O McFly, you weren't present, you don't know that the spoons weren't ever tampered with, that the stories from the parties aren't spun by psychic spin doctors. All that was suggested is that maybe, maybe, something was done in order to surreptitiously select the spoons.
Which is, of course, more likely than the laws of physics being violated.
Not to say that the spoons weren't bent by psychic means, or whatever, but there you go.
Hey! Have we stopped to consider the mechanics of this thing?
Okay, first off: You got some spoons and forks and whatnot. They're made of metal. Then you've got some men and women and children and whatnot. They're made of all kinds of goo and bone. Right? Right.
Now, goo and bone, whether alive or dead, can move things around by coming into contact with those things and exerting some sort of force upon them. Right? Righteo!
Okay! Now, we're assuming that corpses cannot perform PK. No one has said that--I'm just assuming it. If anyone disagrees, feel free to, you know, disagree.
Right! Well! The difference between a corpse and a living person is something like this: Living people have a pulse, and all sorts of cool electrical/chemical activity going on inside of their bodies. The most interesting thing done by all of this electrical/chemical activity is called "consciousness." It happens in the brain.
Now, presumably, it is the "mind"--a function of the brain--which is performing all of this PK. So!
Basically, what you have, is a bunch of chemicals and a little bit of electricity moving in these erratic patterns inside of a large, mushy organ. PK is the subtle art of getting that stuff--those chemicals and that electricity--to somehow move matter that is not, in fact, touching it.
Somehow, the brain is supposedly the only popular combination of chemicals and electricity on earth capable of doing this sort of thing. Which is odd! Because it's also the only popular combination of chemicals and electricity on earth capable of conceiving of such a thing as PK! Coincidence? Nosir! It's also the only popular combination of chemicals and electricity on earth capable of thinking about how strange it is to be a self-aware combination of chemicals and electricity, which then, nevertheless, goes on to ignore the logical extensions of this idea--namely, that chemicals and electricity, just because they're "aware," don't violate the laws of physics any more than any chemicals or electricity anywhere else.
So, let's assume that PK ain't violating the laws of physics. If that's the case, then it goes something like this: The brain thinks about bending some silverware. Luckily, this particular kind of thinking causes some surge of energy to leap out of the brain from the brain's Super Secret Hidden Raygun--something near the frontal lobe which, mysteriously, disappears whenever it gets within slicing distance of an autopsy table. Dig it?
Okay. A word about this surge of energy:
It is powerful. More powerful than the force you can exert by your hands, apparently.
Interestingly enough, even though it's SO POWERFUL that it can bend the bowls of spoons, and zinc-plated steel rods, it doesn't damage the forehead of the person emitting this energy, nor disturb the air between the person doing the PKing and the object he or she is attempting to bend. That's because this is "time release energy." It's smart, see--it knows when it's approaching its target. When it gets there, it bends some damned metal, but it leaves all objects in the way utterly unblemished.
Clearly, this is VERY smart energy. How'd it figure all this out? How's it know the difference between "forehead," "air," and "spoon?" Where's this energy keep its brain? Amazing, non? Wonders never cease.
Paradoxically, New Agers most interested in using all of these energy-work techniques don't seem to burn any calories in doing so. They get this energy from nowhere, it seems (pay a bunch of them $100 an hour to spin a turbine at your local power plant, says I--damned near free energy!), because New Agers, as a whole, are mordantly obese. (ever been to a pagan festival? Dear GOD, they're enormous [though this is a generalization, it is pretty true. Go visit a Wiccan church sometime, or spend a few hours in a New Age bookstore. Avoid getting eaten long enough, and you'll wind up as spooked as me.])
ON THE OTHER HAND, there is a way for PK to exist and none of this Misty Mountain Raygun s**te would hold. That would involve something like:
You are NOT just a mass of bone and goo. There is a SPIRITUAL component to your mind, as well, which is not constrained by the laws of physics--and, in fact, is only constrained by the limitations of "the spirit world."
That seems to be the way most New Agers feel about this sort of thing, and to that, I say this: Show a single point of interaction between the "brain" and the "spirit," and I'll say, "Shizznit, you're right!" However, as near as we can tell, the brain seems to account for the whole of the mind, going in its merry, thinking, conscious way without any interference from some spooky, immaterial, astral whatevah. Ask my grandma. She has Alzheimer's--and unless Alzheimer's has a "spiritual component," like the organ it attacks, then the case seems pretty closed. Gram's disappearing, bit by bit, just 'cause kooky little tarry clogs are shutting down her neural pathways, a thousand at a time.
If the brain's physical actions--like thought and feeling--were being dictated by the spirit, wouldn't that spirit also have control over the other physical processes taking place in the brain? Like, you know, dementia?
So, both of these ideas seem pretty unlikely. But I'll accept either, or any other, theory regarding how these things might work, once again, if someone could just show up in my town with a decent demo. (but, beloved believers, 'till you have irrefutable evidence, ain't that a whole lot to swallow? C'mon, mang) 'Zat's all.
Yours in Christ,
- B
