Tim Boucher’s ‘Pop Occulture’ blog is a real find. Here –
Pop Occulture » Chaotic Patterns in Divination
– he writes about the workings of divination. The gist is that divination works through exposing us to chaotic patterns – like staring into the fire does. These sideline our conscious minds, shunt us out of the well-worn grooves of habitual thought, and stir the intuition to perceive patterns in the chaos. The moment of ‘bewilderment’ when rational understanding is overcome is important – and something Stephen Karcher also often describes as a key part of the process of divination.
Tim Boucher then goes several steps further when he suggests that those who construct conspiracy theories are doing very much the same thing with the chaotic input of modern information overload.
How about this, then…?
“The thing I’m trying to get at is that conspiracy theory is more than just paranoia. It represents a modern-day spiritual practice in which people imbue outward signs and events with inner psycho-spiritual energy. If we figure out how to re-engineer the processes that go into it, we can use this type of thinking to help us become more spiritually in tune with ourselves. The complex chaotic patterns of outward events can become a bewildering doorway which allows us to enter into deep interactive relationships with archetypal and symbolic parts of ourselves which otherwise receive short shrift in the modern world.”
Though there is a common theme in bringing out pattern in both divination and ordering chaos through conspiracy theory, the latter is ‘contemplation through the crack of a door’.
That said, some people divine in the same way as others latch onto conspiracy theories, in that they do not make themselves a blank slate but rather look for confirmatory input into already formed scenarios. They invest time and effort in fantasy as if it was reality.
Anyone who has latched onto something so much they can no longer see the other side is missing an understanding of the fundamental emptiness of forms. Whether they are forlornly divining about lost love or buying into a conspiracy theory, they are ‘hunting deer without the forester’. In occult terms, they are in the grip of the Demon Choronzon, which actually is a more useful realisation, since he can be banished more readily than an experience that is unrecognised as a delusion.
The definition of the term ‘paranoia’ offered in the ‘Chaotic Patterns’ article was truly impressive, if not downright genius. 🙂 .
… A fully logical and educated mind, proceeds beyond the merely rational where aspects of the world that are not reductible to rationality can be touched, becoming “transrational” after the development of advanced intuition …
You just know we’re making some headway when such terms that normally hold negative connotations for most are not only finally seen for what they are by the few, but that the few can express the hidden significances ever more coherently to the rest.
Steve,
You have summed up the comparison of divination to conspiracy theorizing well enough, however, I am uncertain by what you said about being in the grip of the Demon Choronzon as a condition that could be banished more readily than an experience of an unrecognised deslusion. How so, I wonder?
Wouldn’t a controlling demon, for instance, grip and act upon the host in a similar manner as a delusion? Aren’t demons, in many instances, the personifications of delusions that have perhaps grown teeth over time? And if so, is a demon more easily realised over a delusion precisely because of said teeth?
On the other hand, might your understanding of demons, as compared to delusions, be altogether different than my own?
Oh I wasn’t talking about demons in general but Choronzon in particular.
Hmm . . .
Somebody must have paid him a lot of money to compare divination with the I-Ching to paranoia.
Obviously a conspiracy against I-Ching practitioners.
I wanted to write more but “they” wouldn’t let me.
By the way, is mocking the name of a demon REALLY what you want to be doing? I’m not trying to make you paranoid or anything.