Scientific Evidence Of Magick

By Steven Charles Houser

I wish to appologize for length of this post. Like most things it developed a freakish life of its own... I just hope that you won't be too put off by the length. This is the first time that I've ever posted to this newsgroup before, and I must admit that I do not know a great deal about magick, at least from the traditional perspective. I'm a grad student in physics, but unlike many of my much more skeptical colleagues, I beleive that most ideas (whatever the form or origin) deserve some consideration, rather then being summarily dismissed simply for their associations. Scientists often have trouble accepting just how dependant much of their work is on faith, and just how colored their thinking really is. Consider acupuncture for example. To this day, western medical scientists and doctors riddicule this 2000 year old Chinese system, despite the fact that in China all major operations use it as opposed to chemical anestetic. It has been a successful medical practice, with a tremendous number of favorable case histories, and it is still labeled as a superstitious nonsense simply because it lacks a western origin.

What many people fail to realize, is how much science is dedicated towards preserving its own particular status quo. For example, undergrads are often told to perform experiments. The goals of these experiments are never to simply record observations and deduce a theory unknown to the student. In fact, the "theory" being tested is always the very first thing the student is given. The goal of the experiment is to record observations, analyise the results and then explain why the experimental data did not meet the theoritcal projection. The student is thus trained that if the facts don't fit the model, the facts are wrong.

Another example of this is found in the creation of new physics itself. If a new theory conflicts with those of an older scientist, it is usually attacked ruthlessly, and often the author can suffer carreer problems. This is true unless, some other scientist with equal clout defends the new idea. Then it undergoes a mystical transformation into a concept worth thinking about. This practice occurs so often that many short lived coalitions (like the NAAP (New Association of American Physicists)) have sprung up over the years (most have been disolved after their members were effectively blacklisted). And yet the cheerfully ignorant public continues to view science as an area of absoulte knowledge and uncontested truth.

I have known about all of this for quite sometime, and while it bothered me I have more or less accepted it as inevitable. But I have recently learned something that was rather shocking. Apparently there has been in existance a theory of mechainics that not only can explain the large and growing number of psychic and magickal experiences, it also predicts and solves many of the dillemas of modern physics today (including but not limited to quantum wholeness, the nature of gravity, and several points of EM). It has even had a role in many of the greater discoveries in modern physics. Unfortuanately it has also been suppressed by ridiculas academic pressures, and its uncomfortable implications.

The theroy is called ethereal mechanics, and it was concieved by a high ranking priest named Pierre Gassendi (1592, 1655). Gassendi was by most accounts a minor figuire in history, he was a friend of Kepler and Galileo, he silenced many critics of Galileo, by proving that objects droped in a revolving frame of reference fall straight down. He wrote the chief objection to Descartes work, Meditations. In 1624, he became Provost of the Cathedral in Digne, a significant honor. After the persecution of Galileo, Gassendi was torn between his friend and the Church. Unlike most of the stanch clergy of his day, he believed that God in order to be God had to be knowable by his creation, and that one must be able to approach him through reason. In five years he finished a little known work entitled, A Conjecture on the Role of Man. In this book, he hypothesised a radically different idea of the nature of matter, and using this readily explained how the soul, and supernatural entities could exist in a rigorous mathematical framework.

One mistake he made was that he wrote his book in latin. This precluded him from distributing his book to those who only read in the vernacular. When one Cardinal read the book, he labeled it as heresy, and claimed that it contained "black geometries" as well as "notions vast and blasphemous". Of course after Galileo's trial, the Church had no wish to prosecute one of its own priests. As the work had been poorly distributed, the Church merely buried the book, and chastised Gassendi in private.

So what was the theory exactly? It is a difficult theory to discus without resorting to its

complex (and for the purposes of this post largely irrelevent) mathematical formation. Like Copernicus' ideas it uses a great deal of geometry, and it even dips into the fundamentals of a mathematical theory called topology (the mathematics of surfaces) invovling limit-point algebras. Basically the theory was that the nature of matter were only propagations in a special material called ether. Essentially ether is everywhere and is what everything is composed of. What we call matter is really just a repitious patterned flow of either (the void of space is essentially nothing more than completely non-turbulent ether). Much like the formation of a whirlpool in water. The whirlpool is not really seperate from the water, and yet it has many properties that make it seemingly distinct from its medium. A better example can be obtained by considering a propeller. When the propeller isstationary, it does not look like a disc. If the propeller were to spin at tremendous speeds it would look and act indistinquishable from a disc.

While this may sound strange, but it is not that far divorced from modern theory. For example, essentially the matter we touch is not really made up of atoms but rather the electrostatic fields generated by those atoms (created by the motions of electrons). The modern discovery of the DeBroglie wavelength demonstrates that all matter can be written in terms of waves (which are, after all, merely propagations in a medium, by definition.) It also bears a striking similarity (mathematically speaking) to a new theory called the superstring theory, which basically states that we are really composed of "strings" that are vibrating at particular frequencies.

The speed and pattern of the flow of ether is what determines almost all of the physical properties. If two fast moving flows touch they exert resistance (similar to presure in a liquid medium). Slower flows can't maintain large areas of turbulence and so act as disconected broken wave forms (Gassendi's equations very accurately predict complex drift velocities of liquids and gases using this model). The faster flows are (by laws of fluid dynamics) more turbulent, attract more ether in an area (like a whirlpool), and by combination of these properties, are more dense and massive in our reference frame. (Incidentaly this explains gravity, a currently baffling quality of matter. Gravity in this system is merely analagous to the "drawing" action of a whirlpool, just as more massive objects have higher forces of gravity acting on other bodies, so do more powerful whirlpools have greater "suction" or drawing force). Another interesting application of all of this is the seemingly reversed notion in speed. Air in this model is a slow ether flow, while ice and rock would be fast ether flows. Notice that this would seem to imply that things with higher masses have more "energy", a biconditional not proved true till the tweentieth century!

How then did he attempt to explain magick, supernatural entities or the fundamental forms of energy (heat light,etc)? His arguements here were crude, it very well could be that there wasn't enough math or physics in existance to give him more sophistication to his model. He basically claimed that the patterned flow of physical objects could be of two basic types. The first was a simple flow (caused by more natural processes) this was a turbulence created by very simple ether patterns of movement. The second were called complex flows, meaning that they were basically simple flows with one or more intricate internal flows. Since all of our conventional senses and experience deals with simple flows (which define an objects material/chemical properties), this is all we have real insight to. However things with complex flows are more rare, and would have properties difficult to comprehend if we resigned ourselves to solely the material. The obvious example he tried to cite was the soul of man. These complex flows could definately affect material properties in ways that would frustrate modern science (an example postulated in part by Gauss and later writers, the so called unbreakable weapons of various mythologies. Consider a bar that has complex ether flows. What if the internal flows acted in such a way that they would redirect ether preasure caused by translational material stress... in other words the energy one trys to apply to bend or shatter the bar would always be redirected everywhere but in the bar. This is perfectly possible considering the mechanics, and of course it might not be stable against other stresses or heat (severe changes in the simple flow would probably destroy its complex pattern as well, i.e. melt down Exacalibur you get a lot of perfectly normal molten steel)).

The Conjecture didn't stay burried for long. Later, the book became popular with a small

group of scientists, in the late 17th, 18th centuries. It was specifically interesting for how it could explain the phenomenom of light as a wave (specifically as a wave of ether). However due to some of its more fanciful assumptions (i.e. that magick exists, etc) and the current attitude towards those assumptions, few scientists would admit interest. Scientists who made references to the book where often labeled phantasts (which is from the greek phantastes, meaning a boaster. It also had the more modern definition of "dreamer", and thus ridiculed on several levels).

One physicist named Huygen, formulated a theory on the true nature of light, basically taking some of the arguments of the book, and describing it rather abstractly as a wave. Fearing to be connected with the Conjecture or the phantasts he thinly veiled his inspiration. He claimed that there existed a weightless material called aether (using the acient greek spelling) and that all light was merely a propogation through this material.

Eventually aether became in the scientific mainstream. But phantasts were still a very persucuted minority. Carl Gauss (the mathematician/physicist responsible for over 75% of the math, physicists use today) even arrogantly asserted in a few of his letters to other acadamians how he would "disprove their (phantasts) claims fundamentally, absoultely, and without question." After finding many arguments and considerations worth merit he wrote privately... "I abhor the direction of my calculations and yet, damnably, I can find no error with them". He went on to hone much of the mathematical arguements that the Conjecture initaily raised.

After all these contributions the mechanics of ether demonstrated some amazing predictions. In Gauss' private journels he cites a particular property of this framework, namely since everything is in essence part of a "pool" of ether, a change to any "object" nessecarily affects every other object in the universe. This is exactly the mathematical/physical process called quantum wholeness (essentially predicted centuries before Planck's constant came into existance).

This is all well and good but what about magick? After the mechanics of harmonic oscillation were discovered, the crude arguments of Gassendi, gain a life of their own. Most things have a natural frequency that they vibrate at called their harmonic frequency. Much like a swing in the park. If I push on someone riding the swing at precisely the right moments, the energy in the swing accumulates. If I push at the wrong moments (like just as the swinger is comming down), the energy in the swing gets reduced.

Now one of the chief arguments against the existance of psychic power is conservation of energy. We know that the brain can't produce very much power, and a great deal would be required to exhibit telekinetic movement, for example. What if it didn't need huge amounts of energy? Simply thinking causes ripples in the ether (as it involves the brain changing its electrochemical state). Now assume that if you have a particular thought formation next to a particular object. Lets say that thought stimulates ether ripples at the harmonics of the objects flow. You could quite concievably be able to induce a complex flow in the object (making it essentially magickal) via harmonic oscillation, or even after some time shatter it, move it, even cause other effects. This would also serve to explain the behavior of the early magickians, shamans, and sorcerers.

One, not all thought forms in your mind are accessable via imagination. Pain or other unusual mental states might be required to reach the harmonics of some objects, this would explain the wide spread cross cultural existance of sacrafices and altered states of conciousness in magickal rituals.

Two, in order to be most effective sorcerers would have to leave populated areas (other human minds would create ether "noise" affecting harmonic oscillation), this would explain not only why magickians are thought of as mysterious, but also why there are so few empirical scientific studies that show evidence of the phenemenom (essentially the scientific observer might greatly affect the conditions, simply by standing next to the subject)

And finally three, it would explain the importance of magickal symbols, and the value of multiple people at rituals (If seventy sources all have the same oscillation, the amplitude, and thus power of the ether wave transmitted would greatly increase in power).

As for the existance of supernatural entities, ether is shown of having many properties of

both fluid mediums and that of string frequencies. One interesting theorm derived from the initial properties of ether space is the fact that multiple objects may occupy the same space of ether and never know it because their frequency of flow are out of phase. This of course, is also postulated in superstring theory. Its like a stereo. When you've selected one particular radio station, the others don't exist to you even though they are being broadcast at the same time. Its only sensitive to a particular range at any one time. It is also easily possible that other entities could change their flows (or have them affected by passing phenemenom) enough to exist in our space-time (or perhaps indirectly control something in our "reality" via indirect means). Dabbling in magic might also call such entities (since it works by generating unusual frequencies of ether). Furthermore, as the human mind is thought to have some "hidden factor" responsible for the chaotic output of brainwaves, it is almost likely that we are sensitive to forces we don't have empirical proof of yet.

What if the so called astral world is just the mind aligning itself to a slightly different ether frequency band? It would make sense, after all we are subconciously sensetive to many things (for example, some ultrasonic frequencies which are inaudible but cause marked irratation and rage, or subliminal technologies).

Source: Published Online.