(05-14-2024, 09:08 AM)Ninurta Wrote: The Leviticus passage definitely sounds like a magickal ritual, but it could also be viewed as an early psychological test.The ol placebo affect. Good thought.
My first wife was a psychologist, and I have long maintained that pyschology is nothing more than pseudo-scientific sorcery...
You see, if the woman believe strongly enough that the "bitter water" which was converted from "holy water" is going to mess her world up because she was unfaithful, she's gonna hesitate to drink it, and a canny priest is going to pick up on that...
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Here's another that had just come to mind, and I had actually jumped back on to post.
There are two books of the infancy and childhood of Jesus. In Thomas's version when Jesus is a little boy he is playing down by a river with some other boys. Jesus is making little figurines of birds out of the mud. It happens to be a sabbath. Some of the parents see Jesus doing this and start to chastise him that he is making idols on the sabbath. They charge towards him to smash up his evil idolatry, and just as they get to him, he claps his hands together and the birds become real and fly away chirping.
On another occasion, and because of this the other children in the neighborhood weren't aloud to play with Jesus anymore. So, one day Little Jesus is walking along looking for someone to play with. As he comes to a house he see two woman crying. He asks what they are crying about. They say they've just lost their young sons, and that that is their bodies burning in the oven (they were cremating the bodies of their sons). Jesus says to the oven something like, "little boys, rise, come and play." Just then the two little boys rose from the ashes and ran off with Jesus to play.
My point, even as a child Jesus was ridiculed and called evil for His abilities that others didn't understand. I saw these stories pretty magickal as well.
If I laid my hands on a blind man, speak some words and restore his sight today, in front of millions of people, would they not call it magic?
You got my wheels turning, Ninurta. Lol
They live.
We sleep.
We sleep.