From alizard[spam]@ecis.com Mon Apr 20 20:40:00 1998
Newsgroups: soc.religion.paganism,alt.magick,alt.pagan.magick
Subject: Re: Magick and energy
From: alizard[spam]@ecis.com (A.Lizard)
Organization: Reptilian Associates
X-Newsreader: WinVN 0.99.9 (Released Version) (16bit)

Every history of science section of the average science textbook has a
section on funny ideas which have been discarded by the scientific
community... disbelief in the existence of psi phenemona is going to be
one of those "funny ideas" a few years from now. 

However, that won't matter, by then, many new high-tech IPOs (initial
public offerings) are going to be in the area of psionic technology in
applications which would simply be unbelievable to most of the current
pagan community... 

This is what I expect from trends I'm beginning to see the start of. 

Sooner or later, the parapsychological community and the fringes of the
serious magick crowd are going to get together... cook up some better
measurement tools than inference via statistical analysis... When that
happens, look for more progress coming out of this area that's usable
for people who wish to get results then we've seen in the last few
millenia.

Magick will probably disappear as we're used to thinking about it...
it'll just be another engineering discipline, and you'll be able to get
all the basics your talents can make use of by hitting the nearest
technical bookstore or any of a million Web sites. And there will 
probably be several "magickal" devices in every household, connected to
the house LAN for the most part, and you'll be reading about the latest
magick-based toys in Popular Science and theoretical research in Science
and Scientific American.

I think Crowley saw the same thing when he said that what he did was a
ceremonial anticipation of techniques to come...

If this sounds like Waldo and Magic Inc. by Robert Heinlein, it
should... and there's no reason to be surprised, he obviously had
associates in the magickal community. (Anyone who remembers the
reference to The Book of the Law by Crowley in Heinlein's Stranger in a 
Strange Land knows what I mean.) 

hmmm... maybe I should post it. It's been too long since anyone's been
able to raise Josh Geller's blood pressure.

B*B, A.Lizard

[Afterword: A book on studies of current parapsychological research can be found on the main pagan page, as can link(s) to relevant software packages. I overstated one point. I think traditional magickal techniques will persist in certain areas, mainly theurgic and areas where commercial possibilities don't suggest themselves, though the techniques that wind up commercially developed will often be useful for these applications as well.]

[What I'm hoping that people get out of this is the idea that the convergence of computers and magick are not only possible, but worth trying to do something with. When thousands of people start playing with this, sooner or later, something interesting is going to happen.]

From alizard[spam]@ecis.com Sat May 02 13:38:08 1998
Newsgroups: soc.religion.paganism
Subject: Re: Proving God's Existence -- a Pagan perspective
From: alizard[spam]@ecis.com (A.Lizard)
Organization: Reptilian Associates
X-Newsreader: WinVN 0.99.9 (Released Version) (16bi

In article , 
los@wmblake.com says...
>
>Whatever else may be asserted of the nature of the gods, it is 
>certainly
>true that the stuff of which they might be made and the particular
>methods by which they might work their ways in this world are not
>perceptible through the instruments and the common vision of science,

I don't regard this as certainly true at all. 

Scientific tools are a product of what's available in current 
technology. So far, I don't know of even know of anything which can 
measure psi effects directly. 

What I know of is hardware that uses inference to deduce that a psi 
effect is going on via distortion in random number outputs under 
certain conditions, see also computer-read random number generators... 
at Princeton Anolmalies Project, http://www.princeton.edu/~rdnelson/ . 

That doesn't mean that that there won't be a device that can measure 
psi effects directly tomorrow, or 10 years from now. This sort of 
research is still in its infancy, affordable research environments 
combining personal computers with black boxes haven't been around that 
long, and the number of researchers, both amateur and professional will 
grow as the word gets out that just about anybody can play. 

As for measuring the effects of and possibly even contacting with the 
(presumably) immaterial entities we call Divine, who knows? 

20 years from now, the most convenient way to contact our (and everyone 
else's) Deities might be via e-mail, and the most convenient way to 
find out what They have to say for Themselves is to go to their Web 
sites and read Their personal FAQs. 

I suspect if that happens, we'll see more changes in religion in the 
week after this becomes possible than we have in the last 2000 years.

I also wonder if atheism would survive something like this... or wind 
up as the last religious faith. 

"I place no credence in virgin or pigeon,
my method is Science, my goal is Religion".
                        Aliester Crowley
(the quote is from memory, i.e. don't be surprised at minor
errors. :-)) 
                                Bright Blessings, A.Lizard