no doubt

Reading time...

Just to undermine a bit what's been said in the former chapter:

My partner sometimes lays out tarot cards for herself or for others. I used to do this a lot myself, and I still wrestle with the question of how the outcome of such a reading should be interpreted. Are we simply dealing with pure chance, and does the result have absolutely nothing to do with the personal situation of the person for whom the cards are drawn? Or is the outcome—just like everything in and around us—part of a greater whole that includes the situation itself, and therefore allows for insights to be drawn? Not about the future, perhaps, but maybe about the structure and character of THIS very moment?

The same goes for so-called family constellations, a therapeutic method where complete strangers are positioned around a person according to that person's directions ("you are my father, and you must stand behind me; you are my sister, and I feel you stand next to me," and so on). The central person gains insight into their relationship with actual family members through interaction with the people around them. How do these insights emerge? Apparently, information is being picked up that is somehow available in the pattern of the constellation. Perhaps unconscious muscle reading plays a role, and maybe there are other factors involved that we do not yet (fully) understand.

Perhaps there are other principles of ordering beyond causality—such as synchronicity (the meaningful coincidence of outer and inner events that are not causally linked)—principles that are difficult to test and thus remain under the radar of standard scientific inquiry.

Secretly, I hope—and even expect—that the universe does not behave in hundred percent orderly, rational, and predictable ways. And maybe a bit of humor is part of the mix as well.

A fascinating source of possible anomalies is the excellent Fortean Times, a British magazine devoted to strange events and phenomena.

Why should the universe and life be 100% rational and have a rational origin? Assuming so is also a kind of belief—in other words, it is not known.

Keeping in mind what the biologist J. B. S. Haldane once said:

“My own suspicion is that the universe is not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose.”