Instructor: Rainsong
Date: January 25, 2020 (Saturday)
Seminar: Topic: It’s bad luck to be superstitious — Saturday, 25 January, 2020 at 6:30pm/1830hr New York Time — text format in the PSC #lecture room (Discord) — Instructor: Rainsong, probably — Search LECTURE113
Rainsong: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen
Rainsong: Welcome to another psionics seminar here at the social club
Rainsong: Our topic for the evening is “It’s bad luck to be superstitious”.
Rainsong: As usual, we’ll be talking about real-world psionics
Rainsong: Mostly microPK
Rainsong: Anyone up for it today?
Rainsong: Apparently not.
Rainsong: For those reading the probably-very-short logs…
Chirotractor: Sorry got car issues
Rainsong: Spending time worrying about something is a good way to tilt the odds in favour of that thing happening, because of microPK.
Rainsong: The more PK talent you have, the more likely you’ll see this effect.
Rainsong: As you know, the subconscious tends to disregard negative grammatical structures, so it takes “I really hope X doesn’t happen” as “I really hope X happens”
Rainsong: You can see how this can be a problem, if you aren’t careful…
Rainsong: The worry itself adds oomph to the equation.
Rainsong: So, if you have a superstition about, for example, playing Mozart sonatas on Fridays resulting in you flunking algebra exams, guess what’s likely to happen in a math exam if you played a Mozart concert on Friday?
Rainsong: Actually, in this case, you have two things acting against you:
Rainsong: You’ll be worried because of the supersition, and pushing on the odds
Rainsong: and
Rainsong: You’ll be flustered in the exam because you’re worried, and that messes up your concentration
Rainsong: resulting in worse scores than you’d get otherwise
Rainsong: The problem’s worse when there are higher stakes, such as military sailors in combat… Historically, as a group, they have tended to be superstitious. Here again, you have both microPK and distraction working against them
Rainsong: Mitigation? Find a positive construction to concentrate on, with as much emotion as you can muster.
Rainsong: Instead of “I really hope X doesn’t happen” use “I really hope Y does happen”
Rainsong: Hi, Chiro: I hope the car issues get sorted in a satisfactory manner
Rainsong: Questions? Commentary?
Chirotractor: Nope!
PatchesTheCoydog: This points out an advantage of “fire and release” types of luck spells vs those relying n having charged object with you-if you lose the object you’ll feel worse and more worried than would otherwise and might actively give yourself poor luck while with a “do it and release” thing like some candle spells or directly giving energy to the concept you have good luck this isn’t a worry.
Rainsong: Hmmm. Good point. I hadn’t really given those much thought, but it does follow
Rainsong: For folks confused by the difference between a positive concept and a positive grammatical structure, here are some examples:
Rainsong: This animal is not a wombat: negative structure
Rainsong: I hope that idiot over there falls down the stairs: Negative concept, but positive structure
Rainsong: I hope that person doesn’t get hurt: positive concept, negative structure
Rainsong: That person should just die. Negative concept, positive structure
Rainsong: All wombats are adorable: Positive concept, positive structure
Rainsong: I wish you the best, for a quick and full recovery: Positive concept, positive construction
Rainsong: The easy way to tell the difference is to look for a “not” (or “inte” or “ikke” or “nicht” or “ne… pas”… or whatever is used in your language)
Rainsong: Questions?
Chirotractor: I hope that non-wombat animal falls down the stairs and just dies without getting hurt then makes a full and quick recovery.
Rainsong: LOL
Rainsong: “non-” and “without” would count as negative
Rainsong: Alrighty. I think that pretty-much covers that aspect of microPK. And to be fair, I just think the concept is funny.
Rainsong: Any questions or comments about microPK and/or superstitions more broadly?
Chirotractor: proof you can be ‘too good’ at things
Rainsong: True
PatchesTheCoydog: (Arguably more proof thought cntrol is very good thing to learn for many reasons)
Rainsong: Very true
Rainsong: It’s pretty important for any magic-user, regardless of style, to be in control of their own thoughts and intentions, whether working with candles and knots or with psionics, or commerce with noncorporeal entities. Otherwise you’re going to eventually mess yourself up pretty badly.
Rainsong: There are of course situations in which the operator is not the one in charge: mediums come to mind immediately, and some of the early Soviet experiments, also. But whoever is in charge has to be in charge of their own thoughts
Rainsong: (Sure, RV monitors can introduce static if they have strong ideas about what’s going on in a session, but they are just there to support and assist the viewer. They are not in charge of the session.)
Rainsong: Questions? Commentary?
Rainsong: “My worries get away from me” and “There’s always a whole bunch of random thoughts in my head” and “I just can’t concentrate on a single topic without getting distracted” are all really, really common.
Rainsong: That’s the normal state of affairs for most people these days.
Rainsong: Attention spans are being eroded by soundbites on the telly, too.
Rainsong: But if you’re going to practice psionics or any other effective energy work, you’ll need to get yourself under control
Rainsong: It takes practice and a lot of work… and often rooting out some proverbial demons.
Rainsong: I’ll add a seminar on some ways to work on this. You guys might not need it, but I know some of the regulars in the main chatroom do
Rainsong: Thanks for participating, everyone 🙂
PatchesTheCoydog: Thanks lecture