Yeah, we know all about the four classical elements. We also know that it’s bunk.
How do you incorporate “mysticism” into a magic act? What do you mean by “mysticism?”
Well, as per the effect I explained above I represent myself as having “special powers” and that I influence objects in any number of “mystical”, “psychic”, or otherwise “supernatural ways”. I don’t represent myself as a magician, initially… I draw them into a subtle bubble of belief that these things are real (suspension of disbelief)…but always, and integrally, at a certain point during, or at the end of the act and after they have been entertained and thoroughly amazed and sometimes freaked out, I then burst the bubble and explain that I am a magician and sometimes actually reveal certain tricks or give them a sardonic debunking of the techniques of the charlatan.
By way of hijack- I listen to the Art Bell show pretty much every night. I cannot believe that this show actually puts me to sleep as well as it does since I disagree with practically every word uttered on the show!
Anyway, around Christmas every year, the show begins to ask callers to call in with their predictions for the next year. The previous year’s predictions are reviewed around New Year’s.
I was very (badly) impressed that no single caller mentioned the huge natural disaster that just happened until the night after it actually happened. Suddenly, every single caller had had a premonition about it and couldn’t wait to share it on the show.
The descriptions of the premonitions would have been hilarious had the disaster not been so enormous- this one felt the earth’s vibrations in her feet and warned her mother to not go to work that day…that one could tell by the planetary alignment…the other one could tell by the feel of the oceans water near her home…a bunch of them had dreams or had angels speak to them… blah, blah, blah.
Too bad not a single one of them called in sooner.
It’s very, very easy to have a premonition after the fact.
Ok, so when are you going to reveal that you’ve been yanking our chains on this thread? Cause if you’re not, you really are insane. And I don’t mean that as an insult, just an observation. In fact, I didn’t even want to make that observation – it compelled me.
Look, let me be more clear about all of this (this is all just so very weird to me, very holographic in nature. Sentenced to prism…), I am a magician and nothing more, I know the truth behind my act and that is all it is…an act, and I don’t claim the supernatural except within and as part of my act and indeed always expose that ruse with integrity. I keep 'em seperated. The crisis is within the synchronicity and symbolism and sensation of this one incident of strangeness and meaning that stood apart and had such impact that it warranted my documentation here.
I’m not yanking anybodies chain and this is a true and accurate account.
If you look at the OP I had this premonition in May and it is documented.
But it doesn’t accurately describe the events of the past week, there were other events between your premonition and now that could just as easily have matched your description, and your premonition had no time scale attached. No one argues that you had an image and wrote it down, but it just doesn’t seem to be related to current events in anything other than a superficial way.
Ok, then you’re insane. I hope you get the help you need. Obviously, your mind is a barren and rocky place where logic can find no purchase.
But I am glad you have chosen to document your thoughts here. I’m sure these documents will come in handy at your commitment hearing.
I just hope you don’t do these magic acts for kids, because you should not be allowed anywhere near children.
**
**
And yet, your prediction was really crappy…
"**On Monday the third I predicted in confidence with a stranger that there will be an earthquake soon. Don’t know when exactly but it feels close (it may have occurred already for all I know?).
Three elemental “actualizations” occured in very peculiar manifest incidents. Earth manifested first, followed shortly by fire and finally water. I did not see nor feel the air elemental but I told the stranger to keep an eye out for that manifestation.
I distrust it myself and think I’m full o’ crap but that was the gut feeling I had. I don’t make it a habit to make predictions nor do I claim psychic abilities, the thought EARTHQUAKE just overwhelmed me and the very obvious elemental manifestations followed on the heels of this dread.
Portent perhaps?"**
You said “an earthquake soon…close…it may have occured already…earth, fire water…air”- The disaster in the news now is less earthquake and more tsunami. There have been many other earthquakes since your ‘prediction’. Which one do you want to claim? I noticed a distinct lack of “the biggest” or “the worst” or any other qualifier to indicate your prediction rerferred to this particular incident. Predicting some vague earthquake at any time is not particularly impressive as they happen with alarming regularity around the world.
“soon”- how less specific can you get? An hour, a day, a year? Do you consider 7-8 months as “soon”?
“close”- do you mean physically close or close time-wise? How conveniently unclear. I suppose if it had occured near your swamp you could have said you meant, well, near your swamp. Do you consider 7-8 months “close”?
“it may have occurred already”- Well, since this doesn’t apply to the tsunami, perhaps you predicted some other earthquake and just don’t realize it at this time. Perhaps your prediction was for the earthquake that occurred in Chile on May 3rd (the date of your origional prediction which could meet your “may have occurred already” qualifier, or the one in Pakistan that occurred the day you posted about it here, which could have met your “soon” qualifier.
“earth… fire… water”- I think it is a pretty safe assumption that an earthquake (or any other natural disaster that we would be concerned about) would happen here on earth. Also, most disasters do tend to include fire or water. I suppose you would like everyone to allow “fire” for the earthquake itself (or does that make “earth” do double duty?) that caused the tsunami.
“keep an eye out for the air elemental”- how does that apply to your ‘prediction’?
So I identify about 8 important ideas in your prediction, of which you seem to have 2 pretty vague and unimpressive hits (“earth” and “water”) some pretty big misses (“earthquake”, “soon”, “close”, “fire”, “air”, “occurred already”) and some missing information such as “biggest”, or “worst.”
Not very impressive.
I think you are trying to say the reason you feel you predicted this event was because of the strenght of your feeling. I have had a very strong feeling on occasion that I was going to be involved in a traffic accident … but I wasn’t. I haven’t had an accident in over 12 years. If I did have an accident, would you think I had predicted it because I had a strong feeling about it? Could I apply last year’s strong feeling to next year’s accident and call it a prediction or would it have to happen on the same day, week, month, or year?
Another example- back when my dad was alive, he lived with me. He was elderly and ill. I was sometimes overwhelmed with the thought that I would come home from work one day and find either an ambulance at my house, or find him injured, or even dead! These thoughts occured to me with some strength and regularity over the years that I looked after him. One day, I came home from work and there was an ambulance on my street near my house. Fortunately (or unfortunately), it was there for a neighbor. Sometime later, same situation, but the ambulance was at my house! It was there for my dad who was injured from a fall!
Do you think that because these thoughts occurred to me strongly that I “predicted” that particular event? Why not?
The difference between the two events is that I feel one is a sure thing (sadly, dad getting injured) and one is random (an accident). The tsunami (or an earthquake) is both.
Why bother talking sense to devilsknew?
There are only 2 possibilities here:
- We’re being had, and devilsknew is getting a big kick out of this whole debate.
- Devilsknew means what he says, in which case reason isn’t going to work.
Given this guy’s posts, he must either be joking or have a very real mental problem. There’s just no other way to explain why someone would ask “portent or coincidence?” regarding a situation which is obviously neither (the event and his premonition don’t coincide in any meaningful way).
Tell you what, devilsknew, I say you were right all along. You experienced a premonition. These thoughts came from a supernatural, possibly omniscient source. There’s just no other explanation.
Put that in your magic act.
Moderator’s Note: Sample_the_Dog, you need to cool it with the personal insults right now. Another poster even tried to point out to you that Great Debates is not the place for that, but you didn’t take the hint, so I’m telling you straight out: Don’t do that.
My apologies, to d and the board. I actually don’t think d is insane, but rather that he’s having us on. But I gave no indication which would make that clear, and even if I had, I’d still have been out of line. Mea culpa, and I’ll cut it out.
::looks for tail-between-legs smiley::
Shouldn’t this thread be in MPSIMS? If anything is “mundane” and “pointless,” it’s this OP, which apparently you “must share.”
It’s not even worthy of debate.
I read what you wrote-- there was nothing about a magic act.
I repeat: There is nothing elemental about either of those 4 things. Yes, the ancients considered them elemental, but they were wrong. It was a good 1st approximation, I suppose, but we’ve learned a thing or two in the last 4,000 years.
Yes, I certainly understand that, and when I “saw” them so to speak it was in primal recognition and significant in only their archetypical way. I am quite aware of the differnece between an “elemental” or an element of nature and the constituent atomic parts of reality.
Yesterday, my wife accused me of not spending enough time with my kids. Nonetheless, I played outside for an hour with them. First, we jumped on their trampoline until I was out of BREATH; then, I pushed them on the swingset and the played in their SANDbox. When we were finished, we all had DIRT on our clothes. I took a SHOWER and put on clean clothes. I was a little hungry, so I warmed a bowl of soup above the FLAMES created by my gas stove.
Until I read this thread, I did not even realize that these ELEMENTALS had manifest themselves. Now, I am concerned. Suddenly, I have a strong sense of FOREBODING. I have many questions that I need help with. Does the order of the manifestations matter? It seems to be Air, Earth, Water, Fire. Also, would you say that Earth manifested once or twice, and does that matter? Do these manifestations mean that my wife’s accusation was an omen or a portent? Am I going to die? Are my kids going to die? How much time do we have?
Is it possible to claim to have seen manifestations of elementals and to claim to be a skeptic?
Is this the most ridiculous thread in the history of Great Debates?
Note to Sampe_the_Dog: FWIW, it wouldn’t bother me in the least for my kids to see our psychic magician perform or hear his mystical patter. I am confident that they know the difference between “real” and “pretend”, plus I make a point of being available to answer questions about such things.
-VM
Would it be possible to get this part translated into English, preferably English of the type used by skeptics such as yourself? I have been checking my back issues of Skeptical Inquirer and can’t find the articles that explain how to recognize a manifestation by an elemental or distinguishing an archetypical manifestation from the other kinds.
-VM
As I’ve explained I was in the magican’s role and mindset and concentrating on “mystical” things as part of my act. It is a loose act and I keep an eye upon the situation, person, or place and improvisationally use that to reinforce my “mystic routine” and increase believability. It is best described as thinking in archetypes in a Jungian sense. For example, I was at a friend’s house and noticed that she had some Tarot cards and immediately on the improv adapted one of my card tricks and the patter to match the archetypes and “charge” of a Tarot deck and hopefully her preexisting beliefs in it. It’s not unusual and all magicians do it.
The difference about that night and the experience I have related was the a priori certainty and dread of earthquake (a physical sensation and thought) followed by the “earthy” bartender’s role in the collapse of the shelf and the breaking of the glasses upon the ground, my subsequent supporting role as the archetypical Magician disguised as an Eastern Mystic/Indian Yogi and the juxtaposition and imposition of fire as part of the trick, and finally her (the “earth mother goddess”) spilling the pitcher and its significance as water. Yes, this all goes towards, “we see what we want to see”, but this was part of my occupational awareness of such concepts, and yet infiltrated the occupational distancing and seperation that I keep between what I do and reality. It was striking and personal in its peculiarity and really had an impact such that I arrived at the uncharacteristically weird conclusion that there was going to be a big earthquake and that I must tell somebody about this strangeness. I don’t believe in “Magick” but I do believe in symbols and this occurence was rife with transparent, personal, and meaningful symbolism on top of the gutteral physical fear for an earthquake. We fear tornadoes in Ohio, not earthquakes!
There is an added dimension to this whole coincidence, premonition, portent, synchronicity, certainty …whatever you want to call it…but I am hesitant to include it here because I have been called crazy and since everything I say here will now be colored by that accusation and my integrity and honesty will be suspect, it will just serve to reinforce that suspicion. I can only tell you that everything I have related here and am about to relate is true, honest, and accurate to within the abilities of my memory. I am not perpetrating some kind of magic trick or hoax. These are disturbing and meaningful events that I feel must be shared. I do not wish to convince anyone of anything, and the question in my mind and to that which I am looking for an answer, is the very OP…Is this portent or coincidence? I did hesitate to include this post in great debates, but thought I might get some more objective and critical reasoning here to convince me out of this, so to speak, and most have done that honorably and to some success, but also, as I feared and suspected, the ugly side of this forum showed its face and I was personally accosted.
So, with that, and all in stride…
This is what is really disturbing me as of late and and is an extra dimension and conjunct to the 7 month distant first “event” and admittedly didn’t occur as meaningful until after the events of Dec.26th. I didn’t want to include this at first because, well, it requires some personal revelation that I really don’t feel comfortable sharing here and I have no public documentation of it as I do with the initial occurence, and can only give you my word as to its authenticity. I am staying in Florida for the winter with my Mother. My Father passed away recently and both her and I are grieving but trying to get on with life. On Nov. 28th. I received an email as part of an online Group that I belong to, The World Haiku Club and its online magazine World Haiku Review http://worldhaikureview.org/. It was a last call for submissions of English haiku to be considered for the next issue of WHR. I write haiku sometimes as a hobby and just because I enjoy it, and have taken online courses and workshops in pursuit of this interest. I hadn’t written any haiku in quite some time and none at all here in Florida, so, inspired by the email decided to go ahead and attempt a last minute haiku to submit under that issues Themed Haiku Category before the deadline of Nov. 30th. The theme was “coldness”, essentially you are to try to convey this theme within your haiku. I decided to draw on my most recent experience of coldness in Florida from a trip to the beach and the rather chilly Gulf of Mexico 3 or 4 days earlier and opened notepad, as is my custom when writing haiku, and started a file entitled “flhaiku”. When composing haiku I will type out bits and pieces and general ideas or incomplete haiku and compose partly in my head and on “paper” to coalesce the image and the words I want to convey the image with. In this case the final idea and finished haiku is the last entry. This is exactly what I wrote on Nov. 28th, 2004 and it is copied verbatim from “flhaiku.txt”. This is the entire contents of the file as I have written no haiku since:
After composing this one haiku I determined it was ok but not excellent and decided not to submit it for consideration in WHR. I lost interest and went to bed .
I think the parallels in what I wrote are quite obvious here in relation to the Tsunami on Dec. 26th. and I needn’t lead any minds or even point out its significance. It is very weird and scares me to be honest. I don’t know what to think.