I have a favor to ask of you, dear readers...
In the folklore of the Celtic countries, glamour -- the ability to push illusions on people, which faeries are said to have -- can be combated in several ways, but the most important involves a knife or some other piece of sharp iron or steel. There are traditional reasons for this in occult philosophy, which we don't have to get into here. It struck me, though, that it was worth experimenting to see if the same thing would help counter the glamour of the television.
The short form is that it worked. My friend put a small pocketknife, open, under the television, and the other members of his family basically lost interest in it.
I've advised the same thing several more times, with equally good results. In one case, the television just up and quit working; in the others, though, having a sharp knife under the television seems to lead to a steady loss of interest in those jerky little colored shapes on the glass screen. It also seems to have a similar effect on obsessive interest in the internet.
So here's what I'd like to ask. Those of you who are still unfortunate enough to live someplace with a television -- give it a try. See if you can hide a small pocketknife with the blade open under the television. Those of you who have home internet access, try hiding one under your router. Do this, and see what happens.
If anyone wants an incantation to go with this little bit of natural magic, it's hard to beat Kipling's poem:
"Gold for the mistress, silver for the maid,
Copper for the craftsman, cunning at his trade;
'Good!' said the baron, sitting in his hall,
'But iron, cold iron, is the master of them all.'"
Give it a try and let me know what results you get...
Here is a note from a follow-up post made about a week later (x):
At this point some of the results are in, and I've been able to draw some tentative conclusions and draft a hypothesis on which further experimentation can be based:
1) The effect seems to be real, and not just a matter of the placebo effect. Quite a few readers have reported immediate effects, not only on themselves, but on people who had no idea that the experiment was being tried, and who suddenly lost interest in television.
2) The effect isn't guaranteed. Not everyone noted effects. In particular, when someone else in the household was using television, the internet, or their phone as a drug to avoid dealing with personal problems, that person's addiction was pretty reliably not affected by the presence of sharp iron.
3) The effect can generate opposition. In a significant minority of cases, people who weren't in on the experiment found the sharp iron objects and removed them, even when there was no obvious reason to do so.
My hypothesis is as follows: we're dealing with a genuine effect here, but the glamour it appears to counter is only one of the factors in the phenomenon of television addiction. Some people watch television or use other electronic media obsessively for personal reasons unrelated to the glamour. There may also be other variables that influence whether a sharp iron point will decrease the hold electronic media has on people.
At this point, I'm going to propose a few changes to the experimental protocol. First, if you have housemates who aren't in on the experiment, use an X-acto knife blade or a steel pin taped to the underside of the television, internet router, or other object, rather than a knife -- the knives are too visible, and can get noticed and removed. Second, try to assess whether your housemates' addiction to electronic media may be a way they use to avoid major issues, and keep that in mind when assessing your options. Other than that, if you feel inspired to join the experiment, give it a shot and see what results you get.Â
