why self-help books are NOT to be dismissed & why parapsychology is anti-establishment (& always unexpected business to pop upon)

Der fürchterliche Pauli as a young student (picture taken from the Internet/CERN);

Paul Feyerabend interviewed by Rüdiger Safranski; 

Intervista a Paul Feyerabend, per Vittorio Hösle; 

Anna Carolina Regner: Paul Feyerabend, Multiplas racionalidades (IHU/Unisinos, 2014);  

Rupert Sheldrake's TED talk;

How to Deal with Evil Spirits: Swedenborg & Life (Curtis Childs/Off The Left Eye); 

What if Science Took the Paranormal Seriously? (Jeffrey Kripal interviewed by Hans Busstra/ Essentia Foundation, 2024); 

Stephen E. Braude interview (with Jeffrey Mishlove);
Dean Radin's Google Tech Talk (2008);
"This in some respects augments who and what we think we are. If telepathy is true, it means that what you think of as your private thoughts aren't so private after all. It means that you have to think of your mind as mostly located in here but spread out a little bit in both space and time. And if it is spread out in space and time it means that your thought and other people's thoughts commingle at some stage. That creates a very dramatic change in terms of our personal ontology about who and what we think we are. Another thing is that it challenges the view which says we are completely isolated, we live in a mechanistic world in which mind is brain, and in a completely pointless existence. You see this sometimes in people who have been to the neurosciences in a while, specially students, they become really depressed, because the world view that is presented is 'you are a meaningless zombie, there is not going on and everything is pointless, there is no meaning for anything.' Or as Francis Crick wrote in his book, 'you are nothing but a pack of neurones,'" [my transcription of Dean Radin's "Science and the taboo of psi," a (now made public) 2008 Google Tech Talk, see Youtube video above  (one learns, by the way, from the first question raised by the audience, that the Google's tech-fanatics corporation-suckers (I'm positive) are looking as always just for hightech applications, that is (beyond all possibility of doubt), new ways to freakishly control things and make big money out of everything, since this is the only thing that matters to them in this scurvy & disasterous, vile, dirty planet of ours; Radin seems to have a different perspective)];

X-Ray (Tommy Cash/Youtube); 
**************************************************************

Vestibule (anecdotes  to pick up, incriptions to make out, stories to wave in):

"[Et] Warburg avait bien suggéré que la crainte des demons relève d'un ordre psychique fondamental, tenace en tant même que primitif..."

Didi-Huberman

"Aber im spleen ist die Zeitwahrnehmung übernatürlich geschärft; jede Sekunde findet das Bewußtsein auf dem Plan, um ihren Chock abzufangen." 

Walter Benjamin (Über einige Motive bei Baudelaire)

"Ultimately the Senders will use telepathic transmitting exclusively..."

William S. Burroughs

"... unless his incantations should chance to be thwarted and foiled by the more potent charms of another sorcerer..."

A. C.

"Joyce cherished the secret hope that, when he got out of the dark night of Finnegans Wake, his daughter would escape from her own darkness."

Richard Ellmann

"C'est le Diable qui tient les fils qui nous remuent! 

Serré, fourmillant, comme un million d'Héminthes, dans nos cerveaux ribote un peuple de Démons."

Charles Baudelaire

"Au lendemain de cette nuit, le petit Joseph est pris soudain de malaises et de crampes, et meurt en peu d'heures."

Nietzsche (traduction by Klossowski)

"Se as pessoas mentem, por que as cartas não iriam mentir?"

Mária Timofêievna (as translated into Portuguese by Paulo Bezerra)

"The fulfillment of prophecies, I said, was a curious business. Often they did not come true literally, but suggestively. Fulfillment might be a bit wide of the mark, open to question and yet unmistakable."

Thomas Mann (The History of a Novel, translation by Richard & Clara Winston)

 

"Coincidences of free events with structural time points have a special luminous character, because the paradoxical nature of truth is at such moments made apparent. Caesurae on the other hand are expressive of the independence (accidental or willed) of freedom from law, law from freedom."

John Cage (Forerunners of Modern Music)

"There is always activity but it is free from compulsion, done from disinterest. And we are free to stop brooding and to observe the effects of our actions. (When we are proud, that pride keeps us from observing very clearly). And what do we observe: the effects of our actions on others or on ourselves? on ourselves; for if the effects on us are conducive to less separateness, less fear, more love, we may walk on then regardless of the others."

"'Follow your principles and keep straight on; you will come to the right place, that is the way' [Meister Eckhart]."

John Cage (Lecture on Something)

"Chance, to be precise, is a leap, provides a leap out of reach of one's own grasp of oneself."

John Cage (45' for a Speaker)

Não a renúncia

mas o desprendimento

Aspirar a tudo

e não querer nada

Giacinto Scelsi (Octólogo, citado por Augusto de Campos, Música de Invenção)

"Sergiu Celibidache insistait sur l’unicité de chaque interprétation jusqu’au point de ne pas permettre l’enregistrement de ses concerts, craignant de détruire ce moment de déicticité absolue. Cette attitude n’est d’ailleurs pas sans ironie, car après la mort du grand sorcier, on retrouva un grand nombre d’enregistrements secrets de sa part. Néanmoins, chaque écoute d’un tel document sur un CD crée une nouvelle occurrence existentielle, débutant cette fois au bon vouloir de l’auditeur."

Guerino Mazzola (La vérité du beau dans la musique) 

"And though we may string ever so many clauses into a single compound sentence, motion leaks everywhere, like electricity from an exposed wire."

"All truth has to be expressed in sentences because all truth is the transference of power. The type of sentence in nature is a flash of lightning. It passes between two terms, a cloud and the earth. No unit of natural process can be less than this. All natural processes are, in their units, as much as this. Light, heat, gravity, chemical affinity, human will, have this in common, that they redistribute force."

Ezra Pound (Chinese Character as a Medium for Poetry)

"Si vou voulez vous pousser vous-même en avant pour parvenir, dit le Laozi, cela sera à la fois épuisant et risqué; vous susciterez inévitablement des rivalités, il faudra affronter les autres et s'acharner. Tandis que, si vous vous mettez vous-même modestement en arrière, il pourra en résulter (tout seul) que vous serez poussé en avant, le retrait dans lequel vous choisissez de vous placer conduisant de lui-même à s'inverser..."

"À la différence de l'effet (visé par l'agir dans un rapport moyens-fin), l'effect n'est pas à 'chercher', en y tendant directement et de façon volontaire; il est appelé à découler 'naturellement' du processus engagé. Toute stratégie consistera, en retour, à savoir impliquer le processus en amont, d'où l'effet sera ensuite conduit de lui-même à venir."

"... ce n'est pas en s'appliquant à la vertu d'équité qu'on peut parvenir à la droiture continue d'une conduite équitable, ni en exécutant minutieusement les rites qu'on peut parvenir à la pureté du respect rituel..."

"Il convient d'être 'rond' avant que la situation ne s'actualise, et 'carré' une fois qu'elle s'est actualisée. 'Rond' signifie qu'on reste mobile, ouvert aux différents possibles, sans se raidir dans aucune position, sans offrir d'arête ou d'angle; 'carré' signifie que, une fois qu'on s'est fixé un règle (une direction), on sait faire preuve de détermination et que, calé dans sa position, on ne se laisse plus ébranler... Au stade initial, quand rien n'est encore déterminé, on 'connaît' par la rondeur, grâce à sa parfaite disponibilité à l'égard de tout ce qui peut s'amorcer; puis, quand le processus est engagé, on 'suit' de façon carrée, sans perdre de sa stabilité. Ou encore le ciel, qui initie le cours des choses, est rond et la terre, qui les matérialise, est carré. (De façon technique et en contexte divinatoire: la rondeur renvoie à celle des tiges d'achillée qui glissent entre les doits et permettent d'appréhender l'évolution invisible (im-prévisible); tandis que le carré est celui de la figure de l'hexagramme dont le cadre définitivement établie permet d'indentifier dans sa constance le type de cas rencontré.)"

François Jullien (Traité de l'efficacité)

"The highest life force does not cling to vitality, for this reason it is vital; 

The lowest life force does not let go of vitality, for this reason it has no vitality...

To be acquainted with this beforehand is the blossoming of the Way and the first step to becoming a fool."

Daodejing/38 (Edmund Ryden's translation)

"Attention, dit Boehme, à ne pas t'enfoncer, comme en une ténèbre, dans le miroir de tes actes, de tes occupations! Car l'avidité (Geist), inséparable de notre volonté, détruirait l'image de Dieu, image magique, subtile comme un esprit, tellement plus subtile et plus délicate que l'âme même."

Antoine Faivre, "Pensées de dieu, images de l'homme" (Accès de l'ésoterisme occidental)

"C'était un excellent garçon, sobre et adroit, mais avec une de ces figures mélancoliques où le regard trop fixe signifie qu'on se fait pour un rien de la bile, même des idées noires."

Marcel Proust (le narrateur, Sodome et Gomorrhe)

"O homem olhou um instante para mim e sorriu calmo: ele sabia quanto era belo e sei que sabia que eu não o queria para mim. Sorriu porque não sentiu ameaça alguma... A coragem de viver: deixo oculto o que precisa ser oculto e precisa irradiar-se em segredo."

Clarice Lispector (Água Viva)

"Abandone-se, tente tudo suavemente, não se esforce por conseguir — esqueça completamente o que aconteceu e tudo voltará com naturalidade."

Um médico (A Imitação da Rosa)

"Outra coisa que o ajudava era saber que nada do que ele fosse durante aquele dia iria realmente alterá-lo. Pois prematuramente — tratava-se de criança precoce — era superior à instabilidade alheia e à própria instabilidade."

Narrador (Evolução de uma Miopia)

"Pour cette fête-ci, les éléments impurs qui s'y conjuguaient me frappaient à un autre point de vue; mais surtout les uns, ceux qui se rattachaient à Mlle Vinteuil et son amie, me parlant de Combray, me parlaient aussi d'Albertine, c'est-à-dire de Balbec, puisque c'est parce que j'avais vu jadis Mlle Vinteuil à Montjouvain et que j'avais appris l'intimité de mon amie avec Albertine, que j'allais tout à l'heure en rentrant chez moi, trouver au lieu de la solitude, Albertine qui m'attendait; et ceux qui concernaient Morel et M. de Charlus, en me parlant de Balbec, où j'avais vu sur le quai de Doncières se nouer leurs relations, me parlaient de Combray et de ses deux côtés, car M. de Charlus c'était un des Guermantes, comtes de Combray, habitant Combray sans y avoir de logis, entre ciel et terre, comme Gilbert le Mauvais dans son vitrail et Morel était le fils de ce vieux valet de chambre qui m'avait fait connaître la dame en rose et permis, tant d'années après, de reconnaître en elle Mme Swann."

"... ce mélancolique morceau exécuté par les pigeons était une sorte de chant du coq en mineur, qui ne s'élevait pas vers le ciel, ne montait pas verticalement, mais, régulier comme le braiment d'un âne, enveloppé de douceur, allait d'un pigeon à l'autre sur une même ligne horizontale, et jamais ne se redressait, ne changeait sa plainte latérale en ce joyeux appel qu'avaient poussé tant de fois l'allegro de l'introduction et le finale. Je sais que je prononçai alors le mot 'mort' comme si Albertine allait mourir. Il semble que les événements soient plus vastes que le moment òu ils ont lieu et ne peuvent y tenir tout entiers. Certes, ils débordent sur l'avenir par la mémoire que nous en gardons, mais ils demandent une place aussi au temps qui les précède. Certes, on dira que nous ne les voyons pas alors tels qu'ils seront, mais dans le souvenir ne sont-ils pas aussi modifiés?"

Marcel Proust (le narrateur, La Prisonnière)

"Il est des jours où l'homme s'éveille avec un génie jeune et vigoureux. Ses paupières à peine déchargées du sommeil qui les scellait, le monde extérieur s'offre à lui avec un relief puissant, une netteté de contours, une richesse de couleurs admirables. Le monde moral ouvre ses vastes perspectives, pleines de clartés nouvelles. L'homme gratifié de cette béatitude, malheureusement rare et passagère, se sent à la fois plus artiste et plus juste, plus noble, pour tout dire en un mot. Mais ce qu'il y a de plus singulier dans cet état exceptionnel de l'esprit et des sens, que je le compare aux lourdes ténèbres de l'existence commune et journalière, c'est qu'il n'a été crée par aucune cause bien visible et facile à définir. Est-il le résultat d'une bonne hygiène et d'un régime de sage? Telles est la première explication qui s'offre à l'esprit; mais nous sommes obligés de reconnaître que souvent cette merveille, cette espèce de prodige, se produit comme si elle était l' effet d'une puissance supérieure et invisible, extérieure à l'homme... cet état charmant et singulier, où toutes les forces s'équilibrent, où l'imagination, quoique merveilleusement puissante, n'entraîne pas à sa suite le sens moral dans de périlleuses aventures, où une sensibilité exquise n'est plus torturée par des nerfs malades... est aussi imprévu que le fantôme. C'est une espèce de hantise, mais de hantise intermittente, dont nous devrions tirer, si nous étions sages, la certitude d'une existence meilleure et l'espérance d'y atteindre par l'exercice journalier de notre volonté."

Baudelaire (Les Paradis artificiels)

"Trabalhava séria, calada, os braços ao longo do corpo. Não precisava aproximar-se de Arlete para brincar com ela... desejo-poder-milagre, desde pequena. A fórmula se realizava tantas vezes: sentir a coisa sem possuí-la."

Clarice Lispector (Perto do Coração Selvagem)

"... Il y a dans la prière une opération magique. La prière est une des grandes forces de la dynamique intellectuelle. Il y a là comme une récurrence électrique. Le chapelet est un médium, un véhicule; c'est la prière mis à la portée de tous."

Charles Baudelaire (Fusées)

"Ni la cruz ni la bandera, en las varias horas de lucha y confusión, dejaron de estar erecta la una y danzante la otra, en medio a una isla  de cruzados que, aunque acribillada, subsistió, compacta, fiel, en torno a esos emblemas en los que, más tarde, todos verían el secreto de la victoria. Porque ni Pedrão ni João Grande, ni la Madre de los Hombres, que llevaba  la urna com la cara del Hijo, murieron en la refriega."

"'Ya aprendiste a sumar', dijo el santo, con una sonrisa, estirando la mano al mercador. Antonio Villanova cayó de rodillas para besar los dedos del recién venido."

"Cómo han podido hacerlo tan rápido? Pero pasa algo con ellos, en el río. No acaban de cruzarlo. Las  cabalgaduras entran al agua y parecen encabritarse, rebelarse, pese a la furia con que son urgidas, azotadas, por las manos, las botas, los sables. Es como si el río las espantara. Se revuelven en media corriente y algunas botan a sus jinetes."

Vargas Llosa (La guerra del fin del mundo)  

"Julho de 81. No Canecão, o show corria em alto astral. Artista e público trocavam energias, emoções e afeto. A partir de um determinado momento, porém, Ney Matogrosso começou a ser perturbado por uma sensação esquisita, como se alguma ciosa o estivesse furando. Com a sensibilidade à flor da pele, como fica sempre que pisa num palco, captou o ponto da platéia de onde partia a vibração, caminhou naquela direção e, quando chegou na beira do palco, sentiu uma forte emissão de inveja partindo de uma pessoa conhecida. Não teve dúvidas: devolveu na mesma hora tudo o que havia captado de ruim. Até hoje lembra o gesto que fez com a mão dirigindo os dedos como se fossem lanças de emissão ('não tava me envuduzando? eu apenas joguei de volta o mesmo vudu pra ele'), e a surpresa ao saber, dois dias depois, por uma amiga que estava na mesma mesa durante o show, que o tal cara havia quebrado o pé. 'Nossa! Quero morrer sua amiga. Você sabe o que ele estava falando na hora em que você fez aquilo? Que queria que você quebrasse o pé.'"

Denise Pires Vaz & Ney Matogrosso (Um cara meio estranho)

"O Dr. Norris assistiu à cena e se aproximou do jovem curandeiro, querendo saber que infusão era aquela que fez efeito tão rápido. Cícero então lhe confessou o truque: 'Apenas água quente salgada com um pouco de camomila, forçando-o a pôr pra fora o que havia ingerido. Quando golfou, joguei uma barata morta no meio do vômito pra ele 'visualizar' a causa do seu mal-estar e sentir definitivamente curado.' Impressionado com aquele mestiço perspicaz sem lenço nem documento, o dr. Norris o convidou a integrar o que seria a maior migração norte-americana da história."

Rita Lee

"Você está ansioso e isso é muito pouco religioso."

Caio Fernando Abreu (carta a José Márcio Penido/Zézim)

"Os portugueses foram os primeiros, na época moderna, a estabelecer relações comerciais e de conquista com as culturas negras da África. E chamaram de feitiço, isto é, coisa feita, aos objetos, bonecos, oferendas, etc. aos objetos que os africanos empregavam com finalidades mágicas e religiosas. Essa palavra portuguesa deu origem ao francês 'fétiche', ao inglês 'fetich', ao alemão 'fetichismus' utilizado por Marx na famosa quarta seção do primeiro capítulo de o capital..."

Carlos Sandroni (Feitiço Decente)

"Estou começando a ler uma mulher com boa cara chamada Simone Weil. Uma mística das antigas eras mas que o Michel acha que eu estou passando também por uma grande experiência mística na medida em que sou o outro. Imagine uma experiência mística e erótica ao mesmo tempo, mas um erótico nada transcendente e camuflado... Aconteceu um fenômeno incrível essa noite. Depois de começar a ler o tal livro, e ela usa muito a terminologia do vazio pleno, e também outros termos que uso, só que em uma outra concepção etc. e tal. Dormi. Acordei duas vezes à noite e, aterrorizada, percebi uma luz difusa dentro do quarto... no duro e pela primeira vez tremi de horror. Mesmo na Praia da Rasa, quando aconteceu aquele fenômeno, lembra-se, de minha cama ter sido levantada e batida no chão, não tive tal medo... Acho que coisas começam a se remoer dentro de mim e devo passar ainda por grandes transformações! É duro, mas o que se há de fazer?"

Lygia Clark (carta a Hélio Oiticica)

"... guru é um cara que mostra o caminho. Eu sempre fui a favor de que cada um de nós saiba o caminho que deva seguir. A vida nos dá todas as ferramentas, faz a gente encontrar as pessoas certas, no momento certo, o problema é reconhecer." 

Paulo Coelho (BBC interview) 

"É uma série de imagens que mudam ao se repetirem. É um tal de política destruindo a liberdade, de medicina destruindo a saúde, de jornalismo destruindo a informação, de advogados e policiais destruindo a justiça, de universidades destruindo o conhecimento, de religiões destruindo a espiritualidade. Confie em Deus, mas tranque o carro."

Rita Lee

"Ao que, digo ao senhor, pergunto: em sua vida é assim? Na minha, agora é que vejo, as coisas importantes, todas, em caso curto de acaso foi que se conseguiram — pelo pulo fino de sem ver se dar — a sorte momenteira, por cabelo por um fio, um clim de clina de cavalo."

Guimarães Rosa (Augusto de Campos, Um Lande de Dês)

"We must not reject or deny our protoplasmic core, striving at all times to maintain a maximum of flexibility without falling into the morass of liquefaction."
"I sat back letting my mind work without pushing it. Push your mind too hard and it will fuk up like an overloaded switchboard, or turn on you with sabotage..."
William S. Burroughs

"I kept the TV on all the time, especially while people were telling me their problems, and the television I found to be just diverting enough so the problems people told me didn't really affect me any more. It was some kind of magic."
"An actress friend told me that after she didn't want money any more and after she didn't want jewels any more, that's when she got money and jewels. I guess it's for our own good that it always happens that way, because after you stop wanting things is when having them won't make you go crazy... Everything becomes distorted when something you really want is sitting in your lap."
"Everybody has problems, but the thing is to not make a problem about your Problem. For example, if you have no money and you worry about it all the time, you'll get an ulcer and have a real problem and you still won't have any money..."
A. W.

"Et ils priaient Dieu le créateur, l'adorant et confirmant leur foi en Lui, le glorifiant pour son immense bonté, lui rendant grâces pour tout le temps écoulé et se recommandant à sa divine clémence pour tout l'avenir. Cela fait, ils entraient en leur repos."

Rabelais, Gargantua (translation de Guy Demerson)

"... nos plus grandes craintes, comme nos plus grandes espérances ne sont pas au-dessus de nos forces, et nous pouvons finir par dominer les unes et réaliser les autres."

Marcel Proust (le narrateur, Le Temps retrouvé)

"My good conduct as a pa­tient, the rapidity of my recovery, which seemed scarcely to befit my age—all this determination to withstand, and the simple fact of my having withstood, a belated and unexpected trial of my constitution—would not all this be se­cretly exposed to the question "What for?" if it were not for the service of the novel? And had I not summoned so much strength out of my depths in order to go and finish that?"

Thomas Mann (The History of a Novel, translation by Richard & Clara Winston)

"Wenn trotzdem an mir manche kleine und große Missethat verübt worden ist, so war nicht der 'Wille', am wenigsten der böse Wille Grund davon: eher schon hätte ich mich — ich deutete es eben an — über den guten Willen zu beklagen, der keinen kleinen Unfug in meinem Leben angerichtet hat."

"Insgleichen gehört in diese Zwischenzeit jener Hymnus auf das Leben (für gemischten Chor und Orchester), dessen Partitur vor zwei Jahren bei E. W. Fritsch in Leipzig erschienen ist: ein vielleicht nicht unbedeutendes Symptom für den Zustand dieses Jahres, wo das jasagende Pathos par excellence, von mir das tragische Pathos genannt, im höchsten Grade mir innewohnte."

"Hier kam mir, auf eine Weise, die ich nicht genug bewundern kann, und gerade zur rechten Zeit jene schlimme Erbschaft von Seiten meines Vaters her zu Hülfe, — im Grunde eine Vorbestimmung zu einem frühen Tode. Die Krankheit löste mich langsam heraus: sie ersparte mir jeden Bruch, jeden gewaltthätigen und anstössigen Schritt. Ich habe kein Wohlwollen damals eingebüsst und viel noch hinzugewonnen. Die Krankheit gab mir insgleichen ein Recht zu einer vollkommnen Umkehr aller meiner Gewohnheiten; sie erlaubte, sie gebotmir Vergessen; sie beschenkte mich mit der Nöthigung zum Stillliegen, zum Müssiggang, zum Warten und Geduldigsein… Aber das heisst ja denken!…"

"... Ich bleibe zunächst bei der Psychologie des guten Menschen stehn. Um abzuschätzen, was ein Typus Mensch werth ist, muss man den Preis nachrechnen, den seine Erhaltung kostet, — muss man seine Existenzbedingungen kennen. Die Existenz-Bedingung der Guten ist die Lüge —: anders ausgedrückt, das Nicht-sehn-wollen um jeden Preis, wie im Grunde die Realität beschaffen ist, nämlich nicht der Art, um jeder Zeit wohlwollende Instinkte herauszufordern, noch weniger der Art, um sich ein Eingreifen von kurzsichtigen gutmüthigen Händen jeder Zeit gefallen zu lassen. Die Nothstände aller Art überhaupt als Einwand, als Etwas, das man abschaffen muss, betrachten, ist die niaiserie par excellence, ins Grosse gerechnet, ein wahres Unheil in seinen Folgen, ein Schicksal von Dummheit —, beinahe so dumm, als es der Wille wäre, das schlechte Wetter abzuschaffen — aus Mitleiden etwa mit den armen Leute. In der grossen Ökonomie des Ganzen sind die Furchtbarkeiten der Realität (in den Affekten, in den Begierden, im Willen zur Macht) in einem unausrechenbaren Maasse nothwendiger als jene Form des kleinen Glücks, die sogenannte 'Güte'; man muss sogar nachsichtig sein, um der letzteren, da sie in der Instinkt-Verlogenheit bedingt ist, überhaupt einen Platz zu gönnen. Ich werde einen grossen Anlass haben, die über die Maassen unheimlichen Folgen des Optimismus, dieser Ausgeburt der homines optimi, für die ganze Geschichte zu beweisen."

Nietzsche (Ecce Homo)

"Berg wrote to his wife: 'after the first and last movements, I felt exactly as one would after an adrenalin injection. I could not stand up.' Two days later Schoenberg and his wife were also present. 'I sat with Schoenberg,' Berg wrote to Helene. 'He had not thought it possible. Webern's achievement is such that all doubts about his ability, even those of Mathilde, were swept away to be replaced by unreserved admiration...' The triumvirate of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg was admittedly something of a mutual admiration society: an understandable situation, given the hostility that their music had almost always encountered outside a friendly circle of supporters. Even so, neutral reports of the two concerts indicate that the performances were indeed remarkable..."

Malcolm Hayes (Anton von Webern)

"Since objects in equilibrium, such as rigid objects, electrons and atoms, all adjust themselves to the radius of curvature of the universe, it is only natural that results of greatest simplicity should be obtained when we select this radius or some definite fraction therof as a gauge at every point."

A. D'abro (The Evolution of Scientific Thought)

"Among the things that demand explanation, then, are the laws of physics; and not this law or that law only but every single law. Why are the three laws of mechanics as they are and not otherwise? What is the cause of the restriction of extended bodies to three dimensions? And then the general fact that there are laws, how is that to be explained?"

Peirce (Design and Chance)

"... it is the subjective act of transcendental synthesis which transforms the chaotic array of sensual impressions into 'objective reality.' Shamelessly ignoring the objection that we are confounding ontological and empirical levels, here we must invoke quantum physics: it is the collapse of the quantum waves in the act of perception which fixes quantum oscillations into a single objective reality. And, furthermore, this point must be universalized: every figure of reality is rooted in a determinate standpoint. Even at a level closer to us, we know how different 'reality' appears to a hog or a bird, starting with the different tapestry of colors: each living being perceives (and interacts with) its own 'reality.' And one should push this insight to the extreme of Cartesian doubt: the very notion of greatness should be relativized. How do we know that our Milky Way is not just a speck of dust in another universe?"

Slavoj Zizek (Haunted by A/Z, Feyerabend with vengeance & the New Wave)

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Main hall: Placebo domino (which way could that effect it?)

"The tendency for prophecies to be self-fulfilling is well known in the realms of economics, politics, and religion. It is also a matter of practical psychology. Various ways of using these powers are the bases of countless self-help books, showing how avoiding negative attitudes and adopting positive ones help to bring about remarkable successes in politics, business, and love. Likewise confidence and optimism play an important part in the practice of medicine and healing—and in sports, fighting, and many other activities" Rupert Sheldrake (persuasion hung upon his lips!), Seven Experiments That Could Change the World (Riverhead Books, 1995). 

"A survey of a wide range of drug trials has revealed that placebos are, on average, about a third to a half as effective as specific medication—a big effect for blank pills that cost almost nothing. But placebos are not just blank pills. They can also be forms of blank counseling or psychotherapy, or even blank surgery... in medical research, placebo effects are generally regarded as a nuisance. But perhaps the negative attitudes of physicians to placebos is just as well, since it is the other side of the coin of their faith in the special efficacy of their own techniques, which therefore tend to work better—because of the placebo effect!" Sheldrake (to whom I stand indebted), Seven Experiments.

"In his analysis of the many documents we have about such practices, Levi-Strauss underlines that the fallaciousness involved in them is at the same time acknowledged and simply ignored, brushed aside, by the shamans themselves. What matters to the shamans is the effect they produce in the imagination of the sick, no matter if the instrument they use is a fake one. Actually a clear distinction of what is fake and what is not fake is obstinately eluded by the very characteristics of the procedure... [Walter Cannon's] classic paper “Voodoo Death,” begins exactly with a reference to Portuguese colonizers such as Soares de Souza, who “observed instances of death among the [Brazilian] Tupinambás Indians induced by fright when men were condemned and sentenced by a so-called medicine man.” Although Cannon attributed the cause of such effects to the superstition of the primitive mind (primitive men really believe in witchcraft), he nonetheless acknowledged these effects to be real, and he was very impressed by them, for they can be quite astonishing. Healthy people can die in less than twenty-four hours, if they believe with enough strength that they have been bewitched or if they discover they have eaten some (normal and not poisonous) food they associate with certain well-established taboos in their culture. It should be understood however that the superstition in question would be better characterized not as a naive belief in some falseness at the expense of what reality would truly be. What the shamans do is to theatrically blur fiction and ordinary reality in order to conjure some power coming from what would be a more fundamental source of reality which is not visible and cannot be immediately given. They could thus, correspondingly, accuse someone such as Cannon of actually being more superstitious than they are, exactly because of Cannon’s inability to treat ordinary and visible reality as the fiction it truly is when compared to what would be its fundamental source," Alessandro Zir (a person of no small note and consequence, being meself as I own), Luso-Brazilian Encounters of the Sixteenth-Century (Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 2011, p. 60-61).

psychokinesis (or when his tobacco pipe snapped short in the  middle): 

"In the physical sciences, although there has been very little empirical research on experimenter effects, there have been many sophisticated discussions of the role of the observer in quantum theory... if the active influence of the experimenter's mind is taken seriously, then many possibilities open up—even the possibility that the observer's mind may have psychokinetic powers," Rupert Sheldrake, Seven Experiments.
"If [subjects with psychic powers] are anxious, uncomfortable, or treated in a formal and detached way by the scientific investigators, they do not perform so well. In fact they may show no significant psychic powers at all... The pioneering parapsychologist J. B. Rhine actually quantified this effect in a series of trials with a gifted subject, Hubert Pearce, having noticed that when someone called in to see Pearce at work his scores at once dropped down," Rupert Sheldrake, Seven Experiments.
"There is a good reason for the conventional taboo against parapsychology, making it a kind of outcast from established science. The existence of psychic phenomena would seriously endanger the illusion of objectivity," Rupert Sheldrake, Seven Experiments.
"An experimenter preparing his apparatus, getting his animals ready, and then leaving them with some feeling of assurance that the experiment will run and the animals will appropriately 'do their thing' cannot but remind us of certain aspects of magic, ritual, or perhaps petitionary prayer... Such circumstances may provide an optimum opportunity for psychokinetic intervention," R. G. Stamford, "An experimentally testable model for spontaneous psi occurrences" (Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 66, as quoted by Sheldrake in Seven Experiments).
"Generally speaking scientists are no Carries, though there might have been a few registered but far less noxious cases such as Wolfgang Pauli and the Pauli effect," Alessandro Zir, The Sixteenth-Century Corpus of the Portuguese Colonizers of Brazil (Dalhousie, PhD thesis) [the paragraph of this sentence (which refers also to Ludwik Fleck) wasn't (if I mistake not) incorporated in the book Luso-Brazilian Encounters published in 2011 by FDU Press—an incident not necessarily ranking as a fatal blow to die Geissel Gottes' scholarship (I'm positive)].

"I have here reached the limits of what might be knowable in the framework of contemporary knowledge, and I have even approached the realm of 'magic'..." die Geissel Gottes, as quoted in Harald Atmanspacher's & Hans Primas's "The Hidden Side of Wolfgang Pauli," Journal of Consciousness Studies, 3, 2, 1996, pp. 112-26. 

"Impossible de dire quelques mots sur la place de Pauli dans les écrits de Bachelard sans rappeler qu’il était l’homme des boutades et du Witz, c’est-à-dire quelqu’un de profondément 'spirituel'. Lors d’un séminaire, John von Neumann démontrait un théorème au tableau; Pauli l’apostrophe: 'Si faire de la physique, c’était démontrer des théorèmes, tu serais un grand physicien.' C’est ainsi qu’il terrorisait un peu tous les autres physiciens de par le monde, y compris Louis de Broglie ou Werner Heisenberg qui fuyaient littéralement les colloques où il était présent," Charles Alunni, L'École de l'ETH dans l'oeuvre de Gaston Bachelard, Revue de synthèse: 5 Série, année 2005/2.

A tale out of the common crack (if unanimously agreed and lamented) of how bitterness caused by envious people can make an off guard good fellow (the Lord have mercy upon us all) to crack:
"Cantor was embarrassed to be associated with a second-rate school... He expected to be called any day to take up a professor ship at the University of Berlin. But Kronecker [malignant culprit in his notions] sensed that if he mounted a strong opposition—and made the attack personal—eventually Cantor would crack... Kronecker was vilifying Cantor, calling him a charlatan and a corrupter of youth, and referring to his work as 'humbug.' Cantor was besieged, lonely, angry, and frustrated... Cantor became more enraged. He sought to retaliate against Kronecker, and in despair came up with a bizarre plan. He was now convinced that he could never obtain a professorship in Berlin since Kronecker, entrenched and powerful, would always stand in his way. So Cantor decided to apply for a professorship anyway, for the mere purpose of annoying his enemy... Cantor wrote Mittag-Leffler of his ploy and its results: 'I knew precisely the immediate effect this would have, that in fact Kronecker would flare up as if stung by a scorpion, and with his reserve troops would strike up such a howl that Berlin would think it had been transported to the sandy deserts of Africa, with its lions, tigers, and hyenas. It seems that I have actually achieved this goal!' But Kronecker's turn to strike back at Cantor. Kronecker wrote to Mittag-Leffler asking to publish in his journal, Acta Mathematica. Kronecker was shrewdly trying to push Cantor out of the only mathematical journal that had a sympathetic editor interested in his work. Cantor suspected that Kronecker's paper would constitute an attack on his own work published in Acta Mathematica, the journal he considered his home turf, and would discredit him there, where it would hurt him the most. In frustration and fear, Cantor wrote to his friend Mittag-Leffler threatening to stop sending him his work... As it turned out, Kronecker had no paper to send, he had simply pretended to want to publish in the journal in order to upset Cantor... Cantor's response eroded his relationship with one of his few remaining fiends, Mittag-Leffler... The strain of these battles, which Cantor never stood a chance of winning, was taking its toll on his health. In May 1884, Cantor had his first nervous breakdown, lasting over a month..." Amir D. Aczel, The Mystery of the Aleph (WSP 2000).

More:

"When I received a grant in 1968 from the Royal Society to go and study tropical plants in Malaysia, at the University of Malaya, I traveled through India on the way there. I found India a very exciting place to be, and as I traveled through that country I encountered gurus and ashrams and temples, which opened my eyes to a range of phenomena I was completely unfamiliar with. When I got back to England I got interested in exploring consciousness, and I had various psychedelic experiences, which convinced me that the mind was vastly greater than anything I'd been told about in my scientific education," Rupert Sheldrake's interview (TBS);
"... contemporary physics imbues the venerable and therapeutically useful term ‘psychodynamic’ with rigorous neurophysical efficacy. This new theory of the mind–brain connection is supportive of clinical practice. Belief in the efficacy of mental effort in emotional self-regulation is needed to subjectively access the phenomena (e.g. belief in the efficacy of effort is required to sustain mindfulness during stressful events)," "Quantum physics in neuroscience and psychology: a neurophysical model of mind–brain interaction," by Jeffrey M. Schwartz, Henry P. Stapp and Mario Beauregard (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 2005);
"The question of the observer and observed was raised, for example, to say that they were not really separate. I felt from quantum mechanics this must be very significant. Krishnamurti was applying it to the human being himself, saying that the human being as observer was not different from human being as observed... these two are actually one. The confusion that they are separate is the cause of tremendous misery, at least that was saying. I had sort of an intuitive feeling this was right. He was also hinting at something much deeper, some ground, some emptiness in a wholeness ground which everything came, which if we could contact that, then we would sort of rise beyond all these daily problems into a totally different area..." David Bohm (a person of no small note and consequence, whose opinions we, in this cyclopedia of ours, wish to give proper vent), conversation with Maurice Wilkins;
"Gurdjieff used to invite people to eat with him and he would prepare enormous elaborate meals and drink, and even those who did not want, he would press on them. He would get them to go along with him against their will, showing that they really had no will. He did not say that, but the ultimate meaning of it was they had not any. Through this, they would be awakened into looking at their real reactions, what is really going on," David Bohm, conversation with Maurice Wilkins;
"Not that I favored thought, but I am saying that thought would win and produce all sorts of destructive effects because it could just keep at it, like Stalin, day after day, putting in his men here and there and sort of knocking out everybody else. When I felt it was really necessary to really understand the workings of thought, the nature of thought beyond just simply the content, but actually the process, how it operates and this irrational destructive way," David Bohm, conversation with Maurice Wilkins;
"... thought imposes a show in consciousness, a show of reality. Every thought contains not only the image and the imagination, but also all sorts of feelings and neural chemistry. The thought that somebody is your enemy will contain various neuro chemicals that will stir you up. Comforting thoughts will produce endorphins and you feel nice. Then you remove those comforting thoughts and the brain demands to have them back. You are sort of hooked on them... we call them props... as in the case of morphine..." David Bohm, conversation with Maurice Wilkins;

"... there would be a way of being without this self-centered thought, which the mind would be intelligent, quiet, alert, and silent... It is like a sleepwalker, as Ouspensky was saying, that the sleepwalker is dreaming that he is awake and looking at it and directing it, and so on. The point is therefore you need an awareness, an attention to all this, to see the actual process of putting on the show as such, because the show is put on in such a way to conceal the fact that it is a show... The props are part of it. Also, insensitivity is part of it, and dullness... science is part of the props for the show, religion is another part" David Bohm, conversation with Maurice Wilkins;

***To baffle & overthrown: an appelation aside (so every side can sing Te Deum) on Ian Hacking, Charles Sanders Peirce & Stephen Braude (since otherwise alle Schweiger sind dyspeptisch):

In his relatively well-known article about telepathy and statistics [Telepathy: Origins of Randomization in Experimental Design/ Isis, vol. 79, no. 3, Sep. 1988, pp. 427-45], Hacking portraits Peirce as being very unsympathetic to the way probability was used in parapsychological studies such as Gurney, Myers & Frank Podmore's Phantasms of the Living (1886). That is fair enough (I'm positive). He quotes this passage from a criticism Peirce published in the Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research [I: 150-157, Dec. 1887]: "[the authors of Phantasms of the Living] cipher out some very enormous odds in favor of the hypothesis of ghosts. I shall not cite these numbers, which captivate the ignorant, but which repel thinking men, who know that no human certitude reaches such figures as trillions, or even billions to one." Peirce then proceeded giving many detailed reasons why the authors' probabilistic inferences (grounded on an analysis of 31 favourable cases out of 300.000) was simply preposterous. But one should note that Peirce is not writing against the idea defended by the authors, and he doesn't give the impression of being himself a skeptic, quite on the contrary. At some point he says the following (which Hacking too manifestly doesn't quote, and not because it was tedious telling): "Although there is not a single one of the 31 cases considered which can be accepted for the purpose of the argument, yet some of them may be genuine for all that. It can only be guess-work to say how many; but in my opinion not more than two or three." A few years later than he wrote the paper on telepathy, Hacking wrote another one [Some Reasons for not Taking Parapsychology Very Seriously/ Dialogue, vol. 32, issue 3, Summer 1993, pp. 587-594] which is considered to be much more villainous & explicitly critical of parapsychology, and has been qualified as "pseudo-skeptical" (for dismissing parapsychology outrightly without a more careful and substantial analysis of the literature, which was totally unurbane argument). The point is tricky and bitter (if trifling in nature). This 1993 Hacking's paper is a reaction to Stephen Braude's reaction (or so goes the train of vexatious disappointments) to the way the mainstream academia would have (regularly, in a set of misadventures & cross accidents I and many others not to any man's rule sustained) by the bye very much too manifestly mishandled scientific evidence in favour of psychic phenomena. Hackings' stance seems slippery (as I suggest in another place, in relation to other related subjects, as accounts to reconcile). In Rewriting the Soul (1996) he reassesses similar issues (criticising other of Braude's books) and says: "One way to silence a topic of research is to treat it as a curiosity or turn it into a marvel. Science abhors a marvel, not because marvels are vacuous, empty of meaning, but because they are too full of meaning, of hints, of feeling. Marvels are meanings out of control. You can expel a topic from science by making it a marvel. Conversely, if you are forced to look a marvel in the face, the thing to do is to bring it into the laboratory. There it will languish and die until the laboratory itself is cast out of science." Now, whether Hacking was in this manner deceived or deceiving (which in no way becomes me to decide), and if this is a criticism of marvels, it is (by  the destinies! upon good and reasonable notice) also a criticism of science. At least in a Feyerabendian perspective (& then beyond all possibility of doubt, or so I own). As however you (known by the name of "reader") and I are in a manner perfect strangers to each other, and as my life and opinions are likely to make some noise in this scurvy and disasterous world of ours, there is a further anecdote I shall make public for the better clearing up of this point and as seasonable a kindness to the whole parish. The Brazilian philosopher who first brought my attention to the work of Hacking (while I was still an undergraduate—not worn down to this thread), Anna Carolina K. P. Regner, person of no small note and consequence, had her work supervised by Feyerabend at Berkeley (aera fixed). And the truth of the story is that I (who am not suffered to go on quietly) will never be able to see Hacking's philosophy (with all his fraternity) without these out of the common track aforesaid peculiar glasses. Everything Hacking says about scientific realism sounds to me, always (the very opposite of 'ever and anon'), as an opportunity for amplification of the eccentricities of a, by God's blessing, Feyerabend. And I always dream people like Feyerabend will win with revenge against their detractors (which Hacking somewhat also is or at least sometimes poses malignantly to be). In what matters Anna Carolina  (to dive only deep enough into the first causes of human ignorance and confusion), besides being a very serious, obsessive but also open-minded scholar, she was, in the simplicity of her heart, an ethical person who ended being abominably ostracized upon false cries and tokens in Brazilian mainstream academic environment (there is such a body still in the Continent), but who nonetheless heroined under heaven & by her ashes so as to never compromise her principles and standards (and shall make no apology for it when turning back).

By the way, anyone seriously interested in the topic of Charles Sanders Peirce and the paranormal should read Stephen E. Braude's excellent paper: "Peirce on the Paranormal" (Transactions of the Charles  S. Peirce Society, Winter, 1998, vol XXXIV, n. 1, pp. 203-224).

Other very interesting and important articles and papers (the ones by Jessica Utts seem specially valuable):
- "Is Precognition Real? Cornell University Lab Releases Powerful New Evidence that the Human Mind can Perceive the Future," by Ben Goertzel (Humanity Plus Magazine);
- "Replication and Meta-Analysis in Parapsychology," by Jessica Utts (Statistical Science, vol. 6, n. 4, 1991, 363-403);
- "The Significance of Statistics in Mind-Matter Research," by Jessica Utts (Journal of Scientific Exploration, vol. 13, n. 4, 1999, p. 615-638);
- "The Paranormal: the evidence and its implications for consciousness," by Jessica Utts & Brian D. Josephson (originally published in Times Higher Education Supplement, April 5th 1996);
- "The Physics of Mind and Thought," Brian D. Josephson (Preprint of article to be published in the Festschrift celebrating the 90th birthday of Henry P. Stapp) [see also Josephson's "How Observers Create Reality"];
- "Biological Utilization of Quantum Non-Locality," Brian D. Josephson & Fotini Pallikari-Viras (Foundations of Physics 21(2), 1991, p. 197-207);
- "Evidence for Consciousness-Related Anomalies in Random Physical Systems," Dean I. Radin & Roger D. Nelson (Foundations of Physics, vol. 19, n. 12, 1989);
- "Electrocortical Activity Prior to Unpredictable Stimuli in Meditators and Nonmeditators," Dean I. Radin, Cassandra Vieten, Leena Michel, and Arnaud Delorme (Explore, September/October 2011, Vol. 7, No. 5);

- "Experimental Evidence Suggestive of Anomalous Consciousness Interactions," Deborah L. Delanoy (in Ghista, Dhanjoo N. Biomedical and Life Physics: Proceedings of the Second Gauss Symposium, 2-8 August, 1993, Munich, pp. 398-410):
- "The Fear of Psi: It's the Thought that Counts," Stephen E. Braude (in G. Taylor, Darklore, Vol. 2, Daily Grail Publishing, Brisbane, 2008, pp. 99-111);
- "Can Mind Affect Matter Via Active Information?" Basil J. Hiley & Paavo Pylkkänen (Mind & Matter, vol. 3, n. 2, 2005, pp. 7–27);
- "Effects of Mass Consciousness: Changes in Random Data During Global Events," Roger Nelson and Peter Bancel (Explore, vol. 7, n. 6, 2011, pp. 373-383);

- "Mind control, levitation and no pain: the race to find a superman in sport," Ed Hawkins (The Guardian, 18 Apr 2019);

***To raise the dead— &/or evidence for the villainous affair, the tale of family disonour, Romish church's pact with the devil (considered the greatest outrage against sense and decency, to be plagued and pestered, though solemnly ratified, à Dieu rien n'est impossible, menteur avéré, nom d'un chien):

"Although Greek names were sometimes applied to the church modes and the principle of diatonic octave scales is found in both systems, certain significant discrepancies seem to belie any direct historical connection. Most conspicuous is the different meaning attributed to the names of the Greek octave species and of the church modes. Comparing the two systems provides a plausible explanation: medieval theorists apparently assumed wrongly that the Greek octave species were named in ascending rather than descending order. The Greek octave species Dorian (E–E), Phrygian (D–D), Lydian (C–C), and Mixolydian (B–B) thus appeared in the church modes as Dorian (D–D), Phrygian (E–E), Lydian (F–F), and Mixolydian (G–G)," (from "Mode," entry in Brittanica, by Mieczyslaw Kolinski);

See also:
- actual infinite falling (against Carlo Rovelli's pseudo-problem);

- the dogma of semantic uniformity & Python Gored Naturalism; 

- the odd transformation of Der Herr Warum (Gödel with Resnais);

- the only three types of ingenuity;

- the most auspicious tetrahedron;

- what is REAL space? what is REAL number?

- Timothy Leary in the 1990s;

- 5G?! Get real...

- list of charming scientists/engineers;

- pick a soul (ass you wish);

- view from Berthe Trépat's apartment;

- list des déclencheurs musicaux;

- Dark Consciousness;

- The Doors of Perception;

- Structuralism, Poststructuralism;

- List des figures du chaos primordial;

- Brazilian Perspectivism (Viveiros de Castro vs. Haroldo de Campos);

- Piano Playing (Kochevitsky);

- L'Affirmation de l'âne (review of Smolin/Unger's The Singular Universe);

And also (with the whole of it):

- Dogen with Hagakure;

- L'articulation (Maurice Blanchot);

- L'intelligence des fleurs;

- Spooky Blue;

- Interactive while indifferent—Kinds & Phantasmagoria circa 1900;

- "O Cosmo Segundo os Yanomami" (by Davi Kopenawa);

- "Toward a Magical Enlightenment: Notes on Bruno's Magic" (Edward Butler); 

- "An introduction to the poetics of sacred sound in twentieth-century music" (Luigi Irlandini, Revista Vórtex); 

*****List of books on "the power of affirmations" and "positive thinking"
(taken from Dean Radin's Real Magic, Harmony/Penguin 2018, p. 69-72):
- James Allen, As a Man Thinketh (1903);
- Roy Herbert Jarrett, It Works! (1926);
- Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence (1936);
- Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich (1937);
- Neville Goddard,  How to Manifest Your Desires (1948);
- Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking (1952);
- Earl Nightingale, The Strangest Secret (1956);
- Frederick Bailes, Hidden Power fof Human Problems (1957); 

- Joseph Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (1963);
- Esther Hicks, Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires (2004);
- Rhonda Byrne, The Secret (2007);
- Larry Dossey, The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things (2007);
- Richard Bandler, The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming (2008);
- Lissa Rankin, Mind over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself (2013);

More from Radin's book (in case you didn't get to this journey's end too miserably spent):
- on the "Universal Self" [which can be referred to in several ways, such as "cosmic consciousness," or "the source and Ground of all being," as says Aldous Huxley in The Devils of Loudun (Harper, 2009, p. 70, 90]:
"... the goal of meditation across many traditions is to achieve a state of awareness where one gains the realization that the personal self and the Universal Self are one (in my shorthand, [c] = [C])... Learn to quiet your mind. See the world as it is, not as it appears to be when viewed through multiple layers of cultural conditioning..." (Radin, p. 76-77);
- on affirmations:
"Imagine that [the goal] has already been achieved in the future and it is inexorably headed your way. Write the goal on a piece of paper to focus your attention... Don't share your goal with others; they may inject doubt" (Radin, p. 78);
- on sigils:
"One meaning of the verb draw is to devise a picture or a symbol; the other is to pull together...(Radin, p. 80);
A point raised by Radin is that magic depends fundamentally upon two things: "maintaining strong belief" [even if you have a psi ability, you have to believe in it in order for it to manifest] and "secrecy" (p. 82, 122-24). I think this must be related also to moral issues, in the following sense: if you are an ethical person, a belief can be strengthened to the exact extent that it connects with willing something that is more profound and impact positively (potentializes) the life of others besides your own. This kind of belief can be more clearly assumed, intensified and it is not something you need to parade about. This is why I also believe that reading substantial, critical literature (like say Dostojevski, Proust, Joyce, Thomas Mann, Machado de Assis & many others) or the works of authentic philosophers and mystics (Spinoza, Swedenborg, etc.), in the long run stabilizes the ground for one to will things more properly, enhancing significantly the chance of the will to produce synchronicities and other environmental effects.
According to Radin, the most fragile point of our current scientific worldview is its understanding of consciousness (p. 184-85). And he enlists three tenets that hinder the development of a more comprehensive approach: (1) realism (understood in the sense that objects have to have properties completely independent from observers), (2) locality, and (3) causality (which presupposes a linear, simplistic conception of time as an arrow).
Behind the issue of realism might be what others have called the dogma of semantic uniformity. And it is possible to argue that people nowadays stick to ideas such as locality and to narrow conceptions of time only out of mere intellectual stubbornness. On the other hand, I prefer to bet on the fact that dichotomies such as mind/matter, intellect/will are in some way or another legitimately to persist (not to imply that Radin wouldn't agree). That is because their opposite concepts are indeed pervasive and entangled but ultimately cannot be collapsed. Reality might be information, but information itself is whimsical.