Mystics engage in extended periods of meditation and contemplation and can become detached from the everyday world. They seek to unite with God—obliterating the boundaries between self and divinity.1 Mysticism is ultimately about boundaries because it inherently challenges the clear separation of God and human, a major binary opposition for all

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That process gives an identity. In making a distinction, some representation is required, whether simply mental, or more concretely as with gesture, speech, artistic portrayal, or writing. For instance, naming both makes a distinction and creates a representation. Naming, classification, and abstraction are processes of boundary drawing; they are

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Sathya Sai Baba (b. 1926), a Hindu holy man with millions of followers around the world, is one of today’s best known miracle workers.38 He reputedly materializes precious metals and gems, is clairvoyant, has turned water into gasoline, and even raised the dead. But he has not allowed controlled tests of his abilities, and there is much evidence

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wariness toward the supernatural is nothing new for humankind; it goes back millennia. There have always been taboos, prohibitions, and restrictions surrounding the supernatural. There are undoubtedly good reasons for this. Religious orthodoxy decrees dabbling in the paranormal to be a sin; CSICOP ridicules such dabbling. The effect is the same.

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Hypnosis highlights the confusing interrelationships among conjuring, liminality, and the paranormal. Hypnotism has been known for thousands of years under a variety of names (e.g., animal magnetism, mesmerism, suggestion), but it is ambiguous, and even its definition is problematical. Psychologists continue to debate whether hypnosis involves a

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Postmodernist theories suggest that the world can be understood as though one was reading a book or text. This metaphor (i.e., the world is text), allows one to ask new questions that would not be generated by traditional scientific paradigms. Reading requires interpretation, and postmodernist and post-structuralist theories emphasize the variety

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The trickster is not eliminated simply by making sharp distinctions and clear categories. There is still a realm that lies betwixt and between a signifier and signified, between a word and its referent. Tricksters travel that liminal realm, and ambiguities in communication are their province. In fact the term hermeneutics, the study of

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Everyone knows that universities have departments devoted to the sciences, but those outside academe often are unaware that many state-supported schools have long-established departments of religion. Despite the much-acclaimed warfare between science and religion, both have been incorporated into the academy. Science and religion are clearly

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Whereas religions place strictures against dabbling in the supernatural, atheists and rationalists prefer to banish (i.e., repress) the ideas entirely. Yet the supernatural is found in all cultures, and it cannot be effectively eliminated with rationalistic incantations such as: “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” The paranormal

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