informant38
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...But of these sophisms and elenchs of merchandise I skill not...
Milton, Areopagitica

Except he had found the
standing sea-rock that even this last
Temptation breaks on; quieter than death but lovelier; peace
that quiets the desire even of praising it.

Jeffers, Meditation On Saviors


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6.11.02

The commission concluded that "nothing proves the existence of Animal-magnetism fluid; that this fluid with no existence is therefore without utility; that the violent effects observed at the group treatment belong to touching, to the imagination set in action & to this involuntary imitation that brings us in spite of ourselves to repeat that which strikes our senses." In other words, the effect is mental, not magnetic.

Modern skeptics should take a lesson from this historical masterpiece, which employed the control of intervening variables and the testing of specific claims, without resorting to unnecessary hypothesizing about what was behind the "power." A sad fact is that true believers remain unaffected by contradictory evidence, today as well as in the 18th century.

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