8/18/2020

The Allure of Exotic Rituals, Fantasy, and Mysticism

Is used to describe causal

reasoning that looks for
correlation between acts or
utterances and certain events
Magical
Thinking It is the belief that one's
thoughts, words, or actions
will produce an outcome that
defies normal laws of cause
and effect

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 Practitioners say they can diagnose and

treat physical disease by manipulating
the “human energy field”
Called therapeutic “touch” and yet they
Therapeutic

do NOT actually touch!
Touch  Taught to 48,000 people across 75
countries
 Taught at 75 schools and universities
 Practiced at 95 health facitilies

 http://www.youtube.com/
Therapeutic watch?v=mNoRxCRJ-Y0 -
Appropriate ABC Video
Touch

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$1 Million
Challenge

Why do people believe in

magic?!
• We all seek to better understand our reality
• Magical beliefs provide a sense of control over aspects
of our world that we do not understand
• Example:
– Before we understood thunder and lightening, humans
believed it was the gods
– Before we explored the world, people stared at the
endless oceans and believed the world to be flat
• Humans have a need to know and understand the reality
that surrounds them

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 It stops scientific progress

 People cling to superstitions
and can be blinded to
reality when is becomes
clearly understood (World
Dangers of was supposed to end in May)

magical  “Magical thinking holds no

keys to progress and offers
thinking… only false hope”
 If a person believes in magic
and partly abandons reality,
accommodating other
magical beliefs becomes
easier

Wishful
Thinking
 Choosing to believe in
something because we
wish it to be true (Ex.
different religions)
 Andrew Weil
 “In order to perceive
reality directly, one
must sooner or later
learn how to abandon
the intellect and
disengage oneself from
the thoughts it produces
incessantly”

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Andrew Weil on telepathy

 “Not only do I think each of us can share consciousness,

I think all of us are already doing it all of the time. We
do not have to learn to be telepathic; we just have to
notice that we already are by letting telepathic events
into our waking consciousness. Telepathy is nothing
other than thinking the same thoughts at the same time
others are thinking them – something all of us are doing
all the time at a level of our conscious experience most
of us are not aware of. Become aware of it and you
become telepathic automatically”

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Telepathy?

 We were all thinking it at

the same time and aware we
were trying to be telepathic.
 How do you measure it if
worked?
 There is no evidence that
supports humans’ ability for
mental telepathy

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Ruscio:
“To believe in an extraordinary,
fantastic phenomenon, based on
nothing more than unsubstantiated
assertions would be an act of sheer
wishful thinking”

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No physical measurement tool

has been able to measure these
“energy” fields

Where is There is no evidence supporting

the existence of this energy as
the well as no evidence to show that
a human can detect it and
correct it
energy?
What happens when we bring
this lack of evidence to the
attention of the
believers/pseudoscientists?

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 Pseudoscientists defense:
the energies do not exist in
the same physical universe
that we experience.
MAJOR  The energies exist in some
Contradiction other realm that is vaguely
specified and unverified
 Huh, then how can humans
detect it?

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Emily Rosa

 Can a human energy

field be detected?
 Hypothesis: if
practitioners cannot
even detect the human
energy field on a better
than chance level, then
it is impossible for them
to use energy fields for
diagnoses and
treatment

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How are superstitions

created?

How are
Why do people LET US START
superstitions
continue to FROM THE
and exotic
believe in them? BEGINNING
rituals created?

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Learning
Theory
 Operant Condition and
accidental learning (B. F.
Skinner)
 Positive Reinforcement
 Something pleasant
is given
 Negative
Reinforcement
 Something
unpleasant is taken
away
 We become
conditioned by chance
associations

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Rain
Dance

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Chicken Soup
and the
Common Cold

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Learning
Theory
 Pavlov’s Dogs and
Classical Conditioning
 Unconditioned
stimulus
 Conditioned stimulus
 Unconditioned
response
 Conditioned response
 https://www.youtube.c
om/watch?v=11zRl9bWY
_A

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Operant Conditioning and

Drug Addiction
 In relation to clinical psychology: Drug
addiction
 UCS – drug
 CS – environmental factors
 UCR – body reacts to drug
 CR – body prepares for the drug

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Representative Thinking
“Like goes with like”
 Kahneman & Tversky (1972)
 Linda is 31-year-old, single, outspoken, and very
bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she
was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination
and social justice and also participated in antinuclear
demonstrations. Please select the most likely
alternative:
 Linda is a bank teller
 Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist
movement
 Nearly 90% of participants chose the second option.

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How are superstitions

maintained?
 If superstitions are generated from
accidental learning or representative
thinking, why does it endure?
 It depends on the schedule of
reinforcement!
 Continuous (fixed) vs. Random (varied)
schedules
 Extinction of behavior happens faster
following a fixed schedule

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 Mysticism and superstitions

What to are readily available (I am

sure everyone is

take away superstitious about

something)

from all  But some superstitions need

to further researched in
this… order not to harm others
 Ex. Salem witch trials

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When we can’t explain a

phenomenon, we DO NOT turn
What to to paranormal mysticism, we
turn to science

take away
from all We use scientific methodologies

this…
in order to provide evidence for
some conclusion, NOT generate
a conclusion first then look for
evidence

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 Secrets of the Psychics

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTXm
o4_LR4w Part One
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acfH
The 
RGxwV_E Part Two
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsrQA
Amazing l5Vp24 Part Three
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7OH
Randi

10_V244 Part Four
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWt1
vxnYX1w Part Five
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQoU
muSNS3E Part Six

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