Moral Authority & Powers
One of the things that led to a change in views over the years is the disconnect between so-called psychic powers and morality.
I have come to the conclusion that one has nothing to do with the other. Now on to some logic.
Let's start of by giving some definitions. When we say "psychic powers" what do we mean? I'll name a few, and this is not meant to be inclusive, lest we can't see the forest for the trees. These would include, clairvoyance, clairaudience, necromancy, bibliomancy and many others. For a more complete list, see the article on Wikipedia.
When we look at any of these items it is apparent that none of them carry any kind of moral connotation, that is all can be used for both helpful or harmful purposes. The same could be said for any number of items, physical or psychological (if there is a difference). These, by themselves are inert, from a moral perspective.
So on to moral authority. We have to understand what it means, because not to dooms us to not having any true, lasting influence on others in a positive way. From Wikipedia, moral authority consists of having "the capacity to convince others how the world should be."
What we forget is that we are a world of ideas, that ideas evolve with culture, specifically how we express and act upon them. When one has moral authority these ideas acquire the ability to influence our minds in accordance with the principles they represent, whether they be freedom of thought, action, or simple moral justice. Ideas have real power, true power! They can change the world. They can set people free or enslave them.
Imagine for a minute the miracles of Jesus without the Sermon on the Mount or any of his teachings. Even with the resurrection where would that have put him? In the same league as Simon Magus or any of the other mages of the 1st Century who carried no teaching other than their magic. No, the power of what Jesus had to say lay in his inherent moral authority and the manner in which he carried it out in thought and action. It was his ability to lay out a superior moral philosophy that gave credibility to the various miracles and the resurrection.
So as a thought, next time someone approaches you with the promise of powers, expressly or implied, think to yourself, 'how does this make this a better place, not only for myself, but for those around me?"
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Capt. Anand Kumar on
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The lives of Buddha and Gandhi are good examples to explore in this context. Both did not claim any special powers. They did not indulge in granting immediate relief to any suffering persons. But both lived their ideas which gave them the moral authority. And it is this fact that has made their names endure.
Morality has to be lived and not only preached for the ideas to have any effect.
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Permalink Reply by Hari Menon on
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Dear Joe,
I agree with you merely that one "imagines" many crazy notions of light and movement and some vague spirits and other worlds and a freedom so unfettered as to make people crazy , it is not psychic or any rubbish , Everything exists for our knowledge alone and - the psychic (a word I abhor) abilities (again a most idiotic assumption ) that are shown or experienced by anyone is just an exhibition of the Phenomenology of the senses and their ambit and to what extent they rule us . Beyond this it has no meaning , Astral travel and other planes of consciousness which may or may not exist , has to be related to knowledge and what it means . Psychics have been notoriously low in their fundamentals of knowledge . And in their ability to inquire and assimilate knowledge and so they have become "mediums" for the spread of ignorance . But you will observe that within the cyber fraternity in the world , that if you just go through the various sites and have occassion to just be a witness to the level of the exchanges going on there - not a single one without exception display any knowledge of either the real world or their senses . It is just a place where people go to relax and talk absolute nonsense and indulge in some vague ideas they have with like minded people . There is a tremendous amount of the population of various countries who are unstable in such a manner . This is more alarming since these same people walk around in broad daylight as normal people . They have very weak intellects, subscribe to vague sounding words as their gods and with light and energy and white apparitions seen in odd hours . Very rarely there may be good psychics but you will not find them in such forums which are - however nice the home pages look are the very cesspools of a humanity that is highly deception oriented , to themselves . But we cannot do anything towards alleviating this curse of wekness in the intellect , this wholesale connecting of people promiscuously and throwing information to all will have its later repurcussions which will definitely and painfully point to why knowledge was valued and was imparted on a need to know only . Morality does not exist anymore just in pockets , it is only a pretension to morality these days .So Joe its always better for more mature thinking people to "plough the lonely furrrow" as some poet so nicely put it. Discrimination is the cornerstone of reason and judgement if such a fundamental thing is not even known by people then we are shouting into the hurricane .
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