If a fool would persist in his folly he would become wise

~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

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INDEX

Coin Flipping 4-8

Cross and Pile 9

Flip Decision 10-11

Flipism 12-13

A Psychological tip 14

Carl Banks and Flipism 15-17

Decision shortcuts 18-19

Coin Toss Divination 20-21

A coin divination for Hermes 22-23

Coin Divination 24-26

Casting and drawing lots 27-30

Heads or Tails 31-32

Coin Toss Experiments 33-34

Four Penny Divination 35-36

Beginners Guide to Dice Living 37-38

Dice Life: a new hope? 39-40

Divination, a popular trend 41-45

Divination-What it is and how it works 46-47

Using Divination for Guidance 48-52

Divination Practices 53-55

Divination Research 56-63

The Power of Oracles 64-65

Ancient Divination Parallels 66-67

How to Build your own Oracle 68-69

Aleatoricism 70-71

Andre Breton and Chance 72-762

Coincidence 77-78

The Mystery of Consciousness 79-84

Dao De Jing 85-86

Creativity 87-91

Creativity Techniques 92-93

Destiny 94-95

Intuition 96-97

Luck 98-100

The Present 101-102

Randomness 103

Surrealist Games 104-108

Synchronicity 109-110

Uncertainty 111-113

Unconscious mind 114-119

Wu Wei 120-122

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Coin flipping

Coin flipping or coin tossing is the practice of throwing a coin in the air to resolve a dispute between two parties or otherwise choose between two alternatives. It is a form of sortition that by nature typically has only two possible outcomes.

History of coin flippingThe historical origin of coin flipping is the interpretation of a chance outcome as the expression of divine will. A well-known example of such divination (although not involving a coin) is the episode in which the prophet Jonah was chosen by lot to be cast out of the boat, only to be swallowed by a giant fish (Book of Jonah, Chapter 1).

Coin flipping as a game was known to the Romans as "navia aut caput" (ship or heads), as some coins had a ship on one side and the heads of Janus on the other. Later, it became the head of the emperor or, in parts of the empire, a local god. In England, this game was referred to as cross and pile.

The process of coin flippingDuring coin flipping the coin is "flipped into the air", i.e., caused to both rise and rotate about an axis parallel to its flat surfaces. Typically, agreement is reached that one person will explicitly assign the action that will ensue from one positioning of the coin, and another, presumed to have the opposite interest or to be impartial, performs the following steps:

resting the coin mostly on nail of the thumb of the dominant hand with a small amount of the coin resting on the index finger,

pressing the tip of the bent thumb of the same hand against the palm-side of the index finger, so that friction there holds the thumb back from extending further,

tensing the muscles that extend the thumb, thereby storing energy in the form of tension in those muscles, further extending the thumb, and sometimes slightly uncurling the index finger, thereby overcoming the

finger's frictional grip against the thumb-tip so it slips, and freely and rapidly extends, with it or its nail hitting the bottom face of the coin, cantered within the half of the coin that is less in contact with the bend

index finger, and thus

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simultaneously pushing it more or less upward and setting it rotating around an axis parallel to the circular faces of the coin;

optionally, suddenly raising and quickly stopping the hand involved, in coordination with the releasing of the thumb, thus imparting extra vertical momentum (but little additional rotary momentum) to the coin. (Depending on the skill of the coin-tosser, and any resulting horizontal motion, the optional upward jerk of the tossing hand may be needed to ensure the coin stays aloft long enough to get the catching hand into position, or for the tosser and observers to move out of its path.);

saying "Call it", to alert the party so designated to say either "Heads" or "Tails", designating the outcome that will correspond to the previously agreed upon outcome;

once it falls back to a convenient height, either catching the coin in an open palm, or bringing one hand down over it, to prevent its bouncing away, as it lands on the other hand or arm, and

quickly removing the upper hand from it, or avoiding interfering with it as it falls onto a sufficiently smooth and uncluttered point on the ground; if the coin falls to the ground, despite an attempt by the person flipping the coin to catch it, the process is

usually not repeated, and if the winner wishes he may pass the win on the person receiving the loss, but the loser can not make any choices otherwise, meaning he must accept the winner's denial.

all those involved jointly observing whether it has landed "showing heads" — with the side bearing the portrait or profile uppermost — or "showing tails".

There may be several rounds in a single game of coin flipping if the participants agree to this ahead of time, but typically there is only one; this keeps the contest quick and prevents the losing side from asking for more rounds after the toss.The coin may be any type, as long as it has two distinct sides, with a portrait on one side. The most popular coin to flip in Canada and the United States is the quarter because of its size and ubiquity; in the UK a 2p, 10p or 50p piece is favoured. However, participants will use any coin that is handy. Americans may also use larger, though less common, coins such as the fifty-cent piece, Susan B. Anthony and golden dollars, and the largest of all coins still in general circulation, the increasingly rare Eisenhower Dollar.

Coin flipping in dispute resolutionCoin tossing is a simple and unbiased way of settling a dispute or deciding between two or more arbitrary options. In a game theoretic analysis it provides even odds to both sides involved, requiring little effort and preventing the dispute from escalating into a struggle. It is used widely in sports and other games to decide arbitrary factors such as which side of the field a team will play from, or which side will attack or defend initially. In team sports it is often the captain who makes the call, while the umpire or referee usually oversees such proceedings. A competitive method may be used instead of a toss in some situations, for example in basketball the jump ball is employed, while the face-off plays a similar role in ice hockey.

Coin flipping is used to decide which end of the field the teams will play to and/or which team gets first use of the ball, or similar questions in soccer matches, American football games, Australian rules football, volleyball, and almost any other sport requiring such decisions. The most famous case of this in the U.S. is the use of coin flipping in National Football League games, especially the Super Bowl. A special mint coin, which later goes to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, is used for this purpose at the Super Bowl, and other coins in that edition are sold as collectors’ items; the coin used, and the collector editions of the coins are minted by The Highland Mint. The actual NFL rule is that the team winning the coin toss elects whether to choose which team kicks off, or whether to choose which team defends which end, in the first quarter; the other team makes the other one of the two choices, and then makes the same election at the start of the third quarter. Before the start of the game, and before overtime (if needed), the visiting team (or one so designated in a neutral site) calls said coin toss. A coin toss is also used to determine which team gets the higher draft pick if there are two teams with identical win-

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loss records and strength of schedule. The XFL, a short-lived American football league, attempted to avoid coin tosses by implementing a face-off style "opening scramble," in which one player from each team tried to recover a loose football; the team whose player recovered the ball got first choice. Because of the high rate of injury in these events, it has not achieved mainstream popularity in any football league, and coin tossing remains the method of choice in virtually all of American football.

In a soccer match, the team winning the coin toss chooses which goal to attack in the first half; the opposing team kicks off for the first half. For the second half, the teams switch ends, and the team that won the coin toss kicks off.

Tossing a coin is common in many sports, such as cricket, where it used before the game to decide which team bats and which bowls. In cricket, the toss is often of critical importance, as the decision of the winning captain to bat or bowl first has a heavy influence on the outcome of the game. Factors such as wind and other conditions may affect the decision, for example in outdoor sports a player or team may choose to have the wind at their backs initially, hoping it will change direction later in the game. In duels, a coin toss was sometimes used to determine which combatant had the sun at his back. In some other sports, the result of the toss is less crucial and merely a way to fairly choose between two more or less equal options.

The National Football League also has a coin toss as the very last resort in tie-breaking among teams for playoff berths and seeding. Because of the rules for such tie-breaking, it is quite unlikely a coin toss would be needed. The coin toss is the very last tie-breaker because of its being non-competitive. There was a close call in 1970, with a relatively-simple tie-breaking system in effect, where the reversal of just one game's outcome would have led to a coin toss to decide the NFC wildcard team.

Major League Baseball conducts a series of coin flips each September, the last month of its regular season, to determine home teams for any potential one-game playoff games that may need to be augmented to the regular season. This is done as a contingency only, and most of the one-game playoff scenarios for which coin flips are conducted do not occur.In the 1968 European Football Championship the semi-final between Italy and the Soviet Union finished 0-0 after extra-time. Penalty shoot-outs had not been invented and it was decided to toss a coin to see who reached the final, rather than play a replay. Italy won, and went on to become European champions.

Fédération Internationale d'Escrime rules use a coin toss to determine the winner of a fencing match that remains tied at the end of a sudden-death extra minute of competition.One significant coin toss in United States history involved the naming of the city of Portland, Oregon. Asa Lovejoy and Francis W. Pettygrove, who owned the claim to the land that would later become Portland, each wanted to name their new town after their respective hometowns of Boston, Massachusetts and Portland, Maine. Pettygrove prevailed in the coin flip, and the town was named Portland.

In some jurisdictions, a coin is flipped to decide between two candidates who poll equal number of votes in an election, or two companies tendering equal prices for a project. (For example, a coin toss decided a City of Toronto tender in 2003 for painting lines on 1,605 km of city streets: the bids were $161,110.00, $146,584.65, and two equal bids of $111,242.55. The numerical coincidence is less remarkable than it seems at first blush, because three of the four bids work out to an integral number of cents per kilometre.)In December 2006 Australian television networks Seven and Ten resolved the issue of who would be broadcasting the 2007 AFL Grand Final with a toss of a coin. This decision was necessary because both networks would be sharing the broadcasting of the 2007 AFL Season. Network Ten subsequently won the toss.

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In more casual settings, coin flipping is used simply to resolve arguments between friends or family members. Unlike Rock, Paper, Scissors, coin tossing is not usually invoked purely for amusement.

Coin flipping in fictionGeorge Raft became famous as the coin-flipping gangster "Guino Rinaldo" in the 1932 Howard Hawks/Howard Hughes film Scarface (1932). Bugs Bunny parodies Raft in the classic 1946 animated short film Racketeer Rabbit. Raft himself later parodied his own gangster persona as the character "Spats Colombo" in Billy Wilder's 1959 comedy Some Like It Hot: Raft sees another mobster flipping a coin and responds, "Where did you pick up that cheap trick?" Raft's coin-tossing established a distinctive motif used in numerous later gangster movies.

In the 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a state governor has to select an interim Senator, and he is being pressured by two opposing factions to choose between their respective candidates, Mr. Hill and Mr. Miller. Unable to choose, he flips a coin in the privacy of his office, but it falls against a book and lands on edge. Consequently, he makes neither choice and chooses Mr. Smith.

In the climax of Sholay, Veeru and Jaidev decide their next strategy over their encounter with the villains by tossing a coin (they are in habit of deciding over the affairs between themselves this way). It is revealed at the end that the coin used by him is actually a trick-coin (i.e. it would always show heads on tossing).

The 1972 movie adaptation of Graham Greene's novel Travels with My Aunt ends with a coin toss that will decide the future of one of the characters. The movie ends with the coin in mid-air, leaving their fate unresolved.

Two-Face, the comic book super villain (most famously as a member of Batman's rogues gallery), has a double-sided coin (both sides are "heads") with one side defaced—a parallel to his actual character, because one side of his face is deformed—which he relies upon for all of his decisions. He will do evil if it lands on the defaced side, and good on the other side. The coin is also representative of alter-ego Harvey Dent's obsession with dualism and the number 2.

In The Twilight Zone episode "A Penny for Your Thoughts," the main character buys a newspaper, and flips a coin into the collection pan, where it lands on its edge. As a consequence, he can hear people's thoughts, but at the end of the day he purposely knocks the coin off its edge, in order to get rid of his telepathic ability.Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead begins with a series of coin tosses that all come up heads, implying that the characters are suspended in one unchanging moment of time before becoming part of the play.

In the video game Final Fantasy VI, the brothers Edgar and Sabin flip a coin in order to determine who succeeds the throne of Figaro. It is later revealed that Edgar used a double-headed coin in order to win, allowing Sabin to live without the burden of the kingdom. This coin is also seen if Edgar is present in the first encounter with the gambler Setzer who is highly amused by it when it is used to trick him into providing his airship.

In the animated series Futurama, Professor Farnsworth creates a parallel universe. The only difference between our universe and the other is that every time someone flipped a coin, it landed on the opposite side. This leads to extremely different worlds and humorous confusion.

In the American comedy film Mouse Hunt, out of work brothers Lars and Ernie toss a coin to decide who gets to sleep in the only bed in the inherited house. The coin ends up spinning on the floor and coming to rest on edge—an extremely rare and unlikely occurrence—so the brothers share the bed.

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The Hong Kong-made film Shaolin Soccer contains a scene in which one of Sing's brothers is being asked to join Sing's soccer team, and he refuses because he mathematically predicts the team will fail; he uses a coin toss to demonstrate his point, saying it has zero chance of landing on its edge. When the coin is carelessly dropped later in the scene, the brother is amazed to discover that it has, indeed, landed on its edge and gotten stuck inside a small crack in the asphalt.

The DVD of Final Destination 3, has a special feature allowing the viewer to flip a coin to determine the outcome of the movie; however, the outcome is fixed to maintain the plot, and the coin flip is meaningless.

Isaac Asimov's short story The Machine that Won the War ends with a character revealing that he made his decisions based on coin tosses.

The final episode of the American television series JAG ends with an incomplete coin flip.

In an episode of Malcolm in the Middle, Malcolm decides to flip a coin in order to resolve a dispute about keeping a potentially offensive cardboard cut-out up in the store that he works in (citing that logic wasn't good enough). The coin is shown to land on its side, leaving Malcolm bemused as to what to do.

In both the book and the film of No Country for Old Men, Anton Chigurh, the story's primary antagonist, occasionally flips coins for potential victims. He allows people to place their life in the hands of divine providence, and those who refuse the chance to live are killed anyway, for their obstinacy and refusal to submit to Fate. The meaning of Chigurh's coin-flipping is left ambiguous (in both the book and the film), and has led to considerable discussion: commentators suggest, for example, that Chigurh views himself as simply following the will of the universe, or is "merely cruel," or that it is an inevitable outgrowth of his (perceived) atheism or that Chigurh is in fact a stand-in for fate, or alternatively that his adherence to chance is a way for him to deny responsibility for his actions and/or to displace that responsibility onto his victims.

In the manga/anime of Hunter x Hunter by Yoshihiro Togashi, a servant of the Zaolydeck family challenges Gon and his companions, Leorio and Kurapica, to a game involving a coin flip. The game is simple: The employee flips the coin in the air and then quickly grabs it before the coin falls, and then Gon or his companions have to figure out which hand did the employee catch the coin with. This proves to be incredibly difficult with the unrealistic speed of the coin flipper's hands. In any case Gon is very observant and is occasionally able to guess right.

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CROSS AND PILE

CROSS AND PILE1. A game with money, at which it is put to chance whether a coin shall fall with that side up which bears the cross, or the other, which is called pile, or reverse; the game called heads or tails.Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Specialty Definition: CROSS AND PILE

Cross and Pile Money; pitch and toss. Hilaire le Gai tells us that some of the ancient French coins had a cross, and others a column, on the reverse; the column was called a pile, from which comes our word "pillar," and the phrase "pile-driving." Scaliger says that some of the old French coins had a ship on the reverse, the arms of Paris, and that pile means "a ship," whence our word "pilot."

"A man may now justifiably throw up cross and pile for his opinions." - Locke: Human Understanding.

Cross or pile. Heads or tails. The French say ”pile ou face“. The "face" or cross was the obverse of the coin, the "pile" was the reverse; but at a later period the cross was transferred to the reverse, as in our florins, and the obverse bore a "head" or "poll."

"Marriage is worse than cross I win, pile you lose." Shadwell: Epsom Wells.Cross nor pile. I have neither cross nor pile. Not a penny in the world. The French phrase is, "N'avoir ni croix ni pile " (to have neither one sort of coin nor another).

"Whacum had neither cross nor pile." Butler: Hudibras, part ii. 3.

Source: Brewer's Dictionary.

Flip Decision

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"Flip Decision" is a Donald Duck comic book story written and illustrated by Carl Barks in June 1952. As with many other Barks stories, it was originally untitled. In the story, Donald becomes an adherent of a philosophy called flipism, in which all decisions in life are made by flipping a coin.

PlotLife is but a gamble!Let Flipism chart your ramble. —Flippist slogan, from "Flip Decision"

Donald Duck happens to enter a lecture held by a charlatan named professor Batty, who claims that flipism — the philosophy of using coin flipping to make all decisions in life — is the solution to everyone's problems. The professor persuades a confused Donald to buy a membership of the "Great Society of Flippists" as well as book introducing the "methods and benefits of Flipism". Reading the book, Donald quickly becomes a devoted flippist. When his nephews want to go to see a movie called Gore in the Gully, Donald uses a coin flip to decide that they shall take a drive instead.

The downsides of flipism begin to reveal themselves during the drive. Donald constantly uses flipism to decide where to drive, eventually getting lost, and ultimately driving in the wrong direction of traffic and colliding head on with a large truck. Donald and his nephews are physically unharmed, but Donald is sentenced to pay a fine for "letting a dime do [his] thinking", rather than the usual (smaller) fines for violating traffic rules.

Donald holds professor Batty responsible for his fate, and attempts to find him. However, the professor has disappeared, and Donald, despite of having lost his belief in the philosophy, resolves to flipism to find him. Flipism leads him to a house with two apartments, and he flips a coin to select which apartment to go for. Donald is unable to see the result (apartment 2) in the dark, and knocks on apartment 1's door instead. His

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girlfriend, Daisy Duck, opens the door, and it turns out that this apartment is the home of Daisy's unseen sister. Daisy is furious at Donald for forgetting that he had invited her to go to the movies that day. After Daisy has finished her tirade, Donald has forgotten about his search for professor Batty, and ends up taking Daisy, her nieces and his nephews to see Gore in the Gully.The final panel reveals that flipism actually worked in Donald's search for professor Batty, showing that a frightened Batty is located in apartment 2.

Themes and impact

"Flip Decision" introduced the term flipism. Similar concepts appear in several other works, including Luke Rhinehart's 1971 novel The Dice Man, in which dice is used instead of a coin.

Media studies professor Helge Rønning has interpreted "Flip Decision" as a satire over existentialism.

FLIPISM 11

Flipism, sometimes written as "Flippism" is an imaginary philosophy, letting all decisions be made by flipping a coin. It originally appeared in the Disney comic "Flip Decision" by Carl Barks, which was first published in 1953.

This can be seen as a normative decision theory, although it does not fulfil the criteria of rationality. Barks called a practitioner of "Flipism" a "Flippist" (with two P's).

OriginIn the comic book, Donald Duck meets Professor Batty, who persuades Donald to make decisions based on flipping a coin at every crossroad of life. "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" Donald soon gets into trouble when following this advice. He drives a one way road to the wrong direction and is fined $50. The reason for the fine is not the bad driving but letting the coin do the thinking. However, in the end, flipism

shows surprising efficiency in guiding some decisions.

Flipism in decision-making

Flipism is a normative decision theory in a sense that it prescribes how decisions should be made. In the cartoon, flipism shows remarkable ability to make right conclusions without any information - but only once in a while. Of course, in real life flipping a coin would only lead to random decisions. However, there is an article about benefits of some randomness in the decision-making process in certain conditions. It notes:

Though the author himself may have intended this as a rejection of the idea that rationality (in the standard sense) has some special claim to superiority as a basis for making decisions, what he may really have discovered are the potential benefits of strategic commitment to randomization.

Commitment to a non-trivial mixed strategy can be beneficial for the informed party in a potential conflict under asymmetric information, as it allows the player to manipulate his opponent’s beliefs in an optimal fashion. Such a strategy also makes the player less inclined to enter into conflict when it is avoidable. Coins and "flipism" have been used to suggest mathematical outcomes to a variation of the Prisoners Dilemma.

Another way of seeing the utility of flipism in decision-making can be called revealed preferences. In the traditional form, revealed preferences mean that the preferences of consumers can be revealed by their purchasing habits. With flipism, the preferences can be revealed to the decision-maker herself. Decisions with conflicting preferences are especially difficult even in situations where there is only one decision-maker and no uncertainty. The decision options may be either all appealing or all unpleasant, and therefore the decision-maker is unable to choose. Flipism, i.e., flipping a coin can be used to find a solution. However, the decision-maker should not decide based on the coin but instead observe her own feelings about the outcome; whether it was relieving or agonizing. In this way, flipism removes the mental block related to the act of decision-making, and the post-decision preferences can be revealed before the decision is actually made. An example of revealed preferences is embodied in the Old Testament story, the Judgment of Solomon, wherein King Solomon offered to resolve a child custody dispute by cutting the baby in two, and upon seeing the reactions made an award.

Still a third approach is to look at flipism as the endpoint of a continuum bounded on the other side by perfectly rational decision-making. Flipism requires the minimum possible cognitive overhead to make decisions, at the price of making sub-optimized choices. Truly rational decision-making requires a tremendous investment in information and cognition to arrive at an optimum decision. However, the expected marginal value of information gathered (discounted for risk and uncertainty) is often lower than the marginal cost of the information or processing itself. The concept of bounded rationality posits that people employ cognitive

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parsimony, gathering only what they expect to be sufficient information to arrive at a satisfying (or "good enough") solution. Flipism is therefore a perfectly rational strategy to employ when the cost of information is very high relative to its expected value. Compare Motivated tactician.

This is a commonly recognized decision making technique used in everyday life. Other methods include: (a) listing advantages and disadvantages of each option (Benjamin Franklin and Plato used this methodology; (b) coin flipping, cutting a deck of playing cards, finding a quotation in a holy book, and other random or coincidence methods; (c) accepting the first option seems like it might achieve the desired result (d) astrology, augury, fortune cookies, prayer, tarot cards, revelation, Methods of divination or other forms of divination or oracular device.

Similar conceptsAlternatively, dice or another random generator may be used for decision making. In game theory, negotiations, nuclear deterrence and diplomacy -- rationality, realpolitik or realism can

themselves limit the ability of a player to make demands, get its own way, bluff, bully or send a heeded warning; and therefore can increase the likelihood that an opposing party may engage in objectionable or unwelcome behaviour. If one knows the lines and can predict the response, than predictability and proportionality become a restraint, not a virtue. Consequently, 'taunting a junkyard dog is OK, if you know you are beyond the reach of its tether.' Thus irrationality (real or perceived) can be an important countervailing tool or strategy, particularly as a deterrent and if it engenders hesitation, fear, negotiation and resolution, or change of course. On the other hand, alternate strategies such as honesty, building a climate of trust, using intermediaries, sanctions, patience, process and reasoning might still be available, as might strategies like so-called Win/win bargaining -- which tries to reach an accord based on interests, not necessarily on positions, power, rights or distribution.

In popular cultureDanish poet and scientist Piet Hein once wrote a poem describing the use of coin flipping in decision making. One episode of Futurama featured the characters meeting their counterparts in a parallel universe in which every coin flip decision had the opposite outcome. Numerous characters in fiction have used coin-flipping to make decisions, including:

The main character in the book The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart (a/k/a/ author George Cockcroft) and later novelsThe Search for the Dice Man, Adventures of Wim and The Book of the Die.

Jake Nyman, a character in the film American Perfekt. The main antagonist, Anton Chigurh, in the novel No Country for Old Men and the film. The villain Two-Face (Harvey Dent) in the Batman series.

Danish poet and scientist Piet Hein once wrote a poem describing the use of coin flipping in decision making.

A PSYCHOLOGICAL TIP

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind, 13

and you're hampered by not having any, the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find, is simply by spinning a penny. No -- not so that chance shall decide the affair while you're passively standing there moping; but the moment the penny is up in the air, you suddenly know what you're hoping.

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Decision Shortcuts

Decision Shortcuts: Short-circuit the thinking process when necessary

–Decide Now – you have to make a decision in time for it to be implemented. Do not wait for perfect information if delay will impact performance. The worst decision can be no decision at all.–Look at each option and consider how they would impact your key performance measures. Then consider how suitable the options are and how acceptable they are to those involved.

Shortcut Methods–If there is no time to adopt an analytical approach, use the VSAFE method:

V – Value – check option aids objectivesS – Suitable – check option fits strategyA – Acceptable – check option is acceptableF – Feasible – check option is achievableE – Enduring – check option is long-term

–Try the coin toss method. Toss a coin. As you flip it up in the air, notice which side you hope for. When it lands, notice your reaction to the decision. If you are happy with which way it landed, you know you have made a satisfactory decision. This is crude, but effective for relatively unimportant “either-or” decisions.

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Some of the decision making techniques that we use in everyday life include:

–listing the advantages and disadvantages of each option–flipping a coin, cutting a deck of playing cards, and other random or coincidence methods are great decision shortcuts if the decision doesn’t mean much–accepting the first option that seems like it might achieve the desired result (see satisficing)–tarot cards, astrology, augurs, revelation, or other forms of divination acquiesce to a person in authority or an “expert”

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Coin Toss Divination

I’m talking here about making decisions. Something we do every day - and most of the time it’s not a problem. But I’m interested in when it is a problem, when we apparently need (outside) help. One peculiarity about being human is that we tend to think in polarities - as far as I can tell, we’re the only species who thinks this way, in a sense, perhaps the only species who “thinks” at all. Others seem to have a way of knowing that is independent of the ‘this or that,’ ‘yes or no’ struggles we undergo. The Old Testament story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden reflects this particularity - they somehow “chose” (or whatever ‘temptation’ means here) to eat of the tree of “the knowledge of good and evil.” Mythically, the world is forever afterward divided for us.

Many years ago I was given a useful model for decision making - involving three distinct steps: The first is “research” - which can take awhile (minutes or hours, possibly months or years). Here one studies the alternatives, asks for advice, mulls it over, weighs the evidence, etc. It’s very useful to keep this separate from the second step - actually making the decision. When the time is right (or necessity dictates) then one actually decides . And it’s usually a polarity decision - shall I or shall I not do X? - shall I do this or that? The third step is to never second-guess the decision made in step two. Consider this the next time you read a restaurant menu.

Here I want to speak about the second step - actually making the decision. And especially about the times when we “just don’t know” what to decide. I believe it’s our human nature to get mired (i.e. stuck) in the polarities of life - we easily get confused or lost. There are so many influences that work to divide our thinking world into ‘right’ and ‘wrong - but in truth, most of our daily life resides within the grey areas of life. It’s harder to just ‘know’ what is ‘right’ to do. “Just decide! D**m it, I haven’t got all day!” Here’s where I’ll make use of the proverbial coin toss. When it’s simply an arbitrary decision - when the value of the choice really doesn’t much matter (like carrots or green beans) - I’ll simply take a coin, state specifically (silently or out loud) which face of the coin means which answer. Then toss it. I’ll flip it up with my right hand, catch it with my left, then immediately flop it onto the back of my right hand - and uncover the results.

However, many years ago, I began to notice something quite peculiar. I’d notice that at the very moment of the toss results, I’d get a feeling about whether the coin’s decision was what I really wanted or knew somehow was the right answer. At that moment, the real answer could more easily emerge from the ooze of my polarity induced indecision. It’s as if what I really knew all along finally slipped through, “under the radar” of my habitual “right and wrong” decision struggle. More recently, I’ve made an ‘improvement’ on this technique, which is especially useful when I’m doing this by myself. I’ll make the coin itself imaginary - which in essence makes the process even more amenable to the processes of my unconscious (and often wiser) ‘mind’. And it’s true for me - I ‘toss’ the coin with my right hand, ‘catch’ it with my left, then ‘flop’ it onto the back of my right hand, and take a look. At that moment, I easily see the results - results of which my conscious mind has had no awareness until that moment. And then, extending the process beyond just an arbitrary decision, I check my feelings about that result - which reveals the real decision to me.

There are times when I’ll do this for another person in the throes of a decision struggle. I’ll flip my imaginary coin, read the result, then offer him or her that decision. And, true to form, at that moment they will know what is the really right decision for them.

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I can only conjecture what actual forces are involved here - which is why I just call it “divination” - one of the ancient spiritual arts of determining the unknown (or the future). It means knowing beyond our knowing - which for me is that ‘under the radar’ quality of this process. It frees us from the thinking-too-much that bogs us down and especially frustrates those others who want us to be decisive. I’ve learned this from paying attention - and commend it to you for the same purpose.

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A coin divination for Hermesby sannion

Hermes was connected with all sorts of humble forms of divination in antiquity. According to the 4th Homeric Hymn Apollo would not grant his brother a share of Delphi’s famed oracular prophecy, but instead gave him the bee-maidens “who know how to speak the truth” to divine with, and Zeus commanded that “glorious Hermes should be lord over all birds of omen and grim-eyed lions, and boars with gleaming tusks, and over dogs and all flocks that the wide earth nourishes” (568a-573) whose movements could predict the future if men were inclined to learn the art of interpretation from him. Hermes was also sought to grant prophetic dreams (Odyssey 7.137), presided over divination by knuckle-bones, dice, or pebbles (Apollodoros 3.115) and kledones or omens derived from overheard conversations. (Pausanias 7.22.2).

In keeping with this spirit modern Hellenic polytheists have come up with a very simple form of divination which is especially appropriate for Hermes since he is also the god of commerce and the inventor of money (Suidas s.v. Hermes). While it is fairly primitive and can’t expound on the complexities of a given situation, it can be quite helpful in a pinch, especially when you need decisive answers. And when used properly you can actually manage to tease out a good deal of information from it.

Basically, the system works like this. First you should pray to Hermes in your customary manner and ask him to grant you insight on the given issue. You may either choose to speak your question aloud or do so silently, as I haven’t noticed a difference one way or the other. Then take out three coins. Ideally they should all be of the same value, so that each factor is given equal importance, but if you only have mixed coins in your pocket that will do. Three coins is best, that way your answer won’t come out a stale-mate as might happen with four, an otherwise preferred Hermetic number, and you will also have enough information to consider the question properly. Using only one coin limits the effectiveness of the oracle, although in a pinch that works too.

Toss the coins and note how they land.

* Three heads indicates a definitive YES.* Three tails indicates a definitive NO.* Two heads and one tail indicates a generally favourable outcome, though there may be some minor conflict involved; there may also be some contingency you’re not aware of and should look into more; or consent is only grudgingly offered, and while it will likely come about, it perhaps should not.* Two tails and one head indicates a generally unfavourable outcome, one which has a chance of being salvaged though it will require a great deal of effort to do so; too little is known about a situation to provide a definitive answer; you should examine your motives and see why you’re still clinging to this hope even when you know that it won’t be.

There are other ways that you can interpret the fall of coins, especially in the context of your question, and as with most forms of divination you should allow your intuition to guide you.

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This form can be very useful when you are trying to gain a diagnostic understanding of things. One question can lead into others as you pare down all of the probabilities. However, as with all forms of divination once you have received a clear answer you should stop asking, as to continue is considered very bad form and potentially insulting to the divinity.It is also important to understand when to consult the oracle. It’s okay to use it when faced with a situation where you cannot possibly determine which of two options is the best, or when you are trying to ascertain information you have no other way of obtaining, or you need a quick goad to spur your thoughts into motion. However, when you already know what the outcome is going to be, or you are using it as a crutch so that you don’t ever have to make a decision for yourself - then you have a problem. It is also important to understand that the information you receive holds true only for yourself. If you want to know what another person is thinking just come out and ask them! Don’t try to weasel your way into their thoughts or hold them accountable for what comes out during the oracle. If you do that Hermes just might lead you astray in order to prove a point.

Although you can use any change in your pocket for this – especially if you’re on the fly and in need of quick assistance – I’ve found that reserving three coins for special use as your divinatory tool can be very effective, especially if these coins are of foreign extraction, since Hermes is the god of travellers. If you use such a miscellany of coins it’s okay if they don’t all have the same face value, provided they do have both a discernible head and tail.After you have finished your consultation you should thank Hermes for his guidance, and abide by what comes out. If you continuously disregard his advice he will eventually stop offering it.

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Coin Divination

Legend has it that Croesus, immensely rich King of Lydia, lost his country and freedom by ignoring the omens of coin divination and allying himself with the wrong nation. The great Carthaginian general, Hannibal, used coins to predict the success of his journey across the Alps but, being too confident in his military skills, he neglected to consult the coins about his eventually unsuccessful campaign against the Romans. Predictions have been made since the first coins were minted and coin divination has become accepted in many different cultures and nations.

Around 700 BC, the Lydians produced the first coins which were made of electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver. At first, they were crude bean-shaped lumps with official symbols stamped on them but soon evolved to resemble today's coins. Just as today coins have the Queen's head on the principle or observe side, so ancient coins had the heads of rulers on the observe side and images of deities or sacred symbols on the reserve side.

By 550 BC, coins had spread to all the major trading centres of the world, including Spain, Gaul and even remote Britain. Peasants, even as late as the Middle Ages, handled coins only very rarely, so coins themselves became objects of almost mystical reverence. Images of rulers and gods were stamped on them to encourage the people to associate the virtues of the gods with those of their kings. Alexander the Great had coins minted with his image and those of the gods of each country he conquered. Many of the Roman Emperors, such as Augustus, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, were deified by their subjects and their different images on the coins became objects of reverence, especially in distant provinces such as Britain.

In ancient Greece and Rome, coins were associated with both birth and death and were placed inside a sash bound to a newborn child's abdomen to prevent the umbilical hernias. These coins were also intended to serve as the start of the child's wealth and so parents would give coins of the highest value that they could afford. The Romans placed coins, often the same coins given to the child at birth, under a dead person's tongue and in the hands to allow the shade to pay Charon the ferryman for passage across the river Styx to the gates of the Underworld. This custom persisted until long after the end of the Roman Empire.

SuperstitionsThere are many superstitions associated with coins. Even today, many of us have a lucky coin which often wins

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the toss. A silver coin with a hole in it is regarded as exceptionally lucky. We place a coin in a new coat or wallet for luck. To ensure a happy marriage, a bridegroom gives his bride a coin to put in her shoe at the wedding. Finding a penny means that more will follow; and so on. Another superstition says that if you turn a piece of silver in your pocket on seeing a New Moon and make a wish, the wish will come true.

Money, especially coins, can also be cursed. The most famous accursed coins were the 30 pieces of silver that Judas Iscariot received for betraying Christ. One version of the tale given in St. Matthew 27: 5-9, states that Judas cast down the silver in the temple and then hanged himself. The priests felt that the coins were unlucky and declined to put them in the treasury. Instead, they bought a field to bury strangers in and, from then on, the field was called 'Field of Blood.' In more recent times, beggars would stand outside the churches and ask for money from the worshippers. People who refused to give alms were cursed by the beggar.

Coin divination was at first very simple in practice but, by the time of the Romans, complex methods were in use. During the Dark Ages, divination and other forms of mysticism were widely practised as people sought certainty in uncertain times. In the Middle Ages, all forms of divination were regarded as witchcraft and diviners were persecuted as witches by the church. The lore of coins survived only in a few families were the secret was passed down from generation to generation.

With the coming of the Renaissance and the Reformation the power of the church weakened. Many of the lost arts, including coin divination, were widely revived. Much of our present knowledge is derived from rediscoveries made during this time. One of the most important discoveries was that coin divination works best at predicting personal things, such as compatibility between people, relationships (love affairs) and personal finances.

There are many methods of divination using coins. One from the East uses the I Ching - the Book of Changes. The inquirer tosses three identical coin and, depending on the way the coins fall, draws a line of a hexagram. The complete hexagram is drawn after throwing the coin five more times. The meaning of the hexagram is found by consulting the I Ching.

A more traditional Western method, which has come down to us from the Romans, uses three different coins, all different. Traditionally, the first coin should be gold representing the Sun. The next should be silver, to lock in the Moon's rays. The third should be copper or bronze, symbols of the Earth. Gold coins are expensive nowadays, so try purchasing a large silver coin and a smaller silver coin from a coin dealer. Try not to use nickel coins, as the recent discovery of nickel means that they lack an organic link with mankind and do not resonate as closely to your emotional frequency as gold, silver and copper coins do. Gold - the symbol of the Sun - is still the best, because its particular resonance keeps it from tarnishing.

The gold (or large silver coin) represents your spiritual, mental and physical well-being - your life force and your relationship with yourself. The silver coin represents your relationship with others - friends, enemies, lover or spouse. The copper or bronze coin represents your relationship with your environment - your material well-being, money and success.

This method works best if the coins have been on you long time, especially if they touched the skin near your heart as this causes the coins to resonate at you aura's emotional frequency. The longer you keep the coins on you, the better the coin divination work.

Place a soft cloth on a small table in a quiet, dimly lighted room. You can also do coin divination while sitting on a patch of earth, since the earth itself is a great source of power. Sit down, lightly clothed, and hold the coins in your cupped hands over the cloth. Close your eyes and concentrate on the matter on which you are seeking guidance.

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Try to induce a state of mental relaxation while thinking a specific question, related to your spiritual well-being, your relationships with others or your material well-being. Keep this up until the question fills your entire mind. If your question is about a person or object, try to visualise the person or object surrounded by a blue aura because blue is a powerful colour, as we can see from its position in the spectrum.

Open your hands and let the coins fall. Note the positions with respect to you and which face lands up. Should one of the coins roll off the cloth, you are being offered a dire warning. Take heed! If the observe lands facing upwards, the indication is positive. If the reverse lands upwards, the indication is negative. The position of the other two coins are also important. The closer they are, the stronger their influence will be. For example, suppose you want to invest in a certain company and you decide to consult the coins.

You throw the coins and the copper coin lands close to you, obverse up. The small silver coin also lands close to you, reverse up, while the large silver coin lands far away from you, observe up. This means that there is a strong probability you will do well financially out of the deal. However, you will risk hurting or even ruining your relationship with someone close to you. Spiritually, it will affect you positively but only slightly. Your health might improve slightly.

Another example: suppose that you are about to begin a relationship with someone and consult the coins about this relationship. The copper coin lands close to you, reverse up. The silver coin lands close, reverse up, and the small silver coin lands at a medium distance, reverse up. This means that both your spirituality/bodily health and your financial welfare will suffer badly as a result of this relationship.

Possible Future

Coin divination only indicates one possible future out of an infinite range. Your own actions will determine which path your future will take. Also, coin divination can only be used to predict your own future; the future of other people can only be predicted in respect of their relationship with you.

Coin divination is a powerful yet simple method of predicting your future. Remember, there are many variations of this method. The method may be adapted until you feel spiritually at ease. This is the time when your subconscious mind comes to the fore and the time for divination right. Make use of this time.We do not yet have an explanation for coin divination. Possibly it is the subconscious mind guiding the fall of the coins - a telekinetic energy to guide the coins and clairvoyance to see the future. But, whatever the explanation coin divination undoubtedly works and can change your life for the better.

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Silverman WA, Chalmers I. Casting and drawing lots: a time-honoured way of dealing with uncertainty and for ensuring fairness

"The lot causeth disputes to cease, and it decideth between the mighty'.Proverbs 18:18.

Disagreements and uncertainties about which treatments should be used in health care are very common. These uncertainties can be addressed and reduced by casting lots to decide which patients should receive which treatments. This is not a new idea. In 1662, the Flemish physician Van Helmont proposed this approach to settle a dispute he was having with the followers of Galen, who were bleeding and purging their patients (Van Helmont 1662): 'Let us take out of the hospitals...200 or 500 poor people that have fevers, pleurisies. Let us divide them into halves, let us cast lots, that one halfe of them may fall to my share, and the other to yours; I will cure them without bloodletting and sensible evacuation; but you do, as ye know...We shall see how many funerals both of us shall have.'

Casting lots (random allocation) of treatments is used not only to ensure that the hoped-for benefits and the unknown risks of inadequately tested treatments are distributed fairly, but also to distribute democratically a treatment that is in short supply. For example, when Britain had a very limited supply of US dollars in the period immediately after the 2nd World War, the country could only afford to purchase a small amount of a promising new drug for treating tuberculosis. Accordingly, random allocation was used to decide which patients with pulmonary tuberculosis should receive some of the limited supply.

Random allocation of treatments is a modern-day example of one of the oldest practices in human history. For thousands of years, when there have been uncertainties and difficulties about choices,human societies have consulted the 'Goddess of Fortune' for guidance in this way. They have usedpebbles, nuts, barley-corn, bones, twigs, yarrow stalks (I Ching), polished sticks, cards, coins, anddice. The list could be extended on and on, but the principle is always the same: 'Chance' is envisioned as the working of some impartial power, which makes dice fall in a specific way, or an odd or even number of pebbles jump out of a buffalo horn, or a specific individual draw a certain lot. Whether it is used as a way of revealing divine will, or for ensuring fairness, lottery has always served as a definitive adjudicating engine: it never fails to provide an unequivocal answer.

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Casting lots for divinationThe Hebrew bible makes a number of references to lots. For example, Jonah declared “Let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us”; and the whole book of Esther is the story of Purim, which means ‘lots’. Although the masses were forbidden by Jewish law to cast lots for divination – which was the prerogative of the priests - God's authorities on earth were allowed to use lottery devices to guide judgements. Thus the chief priest carried sacred stones inside his breastplate, through which he sensed divine intentions. The stones gave God's answer, determined when the 'Yes' or the 'No' stone was drawn out. King David consulted this oracular medium before going into battle: when the 'Yes' stone appeared, forecasting his victory over the Philistines, he set off on the warpath. Although the early fathers of the Christian church were vigorously opposed to divination by lots, sometimes excommunicating those who practised it, this did not stop the Church itself using this method for decision making.For example, in 782 CE, when the bishops of Poitiers, Autun, and Arras all claimed the body of St. Leger, lots were cast, with the result that the saintly remains were handed over to the Bishop of Poitiers. Some devout Christians continued to use lottery when faced with some of life's most difficult decisions. Benjamin Franklin records in his autobiography: ‘I enquired concerning Moravian marriages, whether the report was true that they were by lot. I was told that lots were used only in particularcases;…if, for example, it should happen that two or three young women were found to be equally proper for the young man, the lot was then recurred to. I objected, ‘If the matches are not made by the mutual choice of the parties, some of them may chance to be very unhappy’. ‘And so they may’ answered my informer ‘if you let the parties decide for themselves.’ Which indeed I could not deny.’

When John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was faced with the problem of choosing a wife, he consulted his friend Mr Delamotte about the woman under consideration. '... both of us sought God by deep consideration, fasting and prayer...but could not come to any decision. At length we agreed to appeal to the Searcher of Hearts. I accordingly made three lots. In one was writ, "Marry;" in the second "Think not of it this year." After we prayed to God to give us a "perfect lot", Mr. Delamotte drew the third, in which were the words, "Think of it no more." Instead of the agony I had reason to expect, I was enabled to say cheerfully, "Thy will be done." We cast lots again to know whether I ought to converse with her anymore, and the direction I received from God was "Only in the presence of Mr. Delamotte".' (Wesley 4 March 1737, cited in David 1962)There are many examples of lottery used for divination outside Judeo-Christian monotheism. Not long ago, for example, the Dalai Lama drew lots to choose the name of his successor. Slips of paper bearing the names of candidates were introduced into identical balls of barley meal, and placed in a bowl. The bowl was then rotated until one of the balls 'jumped out', thus identifying the Panchen Lama.

Drawing lots to ensure fairnessWhether or not divine intervention is invoked as the mechanism through which the casting of lots leads to decisions, the method has been recognised for millennia as a way of ensuring fairness in deciding difficult matters. Thus, the land of Canaan was distributed among the tribes of Israel by lots (“And ye shall inherit the land by lot according to your families.” Numbers 33.54).

Sometimes lots have been used to deal with particularly dire circumstances. When it became apparent in 73 CE that the zealot Jewish soldiers at Masada could not survive, they drew lots to select the ten men who would carry out the mass suicide. The immediate survivors of shipwrecks have also had to take life or death decisions in attempts to ensure that at least some of them would able to return home alive. These have sometimes been reflected in popular ballads (cited in Simpson 1984).

We ranged through, no food could we get,Confined there for a long time, nothing for to eat,Till we cast lots to see who should die,Which made our ship’s crew for sorrow to cry.

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The lots were drawn, one man was to die,For his wife and poor children most bitterly did cry,To kill him says the captain, or take away his breath,But to starve with hunger is a deplorable death.Then his messmates they killed him and cut off his head,And all the ship’s crew from the body did feed,And at eight different times lots amongst them were drawn,For to keep them from starving that’s the way they went on.

Popular ballads like this emphasized the legitimacy of drawing lots in circumstances such as these. So also did the opinion of an American judge considering a charge of manslaughter brought against a sailor who had helped to throw fourteen passengers out of an overloaded lifeboat. He argued that: "there should be consultation, and some mode of selection fixed, by which those in equal relations may have equal chance for their life...When the ship is in no danger of sinking, but all sustenance is exhausted, and a sacrifice of one person is necessary to appease the hunger of others, the selection is by lot. This mode is resorted to as the fairest mode, and, in some sort, as an appeal to God, for selection of the victim... For ourselves, we can conceive of no mode so consonant both to humanity and to justice (United States v. Holmes 1842)." Lots have been used for millennia to ensure fairness in other circumstances concerned with life and death, albeit less dire than those faced by the Jewish zealots at Masada and the starving survivors of shipwrecks. During a prolonged and severe famine in Lydia during the pre-Christian era, for example, the king divided his people into two halves “and cast lots, for the one half that should remain in the homeland and the other that should emigrate.” (Herodotus). The Book of Judges (20:10) records that lots were used to decide which ten men from every hundred in each of the tribes of Israel would be drafted as soldiers.

In more modern times, too, lots have been used to decide who will be drafted into armies.Lots were used to select conscripts when British preparations were being made for ananticipated French invasion of Ireland at the end of the 18th century. They were also used inAustria-Hungary between 1889 and the start of the First World War, in the United States inboth World Wars and in the Vietnam War, and in Australia in the Vietnam War.

Lottery versus authority and fallible human judgementIn the past, the results of drawing lots were considered to reflect divine guidance. Today the results are more likely to be regarded as reflecting the play of chance. Lotteries to decide which citizens shall risk their lives in defence of their countries have been accepted as a fair, democratic solution to a problem ofdifficult choices. Lots for the 1917 military draft in the United States were drawn in public, in the presence of the President and other dignitaries, by a blindfolded Secretary of State. The words of the US Secretary of the War Department capture its essence:

"This is an occasion of great dignity and some solemnity. It represents the first application of a principle believed by many of us to be thoroughly democratic, equal and fair in selecting soldiers to defend the national honour abroad and at home." (cited in Fienberg 1971)From solemn to less solemn uses, there are lots of uses of lots to ensure fairness these days. These include issuing limited quotas of immigration visas, distribution of high risk drivers among insurance companies, allocation of student places at medical school, and even assigning dormitory rooms at university. In the knowledge that human judgements are fallible, lottery is also used to test the validity of opinions. For example, the newspaper of the National Union of Teachers reported that Terry Purser, who runs the Spice Girls sweet shop in Margate, England, and is dyslexic, had passed on his advice to children at exam time: “I tell them, ‘Read the questions carefully, not once, not twice, but four times, and the answers start popping out’. It has worked for my sons… When I was in hospital I told a student nurse about the method and she said that she was delighted that she passed her exams by using it. What I really want is for teachers to test my method by splitting

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their class randomly and setting half the class questions using my method while the other half answers questions as they would normally”. Mr Purser didn’t expect others to accept his opinion without good evidence, and had the humility to suggest that the validity of his ideas should be tested formally. He sets an example which many ‘authorities’ would do well to emulate, for there remains considerable ambivalence about casting lots as a risk-limiting and democratic device for dealing with uncertainty. Some clues to the reasons for this can be discerned in the condemnation of lottery by religious authorities as 'unlawful,' 'sinister,' 'invoking demons and evil spirits,' 'usurpation of God's prerogative'. In fact, the history of lottery for divination is the history of the surrender of decision-making to the control of authorities. In health care, we suggest that ambivalenceabout random allocation of treatments in the face of uncertainties about their effects is often because authority rather than evidence is the usual basis for action. As Maimonides, the 12th century Jewish philosopher, said: “Teach thy tongue to say ‘I do not know’ and thou shalt progress.” The dilemma has come to the forefront as medicine struggles to become scientific: a move from belief in authoritative declarations to a critical approach, questioning authority. The impersonal rules of evidence are slowly replacing the voice of respected sages. It is in this transitional period that the outcry is heard against formal 'contests' to choose between proposed treatments. For ages the ailing have turned to 'healers' who professed to know how to bring relief and cures, but patients gave little thought to the gnawing question, 'How do they know?' It is often painful for physicians and others to whom people turn for help to bring up the matter of uncertainty about the effects of their treatments, but this is essential if there is to be efficient progress in sorting out which treatments do more harm than good. Just as drawing lots challenged the authority of priests in the past, so also random allocation to decide which patients should receive which among alternative treatments in modern temples of healing often challenges the authority of individual physicians. But when there is uncertainty about the relative merits of the double-edged swords wielded in medicine today, we are wise to employ this ancient technique of decision-making as a fair way of distributing the hoped-for benefits and the unknown risks of inadequately evaluated treatments. And if there is to be progress in this respect, lay people must become more centrally involved with practitioners and researchers in confronting uncertainties about treatment effects, challenging authority and promoting fair ways of comparing alternatives in health care. As Hazel Thornton, founding chair of the Consumers' Advisory Group for Clinical Trials, has noted:

"To make a useful contribution, patients will need to face unpleasant realities; learn to appreciateuncertainty; be educated to understand the dilemmas and problems of clinical research and the dilemmas of obtaining consent; understand the need for trials to evaluate new treatments and assess the value ofestablished ones; demand quality; be aware of the diversity of opinion within the profession and be prepared to work hard to acquire understanding of all aspects of research activity, preferably when they are well, so that they may effectively participate in the shared responsibility and debate (Thornton 1995)".

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Heads or Tails

Heads or Tails is a coin-tossing game. Most coins have a side where the imprint of a person's head, such as a current or former head of state, is impressed — this side is called the "heads" side. The other side is called the "tails" side, irrespective of its design. Technically, the heads and tails sides are known as the obverse and reverse, respectively.

In 1870 Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable describes heads in a similar way and details tails as being the opposite and obvious reverse to heads. The expression 'can't make head nor tail of it' expresses this concept of opposites.Generally, one person throws the coin up in the air, and the second person must predict which side of the coin will lay face up after it rests back on the ground. A correct prediction results in a win. Another variation has the person catch the coin in one hand and slap it on the back of their other hand. Traditionally, the second person calls out "heads" or "tails" while the coin is in the air.

National variationsThe Australian game of Two-up is closely related, and involves traditionally two coins of equal value. Two-up is illegal except for on Anzac Day. Coin flipping as a game was known to the Romans as "navia aut caput" (ship or head), as some coins had a ship on one side and the head of the emperor on the other.A related game, Cross and Pile, was played in England for many centuries. The cross was the major design element on one side of many coins, and the Pile was the bottom part of the die used to cast the other side of the coin (see hammered coinage). Cross and Pile is derived from the Greek pastime called Ostrakinda, played by the boys of ancient Greece. Having procured a shell, they smeared it over with pitch on one side and left the other side white. A boy tossed up this shell, and his antagonist called white or black (In the Greek, nux kai hemera, that is, 'night or day') as he thought proper, and his success was determined by the white or black part

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of the shell being uppermost.In Italy this game is called Testa o croce, in Spain Cara o cruz and in Catalonia the game is called Cara o Creu (all "head or cross"). In Germany the game is called Kopf oder Zahl ("head or number", because the other side shows the coin's value). In Latvia the game is called Cipars vai ģerbonis ("number or the coat of arms"). In Ireland it is usually called Heads or Harps (Irish: Ceann nó Cláirseach), since the obverse side of Irish coins (both Euro and the former currency, the Irish punt) always shows a harp. In Brazil, it is called Cara ou Coroa ("face or crown"). On Brazilian coins, one of the sides is called "Cara" (marked with a face); the other side is called "Coroa" (crown, or another symbol). In Mexico it is called Aguila o Sol (Eagle or Sun). In Peru it is called Cara o Sello ("face or seal", because the other side shows the Great Seal of the State). In Russia it is called Орёл или ре́?шка (Oryól ili réshka - eagle, or another symbol), similar in Poland – orzeł i reszka. In Hong Kong, it is called 公定字 ("Head or word"). On Hong Kong coins, the obverse side of the coin are words that describe the value of the coin. The reverse side, however, is a flower after transferring sovereignty to Communist China, but Hong Kong citizens still use the term "head" (as coins issued before 1993 is the portrait of Her Majesty Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom) to call the game. In Norway kron denotes the side that shows the kings profile, while mynt is the side that showns the coins value. Swedes use krona eller klave ("crown or hoof"), as old Swedish coinage depicted the regent (or the insignia of the regent) on the obverse (the word "crown" often being used to mean the king), and a highly stylized heraldic shield, reminding people of a hoof, on the reverse. In Israel the game is called Ets o Pally ("tree or Pally"). This name originates in the time of the British Mandate of Palestine when the coins bore the value of the coin with an olive branch on one side and the name Palestine on the other. Today Pally usually refers to the value side of the Israeli coins, while Ets refers to the other side.

Other variations

2 person adaptations

Same or DifferentSame or Different is a two person game in which a player tries to guess if two coin flips will be the same or different. The First person flips and then reveals whether they have heads or tails. The second person calls “same” or “different” and flips their coin. If the second person is correct he/she wins (often the stakes in this game are the coins used for flipping), and if the guess was incorrect, the opponent wins. This game is often played with the call (same or different) being made before the coins are tossed, and the two player toss at the same time. This game is most often played with quarters.

MostMost is a two player game in which one player tries to guess the most common result of multiple coin tosses. This game has two player positions; a thrower and a caller. The thrower tosses up any odd number of coins (usually an amount less then 10 for ease of counting) and the caller tries to guess the most common face prior to the throw. If the guess is correct, the caller wins, and if the guess is incorrect, the thrower wins.

3 or more persons

Odd Man OutCalled Odd man out or simply “flipping” this game is played with multiple people, all with coins. Everyone flips their coins at the same time, and compare. If all of the coins but one match (for example one coin shows heads and the rest show tails), the person with the mismatched coin is called the odd man out and loses the game. Coins are flipped again and again until there is an odd man out, who has to pay all of the other players a predetermined amount. Odd Man Out is often played in offices for a cup of coffee or a soda from the vending machine. After the first few flips it is common for new rules to be added to make the game go faster. Rules

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usually eliminate the players with the most common face showing (for example, a person would call “most out” and on next flip if heads is the most common face shown, all players with heads are eliminated.) and this process is repeated until there is only one player left. That player has lost the game.

The Coin Toss Experiments

Introduction: These are some accounts of impromptu personal experiments in so-called "extra sensory" perception. Note that, while the following activities do not qualify as "scientific experiments" under the formal definition of the term, the people involved do attest that the events are true and that they were observed as objectively as possible under the circumstances. For the people involved, these events do seem to be powerful evidence for the existence of a power of the mind beyond just the normal biochemical reactions which are described by science. The reader is left to draw his or her own conclusions about their significance.

Experiment #1: (by a father and his 12-year-old daughter) -- My daughter and I were leaving a restaurant after dinner one night. She took a coin (a quarter dollar) out of her pocket, flipped it in the air, caught it, and covered it with her hand. I looked away as she flipped the coin. Then I closed my eyes and considered for a moment, and said: "heads." My daughter looked at the coin and said: "You're right!" And then she flipped and covered it again. I called "tails." She looked at the coin and it indeed was "tails" side up. After she tossed it three more times, each time followed by my calling "heads" or "tails" correctly, she looked up at me and said, "How do you do that?" I told her, "I can see it." She then turned away from me to hide her actions as she prepared to toss the coin again. I told her, "No, that's not what I mean. I'm looking the other way ... up in the air. I can't even see you when you toss the coin; there's no way I can physically see the coin."I went on to describe that each time she tossed the coin, I looked up in the air away from distractions; and after she caught it, I would get a vague impression in my mind of which side of the coin was facing up. Sometimes even closing my eyes seemed to help a little.

Experiment #2 When my son was in high school, he did the coin-toss experiment a few times ... maybe a half-dozen

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times in all.One time, he felt particularly "tuned in" to being able to get an impression of the coin toss result. I tossed a quarter-dollar coin 20 times in a row. He called 18 of them correctly. After the 20th toss, he felt like he was losing clarity in his impressions and he asked to stop the experiment.In each toss of the coin, I would flip it in the air and catch it in my hand while he looked away. As soon as it landed, I would cover it with the other hand until he called the toss. There was not any way he could have seen the coin as it landed.

Conclusions --

Assuming these events did occur as described above, what can be concluded from this phenomenon? What do they tell us about the psyche?The primary conclusion is merely that there is something about the human mind which is not explainable by the biochemical processes which are described by "normal" physical science.But what processes are involved? These experiments do not fully answer that question. Perhaps the mind was somehow actually able to "see" the coin even though it was not visible to the physical sight. Or, perhaps the individual who was tossing the coin subconsciously detected the "heads" or "tails" result and somehow transferred this information to the subject. Such "signalling," however, would have to have been done through some kind of telepathic means because in each experiment, both people were very careful to not give any visual signs of the coin toss result.In order to answer such questions as, "Exactly what processes are involved here?" or more profound issues as "Is there a mental / emotional 'soul' which can operate separately from the physical brain?" further study would be required.

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Four Penny Divination

This divination technique is based on the practice of "throwing coconut," which is probably the method of divination used most often in Santeria. The four-penny technique presented here is independent not only of all religious aspects of Santeria, but is taken out of the context of all religious practices entirely. The four-penny divination is a quick, handy and accurate method that can be used by anyone. Throwing coconut involves tossing four pieces of coconut (the meat of the coconut is usually used, but the shell can also be employed) to the floor to obtain a response to queries. This will result in one of five possible patterns falling based on how many pieces fall face up and how many fall face down. The patterns and their interpretations are:

Alafia (H H H H) - means, "yes" and predicts peace and happiness but this is a tentative answer. If ����alafia falls, repeat the process of tossing the coconut. If alafia falls twice or if it is followed by ellife or itagua, positive outcomes are predicted. If alafia is followed by oyekun or ocana-sode, the potential for negative outcomes is great.

Ž Itagua (T H H H) - means yes but is also a tentative answer. If itagua falls, there has generally been��� a mistake in the divination procedure. The question may need to be reformulated. It is also possible that the topic of questioning is not the topic of true concern.

ŽŽ Ellife (T T H H) - is the strongest and most definite answer and indicates peace and the most ��positive of outcomes.

ŽŽŽ Ocana-sode (T T T H) - means no and indicates the possibility for negative outcomes. �

ŽŽŽŽ Oyekun (T T T T) - is a very strong and severe form of no and indicates high potential for extremely negative and undesirable outcomes.

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There are specific procedures that are followed when throwing coconut, including precise ways to refresh the coconut pieces, specific chants and salutations made to the orishas. The coconut becomes the voice of whichever orisha is being consulted. Eleggua is the orisha most often addressed in this procedure. Pieces of coconut, which break or have crack are never used when speaking with the orishas.

The four-penny technique preserves the use of four objects, which are used as a focal point by the person doing the divination. The essence of the meaning of each pattern above remains the same. The difference is that the pennies (any evenly weighted object with two easily discernable sides so that the patterns can be read with merely a glance so as to not interrupt concentration and the flow of the process can be used, I recommend coins because most people will be able to locate four coins at a moments notice wherever they may be) are not acting as the voice of deity, but instead, will act as locators for information. As each pattern falls in response to a query, it is like the call number in a library catalogue system and is a guide to finding the exact information desired.

To do a four-penny divination, get four pennies and hold them cupped in your palms. Let the pennies adjust to the temperature of your hands and become familiar with the way they feel, their size, weight and shape. Once this is done, begin to shake the pennies in your hands and focus on the sound and feel of them as they jingle. Do not become entirely absorbed by the pennies, but think of them as the conversation you are having with the people you're sitting at the table with eating dinner in a restaurant. The pennies, like your dinner companions, have your "main" attention, but you can still hear the conversations of people at other tables on the periphery of your awareness. Even though you are aware of, and can understand the background conversations, you are not distracted from the conversation at your own table. Once you have reached this state of dual awareness, you can have the querent begin asking about their areas of concern. Repeat the question while shaking the pennies and as you finish speaking, toss the pennies to the floor. As you glance down to see the pattern, you will find yourself able to reference the information pertinent to the query. As you continue with the divination, you will find that, if the querent is someone other than yourself, you will be able to formulate the questions, which should be addressed by the divination without their input.

The basis of the four-penny divination is in achieving a fluidity and expansion of awareness. The information people seek when they perform divinations exists in what some call the "Akashic records," this technique facilitates a change in consciousness, which allows access to the information.

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Beginners Guide to Dice Living

Starting up a dice life can be a daunting task. You may have fears of screwing your life up, getting things wrong, losing your job. Well, don’t worry about that. The first thing I'm going to say is with dice living, you decide, you make up the rules. The great thing about starting is that you have the choice to be as adventurous or un-adventurous as you like. Luke in the book didn't go into full random man straight away. And he played with the odds. I think if you are worried about funding some crazy decisions or forgetting your responsibilities, then that means you are thinking too big too soon. If you have worries like this over a decision then perhaps it means you aren't willing to carry the choice out if selected. So to begin with, only choose possibilities that you are comfortable with, play with the odds; a small desire may only deserve a small chance. The chance is still there. Start off making small choices, emotions or personalities to have for random amounts of time, places to go to. I remember one of the first things I started doing was choosing how to drink my tea, which in turn taught me to be able to drink tea black, a skill that has proved very useful whenever I run out of milk! Try to rediscover your inner voice; learn to see life's random chances as a way of following your path. The more you use the dice, the more adventurous you will become, and the less you will worry about funding, responsibilities etc. Chance finds a way.

The attitude I took when I started dice living is that we are only on this planet for a short amount of time, and we are born into a society, a world, that expects us to follow its rules. When it comes down to it, we are just creatures on this planet, there aren’t really any rules, so we may as well enjoy our lives while we still have them. If you’re not enjoying life, then you are doing something wrong … If you can get to the end of your short life, look back, and know that you have had a damn good time, you have probably succeeded in discovering what life is all about. I have spent a lot of time dice living since I read the book (and most of his others - I recommend The Book of the Die) some years ago. I don't do it too much any more, but I always carry a couple of dice around with me just in case. I have learnt from my dice experience that life sends random choices all the time, chance meetings, bizarre places you end up and so on. Riding the crest of the wave of fate is possible. Dicing is a good way of breaking down your barriers for this.

Having a different perspective on life can be all you need to get started. The security of cities and society is a

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luxury, not a necessity. I found this out after dice travelling around Europe, with a positive attitude that the dice can do no wrong. All in all, life is just a game and the Earth is just a giant playground in order to have fun. You would be surprised how easy life is to cope with when you don't have the security of a home, job, knowing where your next pay check is coming from, and so on. I have found myself building shelters in the wild, living in Squats, meeting friendly helpful people, and also unfriendly ones. But that is part of life and what doesn't kill you can only make you stronger. Life drifting to the whim of the dice is possible, is actually good fun. The ups and downs are all part of the experience. If you travel randomly you can end up in places and situations that you may never have been able to do without the aid of a die to give you that nudge. It can also allow those small desires you have to get their chance to be realised (e.g. "I really should go and meet my parents, but I’ll give a one in six chance that I head to a bar instead" or "one in six chance I tell my boss what I really think of him"). You could meet people you would normally steer away from, and end up doing amazing things you wouldn't have thought possible. Or maybe not, but the chance is there. So don't be afraid of the world, Chance works in mysterious ways.

The only problem I have with dicing is its limits. It is a very structured way of being random, which in itself is a paradox. This is why I eventually stopped living with the dice. I took the lessons I had learnt, and applied it to my general outlook on life and the world. Why limit yourself to the structural finite choices that a die provides, when you can expand yourself to the infinite possibilities that life can throw at you, equally by chance. As you start to act more randomly, more random things will begin to happen to you. Noticing and taking up these random opportunities can lead to a life that is just as random, perhaps even more so, than living with dice. Having said that, It's bloody good fun to play with dice, especially with peoples reactions to your bizarre antics. It definitely had a permanent effect on my life that I do not regret.To summarise, here are the guidelines that I followed when I decided to dice live

1. Only put down options that you are willing to do. Otherwise there’s no point.Someone once sent me message, stating that if he put down the following options,

1. Have an ice cold beer

2. Drive around for two hours

3. Watch the South Park non-stop for 48 hours

4. Cut my penis off at the root

5. Pick my nose in the public library

6. Have my hair cut by the hairdresser with the large breasts which keep prodding you during the ordeal of sorts.

He would be guaranteed that it would roll a '4'. Well quite simply, if you don't have even the smallest desire to follow through with an action, just don't do it.

2. If you roll the dice, make sure you are clear in what the options mean There has been many a time that I have seen people trying to weasel out of a decision by finding loopholes and grey areas. "It didn't say when I had to do it!" being a common one. Again, refer to point one.

3. Once the dice is rolled, no re-rollsNo compromises on this one. There wouldn't be any point in being random if you just keep rolling until it picks the option you like most. If you find yourself doing that, put the dice away and lead a normal life.

4. Don’t do anything that will hurt someone else

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Luke went as far as committing murder in his book. It was a choice of mine to not do anything that would actually end up hurting anyone else, mentally or physically.

5. Use you imagination Don’t just put what to do, but how to do it as well!

Dice Life - a new hope?

I read the Diceman in 1997, right before the start of my A-level exams. It was a time in my teenage life that I was beginning to feel bored, and was also faced with a major turning point in my life. I was due to choose the potential universities that I would go to, and therefore, open up paths that could dictate my entire future. So for an 18-year-old beginning to dice live, I couldn't have picked a more significant time in my life. Using dice to pick which universities to apply for was certainly not one that I chose to make straight away. I began simply, picking what to drink, what to buy as a birthday gift or whether to go out instead of revising. It wasn't long before I started playing with emotions and personalities, which I found frighteningly easy. It was a game to play at parties, changing personality every half an hour, or simply deciding what concoction of intoxications to have that night. All the while I never told my friends why I was acting strangely. To this day there are people who think that I actually thought I was god one night. No amount of explaining will change their memories ("excuses, excuses"). One of the first major decisions I made was actually whether to try smoking cannabis or not. I had done enough research into the matter to be slightly curious about the whole thing, and figured a 50/50 chance was in order. That night I smoked my first spliff, and Second, and third, and more. I continued to smoke for three and a half years. If I had decided not to do anything that night, who knows where I would be now…. After many a random decision during school, I soon came to choose what University I should go to. Strangely enough, there were only six universities that did the course I wanted, and after getting five straight offers with no interviews, it seemed to scream at me to roll the die. So quickly, and stress free, I soon found myself going to Glasgow for an MA in English and psychology (very apt, I thought). Things started going rather strangely at this point, I was away from home for the first time, and after a lot of my old friends had fallen out with me due to my recent 'weird attitude' I was unsure as to whether to carry on the dice-ing so full on. But it was at Uni, that the fun really started. Not wanting to risk any new friendships so early in my student life, I laid off the personality changing, and emotion roller-coaster, but started using the dice more secretly if only occasionally, deciding who to hang out with, who to befriend, where to go and what to do there. I was not always happy to oblige, but thy will be done. It soon became second nature to consult the dice for a lot of decisions. Should I get up or not, should I write that essay, or go on a three-day bender. I always knew what I wanted to do, what I should be doing, but found it easy to do whatever was told of me. I felt less guilty if I went out the night before an essay was due in, because the decision was out of my hands. On the other hand, I would happily stay in and write an essay when everyone else was going out for a big night because that was told of me. As time went on some changes to my random life occurred. I became less obliged to consult the dice on every decision and soon found the random signs and coincidences that life threw at me would help my random life.

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Chance meetings would send me to strange parties, where I found myself pretending to be whoever I felt like being that night. I began to realise that in a paradoxical way, using the dice was a very structured way of being random, and that so long as the dice were involved, you could never be truly random. That is not to say I stopped using the dice altogether, but found my instincts taking over, following random and curious events, speaking to people I wouldn't normally approach, gaining a greater awareness of coincidences. I wanted to act randomly, and on a whim, but without having t resort to the cubes every time. Soon I became bored of using the dice. Personality swapping had become pointless. I began to change my opinions at my own whim, rather than the dices. I found it all to easy to see both sides of an argument, and in the middle of a heated debate, suddenly begin agreeing with the other party, much to their satisfaction (and confusion). On other occasions I would take an opinion that I didn't agree with and argue for it. I soon came to realise exactly what Luke means by 'One man's opinion is another man's nonsense', so what difference does it make which side you are on. There is no right and wrong, only different parts of the whole truth. It was at this point that I began to feel freer to control my own destiny than ever before. No longer was I stuck in a rut, or struggling to cope, but the possibilities of my own future suddenly seemed endless. All I had to do was believe I could do something and it was done. I began to realise that with a positive attitude, and a spot of bullshitting, you could achieve just about anything you wanted and be whoever you wanted. My dice use became minimised to dice-isions based on travelling. I have woken up on trains hundreds of miles away from my last memory, that of a green die and the dice-ision to get on the next train that leaves. Quite often I had tickets to places in the exact opposite direction. But the ultimate in Dice travelling had to be my European travels. I picked destinations, methods of travel (dependant on cash flow), and places to stay. I found myself once squatting in an anarchist commune in Amsterdam, going to protests against fascist 'White Power', and found it unbelievably easy to play the part of a protester. I later ended up in the south of France, with no money, no food and nowhere to stay. I hadn't slept in four days, and was getting bored of dozing on the hot, tourist beach. The dice told me to attempt to hitch hike my way to Sweden, and so that is what I did. As chance would have it I ended up getting half way there in the back of a camper van, with a bed and a fridge full of food. The two travellers in there were very friendly, and keen to try some dicing out for themselves. After being dropped off near Paris, and hitchhiking to no avail, a new dice decision told me to get a job, or at least try. It wasn't long before I found and Irish bar that I could work in ("Of course I'm Irish" I told them in my English accent). It took me about a month to save enough money to get a ticket north, and carry on travelling. And so for five months I carried on like this, getting jobs in Eindhoven, Munchen and travelling by train, plane, hitchhiking and ferry, dicing where to go all the time. A highly recommended form of travelling. After returning home I felt a much stronger person than ever before. Playing with fate and chaos as life throws it at you, living on my own whim, and pulling myself out of societies 'machine'. I had broken free of the 9-5 'cog in the works'. Away from the corruption, away from boredom, and free to live as and individual controlling my own future. Even now, years later, with a steady job, and comfortable life, I live by many of the principles and lessons that a dice-life taught me. And yes, I still carry a couple of dice with me in my pocket, just in case…

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Divination: A Popular Trend - But is it More than a Scam?by Paul O'Brien

Ancient systems of divination—originally created by mystics to support self-knowledge and inspired decision-making—are coming out in a big way. According to an article in the Trends Journal, “The resurgence of the Tarot is not a fad, but part of a widespread new-millennium trend. Once available only in several traditional designs and found only in specialty mail-order catalogues and back-alley occult emporiums, Tarot has exploded into dozens of varieties and is now found prominently displayed at the checkout counters of the major bookstore chains.” Astrology, Numerology, the I-Ching, and Tarot are systems of divination that have been used by the few educated members of societies for thousands of years. But divination has never been as popular as it has become in this information age. As founder of one of the world’s most popular divination websites, Tarot.com, I can attest to that.

Millions of people are now turning to forms of divination, like the Chinese I-Ching or Tarot, to help make the most important decisions of their lives. And rather than using physical cards or coins, they are casting for insights into their destiny using computers and the Internet. But when technology leaps from cardboard to electronics, can divination still be authentic? Was it ever authentic in the first place? Or was it always a fortune-telling scam?As tools for aligning with one’s personal destiny, divination systems have obvious appeal. The public’s growing interest creates a need to understand how they work, how they were created and designed, and how we can get the most benefit from them.

As the CEO of Tarot.com, sometimes people ask me “Do you really believe in this stuff?” My answer is always the same: “In order to benefit from a divination experience, the only thing you need to believe in is your own common sense. Divination is a good way to stimulate your intuition to think outside the box about problems that logic can’t handle. If your beliefs prevent you from approaching divination with an open mind, it won’t work for you. Either divination stimulates your intuition and creativity, or it doesn’t. Give it a sincere try. If it works for you, terrific, but you are not required to adopt any beliefs for it to work. I believe in these as tools for stimulating the intuition, because they work for me. But no belief—only a bit of sincerity—is required to benefit from their use.” Beyond the fact that my experience has proven that divination works for me, years of research and study have

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also led me to an understanding of underlying psychological principles that explain how it works.

Finding the meaning in coincidenceThe word coincidence describes an event in which two or more things happen together in time. The term generally carries the connotation that, although the event may seem and feel like it was arranged, in reality it was nothing more than a meaningless accident. People who use divination, on the other hand, believe that there are no accidents. We have learned from experience that coincidences are never meaningless. In fact, coincidences serve as signs from above, if you know how to interpret them. (The great psychologist, Carl Jung, came up with an explanation of how coincidences can be meaningful, but we will get to that in a minute.)

The human ability to notice and decipher the meaning of events in life is as old as society. Interpreting coincidental events and natural occurrences—the proverbial “signs and omens” of scriptures—is a well-documented historical fact, and it continues to this day in our remaining indigenous cultures. Our second type of divination is a divinely inspired invention that does not depend upon happenstance. A sacred ritual, it takes a more deliberate approach. A system of divination like Tarot or its more ancient cousin, the I-Ching, involves the deliberate production of a coincidence, which can then be interpreted to further your understanding of what is going on at the time.

Unlike the interpretation of signs and omens, the use of a divination system does not rely on psychic ability alone. Systems of divination have provided humanity with a more reliable way to decipher the will of the gods, because they include a body of knowledge to guide our interpretation. The inspired knowledge of astrological signs, I-Ching hexagrams and Tarot archetypes was codified by ancient sages in order to satisfy our natural desire to make sense of human life’s changing patterns, to help us develop better timing that is in sync with nature, and as a result make better decisions in the important areas of our lives.

Through divination systems, we have been gifted with symbolic languages to interpret divine will. The symbols and archetypes that form the heart of all divination systems represent the dynamics of human life, including social and political interaction. Because it uses the language of archetypes, divination becomes more than a meditation technique. It can provide insights, timely advice and directions from the divine.

The question of how divination works has been taken up by a wide array of people, from philosophers to educators, psychologists to sceptics. Opinions have come from a broad spectrum of self-appointed experts—from new age gurus to religious fundamentalists. Some fundamentalists purport the “fallen angel” theory—that the devil possesses diviners in order to lead people away from God. Then there’s the order out of chaos theory promulgated by sceptics: We have such an urgent need to find order for ourselves in this chaotic world, that we are naively susceptible to inventing meaning in an oracle’s random patterns.

Despite the scepticism of the religious and scientific establishment, the perceived gap between the empirical and the mystical has been closing now for over a century. Major credit for bringing these two camps within hailing distance must go to the founder of depth psychology, Carl Jung, who has done more for the understanding of divination than any other scientist. As part of his psychology, Jung made it a point to study the world’s religions, mythologies, and divination systems, rather than simply shove them aside as irrational or irrelevant. His fascination with divination systems like the I-Ching, Tarot and Astrology stemmed from his perception that each of them comprised a balanced and complete set of universal archetypes, and that they actually worked!

Universal archetypes The way Jung saw archetypes was similar to Plato’s concept of Forms—the ideal forms that provide the templates for all of nature, including human beings. Jung took this concept, refined it, and applied it to his formulation of depth psychology. In essence, Jungian archetypes are the common landscape of attributes and psychological forces that human beings are shaped by.

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Individuals manifest different qualities—or archetypes—in different proportions, but to some degree the energy or attitude of every archetype is contained within every one of us. There is something reassuring in knowing that we all contain different combinations of the same stuff—the same instincts, desires, needs, impulses and fears. Viewed positively, this means we all share the same great potentials; only the proportions of elements are distributed differently. We also have all the same problematic tendencies too—again in different proportions. Astrology, when properly understood, illustrates the universal nature of archetypes. Because of the tabloid “what’s your sign” treatment by popular media, most people don’t realize that according to real astrology, everyone has every one of the twelve signs somewhere in their chart—in different placements and proportions for different souls.Archetypes represent qualities of consciousness or energy that inform human experiences, situations or roles. For instance, when we think of a Queen as an archetype, we are thinking not of an actual queen, but of feminine energy in a position of great influence. According to a Jungian understanding of archetypes, such queen energy is one element within every individual’s psyche, as is every other archetype. One of the Queen cards in Tarot, for instance, could be referring to a personal realm or social context—like a nurturing mother. Incidentally, it cannot be overemphasized that archetypes are metaphorical, not literal. One does not expect to become Queen of a monarchy because that card is drawn. Likewise, physical death is not the meaning of the Death card, as those who fear death could imagine.

For a divination system to be a useful tool for reflection, its set of archetypes needs to be balanced between light and shadow. Numerology, Astrology, Tarot, I-Ching and Runes predate the age of marketing and they pass the test, instinctively reflecting a balanced range of human experience, including the darker tendencies of human experience. A collection of warm-fuzzy archetypes might make people feel good—and therefore sell better—but it will not serve as an accurate reflector of human conditions, or a good tool for decision-making.

The Synchronicity PrincipleLike no scientist before or since, Carl Jung explored the territory connecting objective behaviour with a person’s inner experience, including the spiritual dimension. He not only articulated the role of archetypes in the subconscious, dreams, and divination, he defined a second factor to explain how divination systems work, which he termed synchronicity. The function of synchronicity relies on timing, or discerning the relationship that two events have in time—which could include inner events, like ‘aha’ moments of insight, in sync with events that are happening outside of ones’ self. Because it explains how things are related in time, Synchronicity is central to explaining how a divination ritual can work. What is the relationship between subjective experience and external event—such as the way the cards are picked or the coins land—at any given moment? In Jung’s essay entitled “Synchronicity, An Acausal Connecting Principle,” he contrasted the western mindset—influenced by early Greek philosophy with its focus on cause and effect—with the eastern perspective, which views details only as part of a whole.This ... involves a certain curious principle that I have termed ‘synchronicity,’ a concept that formulates a point of view diametrically opposed to that of causality. Since the latter is merely statistical truth and not absolute, it is a sort of working hypothesis of how events evolve one out of another, whereas synchronicity takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance, namely, a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves as well as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers.

To Jung the eastern approach provided a more holistic viewpoint, reaching beyond the linear approach and tunnel vision of rational intellect by itself. Jung pointed to a power of discernment that can make sense of “the irrational functions of consciousness… sensation and intuition.”

Everyone has experienced amazing coincidences that turn out to carry profound meaning in their lives. This is synchronicity in action, one of three different kinds of synchronicity. The first type occurs when an individual

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has a thought at the same time that some related external event occurs within his or her field of perception. To the extent that our intuition is sharp, we can immediately sense the meaning. The second type occurs when an internal mental process corresponds to an event that happens concurrently, but at a distance. Finally, synchronicity also can occur when an internal thought relates to an external event that hasn’t happened yet, but where no causal relationship seems possible. These last two kinds of synchronicity cannot be known immediately, they can only be verified later. In Jung’s eyes, the occurrence of such meaningful coincidences points to an interconnected union of the material and conscious worlds. Events in our lives, especially emotionally charged ones, can also stimulate archetypes within us, which can then attract similar events that provide meaningful synchronicities.

With regard to divination systems, when you formulate a query for an oracle system, you are deliberately entering a state of receptivity for a response to the inquiry. Then, by picking cards, throwing coins, etc. you are injecting a seemingly random element into the equation, but a personal one that is activated by your energy—your choice of cards, tossing of coins, or rolling of the dice. Since nothing is completely random, to the extent that your personal intention is involved, the coincidental pattern that turns up is related to everything else that is happening at that moment. The archetype(s) that turn up are interpreted specifically in terms of what is in play for you personally at that moment.The quality of a divination experience, therefore, reflects one’s intent as much as it dispenses practical wisdom. As a form of applied synchronicity, divination offers a system to produce meaningful insight experiences. It’s a spiritual practice for expanding awareness and personal transformation. As Jung put it, the I-Ching interprets an “inner unconscious knowledge that corresponds to the state of consciousness at the moment.” What a gift; what an opportunity!

Jung was fascinated by the way the I-Ching provided a systematic methodology for a deeper understanding of any human situation—not by analyzing its components, but by viewing individual elements in context, as part of a seamless cosmic whole. As he put it, “There is no need of any criteria which imposes conditions and restricts the wholeness of the natural process… In the I-Ching, the coins fall just as happens to suit them.”

This is the key to understanding Jung’s psychological worldview. The world is an interconnected web of the subjective and objective, with synchronicity providing a link between the two. Jung overlapped with the new quantum physics of the 20th century in his explanations of synchronicity and consciousness. He showed how quantum physics, which empirically demonstrates behaviours that can only be described as “paradoxical synchronicities,” contributes to understanding how divination systems work.Science relies on reason, and logic is a good thing to be sure, but when we depend on logic alone to divine the workings of the universe—or even to manage a relationship—we fall short. Intuition is something other than reason, so it is no surprise that the role of intuition is grudgingly accepted in scientific circles. While logical analysis has played an obvious role in unravelling nature’s secrets, intuition has helped us make breakthrough discoveries far beyond the domain of rational processes. Fortunately, many prominent scientists and business leaders have recently rediscovered the ancient technologies for intuitive decision-making known as divination systems.

Beyond Cause and EffectWhen a person consults the I-Ching, he or she generally tosses sticks or coins and records the way they land as a six-line pattern called a hexagram. Naturally, we ask, how can any sort of truth be divined from such seeming happenstance? Such moments are hardly random, however—an event in the external world triggers our inner knowledge, and the two realities merge within our working intellect. Trust in synchronicity might seem to fly in the face of science—based on the ability to objectively measure and predict cause and effect—yet the synchronicity principle was validated by the basic discoveries of quantum physics. In the proof of their Uncertainty Principle in 1927, which still stands, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger demonstrated that, in the realm of sub-atomic particles, the act of perception influences what is

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being perceived, and objective measurement is impossible.Ultimately, it becomes clear that there is no such thing as scientific objectivity, only statistical probabilities. As Jung put it in his foreword to Wilhelm’s I-Ching, “every process is partially or totally interfered with by chance, so much so that under natural circumstances a course of events absolutely conforming to specific laws is almost an exception.” So it happens that the answer to a long-unsolved quandary can just pop into our heads. So it happens that events oozing with connective portent can appear to have no causal relationship. But meaning arises and it is no accident. Exploring this mutual interplay between matter and mind is central to future pursuits of knowledge and understanding.

In terms of managing the practical affairs, looking for meaning in synchronistic events actually works better than striving to make predictions according to linear thinking or statistical probabilities. Wise ancient observers, who lacked our computational and record-keeping technologies, put their observations to work through the I-Ching, Astrology, Tarot, Runes and Numerology. Using the magic of applied synchronicity within a rich set of traditional archetypes, they strove to understand and cooperate with the way events are destined to unfold, the way things go together in time.Even though we can investigate and explore the realms of the mysterious—and even use mystical tools in our personal quest for wisdom—it is likely that they will never be “proven” in the scientific sense of the word. An appreciation for the usefulness of divination is an understanding of the interconnectedness of all things, the Synchronicity Principle and the power of archetypes, but the best proof of all is how authentic divination helps you make better decisions, have better relationships and less stress—if you let it.

Paul O’Brien is known as “the father of interactive divination.” He is the publisher of Tarot.com and I-Ching.com, co-author of The Visionary I Ching (first published as Synchronicity Software in 1989), and author of a new book Divination, Destiny and Desire. Along with divination system design, his experiences as a New Thought minister and Buddhist meditation teacher support his passion for helping people pinpoint and fulfil their Heart’s Desires. (This article excerpted from the book Divination, Destiny, and Desire.)

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Divination - What It Is and How It Works

The classic definition of divination is to foretell the future. Fortune telling, augury, and prophecy are often used interchangeably with the word divination. However, foretelling the future is but one aspect of divination. Many use divination to uncover past events, as well as those of the present. In that case, divination is not used to foretell the future, but rather, to gain insight into the past or present. This is known as forth telling. For example, in the New Testament, Jesus encountered a woman at the well and said to her “the man you are now with is not your husband.” He was not foretelling events, but rather, declaring what was true in the present.Some forms of divination rely on a tool such as cards, runes, tea leaves and dice, while other forms are an interpretation of body parts or other natural objects such as palmistry, animal behaviour, and cloud formations. Yet another type of divination is a direct knowing outside of any tool or natural observation, including dream interpretation, channelling, and clairaudience.

How Does Divination Work?Humans have practiced divination for thousands of years. The word divination shares the same root as the word divine, so most people have assumed that the information received through divination comes from a divine source—God, Goddess, Great Spirit, etc. Divination was often used by oracles, prophets, shamans, and religious leaders who were trained to discern and interpret omens, symbols, and messages. In many respects, the diviner served as a bridge between the Divine and everyday folks. For some civilizations, though, divination was a normal part of living for all people. In the early Christian tradition, some people were said to have the “gift of prophecy” and delivered messages from God. However, adherents of this religion believed there were two sources for “supernatural” information: God and the devil. Therefore, it was possible for some individuals to manifest “counterfeit” psychic gifts that were demonic in nature. In fact, fortunetelling was often forbidden in the Judeo-Christian belief system, despite the fact that there are numerous accounts of divination performed by “heroes of the faith”. There are several theories about how divination works, but the foundation for all of the following theories is a belief in an ordered Universe—and that there is no such thing as accidents or coincidences:

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•Divine Source – This is rather straightforward: it is belief that information received through divination comes straight from a Divine Source…a spiritual Intelligence. Those who believe in an evil counterpart to the Divine, such as a devil or demons, believe that information can come from that source, as well.

•Synchronicity – Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) coined the term synchronicity to explain that coinciding events have meaning. A student of symbol and myth, as well as the divination method of Tarot, Jung believed that nothing was random, and everything happens for a reason. When consulting a divinatory tool, the individual will receive a message pertinent to his or her concerns and questions.

•Collective Unconscious – Jung also believed in a collective unconscious, which is a vast database where information about every person, object, and event is stored. This collective unconscious could be accessed through archetypal recognition, hypnosis, dreaming, and divination.

•Higher Self – Some believe that the subconscious exerts an energetic force that affects divination tools. Our “Higher Self” or “spirit” already knows the information that is sought, as well as what’s best for us. By using divination, we tap into this “Higher Self”, bypassing the conscious, rational mind.

•Macrocosm/Microcosm – Ancient civilizations believed that everything was connected through patterns of energy and universal laws. Divination was seen as a microcosm that reflected larger patterns of energy—the macrocosm. Modern man often assumed that these beliefs and practices were mere primitive superstitions. However, with the advent of scientific discoveries such as the theory of relativity, chaos theory, quantum physics, etc. many are realizing that science is now confirming these ancient metaphysical beliefs and practices.

•Intuition – Believed to be a part of the brain, intuition is a “6th sense” whereby information is directly perceived by means outside of the five senses. That is, a “knowing” not based on rational understanding or the “facts”. Many believe that human intuition is in a state of evolution, especially as civilizations become more complex. We no longer need the daily “flight or fight” survival instinct that our ancestors once did, but rather, a “higher” form of knowing and understanding outside the realm of ego. In metaphysics, there is an esoteric belief in a “readiness wave”. The readiness wave is a signal emitted from the frontal cortex of the brain into the surrounding area of the thinker. These signals relate to thought and experience, before the actual occurrence of those thoughts or experiences.

•Psychic Gifts – Whether manifested through the human body (DNA/natural ability) or as a “supernatural” gift (bestowed by a divine source), some believe that certain individuals are born psychic and others are not.

•Akashic Record – With divination methods such as clairvoyance, dream interpretation, and channelling, there is a belief in a cosmic library where every conversation and event on the earth plane is recorded in “life books”. When an individual is attuned to the Holy Spirit, universal consciousness, and the “other side”, he or she is able to read these books, known as the Akashic Record. Information from these books travel on light waves and are received by the diviner. Some believe that the Akashic Record is the same thing as Jung’s collective unconscious.

How is it that a prophecy often comes to pass? I believe that, in most cases, the diviner is reading the present energy surrounding a situation or person. Because most people are resistant to change, living their lives in the well-worn grooves of familiarity and habit, that which is discerned in the present

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comes to pass in the future. It’s easier to determine outcomes than one might think: examining an individual’s past and present if often a good determinant of where they’re headed simply because of inertia. If the driver of a car never turns the steering wheel, she’ll continue along the same trajectory that she’s been travelling. Simply put, if you want to know where someone is heading, look at where they’ve been. However, those who decide to exercise their free will with conscious choice can change the direction of their life. Your past does not equal your future, even if that’s the case for most people. Thus, messages received through divination are not set in stone but, rather, are fluid in nature.

It is my belief that everyone can access their intuitive abilities, and use divination to understand their past, present, and future. When we practice divination with the intent of seeking guidance for self-growth and understanding, we exercise our 6th chakra, also known as the brow chakra or third eye.

Using Divination for Guidance

Divining means asking the external Universe to answer our questions through the patterns of seemingly chance events. In this article, we will present an overview of what divining is and how it's used, and then share with you a couple of the tools we have found to be the most powerful and reliable.

One of the tools we'll explain will be Drunvalo's Triple Numbers system.

Three Divination CategoriesThe practice of divination is as old as mankind, and is certainly not confined to uneducated, superstitious peoples, as we were all taught in grade school. For example, the sophisticated ancient Romans sought answers by examining the entrails of chickens killed for the purpose. And while modern divining tools — like Tarot, I-Ching, and even tea leaves — are usually kinder and more sanitary than that, the principle is the same: Answers are read in the patterns that show up when the divination tools are "cast."

Another method of seeking answers, and probably the most reliable one, is that of looking for meaningful coincidences. This approach, which we'll explain further on in this article, is examined in James Redfield's Celestine Prophecy and subsequent books in that series. The Knock of the Spirit in Castaneda's book The Power of Silence also belongs in this category, and is defined as the First Abstract Core of sorcery.

Methods that combine aspects of divination and meaningful coincidence include Drunvalo's Triple Numbers system (which we also will explain further on), and interpretation of the kinds of animals that appear around us. Margaret Craven's haunting book I Heard the Owl Cry My Name describes how a priest living among the Northwest Indians comes to understand that the Universe really does communicate with us in these ways. The beautiful book that goes with David Carson's Medicine Cards is a good source for the divinatory meanings of the animals that may show up in our environment.

Does Divination Really Work?More than thirty years ago, before I believed in "any of this stuff," a friend challenged me to try an experiment. I was to put out a request to the Universe, and then watch for unusual feelings and signs.

In those days, I was mainly interested in men. So I asked the Universe to help me meet and get to know this

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gorgeous guy I was intrigued with but had been too shy to approach. As instructed, I wrote the request down on five index cards, along with a declaration of what my friend called the Five Criteria of a Well-Formed Intent: that I really wanted it, could imagine it, deserved to have it happen, and was willing to take responsibility for it; and that everyone involved would benefit.

The next day, when I was halfway home from playing tennis, I had a strong impulse to walk back and take a strange and much longer route. Realizing that this crazy impulse might be an answer to my request, I obeyed it. In doing so, I ran into my friend Max. He was on the porch of his home, barbecuing chicken — and talking with the man I wanted to meet (I hadn't known where Max lived, or that they knew each other). Max introduced us and invited me to have dinner with them.

That delicious happening pretty much changed my entire theory of the nature of the Universe. Later, I practiced for months with dice-throwing experiments until I was totally convinced that random events are not, in fact, random. Science was just plain wrong about everything that really mattered.

Does this mean you should believe in divination? No, not at all. What it does suggest is that it might be worth your time to do what I did: Try it and see what happens.

Using Divination ToolsTarot, Medicine Cards, and the I-Ching are probably the most popular divination tools. There are many books about what the various hexagrams, cards, and layouts mean, and there are both online and CD-ROM software programs that will do the shuffling, selecting, and interpreting for you. Here, we will address more general concerns.

The first thing to know about divination tools is that any future events they seem to predict are not set in stone. They are possibilities, or even opportunities. Spirit has no interest in scaring us or giving us negative ideas, and everything that happens to us has a positive purpose.

So it follows that if we are shown something that appears negative, we are being told either that something needs to change, or that if we just "hang in there" this seemingly negative event will turn out just fine. Then we can look to other parts of the reading for clues as to what needs changing or what the meaning is. In doing this, we will find out how to cultivate (or avoid) any outcome that's shown, or at least understand the positive underlying reason behind any temporarily negative manifestation.

James Redfield gives a really good example in the Celestine Prophecy of how this works. One day, while seeking the answer to a particular question, the protagonist finds himself having to choose between two roads. He takes the one that seems brighter — he just "knows" it's the correct path — and is immediately arrested and thrown in jail! This looks very bad for his theories about how to decide which road to take — until he finds out that the man who is sharing his cell has the answer to his question! As soon as he receives this information, the police turn him loose.

Secondly, it's important not to become "hooked." In my experience, people who seem to be addicted to card readings and such are actually people who don't believe the answers they've already received. So they keep asking essentially the same question over and over, hoping for a different answer (or for confirmation of the first one). If you find yourself doing this, just sit down and write out what the answers are that you have been getting to your big question. Then don't ask about that again until the situation makes some kind of major shift.

Also, it's important to be thoughtful about framing our questions. I have found that it works best to ask something like, "What does my Highest Guidance want me to know right now?" If we seek answers in a particular area, we can say, "What does my Highest Guidance want me to know right now about

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___________?"

I think it's also important to request answers of our Guidance that will help us energetically. This overcomes any tendency toward the doom-and-gloom kinds of readings that we so often subconsciously expect and thus create.

Then, we have to be intuitive about interpreting the results. This takes a lot of practice, but it's fun. You can study books about whatever tool you are using. Also, you can learn a lot by doing readings for others.

Finally, if we try to use these tools as a substitute for the inner work that needs doing, we'll find ourselves going around in circles. Divination tools can help us choose the path our Higher Self wants us to walk. But the choosing and the walking are both up to us

Meaningful CoincidencesFor the most part, this is an easy one. The important aspect is that we have made our list of questions. We know what it is we are seeking. This is what makes the coincidence meaningful!

At the very least, meaningful coincidences let us know that the Universe is not a mechanical, cause-and-effect system, as we have been taught to believe. If we telepathically send a message to our partner to stop off and pick up a head of lettuce on the way home from work, and it happens, we can't prove anything scientifically, but we know.

Here are two divination systems that rely upon meaningful coincidence.

The Knock of the Spirit

In the Power of Silence, Don Juan teaches Carlos that when Spirit has something extremely important to communicate with us, it will "knock" three times. In other words, we will receive three clear, unambiguous "meaningful coincidences" to let us know that some decision we need to make is correct. What makes the coincidence meaningful is that it comes in conjunction with our thoughts.

The Knock of the Spirit is our guidance sending us a message. We don't need to be psychic or have any particular abilities to perceive and interpret these messages. We simply need to be aware.

Here's an example from my own experience.

When I first knew inside that I wanted to help Drunvalo, I also got, "You and about ten thousand other people." So I told my guidance that if this was my path I needed to receive three signs, and that I needed to receive the first sign during my upcoming seminar with Drunvalo at the Omega Institute.

I drove the 200 or so miles to that seminar on a beautiful summer's day. It would be my first experience of Drunvalo's work except for his lectures at Wesak. As I approached the Institute, I was so happy that I started singing — joyfully, at the top of my lungs — an old Girl Scout camp song I hadn't thought of in decades.

On the last day of the seminar, Drunvalo told us the story of the Japanese Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, and her children. At the end of that story, Amaterasu's children appear as a group of Australian laughing birds — they're called Kookaburras. And the song I'd been singing? "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree..."

Drunvalo says that he guides many of his major decisions by the Knock of the Spirit. He was urged by others to do the workshop in Japan, where he brought Amaterasu out of the Earth after centuries of darkness, but he agreed to this only after receiving three clear, unambiguous signs.

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Drunvalo's Triple Numbers System

As Drunvalo explains it, one of the ways Spirit communicates with us is by means of triple — or even quadruple or larger — numbers that appear around us — license plates, clocks, airline flight numbers, street addresses, and so on.

It's clear that numbers are basic to the way the Universe works. From Sacred Geometry, the Golden Mean, and the Fibonacci spiral to the harmonics of music, numerical relationships underlie the Reality.

In this case, this system is based on music. In the Chromatic scale of music, as the notes go up the scale, C, C#, D etc. the cycles per second increase by eleven cycles per second on each note. Therefore all increases are multiples of eleven. So the notes increase relative to each other by 11, 22, 33, etc.

Since all of nature is also based on vibration and the harmony of music, whenever you see double numbers or double anything, it is a "harmonic" moment. But it is normal. However, when you see triple numbers, 111, 222, 333, etc., then it is a very harmonic moment. If you see 1111, 2222, 3333, etc. then it is extremely harmonic.

So in this system, each number has its own meaning, and the more numbers there are together, or the more often we see them, the more powerful the sign. For example, 1111 is a much stronger and more significant sign than 111 — and if you see it twice or more in a row, this means you should really pay attention.

Further, it does not have to be just numbers. It can be, for example, three black birds in a row followed by three more black birds, followed by three more black birds. This sequence equals 333.

The system also works for letters. A, J, and S=1, B, K, and T=2, and so on (CLU=3, DMV=4, ENW=5, FOX=6, GPY=7, HQZ=8, IR=9). So if you see 11A, then it also equals 111, and M4D equals 444 — but these forms mean that what's going on is slightly hidden. If you see AAA (or DMV), then it is even more hidden. But AAA and 111 still carry the same inner meaning.

The way we would interpret the numbers for ourselves has to do with whatever we are thinking or doing, or the nature of our circumstances, at the time that the number appears. Sometimes we then have to use our intuition and/or wait to see other triple numbers for further information.

For example, if we were thinking of starting a new business and we saw triple ones, this might indicate that there was a lot of energy available for that endeavour.

The power of triple numbers comes not only from the "harmonics" of the moment itself, but also from the fact that it is sourced in the outside reality and therefore is not affected by our ego.

Drunvalo says that triple numbers are God speaking to us.

Here are what the nine possibilities mean:

111 — Energy flow. Money, sexual energy, movement of energy from one place to another. If we are thinking about something important to us when we see triple ones, this indicates that energy is moving or being gathered related to that subject.

222 — The beginning of a new cycle. We do not know the nature of the cycle until the next triple number shows up.

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333 — We are being faced with a decision. Triple threes also means that there may be a lesson here. Depending on your decision, it will move to 666 or 999. If you see 666 next, then the lesson will be given to you again, either in the same manner or in some other way. When it moves to 999, then this lesson is complete for you.

444 — Triple fours indicates study related to the Mystery School. Depending upon what's happening, events may be presenting us with Mystery School lessons and information.

555 — This is the number of Christ Consciousness. It means that we have mastered a lesson in Life in our spiritual path and are now living it.

666 — We tend to think of 666 as evil, but it's not, except in extreme cases. Actually, it's the number of the human being, and it means density — the physical plane. Carbon, which is what organic life is based upon, has 6 protons, 6 neutrons and 6 electrons. In divinatory terms, triple sixes ask us to pay attention, be aware, slow down, and look around. If we see more than one instance of 666, we might want to consider being very careful.

777 — This is like 444, except it is a higher level of the Mystery School. Instead of studying, we are practicing, even playing. We are making our knowledge real in the world.

888 — Triple eights means that we have completed something in the Mystery School, whether we were at the four level or the seven level. We have mastered something.

999 — This means completion on all levels.

000 — This is the void and does not relate to this world. It is the pause between the notes of music.

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Divination Research Paper

This was written as part of my Honours Program at Scott Community College in 2003.Imagine a moment from the distant past. It is night, and a fire is burning brightly. A tribe, following migrating herds is anticipating the beginning of a big hunt in the morning. The very survival of everyone is dependent on the outcome of this hunt – the young women giggling together, the mothers suckling infants, the boys who will one day become hunters, the old wise ones who have survived many seasons. The hunters themselves wear brave faces, but must be wrestling with doubts. Picture them surrounding the fire, their faces lit in the flickering orange light, wondering what tomorrow will bring. There is anxiety among the tribe members. What will happen if the hunters cannot find game? Will some of them die in the hunt? Will the people survive this next round of seasons?

These questions must have haunted all the ancient tribes of man. Perhaps as the tribe ate the last of their meat, they noticed details that they felt presaged the future. Maybe the marrow of the last bone was an indication of what tomorrow would bring. Was the bone full and ripe with marrow, or thin, weak, and empty? Perhaps this is where the use of oracles began.

Certainly mankind’s need to know the future began with basic needs such as food, shelter, weather and anything which would affect the survival of the people. Then, as societies grew and civilizations developed, the issue of survival became less tenuous, and other questions arose. Questions about marriage, health, harvests, wealth, love, children, political power.

From the windswept tundras of the far north to the deserts and mountains, to the equatorial jungles – everywhere man had spread, he has brought his methods of discerning the future. Visions, dreams and divination are the primary vehicles for information concerning future events. Divination was practiced primarily in two ways: through sacred persons such as shamans and priests, and through the use of divinatory tools known today as “oracles.”

As Melville J. Herskovitz writes in his textbook Cultural Anthropology (1955), “This phenomenon takes two forms. One is the use of devices in which chance is the principal element. The second is contact with a divine spirit, which displaces the personality of a priest or medium and speaks through him. Both are of wide distribution in the Old World; in the New World, the second type predominates.” This paper is concerned primarily with the first type – the use of devices.

The conclusion that Herskovitz puts forth, that chance is the principal element, is an assumption and may or may not be the actual operation of divinatory oracles. Assuming no deliberate trickery on the part of the practitioner, how oracles work may occur in one of a number of ways: by the subconscious manipulation of the device(s) by the practitioner or the questioner; through the phenomenon of synchronicity; or by chance. The interpretation of results can also be attributed to a number of factors including the assignment of specific meaning applied unconsciously by the practitioner or the questioner; that the factors involved may be vague enough to be applied to any or all situations; that the questioner perceives only what he or she expects to perceive; or that the entire event is an exercise in imagined meaning where none exists. (1955).

The word oracle can be defined as referring to an individual who predicts the future or, more recently, the tool or tools used by individuals who do so. The Webster Dictionary lists the definition as, “a deity that utters answers to questions; …[or] the answers given.” (1995). But in recent years, the term “oracle” has also come to mean the specific tool used to obtain those answers. Today, in the twenty-first century, commonly available oracles include tarot cards, rune stones, and astrology charts. In fact, a resurgence of interest in ancient oracles has been evident since the revolution in consciousness which began in the 1960s, and today new oracles are

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being created with every new season: Motherpeace Tarot, Cat People Tarot, Celtic Tree Oracle, The Way of Cartouche, Kwan Yin Oracle, and dozens more are introduced annually to an eager market.

Here we will explore the origins of oracles, their widespread nature, what they may share in common across various cultures, and take a look at some specific oracles from various places around the globe.The use of oracles in ancient times is supported by their extensive presence in the artifacts found at archaeological sites, and references to divination in ancient writings. Perhaps the earliest form of divination is omoplatoscopy or scapulimancy, the art of divination using shoulder blades. (Take, 1999). The shoulder blade of an animal – sometimes sacrificed for that purpose, and usually a sheep – is placed in the fire until it is cracked. The bone is then examined and interpreted according to the nature of the cracks. Dorjee Tseten, writing on the Tibetan art of divination writes:“It is said that divining from shoulder blades was first done by brown bears who, after killing weasels and mice took out the shoulder blades and examined the lines on them to know whether they were being pursued by hunters. This was observed by hunters, who noticed that the bears sometimes ate the body of their prey and sometimes abandoned it uneaten with only the shoulder blade extracted. Gradually this form of divination came into use among hunters themselves.” (1995).

This form of divination was also practiced among the Chinese, the Arabs, and other cultures. “The earliest Chinese examples of true writing are etchings on "oracle bones" made during the second millennium B.C. Questions were engraved in the shoulder blades of sheep, cattle, or pigs. The bones, after being heated, yielded supposedly prophetic cracks, whose interpretation might be recorded as well. (‘It should be Fu Hao whom the king orders to attack Jen.’ Or this gem of reassurance: ‘In the next ten days there will be no disaster.’)” The Naskapi Indians of eastern Canada practiced scapulimancy with the shoulder blades of caribou. (Carroll, 2003). Scapulimancy was also revered in Ireland. “In Arabic Divinatory Texts and Celtic Folklore: A Comment on the Theory and Practice of Scapulimancy in Western Europe, Robert Kirk reports on a practice called silinnenath, a form of scapulimancy. In this practice, the shoulder bone of a sheep, that no knife has touched, is used to divine.” (Tsaoir, 2000.)

In other cultures, the use of a turtle or tortoise shell was used in much the same fashion – heated until it cracked and the cracks read as a means of divining the future, or the answer to some question. (Volk, “Shang China”, 2000) “In ancient China, 3,400 years ago…advisors would take the shell of a turtle and heat it until cracks appeared on the surface. By the shape of the cracks they would tell the king the shape of the future. The practice continued for at least 1,500 years. The following invocation dates from about 100 BC: ‘Commit unto us, they eternal truth, O mighty turtle, that we, by thy power, might be guided in our choice…’” (Pollack, 1986.)

Another form of divination involving bones is the use of astragali (singular: astragalus). Astragali are widely considered to be the precursors to modern dice, and consist of the knucklebones of sheep. This practice was common in ancient Greece and Rome, where it eventually evolved into the games of Tali and Tropa. (Kowalski, 2003.) Some of the earliest astragali have been found in the graves of the Indo-European Kurgan peoples whose sites date back as far as the fourth millennia BC. (Volk, 2000.) Bill Abrams notes in his article “A Brief History of Probability” that “Archaeological digs throughout the ancient world consistently turn up a curious overabundance of astragali, the heel bones of sheep and other vertebrates….the bones were used for religious ceremonies and gambling.” Abrams describes one method of using these bones:“Astragali have six sides but are not symmetrical. Those found in excavations typically have their sides numbered or engraved. For many ancient civilizations, astragali were the primary mechanism through which oracles solicited the opinions of their gods. In Asia Minor, for example, it was customary in divination rites to roll, or cast, five astragali. Each possible configuration was associated with the name of a god and carried with it the sought-after advice. …Gradually, over thousands of years, astragali were replaced by dice. Pottery dice have been found in Egyptian tombs built before 2000 B.C. and by the time Greek civilization was in full flower, dice were everywhere.” (2003).

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Astragali were also commonly employed by various tribes in Africa. Wim Van Binsbergen, reporting on divination in Africa and Asia writes that the use of devices for divination and the presence of astragali was common. “It is very frequently resorted to in agricultural societies: to ascertain the causes of death of a group member” and “The use of astragali derived, hardly ever from wild animals but in most cases domestic animals, helps to pinpoint the Neolithic context of the board-games and divination systems in which these astragali serve as dice i.e. random generators.” (1999.)

Indeed “random generators” are perhaps the most common form of divinatory tool and include the I-Ching of China, and many other stick- or stone-throwing methods. Another commonly used method in Africa is the use of cowry shells or obi (palm) nuts. (Kaser, 1996.) Most of these can be seen to have a binary pattern – a “heads or tails” kind of system. The simplest involve only that – “heads or tails” – “yes” or “no.” As these systems evolved, they grew more complex, combining patterns of positive and negative, and most can still be seen to possess their basic binary structure. These methods are part of a group of divinatory practices which arose out of geomancy – divination by making marks upon the earth. Kaser writes “By noting how many of these shells landed ‘heads’ up, they got a quick count – 1 through 16. That was all they needed to begin reciting their own verses for the figures….As a form of geomancy…the basic concept of using 16 figures for fortune-telling was borrowed from a system practiced earlier by the Arabs. With the spread of Islam through Africa about 1,200 years ago, Raml – the Arab’s ‘science of sand’ – came to West Africa.” (Kaser, 1996.) The science of sand to which Kaser refers is the art of sand divination, “…the forceful ‘hitting of the sand’ (darb al raml) with a stick, in the North and North East Africa. …” Van Binsbergen also notes the binary pattern and how more complex patterns are formed, “the result produced by the apparatus is interpreted, through a process of transformation and elimination, as contributing one line, or one or two dots, to a four line geomantic symbol, of which there are sixteen.” (1996.)

A form of binary divination also appears in the Old Testament of the Bible, as the Urim and Thummin, two stones used for divination by the Hebrew priests, and of which there is little known. One author speculates effectively, “The classic example is the mysterious Urim and Thummim of the Bible, first mentioned in Exodus 28:30, and subsequently in six other places. The problem to scholars has always been that Urim and Thummin are plural words, thus indicating not just a pair of objects, but several pairs. It may be, however, that the explanation is as simple as asking ‘heads or tails?’ when a (single) coin is thrown into the air.” (Walter, 1982).

“Possibly similar to the Biblical Urim and Thummin is a method of divination used by the Chinese which is sometimes referred to as ‘the divining dominoes’. These are known as Chiao or Kau and are two pieces of hardwood…shaped rather like a Brazil nut, flat on one side and convex on the other. Dr. Culin described the use of the Chiao in a privately printed pamphlet Religious and Magical Ceremonies in China…[This oracle was used] to determine whether or not one should proceed to the next stage of the divination.” (21). “The Chiao kind of piece, which could only determine one of two things (negative or positive…) was superseded in some areas by knuckle bones, used as a kind of dice with four determinatives [astragali].” (Walter, 1982).

The Chinese I Ching, or Book of Changes, is another divinatory method which employs this binary system. Originally performed with sticks of yarrow wood, which were counted out in a prescribed sequence, the modern form of I Ching is conducted using three coins. The pattern they create of “heads or tails” (recorded as broken or solid lines) in six throws determines the answer. The six throws create two three-line “trigrams” which are then combined to reveal the final “hexagram” answer. The development of the I Ching is closely related to the earlier method of turtle shell divination. Bridges (2000), quoting from Confucius in the Great Commentary notes the connections between scapulimancy, binary systems and the patterns derived from them:“Fu Hsi, the primordial culture-bringer who invented the calendar, writing and the organization of society…tried to explain the workings of Yi, a word usually translated as ‘change.’ To do this…’he observed the phenomena of the heavens and gazed down to observe the contours of the earth.’ He also observed his own

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internal processes and their reflections in nature and then ‘went beyond this to take ideas from other things. Thus he invented the eight trigrams in order to comprehend the virtues of spiritual beings and represent the conditions of all things of creation.’

“In one version of the legend, Fu His sees the eight trigrams, or primal groupings of broken and unbroken lines, on the back of a turtle, which gives us a clue as to how the oracle was originally practiced.”It is interesting to note that both the 16 geomantic figures and the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching bear a mathematical resemblance to one another. The number 4 has always been considered a number with mystical properties, and a reflection of the earth’s rhythms: the four seasons, the four elements, the four humours of the Ancient Greeks, for example. The number four is also sacred to Native Americans and is reflected in their reverence for the four directions. Bridges also notes other “coincidental” characteristics of this system:“The number sixty four is unusual in several ways. There are sixty four codons, of three nucleotide units each, used by DNA and RNA to specify the amino acids needed for protein synthesis…Interestingly enough evidence from anthropology also suggests that sixty four is the maximum number of entities that can be contained in one folkloric unit. From this it follows that the maximum level of complexity is also controlled by the law of 2 to the 6th power, or sixty four. This connection between the evolution of proteins from DNA and the development of cultural complexity from archetypal experience forms the basis of the I Ching.” (2000.)

This seems to suggest that the I Ching and, by association, other oracles are an outward reflection of an inner pattern that exists universally in the natural world. Bridges suggests that “the primal lineal order seems to represent some basic structure of life itself,” an idea also reflected in biochemist Martin Schonberger’s book The I Ching and the Genetic Code. This also suggests support for the idea that all oracles operate under some non-causal law such as Carl Jung’s concept of synchronicity. (1992.)According to Allan Combs and Mark Holland (1990), “…Jung was fascinated with the I Ching and frequently consulted it. His interest was amplified by his friendship with Richard Wilhelm, the prominent sinologist [student of Chinese culture] and the first to produce a thoroughly successful translation of the book into a Western language. It was in 1930 in his memorial address for Wilhelm, that Jung presented the idea of synchronicity as a concept ‘not based on a causal principle, but on a principle…which I have tentatively called the synchronistic principle.’…Essentially the idea was that the random tosses of the yarrow stalks or coins provide an opportunity for a pattern to emerge that reflects a much vaster pattern of events.”

So we have a number of oracles in which a kind of binary system is employed in various places in the world: the I Ching in China, knucklebones in ancient Greece and Rome, cowrie shells in Africa. Anthropologist Van Binsbergen has this to say about the wide distribution of similar oracles: “…the practices and meanings attaching to artefacts are not rigidly confined within local or regional ethnic, linguistic and political boundaries, but spill over and ramify across the continents while remaining…attached to the objects that function as material foci of their meanings and practices.” (1999.)It seems impossible to discuss divination methods in an anthropological context without also visiting, however briefly, the topic of board games and games of chance, which are clearly related. Many scholars are in agreement that many, if not all, board games and gambling games began as oracles. Many, in fact, can still be used as both; for example, dice, dominoes, Mah Jongg, and playing cards. The historical and archaeological connections between these seemingly disparate methods are beyond the scope of this paper, but well worth further research.

Derek Walter, in his book on the Chinese game of Mah Jongg (1982), explains that nearly all games were once divinatory systems. “The greater part of present-day knowledge regarding the history of games stems from a significant exhibition staged in Atlanta and Chicago in 1893. …the man in charge of the exhibition was Dr. Steward Culin, then Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Palaeontology at the University of Pennsylvania. According to Dr. Culin, the original aim in assembling the collection was to try and trace the possible origins of chess and playing cards. One of the lines of investigation, suggested by Frank H. Cushing,

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was the possibility that chess and playing cards were both descended from arrow divination methods, which are not only found all over the globe, but are also of great antiquity, being mentioned in the Bible for example. “…In brief, the eventual conclusions drawn from the study of that vast collection showed that all games such as chess, dice, dominoes and playing cards did indeed have their origins in divinatory practices that are still in use world-wide.” (1982.)

Van Binsbergen’s studies on the subject explore the widespread use of counting board games (using stones) known as mancala, and the geomantic practices related to it in agricultural societies. He also notes the mathematical correlation. “Geomantic divination, 4 based on the systematic production and distinction of 2ˆn in combinations of lines, seeds, pebbles, or wooden or ivory tablets; an ubiquitous and dominant family of divination systems, including such famous member as Ifa, Fa, ‘Sixteen Cowries’ (Nigeria and West Africa in general), Sikidy (Madagascar and Comoro Isl.), Hakata (Southern Africa), Ilm al-raml (North Africa), Ramalashastra (India.)” He notes that this system of divination and the presence of mancala-like board games occurs all over the world. In the same text, it is also pointed out that these board games “stress pairs and foursomes, and come close to patterns of binary arithmetic opposition underlying all geomantic practices however much of its surface practices may vary.” (1999)This raises the question: Is it that the act of divination reflects the metaphysical truth (or quantum physical truth) that everything in the universe is binary (on or off), or do all these methods utilize this principle because they originated with one beginning system of divination shared by all people in the mists of prehistory, when all men (and women) lived as one tribe in the dark heart of Africa? Certainly it is beyond the scope of this paper to answer this question, but it is one which colours all such investigations into the use of oracles and divinatory practices.

Other Divination Practices. There are a wide number of other forms of divination which have been practiced throughout the centuries of man’s history. Augury, a word now often considered synonymous with divination, originally referred to the practice of reading signs about the future by observing the flight of birds. This was common in ancient Rome, as was another observatory practice – that of reading the entrails of a dead or sacrificed animal – known variously as hepatoscopy, extispicy epatosocomancy, hepatomancy, haruspicy. Our modern word auspice is a descendant of the root words avis, for bird, and spicere, to observe. (Take, 1999.)

Other methods of observational divination include watching the patterns in clouds, in smoke, in water or oil on water, or gazing into a crystal (known as scrying). These methods are, in my opinion, more akin to the practices of oracles like the ones at Delphi, where a priestess entered a trance and answered questions. The act of gazing can also easily induce a trance-like state of consciousness, allowing the intuitive knowledge to be experienced visually by imposing patterns on the random movement of lights and shadows, or shapes in the above listed media. In my experience, this type of visionary divination is more difficult to achieve and usually requires someone specially trained, while the use of binary methods can be employed by almost anyone.

These various techniques are also widespread, regardless of cultural, historical, or political divisions. “Techniques of divination are many. One, the scrutiny of the entrails of animals killed for the purpose, is found everywhere in the Old World…. Perhaps as complex a series of systems of divination by mechanical means as is found anywhere exists in Africa. In one small region of the Cameroons, for example, palm-leaf cards with special markings are thrown, other kinds of cards are placed at the hole of a trained tarantula [spider divination] so he may scatter them, cowry-shells are cast to attain combinations of open and closed sides, human and animal entrails are inspected, states of possession are induced to permit the gods to speak. 24 [24. From an unpublished study by Paul Gebauer.] Each of these techniques could be duplicated in many other areas of the continent.” (Van Binsbergen, 1993.)

Synchronicity or Chance? Walter writes, “According to Chinese tradition, all things were produced from the Ultimate Limit by separation into Yin and Yang. Originally, there was a single, undivided ‘one-ness’, which

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existed outside Time or Space; nothing, in fact. The creation of anything at all, whether merely the passage of time, or the existence of the space in which time passed, could only occur if there was non-space and non-time with which to make the comparison….The two were opposites, but not in opposition; they were mutually dependent….” (1982

Walter explains further that there are four [Note the number 4 again] distinct stages that Yin and Yang produce: Yin, Yin into Yang, Yang, and Yang into Yin. “These ‘changes’ came about through a four-state cosmological process: (1) Li, order; (2) Shu, number; (3) Ch’i, breath, motion, or spirit; (4) Hsing, form. Although this concept is literally thousands of years old, it is remarkable not only for its astuteness and absolute lack of superstitious belief, but for its extraordinarily scientific accuracy. These terms were translated long before anything was known about nuclear theory; a twentieth-century interpretation of these four concepts could just as well be: (1) Li, the physical laws of science; (2) Shu, mathematical constants and equations; (3) Ch’i, energy; and (4) Hsing, matter. The four ancient terms are an expression of Einstein’s e=mc2: or, in literary terms, the relationship between matter and energy is governed by physical laws. Furthermore, it is only within the past few decades that nuclear physicists have shown that all matter and all energy have positive and negative qualities.” (1982.)The connection between science and religion is a recurrent one in any literature on oracles. Carl Gustav Jung, a student of Sigmund Freud’s, broke with Freud’s thinking and postulated that there existed a “collective unconscious” which existed below the normal awareness of all human beings – a kind of collective mind where ideas and symbols common to all people existed and where the human mind goes to gather and experience dream imagery and other forms of mystical experience. He called the symbols and ideas contained therein “archetypes.”

Jung developed a special interest in the I Ching:“Psychologist Carl Jung, who wrote so enthusiastically of the I Ching in his introduction to Wilhelm’s classic translation, provided a theory that underpins the time-honoured Chinese system in another way.“During the 1920s and 1930s, Jung developed his theory of the collective unconscious, a universal psyche that he believed to be a repository for certain images – or archetypes, as he referred to them – that are common to all human thought. He believed that these primordial images have the power to affect human circumstances according to a principle he called synchronicity – the coincidence of events that are similar but have no apparent cause-and-effect relationship….“… Jung regarded the I Ching hexagrams and the elemental concepts they represent, such as birth, death, fire, and water, to be closely related to the universal images of the collective unconscious. The relationship between the hexagrams and real events…was governed by synchronicity.” (Editors, 1989)

Jung believed that the most meaningful “coincidences are those seemingly random but apparently purposeful events which speak directly to us in terms of personal meaning.” (Combs, 1990). For instance, he reported an event involving a golden scarab beetle and a client who had dreamed about the same insect. “While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned around and saw a flying insect knocking against the windowpane from the outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes.” The theory of synchronicity was fleshed out over several years, as Jung worked closely with quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli.

But Pauli wasn’t the only physicist with whom Jung exchanged ideas about synchronicity. According to Visions and Prophecies, one of a series of volumes from Time-Life Books, “Einstein and Jung knew each other in Zurich in the days when the great physicist was refining his special theory of relativity. And, said Jung, ‘It was he who first started me off thinking about a possible relativity of time as well as space, and their psychic conditionality.’ Einstein had unveiled a theoretical world where cause need not precede effect. Years later, Jung adapted the idea in his theory of synchronicity, suggesting that meaningful coincidences occur through some

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mechanism outside the realm of cause and effect.” (Editors, 1989.)The Harper’s Encyclopaedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience defines synchronicity as, “The unifying principle behind ‘meaningful coincidences.’ (Guiley, 1991.) Psychiatrist Carl G. Jung termed synchronicity “an acausal connecting principle’ that links seemingly unrelated and unconnected events. The concept is integral to Eastern thought, but in Western thought runs contrary to cause and effect. ….as Jung was probing the phenomena of the collective unconscious, he encountered numerous synchronicities he could not explain. They were, he said, ‘coincidences which were connected so meaningfully that their chance of concurrence would represent an astronomical figure.’ ….Jung was fascinated by the patterns found in divination systems such as the I Ching, astrology, numerology, and the like. Years later, Jung equated synchronicity with Tao. …Jung was greatly aided and influenced by the Viennese physicist Wolfgang Pauli, a Nobel Laureate and associate of Einstein, who proved the existence of non-local causality. (Peat, 1988.)

The Encyclopaedia goes on to suggest that modern scientific research is laying a foundation for the root meaning of why and how divination works in the context of natural laws. “Synchronicity increasingly is coming to light in modern research of …scientists on the nature of consciousness. …Similarities between quantum physics and Eastern mystical thought have been pointed out, as in Fritjov Capra’s The Tao of Physics (1984), while the parallels between them and the findings of Jungian psychology are verified by mythologists, most notably Joseph Campbell. (Guiley, 1991. ) The I Ching and physicists are often found together in the literature: “In 1959, when Chen Ning Yank and Tsung-Dao Lee, two American physicists…were thinking of ways of following up the experiments that had brought them the Nobel Prize in physics, they did something that many people would regard as highly unusual…[they] consulted the I Ching.” The response they received apparently was beneficial and encouraged the scientists to continue their work. (Edelson, 1974.)

Regardless of how oracles work, they are pervasive throughout human culture. Let’s take a look at some representative samples, other than the ones that have already been covered. We have already touched briefly on geomancy, which was originally divination caused by striking a stick on the ground. One method employed today, which is considered related to geomancy is the use of the pendulum, and its sister-practice, dowsing. In the first instance, a weight suspended upon a string is observed for movement in response to questions – the string being held between the thumb and forefinger of the inquisitor. Dowsing, which is associated with the finding of water, is practiced by holding a forked stick in both hands (one fork in each hand), and the single trunk of the stick pointing outward. Dowsers then walk the property where they are seeking water until the stick dips down. An alternative method involves the use of two stiff wires held in each hand and allowed to rotate freely; when the rods cross, you’ve found your spot. (Graves, 1989.) Dowsing has also been used to locate minerals, oil, and buried objects. Remarkably, dowsers are considered fairly accurate, and are often (though sometimes secretly) employed by water, mining, and petroleum companies, according to the British Society of Dowsers. Practiced since at least the Middle Ages, dowsing is currently being employed in such diverse locations as India and Honduras to assist in the location of water and mineral resources. (British, 2002.) The first recorded use of dowsing occurs in records in England in the 15th Century, when dowsing was used to try to locate lost tin mines in Cornwall. (Trinder, 1955).

Another widespread practice used today in modern Western cultures is the use of Tarot or other divinatory cards. Most Tarot experts agree that Tarot cards first surfaced in the Middle Ages in Europe, and have long been considered to have a more ancient heritage. It is believed that Tarot were introduced to Europe by Gypsies – an Indo-European people often mistakenly believed to be Egyptian. The Tarot consists of a deck of 78 cards, broken into two groups: the minor arcana and the major arcana. The major arcana are 22 cards signifying great themes – Death, The Lovers, The Wheel of Fortune, for example. The minor arcana consists of four suits of 14 cards each: the Ace, two through 10, and the Page, Knave, Queen and King. From the minor arcana was developed an Italian game in fourteenth century called tarocco, which eventually evolved into our modern deck of playing cards, with four suits of 13 cards (the Page being dropped.) Each card carries a specific meaning, and the trained Tarot reader has learned to interpret them in combination for a reading. (Kaplan, 1970). Many types

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of divinatory cards have arisen from the practice of reading Tarot, and include the Psycards, a deck developed by Nick Hobson in the 1970s, which employs the Jungian principle of archetypes in its imagery. (Foy, 1988.)

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Communing With The Universe: The Power Of OraclesBy Asoka Selvarajah, Ph.D

Until recently, scientists were giving us an increasingly mechanistic view of the Universe. The "billiard ball" model of reality - namely, that certain knowable causes always give rise to certain predictable effects - increasingly dominated all areas of our society. Scientists expected that one day, they would have a complete explanation for ALL phenomena. God increasingly became the "god of the gaps" - the gaps that Science could not explain....yet.

However, the advent of Quantum Mechanics and Chaos Theory in particular have ended that dream forever. Instead of speaking of certainties and laws, we must now deal with probabilities (i.e. likelihoods) and a constant interplay between Order and Chaos. Royal Society Biologist, Rupert Sheldrake, now threatens to upset the established scheme even further with his theory that there are in fact no "Laws of Nature", but rather ingrained habits built up through countless repetitions!

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."So everything in Science is in a dramatic state of flux - one that has yet to feed down to the layman. Most people are still caught in the 19th century hangover of Scientific Rationalism. This loosely states that the only things that exist are those that can be verified experimentally, and that logic is the only valid function of the brain for determining true knowledge about reality. This notion still pervades all areas of society.

However, it is an utterly false one. In truth, the universe is increasingly revealed to be a place of profound mystery. The more scientists discover, the more they gasp at the immensity that remains to be discovered. In truth, the Universe is something incomprehensibly complex; from the smallest sub-atomic particle to the vast dimensions of galactic super-clusters. It defies the finite capacities of our minds.

Moreover, for those who have eyes to see, the universe is also revealing itself to be a place of infinite intelligence. Whether it be Dr. Deepak Chopra telling us about the incredible wisdom stored within the Human Body, or Geo-Physicist James Lovelock postulating that the entire Earth can realistically be considered a single living organism - Gaia - many scientists are embracing a holistic approach to reality at all scales.Within this new reality of the universe as BEING, the ancient methods of perception emerge once more as potentially valid ways of examining reality. In particular, the ancient method of the Oracle deserves our re-appraisal.

Long maligned by Science as contemptible outdated nonsense, and by mainstream Religion as the work of the devil, Oracles nevertheless enjoyed a long and respected history in the Ancient World and throughout prehistory. Science has rightly put an end to such notions as the flat Earth hypothesis, and the belief that earthquakes and storms are the work of unappeased gods. However, Oracles - such as the I Ching and Tarot - seem as resilient today in our modern technological civilization as they ever were. Ironically, Astrology even uses the latest computer technology to do its work far more efficiently and quickly than has ever been possible before!Before we discount this tendency as solely limited to the realm of the feeble-minded, we should remember that no less a mind than the great Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, took Oracle systems VERY seriously indeed and worked extensively with the I Ching and the Tarot. It is an indisputable fact that numerous Investment Banks around the world use Financial Astrology to assist in their trading decisions. Moreover, the brilliant 19th century banker, J.P. Morgan - whose bank bears his name and is today one of America's most prestigious

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financial institutions - is famously quoted as saying, "Millionaires don't believe in Astrology. Billionaires do."Hence, despite the ravages of Science and Religion, Oracle systems remain popular and robust in mainstream society, and are espoused by genius and simpleton alike. Why is this? Why have they not gone the same way as belief in Santa Claus or Werewolves?Might the reason for their persistence be that Oracles are a legitimate and valid function of the human brain? Could it be that, like concepts of conscious and subconscious, and the left-handed and right-handed functions of the brain, there is actually a part of your brain that is hard-wired to receive and process information in an oracular manner?

This notion might seem revolutionary. However, it is not at all unreasonable. Recall our earlier discussion about how Science seems to be revealing the universe to be a place of Infinite Intelligence and Being. What if the Cosmos really does function through Synchronicity (meaningful coincidences), as Deepak Chopra's SynchoDestiny work and James Redfield's "The Celestine Prophecy" suggest? Would it then be unreasonable to postulate that Nature might have directly hard-wired into us a means to perceive Reality this way?It is not unreasonable at all. In fact, it is quite likely.This would explain how Oracles thrive despite Rationalism's best efforts to eliminate them. You cannot eradicate a legitimate function of the human brain through argument any more than you can insist that everyone's right leg is a useless physical leftover from a primitive past!So where does this leave us? Quite simply, the Oracle is where our individual soul touches the Soul of the Universe. Whereas logic speaks to the scientific/logical left side of our brain, the oracle communicates information from the heart of the universe, through symbol and image, direct to the artistic/symbolic right-side. Each of us is bombarded daily from society with logical/scientific input. We need to redress the balance by stimulating and using the artistic/symbolic right-side of the brain. This will in turn enhance our overall capacity to function in life. Oracles systems like the I Ching and Tarot can help us do that.In doing so, we need not approach with an attitude of deep fear, as if we are about to lose our souls. Such fears were propagated by established religion for purely political reasons. After all, if you are truly able to obtain essential knowledge and communion with the Source/God directly, why would you need the expensive trappings of large buildings, the priesthood and regular financial donations?

Rather, we should remember that serious scientists like Jung made studies of the Tarot and I Ching in line with his studies of Symbolism and the Human Mind and that in line with the latest scientific revelations of the Universe, as being primarily a place of meaning and incomprehensible intelligence, Oracle systems - which seem so in tune with these discoveries - acquire a legitimacy and basis of credibility that they could never have had in previous centuries when these facts were unknown.

Hence, you should choose an oracle and use it regularly. The Tarot and I Ching are particularly recommended. Write your results down in your Journal. Regular use will exercise this vital brain function. Like anything that is exercised regularly, this brain function will strengthen and improve and give you increasingly reliable results. In doing so, you strengthen your intuition and put yourself in direct contact with the Source of the Universe itself.

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Ancient Divination Parallels New Media: Cartomancy in an Interactive ContextAuthor: Lawrence, Elizabeth

For centuries, the tarot has been an interactive narrative system employing such new media principles as nonlinearity, randomness, modularity, and algorithm. As a visual system employing symbolic open imagery, cartomancy facilitates cognitive processes such asanalogical thinking, pattern recognition, and communication with the unconscious; processes which serve to foster creativity, intuition, and psychic integration in the participant. The exploration of creating personal meaning through interactivity was explored through the development of a contemporary tarot featuring original photography.

IntroductionSophisticated divination systems employ many dynamic media principles that today we’re discovering anew through the capacities and potentials of computer technology. The impact of the computer on our media, and our minds, is clearly revolutionary. The computer heralds an age where principles of non-linearity, randomness, variability, and interconnectedness, to name a few, are metamorphosizing our media, and in so doing foregrounding important aspects of our consciousness that have been devalued by the trajectory of the rationalist arrow. It’s useful to remember, or discover, that these principles have in fact been exemplified in ancient media systems like the I-Ching and the tarot. Coming to terms with processes of computerized media that mirror certain aspects of our consciousness is an exciting task for designers. It’s a domain that begins with structure and ends in poetics. It begins with information and culminates in meaning.

Creating personalized meaning ” not only customizing information ” is the next important challenge in new media design. The current state of new media interactive narrative attests to the reality that in our new media forms we are, naturally, struggling to find ways to balance randomness with structure, and fluidity with integrity. It’s my hope that this study of one ancient system, which has flourished underground since 1350, can serve as an example of successful actualization of these very contemporary and challenging concerns.

Winston Churchill said, the farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see. If we mine the subtler treasures of the past, even those that may have flourished in the shadows, perhaps we as new media designers can discover ways to create fresh future works that capitalize on that rich currency in a new context.

What does it mean to be masterful as a new media designer? We must be fluent in the language that is unique to the computer (no small challenge) and at the same time have some kind of fluency in all the various traditional mediums we are repurposing. One meaning-making framework that infuses almost all creative mediums is that of narrative. Narratives like novels and myths are like contextualized maps, serving an orienting function at the same time that they resonate in the individual to create empathic meaning. Today, because we are ready for it technologically, there is an up swelling of interest and an increasing hunger for successful computer-based narrative. Tarot surpasses contemporary digital interactive narrative in its ability to create coherent, structurally sound, and meaningful user experiences. Here the protagonist is most assuredly you. The setting, the events, the conflicts and characters of the story relate very directly to your personal experience, assuring a personalized depth of significance, and yet a seemingly random plot order does not suffer from fracturing and chaos in contrast to computer-based interactive narrative today.

Tarot works as interactive narrative at the same time that it’s employed, most often, as a divination tool. 67

Divination is commonly defined as the practice of ascertaining information from supernatural sources with a formal or ritual and often social character, sometimes in a religious context. Webster’s Online defines divination this way: 1. The art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers 2. Unusual insight : intuitive perception. I’m using definition two. In this thesis, any supernatural aspect of divination translates simply to the (even still) mysterious aspects of the mind; those aspects that are currently in hot investigation by cognitive scientists. I define divination as the process by which messages from the unconscious mind are decoded. The brain is constantly processing 400 billion bits of information per minute, but our conscious awareness involves only about 2000. This is happening in our minds all the time we’re receiving and processing all that information, information that doesn’t go away, but just isn’t integrated into our conscious awareness. Cognitive scientists believe that, much more than likely, all that information remains in our unconscious. What do we don’t know that we know?

The tarot accesses, structures, and integrates that unconscious information; it’s a medium that retrieves relevant information from perhaps the most enormous database of all, the brain, and then organizes and creates meaning from that information through interactive narrative. In our age of digital communication, with its charge of the promulgation and proliferation of multitudinous perspectives, such an integrative pursuit may be of particular interest in and of itself. The mind is a seemingly chaotic system that every individual creatively contends with. The information we are subjected to is undoubtedly multiplied exponentially in our time. An important, immanent challenge of new media has moved beyond access to multiple points of view (we are, happily, achieving that) to successfully integrating multiple points of view within the individual.

In the context of this thesis, it’s important to distinguish between sophisticated divination systems like the I-Ching and tarot from simpler methods of divination like flipping a coin or reading tea leaves. Flipping a coin employs principles of randomness to help with a decision process, which can be useful at times. But flipping a coin doesn’t help to produce understanding of a situation. It only serves to break some of the minor stalemates in life. Also, it’s by no means a narrative medium or even, really, a system. Tasseomancy (tea-leaf reading) and interpreting Rorschach blots require more imagination, but here correspondences with new media are scant because, while it employs a factor of randomness, no complex algorithms or modularity is involved.

Many people who are unfamiliar with divination systems like the I-Ching and tarot hold an assumptive perspective that such systems amount to mere fortune-telling quackery. As there are technophobes, there are tarotphobes. This prejudice, though, can be grounded in a grain of truth, as any technology risks potential for abuse. Particularly when a reading is performed for one person by another, the potential risk of abdicating personal responsibility for choice-making can shadow and distort the function of divination. Additionally, agendas might be involved that don’t serve the best interest of the client. For this reason, throughout most of this document, I approach the divination process as an individual pursuit. Yet even then, although tarot ideally fosters self-reflection and personal authenticity toward decision making, there still remains the potential for the kind of addictive dependency that is inherent in any technology: the technology becomes a crutch, instead of a tool. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell when we control our technologies, and when they wind up controlling us. Nevertheless, one of the most interesting benefits of the cartomancic reading process, and a main focus of this thesis, is that it enhances creative thinking. Creativity entails the discovery of hidden orders/patterns inherent in seemingly chaotic systems, as well as their authentic integration in application. The deliberate employment of processes inherent to cartomancy like analogical thinking, filling in the gaps, pattern recognition, and the immersion into what Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence) calls the flow state, all strengthen the creative faculties. Perhaps the creative faculty strengthened most of all is intuition that mystery ingredient so valued by all creatives.

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How to Build Your Own Oracle Divination ToolJuly 17, 2009 by Samantha Holloway

There are many oracles available to choose from, everything from runes and tarot through to much simpler items like tossing coins and reading shells, but sometimes you just can't connect to the given oracles the way you'd like, and you can't get the information you're seeking from them because of it. In these situations, consider building your own personal oracle. Based on your own beliefs and your own needs, constructed as an outgrowth of your own mind and spirit, it can't help but be exactly what you need.

1. Brainstorm At the very start of your task, you'll need to know what you're going to include in the oracle; it'll help determine what you make the pieces out of and how you present the ideas. Take a few days and just mull over what's important to you and your spiritual growth. What are the basic parts of life that you see? Do you feel connected to the elements, the planets, plants, stones, deities, ideas, philosophies? Do you care about myths? Do their structures mean anything to you? What words ring true for you? What pictures, shapes, symbols, and colours do you like? What numbers?

White down everything that crosses your mind on these topics and anything else they bring up for three or five days. At the end of the days, look over the lists you've made and see if there are patterns, things that can be combined or should be separated, repetitions of ideas, themes that should be simplified. My list came out to be about seven pages long, but they were mostly words about the parts of balance, about taking journeys, and the mythical hero's journey. I like the numbers three and nine, I like the elements, and I like the physical world.

Narrow your ideas down to a number you like and feel are manageable.

2. MaterialsWhat sort of oracle do you like the feel of in your hands? Do you like cards? Runes or stones or other tokens? Shells? Little fetishes or sticks or coins? And where is your skill level? If you can draw, cards and pictures and the like might be a good match. If you're good at cutting and shaping or burning wood, then maybe something along the lines of runes or tokens might work. How complex do you want the oracle to be, and how beautiful? What shape do you want them?

I like the size and shape of playing cards, so I knew I would be using that shape, and I found some nice soothing green card stock and a card, and traced out lots of little cards for myself. I'd intended to decorate them, but never really got to it; the cards don't seem to mind having only a word scrawled on their fronts, and maybe even work better without the distraction of pictures swaying the idea I have of what the word means. This might have the opposite effect on you, so you should keep in mind the issues of motivation and attention span. How much work are you willing to put into your oracle? Will you still find it usable if you can't accomplish that level? If you take a long time completing all the pieces, will you still be happy with the early ones?

I made a set of runes from clay once, but I never got around to glazing them, and the scratchiness of bisque-fired clay made them feel like scratching my nails down a chalkboard whenever I put my hand in the bag to mix them-- and so I never used them. Be sure to choose materials that will be comfortable in your hands, however far you get in the beautifying process.

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3. OrganizationHere is where your favourite numbers come in. How many parts do you want? How many will be too many to handle? How many will be just right? What sorts of castings and usage do you intend to have?

My love of the numbers three and nine led me to organize my cards-- and therefore my ideas-- into threes of related concepts, then to arrange the threes into threes, giving me nine related cards; from there, I built nine sets of nine, plus one blank card for the Deity to have access to the outcome. How can you take your numbers and build a system of organization? Do you even need a system? Runes and stones and shells all sort of just mingle in a bag or box, and it doesn't matter what order they started out in unless you want it to matter. This is the step where your own idea of the world can really shine through-- everything about this oracle is determined by you, for you, and it doesn't' matter if it's so complex no one else can understand it, so long as you do-- but if you intend to teach it, you should keep that in mind, too.Once you know how you want to construct the shape of your oracle, you can start assigning the ideas to the parts of the oracle-- the cards, the shells, the stones, the sticks, the coins, the dice, the entirely new thing that you're the first person ever to think up.

4. Construction and consecrationNow it's time to build your oracle. Cut out, shape, mark, paint, decorate, whatever-- build the parts and keep track of how they interact and look with each other; there may be need for tweaking as you go. Think about the intention of the building and its outcome as you construct them, and infuse each piece with the insight you wish to gain from it, and a feeling of who you are and what your intent is. Take as long or as short as you want; make the parts exactly what you want them to be.

The last step of their construction will be to put them all together and consecrate them. However you perform your rituals, create one for this purpose. I blessed mine by the Goddess and God and the five elements I follow, and infused it with the will and the purpose of being an oracle for me. Cleanse the new oracle of any lingering frustration or old energies, and replace them with the new vibrancy of a brand new thing in the world, a piece of yourself made external so you know what the universe needs you to know.

5. TestingAt first, you should test the oracle on yourself. Figure out how to do your castings, and take notes of the outcomes and your interpretations-- which should be easier than with other oracles, because you're the one who decided what each card or token or stone or whatever means. Once you and the new oracle understand each other, try testing it on other people; if it's as accurate on them as it is on you, you've created a really insightful tool. If it's as successful with complete strangers, you've really made it well. If you don't ever intend to use it on others, then this doesn't matter, but mine is for the world, so I tested it at a full moon party, and it worked amazingly. The best part is being able to understand what the oracle is trying to tell you; it'll keep you on your toes by recombining meaning and interpretation each time, and that's all for the best. It's why oracles work.

So now you have an oracle. What did you build? I would love to see the myriad of different creatures brought into the world using these same basic steps.

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Aleatoricism

Aleatoricism is the creation of art by chance, exploiting the principle of randomness. The word derives from the Latin word alea, the rolling of dice. It should not be confused with either improvisation or indeterminacy.

LiteratureAn example of aleatory writing is the automatic writing of the French Surrealists involving dreams, et cetera. The French literary group Oulipo for example saw no merit in aleatory work and its members altogether eliminated chance and randomness from their writing, substituting potentiality as in Raymond Queneau's Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes (Hundred Thousand Billion Poems).[citation needed]

Luke Rhinehart's novel The Dice Man tells the story of a psychiatrist named Luke Rhinehart who, feeling bored and unfulfilled in life, starts making decisions about what to do based on a roll of a die.

Charles Hartman discusses several methods of automatic generation of poetry in his book The Virtual Muse.

ArtAleatoric methods have been used in artistic composition for thousands of years, and were popularized in the early 20th century by the Dada movement.Using chance in artistic composition is making a remarkable impact in the 21st Century as artists discover the potential of aleatoric principles combined with new technology. Digital cameras, Photoshop, and computer generated random art programs along with wildly improvisational use of cutting edge materials and equipment have opened up a new world of possibilities for today's art students and emerging artists. A small group of international artists have formed a group called MAMA, or the Movement of Aleatoric Modern Artists, a worldwide collaboration of chance based artists who promote the principles and techniques of aleatoric methods in the execution of contemporary art in modern times.Andrej Bauer invented the "Random Art" program (1998) which has been generating aleatoric art works since its inception. The artist is actually a computer program, which generates artworks complete with titles entirely by itself, and every day new pictures are presented. One of the newest applications of this approach is a Dynamic Painting by San Base.

MusicThe term aleatoric music was first coined by Werner Meyer-Eppler in 1955 to describe a course of sound events that is "determined in general but depends on chance in detail". Pierre Boulez applied the term in this sense to his own pieces to distinguish them from the indeterminate music of John Cage, though both are often described as aleatory. While Boulez purposefully composed his pieces to allow the performer certain liberties with regard to the sequencing and repetition of parts, Cage often composed through the application of chance operations without allowing the performer liberties. Another prolific aleatory music composer is Karlheinz Stockhausen. Qubais Reed Ghazala, founder of the circuit-bending chance-music movement, is an important contemporary chance artist also pioneering aleatoric work in visual media (original techniques in suminagashi, dye migration, aperture shift photography).

FilmIn film-making, there are several avant-garde examples; Andy Voda's "Chance Chants" (1979) was created completely using various chance operations (coin flip, choosing words out of a hat, a recorded "telephone game", the vagaries of tracing over drawings) in the decision-making for each creative choice. It was a three

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part film, the first part being a hand-made computer film, the second a visualization of Allison Knowles' computer poem "House of Dust", and the third a visualization of evolution through a children's telephone game.

Fred Camper's SN (1984, first screening 2002) uses coin-flipping to determine which three of 18 possible reels to screen and what order they should go in (4896 permutations).

Barry Salt, now better known as a film scholar, is known to have made a film, Permutations, six reels long which takes the word aleatory quite literally by including a customized die for the projectionist to roll to determine the reel order (720 permutations).

Grant Patten utilizes an I Ching-inspired aleatory method to predict the date of his death in his short animation "The (Rough) Date of My Death" (2007).

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Coincidence

Coincidence is the noteworthy alignment of two or more events or circumstances without obvious causal connection. The word is derived from the Latin co- ("in", "with", "together") and incidere ("to fall on"). In science, the term is generally used in a more literal translation, e.g., referring to when two rays of light strike a surface at the same point at the same time. In this usage of coincidence, there is no implication that the alignment of events is surprising, noteworthy or non-causal.

A coincidence does not prove a relationship, but related events may be expected to have a higher index of coincidence. Probability is the basic tool, or method, to rationally evaluate coincidences. In the field of mathematics, the index of coincidence can be used to analyze whether two events are related. From a statistical perspective, coincidences are inevitable and often less remarkable than they may appear intuitively. An example is the birthday problem, where the probability of two individuals sharing a birthday already exceeds 50% with a group of only 23.

Coincidences vs. caused eventsMeasuring the probability of any series of coincidences is the most common method of evaluating and determining mere coincidence or connected causality.

The mathematically naive person seems to have a more acute awareness than the specialist of the basic paradox of probability theory, over which philosophers have puzzled ever since Pascal initiated that branch of science [1654] (for the purpose of improving the gambling prospects of a philosopher friend, the Chevalier de Méré). The paradox consists, loosely speaking, in the fact that probability theory is able to predict with uncanny precision the overall outcome of processes made up out of a large number of individual happenings, each of which in itself is unpredictable. In other words, we observe a large number of uncertainties producing a certainty, a large number of chance events creating a lawful total outcome. — Arthur Koestler, The Roots of Coincidence

“... it is only the manipulation of uncertainty that interests us. We are not concerned with the matter that is uncertain. Thus we do not study the mechanism of rain; only whether it will rain.”

—Dennis Lindley, "The Philosophy of Statistics", The Statistician (2000)

To establish cause and effect (causality) is notoriously difficult, expressed by the widely accepted statement "correlation does not imply causation". In statistics, it is generally accepted that observational studies can give hints, but can never establish cause and effect. With the probability paradox considered, it would seem that the larger the set of coincidences, the more certainty rises and the more it appears that there is some cause behind the effects of this large-set certainty of random, coincidental events.

Interpretation of coincidence

A coincidence lacks a definite causal connection. Any given set of coincidences may be just a form of synchronicity, that being the experience of events which are causally unrelated, and yet their occurring together carries meaning to the person observing the events. (In order to count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance.)

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The Jung-Pauli theory of "synchronicity", conceived by a physicist and a psychologist, both eminent in their fields, represents perhaps the most radical departure from the world-view of mechanistic science in our time. Yet they had a precursor, whose ideas had a considerable influence on Jung: the Austrian biologist Paul Kammerer, a wild genius who committed suicide in 1926, at the age of forty-five. —Arthur Koestler

One of Kammerer's passions was collecting coincidences. He published a book with the title Das Gesetz der Serie (The Law of the Series; never translated into English) in which he recounted 100 or so anecdotes of coincidences that had led him to formulate his theory of Seriality.He postulated that all events are connected by waves of seriality. These unknown forces would cause what we would perceive as just the peaks, or groupings and coincidences. Kammerer was known to, for example, make notes in public parks of what numbers of people were passing by, how many carried umbrellas, etc. Albert Einstein called the idea of Seriality "Interesting, and by no means absurd", while Carl Jung drew upon Kammerer's work in his essay Synchronicity.

Science is the practice of constructing theoretical explanations of how events (phenomena) happen to repeatedly coincide. Remarkable coincidences sometimes lead to theories involving the supernatural or psychic forces. Or the explanation that a person or persons intentionally acted and the coincidence is the evidence these actions – see conspiracy theories.

Some researchers (e.g. Charles Fort and Carl Jung) have compiled thousands of accounts of coincidences and other supposedly anomalous phenomena (synchronicity). The perception of coincidences often leads to occult or paranormal claims. It may also lead to the belief system of fatalism, that events will happen in the exact manner of a predetermined plan or formula. This lends a certain aura of inevitability to events.

In The Psychology of the Psychic, David Marks describes four distinct meanings of the term "coincidence". Marks suggests that coincidences occur because of "odd matches" when two events A and B are perceived to contain a similarity of some kind. For example, dreaming of a plane crash (event A) would be matched by seeing a news report of a plane crash on the next morning (event B).Deepak Chopra and other proponents of ancient Vedic spiritual and other mystical teachings insist on the view that there is absolutely no coincidence in the world. Everything that occurs can be related to a prior cause or association, no matter how vast or how minute and trivial. All is impacted by something related to it that is seen or unseen, cognized or unknowable.

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The Mystery of ConsciousnessBy Steven Pinker

The young women had survived the car crash, after a fashion. In the five months since parts of her brain had been crushed, she could open her eyes but didn't respond to sights, sounds or jabs. In the jargon of neurology, she was judged to be in a persistent vegetative state. In crueler everyday language, she was a vegetable.

So picture the astonishment of British and Belgian scientists as they scanned her brain using a kind of MRI that detects blood flow to active parts of the brain. When they recited sentences, the parts involved in language lit up. When they asked her to imagine visiting the rooms of her house, the parts involved in navigating space and recognizing places ramped up. And when they asked her to imagine playing tennis, the regions that trigger motion joined in. Indeed, her scans were barely different from those of healthy volunteers. The woman, it appears, had glimmerings of consciousness.

Try to comprehend what it is like to be that woman. Do you appreciate the words and caresses of your distraught family while racked with frustration at your inability to reassure them that they are getting through? Or do you drift in a haze, springing to life with a concrete thought when a voice prods you, only to slip back into blankness? If we could experience this existence, would we prefer it to death? And if these questions have answers, would they change our policies toward unresponsive patients--making the Terri Schiavo case look like child's play?

The report of this unusual case last September was just the latest shock from a bracing new field, the science of consciousness. Questions once confined to theological speculations and late-night dorm-room bull sessions are now at the forefront of cognitive neuroscience. With some problems, a modicum of consensus has taken shape. With others, the puzzlement is so deep that they may never be resolved. Some of our deepest convictions about what it means to be human have been shaken.

It shouldn't be surprising that research on consciousness is alternately exhilarating and disturbing. No other topic is like it. As René Descartes noted, our own consciousness is the most indubitable thing there is. The major religions locate it in a soul that survives the body's death to receive its just deserts or to meld into a global mind. For each of us, consciousness is life itself, the reason Woody Allen said, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying." And the conviction that other people can suffer and flourish as each of us does is the essence of empathy and the foundation of morality.

To make scientific headway in a topic as tangled as consciousness, it helps to clear away some red herrings. Consciousness surely does not depend on language. Babies, many animals and patients robbed of speech by brain damage are not insensate robots; they have reactions like ours that indicate that someone's home. Nor can consciousness be equated with self-awareness. At times we have all lost ourselves in music, exercise or sensual pleasure, but that is different from being knocked out cold.

THE "EASY" AND "HARD" PROBLEMS

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WHAT REMAINS IS NOT ONE PROBLEM ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS BUT two, which the philosopher David Chalmers has dubbed the Easy Problem and the Hard Problem. Calling the first one easy is an in-joke: it is easy in the sense that curing cancer or sending someone to Mars is easy. That is, scientists more or less know what to look for, and with enough brainpower and funding, they would probably crack it in this century.

What exactly is the Easy Problem? It's the one that Freud made famous, the difference between conscious and unconscious thoughts. Some kinds of information in the brain--such as the surfaces in front of you, your daydreams, your plans for the day, your pleasures and peeves--are conscious. You can ponder them, discuss them and let them guide your behaviour. Other kinds, like the control of your heart rate, the rules that order the words as you speak and the sequence of muscle contractions that allow you to hold a pencil, are unconscious. They must be in the brain somewhere because you couldn't walk and talk and see without them, but they are sealed off from your planning and reasoning circuits, and you can't say a thing about them.

The Easy Problem, then, is to distinguish conscious from unconscious mental computation, identify its correlates in the brain and explain why it evolved.

The Hard Problem, on the other hand, is why it feels like something to have a conscious process going on in one's head--why there is first-person, subjective experience. Not only does a green thing look different from a red thing, remind us of other green things and inspire us to say, "That's green" (the Easy Problem), but it also actually looks green: it produces an experience of sheer greenness that isn't reducible to anything else. As Louis Armstrong said in response to a request to define jazz, "When you got to ask what it is, you never get to know."

The Hard Problem is explaining how subjective experience arises from neural computation. The problem is hard because no one knows what a solution might look like or even whether it is a genuine scientific problem in the first place. And not surprisingly, everyone agrees that the hard problem (if it is a problem) remains a mystery.

Although neither problem has been solved, neuroscientists agree on many features of both of them, and the feature they find least controversial is the one that many people outside the field find the most shocking. Francis Crick called it "the astonishing hypothesis"--the idea that our thoughts, sensations, joys and aches consist entirely of physiological activity in the tissues of the brain. Consciousness does not reside in an ethereal soul that uses the brain like a PDA; consciousness is the activity of the brain.

THE BRAIN AS MACHINE

SCIENTISTS HAVE EXORCISED THE GHOST FROM THE MACHINE NOT because they are mechanistic killjoys but because they have amassed evidence that every aspect of consciousness can be tied to the brain. Using functional MRI, cognitive neuroscientists can almost read people's thoughts from the blood flow in their brains. They can tell, for instance, whether a person is thinking about a face or a place or whether a picture the person is looking at is of a bottle or a shoe.

And consciousness can be pushed around by physical manipulations. Electrical stimulation of the brain during surgery can cause a person to have hallucinations that are indistinguishable from reality, such as a song playing in the room or a childhood birthday

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party. Chemicals that affect the brain, from caffeine and alcohol to Prozac and LSD, can profoundly alter how people think, feel and see. Surgery that severs the corpus callosum, separating the two hemispheres (a treatment for epilepsy), spawns two consciousnesses within the same skull, as if the soul could be cleaved in two with a knife.

And when the physiological activity of the brain ceases, as far as anyone can tell the person's consciousness goes out of existence. Attempts to contact the souls of the dead (a pursuit of serious scientists a century ago) turned up only cheap magic tricks, and near death experiences are not the eyewitness reports of a soul parting company from the body but symptoms of oxygen starvation in the eyes and brain. In September, a team of Swiss neuroscientists reported that they could turn out-of-body experiences on and off by stimulating the part of the brain in which vision and bodily sensations converge.

THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL

ANOTHER STARTLING CONCLUSION FROM the science of consciousness is that the intuitive feeling we have that there's an executive "I" that sits in a control room of our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and pushing the buttons of the muscles, is an illusion. Consciousness turns out to consist of a maelstrom of events distributed across the brain. These events compete for attention, and as one process outshouts the others, the brain rationalizes the outcome after the fact and concocts the impression that a single self was in charge all along.

Take the famous cognitive-dissonance experiments. When an experimenter got people to endure electric shocks in a sham experiment on learning, those who were given a good rationale ("It will help scientists understand learning") rated the shocks as more painful than the ones given a feeble rationale ("We're curious.") Presumably, it's because the second group would have felt foolish to have suffered for no good reason. Yet when these people were asked why they agreed to be shocked, they offered bogus reasons of their own in all sincerity, like "I used to mess around with radios and got used to electric shocks."

It's not only decisions in sketchy circumstances that get rationalized but also the texture of our immediate experience. We all feel we are conscious of a rich and detailed world in front of our eyes. Yet outside the dead centre of our gaze, vision is amazingly coarse. Just try holding your hand a few inches from your line of sight and counting your fingers. And if someone removed and reinserted an object every time you blinked (which experimenters can simulate by flashing two pictures in rapid sequence), you would be hard pressed to notice the change. Ordinarily, our eyes flit from place to place, alighting on whichever object needs our attention on a need-to-know basis. This fools us into thinking that wall-to-wall detail was there all along--an example of how we overestimate the scope and power of our own consciousness.

Our authorship of voluntary actions can also be an illusion, the result of noticing a correlation between what we decide and how our bodies move. The psychologist Dan Wegner studied the party game in which a subject is seated in front of a mirror while someone behind him extends his arms under the subject's armpits and moves his arms around, making it look as if the subject is moving his own arms. If the subject hears a tape telling the person behind him how to move (wave, touch the subject's nose and so on), he feels as if he is actually in command of the arms.

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The brain's spin doctoring is displayed even more dramatically in neurological conditions in which the healthy parts of the brain explain away the foibles of the damaged parts (which are invisible to the self because they are part of the self). A patient who fails to experience a visceral click of recognition when he sees his wife but who acknowledges that she looks and acts just like her deduces that she is an amazingly well-trained impostor. A patient who believes he is at home and is shown the hospital elevator says without missing a beat, "You wouldn't believe what it cost us to have that installed."

Why does consciousness exist at all, at least in the Easy Problem sense in which some kinds of information are accessible and others hidden? One reason is information overload. Just as a person can be overwhelmed today by the gusher of data coming in from electronic media, decision circuits inside the brain would be swamped if every curlicue and muscle twitch that was registered somewhere in the brain were constantly being delivered to them. Instead, our working memory and spotlight of attention receive executive summaries of the events and states that are most relevant to updating an understanding of the world and figuring out what to do next. The cognitive psychologist Bernard Baars likens consciousness to a global blackboard on which brain processes post their results and monitor the results of the others.

BELIEVING OUR OWN LIES

A SECOND REASON THAT INFORMATION MAY BE SEALED OFF FROM consciousness is strategic. Evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers has noted that people have a motive to sell themselves as beneficent, rational, competent agents. The best propagandist is the one who believes his own lies, ensuring that he can't leak his deceit through nervous twitches or self-contradictions. So the brain might have been shaped to keep compromising data away from the conscious processes that govern our interaction with other people. At the same time, it keeps the data around in unconscious processes to prevent the person from getting too far out of touch with reality.

What about the brain itself? You might wonder how scientists could even begin to find the seat of awareness in the cacophony of a hundred billion jabbering neurons. The trick is to see what parts of the brain change when a person's consciousness flips from one experience to another. In one technique, called binocular rivalry, vertical stripes are presented to the left eye, horizontal stripes to the right. The eyes compete for consciousness, and the person sees vertical stripes for a few seconds, then horizontal stripes, and so on.

A low-tech way to experience the effect yourself is to look through a paper tube at a white wall with your right eye and hold your left hand in front of your left eye. After a few seconds, a white hole in your hand should appear, then disappear, then reappear.

Monkeys experience binocular rivalry. They can learn to press a button every time their perception flips, while their brains are impaled with electrodes that record any change in activity. Neuroscientist Nikos Logothetis found that the earliest way stations for visual input in the back of the brain barely budged as the monkeys' consciousness flipped from one state to another. Instead, it was a region that sits further down the information stream and that registers coherent shapes and objects that tracks the monkeys' awareness. Now this doesn't mean that this place on the underside of the brain is the TV screen of consciousness. What it means, according to a theory by Crick and his collaborator Christof Koch, is that consciousness resides only in the "higher" parts of the brain that are

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connected to circuits for emotion and decision making, just what one would expect from the blackboard metaphor.

WAVES OF BRAIN

CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BRAIN CAN BE TRACKED NOT JUST IN SPACE but also in time. Neuroscientists have long known that consciousness depends on certain frequencies of oscillation in the electroencephalograph (EEG). These brain waves consist of loops of activation between the cortex (the wrinkled surface of the brain) and the thalamus (the cluster of hubs at the centre that serve as input-output relay stations). Large, slow, regular waves signal a coma, anaesthesia or a dreamless sleep; smaller, faster, spikier ones correspond to being awake and alert. These waves are not like the useless hum from a noisy appliance but may allow consciousness to do its job in the brain. They may bind the activity in far-flung regions (one for colour, another for shape, a third for motion) into a coherent conscious experience, a bit like radio transmitters and receivers tuned to the same frequency. Sure enough, when two patterns compete for awareness in a binocular-rivalry display, the neurons representing the eye that is "winning" the competition oscillate in synchrony, while the ones representing the eye that is suppressed fall out of synch.

So neuroscientists are well on the way to identifying the neural correlates of consciousness, a part of the Easy Problem. But what about explaining how these events actually cause consciousness in the sense of inner experience--the Hard Problem?

TACKLING THE HARD PROBLEM

TO APPRECIATE THE HARDNESS OF THE HARD PROBLEM, CONSIDER how you could ever know whether you see colours the same way that I do. Sure, you and I both call grass green, but perhaps you see grass as having the colour that I would describe, if I were in your shoes, as purple. Or ponder whether there could be a true zombie--a being who acts just like you or me but in whom there is no self actually feeling anything. This was the crux of a Star Trek plot in which officials wanted to reverse-engineer Lieut. Commander Data, and a furious debate erupted as to whether this was merely dismantling a machine or snuffing out a sentient life.

No one knows what to do with the Hard Problem. Some people may see it as an opening to sneak the soul back in, but this just re-labels the mystery of "consciousness" as the mystery of "the soul"--a word game that provides no insight.

Many philosophers, like Daniel Dennett, deny that the Hard Problem exists at all. Speculating about zombies and inverted colours is a waste of time, they say, because nothing could ever settle the issue one way or another. Anything you could do to understand consciousness--like finding out what wavelengths make people see green or how similar they say it is to blue, or what emotions they associate with it--boils down to information processing in the brain and thus gets sucked back into the Easy Problem, leaving nothing else to explain. Most people react to this argument with incredulity because it seems to deny the ultimate undeniable fact: our own experience.

The most popular attitude to the Hard Problem among neuroscientists is that it remains unsolved for now but will eventually succumb to research that chips away at the Easy Problem. Others are sceptical about this cheery optimism because none of the inroads into the Easy Problem brings a solution to the Hard Problem even a bit closer. Identifying

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awareness with brain physiology, they say, is a kind of "meat chauvinism" that would dogmatically deny consciousness to Lieut. Commander Data just because he doesn't have the soft tissue of a human brain. Identifying it with information processing would go too far in the other direction and grant a simple consciousness to thermostats and calculators--a leap that most people find hard to stomach. Some mavericks, like the mathematician Roger Penrose, suggest the answer might someday be found in quantum mechanics. But to my ear, this amounts to the feeling that quantum mechanics sure is weird, and consciousness sure is weird, so maybe quantum mechanics can explain consciousness.

And then there is the theory put forward by philosopher Colin McGinn that our vertigo when pondering the Hard Problem is itself a quirk of our brains. The brain is a product of evolution, and just as animal brains have their limitations, we have ours. Our brains can't hold a hundred numbers in memory, can't visualize seven-dimensional space and perhaps can't intuitively grasp why neural information processing observed from the outside should give rise to subjective experience on the inside. This is where I place my bet, though I admit that the theory could be demolished when an unborn genius--a Darwin or Einstein of consciousness--comes up with a flabbergasting new idea that suddenly makes it all clear to us.

Whatever the solutions to the Easy and Hard problems turn out to be, few scientists doubt that they will locate consciousness in the activity of the brain. For many non-scientists, this is a terrifying prospect. Not only does it strangle the hope that we might survive the death of our bodies, but it also seems to undermine the notion that we are free agents responsible for our choices--not just in this lifetime but also in a life to come. In his millennial essay "Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died," Tom Wolfe worried that when science has killed the soul, "the lurid carnival that will ensue may make the phrase 'the total eclipse of all values' seem tame."

TOWARD A NEW MORALITY

MY OWN VIEW IS THAT THIS IS backward: the biology of consciousness offers a sounder basis for morality than the unprovable dogma of an immortal soul. It's not just that an understanding of the physiology of consciousness will reduce human suffering through new treatments for pain and depression. That understanding can also force us to recognize the interests of other beings--the core of morality.

As every student in Philosophy 101 learns, nothing can force me to believe that anyone except me is conscious. This power to deny that other people have feelings is not just an academic exercise but an all-too-common vice, as we see in the long history of human cruelty. Yet once we realize that our own consciousness is a product of our brains and that other people have brains like ours, a denial of other people's sentience becomes ludicrous. "Hath not a Jew eyes?" asked Shylock. Today the question is more pointed: Hath not a Jew--or an Arab, or an African, or a baby, or a dog--a cerebral cortex and a thalamus? The undeniable fact that we are all made of the same neural flesh makes it impossible to deny our common capacity to suffer.

And when you think about it, the doctrine of a life-to-come is not such an uplifting idea after all because it necessarily devalues life on earth. Just remember the most famous people in recent memory who acted in expectation of a reward in the hereafter: the conspirators who hijacked the airliners on 9/11.

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Think, too, about why we sometimes remind ourselves that "life is short." It is an impetus to extend a gesture of affection to a loved one, to bury the hatchet in a pointless dispute, to use time productively rather than squander it. I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift.

Steven Pinker is Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard and the author of The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate

From Dao De Jing Chapter 56

One who understands won't be willing to use words; One who uses words won't be willing to understand.

Shut off your dissipation.Seal up your door.Harmonize with your brightness.Adapt to the dust in your life.Blunt your sharpness.Untangle your disorder.This is correctly described as the mystery of putting the pieces together.

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Therefore,What can't be obtained and held closely also can't be obtained and cast off.What can't be obtained and used for profit also can't be obtained and used for harm.What can't be obtained and valued also can't be obtained and cheapened.

Therefore every action in the world is precious.

Commentary:56 ~ Meditation and contemplation

Very rarely during their busy lives do people take the time out to be alone with themselves. It seems like we're always being called upon to make some decision, give an opinion or tend to tasks that involve using our intellect. Even in moments when we do have time to relax, we feel a compulsion to stay active in some way. We fill our vacation time with activity and spend our quiet moments reading newspapers or watching television. It's no wonder life seems unsettled and frantic. Here are some ideas for meditation and contemplation as well as the benefits that arise from those practices.

-One who understands won't be willing to use words; -One who uses words won't be willing to understand.

The most intense understandings we discover within ourselves are very hard to communicate to others. When we try to put those feelings into words, we find they're somehow lacking so we might try to elaborate on them to the point that we can eventually confuse even ourselves. Some of the sensations we can experience during quiet times of meditation are really so personal that there's no way to express them. By trying to form those sensations into words it's easy to lose the essence of the messages we received.

-Shut off your dissipation.-Seal up your door.

When you first start a meditation practice, it might seem that your thoughts are running all over the place. You're not used to NOT thinking, and it seems like a strange and alien thing to do. Gently rein your thoughts back in by telling yourself that there's absolutely nothing you have to do for the time you've allotted for your meditation. You don't have to solve any of those nagging problems you deal with the rest of the time. Close off a little door in your mind to seal out any consciousness of what's going on in the rest of the world.

-Harmonize with your brightness.-Adapt to the dust in your life.

You'll find a sense of calmness, and along with that peace appears a bright light of reassurance that everything is just as it's meant to be. It's okay to let go of the obstacles and just merge with the glow that's within you. You know that the obstacles and confusion will still be there after you've finished meditating, but don't let that bother you for the time being. If you can truly connect with your own brightness in these moments, you'll be able to carry that glow with you through any trials your daily life might bring.

-Blunt your sharpness.-Untangle your disorder.

Try to forget all your severe opinions about yourself and others. Let go of the idea that you might know what you or any other person SHOULD be doing, and that you have to be a stern task master. Let everything become soft and blurred rather than harsh and glaring. Release the tension in your body and

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muscles. As you release that physical tension, you'll find that your mind will release its tension as well. What was once a gnarled mass of tangles eventually becomes more clear and smooth.

-This is correctly described as the mystery of putting the pieces together.

Meditation isn't a method for escaping from the trials of life, but by softening the harshness of an overly critical and confused mind all the pieces of life seem to fit together more smoothly without jabbing against each other. It's mysterious how that can happen, especially when we've been so used to the idea that we have to work diligently on solving problems.

-Therefore,-What can't be obtained and held closely also can't be obtained and cast off.-What can't be obtained and used for profit also can't be obtained and used for harm.-What can't be obtained and valued also can't be obtained and cheapened.

As energy and thoughts freely flow in and out of you, there's a realization that there's no need to obtain anything. Meditation doesn't have a goal - it's a process. Whatever experiences you have during meditation don't need to be held on to so tightly that you feel disappointed if you don't have the same experiences during every meditation session. And even those times when you don't feel you've gotten any special messages during meditation, that's no reason to abandon your practices. Sometimes a person might get a sense of power from meditation - opening energy channels can increase sensitivity and psychic abilities. Those powers aren't the goal of meditation and shouldn't be seen as a way to control what happens to you or others. You might feel a sense of superiority with your evolving enlightenment and insights, but that's not something to praise yourself for. Neither is it something to be demeaned.

-Therefore every action in the world is precious.

What occurs as a gradual process after continuous meditation isn't a seclusion from the rest of the world, but an incredible integration with it.

Creativity

Creativity is a mental and social process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. Creativity is fuelled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight. An alternative conception of creativeness is that it is simply the act of making something new.

From a scientific point of view, the products of creative thought (sometimes referred to as divergent thought) are usually considered to have both originality and appropriateness.Although intuitively a simple phenomenon, it is in fact quite complex. It has been studied from the perspectives of behavioural psychology, social psychology, psychometrics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, philosophy, history, economics, design research, business, and management, among others. The studies have covered everyday creativity, exceptional creativity and even artificial creativity. Unlike many phenomena in

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science, there is no single, authoritative perspective or definition of creativity. And unlike many phenomena in psychology, there is no standardized measurement technique.

Creativity has been attributed variously to divine intervention, cognitive processes, the social environment, personality traits, and chance ("accident", "serendipity"). It has been associated with genius, mental illness and humour. Some say it is a trait we are born with; others say it can be taught with the application of simple techniques. Creativity has also been viewed as a beneficence of a muse or Muses.Although popularly associated with art and literature, it is also an essential part of innovation and invention.

Creativity has been associated with right or forehead brain activity or even specifically with lateral thinking.Some students of creativity have emphasized an element of chance in the creative process. Linus Pauling, asked at a public lecture how one creates scientific theories, replied that one must endeavour to come up with many ideas — then discard the useless ones.Another adequate definition of creativity is that it is an "assumptions-breaking process." Creative ideas are often generated when one discards preconceived assumptions and attempts a new approach or method that might seem to others unthinkable.

History of the term and the conceptThe ways in which societies have perceived the concept of creativity have changed throughout history, as has the term itself. The ancient Greek concept of art (in Greek, "techne"—the root of "technique" and "technology"), with the exception of poetry, involved not freedom of action but subjection to rules. In Rome, this Greek concept was partly shaken, and visual artists were viewed as sharing, with poets, imagination and inspiration.Although neither the Greeks nor the Romans had a word that directly corresponded to the word "creativity," their art, architecture, music, inventions and discoveries provide numerous examples of what today would be described as creative works. The Greek scientist of Syracuse, Archimedes experienced the creative moment in his Eureka experience, finding the answer to a problem he had been wrestling with for a long time. At the time, the concept of "genius" probably came closest to describing the creative talents that brought forth such works.A fundamental change came in the Christian period: "creatio" came to designate God's act of "creation from nothing". "Creatio" thus took on a different meaning than "facere" ("to make") and ceased to apply to human functions. The ancient view that art is not a domain of creativity persisted in this period.A shift occurred in modern times. Renaissance men had a sense of their own independence, freedom and creativity, and sought to give voice to this sense. The first to actually apply the word "creativity" was the Polish poet Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, who applied it exclusively to poetry. For over a century and a half, the idea of human creativity met with resistance, due to the fact that the term "creation" was reserved for creation "from nothing." Baltasar Gracián (1601–58) would only venture to write: "Art is the completion of nature, as if it were a second Creator..."

By the 18th century and the Age of Enlightenment, the concept of creativity was appearing more often in art theory, and was linked with the concept of imagination.

The Western view of creativity can be contrasted with the Eastern view. For Hindus, Confucians, Taoists and Buddhists, creation was at most a kind of discovery or mimicry, and the idea of creation "from nothing" had no place in these philosophies and religions.

In the West, by the 19th century, not only had art come to be regarded as creativity, but it alone was so regarded. When later, at the turn of the 20th century, there began to be discussion of creativity in the sciences (e.g., Jan Łukasiewicz, 1878–1956) and in nature (e.g., Henri Bergson), this was generally taken as the transference, to

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the sciences, of concepts that were proper to art.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, leading mathematicians and scientists such as Hermann von Helmholtz (1896) and Henri Poincaré (1908) began to reflect on and publicly discuss their creative processes, and these insights were built on in early accounts of the creative process by pioneering theorists such as Graham Wallas (1926) and Max Wertheimer (1945).However, the formal starting point for the scientific study of creativity, from the standpoint of orthodox psychological literature, is generally considered to have been J. P. Guilford's 1950 address to the American Psychological Association, which helped popularize the topic and focus attention on a scientific approach to conceptualizing creativity and measuring it psychometrically.

In parallel with these developments, other investigators have taken a more pragmatic approach, teaching practical creativity techniques. Three of the best-known are:

Alex Osborn's "brainstorming" (1950s to present), Genrikh Altshuller's Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ, 1950s to present), and Edward de Bono's "lateral thinking" (1960s to present).

The study of the mental representations and processes underlying creative thought belongs to the domains of psychology and cognitive science.

Creativity in psychology and cognitive scienceGraham Wallas & Richard Smith, in their work Art of Thought, published in 1926, presented one of the first models of the creative process. In the Wallas stage model, creative insights and illuminations may be explained by a process consisting of 5 stages:

(i) preparation (preparatory work on a problem that focuses the individual's mind on the problem and explores the problem's dimensions), (ii) incubation (where the problem is internalized into the unconscious mind and nothing appears externally to be happening), (iii) intimation (the creative person gets a 'feeling' that a solution is on its way), (iv) illumination or insight (where the creative idea bursts forth from its preconscious processing into conscious awareness); and (v) verification (where the idea is consciously verified, elaborated, and then applied).

In numerous publications, Wallas' model is just treated as four stages, with "intimation" seen as a sub-stage. There has been some empirical research looking at whether, as the concept of "incubation" in Wallas' model implies, a period of interruption or rest from a problem may aid creative problem-solving. Ward lists various hypotheses that have been advanced to explain why incubation may aid creative problem-solving, and notes how some empirical evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that incubation aids creative problem-solving in that it enables "forgetting" of misleading clues. Absence of incubation may lead the problem solver to become fixated on inappropriate strategies of solving the problem. This work disputes the earlier hypothesis that creative solutions to problems arise mysteriously from the unconscious mind while the conscious mind is occupied on other tasks.Wallas considered creativity to be a legacy of the evolutionary process, which allowed humans to quickly adapt to rapidly changing environments. Simonton provides an updated perspective on this view in his book, Origins of genius: Darwinian perspectives on creativity.

J.P. GuilfordGuilford performed important work in the field of creativity, drawing a distinction between convergent and divergent production (commonly renamed convergent and divergent thinking). Convergent thinking involves aiming for a single, correct solution to a problem, whereas divergent thinking involves creative generation of

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multiple answers to a set problem. Divergent thinking is sometimes used as a synonym for creativity in psychology literature. Other researchers have occasionally used the terms flexible thinking or fluid intelligence, which are roughly similar to (but not synonymous with) creativity.

Arthur KoestlerIn The Act of Creation, Arthur Koestler lists three types of creative individual - the Artist, the Sage and the Jester.Believers in this trinity hold all three elements necessary in business and can identify them all in "truly creative" companies as well. Koestler introduced the concept of bisociation - that creativity arises as a result of the intersection of two quite different frames of reference.

Geneplore modelIn 1992 Finke et al. proposed the 'Geneplore' model, in which creativity takes place in two phases: a generative phase, where an individual constructs mental representations called pre-inventive structures, and an exploratory phase where those structures are used to come up with creative ideas. Weisberg argued, by contrast, that creativity only involves ordinary cognitive processes yielding extraordinary results.

Conceptual blendingIn the 90s, various approaches in cognitive science that dealt with metaphor, analogy and structure mapping have been converging, and a new integrative approach to the study of creativity in science, art and humour has emerged under the label conceptual blending.

"Creativity is the ability to illustrate what is outside the box from within the box." -The Ride

Psychological examples from science and mathematicsJacques HadamardJacques Hadamard, in his book Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field, uses introspection to describe mathematical thought processes. In contrast to authors who identify language and cognition, he describes his own mathematical thinking as largely wordless, often accompanied by mental images that represent the entire solution to a problem. He surveyed 100 of the leading physicists of his day (ca. 1900), asking them how they did their work. Many of the responses mirrored his own.Hadamard described the experiences of the mathematicians/theoretical physicists Carl Friedrich Gauss, Hermann von Helmholtz, Henri Poincaré and others as viewing entire solutions with “sudden spontaneity.”The same has been reported in literature by many others, such as Denis Brian, G. H. Hardy, Walter Heitler, B. L. van der Waerden, and Harold Ruegg.To elaborate on one example, Einstein, after years of fruitless calculations, suddenly had the solution to the general theory of relativity revealed in a dream “like a giant die making an indelible impress, a huge map of the universe outlined itself in one clear vision.”Hadamard described the process as having steps (i) preparation, (ii) incubation, (iv) illumination, and (v) verification of the five-step Graham Wallas creative-process model, leaving out (iii) intimation, with the first three cited by Hadamard as also having been put forth by Helmholtz:

Marie-Louise von FranzMarie-Louise von Franz, a colleague of the eminent psychiatrist Carl Jung, noted that in these unconscious scientific discoveries the “always recurring and important factor ... is the simultaneity with which the complete solution is intuitively perceived and which can be checked later by discursive reasoning.” She attributes the solution presented “as an archetypal pattern or image.” As cited by von Franz, according to Jung, “Archetypes ... manifest themselves only through their ability to organize images and ideas, and this is always an unconscious process which cannot be detected until afterwards.”

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Neurobiology of creativityThe neurobiology of creativity has been addressed in the article "Creative Innovation: Possible Brain Mechanisms." The authors write that "creative innovation might require co activation and communication between regions of the brain that ordinarily are not strongly connected". Highly creative people who excel at creative innovation tend to differ from others in three ways:

they have a high level of specialized knowledge, they are capable of divergent thinking mediated by the frontal lobe, and they are able to modulate neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine in their frontal lobe.

Thus, the frontal lobe appears to be the part of the cortex that is most important for creativity.This article also explored the links between creativity and sleep, mood and addiction disorders, and depression.In 2005, Alice Flaherty presented a three-factor model of the creative drive. Drawing from evidence in brain imaging, drug studies and lesion analysis, she described the creative drive as resulting from an interaction of the frontal lobes, the temporal lobes, and dopamine from the limbic system. The frontal lobes can be seen as responsible for idea generation, and the temporal lobes for idea editing and evaluation. Abnormalities in the frontal lobe (such as depression or anxiety) generally decrease creativity, while abnormalities in the temporal lobe often increase creativity. High activity in the temporal lobe typically inhibits activity in the frontal lobe, and vice versa. High dopamine levels increase general arousal and goal directed behaviours and reduce latent inhibition, and all three effects increase the drive to generate ideas.

Creativity in art and literatureMost people associate creativity with the fields of art and literature. In these fields, originality is considered to be a sufficient condition for creativity, unlike other fields where both originality and appropriateness are necessary.Within the different modes of artistic expression, one can postulate a continuum extending from "interpretation" to "innovation". Established artistic movements and genres pull practitioners to the "interpretation" end of the scale, whereas original thinkers strive towards the "innovation" pole. Note that we conventionally expect some "creative" people (dancers, actors, orchestral members, etc.) to perform (interpret) while allowing others (writers, painters, composers, etc.) more freedom to express the new and the different.Contrast alternative theories, for example:

artistic inspiration, which provides the transmission of visions from divine sources such as the Muses; a taste of the Divine. Compare with invention.

artistic evolution, which stresses obeying established ("classical") rules and imitating or appropriating to produce subtly different but unshockingly understandable work. Compare with crafts.

artistic conversation, as in Urrealism, which stresses the depth of communication when the creative product is the language.

In the art practice and theory of Davor Dzalto, human creativity is taken as a basic feature of both the personal existence of human being and art production. For this thinker, creativity is a basic cultural and anthropological category, since it enables human manifestation in the world as a "real presence" in contrast to the progressive "virtualisation" of the world.

Fostering creativityDaniel Pink, in his 2005 book A Whole New Mind, repeating arguments posed throughout the 20th century, argues that we are entering a new age where creativity is becoming increasingly important. In this conceptual age, we will need to foster and encourage right-directed thinking (representing creativity and emotion) over left-directed thinking (representing logical, analytical thought).Nickerson provides a summary of the various creativity techniques that have been proposed. These include approaches that have been developed by both academia and industry:

Establishing purpose and intention 92

Building basic skills Encouraging acquisitions of domain-specific knowledge Stimulating and rewarding curiosity and exploration Building motivation, especially internal motivation Encouraging confidence and a willingness to take risks Focusing on mastery and self-competition Promoting supportable beliefs about creativity Providing opportunities for choice and discovery Developing self-management (metacognitive skills) Teaching techniques and strategies for facilitating creative performance Providing balance

Some see the conventional system of schooling as "stifling" of creativity and attempt (particularly in the pre-school/kindergarten and early school years) to provide a creativity-friendly, rich, imagination-fostering environment for young children. A growing number of psychologists are supporting the idea that there are methods of increasing the creativity of an individual. Several different researchers have proposed approaches to prop up this idea, ranging from psychological-cognitive, such as:

Osborn-Parnes Creative problem solving Synectics; Inventium and science-based creative thinking Purdue Creative Thinking Program;

andlateral thinking (courtesy of Edward de Bono),

to the highly-structured, such as:TRIZ (the Theory of Inventive Problem-Solving); ARIZ (the Algorithm of Inventive Problem-Solving), both developed by the Russian scientist Genrich

Altshuller; and Computer-Aided Morphological analysis.

Creativity techniques

Creativity techniques are methods that encourage original thoughts and divergent thinking. Some techniques require groups of two or more people while other techniques can be accomplished alone. These methods include word games, written exercises and different types of improvisation. Creativity techniques can be used to develop new materials for artistic purposes or to solve problems.

Most creativity techniques use associations between the goal (or the problem), the current state (which may be an imperfect solution to the problem), and some stimulus (possibly selected randomly). There is an analogy between many creativity techniques and methods of evolutionary computation

RandomnessRandomness, or aleatory, is the introduction of chance elements. Aleatory is commonly found in music, art, and

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literature, particularly in poetry. In film, Andy Voda made a movie in 1979 called "Chance Chants" which he produced by a flip of a coin, or roll of a dice. In music, John Cage, an avant-garde musician, composed music by superimposing star maps on blank sheet music, by rolling dice, and by preparing open ended scores that depended on the spontaneous decisions of the performers. Other ways of practicing randomness include coin tossing, picking something out of a hat, or selecting random words from a dictionary.In short, aleatory is a way to introduce new thoughts or ideas into a creative process.

ImprovisationImprovisation is a creative process which can be spoken, written, or composed without prior preparation. Improvisation, also called extemporization, can lead to the discovery of new ways to act, new patterns of thought and practices, or new structures. Improvisation is used in the creation of music, theatre, and other various forms. Many artists also use improvisational techniques to help their creative flow. Here are two significant methods:Improvisational Theatre is a form of theatre in which actors use improvisational acting techniques to perform spontaneously. Many “improv” techniques are taught in standard drama classes. The basic skills of listening, clarity, confidence, and performing instinctively and spontaneously are considered important skills for actors to develop. Free Improvisation is real time composition. Musicians of all kinds “improv” music; this music is not limited to particular genre. Two contemporary musicians that use free improvisation are Anthony Braxton and Cecil Taylor. Through free improvisation, musicians can develop increased spontaneity and fluency. Each type of improvisation improves the thinking and acting skill of the actor, this is made by using no practise, a similar set of techniques is called Alienation since one of its many techniques uses actors that haven't rehearsed or even read the play, improvisation is an acting skill where actors make up a storyline, start and ending on the spot and actors have to try their best to keep in character.

Problem SolvingIn problem-solving contexts, the random word creativity technique is perhaps the simplest method. A person confronted with a problem is presented with a randomly generated word, in the hopes of a solution arising from any associations between the word and the problem. A random image, sound, or article can be used instead of a random word as a kind of creativity goad or provocation.

Therapeutic ApplicationsProjective therapy is a form of psychotherapy which uses synthesis to produce original interpretation and problem solving strategies. Fiction is read in the form of a novel or observed in the form of a film. In this therapeutic technique, patients analyze the fictional work and immerse themselves in this fictional world. Rather than focusing on their problems they analyze the author- or actors- motivation, plot-development and cinematography during the group process. By reading/viewing many consecutive works during this process, the patients are able to achieve a creative link between their own issues and those of the fictional characters. This synthesis is usually unique to each individual since it bypasses the conscious and directly accesses the unconscious by linking with semiotic objects and archetypes which populated this otherwise inaccessible part of the mental process. This technique was first used by Dr. A James Giannini at Yale University using the World of Tiers science-fiction series written by Philip Jose Farmer. A later novel in this series, Red Orc's Rage, was produced by both Farmer and Giannini. This particular novel reviewed the technique of projective therapy; the use of the creativity unleashed in this process: and the evolution of the Tiers series itself.

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DestinyDestiny refers to a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual. It is a concept based on the belief that there is a fixed natural order to the cosmos.

Different concepts of destiny and fateDestiny may be envisaged as fore-ordained by the Divine (for example, the Protestant concept of predestination) or unfolding through the exertions of human will (for example, in the American concept of Manifest Destiny).A sense of destiny in its oldest human sense remains still in the soldier's fatalistic image of the "bullet that has your name on it" or the moment when your number "comes up," or the flowering of a romance that was "meant to be." In Greek mythology, the human sense that there must be a hidden purpose in the random choices of the lottery governs the selection of Theseus to be among the youths to be sacrificed to the Minotaur.Destiny may be seen either as a fixed sequence of events that is inevitable and unchangeable, or that individuals

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choose their own destiny by choosing different paths throughout their life.

Destiny in literature and popular cultureMany Greek legends and tales teach the futility of trying to outmanoeuvre an inexorable fate that has been correctly predicted. This form of irony is important in Greek tragedy, as it is in Oedipus Rex and in the Duque de Rivas' play that Verdi transformed into La Forza del Destino ("The Force of Destiny") or Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, or in Macbeth's uncannily-derived knowledge of his own destiny, which in spite of all his actions does not preclude a horrible fate.This aspect is succinctly told by W. Somerset Maugham from an Arab tale:

Death speaks: There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, “Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.” The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, “Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?” “That was not a threatening gesture,” I said, “It was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

Other notable examples include Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles, in which Tess is destined to the miserable death that she is confronted with at the end of the novel; Samuel Beckett's Endgame"; the popular short story "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs; and the M. Night Shyamalan film Signs.Destiny is a recurring theme in the literature of Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), including Siddharta (1922) and his magnum opus, Das Glasperlenspiel, also published as The Glass Bead Game (1943). The common theme of these works involves a protagonist who cannot escape a destiny if their fate has been sealed, however hard they try. Destiny is also an important plot point in the hit TV shows Lost, Heroes and Supernatural, as well a common theme in the Roswell TV series.

Divination of destinySome believe that one's destiny may be ascertained by divination or proclaimed as the prophecy of a prophet or sibyl. In the belief systems of many cultures, one's destiny can only be learned about through a shaman, babalawo, saint or seer.In the Shang dynasty in China, turtle bones were thrown ages before the I Ching was codified. Arrows have been tossed to read destiny, from Thrace to pagan Mecca. In Yoruba traditional religion, the Ifá oracle is consulted via a string of sixteen cowries or kola nuts whose pattern when thrown on to a wooden tray represents the 256 possible combinations whose named "chapters" are recited and verses interpreted for the client by the babalawo. The Ifa Divination system was added in 2005 to the UNESCO list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.On the level of folklore, there have been multifarious methods for European maidens to detect in advance the husband for whom they were fated.

Destiny versus fateAlthough the words are used interchangeably in many cases, fate and destiny can be distinguished. Modern usage defines fate as a power or agency that predetermines and orders the course of events. Fate defines events as ordered or "inevitable". Fate is used in regard to the finality of events as they have worked themselves out; and that same sense of finality, projected into the future to become the inevitability of events as they will work themselves out, is Destiny. In classical and European mythology, there are three goddesses dispensing fate, The "Fates" known as Moirae in Greek mythology, as Parcae in Roman mythology, and Norns in Norse mythology; they determine the events of the world through the mystic spinning of threads that represent individual human

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destinies.One word derivative of "fate" is "fatality", another, "fatalism". Fate implies no choice, and ends fatally, with a death. Fate is an outcome determined by an outside agency acting upon a person or entity; but with destiny the entity is participating in achieving an outcome that is directly related to itself. Participation happens wilfully.

Used in the past tense, "destiny" and "fate" are both more interchangeable, both imply "one's lot" or fortunes, and include the sum of events leading up to a currently achieved outcome (e.g. "it was her destiny to be leader" and "it was her fate to be leader").Fate can involve things which are bound within and subject to larger networks. A set of mathematical functions arranged in a grid and interacting in defined ways is Fatelike. Likewise the individual statues in a larger work of counterpoint art are aesthetically Fated within the work. In each case Fate is external to every individual component, but integral to the network. Every component acts as Fate for every other component. The entire world can be seen as existing within such a network, a kind of mythical spider web controlled by unseen forces.

Fortune and Destiny (Gad and Meni) appear as gods in Isaiah 65:11.

Destiny and "Fortune"In Hellenistic civilization, the chaotic and unforeseeable turns of chance gave increasing prominence to a previously less notable goddess, Tyche, who embodied the good fortune of a city and all whose lives depended on its security and prosperity, two good qualities of life that appeared to be out of human reach. The Roman image of Fortuna, with the wheel she blindly turned was retained by Christian writers, revived strongly in the Renaissance and survives in some forms today.

Destiny and KismetThe word kismet derives from the Arabic word qismah, and entered the English language via the Turkish word kısmet, meaning either "the will of Allah" or "portion, lot or fate". In English, the word is synonymous with fate or destiny. The word is also part of mainstream Hindi and is spelled कि�स्मत and when written in English in the Indian sub-continent is spelled kismat.

Intuition (knowledge)

Intuition is the apparent ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason. “The word ‘intuition’ comes from the Latin word 'intueri', which is often roughly translated as meaning ‘to look inside’ or ‘to contemplate’." Intuition provides us with beliefs that we cannot necessarily justify. For this reason, it has been the subject of study in psychology, as well as a topic of interest in the supernatural. The "right brain" is popularly associated with intuitive processes such as aesthetic abilities. Some scientists have contended that intuition is associated with innovation in scientific discovery.

In personality assessmentIntuition is one of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung's four 'psychological types' or ego functions. In this early model of the personal psyche, intuition was opposed by sensation on one axis, while feeling was opposed by thinking on another axis. Jung argued that, in a given individual, one of these four functions was primary — most prominent or developed — in the consciousness. The opposing function would typically be underdeveloped in

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that individual. The remaining pair (on the other axis) would be consciously active, but to a lesser extent than the primary function. This schema is perhaps most familiar today as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

In psychology, intuition can encompass the ability to know valid solutions to problems and decision making. For example, the recognition primed decision (RPD) model was described by Gary Klein in order to explain how people can make relatively fast decisions without having to compare options. Klein found that under time pressure, high stakes, and changing parameters, experts used their base of experience to identify similar situations and intuitively choose feasible solutions. Thus, the RPD model is a blend of intuition and analysis. The intuition is the pattern-matching process that quickly suggests feasible courses of action. The analysis is the mental simulation, a conscious and deliberate review of the courses of action.An important intuitive method for identifying options is brainstorming. According to the renowned Neuropsychologist and Neurobiologist Roger Wolcott Sperry though, Intuition is a right-brain activity while Factual and Mathematical analysis is a left-brain activity.The reliability of one’s intuition depends greatly on past knowledge and occurrences in a specific area. Someone who has more experiences with children will tend to have a better instinct or intuition about what they should do in certain situations. This is not to say that one with a great amount of experience is always going to have an accurate intuition (because some can be biased); however, the chances of it being more reliable are definitely amplified.

Intuition and spiritualityIntuition is commonly discussed in writings of spiritual thought. Contextually, there is often an idea of a transcendent and more qualitative mind of one’s spirit towards which a person strives, or towards which consciousness evolves. Typically, intuition is regarded as a conscient commonality between earthly knowledge and the higher spiritual knowledge and appears as flashes of insight. It is asserted that by definition intuition cannot be judged by logical reasoning. For Rudolf Steiner, intuition is the third of three stages of higher knowledge, coming after imagination and inspiration, and is characterized by a state of immediate and complete experience of, or even union with, the object of knowledge without loss of the subject's individual ego.Thomas Merton discussed variations of intuition in a series of essays. In describing aesthetic intuition he asserted that the artist has a subjective identification with an object that is both heightened and intensified and thereby “sees” the object’s spiritual reality. In discussing Zen meditation he asserted that a direct intuition is derived through a “struggle against conceptual knowledge.” An end result is “the existent knows existence, or 'isness,' while completely losing sight of itself as a ‘knowing subject.’” The high value of intuition in the Sufi schemata is related by El Sayeed Idries Shah el-Hashimi el-Naqshbandi, Grand Sheikh of the Dervish Orders --- Bruce Main-Smith

Studies and claimsIntuitive abilities were quantitatively tested at Yale University in the 1970s. While studying nonverbal communication, researchers noted that some subjects were able to read nonverbal facial cues before reinforcement occurred. In employing a similar design, they noted that highly intuitive subjects made decisions quickly but could not identify their rationale. Their level of accuracy, however, did not differ from that of non-intuitive subjects.Law enforcement officers often claim to observe suspects and immediately "know" that they possess a weapon or illicit narcotic substances. Often unable to articulate why they reacted or what prompted them at the time of the event, they sometimes retrospectively can plot their actions based upon what had been clear and present danger signals. Such examples liken intuition to "gut feelings" and when viable illustrate preconscious activity.

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Various definitionsIntuition is a combination of historical (empirical) data, deep and heightened observation and an ability to cut through the thickness of surface reality. Intuition is like a slow motion machine that captures data instantaneously and hits you like a ton of bricks. Intuition is a knowing, a sensing that is beyond the conscious understanding — a gut feeling. Intuition is not pseudo-science. - Abella Arthur

A form of psychic radar employed in an attempt to ‘feel’ out the other situation or person. It usually involves relying on one’s own fear-based interpretations based on past emotional pains or assumed future pains. It is held in higher esteem than an accurate common-sensical appraisal of the facts as perceived by the physical senses.

LuckLuck (also called fortuity) is a chance happening, or that which happens beyond a person's control. Luck can be good or bad (as in; Good fortune or misfortune).

Luck as lack of controlLuck refers to that which happens to a person beyond that person's control. This view incorporates phenomena that are chance happenings, a person's place of birth for example, but where there is no uncertainty involved, or where the uncertainty is irrelevant. Within this framework one can differentiate between three different types of luck:

Constitutional luck, that is, luck with factors that cannot be changed. Place of birth and genetic constitution are typical examples.

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Circumstantial luck - with factors that are haphazardly brought on. Accidents and epidemics are typical examples.

Ignorance luck, that is, luck with factors one does not know about. Examples can be identified only in hindsight.

Luck as a fallacyAnother view holds that "luck is probability taken personally". A rationalist approach to luck includes the application of the rules of probability, and an avoidance of unscientific beliefs. The rationalist feels the belief in luck is a result of poor reasoning or wishful thinking. To a rationalist, a believer in luck commits the "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" logical fallacy, which argues that because two events are connected sequentially, they are connected causally as well:

A happens (luck-attracting event or action) and then B happens;Therefore, A caused B.

In this particular perspective, probability is only affected by confirmed causal connections. A brick falling on a person walking below, therefore, is not a function of that person's luck, but is instead the result of a collection of understood (or explainable) occurrences. Statistically, every person walking near the building was just as likely to have the brick fall on them.The gambler's fallacy and inverse gambler's fallacy both explain some reasoning problems in common beliefs in luck. They involve denying the unpredictability of random events: "I haven't rolled a seven all week, so I'll definitely roll one tonight".Luck is merely an expression noting an extended period of noted outcomes, completely consistent with random walk probability theory. Wishing one "good luck" will not cause such an extended period, but it expresses positive feelings toward the one -- not necessarily wholly undesirable.

Luck as an essenceThere is also a series of spiritual or supernatural beliefs regarding fortune. These beliefs vary widely from one to another, but most agree that luck can be influenced through spiritual means by performing certain rituals or by avoiding certain circumstances.One such activity is prayer, a religious practice in which this belief is particularly strong. Many cultures and religions worldwide place a strong emphasis on a person's ability to influence their fortune by ritualistic means, sometimes involving sacrifice, omens or spells. Others associate luck with a strong sense of superstition, that is, a belief that certain taboo or blessed actions will influence how fortune favours them for the future.Luck can also be a belief in an organization of fortunate and unfortunate events. Luck is a form of superstition which is interpreted differently by different individuals. Famous Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, who founded analytical psychology, coined the term "synchronicity", which he described as "a meaningful coincidence".

Christianity and Islam believe in the will of a supreme being rather than luck as the primary influence in future events. The degrees of this Divine Providence vary greatly from one person to another; however, most acknowledge providence as at least a partial, if not complete influence on luck. These religions, in their early development, accommodated many traditional practices. Each, at different times, accepted omens and practiced forms of ritual sacrifice in order to divine the will of their supreme being or to influence divine favouritism. The concept of "Divine Grace" as it is described by believers closely resembles what is referred to as "luck" by others.

Mesoamerican religions, such as the Aztecs, Mayans and Incas, had particularly strong beliefs regarding the relationship between rituals and luck. In these cultures, human sacrifice (both of willing volunteers and captured enemies) was seen as a way to please the gods and earn favour for the city offering the sacrifice. The Mayans also believed in blood offerings, where men or women wanting to earn favour with the gods, to bring about good luck, would cut themselves and bleed on the gods' altar.

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Many traditional African practices, such as voodoo and hoodoo, have a strong belief in superstition. Some of these religions include a belief that third parties can influence an individual's luck. Shamans and witches are both respected yet feared, based on their ability to cause good or bad fortune for those in villages near them.

Luck as a placeboSome encourage the belief in luck as a false idea, but which may produce positive thinking, and alter one's responses for the better. Others, like Jean Paul Sartre and Sigmund Freud, feel a belief in luck has more to do with a locus of control for events in one's life, and the subsequent escape from personal responsibility. According to this theory, one who ascribes their travails to "bad luck" will be found upon close examination to be living risky lifestyles.If "good" and "bad" events occur at random to everyone, believers in good luck will experience a net gain in their fortunes, and vice versa for believers in bad luck. This is clearly likely to be self-reinforcing. Thus, although untrue, a belief in good luck may actually be an adaptive meme.

NumerologyMost cultures consider some numbers to be lucky or unlucky. This is found to be particularly strong in Asian cultures, where the obtaining of "lucky" telephone numbers, automobile license plate numbers, and household addresses are actively sought, sometimes at great monetary expense. Numerology, as it relates to luck, is closer to an art than to a science, yet numerologists, astrologists or psychics may disagree. It is interrelated to astrology, and to some degree to parapsychology and spirituality and is based on converting virtually anything material into a pure number, using that number in an attempt to detect something meaningful about reality, and trying to predict or calculate the future based on lucky numbers. Numerology is folkloric by nature and started when humans first learned to count. Through human history it was, and still is, practiced by many cultures of the world from traditional fortunetelling to on-line psychic reading. There are many variations of numerology - most are based on the Chaldean System or the Pythagorean System. Latest modern methods such as Formalogy also are in use. Most are contemporary systems of advanced numerology and rely on leading principals of numerology and related mystical traditions observed by Ancestral Armenians, Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Persians, Hebrews, Greeks and Romans.

Luck in Religion

Judaism and ChristianityBut you who forsake Yahweh, who forget my holy mountain, who prepare a table for Fortune, and who fill

up mixed wine to Destiny (Isaiah 65:11 - The bearing that this has on beliefs concerning luck is a matter of controversy)

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord (Book of Proverbs 16:33 NIV) I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does

food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favour to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. (Ecclesiastes 9:11 NIV)

HinduismLakshmi is the Goddess of Fortune. It's believed that a look by Lakshmi by the corner of the eye will provide luck.

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The Present

The present is a moment in time discernible as intermediate between past and future. The present is the time that is associated with the events perceived directly, not as a recollection or a speculation. It is often represented as a hyperplane in space-time, often called now, although modern physics demonstrates that such a hyperplane can not be defined uniquely for observers in relative motion. The present may also be viewed as duration.

General overviewThe present is contrasted with the past and the future. Modern physics has not yet been able to explain the perceived aspect of 'the present' as 'eliminator of possibilities' that transfers future into past. A complicating factor is that whilst a given observer would describe 'the present' as a spatial structure with zero time lapse, other observes would associate both time and space to this structure and therefore disagree on what constitutes

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'the present'.

The direct experience of the present for each human is that it is what is here, now. Direct experience is of course subjective by definition yet, in this case, this same direct experience is true for all humans. For all of us, 'here' means 'where I am' and 'now' means 'when I am'. Thus, the common repeatable experience is that the present is inextricably linked to oneself.In the time aspect, the conventional concept of 'now' is that it is some tiny point on a continuous timeline which separates past from future. It is not clear, however, that there is a universal timeline or whether, as relativity seems to indicate, the timeline is inextricably linked to the observer. Thus; is 'now' for me the same time as 'now' for you on a universal timeline, assuming a universal timeline exists? Adding to the confusion, in the physics view, there is no demonstrable reason why time should move in any one particular direction.

Adding substance to the supposition that the timeline view of 'now' may not hold the full picture, the qualities of 'now' or the 'present' in the human direct experience are very different to the qualities of past and future available through memory or anticipation. In the human direct experience, 'now' has a certain aliveness, reality and immediacy not present in our experience of past and future. Indeed, any experience is always happening 'now', even a re-living of some past event. Thus, there is a deep philosophical case for saying that the present moment is all there ever is, from moment to moment.When comparing time in places separated by great distances, the notion of present becomes more subjective. For example, we visually perceive stars to be where they were when the light now reaching our eyes was emitted, because even though light travels at approximately 3 x 108 m/s it takes many years to reach us from distant sources. Thus, light travel time must be taken into account in such time comparisons.

When used in the term "Before Present" (BP), as used in expressing ages or dates determined by radiocarbon dating, "Present" is defined as AD 1950.

The present in BuddhismBuddhism and many of its associated paradigms emphasize the importance of living in the present moment — being fully aware of what is happening, and not dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. This does not mean that they encourage hedonism, but merely that through constantly focusing on one's current position in space and time (rather than future considerations, or past reminiscence) will aid one in relieving suffering. A number of meditative techniques aim to help the practitioner live in the present moment.Christianity and eternityFor some Christians God is viewed as being outside of time and from the divine perspective past, present and future are actualised in the now of eternity. Saint Thomas Aquinas used the image of a watchman, representing God, standing on a height looking down on a valley to a road where past present and future, represented by the individuals and their actions strung out along its length, are all visible simultaneously to God. Therefore, God's knowledge is not tied to any particular date.

Philosophical problem"The present" raises the difficult question: "How is it that all sentient beings experience now at the same time?" There is no logical reason why this should be the case and no easy answer to the question. For example, say somebody named John is experiencing a great deal of pain. John's friend Fred takes pity on John because of John's situation. The problem is: is it logical for Fred to feel bad for John at present, when there is no way to prove that both John and Fred experience the same temporal existence?

Special Relativity's "present"It follows from Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity that there is no such thing as absolute

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simultaneity. When care is taken to operationalise "the present", it follows that the events that can be labelled as "simultaneous" with a given event, can not be in direct cause-effect relationship. Such collections of events are perceived differently by different observers. Instead, when focusing on "now" as the events perceived directly, not as a recollection or a speculation, for a given observer "now" takes the form of the observer's past light cone. The light cone of a given event is objectively defined as the collection of events in causal relationship to that event, but each event has a different associated light cone. One has to conclude that in relativistic models of physics there is no place for "the present" as an absolute element of reality. Einstein phrased this as: "People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion".

Eternal nowEckhart Tolle, in his book The Power of Now (1997), argues that only the present moment exists. Tolle argues that time is an illusion, and that the past exists only as a memory stored in the mind, while the future is imagined, a projection of the mind.

Quotes There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past.– George Carlin

You shouldn't chase after the past or place expectations on the future. What is past is left behind. The future is as yet unreached. Whatever quality is present you clearly see right there, right there.– Buddha, Bhaddekaratta Sutta

What we perceive as present is the vivid fringe of memory tinged with anticipation.– Alfred North Whitehead, The Concept of Nature

There's no time like the present.– Common saying

Randomness

As humans, we all have a great eagerness to make sense of our world. Does this mean that we don't see the world as it truly appears? Is our world an illusion through the eyes of a human? Our brain distorts and deceives, however, this is a different question and subject entirely. Today, I'm going to focus on the fact that our brain tends to make patterns out of the most random groups of data, or anything else that is completely random and patternless!

You might not have even realized that you do this, but everyone does, and they do on a daily basis. You really can't get around it. This has nothing to do with your personality, either. This is shaped by the biological make up of your brain. Everyone's brains work in practically the same way, only varying to an extremely small degree. But really, our brains all work in the same way, and we all try to make patterns out of the most random formations.

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For example, consider 6 coin flips. Assumed that a coin was flipped randomly 6 times, which sequence would you expect to see? HHHTTT, HTTHTH or HHHHHH?You have probably guessed the middle, HTTHTH, because the sequence is most in pattern, and thus seems more common to the human brain. In all actuality, each of these sequences is just as likely as the other. Since a coin flipping is random, there is no event that can possibly be more likely than another. It's just as likely to get all heads, than to get half and half, since the entire event is completely random. Your mind may tell you it's nearly impossible to get all tails, but it's just as impossible to get a HTHTHT result.

Still don't believe it? Try flipping a coin 50 times. Chances are you’re going to have some “streaks” of coin flips. You're going to look at the 50 flipping results, and try to form patterns out of the data. In one case, heads could have flipped 5 times in a row. I'm sure that you could guarantee that the next flip was going to be tails. How can you explain these weird streaks?

There's really no need to explain them! You're only seeing them as streaks. Really, each different flip was a completely random event. These aren't "streaks", more so, it just happened to land a certain way on multiple occasions, which was a completely random effect! These are not patterns. Our brain is putting this data into patterns to make it fit for your brain to understand.

Now, I'm sure you've realized that people in general tend to make patterns out of the most random things in life. So how can we truly make the sense of anything? Just look at the bigger picture. See the world for how it is to the best of your ability!

Surrealist gamesSurrealist games, also called Surrealist techniques, are a bunch of more or less serious techniques that were devised to bring automatism into art, and enable unconscious creative processes by circumventing the conscious mind and it's planning capacities.

OriginSurrealism is an artistic, cultural and intellectual movement that emphasizes using the powers of the unconscious mind. Many artists and thinkers using a diverse array of techniques were part of the movement. It flourished during the first half of the 20th century, predominantly in Europe. The Surrealist movement has been a fractious one since its inception. The value and role of the various techniques has been one of many subjects of disagreement. Some Surrealists consider automatism and Surrealist games to be sources of inspiration only, while others consider them as starting points for finished works. Others

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consider the items created through automatism to be finished works themselves, needing no further refinement. Surrealism in art, poetry, and literature utilizes numerous unique techniques and games to provide inspiration. Many of these are said to free imagination by producing a creative process free of conscious control. The importance of the subconscious as a source of inspiration is central to the nature of surrealism. Some of the artists mentioned here weren't Surrealists but Dadaists. This movement preceded surrealism and was one of its inspirations. Dadaism had similar influence and international adherents as Surrealism later. But while many Dadaists used automatism, the goals of that movement were different. They mainly tried to protest against mainstream art and culture during World War I and its aftermath. Some did that simply by declaring some nonsense as art or doing noisy performance art free of meaning, others included recognisable satire and even actual political engagement in their canon of artistic activities.

Uses in magicMany of the surrealist techniques are suited for any purpose one would use simple automatic drawing or writing. They also yield good results if you want an inkblot type picture to meditate on. Some have specific applications in magic or divination, which will be explained under the headline of the respective games. Some are indeed the same as certain folkloristic divination methods. Magicians who are also artists may find inspiration in them. Some of the actual techniques are mainstream now, others seem dated, and so they should primarily be an inspiration to invent your very own techniques. “Chaotes” and “Discordians” have suggested looking into surrealist games because of their playful nature. If you want to learn automatic drawing or some such, they can be a great way to relax and just do it, instead of worrying weather you're "psychic" enough to make it work. Games like exquisite corpse might be good for group work, for things like obtaining collective sigils, or simply for warm-up/getting to know each other. Aside from magic, many of those techniques make wonderful activities for young children, or not so young children who want to be silly for a while. But then, there's always magic in playing with kids, or acting like one.

Automatism as used by the SurrealistsThe Surrealists used automatic painting, drawing and writing extensively. The objective was not communicating with spirits, or any other magical process, but communicating with the artist's own unconscious mind. Many of the surrealist techniques are in fact very specialized techniques to achieve this, either alone or in interplay with other people. However, many surrealists didn't use the pieces of automatic work as works of art on their own right, but as an inspiration for more traditionally done works of art.

Automatic poetry is poetry written using automatic methods. It has probably been the chief surrealist method from the founding of surrealism to the present day. One of the most obvious uses of automatic writing before the advent of surrealism by a great writer was that of W. B. Yeats. His wife, a spiritualist, practised it, and Yeats put large chunks of it into his prose work, A Vision and much of his later poetry. Yeats, however, was not a surrealist. But he was a Golden Dawn member, so we can suppose he knew what he did. "Automatic poetry generators" exist online, but they do not actually generate automatic poetry in this sense. But the more extreme surrealists would have liked this anyway. (See paragraph about surautomatism). Would the use of this count as a method of bibliomancy, when properly done?

SurautomatismA few techniques invented by Romanian surrealists are named surautomatism. Their objective is to take automatism to its "most absurd limit". Basically, they are methods that will generate some sort of picture without much human influence on it at all. This could include statistical methods such as Cubomania and senseless doodling such as indecipherable writing. See the following citation as an example of their reasoning.

In their 1945 statement Dialectique de la Dialectique, Romanian surrealists Gherashim Luca and Dolfi Trost wrote,

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We have returned to the problem of knowledge through images... by establishing a clear distinction between images produced by artistic means and images resulting from rigorously applied scientific procedures, such as the operation of chance or of automatism. We stand opposed to the tendency to reproduce, through symbols, certain valid theoretical contents by the use of pictorial techniques, and believe that the unknown that surrounds us can find a staggering materialization of the highest order in indecipherable images. In generally accepting until now pictorial reproductive means, surrealist painting will find that the way to its blossoming lies in the absurd use of aplastic, objective and entirely non-artistic procedures.

It is debatable whether such methods are fundamentally different of other surrealist methods or not. But this line of thinking does seem different to that of other surrealists, who simply wanted to express themselves more directly than it seemed possible with traditional art.

The techniques

AerographyAerography is a technique in which a 3-dimensional object is used as a stencil with spray painting. This may produce quite unpredictable, but interesting results.

BulletismBulletism is shooting ink at a blank piece of paper. The artist can then develop images based on what is seen.

CalligrammeA calligramme is a text or poem of a type developed by Guillaume Apollinaire in 1918, in which the words or letters make up a shape, particularly a shape connected to the subject of the text or poem.

CollageCollage is the assemblage of different forms creating a new whole. For example, an artistic collage work may include newspaper clippings, ribbons, bits of collared or hand-made papers, photographs, etc., glued to a solid support or canvas. Today, collage is considered a legitimate and widely used artistic technique, but at the time it was quite innovative, and few of the less avant-garde artists and critics approved of it. Today, collage can be done the traditional way, with scissors and glue, or using a computer and Photoshop (or Gimp, that's free and works for linux people too). Both methods have advantages and disadvantages, generally it's best to do what's easiest for you, and for what you have the resources available. Collage can be a very good method of visual expression for those who can't really paint or draw. It also takes some advice and practice to achieve really good results, but it's definitely easier than learning how to draw.

Coulage A coulage is a kind of automatic or involuntary sculpture made by pouring a molten material (such as metal, wax, or chocolate) into cold water. As the material cools it takes on what appears to be a random (or aleatoric) form, though the physical properties of the materials involved may lead to a conglomeration of discs or spheres. The artist may utilize a variety of techniques to affect the outcome. This technique is also used in the divination process known as ceromancy.

Cubomania Cubomania is a method of making collages in which a picture or image is cut into squares and the squares are then reassembled without regard for the image. The technique was first used by the Romanian surrealist Gherasim Luca. (This definition of cubomania is to be distinguished from the use of the word to mean "obsession with cubes.")

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Cut-up techniqueCut-up technique is a literary form or method in which a text is cut up at random and rearranged to create a new text.

Decalcomania Decalcomania is a process of spreading thick paint upon a canvas then - while it is still wet - covering it with further material such as paper or aluminium foil. This covering is then removed (again before the paint dries), and the resultant paint pattern becomes the basis of the finished painting. The technique was much employed by artists such as Max Ernst. When working with paper, it is also possible to spread the paint on a hard surface and then put the paper on it and peal it off again. Originally, gouache or oil paints were used. Basically, this is the good old inkblot technique, only using two papers and avoiding symmetry this way. Painters are advised to try that with acrylic paints, and use glass or plastic instead of the disposable paper. They are cheaper and dry more rapidly. You'll get amazing effects when you mix soft, transparent acrylic gel with a small amount of colour (so that it will retain some transparency), and play with it that way.

Dream resume The dream resume takes the form of an employment resume but chronicles its subject's achievements, employment, or the like, in dreams, rather than in waking life. Sometimes dream resumes contain the achievements of both, however.

Echo poem An echo poem is a poem written using a technique invented by Aurélien Dauguet in 1972. The poem is composed by one or more persons, working together in a process as follows. The first "stanza" of the poem is written on the left-hand column of a piece of paper divided into two columns. Then the "opposite" of the first stanza, opposite in whatever sense is appropriate to the poem, is composed in the right-hand column of the page. The writing is done automatically and often the "opposite" stanza is composed of a sound correspondence to the first stanza. For a longer work, the third stanza can then begin in the left-hand column as an "opposite" or a sound correspondence to what preceded it in the right-hand column. Then the fourth stanza might be an "opposite" or sound correspondence to what preceded it in the left-hand column, and so forth. When the poem is completed, the opposite of the last phrase, line, or sentence, generally serves as the title.

Entoptic graphomania Entoptic graphomania is a surrealist and automatic method of drawing in which dots are made at the sites of impurities in a blank sheet of paper, and lines are then made between the dots. The method was invented by Dolfi Trost, who as the subtitle of his 1945 book ("Vision dans le cristal. Oniromancie obsessionelle. Et neuf graphomanies entoptiques") suggests, included nine examples therein. This method of "indecipherable writing" (see below) was supposedly an example of "surautomatism," the controversial theory put forward by Trost and Gherashim Luca in which surrealist methods would be practiced that "went beyond" automatism. In Dialectique de Dialectique they had proposed the further radicalization of surrealist automatism by abandoning images produced by artistic techniques in favour of those "resulting from rigorously applied scientific procedures," allegedly cutting the notion of "artist" out of the process of creating images and replacing it with chance and scientific rigour.

Étrécissements Collage is perceived as an additive method of visual poetry whereas Étrécissements are a reductive method. This was first employed by Marcel Mariën in the 1950s. The results are achieved by the cutting away of parts of images to encourage a new image, by means of a pair of scissors or any other manipulative sharpened instrument.

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Exquisite corpseExquisite corpse is a method by which a collection of words or images are collectively assembled. It is based on an old parlour game called Consequences in which players wrote in turn on a sheet of paper, folded it to conceal part of the writing, and then passed it to the next player for a further contribution.

FrottageFrottage is a method of creation in which one takes a pencil or other drawing tool and makes a "rubbing" over a textured surface. The drawing can either be left as is or used as the basis for further refinement.

FumageFumage is technique in which impressions are made by the smoke of a candle or kerosene lamp on a piece of paper or canvas. This is in fact the divination technique known as Knissomancy, and under many other names.

Grattage Grattage is a surrealist technique in painting in which (usually dry) paint is scraped off the canvas. It was employed by Max Ernst and Joan Miró .

Indecipherable writing In addition to its obvious meaning of writing that is illegible or for whatever other reason cannot be made out by the reader, indecipherable writing refers to a set of automatic techniques, most developed by Romanian surrealists and falling under the heading of surautomatism. Examples include entopic graphomania, fumage and the movement of liquid down a vertical surface.

Involuntary sculpture Surrealism describes as "involuntary sculpture" those made by absent-mindedly manipulating something, such as rolling and unrolling a movie ticket, bending a paper clip, and so forth.

Latent news Latent news is a game in which an article from a newspaper is cut into individual words (or perhaps phrases) and then rapidly reassembled.

Mimeogram A mimeogram is a type of automatic art made by peeling off the backing sheets of mimeograph stencils.

Movement of liquid down a vertical surface The movement of liquid down a vertical surface is, as the name suggests, a technique, invented by surrealists from Romania and said by them to be surautomatic and a form of indecipherable writing, of making pictures by dripping or allowing to flow some form of liquid down a vertical surface.

Outagraphy The outagraph is a photograph in which the subject, what the photograph is "of," is cut out. The method was invented by Ted Joans.

Paranoiac-critical methodParanoiac-critical method is a technique invented by Salvador Dalí which consists of the artist invoking a paranoid state (fear that the self is being manipulated, targeted or controlled by others). The result is a deconstruction of the psychological concept of identity, such that subjectivity becomes the primary aspect of the

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artwork.

Parsemage Parsemage is a surrealist and automatic method in the visual arts invented by Ithell Colquhoun in which dust from charcoal or collared chalk is scattered on the surface of water and then skimmed off by passing a stiff paper or cardboard just under the water's surface. Basically, that's a more complicated, but even more random way of sand painting.

PhotomontagePhotomontage is making of composite picture by cutting and joining a number of photographs. Today, this is widely regarded as legitimate method of art and illustration. It is often done using Photoshop and digital images rather than traditional cutting and gluing. it was somewhat innovative in their time.

SandpaintingGlue is smeared randomly over paper or canvas, then sand or some other powder is sprinkled all over it. The result can be left as is or further manipulated. If you want to create something of lasting value it is advisable to use transparent acrylic gel instead of glue. Most glues will yellow over time, or even become brittle and let the sand fall off. Similar visual effects can be produced with ready-made acrylic paint containing sand, but that's much less fun.

SoufflageSoufflage is a technique in which liquid paint is blown onto a surface to inspire or reveal an image

Synchronicity

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner. To count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance.The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead, it maintains that just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by their meaning. Since meaning is a complex mental construction, subject to conscious and subconscious influence, not every correlation in the grouping of events by meaning needs to have an explanation in terms of cause and effect.

DescriptionThe idea of synchronicity is that the conceptual relationship of minds, defined as the relationship between ideas, is intricately structured in its own logical way and gives rise to relationships that are not causal in nature. These relationships can manifest themselves as simultaneous occurrences that are meaningfully related—the cause and the effect occur together.Synchronous events reveal an underlying pattern, a conceptual framework that encompasses, but is larger than, any of the systems that display the synchronicity. The suggestion of a larger framework is essential to satisfy the

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definition of synchronicity as originally developed by Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung.Jung coined the word to describe what he called "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events." Jung variously described synchronicity as an "acausal connecting principle", "meaningful coincidence" and "acausal parallelism". Jung introduced the concept as early as the 1920s but only gave a full statement of it in 1951 in an Eranos lecture and in 1952, published a paper, Synchronicity — An Acausal Connecting Principle, in a volume with a related study by the physicist (and Nobel laureate) Wolfgang Pauli.It was a principle that Jung felt gave conclusive evidence for his concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious, in that it was descriptive of a governing dynamic that underlies the whole of human experience and history—social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. Concurrent events that first appear to be coincidental but later turn out to be causally related are termed incoincident.Jung believed that many experiences that are coincidences due to chance in terms of causality suggested the manifestation of parallel events or circumstances in terms of meaning, reflecting this governing dynamic.One of Jung's favourite quotes on synchronicity was from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, in which the White Queen says to Alice: "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards".

Scientific reasoningA possible explanation for Jung's perception that the laws of probability seemed to be violated with some coincidences can be seen in Littlewood's law.In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and avoids information and interpretations that contradict prior beliefs. It is a type of cognitive bias and represents an error of inductive inference, or as a form of selection bias toward confirmation of the hypothesis under study or disconfirmation of an alternative hypothesis. Confirmation bias is of interest in the teaching of critical thinking, as the skill is misused if rigorous critical scrutiny is applied only to evidence challenging a preconceived idea but not to evidence supporting it.Wolfgang Pauli, a scientist who in his professional life was severely critical of confirmation bias, made some effort to investigate the phenomenon, co-authoring a paper with Jung on the subject. Some of the evidence that Pauli cited was that ideas that occurred in his dreams would have synchronous analogs in later correspondence with distant collaborators.

ExamplesThe French writer Émile Deschamps claims in his memoirs that in 1805, he was treated to some plum pudding by a stranger named Monsieur de Fontgibu. Ten years later, the writer encountered plum pudding on the menu of a Paris restaurant and wanted to order some, but the waiter told him that the last dish had already been served to another customer, who turned out to be de Fontgibu. Many years later, in 1832, Émile Deschamps was at a diner and was once again ordered plum pudding. He recalled the earlier incident and told his friends that only de Fontgibu was missing to make the setting complete—and in the same instant, the now senile de Fontgibu entered the room.

In his book Synchronicity (1952), Jung tells the following story as an example of a synchronistic event: "A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream, I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window-pane from the outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata), which, contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt the urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since."

The wardrobe department for The Wizard of Oz unknowingly purchased a coat for character Professor Marvel from a second-hand store, which was later verified to have originally been owned by L. Frank Baum, the author

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of the novel on which the film was based.

The comic strip character Dennis the Menace featuring a young boy in a red and black striped shirt debuted on March 12, 1951 in 16 newspapers in the United States. Three days later in the UK a character called Dennis the Menace, wearing a red and black striped jumper made his debut in children's comic The Beano. Both creators have denied any causal connection.

Jung wrote, after describing some examples, "When coincidences pile up in this way, one cannot help being impressed by them—for the greater the number of terms in such a series, or the more unusual its character, the more improbable it becomes."

In popular culture

In the 1976 WWII film The Eagle Has Landed, set during 1943, the character Max Radl (Robert Duvall) asks a subordinate if he is familiar with the works of Jung and then explains the theory of synchronicity. This is an unintended prochronism, as Jung did not lecture or publish on the issue until 1951, and Max Radl explicitly mentions synchronicity appearing in "the works of Jung".

In the 1984 film Repo Man, Miller's "Plate 'o' Shrimp" theory outlines the idea of synchronicity. The Miller character states that while many people see life as a series of unconnected incidents, he believes that there is a "lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything" that is "part of a cosmic unconsciousness."

Uncertainty

Uncertainty is a term used in subtly different ways in a number of fields, including philosophy, physics, statistics, economics, finance, insurance, psychology, sociology, engineering, and information science. It applies to predictions of future events, to physical measurements already made, or to the unknown.

ConceptsIn his seminal work Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, University of Chicago economist Frank Knight (1921) established the important distinction between risk and uncertainty:

“ Uncertainty must be taken in a sense radically distinct from the familiar notion of risk, from which it has never been properly separated.... The essential fact is that 'risk' means in some cases a quantity susceptible of measurement, while at other times it is something distinctly not of this character; and there are far-reaching and crucial differences in the bearings of the phenomena depending on which of the two is really

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present and operating.... It will appear that a measurable uncertainty, or 'risk' proper, as we shall use the term, is so far different from an unmeasurable one that it is not in effect an uncertainty at all.

Although the terms are used in various ways among the general public, many specialists in decision theory, statistics and other quantitative fields have defined uncertainty and risk more specifically. Doug Hubbard defines uncertainty and risk as:

Uncertainty: The lack of certainty, A state of having limited knowledge where it is impossible to exactly describe existing state or future outcome, more than one possible outcome.

Measurement of Uncertainty: A set of possible states or outcomes where probabilities are assigned to each possible state or outcome - this also includes the application of a probability density function to continuous variables

Risk: A state of uncertainty where some possible outcomes have an undesired effect or significant loss. Measurement of Risk: A set of measured uncertainties where some possible outcomes are losses, and

the magnitudes of those losses - this also includes loss functions over continuous variables. There are other taxonomies of uncertainties and decisions that include a broader sense of uncertainty and how it

should be approached from an ethics perspective.

“There are some things that you know to be true, and others that you know to be false; yet, despite this extensive knowledge that you have, there remain many things whose truth or falsity is not known to you. We say that you are uncertain about them. You are uncertain, to varying degrees, about everything in the future; much of the past is hidden from you; and there is a lot of the present about which you do not have full information. Uncertainty is everywhere and you cannot escape from it. ” – Dennis Lindley, Understanding Uncertainty (2006)

For example, if you do not know whether it will rain tomorrow, then you have a state of uncertainty. If you apply probabilities to the possible outcomes using weather forecasts or even just a calibrated probability assessment, you have quantified the uncertainty. Suppose you quantify your uncertainty as a 90% chance of sunshine. If you are planning a major, costly, outdoor event for tomorrow then you have risk since there is a 10% chance of rain and rain would be undesirable. Furthermore, if this is a business event and you would lose $100,000 if it rains, then you have quantified the risk (a 10% chance of losing $100,000). These situations can be made even more realistic by quantifying light rain vs. heavy rain, the cost of delays vs. outright cancellation, etc.

Some may represent the risk in this example as the "expected opportunity loss" (EOL) or the chance of the loss multiplied by the amount of the loss (10% x $100,000 = $10,000). That is useful if the organizer of the event is "risk neutral" which most people are not. Most would be willing to pay a premium to avoid the loss. An insurance company, for example, would compute an EOL as a minimum for any insurance coverage, and then add on to that other operating costs and profit. Since many people are willing to buy insurance for many reasons, then clearly the EOL alone is not the perceived value of avoiding the risk.

Quantitative uses of the terms uncertainty and risk are fairly consistent from fields such as probability theory, actuarial science, and information theory. Some also create new terms without substantially changing the definitions of uncertainty or risk. For example, surprisal is a variation on uncertainty sometimes used in information theory. But outside of the more mathematical uses of the term, usage may vary widely. In cognitive

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psychology, uncertainty can be real, or just a matter of perception, such as expectations, threats, etc.

Vagueness or ambiguity are sometimes described as "second order uncertainty", where there is uncertainty even about the definitions of uncertain states or outcomes. The difference here is that this uncertainty is about the human definitions and concepts, not an objective fact of nature. It has been argued that ambiguity, however, is always avoidable while uncertainty (of the "first order" kind) is not necessarily avoidable.

Uncertainty may be purely a consequence of a lack of knowledge of obtainable facts. That is, you may be uncertain about whether a new rocket design will work, but this uncertainty can be removed with further analysis and experimentation. At the subatomic level, however, uncertainty may be a fundamental and unavoidable property of the universe. In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle puts limits on how much an observer can ever know about the position and velocity of a particle. This may not just be ignorance of potentially obtainable facts but that there is no fact to be found. There is some controversy in physics as to whether such uncertainty is an irreducible property of nature or if there are "hidden variables" that would describe the state of a particle even more exactly than Heisenberg's uncertainty principle allows.

ApplicationsInvesting in financial markets such as the stock market. Uncertainty is used in engineering notation when talking about significant figures. Or the possible error

involved in measuring things such as distance. Uncertainty is designed into games, most notably in gambling, where chance is central to play. In scientific modelling, in which the prediction of future events should be understood to have a range of

expected values. In physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle forms the basis of modern quantum mechanics. In weather forecasting it is now commonplace to include data on the degree of uncertainty in a weather

forecast. Uncertainty is often an important factor in economics. According to economist Frank Knight, it is different

from risk, where there is a specific probability assigned to each outcome (as when flipping a fair coin). Uncertainty involves a situation that has unknown probabilities, while the estimated probabilities of possible outcomes need not add to unity.

In risk assessment and risk management.In metrology, measurement uncertainty is a central concept quantifying the dispersion one may reasonably

attribute to a measurement result. Such an uncertainty can also be referred to as a measurement error. In daily life, measurement uncertainty is often implicit ("He is 6 feet tall" give or take a few inches), while for any serious use an explicit statement of the measurement uncertainty is necessary. The expected measurement uncertainty of many measuring instruments (scales, oscilloscopes, force gages, rulers, thermometers, etc) is often stated in the manufacturer’s specification.

Uncertainty has been a common theme in art, both as a thematic device (see, for example, the indecision of Hamlet), and as a quandary for the artist (such as Martin Creed's difficulty with deciding what artworks to make).

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Unconscious mindThe unconscious mind is a term invented by the 18th century German romantic philosopher Ser Christopher Riegel and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The unconscious mind might be defined as that part of the mind which gives rise to a collection of mental phenomena that manifest in a person's mind but which the person is not aware of at the time of their occurrence. These phenomena include unconscious feelings, unconscious or automatic skills, unnoticed perceptions, unconscious thoughts, unconscious habits and automatic reactions, complexes, hidden phobias and concealed desires.The unconscious mind can be seen as the source of night dreams and automatic thoughts (those that appear without apparent cause). It can be seen as the repository of memories that have been forgotten but that may nevertheless be accessible to consciousness at some later time. It can be seen as the locus of implicit knowledge, i.e. all the things that we have learned so well that we do them without thinking. A familiar example of the operation of the unconscious is the phenomenon where one thinks about some problem, cannot find a solution but wakes up one morning with a new idea that unlocks the problem.Observers throughout history have argued that there are influences on consciousness from other parts of the mind. These observers differ in the use of related terms, including: unconsciousness as a personal habit; being unaware and intuition. Terms related to semi-consciousness include: awakening, implicit memory, the subconscious, subliminal messages, trance, hypnagogia, and hypnosis. Although sleep, sleep walking, dreaming, delirium and coma may signal the presence of unconscious processes, these processes are not the

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unconscious mind. Science is in its infancy in exploring the limits of consciousness.

Historical overviewThe idea of an unconscious mind originated in antiquity and has been explored across cultures. It was recorded between 2500 and 600 B.C in the Hindu texts known as the Vedas, found today in Ayurvedic medicine. In the Vedic worldview, consciousness is the basis of physiology and pure consciousness is "an abstract, silent, completely unified field of consciousness" within "an architecture of increasingly abstract, functionally integrated faculties or levels of mind".

Paracelsus is credited as providing the first scientific mention of the unconscious in his work Von den Krankeiten (1567), and his clinical methodology created an entire system that is regarded as the beginning of modern scientific psychology. Shakespeare explored the role of the unconscious in many of his plays, without naming it as such. Western philosophers such as Spinoza, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, developed a western view of mind which foreshadowed those of Freud. Schopenhauer was also influenced by his reading of the Vedas.Articulating the idea of something not conscious or actively denied to awareness with the symbolic constructs of language has been a process of human thought and interpersonal influence for millennia.The resultant status of the unconscious mind may be viewed as a social construction - that the unconscious exists because people agree to behave as if it exists. Symbolic interactionism goes further and argues that people's selves (conscious and unconscious) though purposeful and creative are nevertheless social products.

Unconscious processes and the unconscious mindNeuroscience supports the proposition of the unconscious mind. For example, researchers at Columbia University Medical Centre have found that fleeting images of fearful faces - images that appear and disappear so quickly that they escape conscious awareness - produce unconscious anxiety that can be detected in the brain with the latest neuro-imaging machines. The conscious mind is hundreds of milliseconds behind the unconscious processes.

To understand this type of research, a distinction has to be made between unconscious processes and the unconscious mind: they are not the same. Neuroscience is more likely to examine the former than the latter. The unconscious mind and its expected psychoanalytic contents are also different from unconsciousness, coma and a minimally conscious state. The differences in the uses of the term can be explained, to a degree, by different narratives about what we know. One such narrative is psychoanalytic theory.

Freud and the psychoanalytic unconsciousProbably the most detailed and precise of the various notions of 'unconscious mind' — and the one which most people will immediately think of upon hearing the term — is that developed by Sigmund Freud and his followers. It lies at the heart of psychoanalysis.

Consciousness, in Freud's topographical view (which was his first of several psychological models of the mind) was a relatively thin perceptual aspect of the mind, whereas the subconscious was that merely autonomic function of the brain. The unconscious was considered by Freud throughout the evolution of his psychoanalytic theory a sentient force of will influenced by human drive and yet operating well below the perceptual conscious mind. For Freud, the unconscious is the storehouse of instinctual desires, needs, and psychic actions. While past thoughts and memories may be deleted from immediate consciousness, they direct the thoughts and feelings of the individual from the realm of the unconscious.Freud divided mind into the conscious mind or Ego and two parts of the Unconscious: the Id or instincts and the Superego. He used the idea of the unconscious in order to explain certain kinds of neurotic behaviour.

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In this theory, the unconscious refers to that part of mental functioning of which subjects make themselves unaware.Freud proposed a vertical and hierarchical architecture of human consciousness: the conscious mind, the preconscious, and the unconscious mind - each lying beneath the other. He believed that significant psychic events take place "below the surface" in the unconscious mind, like hidden messages from the unconscious - a form of intrapersonal communication out of awareness. He interpreted these events as having both symbolic and actual significance.For psychoanalysis, the unconscious does not include all that is not conscious, rather only what is actively repressed from conscious thought or what the person is averse to knowing consciously. In a sense this view places the self in relationship to their unconscious as an adversary, warring with itself to keep what is unconscious hidden. The therapist is then a mediator trying to allow the unspoken or unspeakable to reveal itself using the tools of psychoanalysis. Messages arising from a conflict between conscious and unconscious are likely to be cryptic. The psychoanalyst is presented as an expert in interpreting those messages.

For Freud, the unconscious was a repository for socially unacceptable ideas, wishes or desires, traumatic memories, and painful emotions put out of mind by the mechanism of psychological repression. However, the contents did not necessarily have to be solely negative. In the psychoanalytic view, the unconscious is a force that can only be recognized by its effects — it expresses itself in the symptom.

Unconscious thoughts are not directly accessible to ordinary introspection, but are supposed to be capable of being "tapped" and "interpreted" by special methods and techniques such as random association, dream analysis, and verbal slips (commonly known as a Freudian slip), examined and conducted during psychoanalysis.Freud's theory of the unconscious was substantially transformed by some of his followers, among them Carl Jung and Jacques Lacan.

Jung's collective unconsciousCarl Jung developed the concept further. He divided the unconscious into two parts: the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. The personal unconscious is a reservoir of material that was once conscious but has been forgotten or suppressed.The collective unconscious is the deepest level of the psyche containing the accumulation of inherited psychic structures and archetypal experiences. There is a considerable two way traffic between the ego and the personal unconscious. For example, our attention can wander from this article to a memory of something we did yesterday.

Lacan's linguistic unconsciousJacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory contends that the unconscious is structured like a language.The unconscious, Lacan argued, was not a more primitive or archetypal part of the mind separate from the conscious, linguistic ego, but rather, a formation every bit as complex and linguistically sophisticated as consciousness itself.

If the unconscious is structured like a language, Lacan argues, then the self is denied any point of reference to which to be 'restored' following trauma or 'identity crisis'. In this way, Lacan's thesis of the structurally dynamic unconscious is also a challenge to the ego psychology of Anna Freud and her American followers.

Lacan's idea of how language is structured is largely taken from the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jakobson, based on the function of the signifier and signified in signifying chains. This may leave Lacan's entire model of mental functioning open to severe critique, since in mainstream linguistics, Saussurean models have largely been replaced.

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The starting point for the linguistic theory of the unconscious was a re-reading of Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams. There, Freud identifies two mechanisms at work in the formation of unconscious fantasies: condensation and displacement. Under Lacan's linguistic reading, condensation is identified with the linguistic trope of metaphor, and displacement with metonymy.

Lacan applied the ideas of de Saussure and Jakobson to psychoanalytic practice. For example, while de Saussure described the linguistic sign as a relationship between a signified and an arbitrary signifier, Lacan inverted the relationship, putting in first place the signifier as determining the signified, and so being closer to Freud's position that human beings know what they say only as a result of a chain of signifiers, a-posteriori. Lacan began this work with the case of Emma (1895) from Freud, whose symptoms were disenchained in a two-phase temporal process. Lacan allowed many young people, by this bias, to begin re-reading Freud as more akin to modernity than cognitive psychology. For Lacan, modernity is the era when humans begin to grasp their essential dependence on language.

ControversyToday, there are still fundamental disagreements within psychology about the nature of the unconscious mind. It may simply stand as a metaphor that ought not to be refined. Outside formal psychology, a whole world of pop-psychological speculation has grown up in which the unconscious mind is held to have any number of properties and abilities, from animalistic and innocent, child-like aspects to savant-like, all-perceiving, mystical and occultic properties.

There is a great controversy over the concept of an unconscious in regard to its scientific or rational validity and whether the unconscious mind exists at all. Among philosophers, Karl Popper was one of Freud's most notable contemporary opponents. Popper argued that Freud's theory of the unconscious was not falsifiable, and therefore not scientific. He objected not so much to the idea that things happened in our minds that we are unconscious of; he objected to investigations of mind that were not falsifiable. If one could connect every imaginable experimental outcome with Freud's theory of the unconscious mind, then no experiment could refute the theory.

In the social sciences, John Watson, considered to be the first American behaviourist, criticizes the idea of an "unconscious mind," using a similar line of reasoning, and instead focused on observable behaviours rather than on introspection.

Unlike Popper, the epistemologist Adolf Grunbaum argues that psychoanalysis could be falsifiable, but its evidence has serious epistemological problems. David Holmes examined sixty years of research about the Freudian concept of "repression", and concluded that there is no positive evidence for this concept. Given the lack of evidence of many Freudian hypotheses, some scientific researchers proposed the existence of unconscious mechanisms that are very different from the Freudian ones. They speak of a "cognitive unconscious" John Kihlstrom, an "adaptive unconscious" Timothy Wilson, or a "dum unconscious" Loftus & Klinger,[33] which executes automatic processes but lacks the complex mechanisms of repression and symbolic return of the repressed.

Ludwig Wittgenstein and Jacques Bouveresse argued that Freudian thought exhibits a systemic confusion between reasons and causes: the methods of interpretation can give reasons for new meanings, but are useless to find causal relations (which require experimental research). Wittgenstein gave the following example (in his Conversations with Rush Rhees): if we throw objects on a table, and we give free associations and interpretations about those objects, we'll find a meaning for each object and its place, but we won't find the causes.

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Other critics of Freudian unconscious were Hans Eysenck, Jacques Van Rillaer, Frank Cioffi, Marshal Edelson, and Edward Erwin.Some stress, however, that these critics did not grasp the real importance of Freud's conceptions, and rather tried to criticize Freud on the basis of other fields. The first who really grasped this was Bertrand Russell (see for example: "The impact of science in society, 1952). But in modern times, many other thinkers, as for example Althusser, and Bernard-Henri-Levy, managed to grasp the "falsification theory" from Popper, and the critics from Eysenck, as another expression of Master's discourse: the aspiration to a so-called scientific society led by evaluation. For this side of the controversy, cf the works of Jean-Claude Milner in France.In modern cognitive psychology, many researchers have sought to strip the notion of the unconscious from its Freudian heritage, and alternative terms such as 'implicit' or 'automatic' have come into currency. These traditions emphasize the degree to which cognitive processing happens outside the scope of cognitive awareness, and show that things we are unaware of can nonetheless influence other cognitive processes as well as behaviour. Active research traditions related to the unconscious include implicit memory (see priming, implicit attitudes), and nonconscious acquisition of knowledge (see Lewicki, see also the section on cognitive perspective, below.

Unconscious mind in contemporary cognitive psychology

ResearchWhile, historically, the psychoanalytic research tradition was the first to focus on the phenomenon of unconscious mental activity (and still the term "unconsciousness" or "the subconscious", for many, appears to be not only deeply rooted in, but almost synonymous with psychoanalytic tradition), there is an extensive body of conclusive research and knowledge in the contemporary cognitive psychology devoted to the mental activity that is not mediated by conscious awareness.

Most of that (cognitive) research on unconscious processes has been done in the mainstream, academic tradition of the information processing paradigm. As opposed to the psychoanalytic tradition, driven by the relatively speculative (in the sense of being hard to empirically verify), theoretical concepts such as Oedipus complex or Electra complex, the cognitive tradition of research on unconscious processes is based on relatively few theoretical assumptions and is very empirically oriented (i.e., it is mostly data driven). Cognitive research has revealed that automatically, and clearly outside of conscious awareness, individuals register and acquire more information than what they can experience through their conscious thoughts.

Unconscious processing of information about frequencyFor example, an extensive line of research conducted by Hasher and Zacks has demonstrated that automatically (i.e., outside of conscious awareness and without engaging conscious information processing resources), individuals register information about the frequency of events. Moreover, that research demonstrates that perceivers do that unintentionally, truly "automatically," regardless of the instructions they receive, and regardless of the information processing goals they have. Interestingly, their ability to unconsciously, and relatively accurately tally the frequency of events appears to have little or no relation to the individual's age, education, intelligence, or personality, thus it may represent one of the fundamental building blocks of human orientation in the environment and possibly the acquisition of procedural knowledge and experience, in general.

Artificial grammarsAnother line of (non-psychoanalytic) early research on unconscious processes was initiated by Arthur Reber, using so-called "artificial grammar" methodology. That research revealed that individuals exposed to novel words created by complex set of artificial, synthetic "grammatical" rules (e.g., GKHAH, KHABT…), quickly

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develop some sort of a "feel" for that grammar and subsequent working knowledge of that grammar, as demonstrated by their ability to differentiate between, new grammatically "correct" (i.e., consistent with the rules) and "incorrect" (inconsistent) words. Interestingly, that ability does not appear to be mediated, or even accompanied by the declarative knowledge of the rules (i.e., individuals' ability to articulate how they distinguish between the correct and incorrect words).

Unconscious acquisition of procedural knowledgeThe gist of these early findings (from the seventies) has been significantly extended in the eighties and nineties by further research showing that outside of conscious awareness individuals not only acquire information about frequencies (i.e., "occurrences" of features or events) but also co-occurrences (i.e., correlations or, technically speaking, covariations) between features or events. Extensive research on nonconscious acquisition of information about covariations was conducted by Pawel Lewicki, followed by research of D. L. Schachter (who is known for introducing the concept of implicit memory), L. R. Squire, and others.

In the learning phase of a typical study, participants were exposed to a stream of stimuli (trials or events, such as strings of letters, digits, pictures, or descriptions of stimulus persons) containing some consistent but non-salient (hidden) covariation between features or events. For example, every stimulus person presented as "fair" would also have a slightly elongated face. It turned out that even if the manipulated covariations were non-salient and inaccessible to subjects' conscious awareness, the perceivers would still acquire a nonconscious working knowledge about those covariations. For example, if in the testing phase of the study, participants were asked to make intuitive judgements about the personalities of new stimulus persons presented only as pictures (with no personality descriptions), and judge the "fairness" of the depicted individuals, they tend to follow the rules non-consciously acquired in the learning phase and if the stimulus person had a slightly elongated face, they would report an intuitive feeling that this person was "fair."

Nonconscious acquisition of information about covariations appears to be one of the fundamental and ubiquitous processes involved in the acquisition of knowledge (skills, experience) or even preferences or personality dispositions, including disorders or symptoms of disorders.

A note on terminology: "unconscious" vs. "nonconscious"Unlike in the psychoanalytic research tradition that uses the terms "unconscious," in the cognitive tradition, the processes that are not mediated by conscious awareness are sometimes referred to as "nonconscious." This term, rarely used in psychoanalysis, stresses the empirical and purely descriptive nature of that phenomenon (a qualification as simply "not being conscious") in the tradition of cognitive research.

Specifically, the process is non-conscious when even highly motivated individuals fail to report it, and few theoretical assumptions are made about the process (unlike in psychoanalysis where, for example, it is postulated that some of these processes are being repressed in order to achieve certain goals.)

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Wu weiWu wei (simplified Chinese: 无为; traditional Chinese: 無爲; pinyin: wúwéi) is an important concept of Taoism (Daoism), that involves knowing when to act and when not to act. Another perspective to this is that "Wu Wei" means natural action - as planets revolve around the sun, they "do" this revolving, but without "doing" it; or as trees grow, they "do", but without "doing". Thus knowing when (and how) to act is not knowledge in the sense that one would think "now" is the right time to do "this", but rather just doing it, doing the natural thing.

Wu may be translated as not have or without; Wei may be translated as do, act, serve as, govern or effort. The literal meaning of Wu Wei is "without action" and is often included in the paradox wei wu wei: "action without action" or "effortless doing". The practice of wu wei and the efficacy of wei wu wei are fundamental tenets in Chinese thought and have been mostly emphasized by the Taoist school. The aim of wu wei is to achieve a state of perfect equilibrium, or alignment with the Tao, and, as a result, obtain an irresistible form of "soft and invisible" power.

There is another less commonly referenced sense of wu wei; "action that does not involve struggle or excessive effort". In this instance, Wu means "without" and Wei means "effort". The concept of "effortless action" is a part of Taoist Internal martial arts such as Tai chi, Baguazhang and Xing Yi.Chinese translations do exist for Wu Wei at Wu Wei. It is an Eastern term that may require stories to explain the

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concept fully.

OriginsIn the traditional (partly Confucian) Chinese understanding of governance, a prince has only to sit at the right place, facing south, with a prince's traditional attributes, and his country will be well governed. In Lun Yu II.1., Confucius compares a virtuous prince to the North Pole in which he finds himself: he does not move and everything turns around him. There are magical justifications behind this idea of a power obtained by "inaction." It is the Chinese "correspondence", or "synchronicity" theory, where the macrocosm is duplicated, in microcosms. According to the theory, ordering the Emperor's palace is governing the country well: the palace is a homothetic reproduction of the country. Chinese history is full of examples of natural disasters cured by means such as the opening of a new door in the walls of the Imperial palace.

Some philosophers, for example Wang Chong, have questioned this theory. A more pragmatic view may interpret this as a means to restrain the prince from abuse of power, enjoining him to 'do' as little as possible.In the original Taoist texts, wu wei is often associated with water and its yielding nature. Although water is soft and weak, it has the capacity to erode even solid stone (e.g., Grand Canyon) and move mountains (e.g., landslides). Water is without will (i.e., the will for a shape), though it may be understood to be opposing wood, stone, or any solid aggregated material that can be broken into pieces. Due to its nature and propensity, water may potentially fill any container, assume any shape; given the Water Cycle water may potentially go "anywhere", even into the minutest holes, both metaphorical and actual. Droplets of water, when falling as rain, gather in watersheds, flowing into and forming rivers of water, enjoining the proverbial sea: this is the nature of water. Furthermore, whilst always yielding downwards, water finds its own level in the 'dark valley' — where biological life is regenerated — analogous to the fecund reproductive organs.

PhilosophySeveral chapters of the most important Taoist scripture, the Tao Te Ching, attributed to Laozi, allude to "diminishing doing" or "diminishing will" as the key aspect of the sage's success. Taoist philosophy recognizes that the Universe already works harmoniously according to its own ways; as a person exerts their will against or upon the world they disrupt the harmony that already exists. This is not to say that a person should not exert agency and will. Rather, it is how one acts in relation to the natural processes already extant. The how, the Tao of intention and motivation, that is key.

Related translation from the Tao Te Ching by Priya Hemenway, Chapter II: 2

The Sage is occupied with the unspoken and acts without effort. Teaching without verbosity, producing without possessing, creating without regard to result, claiming nothing, the Sage has nothing to lose.

Wu Wei has also been translated as "creative quietude," or the art of letting-be. This does not mean a dulling of the mind; rather, it is an activity undertaken to perceive the Tao within all things and to conform oneself to its "way."

One way of envisioning wu wei is through Laozi's writings on how a ruler should govern their kingdom. The advice that was given is that it is similar to frying a small fish (too much poking and the meal is ruined). In

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other words, create general policies and direction, but do not micromanage. To do this well, you must understand the ways of your people and not go against the grain.

The concept of wu wei is often described as performing a selfless act but this merely exposes the background of the writer. Faith-based religions have selfless acts and “doing good” as part of their belief system. In Taoist teaching however “good” is unknowable and a selfless act can only be performed by someone in an egoless state. Every act performed by someone in the usual way of things has some kind of reward attached whether it is financial, power, love, status or just feeling good about oneself. All these things are ego re-enforcing. To perform a selfless act one must let go of one's ego and pass into an altered state of consciousness. This is called wu wei – the state of doing without doing. Here every act is selfless for the ego has ceased to exist. There is no I making decisions and the outcome is always perfect.

It is not an imaginary state that we aspire to but one readily achievable and frequently entered by those performing repetitive movements which require energy and concentration. It happens to joggers, to athletes, to ramblers, to students of the nei chia (the internal schools of martial arts) students of the wei chia (the external schools), yoga practitioners, students of certain schools of meditation and others. The majority of those who have entered wu wei have no fore-knowledge of the event and only know that something extraordinary happened that they couldn't put into words.In the nei chia, one of the aims is to be able to fight in this state. There is no ego wishing to aggrandise itself by punishing the opponent and every move is performed effortlessly before one has time to think. One blocks every move by one's opponents yet for all parties involved you might be playing with clouds (it's painless and without harmful consequence).

It goes completely against Taoist teaching to imagine that intellectual choices can be compared to wu wei – after all memory and intellect create ego and the myth of the separate self.

PracticeAs one diminishes doing — here 'doing' means those intentional actions taken to benefit us or actions taken to change the world from its natural state and evolution — one diminishes all those actions committed against the Tao, the already present natural harmony. As such one begins to cultivate Tao, becomes more in harmony with Tao, and, according to another great ancient Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi, attains a state of Ming, or 'clear seeing'. It is in the state of Ming that the Taoist is in full harmony with Tao, and 'having arrived at this pointless point of non-action, there is nothing that is left undone.' It is upon achievement of this Chinese equivalent to 'enlightenment' that a sage begins to perform wei wu wei, or 'action without action.' Thus the sage will be able to work in harmony with Tao to accomplish what is needed, and, working in perfect harmony with the Tao, leave no trace of having done it.An example of active non-action using wu wei, would be to teach in such a way that no course of action is dictated to a student (they are just told raw facts for use, and left to their own creative devices), so they assume that they have been taught nothing, that is, until their learning has been integrated in their lived experience.

The ultimate goal: harmony with the TaoThe goal for wu wei is to get out of your own way, so to speak. This is like when you are playing an instrument and if you start thinking about playing the instrument, then you will get in your own way and interfere with your own playing. It is aimless action, because if there was a goal that you need to aim at and hit, then you will develop anxiety about this goal. Zhuangzi made a point of this, where he writes about an archer who at first didn't have anything to aim at. When there was nothing to aim at, the archer was happy and content with his being. He was practicing wu wei. But, then he set up a target and "got in his own way." He was going against the Tao and the natural course of things by having to hit that goal.

A dramatic description of wu wei is found in chapter 2 of Zhuang Zi:

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A fully achieved person is like a spirit! The great marshes could be set on fire, but she wouldn't feel hot. The rivers in China could all freeze over, but she wouldn't feel cold. Thunder could suddenly echo through the mountains, wind could cause a tsunami in the ocean, but she wouldn't be startled. A person like that could ride through the sky on the floating clouds, straddle the sun and moon, and travel beyond the four seas. Neither death nor life can cause changes within her, and there's little reason for her to even consider benefit or harm.

This passage is metaphorical. To a Taoist, things arise dependently. The soul and body go together, because if there were no soul, there would be no body and if there were no body, there would be no soul. All these arise dependently like this (this is the meaning of the Yin-Yang symbol; if there were no yin, there would be no yang and if there were no yang, there would be no yin). A person who follows the principle of wu wei thus realizes how ridiculous it is to cling to good and to obsessively stay away from evil. By realizing how things arise dependently, a Taoist is able to accept both the good and the bad. Because he is able to accept any outcome, he is then able to have no goal to aim at. When Zhuangzi is saying a fully achieved person is like a spirit, he is saying that a fully achieved person does not differentiate between good and evil, benefit and harm, and therefore is not concerned with them: his actions become one with the Tao and as such he leaves no trace of having acted, nor can the consequences of his actions affect him.

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