cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/30986611
Clearly you don't understand how digital electronics work.
It's magic. This is well known.
this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025
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Stones are inscribed and infused with anima. Sounds like magic.
And that's just one example of it.
You have to use the right stones and the right element of anima. Each of these stones is then etched into a complex rune stored in a box. The box itself has identifiers that allow us to know the kind of spell that is inscribed.
So long as you provide the correct amount of spell components, in the correct arrangement, the spell will have some desired effect. But, as all magic happens to be influenced by unknown forces, the smallest imperfection in preparation can affect the spell. Most of the time? The spell just doesn't work. Occasionally, you'll get an entirely unexpected result. But improper casting of the spell can cause the glyphs in the rune to do something we can't observe. The box ruptures. Magic smoke comes out. The particular preparation of the rune will never work again - except for when the glyphs alter the spell and does work for a different result.
This works it's way up. "Circuit diagrams." "Circuit layouts." "Machine code." "Software."
It's an entire discipline focused on magic. Electronic and Computer Engineering. Solid State Physics and Chemistry. Quantum Mechanics. It sounds like science, but don't be fooled. Anyone with expertise in the field knows and understands, it's purely magic.
Therapist: You know, when you drink or use drugs, it is a ceremony? Let me explain this to you. . . . You step up to the bar, leave your token just like when you go to a medicine person . . . , and request the kind of medicine you want. . . . Then you proceed to drink. . . . You have completed your ceremony. Now, the contract is in place. The medicine will give you what you want. It will keep its part of the bargain. Now it will be up to you to fulfill your part.
Not surprisingly, the gravity of the situation for the patient begins to settle in:
Patient: It sounds really serious when you talk about it like that. It sounds hopeless. I mean I already did these ceremonies to the spirit of alcohol. I can’t undo that. What do I do?
Therapist: There are ways. In the spirit world, it’s all about etiquette and manners. So far, you have forgotten these. All traditions have manners when it comes to dealing with these forces.
As an example, Duran colloquially recounts the story of Christ healing the
Gerasene demoniac, emphasizing that a “deal” was struck enabling the spirits
to enter a nearby herd of swine. Thus, Duran reassures the patient, referencing no less an authority than Christ Himself, that “deals” can be made in the
spiritual realm.
Spiritual transactions, of course, require ritual accommodations. It has
already been noted that Duran sometimes burns “smudge” during his therapeutic sessions, but beyond this he also readily incorporates prayer, offerings,
and “power objects” or “fetishes” in explicit recognition that “therapy is a
ceremony” (p. 42):
Therapist: Since you want to let go of the spirit of alcohol, you need to talk to it and ask what it wants in exchange for your spirit. I’m sure you can work out a deal. [Duran reaches for a “fetish” resembling a bottle of cheap “Dark Eyes” vodka.] Here is my friend. We can talk to it now. . . . Dark Eyes is already wondering if you’re going to have manners. You know as part of your Step 4 through Step 8 [in AA] that you also need to make amends to the medicine here.
Patient: How do I do that? What do I say?
Therapist: When you make an offering, you know what to do. You can offer tobacco, cornmeal, food, water, and such. It’s the intent that is important, and the spirit of alcohol will recognize the honesty of your spirit as you go into this new way of relating with awareness.
Patient: I don’t have anything on me to give now.
Therapist: Man, what kinda Indian are you? You’re out there in the world with no protection
Thus, Duran facilitates the direct and overt communication between patient
and spirit by retrieving the fetish and inviting communication “to get the
patient to relate to the energy of alcohol and addiction in a mindful
way . . . as part of the ongoing relationship to the spirit of alcohol” (p. 72).
Finally, Duran procures some cornmeal or tobacco from his stash so that
the patient can offer this to the fetish “with the intent that the spirit of alcohol
will begin to relate to his spirit in a respectful fashion” (p. 73). The patient
makes his offering and announces the following:
Patient: Something happened when I did that. It’s as if the spirit recognized me. That is really something. Can’t believe that no one has ever talked about this. Except one of my grandmas once said something about this spirit stuff, but at the time I thought she was just talking old crazy stuff.
Therapist: Yes, this knowledge is older than dirt. All of our grandmas knew this. We’ve just forgotten the way. This brings us back to the “Good Red Road.”
Now that the patient has reconceptualized his problem with alcohol by virtue of the “decolonization” process facilitated in the preceding therapeutic interactions, a renewed relationship to himself, his community, and his cultural heritage will together support a renewed relationship to alcohol. In the end, beyond merely recovering from addiction, it is Duran’s hope that such patients will experience a “deeper healing of the spirit” (p. 18) involving “an existential reconnection with who they are as a Native person” (p. 66). Perhaps even more significantly, according to Duran, such patients “restore their humanity in a way that is harmonious with natural laws” (p. 14).
Gone, J. P. (2010). Psychotherapy and Traditional Healing for American Indians: Exploring the Prospects for Therapeutic Integration. The Counseling Psychologist, 38(2), 166-235. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000008330831
traditional ecological knowledge has been orally peer reviewed for thousands of years, and it is becoming more integrated into the scientific method. there is a lot of spirituality and moral teachings in the oral history. That doesn't make it less of a scientific approach. source: spending time in indigenous governed communities alongside government scientists
What you mean to say is scientists are testing the "tried and true" practices of people, practices that were rooted in reality like make crop grow, and are finding out that they actually were good at growing things? Or that many stories were actually about historic events like massive inland floods and not only vapid religious/cultural stories?
There is definitely a massive, MASSIVE line between believing in the provable like that kind of stuff, and believing in magic sky daddies that grant wishes or rocks with souls.
Yeah, I do understand where you're coming from. Science is only now reconciling with the fact that white man knew very little about land and interconnectedness. The stories citing environmental events do have some sort of spiritual advice but not to the effect of Christianity and the like. if you don't want to listen or prescribe a personal connection to indigenous stories they aren't going to tell you you're a horrible person or crucify non believers. There is a difference there, correct.
I disagree. I know plenty of people doing science who are religious. All the ones I know are credible and do good work. I mean even Einstein was religious.
That’s why results have to be replicable. They’re credible to speak on their works which can be verified without biases or pretexts.
This is the strength of the scientific method. It's using instrumental data, independent from the human.
even Einstein was religious.
No he wasn't. When Einstein used the term god it was not as in a deity but a metaphor for how the universe works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_views_of_Albert_Einstein
Religion is a metaphor that's how most people view it. Plus given the distinct lack of information for or against the scientific method would indicate that the existence of god is unknowable at this given time.
No, he wasn't
This is constantly being trotted out, but he was an atheist
The physicist who first theorized the big bang in 1931 : Georges Lemaitre, was a Catholic priest.
The founder of the science of genetics, Gregor Mendel, was a Catholic abbot.
I never did like that one ep of House MD. Same reason I think DP9 was trash. You just don't do that crap man.
This is a very stupid way to think. Only religion deals in absolutes. A person can be be a credible scientist and religious, both are mutually exclusive.
That logic isn't just bad when it's Star Wars, my guy. You opened with two absolute statements.
They're credible in my eyes if their results are reproducable. I don't care what they believe.
This is how it should be.
What's with all the fighting over supernatural vs science lately? First of all, science is a process of discovery, not a thing. Scientists are the people discovering (or not).
Is this super natural?
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.
Lately? You mean, like, since the dawn of recorded history? Because I suppose on a geological scale, you could call that "lately."
Also, in response to the rest of your comment, what?
Is it supernatural to be able to read people's minds with a video game?
In the example given, no. The science of it is well understood.
No. Absolutely not in the least, so long as it is actually occurring. An inability to understand a phenomenon doesn’t transform it into magic. The supernatural is mutually exclusive to what is real, and what is real is discovered and understood via science.