![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
enthusiastickSo Because Its Wednesday, let's talk about divination for a minute. I tend to take a fairly skeptical view of the whole practice. Its not that I don't believe in prescience, its just that I think its an incredibly rare gift. I practice cartomancy, but I do so almost exclusively on myself. I view it more as a psychological exercise than a religious one. Its spiritual, but it deals primarily in personal spirituality. The symbols were selected precisely because they resonate. Doing a tarot reading for yourself is like looking into a mirror -- only in terms of analysis its probably more useful than simply looking in a mirror would be. There's more of a process to it, for one thing, and the exercise also helps to draw your focus further inward than the potentially distracting image of your own reflection might.
And, with few exceptions, that's the way I feel about all sorts of divinatory practices. From astrology to I-Ching to runes, it is my considered opinion that most of the value is derived from self-reflection through established symbols, rather than from supernatural sources. I believe these tools allow human beings to utilize their perceptions in ways they otherwise might not, and thus to "see" things that might otherwise escape their notice. We're possessed of a fairly tremendous capacity; our subconscious is aware of details our conscious mind overlooks, and as a result sometimes a part of your mind you don't generally take the time to check in with is better informed about the situation than the rest of you. Its not merely a matter of a fresh perspective, although sometimes that alone is enough. The fact of the matter is that your brain is a fabulous analytical tool, and sometimes you need a little nudge to get all of the best output from it.
All of this, I should point out, marks me as an unbeliever in the eyes of many. What I'm discussing here is, if not precisely scientific, at the very least rational and philosophical. I'm not positing any sixth senses or inner eyes or collective unconsciouses. I don't embrace the notion that fortune-telling is outside the realm of human understanding, because that presents me with a number of insoluble contradictions. And because I don't categorize the practice as firmly outside of science, where most people seem to think all magic resides, I have been accused of lacking faith. Which is fine with me, I guess. I have faith, just not especially in this. I don't need to have faith in divination. In fact I'm not sure I could. I've got too much data. I've seen how it works and I've seen where it fails. Faith is not the same as blind trust, and in the end I worry that's what's being asked of me when people insist I ought to "believe" in astrology.
There is, however, one divinatory practice that this theory does not account for, at least not completely. Its a relatively young one, in the scheme of things, and its one I practice (albeit sometimes involuntarily.) And I cannot for the life of me puzzle it out in the same sort of rational way that I do all the other types of fortune-telling. I'm talking about radiomancy, which is sort of a modern reinvention of the practice of bibliomancy. Bibliomancy involves opening a book, generally the Bible in Western culture, to a page at random, closing your eyes and jabbing your finger at the text. Whatever passage you land on supposedly has relevance to your current dilemma. Radiomancy, the modern era bastard child of bibliomancy, is exactly what it sounds like. Rather than opening a book at random you turn on your radio and spin the dial... or at least that's how the practice began. Nowadays its equally easy to set your iTunes to shuffle, and doing so yields arguably more personalized results.
If I were really a good skeptic, really a true rationalist, the phenomenon would be explainable. I only notice it when it works, I might say, or I ascribe greater meaning than is present, again as a mechanism of internal reflection. Computers are just tools, just physical objects we as human beings built. Chaos is not truly a force in the way it is often popularly portrayed; it has no intellect. Random selection is just that. Its utterly random, its white noise that's coincidentally going to resemble something every now and again, in the same way a rorschach does. But apparently I'm not a good skeptic. Past experience has forced me to conclude that there is something more than that going on. Something happening in the interface of man and machine that my simple, pseudoscientific explanations simply will not make sense of. How's that for an unbeliever?
And, with few exceptions, that's the way I feel about all sorts of divinatory practices. From astrology to I-Ching to runes, it is my considered opinion that most of the value is derived from self-reflection through established symbols, rather than from supernatural sources. I believe these tools allow human beings to utilize their perceptions in ways they otherwise might not, and thus to "see" things that might otherwise escape their notice. We're possessed of a fairly tremendous capacity; our subconscious is aware of details our conscious mind overlooks, and as a result sometimes a part of your mind you don't generally take the time to check in with is better informed about the situation than the rest of you. Its not merely a matter of a fresh perspective, although sometimes that alone is enough. The fact of the matter is that your brain is a fabulous analytical tool, and sometimes you need a little nudge to get all of the best output from it.
All of this, I should point out, marks me as an unbeliever in the eyes of many. What I'm discussing here is, if not precisely scientific, at the very least rational and philosophical. I'm not positing any sixth senses or inner eyes or collective unconsciouses. I don't embrace the notion that fortune-telling is outside the realm of human understanding, because that presents me with a number of insoluble contradictions. And because I don't categorize the practice as firmly outside of science, where most people seem to think all magic resides, I have been accused of lacking faith. Which is fine with me, I guess. I have faith, just not especially in this. I don't need to have faith in divination. In fact I'm not sure I could. I've got too much data. I've seen how it works and I've seen where it fails. Faith is not the same as blind trust, and in the end I worry that's what's being asked of me when people insist I ought to "believe" in astrology.
There is, however, one divinatory practice that this theory does not account for, at least not completely. Its a relatively young one, in the scheme of things, and its one I practice (albeit sometimes involuntarily.) And I cannot for the life of me puzzle it out in the same sort of rational way that I do all the other types of fortune-telling. I'm talking about radiomancy, which is sort of a modern reinvention of the practice of bibliomancy. Bibliomancy involves opening a book, generally the Bible in Western culture, to a page at random, closing your eyes and jabbing your finger at the text. Whatever passage you land on supposedly has relevance to your current dilemma. Radiomancy, the modern era bastard child of bibliomancy, is exactly what it sounds like. Rather than opening a book at random you turn on your radio and spin the dial... or at least that's how the practice began. Nowadays its equally easy to set your iTunes to shuffle, and doing so yields arguably more personalized results.
If I were really a good skeptic, really a true rationalist, the phenomenon would be explainable. I only notice it when it works, I might say, or I ascribe greater meaning than is present, again as a mechanism of internal reflection. Computers are just tools, just physical objects we as human beings built. Chaos is not truly a force in the way it is often popularly portrayed; it has no intellect. Random selection is just that. Its utterly random, its white noise that's coincidentally going to resemble something every now and again, in the same way a rorschach does. But apparently I'm not a good skeptic. Past experience has forced me to conclude that there is something more than that going on. Something happening in the interface of man and machine that my simple, pseudoscientific explanations simply will not make sense of. How's that for an unbeliever?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-16 08:01 pm (UTC)what is thine take on synchronicity? would you categorize this in the same realm as bibliomancy?
tarot has always been very difficult for me for the simple reason that i cannot give myself a reading without becoming so flustered and confused that i tend to want to throw the whole deck into a pile of mud and then bury them forever...reading them for other people, however is an entirely different story
it's the same with astrology for me...i don't really understand how to perceive my natal chart, but with others i've gained a bit of a knack for it
which deck do you use if you don't mind me asking?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-17 01:28 am (UTC)I use a couple of different decks, including one I made that's just note cards, depending upon my needs. The one I use most commonly is, embarassingly, not really intended to be used as an actual tarot deck. But I don't care, it works best for me.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-17 03:37 am (UTC)