A friend of mine who maintains a mailing list of... uh...Newagey people recently posted this story:
Raja Ravi Varma was a great devotee of Parashakti, the Divine Mother. He was asked to paint the portrait of King George. While doing so, King George noticed that Raja Ravi Varma didn't take his eyes off his subject while his hand painted. King George asked "Why don't you look at the canvas?" Raja Ravi Varma replied, "If I would look at the canvas, She would stop painting." Reactions ranged from "Wow, really?" to "u r correct... divine stops working when we start" to "whoaaaa" to "this proves the existence of the Divine Mother." If I were to ask this group of people, "How many of you typed your replies without having to glance at the keyboard?", what do you think the reply would be? Is touch typing "proof" of the existence of the Divine Mother? If they had no need to look at the keyboard when replying, does this mean that the Divine Mother typed their replies? I guess my point, if I have one, is that people who have a Woo Woo view of the universe are able to see Woo Woo in anything. I've hung with artists for years, and know easily half a dozen of them who don't need to look at what they're drawing to render it perfectly. Not once has it occurred to me to think that someone or something else was doing the drawing for them, no more than it occurs to me to think "Someone or some- thing else is thinking my thoughts when I type them without looking at the keyboard." I think that this is a classic example of "drawing bullseyes around arrows;" that is, starting with a premise and interpreting anything one sees as valid- ation of that premise. What do you think? Was Raja Ravi Varma doing his own painting using an artist's version of "touch typing," or was someone or some- thing else doing the painting for him? I think the responses here would be revealing.
