Sorcery

by J. Finley Hurley

A sorcerer mumbles a spell over a photograph of a seriously ill girl, and she is cured. Another sorcerer sticks pins in a wax
doll, and his distant victim screams. Preposterous? Certainly that’s what we were taught, but a mass of evidence has accumu-
lated suggesting that we were wrong, that these things may occur, and occur in accordance with rationally determined
principles. In this persuasively argued book, J. Finley Hurley gives serious consideration to the possibility that old-fashioned strike-dead-and-blind sorcery is a reality.

The power to influence the thoughts, dreams and actions of other at great distance is one of the oldest ‘facts of nature’ known to man, and this book gives a clear exposition of why we should regard sorcery as a very real phenomenon. It shows that old-fashioned sorcery, the casting of spells that heal or kill, can be a rational ad effective procedure in harmony with the modern, scientific world-view. A few scientists have recognized this,
but their evidence has never been treated in detail—until this book.

It draws from scientific studies in many areas —perception, creativity, biofeedback, dreams, telepathy, psychosomatic reactions—to marshal the fascinating case histories and experiments that put sorcery in a surprisingly modern perspective. Without abandoning rationality, the reader can understand how a spell is cast and why it the impli-
cations are absorbing and perhaps frightening.

Comments by researchers and authors in the field of the paranormal

Jule Eisenbud, late professor of psychiatry at the university of Colorado, was cited by Steven Braude as parapsychology's premier theoretician. Eisenbud was the author of many books on the paranormal, including Psi and Psychoanalysis, Paranormal Foreknowledge, Psychology and the Unconscious, The World of Ted Serios. He wrote that Sorcery is a "marvelous book." "It is far and away the best thing that has been written on the extensive powers of the mind for producing evil at a distance, and I trust it will put the futile exercises of the laboratory in their place once and for all."

Colin Wilson, prolific author of books on the paranormal, a few of which are The Occult, The Outsider, The Psychic Detectives, Mysteries of the Mind, The Unexplained, Poltergeist! wrote
"I think [Sorcery] a really excellent piece of work—very exciting."

Guy Lyon Playfair, author of many books on the paranormal, among them The Flying Cow, Cycles of Heaven, The Indefinite Boundary, The Unknown Power, Twin Telepathy, Medicine, Mind & Magic, applauded Sorcery as "a splendid book. It is a book I certainly intend to read again."

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Occult, Spirituality

388 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[The Dark Lords · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating compendium of research, anecdotes and ideas that show how sorcery and psychic phenomena are consistent with the findings of modern mind science – or the mind science of the future, when it has fully freed itself from the dogmatic confines of 19th century materialism. If you need evidence to convince yourself that your mind is the seat of extraordinary powers that would have been call “sorcery” in previous ages, this is an outstanding resource. It doesn’t read like a hokey new age or occult text; it’s written in a scholarly, matter-of-fact manner, chock-full of findings that scientifically demonstrate the reality of sorcerous mental powers—attributed not to spirits or demons, but to the mysterious, almost supernatural powers of the unconscious mind. From hallucinations to total recall to hypnosis to placebos to telepathy, Sorcery will give the reader much food for thought and experimentation. Highly recommended for all scholars and practitioners of psycho-sorcery!

[Darwin Torres · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is easy enough to swallow. It provides lots of real-world examples of spooky stuff and asks how or why it would happen. I didn't get a lot out of this book but I can see how someone might have their mind blown potentially.

[0:50 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is basically a great book. It's incoherent when it ventures into philosophy, positing nature as a law-like unity while elsewhere identifying reality with desired results. The implied spiritualism seems also a result of objectifying everything hard to understand as "mind": mostly he just seems to take potshots against materialists from any perspective whatever. However, the philosophical parts are fortunately a rare occurrence and mostly this book is a very interesting treatment of various paranormal phenomena from a surprising angle. Hurley shows that faith in itself is not important, disqualifying the methods of New Thought: what is important is faith directed at someone. In terms of scientific experiments, the expectations of the scientist bear more weight than those of the subject and placebo succeeds not because of the belief of the subject, who sometimes may not react to the real drugs even if he reacts to placebo, but due to the belief of the researcher in the efficacy of placebo in producing an effect in the test subject.

This book is pretty scary. Witches probably existed at Salem just like real Satanic cults in the 80's: the problem is more that it can be hard to prove rather than the later explanation of mass hysteria. Self-identity of the semiotic sigil magicians demands otherwise but it doesn't change the reality that there are practicioners far more deserving of the titles of "magic" or "otherworldly" than they. The implications of it all are beyond staggering but also maybe freeing because almost nothing can protect you. I don't even want to say my worst fears but just consider that brain enters a dreaming state at the moment of death. While there might be a sensation of impotence, this doesn't absolve you of the responsibility of finding out just how much your life is currently controlled by these types of counter-intuitive tactics: with possibilities far beyond any notion of propaganda.

To find this out, idealism and pragmatism are both rejected from the outset. The author ridicules substantialism but the mind is a type of substance, traditionally paired with the physical substance. Yet he praises Berkeley at one point despite this. Even the meaning of these terms is not clear. Physical derives from the word physis, meaning breath, meaning spiritus ie. spiritual. Obviously we know that all objects in a dream are physical ie. you can see, touch them etc. You can perform autopsies in dreams, study the objects there and perhaps start a science within the dream world. Maybe the interesting thing is that there is a perceived difference at all between "waking" and "dreaming": especially interesting in light of the dreaming process during the breakdown of the body or death experience which surely is the site of some type of reincarnation due to slowed experience of time (though it's in question whether this experience will splinter into many disunified incarnations which would be a true death for the unified subject).

[John Kreiter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I truly believe that this is perhaps one of the greatest books ever written on the power of the unconscious and therefore the great potential within all of us.
There are very few books that I still consider worth reading, and this one is one that definitely has withstood the test of time. While the author does make certain assumptions about the general nature of the power that he is trying to understand that I would not agree with completely, his ability as a researcher is unquestionable.
The great strength of this book is the sheer volume of information that honestly is becoming harder and harder to find in these modern times. This alone makes this book worth every penny. Everything from the effect of solar and lunar cycles on people, to the incredible experiments done by early hypnotists, that as the author points out were not so greatly restricted by modern ideas and dogma.
A true treasure of information even if you do not agree with some of the conclusions.

[Maxwell Foley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really fascinating book. I've picked up several books which try to explain how and why one can expect success through doing goofy shit like conducting rituals and casting spells, and there's usually a lot of "what if?" and "open your mind" and "you won't know for sure until you try" employed, which is rarely convincing.

This book on the other hand makes a valiant attempt to actually argue with scientific evidence, meticulously cited, that "sorcery" is a reality, and it is shockingly successful. It's hard not to be skeptical regarding the ideas the book brings up, but it feels like in order to come to an actual reasoned conclusion you would have to follow the sources back to their origin in order to critically evaluate them and whatnot...

It should be noted that "sorcery" in this book essentially refers to acts of controlling the minds of others, as opposed to controlling one's own mind (which is what most of the occult seems to primarily describe), or manipulating matter somehow, or predicting the future.

In the first few chapters, Hurley discusses the power and suggestibility of the unconscious mind using examples of placebo effects, psychosomatic illnesses, Pygmalion effect, recall of memory in hypnosis, and others. In the fourth chapter, Hurley describes the field of hypnosis. It's only in the fifth chapter when he starts to venture into areas which most people are reflexively skeptical towards - namely, research of ESP. In chapter six, he synthesizes the previous two chapters, describing experiments which purport to show that people can be hypnotized at a distance via ESP (mind control). At this point he claims that he has proven the existence of sorcery, and the rest of the book is a little less rigorous. He spends the final few chapters relating somewhat unbelievable tales of shamans in primitive cultures, and eventually culminates with an odd suggestion that world affairs are manipulated by a conspiracy of people with access to the philosopher's stone (?).

Overall if you want a book that will make the case for the existence of paranormal powers as best as possible, this is it, I think. I kind of want to investigate it further because I'm still skeptical of most of it, but having read this it's hard to think of alternative explanations for phenomena like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_hy... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo_...

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting read. While as the book became more and more interested in sorcery, I became more and more skeptical, I believe that it was a valuable read. The discussion on the unconscious and placebo's in the first few chapters were really interesting. Some of the "science" that is discussed in the book does seem quite fantastical; it became easy for me to become skeptical of much of the seemingly anecdotal evidence provided.

What this book does best is present the case that, despite our positivist assumptions, the world is still mysterious. We (and by we I'm speaking predominantly about the West) hold certain assumptions about the world and that influences our scientific studies – both in terms of what we study and in terms of the results of our study. It is always good to question these assumptions, and I believe that this book does a good job of that.

[V. · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting thought experiment and perception altering. Dully written, but lends to its credibility. Feels more like reading a textbook than a novel, but information is unique and incredibly insightful. Worth the read to anyone looking for new perspectives.

[Damien · Rating 5 out of 5]

May completely change your paradigm.

[Louis Crockett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it! Not *truly* scientific, but definitely food for thought.

[Sophia]

cool!