Materialistic mysticism - the science of magic

[Resonance]

First, let me be clear: I mean 'materialist' in the sense that the laws of physics are the ONLY ones. In other words, under this paradigm, there is no 'supernatural'. I can explain in more detail if y'all'd like, but that's not really what this thread is about.

The trouble with trying to be perfectly secular is that our brains are not tuned to be perfectly logical or rational. We've got a zillion 'cognitive biases' with obvious evolutionary advantages, and the only reason we're able to perform logic and mathematics at all is because of the advantages of clear, complete communication - via language. So one might wonder - is it possible to use this logic/rationality to circumvent our instincts where they aren't advantageous, or even exploit those mechanisms to enhance our well-being?

The answer, I believe, is yes. I have a few different examples.

The Secret, or Think and Grow Rich
What it is
Most of you won't be alien to 'the secret', also known as 'think and grow rich', which is about positive thinking to achieve nebulous goals. But there is more than one (scientific) reason why it works - and understanding these can help you be careful what you wish for as well as not waste your time wishing for something that's outside of the realm of possibility (like shooting fireballs out of your fingertips).
How it works
One of the phenomena in play is the Expectancy effects. There are a few, since they affect all of our social interactions as well as our own behaviour. Basically, if you expect a certain outcome, or you can sense that someone else expects a certain outcome, your behaviour will adjust slightly to nudge the probability in that direction.
Examples

• Consider the example of a hot stove - if you expect it to be hot, you'll be a lot quicker to withdraw your hand after touching it, and suffer less damage.
• What about a job interview? If you know you're going to get the job, unless the interviewer takes your expectancy as unwarranted arrogance, you're going to convince them a lot more easily.
• We have to be extremely careful of these effects in scientific studies - if the test subject or even the person doing the testing expects a certain result, that result is ridiculously more likely to occur.
• A more controversial example - Children with Down's syndrome who undergo surgery to fix their tongue and eyes so that they don't look or sound as unusual will grow up to have an IQ about 15 points higher than their more disadvantaged counterparts. (granted, they're still going to be well below average, but this is the difference between being clinically retarded and just being one of the slower kids in the class.) People have different expectations for someone they know is mentally retarded - and this has a profound effect on that person's development.

Brain-state control mostly Meditation
What it is
One of the few things our conscious mind is capable of is focus. By focusing on different things, we can change our brain activity state. You might think this is more of a basic ability than something magical, but controlling your state of mind is important for taking advantage of many of these 'tricks', and can amplify the results of ones that already work.
How it works
The executive functions are one of the less-well-understood brain areas (yes, there are some areas which we understand very well). So I can't really give you the neurological reason for this. The classic way to 'train' this ability is to focus on literally nothing at all, such that you are in an intense state without actually thinking about anything in particular. This way, you don't limit yourself to one particular area - your general focus improves in all areas.
Examples

• Falling asleep at will
• Meditation (obviously)
• Staying awake during a boring activity

Psychosomatics
What it is
Sensory perception is a weird and complex beast. Our brain gets signals from throughout the body. But from there, the information gets refined, processed, and distributed all over the place - and mixed together, and amplified. This doesn't always happen in the most accurate of ways and the unconscious part of our brain (which is most of it - some say 97-98%) tends to take that information and work with it, no matter how inaccurate. Some estimate that 70% of most symptoms are psychosomatic severity - not caused by the pain/nausea/etc. itself but by how our brain reacts to it. The cool thing is, our conscious minds do have some control over how the information is processed, which means we can indirectly affect how our body reacts.
How it works
Similar to Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, it basically involves consciously reinterpreting your sensations to mean something other than what your instinct is. Ideally, you reinterpret it as something that you yourself have control over, and that changes your biological response.
Examples

• You hear scurrying - perhaps it is the furnace fan starting up, not a mouse as you originally thought. No action needed really since the furnace fan is part of the house.
• Your leg hurts - perhaps it is merely tired from the day's work, and not an indication of something more sinister. You massage it a little and the pain increases slightly but it's clearly a recovery ache - the 'good kind' of pain.
• You have a headache - suppose it is caffeine withdrawal rather than an infection. Drink a cup of coffee and it will largely go away, even if that wasn't the reason - it may still hurt, but it'll be a lot less world-shattering.

Imagination-empathy
What it is
Perhaps the most important aspect of the executive functions is the ability to come up with hypothetical situations in our mind's eye and 'test' them against the rest of our mind, and even against our bodies and the world (e.g. air guitar). The coolest thing (IMO) about it is, our mirror neurons don't know the difference. I'm sure most INFJs have experienced it at one point or another - reading a story, or hearing about someone they have never met, and feeling genuine empathy for them. We reconstruct the person in our imaginations, and it's so close to real that we can't help it.
How it works
When you need to feel a certain way, simply imagine someone feeling that way and attempt to empathize with them.
Examples

• Starving children in Africa (assuming you do care about them; I know some don't)
• Crying, fear, etc. at movies (not pure imagination but it's still a sub-reality)
• Picturing someone freezing in the arctic when you are hot in summer

After proofreading this, I realize it's kind of vague and things are split up in ways that don't really make a lot of sense, but hopefully you can put two and two together to make five

Do you do any of these? If not, wanna try it? Do you have any other suggestions? Did I miss any important details?

This thread is for secular magic only. No metaphysics allowed!

 

[Resonance]

One that I don't really understand AT ALL and that I've been doing since before I can remember is 'chi-flow'. I just imagine that people are constantly radiating 'green energy'. And when there is pain, there is 'red energy'. You can sort of direct the green energy, though not the red, pretty much just by thinking about it...to envelop and protect and so on. I did this to help myself fall asleep - imagine radiating out all my green energy so that I would feel tired and drowsy. I also used it for pain - endorphins seemed to at least somewhat respond to it, I guess, although it was not all that effective for acute pain like cramps. Later on, when people around me started getting into Qi Gong, I tried manipulating it to generate heat or whatever, but I think that's more along the lines of increasing blood flow so that the air around your hands heats up and so on. It's useful in the winter when it's 40 below though!

 

[jyrffw54]

I actually do a lot of these, with the warranted results you stated.
Except with headaches, I drink water because I assume it's the start of dehydration.
I also do this thing called the PTS tapping exercise:
Say that you have a headache that is about a 7 on teh pain scale. Well, you give firm taps to ev.erywhere else on your body (top of head, cheeks, chin, neck, sides, arms) but not your temples and forehead. And as you tap, you repeat to yourself, "This headache may be a 7, but I know that I will be okay, that this will pass". Within about 3-5 minutes, you headache will be at about a 3 or 4.

 

[jyrffw54]

One that I don't really understand AT ALL and that I've been doing since before I can remember is 'chi-flow'. I just imagine that people are constantly radiating 'green energy'. And when there is pain, there is 'red energy'. You can sort of direct the green energy, though not the red, pretty much just by thinking about it...to envelop and protect and so on. I did this to help myself fall asleep - imagine radiating out all my green energy so that I would feel tired and drowsy. I also used it for pain - endorphins seemed to at least somewhat respond to it, I guess, although it was not all that effective for acute pain like cramps. Later on, when people around me started getting into Qi Gong, I tried manipulating it to generate heat or whatever, but I think that's more along the lines of increasing blood flow so that the air around your hands heats up and so on. It's useful in the winter when it's 40 below though!

I just look at it as "mind over matter". I also have found my green energy useful around my period, to abate the headache and cramps, and when I am going through the torture of getting my hair braided. It works wonders.

I can also use it to generate heat. Perhaps, it is why I don't cold as easily as others?

 

[Resonance]

I actually do a lot of these, with the warranted results you stated.
Except with headaches, I drink water because I assume it's the start of dehydration.
I also do this thing called the PTS tapping exercise:
Say that you have a headache that is about a 7 on teh pain scale. Well, you give firm taps to ev.erywhere else on your body (top of head, cheeks, chin, neck, sides, arms) but not your temples and forehead. And as you tap, you repeat to yourself, "This headache may be a 7, but I know that I will be okay, that this will pass". Within about 3-5 minutes, you headache will be at about a 3 or 4.

Cool, I'll try that sometime if coffee isn't a viable candidate

I just look at it as "mind over matter". I also have found my green energy useful around my period, to abate the headache and cramps, and when I am going through the torture of getting my hair braided. It works wonders.

I can also use it to generate heat. Perhaps, it is why I don't cold as easily as others?

Possible. I get cold quite easily, but if I focus on warming myself, I can withstand it.

 

[Jungian Trip]

I have been interested in the idea of "Materialist Mysticism" (and in fact I have googled it a few times with little evidential success). It stems from my desire to become a better person- stronger, healthier, more empathetic, less hostile, broader understanding of "reality"- but much of the material written on these factors come from religious or pseudo-religious underpinnings.

I find Zen Buddhism compelling on many levels, yet much of the metaphysical explanations turns me off. I practice Mindfulness or TM almost daily.

Alan Watts is one of the writers and thinkers I admire most from the 20th century.

I guess what I find most interesting from your post is the emphasis on the brain as the prime catalyst for personal revolution and transformation. I am surpised at how often neurology is ignored in self-help books. Instead many approach change as being manifest through an ethereal soul or to a singular self that borders the conception of self-hood apart from the brain.

As a primer I suggest The Three Pound Universe. Wonderful read. On a lighter note I am almost finished reading Quirk by Hannah Holmes (The Well-Dressed Ape and The Secret Life of Dust). She includes neurological studies from laboratory mice and rats and laboratory humans as she splashes into the Big 5. Very basic, but a good read nonetheless.

Do you have any reading suggestions in relation to Mystical Materialism or the like?

 

[Resonance]

No, sorry - I don't read much anymore. Although I've been working my way through The Brain that Changes Itself on bus rides and such. It's pretty interesting and some of the stuff is applicable to this area.

 

[Wyote]

The brain is incredibly powerful. Once you get good at unlocking some of it's potential in these different ways, it's important to not carry things to far as to delude yourself. Tapping can be particularly dangerous in this respect. It's a very strong form of hypnosis.

 

[juju817]

The conscious mind tricking the lump of tissue that produces it. Crazy. I'm not very knowledgeable on the subject but i do reckon that everything can and will be explained thru neuroscience. I think this concept has too many metaphysically undertones which can severely stigmatize it's legitimacy. Specifically the explanations as previously stated above.

Even this is a form of delusion but a healthy one nonetheless. To me there are more optimal or just as viable solutions to those circumstances you mention via examples. But meh, whatever works.

 

[Resonance]

The brain is incredibly powerful. Once you get good at unlocking some of it's potential in these different ways, it's important to not carry things to far as to delude yourself. Tapping can be particularly dangerous in this respect. It's a very strong form of hypnosis.

It is? Oh dear, I must be WAY deluded then... I probably spend at least an hour a day absent-mindedly tapping while trying to think.

The conscious mind tricking the lump of tissue that produces it. Crazy. I'm not very knowledgeable on the subject but i do reckon that everything can and will be explained thru neuroscience. I think this concept has too many metaphysically undertones which can severely stigmatize it's legitimacy. Specifically the explanations as previously stated above.

I don't see what's metaphysical about them. All are based on concepts that are fully accepted in psychology and taught to undergrads.

Even this is a form of delusion but a healthy one nonetheless. To me there are more optimal or just as viable solutions to those circumstances you mention via examples. But meh, whatever works.

I'm very careful to not use anything you might have to pay money for (aside from a university-level neuroscience education, lol). So really, it's nothing but knowledge. I don't know how you can get more efficient than that!

 

[AUM]

One trick I always do which many people are not aware of, is that you can control the intensity of the pain in your body using mental distractions. Almost everyone when they get physically injured focus so much on the pain, that the nervous system gets intensified and the brain reacts to it by assuming the pain is very strong. On the other hand, whenever I'm badly injured, I immediately stop the mental flow, and "detach myself from my body" and the pain stops completely. Just a week ago, I got my leg stuck on a barb wire fence, and it started bleeding really badly. At first the pain was intense, but then I did the above exercise and my foot just went numb and the pain was no more.

When I say I detach myself from my body I'm referring that I see my body as a piece of furniture, and since a piece of furniture can't really feel pain, it really doesn't affect me as much as if otherwise I would take my body as a living organism.

Pretty interesting topic.

 

[Resonance]

Dissociation is something I don't recommend. It might be OK for brief, acute pain though.

 

[AUM]

Dissociation is something I don't recommend. It might be OK for brief, acute pain though.

Correct. Any tool can be abused. I used to disassociate myself back in my teenager days, but for a different sort of pain.

 

[Resonance]

Correct. Any tool can be abused. I used to disassociate myself back in my teenager days, but for a different sort of pain.

y..yes.

 

[juju817]

It is? Oh dear, I must be WAY deluded then...

I don't see what's metaphysical about them. All are based on concepts that are fully accepted in psychology and taught to undergrads.




I'm very careful to not use anything you might have to pay money for (aside from a university-level neuroscience education, lol). So really, it's nothing but knowledge. I don't know how you can get more efficient than that!

Well i stand corrected. I saw mysticism/magic and made an presumptuous interconnection which doesn't exist. And yeah, true that on the efficiency remark.

 

[Kgal]

The brain is incredibly powerful. Once you get good at unlocking some of it's potential in these different ways, it's important to not carry things to far as to delude yourself. Tapping can be particularly dangerous in this respect. It's a very strong form of hypnosis.

[MENTION=251]Wyote[/MENTION]


Could it be used for a positive hypnosis?

 

[Wyote]

Sure. I didn't mean to imply otherwise, it just seems that the way in which it is widely used is to block natural feelings which need to be processed rather than blocked. Processing difficult emotions creates strength whereas blocking them does not allow for any sort of healthy growth.

 

[VH]

This is profoundly interesting, as you've described the sorts of things that I do and believe in rather acute detail, just with terms that I wouldn't. However, you've banned metaphysics (even though I believe these to be physics principles science hasn't 'discovered' yet) from the thread so I can't discuss my take on them.

However, you did bring up Chi flow. My father was a Kung Fu instructor, and his teacher was amazing with Chi flow. He taught me a lot. I can heal many common ailments (symptoms mostly... like headaches, menstrual cramps, nausea, hyperventalation, etc.) with Chi flow. I can also 3 inch punch (without the Bruce Lee bodyweight trick) a 250 pound guy 5 feet backward. I'm certainly a believer in Chi flow.

 

[Resonance]

This is profoundly interesting, as you've described the sorts of things that I do and believe in rather acute detail, just with terms that I wouldn't. However, you've banned metaphysics (even though I believe these to be physics principles science hasn't 'discovered' yet) from the thread so I can't discuss my take on them.

However, you did bring up Chi flow. My father was a Kung Fu instructor, and his teacher was amazing with Chi flow. He taught me a lot. I can heal many common ailments (symptoms mostly... like headaches, menstrual cramps, nausea, hyperventalation, etc.) with Chi flow. I can also 3 inch punch (without the Bruce Lee bodyweight trick) a 250 pound guy 5 feet backward. I'm certainly a believer in Chi flow.

I can't knock anyone 5 feet backward even if I put my whole body into it not that I've tried, though...maybe I just have to train myself!! XD

The greatest (metaphysically pessimistic) possibility I can think of with this is to see if it produces differentiable EEG output, so that we could use it as a cognitive mechanism to interface with a computer :3

 

[VH]

I can't knock anyone 5 feet backward even if I put my whole body into it not that I've tried, though...maybe I just have to train myself!! XD

It's possible for anyone to learn to do this. I've been studying Tai Chi recently, and the little old lady who teaches the class is 70 years old, and has had double hip replacement. She can 1 inch punch people with so much force, they not only go flying... they slide backward across the carpet when they brace themselves. There is no movement in her other than her hand.

One of the easiest ways to tell if someone is doing the Bruce Lee trick or actually using Chi is to get the person to hold a book over their chest (I won't 3 inch practice punch someone without something to take the force, lest I hurt them... too much force with too little impulse area in the middle chest is bad even if you can't do the technique right). If you're using bodyweight, momentum, torque, and physical technique, the force will hit the book and channel directly through to the person. Bam-woof. If you're using Chi, there will be a noticable delay between the moment the book is punched and the force hitting the person. It's really odd. Bam-blinkblink-woof.

The greatest (metaphysically pessimistic) possibility I can think of with this is to see if it produces differentiable EEG output, so that we could use it as a cognitive mechanism to interface with a computer :3

I fully believe it's as simple as being something science hasn't been able to 'detect' yet. There have been many studies in which 'unexplainable' phenonmena have been repeated with people that have developed the ability to manipulate Chi. Heat, electrical readings, etc. Western science doesn't want to accept what Eastern science has developed over the past several thousand years because it can't be proven in a Western science way at current. That doesn't mean Eastern science isn't valid. Only that it isn't 'proofed'. They've been doing this stuff for thousands of years. It works. Someday, Western science will be able to explain why.

...but then, I feel the same way about the metaphysical stuff I've witnessed, experienced, and done.