“Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we’ll find the perfect match here somewhere — I wonder, now — yes, why not — unusual combination — holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple.”
Harry took the wand. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wand above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls. Hagrid whooped and clapped and Mr. Ollivander cried, “Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well…how curious…how very curious…”
He put Harry’s wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering, “Curious…curious…
Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Good afternoon, dear Take in Mind readers! We have a really curious topic today, magic wands! This topic is also curious because, unlike their close “relatives”, magic caduceus or staves (which are found in plenty of myths and religious literature), magic wands are almost doesn’t appear in historical literature. Yes, yes, do not be surprised, fans of illusionists and Harry Potter, such evidence can be counted on one hand!
Perhaps the earliest known image of the magic wand appears in the 4th-century fresco “The Resurrection of Lazarus” in the Via Latina catacombs in Rome. The production of wands was described in the Latin manuscript “Grimoire of Pope Honorius”, published in Rome in the 18th century. The proposed author (although this proposal is very questionable), Pope Honorius III (1150-1227), claimed that the wand should be made exclusively from fresh hazel twist with one cut, otherwise all its magical power may be lost.
In the book ‘The illustrated history of superstitions and magic’ by the Danish psychologist Alfred Lehmann (1858-1921), a special chapter is devoted to the history of wands. In it, the scientist refers to the famous Swiss scientist, physician, and alchemist Theophrastus Paracelsus (1493-1541), who, in one of his works, wrote that: “German miners use a Y shaped rod to find hidden ores. Holding the projectile by the two ends in a horizontal position, the seeker moves slowly across the field. The free end of the stick bends towards the ground in the place where there is metal. Not everyone, however, can do this, and the indications of the rod are not always reliable, so Paracelsus ranks this method as the wrong means… Paracelsus probably stumbled upon this method by chance and, writings, contributed to its wide distribution. In any case, all subsequent authors have already mentioned the magic wand…“
Here is another fragment from Lehmann’s book: “On July 5, 1692, at 10 pm, the wine merchant and his wife were found murdered in Lyons. Since the authorities did not find any traces of the killer, then on the initiative of a private person, Jacques Aimar, a rich peasant, who was known for his ability to find metal and aquifer veins, as well thieves and murderers with his magic wand, was called to help in the investigation. Aimar immediately said that his wand was pulling him in three directions, so there should be three killers. He followed the wand’s directions for several miles, both on land and water, and finally found the person, which he pointed to as the murderer. The subject denied his involvement but was further executed, as the court managed to get some dubious confessions from him.
This incident caused great excitement; several scholarly books were written about that, which tried in different ways to explain such an action of the wand. The clergy saw in it intrigues of the devil, but the known theologian Vallemont expressed quite categorically in his work “Physique occulte, ou traité de la baguette divinatoire” that this phenomenon consists with a complete agreement with magnetic and electrical actions and that therefore there is no reason to interfere any supernatural power here. He, like all other scientists, completely forgot about one question: did the wand really did what was required of it?
The whole theory received a heavy blow when it was discovered that the famous physicist Athanasius Kircher had proved almost half a century earlier that a wand does not tilt either to water or, in general, to another object, if it is not in the hands of a person, but is attached at two ends that can rotate freely. When Jacques Aymar was summoned by the son of the Duke of Condé and was forced to do various experiments, he could not find any water or metal hidden by people and was not able to reveal the thieves already known to the police. Only then they began to doubt whether the executed person was really a murderer.
Finally, Father Lebrun found a clue to the question, by performing many experiments on persons in whose hands the wand came into specifically quick movements. First of all, he assumed the influence of the devil and therefore ardently urged those with whom he did experiments to pray to God that the wand would remain motionless if evil spirits were involved. After that, the wand was immediately made motionless. The most surprising thing is that from such experiments Lebrun quite unexpectedly drew the most correct conclusion, namely, that “the reason for the movement of the wand lies in the desires of a person and is directed by his intentions.” After that, scientists lost interest in the magic wand, but among the people, the belief in its power is still alive…”
Here we could end our article for today if it were not for such a wonderful conclusion of Father Lebrun. In other words, he concluded that the intricate movements of the wand or tricky spells are not the main thing for the desired result. The power of thought and the intention of the person performing such manipulations are the key points!
Well, this hypothesis is already a subject for serious scientific research. Moreover, the fundamental, both theoretical and practical, works of recent years have very seriously hit the positions of the science’s skeptics, who for decades have ridiculed the study of such issues as the transmission of thoughts to physical distance and treatment through the power of thought. As an example, we want to cite the results of several highly revealing studies published in peer-reviewed journals:
Ranganathan et al (2004) examined the mental training-induced strength gains (without performing physical exercises) in the little finger abductor as well as in the elbow flexor muscles. In addition, the authors quantified cortical signals that mediate maximal voluntary contractions of the two muscle groups. The first group (eight participants) was trained to perform “mental contractions” of little finger abduction; the second group (eight participants) performed mental contractions of elbow flexion, and the third group (eight participants) was not trained but participated in all measurements and served as a control group. At the end of twelve weeks training course (15 min per day, 5 days per week), the investigators found that the first group had increased their finger abduction strength by 35% and the second group augmented their elbow flexion strength by 13.5% (both changes were statistically significant). The control group showed no significant changes in strength for either finger abduction or elbow flexion tasks. The improvement in muscle strength for trained groups was accompanied by significant increases in electroencephalogram-derived cortical potential, a measure that was previously shown to be directly related to the control of voluntary muscle contractions. The authors concluded that the mental training employed by this study enhances the cortical output signal, which drives the muscles to a higher activation level and increases strength.
The idea of direct brain-to-brain communication could potentially be achieved using a Brain-to-Brain Interface (BBI). The BBI rests on two pillars: the capacity to read (or “decode”) useful information from neural activity and the capacity to write (or “encode”) digital information back into neural activity. Rao et al (2014) describe the first direct brain-to-brain interface in humans and present results from experiments involving six different subjects. The brain-to-brain interface non-invasively detects motor imagery in electroencephalographic signals recorded from one subject (the “sender”) and transmits this information over the internet to the motor cortex region of a second subject (the “receiver”). This allows the sender to cause the desired motor response in the receiver (a press on a touchpad) via Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. Their results provide evidence for a rudimentary form of direct information transmission from one human brain to another using non-invasive means.
In 2019, based on the study of Rao et al (2014), Jiang (2019) present BrainNet, the first multi-person non-invasive direct BBI for collaborative problem-solving. The interface combines EEG to record brain signals and TMS to deliver information noninvasively to the brain. The interface allows three human subjects to collaborate and solve a task using direct brain-to-brain communication. Five groups, each with three human subjects, successfully used BrainNet to perform the collaborative task, with an average accuracy of 81.25%. Their results point the way to future brain-to-brain interfaces that enable cooperative problem solving by humans using a “social network” of connected brains.
So, let’s shortly summarize all the above: We propose to accept the magic wand not as an independently acting magical artifact, but as a visual illustration of the influence of the power of thought, which the “magician” can direct both him-/herself or any “patient”. Moreover, the numerous works (including those cited above) show that the power of thought and their transmission at a distance are real, scientifically proven, and, moreover, measurable!
References:
Lehmann, A. Aberglaube und Zauberei von den ältesten Zeiten an bis in die Gegenwart (1908; Russian translation)
Jiang L, Stocco A, Losey DM, Abernethy JA, Prat CS, Rao RPN. BrainNet: A Multi-Person Brain-to-Brain Interface for Direct Collaboration Between Brains. Sci Rep. 2019; 9(1):6115
Rao R.P., A. Stocco, M. Bryan, et al. A direct brain to brain interface in humans. PLoS One, 9 (2014), p. e111332
Ranganathan VK, Siemionow V, Liu JZ, Sahgal V, Yue GH. From mental power to muscle power-gaining strength by using the mind. Neuropsychologia. 2004; 42(7):944-56.
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