I respectfully disagree, people ususally want to start with the easisest thing first, if someone tries heat transfer and it doesn't work the first time, they will probably give up. Even if they do manage it, they may doubt it's anything more than bodyheat.

Dust is a better starting point, far less is required to influence a falling dust mote.
It's already falling, you just gently nudge it in one direction after another as it falls.

All of the props of magic are just that.
They are there to strengthen your will power.
(I know that's a whole other debate but..)

If you believe that finding a penny will bring you good luck all day..guess what happens

Well my opinion is that selected parts of both is powerful, but ultimatly its the pure will (as in the "will/desire" to act and have effect) put into it that paticuler idea or belife, and how much "Will" dis belive it....

As for solid proof that there is magyk or magick you may want to look into quantem phyisics because at long last they finaly proven what all basic and complex religons have know for years, that ideals and belifes make up all things and that the ones most wanted through "Will" keeping in mind that others will "Will" agenst it is what "is" ("Is" being all this and possibilitys),

though the research is limtited mostly being done on some of the worlds largest brain's spare time (nobel prize, yale, people thats head swell becase they think to much) there is concret evidence not just in mathmatical equstions but also in common mass,

A good movie to watch would be "What the bleep you know" though it also contains alot you wount need to know. aslo the stringe theroy could possibuly tie into this.

Two words back at you: verifiable evidence. I suppose you could hyphenate it if you wanted to, but that would just be silly.

No, most of them are whale women. Just like most goth girls. Fat girls usually have to do something to stand out and get the attention that pretty girls get just by entereing a room.

Woah, you're stepping into Schroedinger's cat and the whole causality debate there.
That's a whole different can of worms.

Scientists can class quite a lot of effects as 'Unproven' with this method.
The basic arguement that you being there to observe affects the results of the experiment, but to prove that 'will' (I'm not getting into a semantic debate about the spelling of 'magic') can affect the outcome of an experiment, someone has to be there.

Using this arguement it will be completely impossible to ever prove that unexplained phenomena exist, this is a wall that science can throw up at any time to say 'if we don't know what it is, then it doesn't exist'.

It's the scientific version of the 'faith' arguement that religion uses.

The majority of scientists are open to the fact that they don't know everything, and that there may be something unexplained happening that may be explainable in the future.
The problem is that the heavy hitters in the science world are pretty confident in their omniscience and will shoot down anything that may give the impression that they can't explain something.

If you want a perfect example of something that can be proven to work yet have no scientific explanation, just look at dowsing.

(Sorry for veering away from your point a little Inky, I got carried away)

Exactly, it's the perfect circular arguement

I'm with you on that one, probably for different reasons.
I've seen people do pretty amazing things but the ammount of energy required to boil even a small volume of water isn't small, I'd be interested to see where that energy came from.

I beg to differ, I personally know many beautiful people that are Wiccans/Witches, and I dont mean beautiful on the outside either.

Erm..
Is that aveiled insult or a mistype?

The thing about religions is that there isn't a requirement that you be attractive or ugly.

Saying that all wiccans are ugly is pretty much the same as saying that all accountants wear glasses. A totally unfounded generalisation.

Im sure they're fatties with hearts of gold.

say what?

i don't know much about quantum physics, but oodles about the various forms of magick out there, and like anything else left to personal belief...it's just that, belief shaped by the power of the mind, the problem is that people seem to mix "psychic ability" with supernatural ideals...waht's to say there's anything supernatural about it at all, does anyone know what the human mind is capable of?

in my opinion, at the point when quantum physics can prove the existance of what, most term as "magick" it's no longer anything supernatural, but scientific theory, at the point it becomes duplicatable(wrd?)by other physicists, it's scientific fact.

buddhist monks have been able to regulate their body heat, resisting frigid environments!

mind or magick?

no external influences involved.

There is scientific proof of mind over body.

Placebo

http://www.uri-geller.com/content/research/twgm.htm

http://www.uri-geller.com/express.htm

there are examples of people doing amazing things, the little mother somehow managing to lift a car off her trapped children sort of stories...the poltergeist infested house with an angsty pubescent teen in the household, that's what makes these things fascinating, not that they can be proven without a doubt, but the human mind does thigns that no one can explain...the problem is that most entangle these, phenomena as something magickal...attributing supernatural forces when it's really just a human mind no one knows completely.

video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NExoT38sjj4

what people to realize is that most of these are monks who've been studying a detachment from the material world, meditating on higher aspects of humanit on the top of obscure mountains...not young "magick" children who watch a few episodes of charms, a litle winks, a few books and suddenly they're an uber powerful witch bending the very forces of nature themselves...with so much out there, how does anyone know exactly what they are bending?

i still think "magick" is more human based and less supernatural.

don't get me wrong, i've seen things that are not humanly possible, and there are unexplained supernatural mysteries out there, but what humans can do on a supernatural level?

it's all derived from their mind.