• 𝕿𝖊𝖗 𝕸𝖆𝖝𝖎𝖒𝖆@programming.dev
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    9 hours ago

    You spot fake witches because they believe in magic instead of Magick. Being a witch is a spiritual practice, if curses actually worked the world would be very different (and way, way more fucked than it currently is)

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      3 hours ago

      I like the “headology,” or the idea that what people believe is what is real.

      “So people see you coming in the hat and the cloak and they know you’re a witch and that’s why your magic works?” said Esk.

      “That’s right,” said Granny. “It’s called headology.” She tapped her silver hair, which was drawn into a tight bun that could crack rocks.

      “But it’s not real!” Esk protested. “That’s not magic, it’s—it’s—”

      “Listen,” said Granny, “If you give someone a bottle of red jollop for their wind it may work, right, but if you want it to work for sure then you let their mind make it work for them. Tell ’em it’s moonbeams bottled in fairy wine or something. Mumble over it a bit. It’s the same with cursing.”

      Equal Rites, Terry Pratchett

      • doomcanoe@sh.itjust.works
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        3 hours ago

        That’s a linguistics debate. Are all Christians fake christians just because the god they believe in is an imaginary friend? Or are they real christians because they actively believe in their imaginary friend?

        Or was your argument that the age of a belief lends creedence to it’s legitimacy regardless of its truth value?

        • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
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          3 hours ago

          I feel like the concept of magic doesn’t become any more credible if you use the archiac spelling “magick”, and differentiating between “spiritual” vs “supernatural” is splitting hairs. It’s close enough to the same exact thing that i don’t believe a person can call bullshit on one without calling bullshit on both. If brooms and cauldrens are fake then so is Beltane.

          • kassiopaea@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            57 minutes ago

            I think that you don’t think that there’s any meaningful difference between “spiritual” and "supernatural " then you’re missing the point.

            I used to be an atheist anti-christian skeptic type that didn’t understand my partner’s beliefs at all, because why have beliefs if you know they aren’t real? sugar_in_your_tea’s above quote from Equal Rites actually fits it really well.

            Your beliefs have an impact on how you act, and your acts have an impact on the world. Therefore I choose to live by a set of guiding principles and interact with the world in a way that fits what I want it to be like. The whole point is that you can only influence what you interact with, but also you never know what you’ll interact with.

            That said, I think that people who claim to be able to influence the lives of others without interacting with them directly are on ego trips.

            However, I also don’t think that anyone can say anything for certain, as we live in a universe driven by probability, where “spooky action at a distance” is an actual scientific phenomenon.

            tl;dr: Spiritual describes how people interact with the world but supernatural describes hypothetical (meta)physical phenomena.

        • QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works
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          2 hours ago

          It is a wholly constructed faith based partly on fragments of things that existed previously but with no input from those cultures so there’s no “authentic” Wiccan beliefs other than those from the 1950s.

          • doomcanoe@sh.itjust.works
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            53 minutes ago

            Sure, but that could be said about any belief system depending on when you start the clock.

            While I don’t personally believe in the authenticity of claims from any non-testable belief/faith/spiritual system, I do believe that any person who genuienly says they hold to one can fairly be called a member of that group.

            Be it Wiccans, Christians, Scientologists, Saitanists, or Jedi. Hence why I say this is a linguistics conversation. An “authentic Wiccan” dosen’t need our approval, nor is the validity of their beliefs relavent to them using the term to describe themselves.

            • julietOscarEcho@sh.itjust.works
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              36 minutes ago

              “genuinely” herein lies the key. Interesting to pick Jedi as an example because I think we can agree that people who out that on a census or whatever typically have their tongue firmly in cheek. Wicca probably sits somewhere on a spectrum between that and the major religions. You’d be mad naive to assume that everyone holds beliefs exactly as stated. My papi was a priest and we’re pretty sure never believed in god. L Ron Hubbard himself was for sure was grifting FFS. Add to that and most religions can’t even agree what authentic means for their community and LOL

  • Etterra@discuss.online
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    14 hours ago

    Nothing fails like prayer. Or magic, which is just a different flavor of prayer and vice versa.

  • QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works
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    17 hours ago

    When I used to be New Age I believed that not believing in magic gave you a resistance to it because Quantum…

    Accepting the truth that magic ain’t real was tough

  • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    21 hours ago

    I wouldn’t ever do this because as soon as anything went wrong in my life I’d never be able to shake the question that it was super natural. I’m extremely skeptical and don’t believe in any supernatural things, but I have a fear of developing superstitions. Also when I get really stressed about my life and feel like it is particularly unfair I start to feel like there is some sort of external source of my problems and it’s malevolent. So, doing something like this would be a recipe for problems for me lol.

    • Tonuka@feddit.org
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      11 hours ago

      I have a fear of developing superstitions

      Ngl that sounds like a good horror-comedy

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        3 hours ago

        Hmm, it seems “superstition” in Greek is “deisidaimonía”, so maybe deisidaimophobia? Or we could go with Latin for the much more familiar “superstitio” for “superstitiophobia”.

    • Sneezycat@sopuli.xyz
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      21 hours ago

      is skeptical and doesn’t believe in the supernatural
      has a fear of developing superstition

      Sounds to me like you’ve been cursed, mate.

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        19 hours ago

        Hopefully if I’m ever cursed it’ll be in a cool way, like it’ll teach me some sort of life lesson then either go away or be useful after the fact. Rather than some sort of eternal punishment thing lmao.

        • Tuxman@sh.itjust.works
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          8 hours ago

          Television has taught me it’s usually resolved within 30-45 minutes of hijinxs and adventures … or two episodes if it’s something really major

    • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
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      15 hours ago

      tbh I’ve just accepted that superstitions are part of the human psyche. I don’t believe in “chi” in the sense of some energy that can be measured but there’s definitely some kind of pattern recognition in the human subconscious that’s processing the flow of the environment around them and the people in it that way. And a lot of cultures worldwide have longstanding traditions that guide the way they deal with that both in the sense of soothing that part of the subconscious but also trying to address whatever threat or goal in the environment that that pattern recognition is trying to draw attention to. I really enjoyed “Feng Shui Modern” by Cliff Tan if you want a really great explanation of concrete ways in which principles of that practice tend to help people feel safer in a space. He talks about things like the most common paths people take take through rooms, wanting to have your back against something solid, and not liking having beams and lights hanging directly over your head.

      And personally I just try to keep the less concretely beneficial things to fun cultural traditions and other stuff I can connect with people around and avoid things that have been like, objectively disproven by modern science in some way or that would be specifically harmful to some specific circumstance / situation. So like carrying around an evil eye talisman is fine but using an herbal remedy that’s been found to be harmful is not. And I find it’s also helpful to think of it less in terms of specific effects / outcomes such as hexing, and more in terms of good energy / bad energy or good luck / bad luck. So the evil eye ward isn’t protecting me from some specific thing, it’s just a general hope that I’ll avoid toxicity in my life. And there’s a big mindfulness component to these things too; the talisman is also a reminder to yourself to avoid negativity and try to put positivity out into the world around you.

  • markovs_gun@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Reminder that there used to be a $1,000,000 prize available for anyone who could display any sort of supernatural powers that remained unclaimed for 20 years. The challenge rules required that both parties agree upon the test setup, and several people actually tried to claim it and all failed. It astounds me that anyone still believes in this nonsense and that it seems to be becoming even more popular to believe in literal magic and other supernatural idiocy.

    • QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works
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      17 hours ago

      Ah yes James Randi, a man I have very mixed feelings on. He was a climate skeptic who would claim to have debunked people who never signed up for his challenge. A real scum bag in general. He was also a high School drop out with no training in the sciences.

      Admittedly he called himself an “Honest Liar” and was motivated not by money but out of fear that people believed he had magic back when he was a magician.

      Still given his character I tend not to take JREF too seriously.

      • greygore@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        I think the case for climate skeptic is a bit overblown. In his own words:

        http://archive.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/806-i-am-not-qdenyingq-anything.html

        The relevant quote:

        My remarks, again, are directed at the complexity of determining whether this GW is anthropogenic or not. I do not deny that possibility. In fact, I accept it as quite probable.

        Not sure what to make of the claim that he debunked people who never signed up for his challenge. There are a number of psychics and others that he has debunked that never signed up for the challenge (for example Uri Geller or Sylvia Browne) which this could be referring to, and I feel are valid debunking.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 hours ago

      I am at the point where if anyone, ever, for any reason, asks me what my astrological sign is, I stop communicating with them.

      They always turn out to be irresponsible, narcissistic idiots every time.

      An exception would be if this interaction is taking place completely within the confines of an actually defined fantasy world like a video game or ttrpg.

      But real life? People who actually believe there is, or could potentially be anything to astrology?

      Dangerous morons.

      • spicy pancake@lemmy.zip
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        8 hours ago

        devil’s advocate: there are people like me who don’t take it seriously. like I enjoy talking to astrology people because listening to anyone talk about anything they’re interested in is downright entertaining, even if I personally don’t believe planetary positions have any influence on humans

        • Klear@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          Astrology has one major and tangible benefit - it lets you easily remember when roughly are people’s birthdays coming up.

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 hours ago

          I’m not gonna tell you that you shouldn’t talk to, or shouldn’t enjoying talking to astrology people.

          I just have a lower threshold for bs I put up, and do not personally enjoy listening to enthusiastic yapping about absurd nonsense, I infact fact it insufferable, assuming it isn’t a child who is in the learning/development process.

          Were you and I to be friends, irl or otherwise, I’d respectfully ask you to not waste my time with astrology, unless you want to have a meta or academic level discussion about … the psych tendencies/profiles of astrology believers, the actual real world history of its growth and development (which is very often completely different than what many astrology practitioners believe), how you can track the general decline of literacy and critical thinking skills and the education system by using the proliferation of astrology as a proxy…

          … I would find those topics interesting.

          But generally speaking, in an irl, casual conversation scenario?

          Yeah my rule of thumb is that if we are just recently met and you are ardently asking me what my sign is, you’re a person I would rather not know at all.

          • spicy pancake@lemmy.zip
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            7 hours ago

            Nothing wrong with having a filter. I suppose mine is that I won’t be friends with anyone who insists on contact through social media apps instead of regular texting (maybe Signal if they’re cool)

            • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              7 hours ago

              I also have that same additional filter as well, haha.

              Maybe… we could… be friends lol?

              I am so very tired of trying to explain how awful social media apps are to everyone, how they don’t realize they’re addicted to a digital drug that makes them angry, depressed and misinformed…

              And then you also try to explain how to actually do online security, and they usually get angry when you tell them that all the marketing and advertisments lied to them.

              • spicy pancake@lemmy.zip
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                4 hours ago

                Probably lol. I’d wager most of us Lemmy dorks would get along with most of us Lemmy dorks IRL or otherwise

                I suppose Lemmy is social media but its non-monetary, completely-volunteer-run nature really does make it feel like a different animal. At least I’m not horribly addicted like I used to be with Reddit, anyway

      • Diurnambule@jlai.lu
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        11 hours ago

        We of tend play choose your horoscope at work. We gather free or paid newspaper and around a coffee we read the horoscopes and chose the best or the funnier.

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          8 hours ago

          I’ve worked as a copy editor for a small newspaper.

          You wanna know how the horoscopes are written?

          Lead editor pulls them out of his ass, often laughing while doing so.

          They tended to be based on the plots of, or scenes in movies he’d recently seen, shows he was watching.

          I’m not even kidding, this guy would also bombard me with variations of the GI Joe ‘porkchop sandwiches’ memes, in all likelihood was an editor by day, 4chan shit poster by night.

          • Justas🇱🇹@sh.itjust.works
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            8 hours ago

            My wife makes a newspaper about me for my birthday every year. She makes the horoscopes too and that’s one of the most entertaining parts for her.

            • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              8 hours ago

              Yep they are literally complete bullshit and you have to be an actual moron to take them seriously…

              Also I edited in more to my original comment after you replied, did not expect you to reply so fast, haha.

              • Diurnambule@jlai.lu
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                8 hours ago

                He I see, yeah that what i though, their can’t be science behind this. I wonder when we will start to get “AI” horoscopes.

                (I am waiting to enter a music festival, nothing more to do than speak or argue with people)

                • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  7 hours ago

                  There are various complex systems, calculations, tables and such that people use… but there is absolutely no actual empirical science that backs up any of any of them.

                  Therr are no plausible causal mechanisms.

                  There is also an immense wealth of scientific evidence showing how the predictions are uselessly inaccurate, as well as a bunch of other studies explaining how and why such vaguely worded predictions are convincing to certain kinds of people.

                  If there is any science to astrology, it is a science of being a scam artist, of psychological manipulation tactics.

                  As for the actual purported mechanisms of generating a horoscope, they often have psuedoscientific levels of complexity that fools rubes who cannot think critically:

                  Its complex, and I had to learn it, therefore it’s true and worthwhile!

                  Nevermind that it often doesn’t even make testable, falsifiable predictions, and when it does, they are not accurate, they are wrong.

                  Throw it out like we did with bloodletting, ‘body humors’, ‘vitalism’, trying to solve disease with sacrifices and prayer, Lamarckian evolution, etc…

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          11 hours ago

          Then astrology would be the equivalent of an entire belief system that functionally is so complex it essentially contitutes a religion…

          Astrology would be that, but built on urban legend, pre-internet era myths about older video games, like Mew being in the back of a truck in Vermillion city.

          It would be fake cheat codes that don’t work.

    • HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      I have an interesting opinion on this. If someone displays “supernatural powers”, then those powers are not supernatural–just unknown. Therefore, it is an impossible prize to claim.

      • markovs_gun@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        If you read the article, the rules were only that both parties have to agree on a test and if someone passed the test they won the prize. There wasn’t a “gotcha” clause like “Oh since you did it it’s clearly allowed by physics and we don’t have to pay up!” So like if someone showed they had psychic powers sufficient to pass an agreed upon test it doesn’t matter if there’s a natural explanation for it, they would have still won the prize.

        • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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          19 hours ago

          I remember seeing piece of some TV show that invited both Randi and some “psychic”. The psychic showed his power of bending spoons, then Randi asked to do the trick again, only using one of his spoons. The fraud failed.

        • HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 day ago

          Well, in seriousness, and more interestingly, I’m not really willing to call supernatural powers real or fake, currently. There exist some stories I’ve come across, which are likely real, which contain absolutely unexplainable phenomenon. Just this morning, someone in a Discord I’m in (who wouldn’t just fake stories) was explaining how someone they knew had a psychotic break on psychedelics, and, in the ambulance, narrated the paramedics’ childhoods with disturbing accuracy. A trusted moderator of that space responded to my skepticism with “psychics absolutely exist, but the vast majority are just grifters”.

          Note: Without getting into all the context, this moderator is not the kind of person to simply believe in conspiracy theories.

          I used to be a Reddit atheist (ew), and I’ve gone from thinking I know everything, to being very serious about accepting different views–no matter how absurd. We’re unaware of so many more things than we’re aware of.

          I’m of the opinion that if psychic abilities exist, they can not be on command. They might. They might not. I would rather be honest than claim to be factual–I don’t know.

          • Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone
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            1 day ago

            Just this morning, someone in a Discord I’m in (who wouldn’t just fake stories) was explaining how someone they knew had a psychotic break on psychedelics, and, in the ambulance, narrated the paramedics’ childhoods with disturbing accuracy

            I think it’s entirely possible this person is being honest while also just not having a firm grasp over what actually happened, due to having a psychotic break from psychedelics. The paramedic simply agreeing to whatever they said (if the conversation did happen—I’ve been unsure whether a conversation I thought I had was real or not just from smoking too much weed) could have been interpreted as much deeper and more profound than it was.

            None of this requires ill intent. The mind is just incredibly bad at making and retrieving memories in the way we want (infallible, like a video) even when you aren’t on drugs.

            • monotremata@lemmy.ca
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              21 hours ago

              It could also just be cold reading. People who haven’t been exposed to that can find it eerily accurate, even though it’s just a combination of random guessing with reinforcing the guesses that got reactions. It’s the kind of thing that both parties could participate in without either being explicitly familiar with the technique.

            • HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              1 day ago

              This is the probable explanation. However, all I have is the surface of the story. If it truly was an accurate reading (as in, the paramedics adding to what was being said), I’m unaware of it. I don’t really like pressing for details in others’ potentially traumatic events, though.

          • Match!!@pawb.social
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            1 day ago

            Most of that is just mentalism, which is effective and useful but works off a psychological and stochastic approach but is absolutely explainable and not supernatural despite its applications in manipulating people. See: Jacob Wysocki in the one year later episode of game changer

      • atomicorange@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        There’s a term for this idea, “preternatural”. It means a phenomenon that is the result of the natural world, not magic or divine, but still unexplainable with our current understanding.

        James Randi’s prize didn’t require proof of the supernatural, it was open to preternatural phenomena as well. Someone just had to prove it was a REAL phenomenon and not a hoax or random chance.

        • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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          13 hours ago

          There’s a term for this idea, “preternatural”. It means a phenomenon that is the result of the natural world, not magic or divine, but still unexplainable with our current understanding.

          So anything actually proven to exist would be “preternatural” then. Even it turned out to be the result of magic or the devine, it’s still something that exists in the natural world that we just don’t understand yet.

          • atomicorange@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            Sort of, assuming you don’t believe that God or magic are real. If I had premonitions of the future, and could demonstrate through testing that they come true, I’d be proving a phenomenon exists but not necessarily anything about the origins. They could be visions from God, making me a prophet. They could be something with a natural origin, like an energy or invisible spirits.

            It’s a term used by occultists, ghost hunters, and other people who want to discuss / legitimize spooky shit without the religious baggage of the word “supernatural”.

      • arrow74@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        I mean no one even managed to display “unknown” powers either.

        They were all explainable

  • BeamBeamCable@lemmy.ca
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    21 hours ago

    This reminds me of some work drama…

    My coworker was cursed by our bwitch of an ‘assistant manager’ for turning her down, and the next day his mom had hot oil splash up her whole arm and it looked bad.

    Not supersticious but he was and he was terrified. It was horrible to watch.

  • glimse@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I looked for the video and came across a reddit thread about it. Here are two really funny comments:

    I think its rather silly to say the least especially since curses require a certain amount of anger and hatred that im sure next to nobody feels to this person.

    Oh yeah that’s why it didn’t work

    Magic requires willpower and intention to use properly. I doubt any of these randos on the internet actually possessed the genuine desire or emotional investment to actually curse a random guy on the internet who had heretofore never interacted with them

    Anyone who actually understood this likely didnt rise to the bait.

    No true witch!

    • ClanOfTheOcho@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      So, they’re saying that the magic is real, but I can’t just go to a crazy old crone’s potions shop and purchase a curse on someone because that’s not how it works? Well, that’s disappointing.

      Edit: “no true witch” = hilarious

    • Soup@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Honestly though, it does point out how stupid rage-baiting is. This guy genuinely thinks that they must care about his opinion and when they ignore him for being a weird little tit he spends a whole lot of effort to try to say that that’s proof that their thing isn’t real. For one it’s trying to prove a negative, and two it’s just such a weird, self-absorbed thing to do.

      Chasing hate from others is such a weird thing to do. I don’t think magic is real but I’d still rather be friends with some random person who thinks it is than be anywhere near this fuckin’ douchebag.

      • glimse@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I’m not defending the guy here (he does seem like a douchebag) but I think I’d rather hang out with a skeptic than someone dumb enough to believe crystals have healing energies.

        Plus, the videos exist because the witches didn’t ignore him. No shortage of magic-believers in the replies.

        None of this is newsworthy but I’m cringing harder at the angry replies than the fact that he’s rage baiting

        • Soup@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          The witches’ personalities are built on nonsense, sure, but I’d rather that than a person whose personality seems to be enjoying increasing hateful energy. It reads as someone who says that any and all criticism is “just people being haters”. I wouldn’t want to hang out with any of these people but I’m standing by my position that trolls are just pathetic, negatively impactful people.

          • glimse@lemmy.world
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            4 hours ago

            He’s having a laugh. They’re the ones bringing “hateful energy” into the world… And it’s not like he’s the first one they’ve angrily hexed

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          I think I’d rather hang out with a skeptic than someone dumb enough to believe crystals have healing energies

          In the absence of any other information at all, sure I guess I agree, but like basically anything else is more important than this, like being a caring person, being fun to talk to, etc.

  • glimse@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    The witch subculture is on the same level as kids who start channeling their chi to kamehameha a bully

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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    18 hours ago

    💧💧
    Two sips of water counter the next spell cast your way, no wonder he’s having such an easy time avoiding them

  • CodexArcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago

    This is just a high effort version of “…Then may God strike me dead!” but targeting a spiritual minority instead if the hegemonic national religion. Shouldn’t the amount of un-smited politicians indicate that there is no God?

    • Anomalocaris@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      it’s a risky thing to do,

      the vast majority of cases, you’ll be right. but no one will care.

      however, in the unlikely event where you suffer a immediate tragedy, like trip and break your nose, stroke, bird shits on you. you might start a new religion

      • Albbi@lemmy.ca
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        1 day ago

        Yeah, I got taken in like this for a while.

        I grew up religious and one time prayed for a friend who was going to go though a couple of surgeries and would have to eat through a straw for a few months. I prayed that I could take some of the pain for him if needed. Turned out that I had a small accident and got my first stitches the next day and my friend was able to avoid additional months of recovery because the surgeon was able to do both operations at once. I took that as a sign that my prayer had worked and believed more strongly in God. For a while until I realized that coincidences can happen and that believing in God is pretty stupid.

          • Albbi@lemmy.ca
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            1 day ago

            Strangely enough, I could never get it to work again. Must’ve been my fault though, not God’s.

        • Anomalocaris@lemm.ee
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          22 hours ago

          imagine there was a Messiah, god incarnate born on earth, but he didn’t believe any religious nonsense, and every one in a while he accidentally does some miracles. which he dismisses.

          that’s you

    • Ginny [they/she]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      20 hours ago

      Not quite the same. God (hypothetically) has their own plan, so if I pray for god to smite you, and they don’t, then I can just say “well, I guess that’s not God’s plan”. Whereas, if you believe in hexes and/or curses as something fundamentally different to a bog standard prayer, then presumably the hexer and/or curser has more agency over the result than that.

      • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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        18 hours ago

        It’s really funny how the “singular, omnipotent god” religions fucked up the logic behind prayers. When you had many gods and spirits and whatnot, a prayer not being heard could be taken as it not being stronger than another spirit/god, or the god of your choice ignoring you, or something else.

        With omnimono, god has a plan, so prayers are either trying to convince him to change the plans (which, if assumed true, opens a very interesting can of theological worms), or will fall on deaf ears, as the plan won’t change.

    • Zirconium@lemmy.world
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      Shouldn’t the amount of any un-smited politicians prove any spiritual group that claims to have the ability to harm people wrong? I mean why are witches so mad that they can’t hurt a random guy?

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    22 hours ago

    I have a made up word I have never said to anyone.

    Nobody claiming to be psychic has ever been able to detect it.

    While it’s a meaningless thing overall, it is endlessly entertaining to watch someone spiral from “trying” to discover it, to random guessing, to being angry and declaring that I’m lying and they got it the first time.

    It’s kinda like my secret. I have a secret I have never told anyone. It’s another thing I will put before a self proclaimed psychic. Even once they progress to guessing, none have ever even thrown it out as an option.

    And you’d be amazed how many self proclaimed psychics there are out in the world, and how many of them seem to really think they are psychic, to the degree that they’ll accept someone presenting one or both of those challenges.

    The made up word would be a difficult guess for sure. But my secret isn’t something so rare that nobody could possibly hit on it as a guess.

    I’m not willing to outright say that there’s no thing that could be called psychic ability. What I am willing to say is that nobody has ever exhibited such, and likely never will

    • Zacryon@feddit.org
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      12 hours ago

      “You have a very protective aura, which is a good thing, since it serves as a natural protection and everyone has it. But this also means that I am not on the same kind of energy like you, which is why it is difficult for me.”

      Said a fortune teller once to my mother, who felt like she was being told bullshit. (Which is true, because fortune tellers and the like are a scam.) But such people will always find some bullshitty explanation to still save their face.

    • QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works
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      17 hours ago

      Bro you didn’t make up that word. You heard it on an episode of Always Sunny and forgot. I’d say it but honestly it’s so close to a racial slur that I’d rather not risk it.

      You have said it before, it was the last thing you said to Brian before he went out that night and… well I can sense there’s a lot of unresolved drama there so I’ll stop talking now

      Anyway don’t worry about Brian, in the great hereafter he became really good at Sudoku and is considering reincarnation on a planet in the Crab nebula. Interesting choice considering the people of that world are all female. Humanity won’t discover them for about two weeks but first contact will be surprisingly underwhelming

      Naw I’m messing with you. This was all stream of conciousness… but maybe I freaked someone out who thought I was serious.

    • alekwithak@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      🙄

      Burrchismo

      You stuck a hot wheel tire… '64 Corvette Stingray, up your nose as a child and it never came out

      Easy peasy

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    1 day ago

    I mean I’d say I don’t believe in witchcraft but I wouldn’t take on this challenge, so I guess I do believe in witchcraft

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    I’ll be that a witch told him to do this.

    A gag like this discourages the amateurs and helps the real ones stay under cover.