RE: On Occultism
September 6, 2019 at 8:11 am
(This post was last modified: September 6, 2019 at 8:23 am by BrianSoddingBoru4.)
Most of them appear to be harmless idiots, a certain percentage are confidence tricksters. But yes, I think most of them believe in their rubbish and have the ability to convince themselves that their spells and rituals do work, coupled with the ability to rationalize away the failures.
A good illustration of this kind of thinking can be found in a passage from Twain's 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'. Tom has buried a marble and recited an incantation over it, firm in the belief that if he did this and left the marble alone for a fortnight, it would draw to it all the marbles he had ever lost. When he goes back to dig it up, he finds a single marble, the very one he had buried. 'The foundations of his faith were shaken. He had heard of this working many times before, but had never heard it to fail.' Tom comes to the conclusion that a witch has interfered and broken the spell. He confirms this when a doodle-bug refuses to speak to him - the bug is afraid of the witch.
Boru
A good illustration of this kind of thinking can be found in a passage from Twain's 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'. Tom has buried a marble and recited an incantation over it, firm in the belief that if he did this and left the marble alone for a fortnight, it would draw to it all the marbles he had ever lost. When he goes back to dig it up, he finds a single marble, the very one he had buried. 'The foundations of his faith were shaken. He had heard of this working many times before, but had never heard it to fail.' Tom comes to the conclusion that a witch has interfered and broken the spell. He confirms this when a doodle-bug refuses to speak to him - the bug is afraid of the witch.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
