Sleights

[Barrett Dorko]

Magic cannot stand still. It must either advance with the times, or fall behind.

Nevil Maskelyne

Despite this, the vast majority of "effects" and the basic mechanisms behind them were invented in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

I'm of the opinion that these are sufficient and will remain so because our brains haven't changed in a long, long time.

That, after all, is where the magic occurs.

[Barrett Dorko]

It’s not the trick. It’s the magician.

Harry Houdini

It's not the therapy. It's the therapist.

Me

[norton]

A real life Magician as Therapist. This magician has learned a lot more than some licensed therapists.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Re-Habra-Cadabra!-Magic-Therapy-For-Your-Fingers&id=2000156

http://www.fingerpainrelief.com/

Enjoy
Deb

Be sure to watch his marketing video. I hate to say this but he has put the fun back in finger rehab. Even functional if one would like to book birthday parties.

[vancouverRMT]

I have been thinking on this thread the last few days and reading this one among others to catch up on some of the ideas.

Today, a patient (a pediatrician if that matters) mentioned that she is reminded of going to catholic confessional as a young girl when she sees me.
For give me father therapist for I have sinned injured my self. It has been 2 months since my last confession treatment. Do 7 Hail Marys this movement and all is forgiven etc...

I saw the humor in this but it also stung. I think I may need some self examination as to how I present myself.

She also calls DMN "Mike's Voodoo" and threatened to call me Dumbledore.

[Diane]

Ask her if she was aware that the brain has feelers all the way out to skin.

[vancouverRMT]

Originally Posted by Diane

Ask her if she was aware that the brain has feelers all the way out to skin.

"feelers" perfect!
These things are said in half tease. I do attempt dialogue on the neuroscience. She listens politely. She is a very intelligent and empathetic person but admits she likes to shut off mentally when it comes to self care. Body schema is intentionally off and the ideas I present are a challenge to her belief system. Also, they are contrary to some things I would have said not to long ago.

[Barrett Dorko]

I wrote this five years ago.

Never heard from the book’s author after I sent it to him.

Maybe we should try to find him.

[Diane]

You can tell her their names, which sound Greek: A- beta, A- alpha, C, attached to tiny transducers in skin that sound like an Italian smorgasbord - Pacinian, Ruffini etc or else German - Merkel etc. You can tell her that even common skin cells, i.e. keratinocytes (pronounced "kair-(ryhmes with "hair")-a-tin-o-cites") express TRPv (pronounced "trip-v") channels which when stimulated by hardly any contact at all, open and signal through secretion of various cell substances and proteins, other sensory transducers, chemoreceptors, which then signal through electrical means up to the spinal cord by way of neurons with their cell bodies in dorsal root ganglia. You can learn this stuff well enough to tell it to her so you are saying something she may have read in her first year of medical training and might ring a bell. Or not. But at least it's verifiable information and she can look it up if she wants. It could become common ground/knowledge.

[norton]

Seems utilizing magic as therapy has been around awhile. Makes sense. The author has been featured in a few articles and his book is on Amazon.
This is just one blurb...
http://www.appliedmagictherapy.com/r...20Magazine.pdf
Nice Review Barrett.
Deb

[vancouverRMT]

Originally Posted by Diane

You can tell her their names, which sound Greek: A- beta, A- alpha, C, attached to tiny transducers in skin that sound like an Italian smorgasbord - Pacinian, Ruffini etc or else German - Merkel etc. You can tell her that even common skin cells, i.e. keratinocytes (pronounced "kair-(ryhmes with "hair")-a-tin-o-cites") express TRPv (pronounced "trip-v") channels which when stimulated by hardly any contact at all, open and signal through secretion of various cell substances and proteins, other sensory transducers, chemoreceptors, which then signal through electrical means up to the spinal cord by way of neurons with their cell bodies in dorsal root ganglia. You can learn this stuff well enough to tell it to her so you are saying something she may have read in her first year of medical training and might ring a bell. Or not. But at least it's verifiable information and she can look it up if she wants. It could become common ground/knowledge.

Thanks Diane, I will.
Back in college I remember thinking skip this, what receptors are in muscle? .

[norton]

Originally Posted by Barrett Dorko

I wrote this five years ago.

Never heard from the book’s author after I sent it to him.

Maybe we should try to find him.

http://www.michaelkett.com/index.php

Is this him?

Seems therapy didn't pay as well as entertainment if it is.
Deb

It is him.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-kett/6/1b/5b0

[norton]

I have invited Michael Kett to somasimple. He responded with this...


"Not sure how I can help further the discussion"

Mike

I asked him to come anyway since there maybe questions asked of him but I haven't heard from him again.
Deb

[Ken Jakalski]

I know Mike Kett!

For a while, he worked at Seven Bridges Fitness Center here in Woodrige, IL.

He's even done some work at the Seven Bridges Theater Complex.

[Jon Newman]

Originally Posted by norton

"Not sure how I can help further the discussion"

I'd suggest, "by simply participating in it."

[norton]

Jon.
I answered in a similar fashion. Still no response.
Deb

[Barrett Dorko]

Okay, it’s the patient.

Almost without exception they don’t know they’re doing this, and even if they do, they’re not exactly expert.

Misdirection, seemingly purposeful movements meant to convey something other than the truth and the willful withholding of relevant information are something every clinician encounters with regularity.

I think it’s important to emphasize the fact that very little of this is done maliciously. If it is, that’s an issue for another post – maybe another thread.

Magicians don’t actually perform magic (perhaps you knew that already), they convince us that what we just experienced cannot be understood in any other way. Ideally, they are masters of human perception. In this way they manipulate ours in a variety of ways.

Let’s start with that and let this part of the thread evolve a bit.

More from me soon.

[norton]

Patients don't consciously manipulate my perception. They change their perception right? And again it is not entirely consciously controlled. A small part is via patient education of the neuromatrix the rest is as Diane says "the brain (and sub brains) doing the heavy lifting to choose a different out put option. So I would have to state the patient's nervous system is the magician. But if history is an indicator I am totally wrong
Deb

[Diane]

The patient is a part of her or his own brain(s). "We" (our brain(s)) relate to each other via socially adaptions of those same brains/subbrains. I would agree therefore that the nervous system is the only changer of an ongoing output.

[Barrett Dorko]

Brains also change input.

There's no escaping this completely, but our ability to interpret things to be as they actually are as opposed to how they appear is enhanced with hard-won understanding.

Uh-oh.

I feel that separating the patient or myself from my nervous system is a mistake. This dualist opinion is an old one I hope to see it diminish over time. However, I am mindful of the fact that though the so-called Age of Neurocentrism was ushered in in 1652 with Willis' discovery of the brain, the NFL only very recently began to worry too much about concussion.

Anybody want to explain that?

[Diane]

Originally Posted by Barrett Dorko

Brains also change input.

I concur completely. They are programmed by their early upbringing/culture/language/imposed beliefs etc.

One little part of the brain is capable of 'detach, sit back and consider' - that would be dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. That little part needs all the help it can get from everyone/anyone who has made deep and abiding friendly relationships with their own DLPFC.

[Barrett Dorko]

This thread seems near its end. With well over a thousand views it has reached a milestone I set for such things. Meaningless, probably.

My last point might be obvious to readers and easily anticipated.

The therapist is also a magician.

Patient and therapist alike may be unaware of their deception, but it is present nonetheless.

During the past year I read The Magicians – A Novel and was glad to see that the author insisted that the ability to sense the world was the result of hard study rather than the relatively effortless “gift” Harry Potter seems to have inherited.

What it actually means to perform manual magic has been made clear here and elsewhere.

One question remains:

How should we implement that knowledge?

[Barrett Dorko]

Deception requires complicity, however subconscious. We want to be deceived.

Hardeen on Boardwalk Empire

There is plenty of evidence indicating that this is true, and, I think there are several ways of seeing what it says about us.

Over the years I’ve expressed my fascination with con games and their nature. I don’t think you can get through life without at least brushing up against some of them personally. TV and the movies love to depict them.

If we don’t deceive each other consciously, we at the very least do so unconsciously.

And, I think we want this, whether we wish it were true or not.

Therapy is full of it.

It’s all magic.

[Jon Newman]

I learned about fore-edge painting from a Roger Ebert tweet. While it isn't exactly a magic trick, I think it's a pretty cool reveal. I wonder what the Kindle equivalent would be?

[Barrett Dorko]

The student might as well learn at the beginning of his study that conjuring is acting, playing the part of a magician…in this case, saying something that is patently false with the confidence and power – and the implicit authority – that we associate with speaking the truth. Learning to lie is a great and important lesson for all budding conjurors to learn.

Eugene Burger in Intimate Power

Oh.

Perhaps the thread should have begun with this.

The question remains: Is it a lie if you believe it to be true?

[norton]

This is it I think/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40530723...ience-science/
deb

[Barrett Dorko]

Consider the perspective below. Comment. Then we’ll talk.

The healing by Dorjee was one of several uses of perceptual legerdemain that I have witnessed by traditional medicine persons. I came to believe that the shamanic application of sleight-of-hand for healing purposes is likely the aboriginal source of the entire craft of sleight-of-hand conjuring. For skillful practice of sleight-of-hand magic is a kind of shock treatment for the person watching – a way of jarring his nervous system, the immune system via the direct conduit of his senses. It is a potent technique for disrupting frozen patterns and fears, knocking loose the regenerative capacity of the body. Contrary to modern assumptions, sleight-of-hand conjuring probably originates not as an illusionary depiction of supernatural events, but as a practical technique for unlocking and activating the fluid magic of nature itself.

David Abram

[Bas Asselbergs]

To me, that appears to be congruent with what we know of "healing" (as in "resetting" the system).

"The fluid magic of nature" is a poetic description of nervous systems interacting and intra-acting.

[Barrett Dorko]

It was as profound an experience of magic as any I’d yet tasted…(it contained) a dimension always operative beneath my conventional consciousness (and) I began to feel more palpably present.

(This is) the purest hall mark of magic, the very signature of its uttermost reality. Magic doesn’t sweep you away; it gathers you up into the body of the present moment so thoroughly that all your explanations fall away: the ordinary, in all its plain and simple outrageousness, begins to shine.

David Abram in Becoming Animal

[Jon Newman]

Nova is airing a segment on Feb. 2 title Magic and the Brain. I think it will eventually be available online to watch. I'll post a link if that's the case and I remember to do it. Maybe someone else will if I don't.

[Barrett Dorko]

Thanks Jon.

This has been showing up in Twitter feeds here and there.

If anyone sees it, pointing readers toward this thread would be a good idea.

[Barrett Dorko]

A pretty good interview with the authors of this book showed up on this week's podcast of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

It begins at about minute 41.

[Alice Sanvito]

I am glad to see the word "magic" reclaimed, as I also want to reclaim the word "energy." Both are words I've avoided using because of their misuse. When they are used rightly, they are good descriptions of the amazing world we inhabit & work in.

I saw a new client today. I'm still slightly confused by what she wants out of our time together. I think she's overthinking her situation, has been convinced of certain things by other MTs and a PT with whom she's worked, all of them nice, well-meaning people, but she has handed over her power to them. She tells me all about her postural distortions, which don't look all that significant, and how her body is pulling this way and that. I ask her how she feels and she says, "Well, I've been told that . . . " It's very difficult to get her to describe how she feels, she tells me instead what other people have told her is going on with her.

When she walked in I had just finished reading Paul Ingraham's most recent article on fascial contractibility (sp?). She began telling me what brought her in and how she thinks she has some sort of fascial pull, but was asking me what I thought. I could not suppress a smile. It was okay. She knows me. We talked, I explained what I could at that moment.

I got to work. What I was doing felt very right to her, at least she was clear about that. That was good. What was I doing? Doesn't matter all that much, except that is was kind of stretchy a lot, probably with more weight behind it than I get the impression Diane might use but not so aggressive as most fascialists. What was i thinking? She complains of feeling like she's being pulled in a direction, of not feeling comfortable in her body. I was thinking, well, I'm having a conversation with her body, trying to suggest to it that maybe it doesn't need to pull in that direction, suggesting maybe it could relax, knowing full well that in the end maybe it will decide yes, maybe no, maybe I have not yet communicated to it what it wants to hear.

The lady liked what I did, said she felt good when she got up. We'll see how long that lasts. The thought occurred to me that were I a fascialist, i could have done the same thing and would have a different explanation for what I thought I was doing and why I was doing it. And were I focused on trigger points (and yes, I still do that) I might have done some of the same things and described them differently. But at this point I am constantly aware that the nervous system controls it all, and if I'm going to effect any change at all, somehow I've got to find a way to convince the brain that it wants to change in a direction that I hope will feel like an improvement.

It really is rather magical, the body, how it works, the brain, the nervous system, our interaction with it. The verbal conversation with the client, the nonverbal conversation with the client, and trying to find a way to get past the client's concept of what is going on, which more often than not is not very helpful.

What an incredible journey. What a fascinating way to spend the day.

[Barrett Dorko]

Alice,

Your attempted reclamation of "energy" interests me. Personally, I gave up on it long ago. Those who use it it bodywork define it in so many ways that I wouldn't know where to begin. Long ago I quoted a physicist who pointed out that "energy isn't a "thing," it is a quality we use to describe the behavior of those "things" we know to exist.

Changing an adjective to a noun immediately defeats most who will object to its use in this way, and that's what many have done. This doesn't make them bad people, but they've fallen down a rabbit hole I watch but stay away from.

Magic, on the other hand, can be reclaimed as long as we understand its various manifestations. Dawkins does a wonderful job with this and they are explained here.

[Alice Sanvito]

Well, when I use the word in a non-therapy setting, it's not so bad. For instance, when playing music for a dance, we'll talk about the energy of the music or of the dance itself. It's descriptive of the general experience, a feeling of excitement, heightened awareness, generally shared by those involved, and not meant to refer to any supernatural phenomena.

In personal interactions, particularly when doing massage with a client, there is sometimes a quality about the interaction that one might refer to as energy but I still hesitate to use it among MTs because of misuse of the word. However, I don't like being restricted in the use of language because of others' mistaken ideas. I'd like to be free to use whatever word best seems to describe the situation. So, I don't think you'll see me throwing it around freely any time soon but if you find me using it, you'll know what I mean and that I am not referring to "biofields" or any such thing, just as if I'm using the word "magic" to refer to the natural world or even interactions that I'm referring to my own amazement and wonder at how things work and not supernatural forces.