Scrying

     Scrying has been described as a means used by psychics to see visions, predict the future, or to tell somebody's fortune. Probably the most common image of scrying, popularized in modern culture is the gypsy man or woman staring wide-eyed into the 'looking glass'.

13 Moon Scrying Bowl

     Scrying has been a practice throughout Europe for centuries and the medium used most often (at least in movies) is the glass (crystal) ball on the the gypsy's table. Almost any reflective surface has been used in the past to see visions, including mirrors, glass, shiny stones, fire, smoke, coals of a fire, fog or mist and ponds or bowls of water. The swinging pendant (much like the watch in hypnosis) has also been used as a reflective surface or focus for scrying.

     The Cup of Jamshid was a divination bowl in ancient Persia, used by wizards and practitioners of the esoteric sciences for observing all 'the seven layers of the universe'. The cup was filled with the elixir of immortality and was the subject of stories and poems for hundreds of years: 'For years, my heart was in search of the grail (the Cup of Jamshid), What was inside me, it searched for, on the trail' - Divan of Hafez.

Scrying with a Pendant

   
     Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saints movement (Mormons) used the reflections from 'seer stones' for miraculous revelations. Smith even had names for these stones (which he viewed by placing them at the bottom of his hat), one of which he had found in a neighbor's well. According to Smith, he also possessed two special stones he named Urim and Thummim made into spectacles that allowed him to 'translate' the Book of Mormon from the golden plates. Smith had used 'seer stones' prior to establishing the Mormon Church, mostly to look for treasure. After Smith, seer stones continued to be used by Mormon leaders such as Hiram Page and David Whitmer.

The Cup of Jamshid

     But perhaps the most famous scryer of them all was Nostradamus. The son of a Catholisized Jew, born in 1503, he was an apothecary (druggist) which, in those days was enough to be thrown out of medical school. Apparently this did indeed happen when the dean of the faculty at the University of Montpellier medical school discovered his background. Gradually, Nostradamus moved away from pharmacy and medicine and grew closer to the 'occult', using several techniques but, most famously, scrying to make predictions about the future. Nostradamus wrote his trance-induced forecasts in quatrains, a four line verse. These prophesies have been studied and claimed by many to have predicted Hitler and WWII as well as the 'end of the world' (see post: The End of the World).

Joseph Smith Receiving
 the Golden Plates

     Jon Dee mathematician, scholar, magician and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I used a polished 'shew stone' (essentially a crystal ball), a rock composed of polished volcanic glass brought back to Europe by the Spanish conquistadors, to see visions of angels.

     What all these techniques have in common is trance, a type of self-hypnosis that many of us have experienced without the pond of water or the crystal ball. Hypnotic fixation on the roadway as we make our way home after a tiring day at work or gazing into the flickering flames of a camp fire can result in the feeling that time has flown by, the world has stood still. We may even see visual hallucinations in the red of the fire or on the black of the asphalt.

John Dee Performing an Experiment for Elizabeth I

     *Paranormal experience: subject of research for the novel  The Tao of the Thirteenth God - Amazon Kindle.

Synchronicity-Spooky at a Distance

     Synchronicity, a concept first proposed in the scientific literature by Carl Jung in the 1920s, is the 'experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance but which are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner.'

Carl Gustav Jung

     It is an idea that has been claimed by some to be superstition, by others as describing scientific connections and still by others as proof of an 'otherworldly' power in the events of our lives. Synchronicity is an idea that may be difficult to understand but, according to Jung, 'the 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.

Karma

      Synchronicity, is it 'karma'? Not quite. 

     The idea of 'karma' in Hinduism is one that explains cause and effect through a system where beneficial effects are derived from past beneficial actions and harmful effects from past harmful actions, creating a system of actions and reactions throughout a soul's life (or lives) forming a cycle of rebirth. The causality is said to be applicable not only to the material world but also to our thoughts, words, actions and actions that others do under our instructions.

     To qualify as synchronistic, the two or more events involved must be temporally coincident (taking place at or about the same time) and must be mutually acausal (not related one to the other in any causative way).

Jung's Concept of Synchronicity

     Jung believed that events which we often see as coincidence, events due to a chance happening, have a causal relationship 'in the greater scheme of things'. Jung discussed this concept of synchronicity with renowned physicists such as Albert Einstein and Wolfgang Pauli, suggesting a relationship between synchronicity and the theory of relativity as well as quantum mechanics. Jung and Pauli thought that there was a unifying 'idea' in life, an underlying unified reality from which everything emerges and returns to, the 'unus mundus'.

     In the world of quantum physics, there are indeed strange things that take place:

Albert Einstein

     'Spooky (at a distance) physics' or 'interaction at a distance' is the effect or interaction of two objects which are separated in space with no known mediator of the interaction. This goes against the ingrained human idea that objects must touch (physically or through a magnetic or gravitational field) in order to interact.

     The theory of quantum mechanics predicts that two or more particles can become 'entangled' (quantum entanglement) so that even after they are separated in space, when an action is performed on one particle, the other particle responds immediately. Scientists still don't know how the particles send these instantaneous messages to each other (instantaneously, faster than the speed of light), but somehow, once they are entwined, the two (or more) particles retain a fundamental connection.

Quantum Entanglement (Spooky at a Distance)
-Separated Ions Affect One Another

     Synchronicity is distinct from apophenia which is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. An extreme form of apophenia is paraidolia which is the perception of a sound or 'image' as being significant. An excellent example of 'hopeful over-reading' of information was the perception of a photograph of the Martian surface taken by one of the Viking missions in 1976 showing a face staring into the cosmos.

A Face on Mars

     This was later shown to be an aberration of the light on the top of a high Martian plateau. Other more common examples of paraidolia are the perception of faces in cloud formations, coded messages on musical recordings and most popularly religious paraidolia, such as 'Jesus on toast' or 'Mary on a sandwich'. The most well-known case of religious paraidolia was the sighting of the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich found by Diana Duyser of Florida. Mrs. Duyser claimed to have kept the sandwich on her night stand for over 10 years, during which time she had excellent luck at the casinos. The fact that the sandwich had remained mold-free was considered, by some, to have been proof of the sandwich’s miraculous nature.

Virgin Mary (Jesus?) on a Grilled Cheese Sandwich

     These cases often prove, in the end, to be quite profitable. In 2004 the grilled cheese sandwich was listed for sale on Ebay, where the (partially eaten) sandwich was bought by Golden Palace Casino for $28,000.

     Is there really some 'unifying' force or influence in our world that we are unable to see? Are we so deeply immersed in our own space that we cannot 'see the forest for the trees'?

     Is the idea of synchronicity similar to fractals, the repeating patterns that are ubiquitous in nature. Fractal patterns are obvious when examined from afar but easily overlooked when viewed from up close.

The Repeating Pattern of Fractals

   
     Some researchers argue that synchronicity is much more common than we appreciate, that it occurs every day and everywhere and that these synchronistic events tend to become obvious to us only in the case of the most startling coincidences. Are the events in life 'cause and then effect' or is there something more? Is there an 'overseeing' rule of (quantum?) law which says that everything is related? Can there be effect and then cause?..Or is that even stranger, even more unimaginable than 'spooky at a distance'?

Alice Through the Looking glass

     Stranger things have been written and reality is often stranger than fiction (see post: Stranger Than Fiction).

 
     'That's the effect of living backwards. It always makes one a little giddy at first...It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards!' said the White Queen to Alice. ('Alice Through the Looking Glass' - Lewis Carroll)

     *Synchronicity: subject of research for the novel The Tao of the Thirteenth God - Amazon Kindle

The Psychomanteum and Near-Death Experience

     A psychomanteum, is in a sense an adjunct to scrying (see post: Scrying). The psychomanteum is the mirrored room used by practitioners to contact the spirit world. The practice of using a psychomanteum is often called 'mirror-gazing' and has been used in one form or another for thousands of years.

Dodona, North-West Greece

     A natural pool of water or water collected in a bowl, even the reflection of a pool of blood have been the mediums used for this practice. The psychomanteum has also been called the 'apparition booth', found at oracle sites in ancient Greece. One of the earliest sites of a psychomanteum has been discovered at Dodona in north-western Greece, a site famous for its oracles and one that probably pre-dated Zeus as the patriarchal god of the Greeks with the worship of the 'mother goddess'.

     Near-darkness, a flickering light and mirrors aim to place the practitioner into a trance-like state. The lack of depth when gazing into a reflective surface, such as a mirror, decreases mental alertness, promotes relaxation and allows visions or hallucinations to be more easily induced.  'Catapromancy' was the term used to describe the use of mirrors for divination in ancient Rome and ancient Greece.

Mirror-Gazing

     One such catapromancy center was described by an ancient traveller: 'Before the Temple of Ceres (Roman goddess of agriculture, grains, fertility and motherly relationships) at Patras, there was a fountain, separated from the temple by a wall, and there was an oracle, very truthful, not for all events, but for the sick only. The sick person let down a mirror, suspended by a thread till its base touched the surface of the water, having first prayed to the goddess and offered incense. Then looking in the mirror, he saw the presage of death or recovery, according as the face appeared fresh and healthy, or of a ghastly aspect.'

     There were even specialists in the priesthood of Rome who gazed into mirrors, known as the 'speculari'.

     But the use of a psychomanteum is not a phenomenon that died with ancient civilizations. The Ganzfeld Experiment (see post: Scrying) is a more modern technique that, in effect, creates an environment of sensory deprivation and has been used to investigate parapsychological phenomena. Several researchers, including those who examine near-death experiences (Dr. Raymond Moody) have used the psychomanteum as a tool to examine the 'para-normal' as well as altered states of consciousness (see post: Altered States of Consciousness).

Ganzfeld Experiment

     The 'Institute of Transpersonal Psychology' (ITP) in Palo Alto, California has been given large grants for research into the use of psychomanteum, especially as a tool for coping with the grief of a deceased loved one. According to researcher, Dr. Arthur Hastings: 'More than half the participants feel they have had some kind of contact with their departed, most often through a mental conversation or feeling their presence. Sometimes it is visually or through touch.  Sometimes the departed is not present, yet nine out of ten participants feel a sense of resolution.'

ITP

     Is the use of a psychomanteum just another technique similar to others used in various societies to contact the dead? Does the altered state produced when using a psychomanteum give the practitioner the same experience as the Bwiti of Central Africa when they consume ibogaine and become the 'seers of the dead' (see post: A Drug to See the Dead)?

   
     For an interesting interview with Dr. Raymond Moody and 'near-death' experiences, click on the link below.

     The 'Experience' of Dying

   

     *Paranormal experience: subject of research for the novel  The Tao of the Thirteenth God - Amazon Kindle.

Runes

     Runes or the runic alphabet is a writing system that originated in Germanic Europe, the earliest runes dating to about the year 100 AD. There were a number of variations of the script also called Futhark (Futhorc)-Elder, Younger and Anglo-Saxon being the three best known; the naming of the script, was a derivation of the first 6 letters of the script itself (Fehu, Uruz, Thuriasaz, Ansuz, Raidho, Kenaz) much as the our own (Latin or Roman) 'alphabet' is named after the first 2 corresponding letters of the Greek (alpha and beta).

     The use of this writing system became less common as Christianity infiltrated Europe, introducing the alphabet of the Christian Roman Empire. Runic 'symbolism' however continued and became a common 'device of divination'.
Runes were said to have been created by the Norse god, Odin and the use of these 'letters' was associated with the ability to bring the dead back to life (so many cultures seem to want  to do that!).

   

Odin

     Odin declared:
'I know a twelfth one if I see, up in a tree, a dangling corpse in a noose, I can so carve and color the runes that the man walks and talks with me.'

    For divination, 'Casting of the Runes' was generally a straight forward affair, gently throwing the letters (usually inscribed on stone) onto a flat surface and then examining their relative positions one to the other. Runic reading is usually meant to address a particular issue, examining the past, the present and 'what will be' if the person who casts the runes continues on that same path.

Nazi Schuhutzstaffel (SS) Symbol

     In World War II, the Nazis (many of whose members were obsessed with the 'occult') adopted a variation of the 'sig' or sun sign as the insignia of the infamous SS much as they had adopted the swastika (another sun symbol) from Indian culture (see post: Symbols of the Sun).

Dagaz

Sig

     Each Rune can also have a meaning on its own such as 'Dagaz' for
 enlightenment and 'Tiwaz' meaning struggle.

   

Tiwaz

     *Religious symbols: subject of research for the novel  The Tao of the Thirteenth God - Amazon Kindle.

A Pile of Stones

Inuksuk

     Rock cairns may, at times, appear to be simple piles of stones but these man-made structures have been used throughout the world and throughout time as markers for various purposes:

• markers for pathways or navigation (sea marks), signals for direction (Inuit inuksuk - see post: The Inuksuk)), 
• ceremonial or religious purposes, 
• remembrance of people or events (airplane crashes-see post: The Accidental Cannibal) 
• solar observatories (Medicine Wheels, North America-see post: Temples to Watch the Sun) in modern times, 
• as storage sites for preservation of rare or threatened specimens and,
• in the frozen north or at high altitude, as caches for protection and storage of food.

Sea 'Mark', Finland

     The Svalbard Global Seed Bank on the island of Spitzbergen, Norway is a giant cairn/vault established to preserve samples of the world's seeds, guarding them from extinction.

     Cairns as graves have been used since prehistoric times with different configurations (based on the design and age that they were built) described as chambered cairns, clava cairns and court cairns.  
     The city of Cairns in Queensland, Australia is not named after the finding of stone mounds but rather after the state's governor of the day (1876), William Wellington Cairns.

The Svalbard Global Seed Bank

     A burial cairn, is a last place of rest, a symbol of endurance as well as a monument to the person(s) beneath the pile of stones. Memorial to Stella Maris.

 Cairn Memorial to Stella Maris
Rugby Crash (1972)

   
     *Stone markers and symbols: subject of research for the novel  The Tao of the Thirteenth God - Amazon Kindle.

Chamber Burial Cairn
-Orkney Islands

Last Dance With the Fairies

        Supernatural beings, therianthropes (see post: What Did They See?), alien abduction, kidnapping by fairies...Are these beings and events real or they just due to very vivid imaginations? If they are not real, why is it that the 'theme' of other-worldly beings and kidnappings (whether in the modern world, by aliens or, as in the past, by fairies) keeps on recurring in different epochs and in different cultures?

Alien Abduction

        In 1918, Carl Jung, Swiss physician and father of modern psychotherapy, wrote a paper entitled 'On the Unconscious'. In this work, Jung suggested that all human beings 'stood between two worlds': the world of external perception and the world of perception of the unconscious. For Jung, the bringing together of these two worlds was through symbols, these symbols created by the unconscious; symbol creation being the most important function of the unconscious; symbols often seen in our dreams.

          The concept of 'two worlds' was not unique to Jung. A similar idea had been followed for centuries by Sufi mystics, a splinter group of Islam which gave great importance to the imagination. Researcher, Jeffrey Raff suggests that Sufi mysticism is a type of alchemy or transmutational process that unites a theory of imagination with the goal of creating subtle bodies and of seeing into the heart of the universe.

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)

     The Sufi 'alchemists' believed that the matter on which they operated was not purely physical in nature but belonged more to the 'World of Paradise'. Two 'worlds' once again, each one as real as the other. For Jung, the second world was the world of dreams. For the Sufi mystics, the second world was arrived at through dancing, imagination and trance.

        But how real is/are these 'second worlds'? Whether through the use of drugs, trance, injury or even neurological disease (see post: Epilepsy and the Divine), people have experienced ecstasy, seen visions, been kidnapped by fairies and met with aliens. Some have had these experiences without any of these mind-altering conditions (see post: Altered States of Consciousness). Surveys have suggested that about 2 percent of the general population of modern adults seem to be born with the ability to fall spontaneously into deep states of hallucination. Are the people who make up this '2 percent' simply those whose brain chemistry is slightly different from the norm?

Sufi Mystics

     Does this special brain chemistry enable these people to see visions and encounter spirits? Is this brain state achievable in the remaining 98 percent of us through the use of drugs or by entering a trance state? And are any of these visions, encounters, strange beings real? Are these entities 'symbols' of our dream world (Jung)? Do these creatures belong to the 'World of Paradise' (Sufi)?

        But these visions, these experiences are so common and seen in so many cultures over so many time periods.

Fairies Dancing Around 'Fly Muscaric' Mushroom
(see post: The 'High' Priest)

     In Ireland, the fairies were called the 'Sidhe' in Wales, the 'Tylwyth Teg , the 'lutin' in France. Melusine was the name of a half-woman-half-serpent fairy (a therianthrope), known to steal young children in Northern France. The names may have changed but the entities remain the same.

        In the past, it was the fairies, the jinn or angels which took you away. Today, this is done by aliens. Today, the aliens have spaceships but perhaps they did in the past, as well.  There is so much consistency in these stories over so long a period of time that it is difficult to argue how these recurring experiences can be anything but real. But 'real' in what sense?

Melusine

     In the sense of Carl Jung's symbols of the unconscious? 'Real' in the sense of the Sufi mystics where these entities are from the real 'World of Paradise'?

     There is one line of thought that our minds are not just the conscious representations of our organic brains, not simply generators of consciousness but are actually 'receivers' and that the 'otherworld' experiences we find ourselves in and the supernatural beings we meet are indeed objectively real and exist independently outside of our brains, outside of our minds.

Spaceships in the Sky (Basel, 1566)

     Aliens, fairies, jinn, dead souls...Are these 'real' things in other 'real' worlds? Things that only a very few of us can see or can be seen only under very special circumstances?

        Some believe all this to be real. Some just simply want to believe that this is indeed all real.

Cave of the Jinn, Oman

   

     To quote John Lennon: 'I believe in everything until it is disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?'

     No matter what the answers to these questions might be, it would be wise to proceed with caution. In the past, the fairies danced in their circles (ring portals? some type of alien 'transporter'?) before they disappeared and anyone caught or pulled into the circle, anyone who wanted to join in, would disappear in their last dance with the fairies.

Saved from the Fairy Circle
(Nineteenth Century Woodcut)

   
     *Ghosts, fairies, unexplained phenomena: subjects of research for the novel: The Tao of the Thirteenth God - Amazon Kindle.