I just wanna point out that the “George technique” is nothing new. Subconscious visualization techniques have been around for a long time now. A Google search for “subconscious visualization technique” brought up 2,400 hits.
Yeah, the New Age is chock full of visualization techniques like this. The chakra system (in the East) and the Tree of Life (from Jewish Qabalah) are essentially elaborate visualization schemes. More generally, they all fall under the rubric of “the power of positive thinking”.
It’s a sweet idea, but neither a necessary nor sufficient ingredient of success.
Hm - this presents certain metaphysical problems of regress…
Well, yeah, I meant “matter that isn’t directly connected with the mind’s related body”, but brevity is the source of wit, and since I like to pretend that I have wit, I… oh, nevermind.
I had no idea there were so many atheists on SDMB. You ARE all atheists, right, because believing in and talking to invisible people while ridiculing the idea of magic would be so…hypocritical. I note that no one has actually said they TRIED the technique yet. Thank the gods you guys weren’t in charge of making fires in my cave. In any case, Czarchasm asked whether magic existed, and I suggested a technique which people could try so they could make up their own minds. Sorry George seems so wimpy to you, but I can’t teach anyone the spell to blow fireballs out their butt 'til they have 80,001 XP.
Really? Wow. That’s why it’s generally recommended one lurks a bit before making assumptions. You might start reading some of Cecil’s columns, at http://www.straightdope.com
Twelve Deists drumming
Eleven Pagans piping
Ten Lutherans leaping
Nine Druids dancing
Eight Muslims milking
Seven Shintos swimming
Six Jews A-laying
Five Brides of Christ
Four Mormon birds
Three Hindu hens
Two Quaker doves
And a Rasta in a pot plant
Lib, you owe me a new keyboard. Plus I have to explain to my boss why this paperwork has spew marks all over it, without admitting I am posting when I am supposed to be working.
I am going to memorize this song and sing it every day during the month of December. Heck, I’m singing it now.
To decide if something is the cause of something else, you need a control group. This is where you don’t use the technique under examination, but compare the results anyway.
In the last few days:
the firm who were replacing my front door suddenly showed up (they had to order the door, and didn’t know exactly when it would arrive). They spent a few hours fixing it. Of course I now had new locks and keys. ** during that time, both my cleaning lady and my gardener turned up (that’s never happened before) and I was able to give them their keys. **
** I got an unexpected invitation to give an all-expenses paid lecture, with overnight stay, to the chess league where I first played club chess, over 33 years ago (I’ve moved several times since) **
I was late for an appointment with my boss, but when I got there ** he had gone home ill, leaving me an apology **
I run our school chess team, who have just qualified for the National Finals. I wanted our reserve to come along, because he’s been a good sport all season. But I wasn’t sure about the cost (the Finals are held in a pricy London hotel). ** The Controller just rang me to say there was a new policy this year that all teams could bring a reserve.**
I’d had a problem with a pupil at school who was getting behind on his work. I phoned his parents to discuss it. ** The pupil has just rung to apologise, and to say he is going to work over the weekend to catch up.**
OK, that’s 5 mildly improbable things that have gone my way. However I’ve only just opened this thread - I didn’t know till now about the George technique.
Yet these good things have happened to me anyway!
Well, that shows there may be other reasons for mildly improbable things to happen. This certainly wasn’t magic.
We need a better test.
Usurer, if one tries self-visualization, and the expected result does not occur, what does that prove?
As Libertarian said, “mind over matter” sometimes is effectual (e.g. healing), but since the mind is actually neurons transmitting electric signals to the body, and since healing is accomplished through organs in that same body, there’s nothing “supernatural” about that.
Now if the mind could raise a paperweight off a desk, that would be different.
Surely this, and all other mysteries will be revealed by George. Right? Or, when the stuff on my desk arrives on Czarcasm’s desk, certainly he will tell us.
Exsqueeze me? I tried myriad similar techniques for close to a year and a half, Usurer, and my life was no measurably better or worse for it. If anything, it was worse, as the time I would have spent writing poetry, studying Japanese, boning up on number theory, etc., was wasted fumbling about in a haze of incense.
People who want to believe in magick will be enraptured by this “trick”. People who approach all propositions with scientific skepticism will just shrug it (and you) off.
I’m as critical of religion as the next guy, but I will say that there is much more evidence of many religions’ accuracy than there is of magic’s existence.
However, that was a masterful strawman you set up. Congratulations.
Hey, don’t knock the George technique. I’ve found that it works quite well.
The trick, however, is to have an actual midget named George who lives in your house and does things for you. And rather than visualize your desires, you need to actually ask George to do them out loud. And you need to request things that are not really improbable, but that you’re just too damn lazy to do yourself. If you do those things, The George technique works like a charm.
“Hey George, go get me a beer.”
“Here you go.”
“Thanks, man.”
Now, I have investigated, and I know for certain that my son, who was aware of their significance, chose to move them. When I offered the objects as experimental subjects my son was away at school. He will be leaving here on Monday. (Unrelated, and previously planned move, by the way.)
Now we have a whole set of strawman arguments about George influencing my son to do his bidding. It’s crap, but I have faith in crap. I have returned the objects to their customary positions. The dust is disturbed, however, there were no marks on them. I assume if they have been to Czarcasm’s desk, they were not noticed there, and have been returned. No one notified me that they intended to attempt to move them with magic, and the third object is undisturbed. No one identified any of the objects.
OK, everyone claim that this is proof that magic exists. Go ahead.
I offer my apologies for sloppy experimental technique.
I got an experiment: I tried magic(k) to give my self glow-in-the-dark red werewolf eyes. If the power of the mind can give the ability to switch eye color to Multiple Personality Disorder sufferers, certainly it can be dupicated by someone without that disorder.
Therefore, since magic(k) has failed (and I am bitterly disappointed, I might add), I will tell “George”: “George, make my irises glow-in-the-dark red.” 100 times today. I shan’t say it aloud however. I will visualize scaring my cats as my eyes glow softly with crimson eldritch light. I will visualize my shouts of joy as I realize I can easily become one of the most powerful people on the planet. (If I can change my eye color, I can change my fingerprints. I can make my pupils open wider and have lots more rods in the back of my eye so I can see in the dark. My hearing will be bat-like. My singing voice will no longer cause concrete to shatter. I’m mere inches from being a SUPER HERO! (Fenris-man, Fenris-man, does whatever a Fenris can!/Writing posts, any size, eating burgers, shakes and fries/Look out! Here comes the Fenris-Man!)
Ahem.
I must also insist that conjunctivitis, or bloodshot eyeballs shall not count. The IRIS must change color, not the white part or the pupil.
I consider my eyes glowing red in the dark far more likely than the original condition of “mildly improbable” compared to “George” rearrainging the universe so that a parking spot suddenly appears where before, there was none. And I’m giving it one day to happen. If someone’s car can be teleported elsewhere and the entire timeline rearranged (so it was always available) in the time it takes me to go around the block, George can certainly screw with the melenin(sp) in my irises in th’ next 12 or so hours. (Note that teleporting cars is my next stunt, if this works. If it does, say goodbye to Carrottop and Adam Sandler as they and their cars end up on the Sea of Tranquility! I’ll get a Congressional Medal of Honor and a Knighthood if it works, too!)
“George, get off your ass and gimme red-glowy-werewolf eyes.”
