Exactly!

All wisdom begins in wonder.

- Socrates

So, some of you may be aware that I am a total divination junkie. I read Tarot and palms and astrology and runes and just about anything else that will hold still long enough. I've been enthusiastically studying various methods of divination since I was twelve.

Now, as I also pride myself on my science-y-ness and rationality...how do I reconcile these two paradoxical, practically antithetical, perspectives? Basically, I believe that intuition *is* the cold reading skeptics cite, but not in a Sherlock Holmes-ian I'm-so-smart-I-notice-every-detail, Miss Cleo-esque tell-you-what-you-want-to-hear-the-better-to-rip-you-off kinda way.

I think intuition - which can be funnelled through any divination method, or no method at all - is a naturally occurring unconscious thought process. The subconscious mind sees and remembers lots of information that our conscious mind doesn't even register - stuff that our brains categorize as not dangerous or otherwise noteworthy. And I think intuition is what happens when that unconscious process puts together little details and draws a conclusion that shifts those little discarded bits of information into something that suddenly becomes noteworthy.

I think divination is one way of paying extra attention to that process. I think everyone has the potential to tap into this process, and I think people who are "psychic" appear so because they don't dismiss the nudges of this unconscious thought process the way I think most people do.

Today's really cool thing, and what inspired this post? Apparently there's some "science" that backs me up!!

I claim no great powers of prognostication, and I take most of my own intuitions with a grain of salt (since they all come interpreted through my imperfect and inevitably skewed conscious mind)....but I can't deny my own personal experiences in this realm. This is another field where I am hopeful science will someday clear up the woo woo mysteriousness. I think someday, science will explain why certain lines on a hand are tied to certain personality traits and life experiences; I think the way the images on Tarot cards are windows into what we're going through will be parsed and better understood; I think the way human beings tend to interpret symbols in a way that ties their archetypal values into our personal current events will be a clear process and not just fuzzy psychology; and I think that the seemingly magical (and/or coincidental) effects distant planets have on our daily lives will become a function not of belief, but of physics.

Maybe I'm romanticizing science a little (ya think?), but I'm okay with that. Despite my otherwise generally consistent preference for logic, I persist in enjoying the fact that some things are just not understood. I like the way the universe can still surprise me. And I also think that knowing something is total crap doesn't mean I can't also still think it's hella fun and/or meaningful and/or worthwhile.

Just so long as I know I'm making a conscious choice in the matter...