Divination - Not What You Think

[outhouse]

I dunno, you're the one using that term.

Example.

Headshrinking

 

[outhouse]

it's nothing but your own bias.

Where is the bias when pointing out some cultures practices that are negative on humanity?

 

[outhouse]

Where does the embarrassment come from?

Depends on the case. I'm being vague as not to insult anyone in particular less the headshrinking example.

Any harm to a person or violence that originates from said practices.

 

[Riverwolf]

EDIT: I am not going to continue this tangeant in this thread. If you want to continue, here's my response, quote it for a new thread. I won't respond here.

Example.

Headshrinking

That literally means nothing to me.

Where is the bias when pointing out some cultures practices that are negative on humanity?

It's your bias that judges whether or not those practices are having a negative effect on humanity as a whole in the first place. You, yourself, admit that it's not scientific.

LIkewise, it's my bias that judges OUR culture's practices have far more negative impacts on humanity as a whole, due to such things as pollution, world-policing, factory farming, global corporatization, etc, than most anything cultures we often deem as "primitive" are doing.

Depends on the case. I'm being vague as not to insult anyone in particular less the headshrinking example.

Any harm to a person or violence that originates from said practices.

I meant from YOU. Why is embarrassment, of all emotions, one you feel at such things? In my experience, embarrassment because of other peoples' actions, particularly when those other people are not part of your own group, stem from elitist mindsets.

 

[sooda]

Divination.

This term conjures up many thoughts and ideas. On the whole, it is a practice dismissed by many in my culture, though for different reasons. Much of the dismissive attitude emerges from various misconceptions about what divination is. As divination isn't something we learn about in public education, what people know about the art is limited to popular culture, hearsay, and stereotypes rather than proper study. There are a couple of common misconceptions about divination that are worth addressing:

Misconception #1: Divination is about predicting the future.
In fairness, divination can be and has been used for this purpose. Skeptics are often critical of divination because they equate it with fortune telling. However, the uses for divination are hardly confined to this purpose. What divination does on a psychological level is facilitate thought and reflection. It's a tool that helps us think about things, like chatting with a friend or researching something in a library. It helps us get in touch with our feelings and our thoughts; it helps us become aware of the stories we're telling ourselves or how we are approaching a situation. And by understanding all that, it can help us to reframe how we think about things to better reach our goals. Put another way, divination is an introspective tool and can get the gears of critical thinking churning to power positive changes in someone's life.

Misconception #2: Divination involves the supernatural.
As with the first misconception, a bit of fairness is in order here. To some people who practice divination, they believe there is something supernatural about it, or some supernatural power involved. However, at the end of the day, there are multiple models to explain how divination works, and only some of them invoke supernatural explanations. It comes down to what the person chooses to believe about it. And regardless of what the person chooses to believe about it, from an academic perspective, we can always approach divination through the lens of the social sciences. From that perspective, divination works because it takes advantage of our mental processes. In particular, works through our ability to detect patterns and create meaning from them... things like symbolic thought.
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Why am I posting all this? Well, for one, @LuisDantas called me out on it via PM a while back and I felt some obligation to make the thread. For two, I'm tired of detractors of divination mouthing off against it based on ill-informed ideas about what it is... and particularly when "skeptics" string together divination with things like alien abductions as if they are somehow equivalent. Lastly, I've practiced divination for years and hope it will be useful to someone to know a little more about it. Feel free to ask me any and all questions you might have about divination, as there are other misconceptions beyond just these two! Or, if you prefer, since I posted this in the debate section, demolish at will! Have you held to any of these misconceptions? Do you feel they are misconceptions? What have you been taught divination is? Do you practice?

I think of divination as looking for water or oil with a "water witch" which was a way for Hayseed Stephens to defraud investors in the biggest oil find in the world in Israel in 1998.. That was promoted by World Net Daily.

Or, like Ron Wyatt using a "water witch" to find where iron nails had been in Noah's Ark.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

If I am following you, that would mean that the goal is not so much to "tell the future" as it is to nurture a proper contemplative, inspired, aware mindset that will attempt to deal with the future in the most informed and constructive way possible. A tool for decision-making, not for superstitious stagnation into some rigid expectation about what the future is "meant" to be.

. The folks who practice divination are often big believers in free will, and belief in free will doesn't enable a worldview that supports deterministic fortune telling in the first place. It's why I mostly laugh at the fortune teller stereotype, because it is so out of touch with the reality of the community.

Are either of familiar with Alejandro Jodorowsky's work with the tarot? Thinking of possibly reading one of his books on the subject of magic / tarot eventually. His argument seems to work along these lines as well, seeming to say that the tarot helps in molding the reality that you are in the act of determining, to 'create a soul' as he seems to put it

 

[LuisDantas]

No, I did not. So he is the writer of the Incal and one of the authors of the Metabarons? Interesting.