Even a double-blind science experiment is a lived experience for the scientist, and how he or she reads the result is an interpretation.
Yes, of course, only, “a girl put her hands on my sprained ankle and within forty minutes it was healed” is a statement of facts, whereas, “a real witch used real magick to heal my sprained ankle,” is an interpretation of those facts, the same (as you say, and I agree) as, “a girl made a mental trick on me and the power of placebo effect caused the healing of my sprained ankle.”
Because she was my friend. And she cared. These are very basic things of human life.
I’ve met a lot of pretty and friendly girls while at college, but I would not show my ankle to each of them even if they asked. I would probably just shrug it off, like, “Ah, it’s nothing,” or something similar. But I guess,that’s just me, or I did not grasp that she was that close to you.
But more to the point, even asking these questions is an example of gaslighting.
You have raised the definition of gaslighting to a completely new levels. By this definition all critical inquiry satisfies the conditions and can be called gaslighting.
You are asking me to examine my lived experience from perspectives that might convince me to write it off as imagination or suggestion. See how subtle it is?
This is just an assumption on your part. Yes, I asked you to examine your lived experience, but nowhere did I ask you to write it off as imagination or suggestion. There was nothing subtle on my part — I just asked you to apply your own critical thinking on yourself. There is nothing for me to lose or gain.
In order to defend your interpretation of truth, you have to undermine my confidence in my interpretation of truth.
Again, you assume that I need to convince you of something. Fortunately, truth does not depend on its interpretation or whether we believe it or not. You are the one who insists that it was magick. I’m OK with both variants. We know of many cases of seemingly impossible things. Could it be explained as placebo? OK. Is it still a mystery even after scrutiny? OK. Maybe we will know later, maybe never. It really does not matter — the facts are still the same.
You’ve known me long enough to know that’s not likely to happen… :0)
;)
If this exact experience occurred to a person who absolutely believed in magick, would that guarantee it was “not magick?” How would you know?
No. Should it? I don’t follow 😕
