Quote:
Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot  I do use various reality-checking systems, John.
One of them is the credit balance in my bank account. It has grown enormously since I began to use the LOA. I'm quite convinced that this is not an illusion.
There are many simple ways to check reality, John. For example, some people use LOA to help them lose weight. I reckon that a weighing scale would be a reasonably reliable reality-check in this case. |
How nice to see we're on first name terms now, Acting.
I don't believe you are as daft as you're making out, but, assuming you are, I'll explain that in most rational situations like scientific enquiry, a test is not the same as a measure. A scientific test, pretty much the same as the 'reality-testing' I referred to, tries to establish whether there is a corellation between measurements, which is used as a way to check our hypotheses concerning causal links between things. Does that make sense?
If you are still intent on pretending to be in any doubt, let me add by way of illustration that you might observe that global inflation has risen during the time you practised IM, as well as your bank balance, and draw a causal link between them, and that your income might have been a) due to something else entirely, or b) partially caused, or stimulated, by IM, but mediated by observable, measurable action in the world rather than 'magick'. Just measuring how well off you are and assuming that it is because you started practising IM is a wild, irrational assumption.
Ditto re slimming via IM - the scales don't lie, but the cause might just possibly have something to do with calorie intake and expenditure, so I hear.
But maybe I'm judging you as a liar when in fact you are actually stupid. You said earlier, "I plan to use LOA to manifest an extraordinary increase in my 1Q and not only get into Mensa, but be rather extraordinary even by Mensa standards. I think this will be quite an interesting experiment, and goodness, there will be an external tester, Mensa with specific methodology to quantify the result of my manifestation (it's called an IQ score)."
This passage suggests that perhaps you didn't just manufacture the other examples to try and throw readers off the scent, because here you demonstrate, apparently quite innocently, the same mistaken thinking, that Mensa's IQ test can demonstrate the
causal agency of
IM itself (as opposed to your IQ increasing due to study, practice of IQ tests, thinking about intelligence, the passage of time, watching TV, etc. in the meantime). Again this suggests that you don't (and didn't then) know the difference between an established causal relationship and a simple measurement with a prejudice attached. The fact that you typed '1Q' could also be taken as evidence of your genuineness, but then we can't be sure. I hadn't heard of 'magick' before.
Tentative Conclusions:
Despite your accusation that offered two different explanations of a phenomenon I can be sure to dismiss both, in this case I suspect that both are partial answers. I suppose it's possible, however, that you're honest and smart, and the results of my research so far only appear odd because I am stuck in reductionism, common sense and similar tired old principles, while your mind soars through the tiniest cosmic quantum gaps, as free as a pink unicorn.