It's a little concerning to me how widespread the belief in this sort of thing has gotten. I don't know if it's my perception or not, but it does seem to be a larger growing trend in the past...
It's a little concerning to me how widespread the belief in this sort of thing has gotten.
I don't know if it's my perception or not, but it does seem to be a larger growing trend in the past decade or so.
On the surface it seems harmless, but I can't imagine that a huge population believing in literal magic without any evidence is a particularly positive sign.
I don't know how to break this to you, but that's the cornerstone of most religions.
On the surface it seems harmless, but I can't imagine that a huge population believing in literal magic without any evidence is a particularly positive sign.
I don't know how to break this to you, but that's the cornerstone of most religions.
Sure, but for most of the modern and postmodern era, religion for most people has been an intangible force. If you're a good person you go to heaven, so on and so forth. It wasn't something that...
Sure, but for most of the modern and postmodern era, religion for most people has been an intangible force. If you're a good person you go to heaven, so on and so forth. It wasn't something that most people believed had a direct influence on your life, and perhaps most importantly, "does god exist" is firmly outside of the realm of science entirely. Science can't disprove the existence of a god, and plenty of respected scientists believe in God. There's no real conflict there.
"Does this crystal make me healthier" is an actual tangible question about the physical world, and something science is well suited to answer. And it has answered, and the answer is "no". Despite that, a massive number of people don't believe that answer.
I don't know if this is an "Orthodox vs Catholic/Protestant" thing but – at least in the my experience as a former Orthodox Christian – several of "our" church-based rituals and/or religion-based...
I don't know if this is an "Orthodox vs Catholic/Protestant" thing but – at least in the my experience as a former Orthodox Christian – several of "our" church-based rituals and/or religion-based popular customs absolutely could objectively be categorised as some form of "magic", with church-goers and other religious people often believing in those topics at least to a degree of "superstition", if not more.
Other forms of superstition (whether indirectly religious or "fully" non-religious) also do seem to be alive and well, including e.g. the "evil eye", which is believed even by highly educated people, including for example the vice mayor of Thessaloniki, who is an urologist by profession.
The deistic(?) perception of modern and post-modern religion that you mention feels – at least to me – like a little bit of an overgeneralisation.
It's been a thing for decades, at least. I'm my late teens and early 20s (early 00s), I became deeply interested and invested in general Skepticism (think, James Randi, Skeptics Guide to the...
It's been a thing for decades, at least. I'm my late teens and early 20s (early 00s), I became deeply interested and invested in general Skepticism (think, James Randi, Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Basically heavily science based questioning) and addressing these questions and movements. Even then, all this stuff was highly popular, with conventions, popular figures (Uri Geller, Sylvia Brown, John Roberts) and (what seemed) a general acceptance amongst the regular population (a big reason I got interested in Skepticism in the first place).
Somewhat ironically, around the late 2000s, I started my career in IT working at a New Age company, who published many of those aforementioned popular figures and was prolific in the "Woo-Woo" space. A good portion of the employees really believed in this stuff and regularly had crystals by their computers to promote healing and often any time they had technical problems, their excuse was usually something mystical (Mercury is in retrograde, for instance.), many also visited "Shaman" for various reasons. This particular company had a boom period in the early/mid-2000s, if that tells you how long this stuff has been popular.
I'm not exactly sure what I'm trying to get at here, but to say, magical thinking has been around for a long time and will continue to be. You are unlikely to ever reason someone out of these positions, as the saying goes, you can't reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into or something like that. Ultimately though, the people taken in by this stuff are perfectly nice people, just more credulous than the rest of us and while they might be spending their money on scam artists and Con men, they aren't going broke over it and they're still visiting actual medical doctors when they do have serious conditions (how's that for cognitive dissonance?). At any rate, they exist, they've always existed and you can argue, poke holes in their arguments and use reason until you're blue in the face, but people believe this stuff because they have some emotional attachment to it and there's not a lot you can do to change it.
Sorry if this is a bit rambling. The article just doesn't surprise, shock or inspire me in any particular manner.
I agree. I genuinely think that certain "opinions" -- namely those that contradict known scientific facts -- should be conversationally destroyed with prejudice by anyone who is educated. Make...
I agree. I genuinely think that certain "opinions" -- namely those that contradict known scientific facts -- should be conversationally destroyed with prejudice by anyone who is educated. Make them at least admit they just believe in magic for no reason.
I don't personally let shit like this slide when anyone says similar to me. I'm sure I come off as a dick sometimes, but I refuse to participate in the implicit acceptance of garbage like this (and climate change denial, had a big thing with my mother-in-law over that).
The tough thing to accept is that a huge portion of the general population has virtually no scientific knowledge at all, to the point that being highly educated is something to be derided in some social circles. I wish kids were raised with skepticism and scientific rationality being the 3rd 'core', next to English / Mathematics (in the USA at least, maybe other countries are better... but with the growing far-right garbage everywhere, I doubt that is the case often).
People want to believe in magic. Before YWHW they had a whole bunch of crazier stuff. Actual no, during: the ancient Israelites always had little idols and figurines and such and took every...
People want to believe in magic. Before YWHW they had a whole bunch of crazier stuff. Actual no, during: the ancient Israelites always had little idols and figurines and such and took every opportunity to put their trust in their crystal equivalent. Why? Because mankind has always always always wanted to control gods, be it learning a spirit's name or carving little fat women statues or putting crystals in your foundation. Or science. We want the universe to work for us.
I don't find it any worse that systematically accepted practices like a cracker turning into flesh in a Catholic's mouth or women's hair taboos in orthodox Jewish or Muslim cultures. People...
I don't find it any worse that systematically accepted practices like a cracker turning into flesh in a Catholic's mouth or women's hair taboos in orthodox Jewish or Muslim cultures. People believe weird stuff, and to be honest I'd rather have them associating some magical energy from "natural" materials than ascribing gendered power hierarchies and or engaging in explicitly xenophobic rhetoric.
The "wellness" movement is problematic, but it's largely problematic for those buying the overpriced junk from grifters. Maybe this is the start of some anti-science movement, but it seems more harmless than anything to me.
These things too often come hand-in-hand with anti-vax and "alternative medicine" attitudes, which do cause actual real-world harm. A lot more lives could have been saved in 2021-2022 if anti-vax...
These things too often come hand-in-hand with anti-vax and "alternative medicine" attitudes, which do cause actual real-world harm. A lot more lives could have been saved in 2021-2022 if anti-vax sentiments were not so widespread.
Gemstone magic, ripped right out of the 60s, is back with a vengeance. Even the cursory search to find what decade this stuff got popular in the USA was brimming with breathlessly positive sites...
Gemstone magic, ripped right out of the 60s, is back with a vengeance. Even the cursory search to find what decade this stuff got popular in the USA was brimming with breathlessly positive sites extolling the healing and luck manipulation powers of various rare gems. Not a single skeptic view in sight.
Even a search for "gemstone magic scam" was met only with pages of sites from magic practitioners seeking to defame other sellers hawking fake or mislabeled gems.
The only positive I see is that most gem magic folk seem to hand wave and talk about oblique results involving "wellness" and "well-being" from using their wares instead of mentioning direct disease treating. Though the FDA is probably responsible for that.
As an aside, during time spent with family in Houston years back, I learned of a giant korean spa complex that opened up. Within the main atrium, there are multiple alcoves absolutely bedazzled with topaz for taking healing naps. In their words, the choice of mineral was to "relieve stress and ease mental tension". Nearly every other part of the place mentions various gemstones and compounds embedded into the walls that "emit infrared rays and natural minerals meant to detoxify and heal".
Following this tangent, due to Korean spas being a bit less repressed, within the gender split zones it's strictly no clothing allowed. Not even for the same-sex staff administering massages and scrubs to customers.
For some reason, the newspaper The Houstonia decided to send their blondest, most never-nude reporter out to experience the place and its services. The resulting review is pretty hilarious.
From a business perspective I totally get it--I don't have real numbers to back it up, but my gut tells me that the crunchy types who would buy into new age flimflam like "crystal vibrational...
From a business perspective I totally get it--I don't have real numbers to back it up, but my gut tells me that the crunchy types who would buy into new age flimflam like "crystal vibrational energy" and accept this as a valuable up-sell are going to be at least upper middle class and have a decent helping of disposable income to get suckered out of.
I'm not necessarily saying I approve, but I totally get it.
I have a fairly strong opinion about this kinda stuff. Most comments here cover a lot of my thoughts on it. From let them have their wacky beliefs to there are real world consequences to what they...
I have a fairly strong opinion about this kinda stuff. Most comments here cover a lot of my thoughts on it. From let them have their wacky beliefs to there are real world consequences to what they believe.
Religion has a long history to it and even though most don't know it but the rituals and beliefs stem from real world changes. Now the crystals crowd overlaps with the wellness movement and conspiracy movement. They are being grifted by bad actors who have figured out that people will spend tons of money on stuff. These people also seems more than happy to throw logic out the window and would rather have their crystals or tarot cards make their choices.
I don't want to come across as mean spirited about this but I have some family members who are into this and I have seen the negative affects first hand. I just wish that they could look at things a bit more critically and maybe have a better understanding of the world around us. Things are connected but not because of planetary movement or because of what rocks/cards say or do.
It's a little concerning to me how widespread the belief in this sort of thing has gotten.
I don't know if it's my perception or not, but it does seem to be a larger growing trend in the past decade or so.
On the surface it seems harmless, but I can't imagine that a huge population believing in literal magic without any evidence is a particularly positive sign.
I don't know how to break this to you, but that's the cornerstone of most religions.
Sure, but for most of the modern and postmodern era, religion for most people has been an intangible force. If you're a good person you go to heaven, so on and so forth. It wasn't something that most people believed had a direct influence on your life, and perhaps most importantly, "does god exist" is firmly outside of the realm of science entirely. Science can't disprove the existence of a god, and plenty of respected scientists believe in God. There's no real conflict there.
"Does this crystal make me healthier" is an actual tangible question about the physical world, and something science is well suited to answer. And it has answered, and the answer is "no". Despite that, a massive number of people don't believe that answer.
I don't know if this is an "Orthodox vs Catholic/Protestant" thing but – at least in the my experience as a former Orthodox Christian – several of "our" church-based rituals and/or religion-based popular customs absolutely could objectively be categorised as some form of "magic", with church-goers and other religious people often believing in those topics at least to a degree of "superstition", if not more.
Other forms of superstition (whether indirectly religious or "fully" non-religious) also do seem to be alive and well, including e.g. the "evil eye", which is believed even by highly educated people, including for example the vice mayor of Thessaloniki, who is an urologist by profession.
The deistic(?) perception of modern and post-modern religion that you mention feels – at least to me – like a little bit of an overgeneralisation.
It's been a thing for decades, at least. I'm my late teens and early 20s (early 00s), I became deeply interested and invested in general Skepticism (think, James Randi, Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Basically heavily science based questioning) and addressing these questions and movements. Even then, all this stuff was highly popular, with conventions, popular figures (Uri Geller, Sylvia Brown, John Roberts) and (what seemed) a general acceptance amongst the regular population (a big reason I got interested in Skepticism in the first place).
Somewhat ironically, around the late 2000s, I started my career in IT working at a New Age company, who published many of those aforementioned popular figures and was prolific in the "Woo-Woo" space. A good portion of the employees really believed in this stuff and regularly had crystals by their computers to promote healing and often any time they had technical problems, their excuse was usually something mystical (Mercury is in retrograde, for instance.), many also visited "Shaman" for various reasons. This particular company had a boom period in the early/mid-2000s, if that tells you how long this stuff has been popular.
I'm not exactly sure what I'm trying to get at here, but to say, magical thinking has been around for a long time and will continue to be. You are unlikely to ever reason someone out of these positions, as the saying goes, you can't reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into or something like that. Ultimately though, the people taken in by this stuff are perfectly nice people, just more credulous than the rest of us and while they might be spending their money on scam artists and Con men, they aren't going broke over it and they're still visiting actual medical doctors when they do have serious conditions (how's that for cognitive dissonance?). At any rate, they exist, they've always existed and you can argue, poke holes in their arguments and use reason until you're blue in the face, but people believe this stuff because they have some emotional attachment to it and there's not a lot you can do to change it.
Sorry if this is a bit rambling. The article just doesn't surprise, shock or inspire me in any particular manner.
I agree. I genuinely think that certain "opinions" -- namely those that contradict known scientific facts -- should be conversationally destroyed with prejudice by anyone who is educated. Make them at least admit they just believe in magic for no reason.
I don't personally let shit like this slide when anyone says similar to me. I'm sure I come off as a dick sometimes, but I refuse to participate in the implicit acceptance of garbage like this (and climate change denial, had a big thing with my mother-in-law over that).
The tough thing to accept is that a huge portion of the general population has virtually no scientific knowledge at all, to the point that being highly educated is something to be derided in some social circles. I wish kids were raised with skepticism and scientific rationality being the 3rd 'core', next to English / Mathematics (in the USA at least, maybe other countries are better... but with the growing far-right garbage everywhere, I doubt that is the case often).
People want to believe in magic. Before YWHW they had a whole bunch of crazier stuff. Actual no, during: the ancient Israelites always had little idols and figurines and such and took every opportunity to put their trust in their crystal equivalent. Why? Because mankind has always always always wanted to control gods, be it learning a spirit's name or carving little fat women statues or putting crystals in your foundation. Or science. We want the universe to work for us.
What is YWHW?
It should be YHWH, and it's a name for the Abrahamic God in the Hebrew Bible
I don't know I kind of love it. It's pretty harmless and fun to giggle at from the outside. I say let them have their weird crystal houses.
In isolation it's harmless, but the broader societal implications of people adopting this kind of magical thinking en masse is kind of scary.
I don't find it any worse that systematically accepted practices like a cracker turning into flesh in a Catholic's mouth or women's hair taboos in orthodox Jewish or Muslim cultures. People believe weird stuff, and to be honest I'd rather have them associating some magical energy from "natural" materials than ascribing gendered power hierarchies and or engaging in explicitly xenophobic rhetoric.
The "wellness" movement is problematic, but it's largely problematic for those buying the overpriced junk from grifters. Maybe this is the start of some anti-science movement, but it seems more harmless than anything to me.
These things too often come hand-in-hand with anti-vax and "alternative medicine" attitudes, which do cause actual real-world harm. A lot more lives could have been saved in 2021-2022 if anti-vax sentiments were not so widespread.
Gemstone magic, ripped right out of the 60s, is back with a vengeance. Even the cursory search to find what decade this stuff got popular in the USA was brimming with breathlessly positive sites extolling the healing and luck manipulation powers of various rare gems. Not a single skeptic view in sight.
Even a search for "gemstone magic scam" was met only with pages of sites from magic practitioners seeking to defame other sellers hawking fake or mislabeled gems.
The only positive I see is that most gem magic folk seem to hand wave and talk about oblique results involving "wellness" and "well-being" from using their wares instead of mentioning direct disease treating. Though the FDA is probably responsible for that.
As an aside, during time spent with family in Houston years back, I learned of a giant korean spa complex that opened up. Within the main atrium, there are multiple alcoves absolutely bedazzled with topaz for taking healing naps. In their words, the choice of mineral was to "relieve stress and ease mental tension". Nearly every other part of the place mentions various gemstones and compounds embedded into the walls that "emit infrared rays and natural minerals meant to detoxify and heal".
Following this tangent, due to Korean spas being a bit less repressed, within the gender split zones it's strictly no clothing allowed. Not even for the same-sex staff administering massages and scrubs to customers.
For some reason, the newspaper The Houstonia decided to send their blondest, most never-nude reporter out to experience the place and its services. The resulting review is pretty hilarious.
From a business perspective I totally get it--I don't have real numbers to back it up, but my gut tells me that the crunchy types who would buy into new age flimflam like "crystal vibrational energy" and accept this as a valuable up-sell are going to be at least upper middle class and have a decent helping of disposable income to get suckered out of.
I'm not necessarily saying I approve, but I totally get it.
I have a fairly strong opinion about this kinda stuff. Most comments here cover a lot of my thoughts on it. From let them have their wacky beliefs to there are real world consequences to what they believe.
Religion has a long history to it and even though most don't know it but the rituals and beliefs stem from real world changes. Now the crystals crowd overlaps with the wellness movement and conspiracy movement. They are being grifted by bad actors who have figured out that people will spend tons of money on stuff. These people also seems more than happy to throw logic out the window and would rather have their crystals or tarot cards make their choices.
I don't want to come across as mean spirited about this but I have some family members who are into this and I have seen the negative affects first hand. I just wish that they could look at things a bit more critically and maybe have a better understanding of the world around us. Things are connected but not because of planetary movement or because of what rocks/cards say or do.
I hope this makes sense.