Just a thought.  I'm not saying he's a master or not.

My sister brought up a good point to me yesterday.  She told me of a game she played once called lite as a feather stiff as a borad, and 4 girls lifted the 5th with their finger tips.  They had the girl over their heads and when they realized of what they were doing and freaked out.  The girl in the middle stopped floating and started to fall and they couldn't hold her weight, and she ended up falling a couple feet. 

I personally believe that "we" are limited in what we may do by the limitations in our "minds".  I thought Criss might be an example of what we truly are capable of.  I am not advocating magic as a good use of this kind of energy or power or whatever it would be.  More of a statement "This is an example of human potential when it is unobstructed by the limits of the mind".

It can also be called lying, when you "generate ideas" about another person that you know are inaccurate. Ofcourse i realise that you dont know me but all might not realise that and get the wrong impression. If i were to talk in friendly terms about how you and that goat were cought in the act in that one barn. It would be assumed that i know you and while ofcourse we both know that is not the case the initial error can remain.

Do you see my point?

Anyway. Back to what i said before this.

Yes, i would take the money and yes i would use it as i see no reason why not to. There is, as far as i can see, nothing inherantly bad in using magic to give people the sense of "woooh". Infact all morality is relative. As good and bad are relative to what outcome you desire from the situation, situation in this case being life. If you desire to reach one end of the scale (which isnt actually a scale but more of a blob) then all that hinders your attempts to reach that end of the scale are bad and all that promote it are good. If however you wish to reach another end then it is in reverse. Or if you wish to stay still or go for an entirely another end it is different again.

If you take a 2 dimensional piece of paper and draw a line with one end being "good" and another end being "bad". Now, if you transfer it into 3 dimensions and you draw a line that moves sideways between the 2. You then make one ball that starts from the center of the line between the 2 and moves on this new line, sideways to their observation and as this ball moves away from their line of vision it will get smaller while in reality only moving away. If you take a sphere and slowly cover it with one hand the mass of the spehere you can see is lower and if you only understand depth and not "something covering it" then the logical assumption is "it is getting smaller thus it is getting away". So to a 2 dimensional observer, the transition to 3 dimensions of one sphere will always appear as if it is going to the opposite aligment as its visible surface is decreasing and thus "moving away" and any energy spent on moving away will naturally always move completely opposite of where the observer is.

So when you see something that you cant understand, it would be best to always try to avoid jumping to quick assumptions and labeling it "evil". This ofcourse goes for all of us but i am not talking to myself i am talking to "the forum" as if it is a student and not directly to any individual poster.

With that thought in mind.

-Aki

While the first stage of their show magic is very often an illusion dosnt mean that it is always an illusion. Thats just my take on the matter ofcourse. And when the show magican who specialises in lies and illusions says that "this is how you do it" i would be more than a little sceptical For them the show dosnt end with the explanation of the show.

As far as going through glass I'd be a lot more convinced if no paper was put up.  Anytime there's something occulting the activity there's an illusion involved.  I mean doing it without props would be the real watermark, wouldn't it?

I dont believe in what you believe and as such your view of what brought me here is most likely different than my view. So the way you see it doing that would have no heart but it does not mean there isnt neccesirly any heart in it, only that it is such as you see it.

We have alot of difference on our views of spiritual topics for sure. So i'll just point out a few of the differences of opinion we have

1. "i'd be sending all that awesome power towards healing the earth and ourselves."

Healing is relative to what is percieved as the best way one can operate. If there are more than one ways to operate for an organism and the organism is switching between the 2 then healing with limited knowledge would simply force the organism back into the original form. Such for example, is most medicine these days. Force you back into the mold from which your body is trying to rebel out of. To say "heal the earth" is to imply that the earth needs to be healed as opposed to the earth healing itself right now from an illness, for example, humanity. Healing the earth could then imply you having to kill the virus (humanity), or force the virus (still humanity) to change its behavior due to the behavior possibly causing damage to the physical body. While disregarding the possibility that what is happening right now happens precicely as it is meant to happen and all players involved are doing what their souls desire to do. And thusly healing would simply be another word for trying to force the earth and ourselfs into a box of your choosing (what you percieve as health and then by extension as good)

2. "You would do that, even if that meant mocking the very powers that brought your little body into earthly existence?"

If you would be so kind as to point me to the universal manual where it reads that using your powers for entertainment of others and recieving something from them in response is "mocking the very powers that brought your little body into earthly existance"

To view something as mocking to what brought me into this world is both dangerous and unwise. For you to be able to tell me what is mocking and what isnt mocking towards "the very powers that brought your little body into earthly existance" is elevating yourself to a position that is better determined as to how my existance is served and placed you in control of me. So while i hope this error of judgement on your part can be solved simply as me pointing it out, if not then i should point out that. You are not what brought me into this world and as such you have no right to speak for what brought me into this world and to speak for "it/them/she/he..etc" is an attempt to exercise power over me and that is generally frowned upon by me.

Ofcourse you have every right to your opinion to believe that you can determine it for me, i however have no reason to allow you to determine that for me.

3. "that path has no heart whatsoever,"

That argument has so little logic in it that it is puzzling.

Firstly, To claim that one path has heart and one does not is an erranous judgement based on what YOU consider to have heart and what YOU consider to not have heart. If a squirel mother is killed in front of her children and taken away by an owl to feed her "kids" and when the kids are fed the children are happy and all bubbly that their dear father brought them some food and are filed with love. Would you consider that action to have or to not have heart. As the squirel baby ofcourse there is no heart but as the owl baby there is heart. So while from your point of view actions others take that are not understandable to you might appear to have no heart that is not necceserily true for all.

4." yet you are totally immersed and overwhelmed by it."

My my, if that isnt a rash judgement and overstatement of the day then i dont know what is. You make a very rash judgement on my personality or my state of immersement or my state of being overwhelmed or underwhelmed based on me simply saying that i would do show magic if i earned a couple of dozen million dollars a year? I did not once say where/how/why i would use those money.

5." you wouldn't do anything like this, because you are too busy watching OTHERs do it"

Also, if that isnt equally as rash and an overstatement then i ont know what is You have no idea what i do for a living and no idea of what i do generally in life. You just jump out with a very strange group of accusations this of which is the most hilarious It is like saying you cant be anything you watch. The moment you watch someone do something your "too busy watching OTHERs do it". Anyway thats about all i've got to say on that little post.

that path has no heart whatsoever, yet you are totally immersed and overwhelmed by it.

you wouldn't do anything like this, because you are too busy watching OTHERs do it

i wouldnt. i'd be sending all that awesome power towards healing the earth and ourselves.

Well you wouldn't be.   But I am!      Because I saw the downward movement through the sheet.  In addition, Ayahuasca has a good point about the fact that Criss needed a sheet to cover the woman he was going to make "disappear."   But if he's REALLY causing something to disappear, then why the need to hide it?   Just do it without the sheet......I mean, IF it's real.......right?   

"Dangerously" close minded??    Dangerously??  Wow, strong words there.  Won't speak for others, but, I'm not "dangerously" close minded........but I do think that some people are "dangerously" gullible and naive. 

Being close minded to the possibility of real magic taking place with the ooogedy booogedy Goth street magician is not dangerous.  However, I'd say that being somebody who falls for the illusion and begins believing it's real, and defending it, is far more dangerous, because if somebody would fall for Criss Angel's act, then what else are they falling for in life?   And that mindset can indeed, be dangerous to the naive person.

Well, the logic for me anyway was that if one can see how these two tricks were pulled off, then what does it say about all the others?  It means they would have explanations as well.

While that would be a good point under normal circumstances for other situations, the fact is.....we're talking about "Criss Angel" here.   Criss Angel!  Oogedy boogedy Goth man.   

----

Another point I forgot to mention yesterday was that not only were his prop audience and helpers bad actors, but he was too, at least in the "Look Ma, I'm flying!" trick.   When he's standing at the edge of the building before being lifted off, and he's doing all that hand rubbing and gasping for breath with his eyes closed.........   Too funny.  I mean, come on.   Use people reading/body language/intuition skills.  What does that clip show?  It shows somebody trying way too hard.   Reading his body language/voice, I could tell that he isn't actually nervous/scared, and he doesn't actually believe what he's about to try to convince us of.   

The people here who believe this and defend it could benefit from learning how to read people better.  Vocal inflection, body language, etc. and so on.   That alone puts to rest any doubts. 

You don't have to know how the tricks are pulled off if you can read the person doing them and see/hear that they are lying.

So i wouldnt be so eager to label it as show magic without following the guy around and being present in all the tricks he does "up close and personal". Any less and it quickly leads to judgement out of hand that is inaccurate and dangerously close minded. To say that it is all an illusion and a fake OR that it is true, while all we do is sit in front of a computer and watch the clips is far too little information to make any sort of accurate estimate.

It is very possible and likely that it is all trickery and illusion, however, i atleast dont have enough information as i havent seen all the tricks done first hand to say it is illusion or real magic.

Magic has always been a big interest of mine, and when I first saw David Blaine many years ago I thought, for the first time, that I was seeing real magic being performed. But then after doing some research I discovered the explanations for all his tricks and had to accept that that's all they were - just tricks.

Criss Angel, is in my opinion, a lot more talented than David Blaine. I think he has a background in theatre so he's much more of a performer than Blaine who is very deadpan.

However Criss is still just an illusionist. You have to always remember that just because you can't think of a good explanation, it doesn't mean there isn't one.

The trick where we goes through the glass is easily explained.

The whole shop front is basically a magic prop. The people holding the sheet of paper up are in on the whole thing, and probably at the point where the camera zooms in is where the glass pane slides down to be replaced by a pane that has a hole on it.

Don't you think it was awfully convenient that he should find a large sheet of paper lying around in the street that was just the size he needed? Same with the sheet where he makes the woman disappear.

The day that I believe that Criss Angel is peforming real magic will be the day he decides to walk through a pane of glass without a sheet of paper in the way. Or make a woman disappear without covering her with something first.

Noble Realms is a congregation for open minded people.

It is.   

But there is a huge difference between being open minded, and being gullible and naive.

An open minded person is willing to listen and consider possibilities...........but that does not equate to "automatically believes everything without question."

Open minded should ideally go hand in hand with discernment.

Yes, myself included.   But it does not automatically equate to being naive, gullible, and easily duped, or lack of discernment.  I've had some wild things happen to me in life.  But it doesn't mean I'm supposed to swallow hook, line and sinker the Criss Angel illusion street magician act. 

You're basically saying that anybody here on NR who has experienced something that defies common knowledge should just then automatically believe, 100%, that Criss Angel is really flying and making women disappear.....because we ourselves have experienced the "weird."   So now we have to believe illusions and street magicians and take their act at face value......all because we've experienced and witnessed some weirdness firsthand. 

That doesn't even make any sense!

Well, you definitely know what I think!!     You can clearly see the drop down movement through the sheet where the woman goes through the trapdoor in the ground.  End of story.

And if Criss calls them illusions, then why have you been arguing how they could possibly be "real" ?

Anyway, I've said all I can on this subject, so, bye for now!

ummm, its already being challenged, if you havent noticed.