That was excellent Judy. John Ginder one of the co-founders of Neuro Linguistic Programing, took this view I think. He was one of my hypnosis instructors. He used to make up rituals on the spot to demonstrate how he could disrupt patterns of thinking. In his writings he was pretty clear that he believed that the content of the ritual was not the most important aspect. He felt that once the mechanism of the ritual was understood for its psychological effect, then you could substitute all the superficial variables to fit the person's cultural context. He felt that some magical beliefs were caused by not knowing what was the most important thing in a ritual, so they get passed down with a lot of baggage and unnecessary beliefs.
He had been spending time with a "healer" in South America and was attempting to distill out what aspects of his technique might be used by other. He called this process modeling. First you imitate everything the person does, and then you strip out each component to find what was the key part that mattered. The difference that made the difference. In a seminar he began describing this process in a way that made me think that he was starting to believe in an external "magical" effect" from some healing rituals, and asked him a series of questions to find out where he was drawing the line in his beliefs. It became clear to me that he was still struggling with deciding where to draw the line himself. (or was using it as a teaching point for me, he was a sneaky bastard) He had a principle of "useful beliefs". These are beliefs which were lacking in solid reasoning or support, but which give a value to a person's life. He went little too far into intellectual relativism for my taste, but it was a valuable concept for me to apply concerning other people's beliefs. I can't know what function a belief serves for another person. He had hot young thing with him who took off each day and returned with high-line shopping bags at the end of the sessions. I turned to my friend on the course and commented, "Looks like a hard day spending John's money." My friend turned to me and said "Looks like a hard day spending OUR money!" John Grinder was one of the most brilliant guys I have met. He ended up drawing different lines than I do. I can't help thinking it was because he had a monstrous ego and just couldn't give up being intrinsically special in a magical sort of way. So I take his NLP insights with more than a grain of salt. But he was a truly original thinker and his modeling of the hypnotic techniques of Milton Erickson allowed others to learn how to shift people's attention states with language. --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], new.morning <no_reply@> > wrote: > > > > --- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" > > <snip> > > > I have a plausible, and for me satisfying theory of how pujas, > > > meditations and chanting effects my mind. I do not have a > > > theory that supports a trans personal effect on the world or > > > the physical claims of yagyas done for specific physical > > > effects. > <snip> > > > It was a > > > cultural ceremony that had lots of psychological values and social > > > values > <snip> > > We may all have different views of what is beyond the > > empirically obvious. Some may hold there is nothing. I think > > there are forces of nature, not necessarily anthropormorphic > > entities. Its plausible to me that yagyas, as well as catholic > > masses and mardi gras celebrations enliven such. > > It strikes me that yagyas and religious and cultural > celebrations, as well as healing-type rituals (such as > the shamanic "soul retrieval" Robert Gimbel just posted > a piece about, the laying on of hands, etc.), may all > fall under the general heading of "attitude adjustments." > (The experience of gratitude new morning goes on to > suggest as an effect of a yagya would be an example.) > > And I suspect that "attitude adjustments" of this type > can have more far-reaching, profound effects than may > be immediately evident. One's attitude affects just > about everything one does, the choices one makes, big > and small, consciously and subconsciously. > > It seems to me entirely plausible that such an attitude > adjustment could have a long, broad chain of effects, > many of them small and indirect, that could ultimately > converge on a "gross" physical effect--physical healing, > the "lucky" avoidance of negative occurrences, greater > prosperity, etc., etc.--for which the cause-and-effect > chain is as if hidden. > > I don't think it matters much whether one attributes a > positive outcome to some divine entity or to "laws of > nature," rather than to a purely natural, if obscure, > process. > > Actually, I should think it might *help* to believe > it's out of one's own hands, so that one just lets the > process happen without trying to consciously engineer > it. >
