A look into the crazy world of Fringe Science.

Fringe Science

by Jimmy Smith

Precognition

Precognition is a form of extra sensory perception about places or events before they ever occur.  J. W. Dunne was the first known person to publish a book about Precognition in 1927 when he released An Experiment With Time in 1927.  His studies were based on his own dreams where he would have dreams about events that would happen the next day.  More recently Joseph Bank Rhine did an experiment where he told a patient to guess the order of a deck of cards before he shuffled and the patient was correct.  Critics believe that Precognition doesn’t exist and that individual is often wrong and only focuses on when there right and erases out of the mind the time when they were wrong.

Suspended Animation

Suspended animation is slowing life processes using external forces without killing the organism, such as breathing and heart rate.  The best known example of this was in June 2005 scientist from Pittsburgh claimed that they had bring dogs back to life after being clinically dead for three hours by draining their blood and injected a low temperature solution in there circulatory system.  Three hours later they pumped there blood back in and revived them by a electrical shock to the heart.  Although the dogs survived some of them began to become unstable and were described as zombie like.  This experiment has never been tried on humans for fear of something similar happening.

 

Psychokinesis

Psychokinesis is the ability to use your mind to change the outcome of a physical system.  Examples include moving an object such as a spoon with just your mind or influencing the out put of a random number generator.  The early studies of this science began in 1934 when a scientist named J.B. Rhine was trying to determine if you could influence the outcome of rolling dice with your mind.  Many people believe in psychokinesis saying that they can cause a book to fall off a shelf or have to power to bend a spoon with there mind.  The James Randi Education group has offered a one million dollar prize to anyone that has the power of Psychokinesis and can use it an experiment.

Teleportation

Teleportation is the movement of objects from one place to another instantaneously.  Although we can send email faxes and phone call teleportation of humans is a long way off.  However they contain such a small amount of data.  The American Health institute projects it would take 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits of data to record every detail of the human body.  So even if we could transport humans it would take 100 million centuries to move all the data. On top of that a person would have o be destroyed into trillion of atoms and rebuilt in exact form.  Any mistakes in the rebuilding process would lead to neurological defects.

Source:  http://www.scienceray.com/Earth-Sciences/Fringe-Science.342015

Fringe Science - Teleportation, ESP, And Mind Control Robotics

By James Hewson

Fringe science is all based on unfounded concepts that have not been scientifically verified such as methods including teleportation, brain control, telekinesis, mind control, ESP, cloning, robotics and remote viewing to name but a few. This sometimes misunderstood science is orienting toward ideas that are generally powerless of being agreed upon by the mainstream usually because the world opinion of the inventor is unique and universally works with unobserved and unfamiliar energies and activities.

Fringe science is conducted with the purpose of becoming conventional science, and it could certainly not accomplish that if the equivalent methods used by mainstream science were not used to endorse it. To the uninitiated, fringe science is scientific research that differs importantly from mainstream assumptions.

The murky world that is fringe science is immensely unpopular with mainstream scientists and even more so between funding agencies, who favour analysis that approves or extends a mainstream opinion. It is occasionally revealed to be accurate, but only after stringent examination and substantiation. Even though there are patterns of mainstream scientists defending rebel ideas within their own discipline of competence, many fringe science ideas are progressed by people either without a conventional academic science credentials, or by scientists outside the mainstream of their own disciplines. They appear to struggle with presenting their ideas or concepts mainly due to conventional science being based on agreement and accepted knowledge, the art of the soluble, this experimental unorthodox approach certainly seems to bring the scientific community out from behind their lab coats screaming 'validation', 'analysis' 'acceptance'.

Those who possess the courage to explore the fringe sciences nowadays with an open mind will unearth that the very purpose of fringe science is in transition right now.

What does 'Joe Public' think about Fringe Sciences? Well, a recent survey has revealed that 88 per cent of persons in the United Kingdom were not aware that their Government had fringe science programs and 77 per cent thought it was a misuse of public funding. Over in the US the government has applied a sizable piece of the public resources pursuing the Fringe Science concept that fighter pilots can communicate with their military planes and indeed their controllers on the ground using only their thoughts. Experts imply the technology to create such a high tech appliance is around 15-20 years away yet significantly they feel it is achievable. This demonstrates the association between mainstream science and the Fringe elements which for the collective resolve (in this case warfare) can work together. Does make you sit up and contemplate what better more worthwhile uses this technology could be used for though doesn't it...

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Hewson

http://ezinearticles.com/?Fringe-Science---Teleportation,-ESP,-And-Mind-Control-Robotics&id=2053710

What is Fringe science?

Fringe science

Fringe science is scientific inquiry in an established field of study which departs significantly from mainstream or orthodox theories, and is classified in the "fringes" of a credible mainstream academic discipline. Mainstream scientists typically regard fringe concepts as highly speculative or strongly refuted.

Though there are examples of mainstream scientists supporting maverick ideas within their own discipline of expertise, fringe science theories and ideas are advanced by individuals either without a traditional academic science background, or by researchers outside the mainstream discipline.

Friedlander suggests that fringe science is necessary for mainstream science "not to atrophy", as scientists must evaluate the plausibility of each new fringe claim. There is also the possibility that a science considered fringe by the public will eventually become mainstream, but this is attributed to a lack of scientific understanding by non-scientists.

The term fringe science is sometimes used to describe fields which are actually pseudosciences, or fields which are referred to as sciences, but lack scientific rigor or plausibility. Scientists have also coined the terms voodoo science and cargo cult science to describe inquiry lacking in scientific integrity.

Traditionally, the term "fringe science" is used to describe unusual theories and models of discovery that have their basis in established scientific principle. Such theories may be advocated by a scientist who is recognized by the larger scientific community (typically due to publication of peer reviewed studies by the scientist), but this is not always the case. Mainstream science is likely to fail or make errors, but broadly speaking, a fringe science is in accord with accepted standards, and its character of resistance to change forms a mark of sound judgment as a reaction.

Some of today's widely-held theories (such as plate tectonics) had their origins as fringe science, and were held in a negative opinion for decades. It is noted that:

The confusion between science and pseudoscience, between honest scientific error and genuine scientific discovery, is not new, and it is a permanent feature of the scientific landscape. Acceptance of new science can come slowly.

The categorical boundaries between fringe science and pseudoscience are widely disputed. Fringe science is seen by most scientists as rational, but unlikely. A valid fringe science may avoid recognition by a scientific consensus for a variety of reasons, including incomplete or contradictory evidence. Fringe science can be a protoscience that is not yet accepted by the vast majority of scientists. A fringe scientist may make observations through the scientific method. Whether a fringe science is accepted by mainstream scientists has largely been based on the quality of the discoveries made by a given fringe science.

The phrase "fringe science" is sometimes considered pejorative. For example, Lyell D. Henry, Jr. wrote that "'fringe science' [is] a term also suggesting kookiness." This belief may be inspired by eccentric, groundbreaking researchers on the fringe of science (colloquially known as mad scientists ).

Comparisons

Fringe science can be distinguished from other controversial fields of study as follows:

Pseudoscience - Pseudoscience is notoriously lacking in rigorous application of the scientific method, and reproducibility is typically a problem. This is not so in fringe science.

Junk science - Junk science is used to describe agenda-driven research that ignores certain standard methodologies and practices in an attempt to secure a given result from an experiment. Fringe science, as in standard methodology, proceeds from theory to conclusion with no attempt to direct or coax the result.

Contemporary examples

Relatively recent fringe sciences include:

Aubrey de Grey, featured in a 2006 60 Minutes special report, is working on advanced studies in human longevity. Many mainstream scientists believe his research, especially de Grey's view on the importance of nuclear (epi)mutations and his purported timeline for antiaging therapeutics, constitutes "fringe science." In an article released in a 2006 issue of the magazine Technology Review (part of a larger series), it was written that, "SENS [De Grey's hypothesis] is highly speculative. Many of its proposals have not been reproduced, nor could they be reproduced with today's scientific knowledge and technology. Echoing Myhrvold, we might charitably say that de Grey's proposals exist in a kind of antechamber of science, where they wait (possibly in vain) for independent verification. SENS does not compel the assent of many knowledgeable scientists; but neither is it demonstrably wrong."

A nuclear fusion reaction called cold fusion occurring near room temperature and pressure was reported by chemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons in March 1989. Numerous research efforts at the time were unable to replicate these results.  Subsequently, a number of scientists with a variety of credentials have worked on the problem or participated in international conferences on cold fusion. In 2004, the United States Department of Energy decided to take another look at cold fusion to determine if their policies towards the subject should be altered due to new experimental evidence, and commissioned a panel on cold fusion.

The theory of abiogenic petroleum origin holds that natural petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits, perhaps dating to the formation of the Earth. The ubiquity of hydrocarbons in the solar system is taken as evidence that there may be a great deal more petroleum on Earth than commonly thought, and that petroleum may originate from carbon-bearing fluids which migrate upward from the mantle. Abiogenic hypotheses saw a revival in the last half of the twentieth century by Russian and Ukrainian scientists, and more interest has been generated in the West after the publication in 1999 of The Deep Hot Biosphere by Thomas Gold. Gold's version of the hypothesis partly is based on the existence of a biosphere composed of thermophile bacteria in the earth's crust, which may explain the existence of certain biomarkers in extracted petroleum.

Historical examples

Cases of historical note include:

Wilhelm Reich's work with orgone, a physical energy he claimed to have discovered, contributed to his alienation from the psychiatric community and eventually to his jailing.

Linus Pauling's belief that large amounts of vitamin C functioned as a panacea for a whole host of diseases, a claim that has largely been refuted.

Controversies

Towards the end of the 20th century, religiously-inspired critics cited fringe science theories with limited support in the scientific community in attempts to classify as "controversial" entire fields of scientific inquiry (notably paleo-anthropology, human sexuality, evolution, geology, and paleontology) which contradicted literal or fundamentalist interpretation of various sacred texts. Describing ongoing debate and research within these fields as evidence of fundamental weaknesses or flaws, these critics argued that "controversies" left open a window for the plausibility of divine intervention and intelligent design.

However, epistemologists have noted these religiously-motivated efforts are typically rooted in misunderstandings of science: the scientific method is often regarded as an ongoing dialogue which aims for perpetual debate and inquiry, and not for inviolable conclusions. As Donald E. Simanek asserts, "Too often speculative and tentative hypotheses of cutting edge science are treated as if they were scientific truths, and so accepted by a public eager for answers," ignorant of the fact that "As science progresses from ignorance to understanding it must pass through a transitionary phase of confusion and uncertainty."

The media also play a role in the creation and propagation of the view that certain fields of science are "controversial". In "Optimising Public Understanding of Science: A Comparative Perspective" by Jan Nolin et al., the authors claim that "From a media perspective it is evident that controversial science sells, not only because of its dramatic value but also since it is often connected to high-stake societal issues."

Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fringe_science

How Tarot Cards Can Help You... Really!

What Are Tarot Cards?

Made up of no less than seventy-eight cards, each deck of Tarot cards are all the same. Tarot cards come in all sizes with all types of artwork on both the front and back - some even make their own Tarot cards. The meaning and the message of each one of those seventy-eight cards,  however, always remains the same.

Tarot cards were first used by the Celtic people more than two thousand years ago. Many believe that Tarot cards serve only to tell the future, but this is not true. When used traditionally, Tarot cards speak of the past and present, and are supposed to give clues and ideas about the future that you are potentially heading into.

What's In the Cards?

Tarot cards are made up of four suits - much like any regular deck of cards. In fact, Tarot cards have all the same values as traditional playing cards: ace through king for each suit. Only one extra card is added to the royal family in Tarot cards - the squire, his position is just under that of the knave (also known as the jack). 

The suits are as follows: wands, which in general speak of esoteric issues such as spirituality or creativity; swords, which speak of conflicts and tensions; cups (or pentacles), which are always about money; and cups, which deal in relationship matters and love. The other twenty-two cards of the standard Tarot deck are called the Major Arcana cards, and are all very specific. Cards such as the Devil, the Tower, and Death are in the Major Arcana. 

How Could a Tarot Card Reading Actually Help Me?

When done traditionally, a Tarot card reading can put everything into perspective in a clear and understandable way. Every Tarot card reading is prefaced by a question, one that you do not have to reveal to your Tarot card reader but that you keep to yourself. Each card will come up in the past, present, or future position and will shed some light on the topic of your question. 

Whether or not you believe in spiritual or esoteric things, or even in the art of telling the future, a Tarot card reading can help you better understand your own thoughts. You'll realize potentially dangerous patterns in your life, and get a better understanding of self. Even the question that you ask in your mind can help you understand something about yourself, and in this way a Tarot card reading can truly help you.

Can Anyone Read Tarot Cards, Or Do I Have To Call Someone or Go Online?

Anyone can learn how to read Tarot cards. There are many books available, both in online and physical bookstores that will tell you the meaning and message of each and every card. Every card in Tarot has a card-specific meaning, and a message or warning. The good news is, there's no secret about what these cards mean to convey - so you, too, can learn how to read the Tarot. 

Once you know the meaning of the cards (and it's not something you have to memorize; it's perfectly okay to keep notes by you when you try to give yourself a Tarot card reading), you can read the Tarot for yourself or for others. Any book you read about the Tarot will explain the spreads to use - the way to lay the cards out to understand their meaning and placement in the scheme of your question. 

An Ancient Mystery

Tarot cards are more ancient than religion. Tarot cards are older than most languages and most writing, and yet they are still around and are still being used today the exact same way they were used thousands of years ago. If Tarot cards didn't help people, why would they still be used and still be so popular?

Author Bio

I have been studying Tarot for seven years and have incorporated it in my dailly meditation routine. My purpose for this article is to give others a free resource which can hopefully change their lives for the better.

By: Glen Wearden

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com - Free Website Content

The Power of the Tarot

Tarot readers have always given their hand at making sure a person receives an accurate tarot reading.  The tarot reading is extremely popular in today's society because so many people are interested in what the future may hold for them.  It's not an every day thing that you can  have your tarot reading done by a popular or accurate psychic.  

Many psychics from around the world have mastered the art of reading the tarot.  It is not an easy art to learn if you do it correctly.  The tarot can pick up on love, money, business or other types of questions.  I had my first tarot reading in Buffalo, NY.  I was getting ready to make some life changes for myself and I came across a tarot reader in a cafe in Buffalo called Spot Coffee.  As I walked into the coffee shop, I noticed a young man sitting down with a deck of tarot cards.  I never had a psychic reading before that day and I realized that I was about to encounter a different type of psychic reading.  The psychic shuffled their cards and asked me to ask the tarot cards a question.  I asked about location.  Where was I supposed to move and why?  What was in store for my future?  

As the psychic tarot reader shuffled the cards, my mouth dropped becuause I had some power of telling the psychic reader when to turn the cards over.  The psychic asked me to focus my attention on my question only and to take out any distractions that may have been on my mind.  I did just that.

A minute later he told me that I would be moving to a foreign place and one that I have never seen before.  When he told me Asia, I said to myself that he must not know what he is talking about.  I did not have much money and I wasn't about to take a trip to a country that I knew nothing about.  I left the table sadly and the psychic said to wait for his psychic reading to come to pass.  

A month later, I decided to join the United States Army and my first assignment was to go to Korea.  I was shocked.  My mouth completely dropped.  The tarot cards were correct, I was going to be stationed in Korea.  I did not know what to say because Korea was the only place that the Army offered me to go.  I was not allowed to go to Germany or even Fort Drum, New York which is known for its cold weather.  I asked the army if they could send me anywhere except Korea.  They said that it was not possible to do at that time.  The tarot cards were correct because I had no other choice at that time in my life.  I had to go to Korea because of tough financial times.  I realized that this was God's will and so I left for Korea.

This was the first time ever in my life that I became a believer in the tarot card.  I was not a believer before then.  I always went to clairvoyant psychics.  I knew in my heart that there was absolutely no way that this psychic could have picked this up on his own.  I did not even know this information yet. 

If you are looking to find some direction in your life, I encourage you to get a tarot psychic reading.  They are fun, interesting and have much truth to them.  Make sure that you go to a professional reader that has been doing it for years so that you can have the same experience as I have had. 

Author:  Psychic

Tarot Cards and the Language of the Unconscious

The system for using Tarot cards for self-exploration and as a way of examining life themes is, unfortunately, often shadowed by erroneous associations with black magic and such like. For example, consider the "Death" card: it does not refer to physical death but rather external

 

 

 transformation - i.e., the destruction of some aspect(s) of our old lives to make room for the new. Similarly, "The Devil" card pertains not to violence or hatred but rather sexuality (creative energy in its most raw and earthy form), and procreative energy. 

Most of the symbols within the Tarot revolve around the same four elements outlined by the alchemists of antiquity: Earth (Disks), Air (Swords), Fire (Wands), and Water (Cups). Like the Tarot itself, the Alchemists were often mocked and derided by "enlightened" minds that failed to understand the real intent of their work. They were, therefore, forced to perform their research under extremely repressive and fearful conditions thanks to the Medieval Church and the Inquisition. As a result of these pressures, their quest for spiritual expansion had to be recorded in coded language in order to protect it - and themselves. To the uninitiated, the Alchemists were searching for a way to transmute "base metals into gold". But in reality, the aim of their work was wholeness and spiritual union with the Divine (the soul's true gold).

I would propose two reasons why inner work often seems obscure and esoteric to western minds. The first relates to what I've mentioned thus far: that the explorers of the inner realms have, throughout our history, been forced to cloak and enshroud their findings in mystery in order to protect themselves. The second reason is that the inner world does not follow the same laws as our logic-brains. Its logic is the poetry of dreams.

The entire Surrealist movement in the early twentieth century was based upon methods of releasing conscious control over one's art and allowing the unconscious to express itself. The surrealists assumed that any material derived from the unconscious held inherently greater value than that which was produced by the intellect. Their approach was perhaps unbalanced, their philosophy biased. Returning to the Tarot, we can see illustrated in such cards as "Art" and "The Lovers", with their mystical wedding of opposites, the necessity of our conscious and unconscious minds working together rather than existing at odds.

Again we are dealing with a coded language that communicates certain insights to the initiated and appears as something entirely different to those unfamiliar with its symbolism. So how does a person new to any kind of inner work approach methods like Tarot, numerology, and astrology? By keeping an open mind and trying to shed any kinds of superstitious notions that cling to them. Then, over time, the symbols begin to speak to us and we understand, intuitively, what they are telling us. We become fluent in their language.

Author:  Seth Mullins

How to Increase Your Psychic Abilities with Tarot Cards

Tarot cards are an excellent tool to increase your psychic abilities. This article will tell you how to increase your psychic abilities in a way that will keep you accurate. You may be able to read Tarot cards miraculously well if you go by these simple guidelines and practice regularly.

 Our inherent human powers of perception of reality are far beyond what we are normally taught that they are. Let’s push the limits and leave those who believe the mass media version of who we are behind. Being able to read Tarot cards and really show yourself you know what they are is a great way to affirm that you have abilities to see beyond the tangible world. The more confident you become in your psychic abilities, the more you will be able to bring through wisdom. And you can keep tabs on your accuracy regularly by practicing with them.

The concept behind using Tarot cards for readings is that part of ourselves knows what each card is. There are two main methods of picking cards. One relies on the overmind to shuffle the cards correctly so the ones on top, as they will be picked for a spread, will be the correct ones to answer the questions. That means the moment in which a person is shuffling is sacred, and you must be tuned in completely at that moment to be able to pull off such a feat. Often, it is the person receiving the reading who is expected to do this, and without practice, this may be asking too much of a client. Tarot readers may need to explain to people how to tune in, go into a trance, connect with the over-self. People should be prepared to feel out what is the right arrangement through shuffling, and actually create what is the proper arrangement, their hands doing the work of the larger self, without the conscious mind being involved. But the more we can make the conscious mind a good conduit between the two, pure, and well refined, the more we can trust our answers. The practice I describe in this article helps make sure the conscious mind is truly transparent, and tuned into the higher self, and bringing that knowledge through effectively. 

The other method of reading Tarot cards involves carefully choosing each card out of the deck, one at a time, to answer the questions. This is easier to accomplish, as it is more direct, and you can feel the cards’ energy. It can be more casual, not necessarily based on a layout. I am going to concentrate on this method. It becomes a dialogue between you and the cards as you receive immediate answers and you can then ask another question, and tune into the cards, feeling which one calls to you. You may use this also if you are having a reading done, and the psychic tells you to pick the cards. In either case, it is good to know what you are doing, as you may be putting a lot of weight on answers, and you don’t want them to be random. You want them to come from your highest self, filtered down through your psychic abilities to feel or see which card is the one with your answer. You can feel the card by holding your hand over the deck, preferably your left one, as it is the more receptive, sensitive to incoming energies. Feel with your palm, or your fingers, moving your hand across the cards without touching them, feeling their aura. You can feel the aura. You will be able to identify it because of spending time identifying with each card. 

First, to train yourself, it is good to do exercises that improve psychic powers. Breathing in and out of the third eye chakra, in the center of the forehead, is one good practice. Ask that the energy you bring into your intuitive center be focused for that purpose. You may want to imagine the light you breathe in being indigo colored. Then, use the cards to test how you are improving. You can release clutter out of the third eye chakra, breathing it out, and asking for clarity to be brought to you. Open to a pure observance of being, releasing your own personal issues. You want to be able to perceive reality, not your own filters. 

Doing Taoist or Tantric exercises will take the third eye exercise much farther, with complex movements of energies. The more you commit to doing these very physical spiritual practices, the more you will cleanse the pathways of perception, open them for more energy to come through, be able to feel the joys of the energy moving through your pathways, and concentrating that energy in the central channel of your body, through the spine. As you do that, you can become the central channel, which can merge with the spine of the Divine, the tree of life. In Eastern traditions, we are able to commune with God through the practices, rather than remain apart. We are able to tune into that which connects all things. As you feel yourself being the central channel, you can also feel yourself as the energy moving through the channel. Feeling such combinations of movement and containment of energy is the divine love play of Shakti and Shiva, the god and goddess principles. As you feel yourself be the container and the contained, you can feel Bliss, and an overpowering sense of Ecstasy as you participate in their love. Feeling that will naturally increase your psychic abilities. Your frequency is being changed. 

Shuffle the cards and lay them face down. Then, to test the theory that we know what the cards are, pick up one at a time and guess first what it is. Keep a record of how many correct guesses you get each day you do it, and see if your odds improve. You are using a psychic muscle, so by doing so regularly, you should see a gratifying rise in the number of correct answers. I have been able to do this with 100 percent accuracy. So I know it is possible. 

How did I do it? I dedicated my life to this activity for a few months. I lived in the forest in a tent in a mountain in Colorado, and allowed myself nothing but a Tarot book with exercises, pen, paper, and a few toiletries. I climbed mountains, picked berries, which were my only food, did Tantric and Taoist exercises, which cleared my energetic channels, and amplified how much energy they could hold, cleaned the energy, made it vibrate at a higher frequency, connected my charkas, broke down blockages, and allowed clear access to my higher self. Eating nothing but living food picked right off the bushes gave me the auric fields of the berries, with their enzymes intact, requiring me to give up none of my own inherent enzymes. Breathing fresh, clean air with lots of life force and negative ions helped. Drinking crystalline water from the melted snow helped. Being away from electromagnetic interferences helped my own auric field be nice and large, and clear, and also kept the static out of my psychic readings. Having no other distractions kept my larger self focused on its goal. Of course, few people can do this, or would want to, but some version of this is highly recommended if you want to be truly psychic. 

Immersing yourself in the deepest meanings and the magic and symbolism behind the Tarot is important if you are to concentrate your psychic readings on the Tarot. To use them as tools for developing your general psychic abilities in general you may not need to delve as deeply into writers such as Crowly, who use the Tarot cards for dubious but effective methods of transmitting clues about such things as time travel through the etheric planes. You would still want to get a good emotional identification with each Tarot card, however, as it is not only a visual, but a visceral, palpable reaction we feel when picking up a card and feeling what is on the other side. 

Practice using them and also feeling what is on the other side of them, and test your accuracy by asking questions about things you can verify. You may want to ask about will happen the next day, or about details about friends’ lives you can ask them about. The possibilities are endless. 

The more you are able to go into a lower brain wave frequency, the Alpha level, the more you will be tuned into all that is one, flowing together, our consciousness, and the world around us. There are biofeedback machines available for this, and you can also tell if you are in Alpha brainwave generally by whether your eyes flutter when they are closed. Being in that frequency helps you be one with all things, and identifying with your larger self, which knows all. 

Being able to discern what you or others want to know about the world using Tarot cards is gratifying, and empowering, and gives you more chances to be of service to the world. Blessings.

Author:  Tantra Bensko

The Concept of Tarot Cards

Most people these days, in a world of technology and scientific study, seem to take the old fashion tarot practitioners not too seriously. Most people are logical and unusually sceptical when it comes to tarot, and they might second guess the idea that  it is possible to tell someone's fortune by the laying or spreading of cards from a deck.

Tarot has been widely accepted in many metaphysical and occult societies for a very long time. They arrived long ago and are dated back to somewhere around the fifteenth century, but they were not widely recognized and accepted in divination until the 17th or 18th century according to Wikipedia. Tarot cards have changed over time, by interpretation, symbolism and definition. Tarot is constantly evolving, changing and adapting to the spirituality of the individuals still involved in reading with tarot. Tarot cards used to be part of a game like a deck of cards. It is unclear to this day how the cards branched out into a business of looking into past lives and fortune telling.

According to Schuelers Online readings, Carl Jung considered tarot as an alternative to psychotherapy. His perception was that the imagery and randomization of each card and expression related to each card and the concepts portrayed in them were merely a reflection of the subconscious mind in each individual who decided to explore and interpolate tarot.

Over the years and many numerous readings, we can begin to find ourselves melded by our findings and readings as they affect our subconscious mind in many different ways and tend to lead us in different directions and open us up to numerous thought philosophies that eventually change and evolve into something much grander, than we once were. Tarot offers an alternative language system through which we can access in our unconscious. Therefore, we do not just randomly pick cards, but we take what we get with what is presented before us and interpret the meanings around the events in our lives to help guide us through them with a sense of guidance.

The act of tarot reading is a very powerful thing. Its power originates from symbolism and meaning created by individuals who dared to dream and see beyond the physical realm. For them, these power principles lie on the fringes of human experience that we need and use to survive.

Tarot  History,   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot, Wikipedia

Carl Jung & Tarot,   http://www.schuelers.com/chaos/chaos7.htm, Schuelers Online

Source,  http://www.associatedcontent.com

Aura: Auras and ghosts

Except for a few kids movies like Casper The Friendly Ghost and Ghostbusters, ghosts are not very fashionable these days. But at the turn of the century things were quite different. Famous mediums were renowned for the bizarre ectoplasmic apparitions they were able to produce during their seances. Witnesses included some of the greatest thinkers of the time, including Pierre and Marie Curie, and the philosopher Bergson.

I once had the pleasure of visiting Robert Tocquet, whom I have already talked about in an earlier chapter. Tocquet was very familiar with these kinds of experiments. Being a rationalist, he refused to fall into the trap of enthusiastic credulity. At the same time, he was convinced of the reality of a number of apparitions produced by people like Kluski or Rudi Schneider, both well known mediums.

I asked him how he explained these kinds of highly unusual phenomena.

Here's what he had to say:

"To my mind, the apparitions are emanations of the medium himself. They are representations of his subconscious. When a medium produces a familiar face, he does so be delving into the subconscious mind of someone who is present at the seance. I take as proof of the material reality of these apparitions the fact that mediums clearly experience a loss of weight during

their representations. Perhaps the phenomenon is caused by an unknown aspect of their aura emanations. Perhaps physical manifestations of their power, like the twisting of cutlery or the displacement of objects from a distance, can also be caused by this same energy field, once it is focussed and controlled."

Since science has still not been able to offer a satisfactory explanation for these phenomena, we can assume, at least for the time being, that Professor Tocquet may very well be right. 

Only time will tell.

Source:  "Mind Powers"  by Christian H. Godefroy

Aura: Interacting auras

When you caress someone's face or hold someone's hand, two auras interact, and an exchange of energy takes place. Therapists often describe how they are able to alleviate pain through massage, and how, after a session is over, they actually feel some of the patient's pain themselves.

Two researchers, Johnson and Mors, called this phenomenon the 'transfer effect.' Johnson claimed that what he found most interesting about his work with auras was that it showed that our beings extend beyond the limits

of our skin, that we all possess another body made of pure energy, which is in constant interaction with our environment, and the people we come in contact with.

Will the Kirlian device prove to be an important scientific discovery? Indications are that it will. Although its potential applications have not been fully explored even today, forty years after its discovery, there has been renewed interest in the technique of late. On the other hand, perhaps the greatest impact of Kirlian's invention will turn out to be symbolic - for the first time in the history of humanity, science and mysticism seem to be in accord.

Concerning the subtle or energy body, all mystics, from Zoroaster to Heraclitus, from the Hebrew cabalists to Saint Paul, are in agreement. The idea is the same in all their writings: "The vibrant substance that the Creator referred to as the 'breath of life' takes on a subtle form in the nervous system of all living beings. It is transmitted through all our limbs, and its sensations are perceived by the brain. This subtle substance forms a living organism which is just as real as our material body." (Quoted from Vie Great hut kites by E. Shutf, written in 1889).

Although we have not yet seen a complete fusion of scientific and religious thought, we can certainly expect to achieve a better understanding between the two modes of thought as we approach the millennium.

Source:  "Mind Powers"  by Christian H. Godefroy

Aura: Reading thoughts through colors

 

People's auras seems to be just as closely related to their psychological state of mind as to their physical condition. An unbalanced, nervous person will have a narrow, jagged aura, while a person who is well balanced and relaxed will emit a bright, broad aura.

An aura's color is an indication of a person's emotional state. Blue signifies a state of calm, concentrated relaxation. Red is an indication of violent emotions. Red and blue are the two basic color that comprise all auras. Distractions, worries or fears that arise after a period of calm will appear as red splotches mixed with the predominant blue. Anger will produce a large red aura (the expression 'to see red' is appropriate in this context). Red is also indicative of some imbalance in the organism, or of a physical wound. It is interesting to note that clairvoyants often perceive psychological problems as a reddish glow.

Auras are also linked to para psychological phenomena. It seems that telepathic messages are initially perceived by the subtle or energy body. Experiments conducted in the former Soviet Union show that auras react before consciousness. By modifying a person's energy body using acupuncture, paranormal faculties can be stimulated.

Source:  "Mind Powers"  by Christian H. Godefroy

Aura: Research in the United States

While serving in the Korean war, Kendall L. Johnson was disturbed by a series of premonitory dreams he had about the death of a number of soldiers in his platoon. When he returned home after the war, he decided to take a course in parapsychology at UCLA.

One day his teacher, Doctor Thelma Moss, spoke to the class about the Kirlian device. She said she had acquired a set of plans while on a trip to Russia, but so far no one had been able to reproduce the Kirlian effect. Johnson, although he was an insurance salesman by profession, decided he would give it a try.

His initial attempts proved to be positive enough for the university to allot him space to set up a laboratory, and for the CIA and NASA to send representatives to examine possible applications of the technique.

Moss and Johnson copied Kirlian's device (even though it was protected by fourteen international patents) and oriented their research towards the paranormal.

One of their experiments concerned persons who claimed to be able to reproduce the effects of magnetism, discussed earlier in this book They discovered that before the imposition of hands and magnetic passes, the aura of so-called magnetic healers was very strong (much stronger than that of an ordinary person), but that after a session the aura would weaken, while that of the patient would grow larger and clearer. 

They wondered if that could explain the prickling sensation, accompanied by heat, that patients generally reported feeling during a session of magnetic therapy.

They also tried to reproduce Kirlian's phantom leaf experiment, but failed. Perhaps their equipment was not as sensitive as Kirlian's own device. Professor E. Douglas Dean, using a Kirlian device manufactured in Czechoslovakia, was able to reproduce Kirlian's findings exactly, while Richard M. Szumski, director of the photo lab at San Jose State University, tried hundreds of times to achieve the same result, with no success, and eventually gave up. Two other researchers, William Tiller and David Boyers, considered their results too inconclusive to lead to any practical applications. 

Source:  "Mind Powers"  by Christian H. Godefroy

Aura: The Kirlian Effect

A Russian researcher, S.D. Kirlian, aided by his wife Valentina, finally managed to convince the extremely conservative scientific community of the existence of what he called an 'energy body’ composed of bioplasm.

Scientists around the world were amazed by Kirlian's discovery, and especially by its proposed practical application - the early detection of both physical and mental diseases through an analysis of the colors of a patient's aura, which Kirlian referred to as 'bioluminescence.'

Hospitals soon began equipping themselves with devices designed to measure the Kirlian effect. Here's how one observer described an image produced by a Kirlian device:

"... fireworks exploding against a dark blue background, sheaths of multicolored sparks in the midst of flames and dazzling flashes. Some light patterns had the regular glow of candles, while others were explosions of blinding light, which gradually faded. Some flew by like flaming meteors. In some areas we could see dark filaments of vapor floating in space. Random flashes outlined a sparkling, labyrinth-like structure resembling a spacecraft in search of new galaxies."

This was no dream imagery, or the product of some poet's unbridled imagination, but the report of a Russian academic after witnessing the bioplasmic aura produced by a human hand, as seen through a Kirlian photographic device.

The year is 1939. A technician in the city of Krasnodar is called in to repair a high frequency machine used for electrotherapy. He notices a brilliant  glare between the patient's skin and an electrode linked to the machine. He

tries to photograph the phenomenon, which turns out to be a variation of something called the corona effect, an occurrence that is well known in the field of electronics.

First discovery: the corona photographed in this way varies in accordance with the level of vital energy of the body emitting it. Kirlian could actually see the energy stored in plants and animals. He soon realized that diseased

plants and animals emitted less light, while dead plants and animals emitted no light at all. Intense bioluminescent activity surrounds every living entity, while dead entities produce no bioluminescence whatsoever.

Second discovery: the existence of a kind of energy body, composed of bioplasm, which is closely linked to the physical body. If you take a leaf and cut away a small part, the energy image emitted by the leaf remains intact,

although the part that was amputated become less bright. This phantom image of the missing part of the leaf confirms the theory of an energy body, and may explain why many amputees continue to experience perceptions from missing limbs, as if they had a phantom limb (no other satisfactory explanation for this phenomenon has been offered to date). 

Third discovery: Examining two leaves picked from the same species of tree at the same time, Kirlian noticed a difference between them. One leaf emitted small points of flame, a shape he had never seen before.

He learned that although both leaves came from the same type of tree, one of the trees had been inoculated against a serious form of disease. 

His conclusion: Long before the disease manifested itself in the body of the tree, it showed up as a clear pattern in the tree's energy field. 

Further research showed that the phenomenon was applicable to humans as well as plants, paving the way for the medical application of the Kirlian technique as a diagnostic tool.

After examining a series of Kirlian photographs, a surgeon in Leningrad, M.K. Gaikine, wondered if it would be possible to relate the photographic images to the 700 or so acupuncture points used by practitioners of Chinese

medicine and its variations. His suggestion turned out to be very useful, especially for practitioners of acupuncture, who were finally able to offer scientific proof of the effectiveness of their technique. As it turned out, the energy centers designated in acupuncture diagrams correspond more or less exactly to the dense areas of light, called 'sunspots,' visible in Kirlian photographs. 

Using Kirlian's procedure, Dr. Caikine and a Leningrad engineer were able to develop a device that could detect the location of acupuncture points to within a tenth of a millimeter (the device was included as one of the official Russian exhibits at the 1967 World's Fair held in Montreal, Canada). 

Source:  "Mind Powers"  by Christian H. Godefroy. 

Aura

"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

Genesis 2, Verse 7

Man has been wondering about the mystery of life since the dawn of time. Once all the chemical components are in place, how do you 'breathe the breath of life' into your creation? How do you transform matter into a living soul?

In Latin the word aura referred to breath. To mystics, aura represents a kind of halo of light, enveloping the body, visible only to those who have been taught how to see it. Others explain that aura is an emanation of the energy field that gives us life, and call it the subtle or astral body.

During solar eclipses we can see rays of energy, like huge sheaths of flame, emanating from the surface of the sun, while its center is masked by the moon. In the same way, our subtle, etheric body is masked by our physical body - all we can see of it are the rays of its aura.

There is an amazing resemblance in the various descriptions of the human aura. Yogis, theosophists, clairvoyants and mystics all describe more or less the same phenomenon. On the other hand, their observations are by no means scientific, so we cannot conclude that the human aura d(x?s, indeed, exist, simply because so many people claim it does.

Follow the sequence of posts on the topic with scientific researches and explanations.  

There is more to "AURA" than we know...   

Source:  "Mind Powers"  by Christian H. Godefroy. 

Telepathy and Emotion

Ask a question and they both say almost the same thing at the same time. She thinks of something, he starts talking about it. She starts a sentence, he finishes it. She is in pain, he suffers along with her. They often find themselves thinking about the same thing, and each knows exactly how the other feels.

Of course, we're talking about two people in love.

When you share feelings with someone you love, you develop a degree of emotiona communication with that person. Mothers get up in the middle of the night, feeling their infant's need for comfort or nourishment. A  husband wakes up in a cold sweat just as his beloved wife dies in a car crash thousands of miles away.

This type of telepathy occurs frequently. The works of Warcollier, Rhine and Vassiliev provide ample  documentation of incidences of telepathy between person involved in a loving relationship. Para psychologists proposed the existence of what they called an emotional field as a possible explanation of the phenomenon.

Any skilled researcher of telepathic transmission is aware of how important emotional fields are. In order to create the best possible conditions for success, various methods have been devised to bring the emotional aspectinto play (passionate interest, rivalry, mutual love, music, etc.).

The smallest emotional field concerns that of the ego itself. The largest is the feeling generated by a sense of communion with the universe. The kinds of emotions generated - sympathy, love, altruism, compassion – correspond to the different types of telepathic relationships. William James considered paranormal phenomena proof of the existence of spirituality. 

If you want to develop your paranormal faculties, you have to enlarge the scope of your emotional field. You have to try and live in harmony, not only with your immediate family and circle of friends, but with all people. In other words, you have to feel at one with the universe. We are all parts of a whole, in the same way that the billions of brain cells in your head constitute a single brain. Every individual represents a single element in a vast communication system called the collective unconscious (experiments on animals and plants have shown that they  feel, which means the vast communication system that links all humans should perhaps be extended to include all life). Imagine billions of human brains, linked through their subconscious,

forming what some have called 'infinite intelligence.' 

But being in harmony with others is only possible when you have achieved inner harmony. All the great spiritual masters - Lao Tzu, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed - had the same message: they all said "Love thy neighbor AS thyself..." not "Love they neighbor MORE THAN thyself."

To do that you first have to accept yourself the way you are, and come to appreciate and love yourself.

We stand at the frontier of a new era. In former times, mysticism, parapsychology, and human relations seemed to be in conflict with each other. 

Now, scientifically documented paranormal phenomena help prove that people really are psychically linked, rather than isolated individuals wandering around in a strange hostile world. There will come a time when what has been considered mystical or mysterious will, like paranormal phenomena, seem commonplace. There is nothing to prevent us from crossing over to the other side. In the same way that the mysticism of the past has become the paranormal of today, what is considered paranormal today will become the psychology of tomorrow.

The truth of astrology

Those who attempt to prove astrology through science perpetuate the early century belief of Bertrand Russell for whom "the only truth is science". This scientific vision of truth is a prolongation of the traditional conception of truth which has dominated occidental thought since Aristotle. For this philosopher, "true discourse is similar to things" (De Interpretatione). The same concept then returned during the Middle-Ages when Aquinas insisted that truth is adequacy and in Descartes' conception that truth equals certitude because it guarantees rectitude, an accord with the represented object. More recently, Kant mirrored Aristotle when he wrote that "it is only by judgment, in other words, by the relationship of an object to our understanding, that one finds truth and error".

Astrology's truth cannot be defined by these philosophers' terms. The individual who meditates on his planetary blueprint does find adequacy between the representation of the universe at his moment of birth and his inner life. But, as far as astrology is concerned, this remains a correspondence of symbolic proportions. And no symbolic system of interpretation is absolutely true, the symbol being characterized by its polysemy and multivocal abundance. The symbol's opaque language opens to infinite interpretations. Unlike scientific language which seeks to explain and give account of natural phenomena, symbolic language such as that of astrology demands interpretation and guides us towards the core of our interiority. The natal chart is not a conventional representation. It is a path of a hidden meaning, the meaning of a new unity through which we merge with the archetypal structure of our very being.


The truth of astrology is thus the truth of the symbol. While another truth assumes adequacy of the thing, astrology's truth belongs to the essence of Being. This is not a truth of agreement but of unveiling, like that in Plato's cave. Plato and the neoplatonic tradition gave truth this status and, during the Middle Ages, Saint Bonaventure reflected a similar vision, meditating that truth "does not come from existing matter, for matter is contingent, nor from its existence in the mind, as this would be mere fiction if the thing were not truly present. Rather, it ensues from the exemplary nature of the divine archetype which decides the properties and the mutual sequence of all things based on the sketches of eternal wisdom". This notion of an essential truth is found in Jung's process of individuation through which man perceives his own, singular verity. And so unfolds the truth of the Self which is also that found through meditating on one's birth chart.

Author: Alain Negre

The Zodiac as a mirror of the Being and as a reading grid

Thus, while neither astrology nor archetypes can be explained by science, we may perceive reflections of astrology in science. Some contend that the future may therein be deciphered. However, with the exception of certain works in mundane astrology, one might safely say that most astrological predictions would come out false if exhaustive studies were conducted. The supposed accuracy of certain predictions thus lies in simple statistical odds. If isolated national and world events, such as the changing of a government majority or the fall of the soviet block, have been successfully predicted, this accuracy most likely stems from the predictor's sense of history and geopolitics. Astrology does play its part, but only as a resonance on the grid of possibilities that makes up the infinite game of "astrological aspects".

Apparently, the solitude which often accompanies power leads certain heads of state to surround themselves with astrologers. We may only hope that their official advisors adopt the scientific methods of futurology which, while less poetic and spectacular, are better adapted to the modern world. For everything dealing with projections on the future prior to the astrology/astronomy split may be found today in scientific predictions. In fact, one of science's roles is to predict the future while specifying the limits of this predictive power. Astrology should no longer attempt to assume such a role. In fact, one might note that neither the founders of psychoanalysis nor contemporary therapists have encouraged predictive practices. The unconscious knowledge of absolute knowledge that resides in the deepest layers of the psyche allows one to "fly over time". In fact, this knowledge is out of time or moreover, it is distributed throughout all dimensions of time including the past and the future. Nonetheless, it is a diffuse knowledge, not allowing for the precise and exact description of a future event. One may simply obtain the more or less beclouded image of emerging possibilities which Marie-Louise von Franz calls the "quality of possible events".[26] The use of astrology to meditate on the unconnected events of the past in order to stitch them together and invest them with meaning remains valuable. However, too much speculation about the future, can become detrimental for it turns one's attention away from the here and now. This distances astrology from its only possible meaning at the dawn of the XXI century: to present us with the contradictions arising from the non-integrated aspects of our personalities as reflected in the birth chart, and to permit a dialogue with these contradictions, ultimately leading to the awareness of the Self - the essential wholeness of our psyche.

On another plane, astrology is called the "mother of the sciences". One might imagine that astrology's rich symbolic structure could inspire science to elaborate new tools, aimed at the exploration of the constantly elusive aspects of the real. As Jung contended, archetypes carry out an overall movement known as circumambulatio. By this, he means that they rotate around the central archetype, the Self - orchestrator of the overall organization. The zodiac of the 12 signs is a mandala (symbol of the totality) which perfectly illustrates the wheel of archetypes. It is harmoniously structured by the numbers and principally by the numbers four (the elements of fire, earth, air and water) and three (the qualities which are cardinal, fixed and mutable). In fact, it can be considered as a rich reading grid that uses a potential conceptual language, a sort of "qualitative mathematics". Thanks to its square and opposition features, the circular structure of the zodiac allows for both a diachronic and synchronic reading. Well before it permitted the delineation of an individual or collective narrative, astrology was perceived by the ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian, and Islamic traditions as the reflection of creation and the evolution of the world. Before anything else, astrology is therefore cosmogony. Today, scientific cosmology brandishes proof to show that the universe has a history. The universe had a beginning, will have an end, and by certain interpretations, is susceptible to cyclical evolution. Remarkably, the different stages of this history match the meanings behind the twelve signs of the zodiac. As new cosmological theories lose footing in the approach towards time zero, the zodiacal structure may clarify certain relationships, perhaps leading to a new scientific approach to the singularity of the universe's origin. Of course, this use of astrology must not confuse the manifested totalities studied by science with the potential totality illustrated by the zodiac.

Author: Alain Negre

Recognizing the existence of different levels of reality

Today's scientific spirit is slowly abandoning a strictly materialistic conception of the world and accepting the reality of a world outside immediate reality. Aside from Jung and the physicist Pauli, numerous researchers, physicists, and philosophers of science have come to the hypothesis of a transcendental field, such as that in the implicate order of David Bohm, the veiled real of Bernard d'Espagnat , and the subquantum field of Ervin Laszlo. The paradox is that physics, which in the positivist XIX century wanted to explain everything on a sole and unique level, has been obliged to consider at least two different levels of reality:

- The reality of macroscopic objects of every day life, governed by the Aristotelian view of identity, non-contradiction and of the excluded middle. In other words, a table is a table and not a chair.

- The reality of quantum objects, already evoked in regards to the phenomenon of non-locality, which is the expression of the universe as a certain, indivisible totality. If we try to understand the behavior of these objects by the means of classical logic, we find ourselves in a labyrinth of paradox. Such is the case of light which was first interpreted as a corpuscle and then, with the XIX century wave theory as a wave, until the emergence of quanta theory in 1930. Since then, we have envisioned light as being made up of novel entities that are both wave and particle. Thus, classical logic, based on the principle of identity, non-contradiction and the excluded middle, must cede its place to the logic of the included middle. This included middle reveals another level of reality where that which appears disunited and contradictory (wave or particle) is perceived as united and non-contradictory. Certain physicists cannot make room for this concept. Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond compares the situation to that of the first explorers who, once disembarked in Australia, "perceived in the streams where they sought gold, strange beasts with beaks and fur which they baptized 'duckmoles.' The Aborigines already had a name for the animal: 'mallingong' (or boondaburra). Unfortunately, this name was replaced by the heavy and scholarly 'ornithorhynchus' (or 'platypus' for the Anglo-Saxons) since the creature was not the combination of a duck and mole, but rather a newly discovered being. Similarly, the physicist who manipulates light with his instruments and describes it in equations sees that in neither case is light wave or particle nor sometimes one and sometimes the other, as is too often said ". We therefore move to a new level of deeper reality where identity, non-contradiction and the excluded middle simultaneously disappear.

It is in the framework of these new epistemological landscapes opened by quantum physics that one may situate astrology and determine its eventual connection to science. For this, a new rationality must come into effect - an open rationality which permits dialogue between differing sciences and inner experience. This new approach is taking form under the name transdisciplinarity. The name touches upon the two meanings of the prefix trans: that which is beyond all disciplines and that which traverses all possible disciplines. Article 3 of the Transdisciplinarity Charter specifies that "transdisciplinarity complements the disciplinary approach. Out of the dialogue between disciplines it produces new results and new interactions between them. It offers a new vision of nature and reality. Transdisciplinarity does not seek a mastery in several disciplines but aims to open all disciplines to what they have in common and to what lies beyond their boundaries."

Science, with its protocols, demands, and specific means of existence, operates on a completely different level than that of the mind-inspired quest for innerness embodied by astrology. Each decode the same potential unity of the real while working from differing levels of being. In his vast inquiry into the relationship between science and the soul, Michel Cazenave distinguished a hierarchy of four levels of existence between ourselves and Being, helping to demonstrate where and how science and astrology are profoundly united yet totally distinct.

1- The beings or entities : level of the psychology of the conscious and of phenomena that are relatively separate, and studied by classical macroscopic physics. Here dwells the excluded middle (a is a and not b). For example, Mars is the planet Mars and not the planet Venus.

2- The Totality of being : level of the total psyche personified in an individual, of phenomenal relativist physics and phenomenal quantum physics. Particular entities originate from these actual globalities.

3- The plane of Being: realm of the potential totality of the objective transcendental psyche, of the unus mundus, of the real at the roots of quantum physics where paradoxes and complementary pairs are found (conscious-unconscious, wave-particle). The associated logic is that of the included middle (a is at the same time a and b). It is also the place of archetypes and astrological symbols which may signify one thing as well as its opposite. For example, the symbol Mars may be manifest both in the destructive behavior of a serial killer and in the healing hands of a surgeon.

4- The Being: unknowable and imparticipable, beyond all contradiction and all identity as a is neither a nor b.

Astrology, like any symbolic art, draws on the last two levels of the above structure where the objective psyche and matter coincide in their potential unity. Science, for its part, only deals in separate, multiple and actualized objects from the first two levels. But, as Cazenave insists, these four levels are mirrored in each other, the last referring to the first.

Author: Alain Negre

Astrology and the potential unity of the world

Through his collaboration with the physicist Wolfgang Pauli, Jung came to the conclusion that the unconscious is not limited to the domain of psychology, but rather is related to the structures of matter. Thus, matter and psyche are no longer two separate, antinomic spheres. Their roots originate in a common original structure which Jung, echoing the philosophers of the Middle Ages, called the unus mundus. Astrology draws from this source. And science, through its roots, shares the same soil. For, the real history of science reveals how its founders worked from symbolic forms that rose from the unconscious. Kepler, father of new astronomy in the XVII century, was a devotee of astrology - an aspect of his personality tagged by science's XIX century historians as the "bad part". Nonetheless, new translations of Kepler's works reveal the integration of astrological symbols with his scientific research. They were, in fact, intermingled. They guided Kepler towards groundbreaking hypotheses which are the foundation of modern science. Newton, Kepler, and all the great innovators of science needed the symbolism of alchemy and astrology, or other elements, in order to invent. In any case, the roots of science always originate outside of its own field. Thus, as they are built upon a similitude between the unconscious psyche and the exterior world, one might say that all scientific or religious attempts to order chaos and mold reality are projections of the unconscious. Of course, science does not confine itself to the level of vision. Instead, it puts into place a process of discrimination and organization which, in physics, results in laws that are expressed by mathematical language. The human mind tends to seize these visions as if they were eternal truths, but the moment comes when observed events no longer coincide with a given vision or hypothesis and no longer correspond with the relevant scientific theory or model. At this moment, we recognize them as projections and the hypothesis in question must be abandoned for new approaches.

So science, like astrology, is a projection by the unconscious onto the unknown. The knowledge of the unconscious is an unknowing knowledge which Jung described as a "cloud of knowledge" and named "absolute knowledge". Only at this level of the unconscious' absolute knowledge, where the potential unity of the universe lies, are science and astrology one and the same thing. It is when man or mankind become aware of the knowledge of the unconscious, that symbolic forms, scientific concepts and physical laws can be generated. But, at this stage, a new level of reality emerges - that of developed manifestation. Here, religious systems find their uniqueness and scientific disciplines are defined. Here appears the distinction between archetypal forms and the empty forms of archetypes. According to Jung, archetypes, the nuclei of the unconscious, cannot be perceived by the conscious but rather are empty matrices which the conscious fills with the particulars of a dream or the elements of a distinct culture. Hence the absurdity of debates about the validity of such and such an astrological system and especially about the equinoctial precession. For roughly 2000 years, the Western world has used the mobile zodiac of signs because it best incarnates the constantly changing occidental way of life. At this level of manifestation, it is therefore an illusion to seek unity between the different systems of astrology or to seek a relation between science and astrology. Hence, the need to have a vertical vision of reality.

Author: Alain Negre

Astrology and Depth Psychology

One might say that astrology belongs to neither social science nor to natural science but, on the other hand, may be the object of a science: a science of symbolic forms, of religion or of the psyche. Today, an individual who looks into his astrological chart or solicits its interpretation commits a psychological act. For his part, Freud cast aside astrology and other "occult" disciplines, banishing them to what he called "the black sludge of occultism". Jung, on the other hand, believed that no element of human invention may be scorned, for everything has a meaning in the overall schema of things. Today, what was once seen as originating in the stars is now understood as a projection of the unconscious, and astrology may be interpreted only from this psychological perspective. Jung affirmed that the greater part of things considered psychic resided in the animated matter of the universe: "Since the stars have fallen from heaven and our highest symbols have paled, a secret life holds sway in the unconscious. That is why we have a psychology today, and why we speak of the unconscious. All this would be quite superfluous in an age or culture that possessed symbols."

Jung awarded a distinct and separate reality to this interior world which he saw as having been projected onto the outside world. He deserves credit for having empirically rediscovered the soul of the world, comprised of the multiple gods of nature which he called the collective unconscious or the objective psyche. For delving into astrology and other "ghosts of centuries of imagination", Jung was suspected of mysticism and even magic. However, he acted as a true scientist, describing his methodology in the following manner: "I observe, I classify, I establish relationships and sequential organization between observed events, and I even show that prediction is possible. When I speak of the collective unconscious, I do not present it as a principle, but rather give a name to the totality of observable events, that is to say, archetypes."

As Michel Cazenave explains , the clearest definition of the archetype is not that of an original image nor of the condensation of archaic residues of some unconscious substance. Instead, it is an empty form, an a priori form of perception, a structure of the unconscious which emerges in the world of the senses and remains hidden while taking form in archetypal images or symbols. Cazenave mentions the objective kinship between archetypes and the forms of Lacan's collective field as well as the empty but formative unconscious of Lévi-Strauss and contemporary anthropology's works on kinship.

Like Freud, Jung solicited the empirical method while rejecting an exclusively causal interpretation of psychic phenomena. The latter are even more clearly oriented towards an end or path to be followed which Jung called individuation or the fulfillment of the "Self ": the archetype of human totality. With his bold hypothesis of Synchronicity, Jung suggested that certain aspects of reality which remain outside the causal description of nature may be understood as synchronistic phenomena without regressing towards archaic forms of magical causal thought.

Thus, by the light of Jung's work, the planets and the zodiac signs are not archetypes, but rather archetypal images or symbols. In astrology, Mars, Mercury, and Venus represent the potentials of aggression, of initiative (Mars), of communication (Mercury), and of love (Venus), inherent in us and which we project onto those planets which seem to best incarnate these qualities. And the feeling of psychic coincidence that we may have in relation to the universe of our birth is not due to the physical influence of the planets, but instead to the fact that we are born in synchronicity with the universe of our birth. As Jung contended, "we are born at a given moment, in a given place, and we have, like celebrated vintages the same qualities of the year and of the season which saw our birth."

Author: Alain Negre