Universal Disclaimer: In many places in all my posts, 'New Age' means My Yuppie Feminist Denomination. Other New Ager's denomination's uniform distributions may differ. : -)

Have to rearrange this and fill in gaps and definitions, but here's a start.

Most NA's 'believe in' orthopraxy. Conduct and service are more important than theory. To follow the 813, 'purify ones mind and body', clear the mind of cant, etc, is the important thing. Many of us are in self-employed in healing or creative work. 'Sound mind in sound body' is what we focus on, so we can perform better in the conduct.

We do this conduct/service as individuals, or as small 'networks.' EG, if we want something reasearched, we do it ourselves, instead of through the government.

So our processing on the sort of issues that are sloshing around the ng at the moment, is aimed at a conclusion in the imperative. Pragmatic. Whatever story is told, what do I /do/ about it? So it goes something like this:

All statements are, er, statements.

True/false = more accurate/less accurate is an adjective applied to statements. To map, not to territory.

Statements can be true, ie tell us things, in different modes: literal, metaphorical, emotional, etc. Most statements are a mixture of true and false, in a mixture of modes.

Good (813ish) people do not make statements to deceive; whatever they say, they must believe it has some sort of truth (tho this may be in fact just very emotional/subjective).

So, at worst case, a good person is telling something true about his own feelngs/reactions. (See Korzibsky.)

Statements can be divided into < NA jargon warning > 'positive' and 'negative' (or a mixture, or something in between). Example: "There is no real evil in the world, nothing is impossible, never say never" -- is a 'positive', ie optomistic, statement.

Leaving out other combinations, let us consider only 'positive' statements made by 'good 813ish' people.

If such a statement seems unlikely to be literally true, we check for metaphorical, then for emotional. IE, we 'look for the grain of truth in everything (nice)'. We apply to current 'positive folklore' the sort of thing Rilstone did with Noah's Flood. What is the story telling us, what is the point? If the statement is "In the 60s we levitated the Pentagon," we construe that as "Some people shared a moving uplifting experience," or at least "The Beatles helped prevent WWWIII." We don't waste time digging for clues under the foundataions of the Pentagon … tho, hm, that might not be a bad idea, metaphorically … excavate enough of it, we might get back to No-Name City … and find Buddha there holding up a rifle with a flower in it….

See, that is one use of such Positive Folklore. Even when you try to disagree with it, the very disagreement leads you back to … something useful.

So -- we look at statements in context. Who is saying them, to whom, and why. What is his point likely to be, why should we care about it, and what if anything could reasonably be done about it?

Now let's consider a statement that seems intended non-metaphorically but is still unlikely: "If you follow that blinking star that is moving across the sky, and avoid those big eight-legged bugs, you will reach the camp of the Barsoomians."

The Strict-Occamites might dissect the brain of the person who made such a silly statement, before going back to their campfire and meal of rump of skunk.

The NA (holistic) approach is, "This native has been friendly and given us good leads before. He cannot be expected to speak our language perfectly. What could he be referring to? What are the risks/benefits of checking this out?" If the risks/benefits say don't try, we don't file the whole thing in Disproved by Default. We file it as Unexmined, with copies to Clues re Airplanes, Clues re Spiders, and Clues re Phineas Fogg.

I won't get into really crazy statements like, "Better plant the sunflowers here, because the sun rises between those two trees."

< insert example of child who can hear high-pitched notes but calls them "Martians whistlilng" >

Now we come to "George Washington burnt the Oatcakes". Not impossible, but not much evidence either. Throw it out? Or keep the picture on the wall as telling us what kind of behavior American Britons attribute to their founders? And useful vocabulary. And possibly having bits of meaning that would get lost in a more abstract statement.

Since the speaker is walking while she talks, that's one Grain of Truth: the result. As for the other, the cause…. We don't have sufficient data to disentangle the Oatcakes, 8-Legged Bugs, Martian Whistles, placebos, and None of the Above. We have a result, and a set of ingredients, and no practical way of knowing which (if any) the active ingredient/s were. What's to do but apply shareware rules -- circulate the story as intact as possible, so other people can try the recipie, while protecting the privacy of (by default) everyone involved.

Now, since we can't disentangle the Oatcakes, 8-Legged Bugs, Martian Whistles, placebos, and None of the Above -- what we have here is the whole bundle: a legend if you like. When a lot of stories match, a composite goes round, a whole thing about chakras and meridians and Pleadians and reincarnation, etc. I'd say, at least in my denomination -- it's rather like 'believing in' Bonnie Prince Charlie and Uncle Toby and and all that. Probably a lot of it is just legend, but not all, and it's convenient and polite to accept it as a vocabulary and a sort of rough working sketch (like the rubber sheet metaphor for gravity wells).

As for how seriously and literally different people 'believe' it … well, we don't need to inquire into that for most purposes. A metaphor-Flood Christian and a Literalist can talk quite a while about the moral of the story etc, without ever stepping on each others toes. We can do the same about the chakras and auras and past lives and such.

Now, the statement about Lady Magrat's healing was simple to process, because all the elements were Positive. (Worst case is somebody tries a pleasant exercise, which doesn't do anything. As for trying it over and over instead of having surgery … well, a Prime Protective Virtue among NA-ers is, if something doesn't work right away, lose interest and try something else. And surgery, drugs, etc are not to be panicked into….)

When it's a mixed statement, like "The CIA poisoned Rajneesh but devotion to Shiva cured him," my NA processing rules would look for a grain of truth in the Positive bit (rumor that devotion to Shiva is good for detox), and ignore the Negatives (since I wasn't planning on dining at the CIA anyway). And count the whole statement dubious, because of having a high percentage of Negative. (There's a presumption that people who spend a high percentage of time on Negatives, are probably just dyspeptic or something, and are likely to project negativity onto the outside world, and report false, er, negatives. : -) Whereas people who are .. what's the word for eu-peptic : -)///// … don't usually project their 'energy' out that far, they tell Positive stories about their children or their own Cantor sets or something. Aka "bad news travels faster (and further) than good". Default: bad rumors are more likely to be false than good ones. Good rumors don't sell as many papers.)

If it's mixed like "Geller bends spoons but charges $100 each," I'd stay home because I don't need any $100 spoons. And the whole idea of charging lots of money for a demonstration seems rather Negative. : -)

Rough Summary of NA processing:

1. Is a nice, competent person saying this? (How much rubber is meeting the road?)
2. Is there anything Positive in the statement?
3. What grain of truth could there be in the Positive part?
4. What if anything should I do about it?

Mostly, there's not much to do. Maybe a little difference in how to vote or where to donate. So most questions can be left Insufficient Data, No Action Required, and the parts filed under Clues.

When the Action Indicated is what most people would call 'belief' -- NA's usually talk about 'Affirmations', 'Visualisations', etc. And Faith breaks down to 'Bhakti Devotion', 'Imagery', and one thing or another. This avoids a lot of problems about 'believing in excess of the evidence', begging questions, etc. There's still a narrow area in doubt, which I spend all too much time posting about. : -(, but most of the territory is not in interesting times. : -)