accident and got my first stitches the next day and my friend was able to avoid additional months of recovery because the surgeon was able to do both operations at once. I took that as a sign that my prayer had worked and believed more strongly in God. For a while until I realized that coincidences can happen and that believing in God is pretty stupid.
And squander your magical talents for substitutional atonement??
Strangely enough, I could never get it to work again. Must’ve been my fault though, not God’s.
imagine there was a Messiah, god incarnate born on earth, but he didn’t believe any religious nonsense, and every one in a while he accidentally does some miracles. which he dismisses.
that’s you
Shouldn’t the amount of any un-smited politicians prove any spiritual group that claims to have the ability to harm people wrong? I mean why are witches so mad that they can’t hurt a random guy?
I can only actually name one politician that was smited
There’s this one Turkish politician that got smited right after he said that Allah will judge Israel
Do it again, but with the magical powers of theism instead of witchcraft.
Pfft. They have had that covered for centuries.
“The Lord works in mysterious ways…”
Could one not say “witches work in mysterious ways”?
Magic works in mysterious ways.
That certainly explains why there’s no peer review of the magics
Thry work in witchy ways.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda…
I know there’s at least one dead fireman that proves god protected Trump or so I’m told.
Classic theurgy vs thaumaturgy
I mean I’d say I don’t believe in witchcraft but I wouldn’t take on this challenge, so I guess I do believe in witchcraft
“I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.”
Mark Twain said he didn’t believe in ghosts, but they scare the hell out of him.
Witch casts fireball via an amulett (molotov)
I think that would be more of an oversized ampule.
Do I want a bunch of maladjusted internet weirdos to have a personal stake in my life going wrong? Do I fuck.
I’m not worried about Miss Cleo spoiling my aura, I’m worried about Charles le Sorcier finding my house.
I’m curious to what you all think of this:
No, we’re not referring to your beloved Atari Pong paddles – we’re talking about your brain. The EPOC uses a headset that actually picks up on your brain waves. These brain waves can tell the system what you want to do in your virtual reality. In other words, you think “lift,” and a virtual rock actually levitates on the screen.
Magic or nah?
Not magic, of course. It’s science.
The elctrical activity in your brain is measurable by electrodes placed on your skull. What we then get is called an electro-encephalogram, short: EEG. Although they rather measure a summation of activity rather than individual neurons. Still, this allows to draw some conclusions and has been widely used in neuromedicine.
For instance, it can help to diagnose epilepsy, or investigate sleep quality. In contexts of the Emotiv, to put it simply, it rather measures levels of concentration than actual thoughts.But, with sufficient training you can enable such a system to perform a bit more complex tasks, like opening or closing a mechanical hand, driving a wheelchair in a simple mamner, etc… Although, from my experience, the applications are very limited and unstable.
Well, at the moment I don’t understand how it works, and any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic, but if I follow the link titled “How the Emotiv EPOC Works” then it will remove the mystery, thus making it distinguishable from magic.
This man is a true servant of The Emperor, the touch of Chaos must be resisted at all costs.
You know about Chaos? Time to exterminatus the planet to make sure this forbidden knowledge doesn’t spread.
Moshi moshi, inquisitor-sama? Yes, these two up here, heretics
You want to preform Exterminatus on Holy Terra? HERESY!
