Magick of Thought

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I’ve fallen behind in reading other magick blogs. This week, I’m catching up, linking to particularly interesting articles as I go.

Today: Ananael’s blog, Augoeides.

Accupuncture

Following up on his previous acupuncture post, Ananael writes about a new study:

The latest meta-analysis of acupuncture research, published two days ago in the Archives of Internal Medicine, conclusively shows that acupuncture does in fact work for chronic pain. Notably, this latest study also found a clear difference between traditional acupuncture in which needles are inserted at specific, defined points versus so-called “sham acupuncture,” in which needles are inserted at random points in the same general area.

Then he lays into skeptics who misrepresent these sort of studies:

The problem skeptics have with acupuncture seems to be that nobody has figured out exactly how it works. […] Either said skeptics just don’t have their facts straight, or they’re deliberately confusing them to push what I would have to call an anti-science agenda. The whole point of the scientific method is that you don’t get to pick and choose only those studies that confirm your personal biases.

If you were wondering, that’s the smackdown from the title. Well said. (Full article here.)

Manifesting a Hot Tub

You know how I love case studies, and Ananael just posted one about manifesting a hot tub. In particular, note the unlikely path his wife took in finding the yard sale with a well-priced tub, and some lucky breaks he had in deciding where to put the tub.

One question for Ananael: It seems like some of your luck went beyond just “Finding a hot tub,” like placing it in a better location and finding that couch. Do you think the way you phrased your goal helped with this? Was it particularly broad, and do you have a general practice of making it broad? Thanks.

The Just World Hypothesis

Another new study, this one showing that:

People perceive rituals which are more complex or time-consuming as much more effective.

(Full article here.)

I’ve seen that in my own practice: Because most of my work only takes a few minutes, and just involves me sitting and thinking, I sometimes feel like friends are underwhelmed. Maybe I should add some theatrics…