So Sophie,

Thanks for answering my question on how to deprogram myself of my Catholism. However, although you are a sayer of sooth, I think I'm going to have to challenge you on this one.

You wrote:

"Convince yourself that if all of your friends are adopting a certain standard of behavior then it must be right."

I cannot accept this, for I have heard too many times upon questioning the church that "the Catholic church has been around for 2000 years, and millions of people belong to it, therefore, it must be right"

So, what Sophie? I should look around me and see what people are doing and adopt their practices? How do I know which one is really right? I see millions of people downloading music off the internet and stealing cable, are those things right because lots of people do them? Lots of people smoke crack, is that right? Lots of people are murders or thieves or just plain bitches and assholes. How do I know which way of life to adopt if I am to look around and convince myself that what everyone else is doing is 'right'?

-Still sinning

Hey Sinning,

ell, I'm glad to see you're at least trying to develop some sort of capacity for independent thought, rather than blindly accepting whatever it is that an authority figure tells you to do. This is an improvement, at least. Your critical thinking ability, however, remains at a level that needs development.

You asked me how to deprogram yourself from Catholicism and its teachings, not how to learn to think for yourself. These are two entirely different things and before you go jumping all over my advice, it might behoove you to think about what I said. When I told you to go to your non-christian friends, see how they were conducting themselves, and convince yourself that the way they were doing things was right, it was to get you to try to break away from the Catholic groupthink, not to totally get you running on your own just yet. If you want to make a successful break from that sort of cultish brainwashing, you have to start small. A complete revolution in thinking would shock your system and send you running back into the safety of the church. I don't want that for you.

Starting out by watching what others do is intended to get you to accept that other points of view and ways of living are also perfectly acceptable. What I wanted you to realize is that other lifestyles each have their own relative merits and while not perfect, may be better suited for you.

Now, when you ask me whether it's all right to steal cars and steal music just because lots of other people are already doing it, I think you know the answer to that one. You are deliberately taking the letter of what I said and misinterpreting it to suit your own twisted sense of decency, and this I will not have. You know what I meant. Adopting a non-cult lifestyle is hardly the same thing as going on a crime spree and justifying it to yourself. You sit down for a minute when you're not chemically altered and think about it for a while. This will all start to make sense, I promise.

So Sophie,

I have been working diligently 2-3 hours a day on my telekinesis but it isn't working. What am I doing wrong?

-Motionless

Hey Motionless,

rying to develop telekinesis is going to take a lot longer than a couple of weeks. Your 2-3 hour per day practice regimen is a good place to start, but it you haven't got the right sort of practicing, then you're going to be shit out of luck no matter how long you try. How do you know you're trying to do it right? Do you have a telekinetic frined who is teaching you? Are you trying to develop this skill all on your own?

As we all know, having someone who knows the skills that you are trying to learn will greatly facilitate your mastery of said skill. Get some telekinetic friends. If you know any Jedi, that will work, too. Telekinesis is all about using the Force anyway, but under a different name.

You can't just sit around and think about how cool it would be to have these powers. You have to try thinking about it with different parts of your brain. The part of the brain that controls what kind of pizza you consume on a regular basis will be useless in this situation. The trick is figuring out which part of the brain is the right part. We really only use about 10% of the capability of the mind, but accessing the rest is rather like breaking into a boarded up building without any tools: it'd be cool to get in and explore, but trying to get access in the first place will be tricky and it's tough to know where to start.

Good luck. Happy motion!