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Besides religion, what's an example of magical thinking?

Magical thinking... believing in fiction as if it were reality. Other than religion, what ways are people thinking magically?

First thing that comes to my mind, magnetic socks. Magnets that improve health = total unproven. But hey, if it makes someone think they feel good. Alrighty then. As, Ace Ventura would say.

silvereyes 8 Jan 14
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Healing crystals, energy healing, lucky talismans, astrology, homeopathy, water divination, perpetual motion machines, empty force martial arts, psychic readings, The Secret, trickle-down economics…

reiki. Most applications of acupuncture. "natural" cancer cures...

@silvereyes I think Donald Trump paid extra for that when he was in Russia.

Water divination is the odd one out in that while I have no idea how they do it and they explanations they give sound like a crock I have had personal experience and know a few drillers and a good water diviner does actually know what is down there.
Had to put in a bore once so contacted a driller and asked around. Our neighbour didn't believe in water diviners had put down three all dry but somebody else recommended an old guy from a couple of towns across who they reckoned was a good diviner and only charged petrol money. So out comes the old guy with his bits of bent wire and a penny wanders round our 100 acres and picks two spots, one where he reckons you'll get some water and the second where he reckons you'll pick up three layers with the deepest being best quality and volume. Writes down the depths, yields and water quality.
Out come the drillers and we put them to work at the spot where according to the old bloke you'd pick up the three layers. Down they go 65ft and pick up the first one where he said it would be and low volume. Tell them to keep going so at 90ft they pick up they next layer still low volume and between the two you'd have a usable bore. So far the old guy has been spot on so tell them to keep going. They balk a bit because they type of rock is wrong and they are worried about dropping into a void or layer that will take the water we have got and ask why we want to keep going. Tell them we got it divined and by whom and suddenly they are all great, lets go for it. And sure enough at 130ft right where the old bloke said picked up the third layer with a massive volume of good quality water and ended up with the best bore in the district despite the fact that none of the bores on neighbouring properties were much good, ranging from dry to put a windmill on it for stock water troughs.
Don't know what they are doing or how they are doing it but it would appear some water diviners can do it. Big mining companies over here hire the best of them rather than relying on their own geologists because they are more accurate. Figure that one out because I can't.

@resserts lovely response, including trickle down economics. Now there's magic. Would like to shake your hand sir.

@silvereyes Does that include the idea that a strong economy is needed to protect the environment?

@silvereyes Everything in Trump's life is golden, especially his showers.

Okay, it might not be true. But, honestly, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it were confirmed:

"The general conclusion of the dossier, that Russia worked to try and elect Trump has been corroborated by U.S. intelligence agencies. However, other claims have been proven unfounded or remain unverified, including the allegation that Trump paid Russian prostitutes to urinate on a Moscow hotel room bed once stayed in by Barack and Michele Obama."
(source: [newsweek.com]

@Kimba I think anecdotes are often tempting but when the claim is put through rigorous experimentation it doesn't hold water (pun intended). It's likely that the dowsers believe themselves to have this ability, which makes it all the more convincing to a third-party, but double-blind studies have never revealed dowsing to be an accurate way of locating water, ore, or any other substance. This video shows a simple double-blind test:

@silvereyes Donald Trump figures a golden shower is appropriate whenever he visits a shithole country.

@resserts as I said the explanations they give are a crock, quite possibly it is a subconscious understanding of geology, in which case of course they fail this test, no geology involved. Maybe it has something to do with a property of running water or water moving through saturated aquifers. Maybe it is subtle differences in plant growth.
If I had the money I'd like to test this one the other way. Pick 20 x 100 acre plots where people need water, then get a water diviner and a geologist to each pick a site in each plot with as much detail as they can give written down, then drill the holes. If the water diviner does better, go back and test those sites with everything you can think of to find out what is different. Don't think there is anything mystical about it, just think they are noticing something the rest of us ignore.

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Homeopathy

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Zombies. Even an insurance company claims they cover zombie apocalypses.

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money brings happiness? trump is competant? the moon is made of cheese?

Mmm… moon cheese…

@silvereyes I was hoping for gouda or maybe asiago.

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Astrology, palm reading, card reading, fortune cookie

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Crystals, holistic healers

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Gwyneth Paltrow is a serious woo peddler. Check out the BS and how much it costs.

Source:
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That certain things bring good luck or money like a rabbit's foot or a horse shoe or NYE soup lol

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Thinking that Trump would make America great.

gearl Level 8 Jan 15, 2018
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Thinking no means yes.

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Luck things like rabbits foots and 4 leaf clovers they do not bring luck for real, they can bridge a positive outlook though.

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Look at major sports. Pittsburgh Steelers fans and the "terrible towel", didn't worked today, but they waived the darn yellow thing as if it will raise the dead. Lot of examples in sport stadiums. The wave, the seminole chop, the team mascots, etc, etc, etc. The music played. In Puerto Rico I saw an Intimidation factor in the Basketball League. 4-5 thousand arena, full to capacity and the whole arena rocking with their stumping as they called the opposing team a "corpse". An hostile arena can will the opposition to lose. Even athletes are humans with survival emotions.

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Free will, moral responsibility.

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They said I was de-lusional and I laughed so hard I almost fell off my unicorn.
I have to agree with the magnetic socks.

What if your unicorn wore the socks? 😉

@resserts what color? only purple wool will do. LMAO

@silverotter11 I thought rainbow-colored socks would be most befitting for a unicorn. 😉 But purple works, too.

@resserts I love rainbows and when the weather changes to gloomy clouds the colors are bright and cheery. I do wire weave pendants and such. I was sorting my beads last fall and noticed the rainbow colors lining up and made a bunch of earings. I personally don't give a shit what a persons preferencs are just cause I like rainbows means jack shit to me. the fact it's been coopted just keeps people guessing.

@silverotter11 A lot of Christians have recently expressed offense over the rainbow flag being used as an LGBT+ symbol, claiming that the rainbow is a symbol of the covenant between God and humanity after the great flood and so using it for LGBT+ purposes is akin to hate speech. So, so stupid. I wasn't actually making a reference to LGBT in my previous reply, though; I just always thought rainbows and unicorns went together. 🙂

@resserts well, yes, they sort of do. and my rainbow earings did draw some ire at the last craft bazaar. christians some times really piss me off. mostly I just try to turn sideways and let the crap fly past. 🙂 - need to figure out how to get emoji's

@resserts wow! I did the shift colon key and the shift parens key and the emoji appeared - far fuckin' out!!

@silverotter11 🌼 If you want the full list of emojis, you can find them here (at the bottom of the page): [agnostic.com]

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Male Enhancement.

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Its hard to say because so often fact becomes fiction and what was fiction sometimes becomes a fact - I think that ,for myself, I try to separate it out as best I can in the moment when faced with a quandary especially where politicians and religious dogma is involved but am ready to change my mind in a twinkle if new evidence comes along - I remember an episode of QI where Fry said "Half of everything we think we know will turn out to be untrue in a given time but we don't know which half!"

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There is an electromagnetic field that our human bodies require to function. The astronauts had "earth bracelets", and wire meshes built into the space suits...to amplify the diminished field when they went to the Moon. Without the Earth, we would have seizures. And die.

Sadly. True. We have to find a way to replicate the Earth field to go farther than the Moon. This phenomena was explained in a series of YouTube videos called "The Electric Universe".

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I agree, as long it's not harmful to oneself or others it's fine.

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I desperately wanted to add something, but the good folks got it covered. So I'll just say all the below. Wait, there is something...fortune telling..specifically divining bird poop stains on statues, as per the ancient Roman skill. 🙂

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Big foot

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Nature.

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I have a few of my own "magical thoughts" or personal superstitions. I won't tie my tie at home before I go somewhere, because the 3 times I walked up to my car and found a flat tire, I was wearing a tie. The only week I made my bed every morning as soon as I woke up(as an adult other than military) was the most depressing week of my life, so I don't make my bed unless I'm having company. I am comfortable having these thoughts and I refer to them as "99 Bananas" thoughts. I pounded half a bottle of 99 proof banana Schnapps on a dare and will never go near the stuff again. Surely one shot won't kill me, but one whiff will make me nauseous and I will act like one shot will kill me.

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