I’m from the Caribbean, grew up in a village so I know a lot of people who blame or praise obeah for things that happened. I have neighbours who people claim deal in obeah yet I don’t know much about it because that is their “secret”.
My father told me that he doesn’t believe that people who claim to deal in obeah is supernatural but it is like a society with its own members who work with one another to fool people and get their money. It makes sense to me because there are a lot of things we have no idea how or why they happened (so some of them say it’s obeah) but there are logical explanations for them.
And I was wondering about things to do to make someone love you (advertised everyday in the papers) or spiritual healing or protection from harm. Supposing it is not supernatural, what do they do to carry out that request for a client (like probably drug the person, I don’t know!!). How do they convince the people?
I tried to see if I could get information on the net but I didn’t find much on obeah being a fraud (I admit, I did not try hard enough).
Another thing is people who claim to be psychic. I watched Penn & Teller on that issue (I value their opinions) so obviously they said it was bullsh*t! It is the same thing with people gathering information beforehand to fool a person (they also guess until they get it right).
On the other hand I came across a lot of freaks on the street (would be better if it was sheets) who try to tell me things about myself, and yes they make general statements that can apply to anyone. But there are certain freaks that tell me personal things and I wonder if they had a camera in my bedroom. There was this man who said he was the “Son of Satan”. He told me that I don’t pray at all so that is why there was so much negative things around me and people wanted to harm me because they were jealous of me. I was wondering though how he knew that I don’t pray. And I didn’t believe that not praying had anything to do with the negativity.
I am not going to lie (at the risk of sounding really stupid, I will share this), at one point I went insane for a few weeks because I was so convinced that some people were using animals to do their spying. The thing is nobody told me that was the case, I just made it up in my head and I also had a strange feeling (insanity?) because of the things they said and the way they acted.
Anyway I went on the internet and found a word for it (I was amazed that it existed), so it said that they exist.
Well I am over that now and the negativity just went away simply because I totally stopped associating myself with those A-holes and I believe that what I went through and other things on this earth have explanations but my knowledge is very limited for me to know how.
Of course Obeah is a system of folk magic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obeah:
What are you asking? Whether it actually works? There is no scientific proof any system of magic works.
Or are you asking whether Obeah practitioners secretly use material, non-magical means to achieve their goals? That’s plausible. But I’ve never met any Obeah-man or Obeah-woman, so I don’t know.
In all other corners of the world, obeah is bunk, wishful thinking and trickery by those who hope to benefit from its believers.
Those who buy into it, of course, think all those foreign beliefs are bunk, wishful thinking and trickery by those who hope to benefit from its believers.
They are both right,
“Yes,” say the believers.
“No,” say the atheists.
“Unprovable” say the agnostics.
If you’re asking whether Obeah is a massive conspiracy to defraud the gullible, the answer is no.
If you’re asking whether anyone at all cynically exploits the belief system to defraud the gullible, the answer is yes.
If you’re asking whether some practitioners use sleight-of-hand, illusion, and other forms of trickery which they present with psychic or supernatural explanations, the answer is yes.
If you’re asking whether all practitioners do this, the answer is no.
If you’re asking whether people who believe in Obeah believe in the supernatural, the answer is yes (by the conventional, Western definition of the supernatural).
If you’re asking whether the supernatural exists, well, that is a great debate, and goes way beyond Obeah.
April, what you wrote here - about making things up in your head like this and getting sick over it - that can happen. It’s pretty common in fact. Sometimes people can make themselves feel sick if they really believe that they are, even if there’s nothing physically wrong with them. It’s called psychosomatic illness.
So it was smart of you to realize that it was just something you made up in your head and also smart to dump those people who were encouraging you to think false stuff.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
What are you asking? Whether it actually works? There is no scientific proof any system of magic works.
[QUOTE]
So does that mean that there is a chance that the supernatural doesn’t exist?
I will appreciate it if you share a little about what you think about the supernatural.
Thanks for the information. I know exactly why I used to actually make myself feel more sick when I was a teenager so that I wouldn’t go to school sometimes.
That’s a whole can of worms right there! In one sense, you’re asking a question about the fundamental nature of the universe.
We humans like to do stuff in the universe. We move things about, chop things down, shape things, look at things, blah blah blah. And we’ve figured out lots of ways to do stuff that works for everybody, all the time. Want to chop a tree down, you can use an axe, or a saw. Want to spy on someone, you can hide in the bushes, or use a telescope, or drill a little hole in the wall.
The stuff that works for everybody all the time, we call natural. It works because it’s part of the way the universe behaves. And we can figure out why it works, and we can even make predictions whether it will work or not. Like you can predict a teensy tiny hole isn’t going to work for spying on people because you can’t see through it, and you can predict that a great big hole isn’t going to be any good either because they’re going to spot it.
Now, there’s a whole body of stuff that people refer to as “the supernatural”. And generally they mean ways to do stuff that doesn’t work for everybody all the time, or ways to do stuff that’s so insignificant that it’s hard to figure if anything has actually happened, or even ways to do stuff where there’s no way to check whether it’s worked or not. I’m talking about magic, psychic powers, voodoo, santaria, obeah, contacting the dead etc. This kind of “supernatural” implies that you can make the universe behave in a special way, different to the usual way, if you do the right rituals/chants/prayers or whatever.
Despite the fact that a lot of people believe in that stuff, and a lot of people claim it to be real, there’s an absence of good, strong evidence to prove it. And some people, myself included, think that none of it is real - there is no “supernatural” in this sense. If voodoo dolls really hurt people, we’d use voodoo in war instead of guns and bombs. If animals could really be used as spies, we’d use animals instead of telescopes and periscopes and hiding in the bushes. So personally, yes, I think there’s a pretty good chance that this sort of “supernatural” really doesn’t exist! I don’t believe Obeah “works” in any real way, although it might give people comfort to believe that it does. And I also don’t believe it can harm people in any real way other than to scare and confuse them, like it seems to have done with you.
Is this a whoosh? IMO, there is very little chance the supernatural does exist, and certainly there is no hard proof (yet) that it does. Assuming the word “supernatural” can even mean anything. As I’ve argued before in this forum, the word “nature” encompasses all that exists. If ghosts exist, ghosts are part of nature. If God exists, God is part of nature. But that’s really a semantic argument.
[QUOTE=April]
There’s more than a chance, there’s certainty. The supernatural, by definition, doesn’t exist.
The question is very strange. She’s just a woman, a human same as the rest of us. Sure she’s way richer and tons more glamorous and influential than any of us will ever be, but she’s no more supernatural than anyone else. I believe a level of success like hers is attained by the right combination of talent, hard work, and lucky breaks. There’s no need to attribute it to spirits. I think she’s earned her success.
What?
Oh. I thought it was a typo, because e is next to r on the keyboard…
never mind
[QUOTE=April]
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
What are you asking? Whether it actually works? There is no scientific proof any system of magic works.
It exists…but only in people’s heads. There is no evidence that any of it exists in the realm of reality. It can seem very real to some people. You can convince yourself something is real even though there’s nothing to base it on.
BrainGlutton is quite right that the supernatural is a subcategory of natural rather than in opposition to it. (Sort of like humans are animals in the technical sense, but in common usage people distinguish humans from animals because humans are markedly different from the rest.)
It’s an enormously complicated subject. Depending on your definition of “supernatural,” any sort of magical behavior fits into it, including such common activities as praying. Most Americans believe in prayer, and many would be downright offended their actions are in any way supernatural. But prayer is usually an act of speech (sometimes out loud, sometimes muttered, sometimes just thought), often accopmanied by a gesture with the hands, and the assumption that a deity will somehow hear and perhaps respond to the speech.
I’m not attempting to hijack this into a debate on religion, I’m just emphasizing BrainGlutton’s point, that the definition of “supernatural” is subject to cultural criteria, and that it’s such a vexed point that you simply won’t get a clear answer. (Well, okay, panache45’s “No” was pretty clear. Restating.)
You won’t get a definitive answer that stops all debates, because the supernatural is so varied and so widespread that the burden of proof seems to be on the nay-sayers, and they don’t have time to tackle the cases one by one. Attempts have been made to do this in the 19th century (read Nathaniel Lachenmeyer’s 13: The Story of the World’s Most Popular Superstition for an example).
Thanks very much everyone. I really wanted to see what other people thought of the supernatural. I didn’t want to rely only on the opinions of those who said they actually experience it (and that is like almost everyone living around me, priests and all, they believe in it). I chose Straight Dope because I know that there are intelligent people here. 
When I get some more time I will do some research on the internet.
I think I know how I feel (and felt most of the time) about it and that it’s “all in the mind”. Whether the supernatural exists or not, well I guess I shouldn’t worry about that.
A man once threatened my brother-in-law and said he would put a curse on him. My in-law just turned to the man and said, “You go ahead and put ah curse on me, it go come back ten times on you, I doh care!”
His friends told him, “Boy, you know who that is? Doh mess with he.” The man just stood quietly and looked at my brother-in-law. I admired my bro for that.
My mother is in some sort of Hindu religion and my father said he doesn’t believe in obeah at all – and he prays.
Imagine, I was born a Catholic, I still am, but I never felt it in my heart to pray or go to church because I felt I had the balls to question “God” on why I should pray to him. Anyway I read some of the debates on religion and God. It was both helpful and entertaining. Straight Dope rocks!!
Indeed it does!
A couple of reading recommendations, if you can get hold of them. They are diametrically opposed on the matter of the supernatural, and both well worth your time.
Flim Flam by James Randi. He’s a professional magician, who’s made it a life mission to expose frauds and fakers - those who claim they are doing something supernatural when in fact they’re deluding themselves, or sometimes outright cheating and lying.
Travels by Michael Crichton. (He’s the guy who wrote Jurassic Park.) It’s a set of experiences he’s had that were important to him, and some of them certainly fall under the description “supernatural”. He makes a good, articulate, scientifically literate witness. Interesting stuff.
Your brother-in-law sounds a smart guy! Don’t often hear about Obeah mixed with Judo…
You have an inquiring mind, April, a healthy amount of skepticism and you’re clearly intelligent.
These three qualities are the enemies of superstition wherever it rears its ugly head.
You’ll do just fine.
Matt, I don’t know if you will see this but I was going through the internet to find reviews of Flim Flam and I came across this site: michaelprescott.freeservers.com/FlimFlam.htm
It shows no matter what someone says about something there is always room for criticism. If you are interested you can take a look. I will still like to read Flim Flam. I guess it is mostly up to the reader to see what is making the most sense.
Quite agree, and I’m by no means uncritical of Randi, especially on the matter of tone. Incidentally, Randi has his own website: http://www.randi.org/ . The Swift back issues show the sort of thing Randi was documenting in Flim Flam - they are .pdf files.
Prescott’s site is interesting, thanks for the link!
Wow, matt. I cannot imagine any person doing a better job of answering that question in any way.