If y'all thought I wouldn't, I would.
So spell experimentation in my mind breaks down into two categories:
The Personal Experimentation
The Group Experimentation
What this Anon is going for seems to be "why can't everyone do spellwork the same way" (because let's move away from the word magic here because my definition of magic is the amount of xyz [energy here is also a weird definition, because I also define it as amount of work, but also what does that mean in this context, right?]
First, let's ask the question what spell would they be doing and are the conditions in which the spell is being done repeatable? Let's talk about conditions in terms of being able to repeat first. So I have mentioned it before that I believe spell casters are all different and bring different things to a spell casting. So the literal spell caster cannot be isolated for. Additionally, I don't think a control group (spell casters versus .... ???) exists in this particular situation per se because I believe anyone can perform spellwork - you don't have to be a Spell Caster (tm) to cast a spell. Anyone can.
So that's one vector of change within the experiment is the literal people (and we can group all things of the people, like beliefs, experience, preference, etc into that).
Can we get x number of people to do all the same actions, on the same time frame? Sure. Can we get x number of people to all do the same paradigm (the way the spell works) at the same time? Much more tricky.
So spellwork in terms of the literal actions in a spell can be the same across different kinds of spells. What do I mean:
So a person takes a sip from a cup.
So a person takes a sip from a cup.
So a person takes a sip from a cup.
First person takes the sip because they are thirsty. Second person takes a sip because the water is purified and is part of a cleansing ritual. Third person takes a sip from a cup because it's enchanted moon water and it's going to bring them protection.
Paradigms work like this -^ the reasoning behind an action so that something else will occur (whatever the something else is), the purpose of an action or a set of actions. So let's make that the break down portion for the Control and the Main group. Get everyone onboard with the "hey we are all casting this spell because of xyz" and then the control group just goes through the motions.
Now it doesn't quite matter what the Control group is up to in terms of paradigms right? But it could very well have polluted results because what if someone in the Control group has the exact paradigm that the others do. It will skew the results. SO you have to spend time understanding each individual again to ensure that the you have a clear paradigm. And no - not "well just use skeptics" because being a skeptic and disbelief in spellwork is part of a paradigm. I know I said wrapping all the individual up into their personhood included beliefs, but this is why I cut that off at the top of the post. For this exact reason.
So we are back to individual scale on these kinds of experiments. Which is extremely annoying to do for any kind of large scale proving situation.
Additionally, this presumes another thing - the spell will always work for everyone and anyone performing it (or should for the ones with the paradigm). Which is just not true. Again people bring their baggage into the casting, it could be literally someone who casted a spell on them to disrupt their efforts, etc. It could be that person pissed off a spirit last week and that spirit is actively following them and working against them.
Spells never work 100% of the time. I believe that very strongly, and I think anyone who is telling you there is a 100% success rate is trying to convince you of greatness. You can't even get 100% perfection on throwing balled up papers to the trash can - why would spells be the same?
But let's move on to another measurement in what kind of spell are we choosing. How would you measure success as well? How can you measure a protection spell? How can you measure a luck spell? How can you measure a monetary spell? A job application spell?
The measuring the outcome of the spell is also extremely difficult and can be subjective. So now you need to figure out what is a threshold of success - which might be used for the Control group who also would have some level of subjectivity. At what point would you consider a spell successful on the individual level, at what point would you consider a spell successful on the group level? You'd need a lot of survey and other concrete data points to really focus in.
I tend to stick with the "did it do the thing it was casting for?" as my success matrix because like I said, it's extremely subjective. So I try to remove the subjectivity.
So that leads to experiments that have very specific notions, days, amounts, or things. Like the Cobblah spell - which has a 7 day timeframe but honestly, fails for most people except that it haunts their days and weeks and months afterwards (still a failure for a spell, but an interesting spirit component when thinking about interacting with that post). Now I have worked this exact same spell format with a day count successfully mostly every other time, for things like bills (usually have a concrete due date), or things I am owed or for other food items. But cobblah be damned on the 7 days time limit.
How to craft a spell that forces the limits on a specific things which can make for measuring easier? It takes a really good spell crafter and even then it's not perfect. Because how are you going to get peaches to places where they don't even grow or are extremely expensive, it could turn into a Peach Cobblah candle instead of a peach cobblah itself (another failure, in my mind). Though I have some thoughts here about spellwork, working no matter what conditions based entirely on the fact that you cast it because that's my natural paradigm (The only truly failed spell, is the one uncast).
But all of this is at a level of rigor that objectively would be accepted by science. There probably even more rigor that would be added to this experiment that isn't fully covered here. But my point is to exemplify it's more than just simply gathering people up to a common goal and then seeing it works out.
Like we could go with a blind study (how to make it a double blind where the people conducting it are also not aware is boggling), but then we could test the opposite because it's easier for a blind study - for instance, a "spell" (a series of actions) that isn't a spell, and also not tell people it's a spell. And make up a story and then have people mimic the actions together and measure how much of their life maybe has changes in specific areas while surveying them for all things.
But again, anyone can cast any spells. But also, anything can become a spell.
So what happens if the not a spell turns into a spell.
There's plenty of people turning not a spells into spells.
This is where we kind of land in the building of this large scale experiment. We struggle with the structure of the experiment, identifying our groups, the measurement of the success, and the actual thing we are testing. Additionally, science dislike working in what they view as the religious or spiritual aspects of things (like why don't we measure how prayer works, for example) because it brings some level of weird repetition and people cherry pick studies that might have ethical issues for reasons beyond just providing something works.
This is why I only discuss experimentation and setting up experiments for spellwork in the individual case. It simplifies across the board. Because it doesn't matter what we are doing we can make that entire prospect an individual focus, we can throw out things and move forward.
It does mean that it's not replicatable at scale. It means you have to rely on First person accounts of things. Which - is a different kind of science's bread and butter. Which is why you should listen to those individuals talking to you about such things, because it is their First Person account. And then we can go from there to make larger assessments. "But everyone says spells work, how have they proved it?" - is, in my opinion, exclusively denying First Person accounts as valid.
"but they could be lying!!" -stamps foot, whining face-
Accusing people of lying off the bat or at minimum, assuming they are lying, definitely helps to give you an objective stance so craved for in science right? It definitely doesn't make you cherry pick things to reach into what's the word, the bias of the situation?
This is why I bypass all of that. Do a spell. Any single.
Here's one:
https://www.llewellyn.com/spell.php?spell_id=10076
"but it has spirits in it!!!!" -stamping foot and whining louder-
It shouldn't matter? Right? This is a liar's creation, there should be no effects including Psychological, right? (because there are people who have paradigms in the psychological).
And tell us how it goes. Welcome to the First Person account.
