Letters to the Editor
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Amy Wallace
Thanks again for your posts. They shed a lot of light on this phonmenon. I am a little disturbed by your phsychic surgery comment though. This phenomonon has been debunked over and over, by observers who were inches from the act of the "surgery" but later analyzed the material removed whcich contained some other animal DNA. There is a fantastic prestidigitator in my town, who I have concentrated on with all my might and I swear he is pulling giant bottles of beer right out from the wood of the table! Of course he wasn't, but some of these people are very good. You really can't believe your eyes all the time (that also applies to very charismatic people as well!!!)
Now, I am going to be extremely presumptuous and do a Cary Tennis, and say that you might not be over the phase that allowed you to be drawn into the Casteneda cult in the first place. My prescription is for you to take an intro physics course. Physics is as close to magic as the sciences come. It is great stuff. Science will also teach you a permanent state of skepticism, which will serve you well. The fundamental tennant of science is skepticism, and a scienctist should never say he or she knows anything. Instead they should say "according to the evidence, this appears to be the case." There should always be room for revision or out and out change in your theory. Unfortuantely this means that you need to have a certain level of comfort with ambiguity, but you can learn that.
Okay now I'm sounding like a science evangelist, sorry Amy, but maybe you get my drift maybe you don't. I only mean well by it and hope you are not offended (which maybe you are or should be).