--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bob Price <bobpriced@...> wrote:
>
> So Curtis's comment to Beth about innocence
> got me thinking. With my left brain (I'm
> right handed) in the state its in is the innocence
> required for magic still possible? And if not,
> why not?
I'll answer this, Bob, for myself at least, since
I've arguably seen a bit more magic close up (as
opposed to close-up magic) than some.
I don't think that innocence is necessary to
appreciate possible magic in the world. One can
still dig it and favor the "magical thinking"
interpretation, *while being aware of other
non-magical interpretations* and not writing
them off. It's the latter that I think most
TMers mean when they use the word "innocence."
They're going for the "one size fits all"
explanation, the same way they went for the
"one size fits all" description of meditation.
I think there is a different form of "innocence,"
one that allows the perceiver to witness some-
thing and view it through many different POVs,
some pragmatic, some scientific, and some magical.
Then the perceiver weighs *all* of the different
possibilities and comes up with an interpretation
that best covers the bases for him. That may be
only one of the POVs (such as "That was magic,
dude") or it could be a combination of them
("That sure looked like magic, but it could also
have been me reacting to subtle suggestions given
to me by the person who wanted me to believe it
was magic...I don't know for sure, so I will
decide right now not to decide").
So my version of "innocence" is not automatically
favoring one POV over the other. One perceives and
then interprets based on all of the available ways
of seeing the situation, being "innocent" in not
preferring any one of them out of habit, or because
one has been told to.
Automatically interpreting things according to the
way you've been told to by the TMO or by some other
vendor of magical thinking is IMO the very
antithesis of innocence.
