Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Project 365 (333/365): And Now, A Final Word On The Supernatural...

.:333/365: And Now, A Final Word On The Supernatural...:.

I didn’t really offer much in the way beyond just describing the things I showed in the past month, and to be honest, I was hard-pressed to fill up a whole month with nothing but stuff pertaining to the paranormal. It was sort of a success, but I know there was so much ground I could’ve covered but I didn’t.

This sounds funny coming from a guy who deals with magic on a professional level, but I’m a true-blue skeptic. I don’t like believing in things I have no evidence for, which would’ve made me the prototype rational thinker if it weren’t for the fact that I’m not an atheist at all. There is a wide gap between what we know and what we don’t know, and while I like to have proof before I believe in something for the most part, I also like to have proof before I don’t believe in something, no matter how ludicrous it might come across on initial consideration.

So do I believe in any of the supernatural phenomena I have describe the past month? Well, I’m open to being happily educated that they are real. Or not-so-happily, given how grim some of these things are. Either way, I’m healthily sceptical and wouldn’t take anything at face value, and in today’s day and age, that’s actually a very sober notion, when you think about it.

One can only hope that as the years go by, and these phenomena are proven or disproven once and for all, the sense of wonder people have don’t ever disappear. Let’s face it: it’s the one thing that keeps magicians in business. The sense of wonder and failing that, the willing suspension of disbelief in a magical performance. Without any of these things, I guess magic would be doomed into obscurity as a lost art form.

This is merely a preview for my last month of Project 365: A month I devote to magical issues and my thoughts on these various issues. Hopefully, my essays and my reflections on them would do justice to the magic community at large.

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