• vexikron@lemmy.zip
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    10 months ago

    Most forms of magical thinking can usually be exposed by relatively mundane and common place events that are essentially unthinkable, or impossible, to the magical thinker.

    Ie, you probably are not going to be able to stop someone from mugging you by expounding a whole bunch of rhetoric about the non aggression principle within the context of say stefan molyneux’s universally prefferable objective transactional moral imperatives, or some nonsense like that.

    In same vein, try explaining to a serious practitioner of some kind of wicca variant or modern witchcraft or warlockracy (sp?) that uh, no, doesnt matter if you read your horoscope, did a tarot card reading and a purification sage burning ritual on your apartment… youre still gonna get evicted if you cant figure out how to pay rent.

    The actual reality of actual evil forces in world requires actual study and knowledge of a wide variety of complex and nuanced concepts and phenomena that all interplay with each other in objectively definable and testably real ways…

    … but that shits complicated yo, what if like, things that i dont like are bad, and, so, i know this (insert magical thinking worldview here) seems crazy at first, but then it all //makes sense man!//.

    Basically my hypothesis here (not really my hypothesis, this can actually be seen happening in many comparable/analagous situations in human history) is that as material conditions in a society deteriorate AND there is basically no way for the masses to escape or avoid these garbage conditions, magical thinking takes hold, takes more forms, and eventually leads to more and more dangerous cults.

    Best possible example of this? QAnon.

    That being said, i very much like your summary of 3 ways to deal with a government. Thats very succinct and generally very accurate!

    Unfortunately… it seems those rules also apply, though currently with more exceptions, to very large corporations as well.

    • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      In the mugging example, that person is clearly not playing by the rules though, and I think Wiccans are smart enough to stick to things that can’t be categorically proven false.

      • vexikron@lemmy.zip
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        9 months ago

        At least in my personal experience of knowing Wiccans/Witches/Magic Practitioners in real life, this is absolutely not the case.