Ghostly Girl

I agree. I'm pretty sure that many of those ordinary folk that knew a thing or two about natural medicines wouldn't have called it magic, but the masses did, and as the word is nothing more to me than a word in widely accepted language, magic fits very well to describe such things. The young ladies of medieval Britain that used yarrow and comfrey to help sterilise wounds probably had no idea at all why it seemed to work, just that it did. They couldn't possibly have known then that these plants had compounds that appear to be antibacterial, they just knew by observation that it seemed to work. Even now, much of this is unproven, yet many of our widely accepted medicines are inspired by compounds produced by plants (Aspirin being perhaps the best example).

Just as today an engineer or a scientist will often not bother to attempt to full explain their art because they know their audience wont understand, perhaps these natural medics didn't bother to explain their art for the same reasons. In fact, quite often at work, in my line as a software developer, if asked by management sorts how I will solve something, I have learned to just say I'll do some magic because I know the alternative would be to waste many hours explaining something they will not understand because it is not a subject they have studied in depth since childhood.

Exactly. People who didn't understand it called it magic. Like my earlier point that science is just the pursuit of understanding of magic.

Most of the church would have had him executed if they'd known. Galileo was a special case though because his kind of magic was also blasphemy. The church taught that the earth was special. Galileo's theories suggested otherwise.

I don't think that's true. As explained above, but to elaborate, there was a time when what the church said was the truth, and anything else was unnatural and potentially blasphemous, so anyone studying anything that contradicted what the church said had to do so in secret. It was not they who wanted to suppress the advancement of knowledge, but church and wider society.

Maybe. Maybe not. But it doesn't change anything I've said, that magic is magic, and science is just the pursuit of the explanation of magic. Magic isn't necessarily something beyond known reality, in fact for me it is very much reality. When I look at my wife or my kids, I don't see a load of carbon based molecules doing purely scientific things, I see pure magic. The fact that scientists can explain a lot of it and will one day explain all of it doesn't change a thing, its still magic.

 

I've warned you about foraging mushrooms before Zigs!

 

Back on topic, I suppose the question is do people have souls? Which raise another question if we do - is it physical, chemical or ethereal? And then another - what happens to it when we die? And does it really weigh 21 grams?

 

how very kind of you @shiney that sounds like a great weekend - your garden must be HUGE!

I'll keep my eye out for more info in the New Year but have popped the dates in my trusty mobile calendar. I'm quite a way away from your neck of the woods but you never know have wheels, may travel

 

I made it one year, from further up than where you are (if your location in your profile is right). Shiney and his missus put on a most excellent event, thoroughly good day all round, and of course you get to meet some of us lot.

 

Into territory I cannot even begin to understand here, but I suppose physical, chemical and ethereal, as to what happens to it when we die well some believe that the soul goes on.

 

Despite lots of discussion and theory it is a question that not even the greatest minds have worked out yet.

I just take the view of whatever it is it is. I rather like the idea of being a voyeur spirit for a while though.

 

I'm quite rational, especially when i've had a few

But i've got several events in my life that I can't explain using science, magic or witchcraft

 

Think i'll lable them as not explained yet