
Modernity's Spell - dangerman
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/modernitys-spell
======
mindgam3
“With subjects selected for their predisposition to belief, mesmerist and
subject constituted what Daniel O’Keefe, in Stolen Lightning: The Social
Theory of Magic (1982), calls an “act-as-if group”: a social interaction that
temporarily redraws the accepted borders of reality by mutual agreement”

The idea of an “act as if” group is incredibly powerful and applies to a
number social situations outside of magic.

One example: dysfunctional or abusive family systems are able to maintain
homeostasis and propagate across generations because (and only as long as)
every member acts as if all the crazy stuff is okay. Also happens in a
dysfunctional 1-on-1 relationship. The redrawing of borders on accepted
reality happens implicitly - you learn by experience what is “real” within
this group based on feedback. See also cults, which are closely related to
abusive family systems.

Other examples: the reality distortion field of charismatic leaders, Silicon
Valley hype cycles, many dynamics in the field of mental health.

The effect isn’t always negative. On the one hand, group psychology is so
powerful that it often causes individuals to throw critical thinking out the
window. On the other hand, you need some level of reshaping shared reality for
things like the civil rights movement to succeed.

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pnathan
Hadn't heard of this outlet before - quite an interesting article, but the
conclusion started to get more than a bit esoteric. Looking through the chain
of funding, we find that the funders are

> [https://eppc.org/about/](https://eppc.org/about/)

> Founded in 1976 by Dr. Ernest W. Lefever, the Ethics and Public Policy
> Center is Washington, D.C.’s premier institute dedicated to applying the
> Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy. From
> the Cold War to the war on terrorism, from disputes over the role of
> religion in public life to battles over the nature of the family, EPPC and
> its scholars have consistently sought to defend and promote our nation’s
> founding principles—respect for the inherent dignity of the human person,
> individual freedom and responsibility, justice, the rule of law, and limited
> government.

One of the key projects of some of the "traditionalists" is to tear down the
Enlightenment and modernity/post-modernity itself - which, interestingly,
coheres with the conclusion quite well; it's clear why the outlet published
this article.

The history of mesmerism is interesting.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Indeed.

I'm not sure if the author chose not to underline the Obvious Deeper Meaning
or was simply ironically unaware of it.

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markbnj
I always got a kick out of the way an 18th century charlatan's name made it's
way into the fantasy role playing settings of games like Everquest and Dark
Age of Camelot, in the form of "mesmerization" spells.

~~~
simonh
It's in D&D as well.

~~~
markbnj
Yeah no doubt that is why it is even in those later CRPGs, as they inherited a
great deal from D&D and MUDs.

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BlueTemplar
I see your meta-placebo effect, and raise it to the next level :

"Schiltz is a psi believer whose staring experiments had consistently
supported the presence of a psychic phenomenon. Wiseman, in accordance with
nominative determinism is a psi skeptic whose staring experiments keep showing
nothing and disproving psi. Since they were apparently the only two people in
all of parapsychology with a smidgen of curiosity or rationalist virtue, they
decided to team up and figure out why they kept getting such different
results.

The idea was to plan an experiment together, with both of them agreeing on
every single tiny detail. They would then go to a laboratory and set it up,
again both keeping close eyes on one another. Finally, they would conduct the
experiment in a series of different batches. Half the batches (randomly
assigned) would be conducted by Dr. Schlitz, the other half by Dr. Wiseman.
Because the two authors had very carefully standardized the setting, apparatus
and procedure beforehand, “conducted by” pretty much just meant greeting the
participants, giving the experimental instructions, and doing the staring.

The results? Schlitz’s trials found strong evidence of psychic powers,
Wiseman’s trials found no evidence whatsoever.

Take a second to reflect on how this makes no sense. Two experimenters in the
same laboratory, using the same apparatus, having no contact with the subjects
except to introduce themselves and flip a few switches – and whether one or
the other was there that day completely altered the result. For a good time,
watch the gymnastics they have to do to in the paper to make this sound
sufficiently sensical to even get published. This is the only journal article
I’ve ever read where, in the part of the Discussion section where you’re
supposed to propose possible reasons for your findings, both authors suggest
maybe their co-author hacked into the computer and altered the results."

[https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-
is-o...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of-
control/)

~~~
testvox
We can go deeper :

"Then there’s Munder (2013), which is a meta-meta-analysis on whether meta-
analyses of confounding by researcher allegiance effect were themselves meta-
confounded by meta-researcher allegiance effect. He found that indeed, meta-
researchers who believed in researcher allegiance effect were more likely to
turn up positive results in their studies of researcher allegiance effect (p <
.002)."

