Tuesday 5 August 2003

Pic of the day: You'd think a simple light spell would be easier to do than the placebo effect. But no ...

Slow-magic world

As long-time readers will know, I try to write the truth, lots of truth and almost nothing else. Almost. I also write fiction, elsewhere. (Just for fun, not for profit.) And some of the fictional concepts I discuss in my journal, typically magic or superpowers or technology that doesn't exist in our world. Writers often refer to this as "worldbuilding", a process that runs parallel to the actual fiction writing but is much less personal.

My entry about low-magic worlds was a bit like that. It was not intended to represent the real world. Today's entry is. I mention this because of the unusual topic.

***

An online friend once commented that being a Christian must be a lot like living in a role-playing game. And it is, what with prayers and miracles and angels and demons and then, when it's "game over", going somewhere else. But Christians are hardly the only ones to live in a magic world. Most religions are like that, including not least Wicca and New Age. But also the less than religious often live in a magic world. Only a precious few scientists completely and with all their heart believe that after tossing the coin 9 times and getting 9 heads, there is no more or less chance of tails the tenth time. And even they may occasionally curse or swear when an experiment goes spectacularly wrong.

I casually use the expression "consensus reality". If truth be told, I picked this up from a web site about the role playing game "Mage: the Ascension". The creepy thing about this game world is that it starts out like our own, and then through a number of seemingly plausible steps opens up into sheer madness. The one thing that keeps us all from going off the deep end is consensus reality ... we agree on how the world is.

Of course, in real life we don't actually agree. If you listen to a political debate, it soon becomes obvious that the candidates differ less in their goal (peace and prosperity for all, usually) but more in how they perceive the current world and the rules by which it operates. One think the rich are parasites, drinking the lifeblood of the working classes. Another think the rich are the nurturing parents of society, creating jobs and opportunity for everyone else. They cannot possibly both be right, but they are both within the boundaries of consensus reality. (Well, in Europe at least.) But if someone claims that the rich are simply puppets on a string, fronts for the Illuminati, the secret order that controls all wealth and power in the world ... Well, that's definitely outside consensus reality, and people will edge away lest the men in white take them too when they come to claim him.

Even sane people don't agree on reality, and many insane are more certain of their sanity than many sane are.

Still, there is a consensus to which most people subscribe. And as far a magic is concerned, the agreement is that magic over time is acceptable but instant magic is not. Of course no one says this out loud. You don't walk around stating the obvious.

"Instant magic" or "fast magic" are my expressions for what Mage calls "vulgar magic". You could perhaps call them miracles, but that indicates a certain magnitude too. Healing a cancer patient would be a miracle; casting a tiny light spell would not. Yet the healing is just inside consensus reality, if it takes some weeks to work. (The medical expression is "spontaneous remission".) The light spell is far outside, because by its very nature it would happen nearly instantly or not at all. Fast magic is simply not allowed to exist.

Slow magic is in fact so accepted that one variant has a well-known scientific name: Placebo effect. Back when I was a kid, there was still debate about this seemingly impossible effect, that sugar-coated calcium pills could cure headache and fever. Some skeptics hinted that it may only work on hypochondriacs. But it turned out to work even on skeptics. Today it is perfectly scientific. Your belief can influence your health, given time. But other people's beliefs have no effect, of course ... at least not yet.

Still, just to be sure, it has become standard now to use "double blind" tests of new medicine, so the people who hand out the medicine don't know which is which either. This has measurably improved accuracy over the previous system where the medicine was administered by people who knew which pills were real and which were fake. The official explanation is that they somehow communicated their attitude to the patients without words. You know, if they can do that, perhaps some of the jobs at our hospitals should be filled with the people laid off from the advertising industry in these tough times ... Healing chronic illnesses certainly is a more noble cause than selling soft drinks! If a nerdy doctor can cure infections by body language, without even meaning to, then a trained communications expert should have a good chance to cure cancer, don't you think? If that is all it takes.

***

Christians, Jews and Muslims pray, Buddhists meditate, Hindus do both. Wiccans cast spells, Satanists perform sacrifices and sexual rituals, various pagans do one or two or all of the above. James Redfield and his followers project a field of expectations in front of them; Lightworkers manipulate energies in the aura; other New Age groups have other ways of pulling and shaping metaphysical energies. You rarely see anything happen. Skeptics never see anything happen. Even the true believers rarely see anything happen while non-believers are around.

Still, people continue their practices. A few weeks after the Wiccan cast the love spell, love begins to bloom. After the praying grandmother is dead, the grandchild repents his sins and joins the church. Drug abusers turn their back on their chemicals, and angry minds become enlightened. I've seen things like these myself often enough, as well as spectacular recoveries from chronic illnesses.

Even world events are prayed for: Russia throws off the atheist yoke; Iraq's dictator is chased out in the desert. No matter what good things happen, you are likely to find that someone has prayed for it, or done some other spiritual work for it. Of course, what is good for one may be bad for another. As an old Jewish saying goes: "One blesses, one curses. To whom should G-d listen?" And so life goes on, on Earth not quite as in Heaven.

But the light spells still fail, unless you have summoned the sun to rise again next morning.