Magic 8 Ball - An Introduction to Divination

Virtual Chaos


A Work In Progress
Copyright 1995-97 VirtualChaos.Org.
All Rights Reserved. Void where Prohibited.



In virtual chaos, there are two main ways to receive communications from the consciousness at the level of the whole. The first is meditation, the inverse of prayer, and the second is divination, the inverse of magick. Both of these however, assume that you actually want to hear from god. If god has something to say to you and your not listening, god then has to do something to get your attention. It would seem to be much less traumatic for the individual to listen to god in the first place, as god's methods of getting our attention are usually quite intense. Only by creating the circumstances that will cause the individual to turn to god, can god then speak his piece. By and large, most people only turn to god when they are in pain, or scared out of their wits. So if that's what it takes, that's what happens.

Divination is an arrangement in which the individual can speak directly with god and reasonably assume that they will get an answer. Its use dates back to prehistory, and has been practiced by every culture and religion, including our own. How and why it should work have been the subject of debate for just as long.

There are people who are convinced that divination just cannot work. Even worse, there are those who insist that their form of prophesy is the only true form, and that all the rest are inspired by the forces of evil for the sole purpose of [your fear here]. Interestingly, all of these methods of divination work the same way, and for the most part, give the same advice to the individual regarding their particular predicament. The forces of evil would have to be pretty stupid to encourage the individual to strive for good and draw closer to god. Then again, evil is a pretty stupid venture to begin with.

The question remains, does it work? Quantum mechanics suggests that it does. The wave/particle conundrum has shown that the behavior of a system depends on the way it is observed, and that is a function of consciousness. If the observer approaches divination with the belief that it will not work, or that it will be wildly inaccurate, then that belief will influence the outcome. If you believe that it cannot work, then for you, it probably won't. Even if it did, you would be predisposed to deny the results or ascribe them to chance. The minimum requirement would seem to be the belief by at least one of the participants in the possibility that it might work. Without that, why bother?

The magic 8 ball is a simple, easy to use oracle which is marketed as a child's toy. It returns the answer to a query, as varying degrees of yes or no, with a few maybes thrown in for good measure. The querent asks it a question, picks it up and turns it over, allowing the 20 sided die inside to float to the top. The buoyancy of the die pushes one of the faces flush against the window and the querent reads the answer. Should you believe it? Will it lie? That will depend on the level of faith you place in it. Believe that it might, and it very well might.

Suppose that I ask it if I am dead, and it answers no. Does that prove that it works? Hardly. This can only be considered circumstantial evidence. All divination and paranormal phenomena have to have a circumstantial link in order to be consistent with quantum mechanics. If something is totally excluded from happening, it cannot. If however, something has even a minute chance of happening, statistically it will happen eventually. This is the mechanism which is employed by divination and magick. The impact of consciousness on observation has the effect of changing the odds either for, or against the event actually occurring. There must exist the chance that the event would have occurred anyway, otherwise it is excluded and cannot happen in the first place.

Some would argue that this really just a kind of self fulfilling prophecy then. Why not? If it accomplishes the same thing, what difference does it make? When the individual selectively chooses which self fulfilling prophecies it will believe and act upon, consciousness brings it into existence out of the state of superposition it was in previously. Magick and technology both begin with the visualization of the desired result within the consciousness, the difference is that one uses physical means to create the end result, and the other uses spiritual means.

Suppose that the magic 8 ball told me that I was going to be hit by a train at 8:37 a.m. on the morning of July 22 while wearing a spandex tuxedo and fuzzy slippers. Does that mean it is going to happen? Not necessarily. If I were to put on those articles of clothing on that morning and start walking down the tracks, then chances are indeed very good that the event will transpire. If however, I were to take steps to avoid such a fate, chances are also very good that I could avoid that humiliating demise. In this way, divination is similar to a weather forecast. It can give you a most likely outcome to your question based upon the probability that nothing is done to alter the way things are going. If you don't like the direction that things are headed, no problem, just do something to change it.

Suppose that the magic 8 ball told me that I was going to be hit by a train at 8:37 a.m. on the morning of July 22 while wearing a spandex tuxedo and fuzzy slippers again. You might think to yourself that this is one very articulate 8 ball. Nope, just a very articulate question posed to it. This would appear to be the greatest factor, both in the accuracy of the oracles, and in the way the individual perceives reality. Do I have a secret admirer? The magic 8 ball says yes. Big deal, I still haven't really learned much. Is my secret admirer a short, bald woman with no teeth and a flat head? Yes. Now maybe I can find her, should I decide I really want to.

Bring up the topic of questions and seven words spring to mind: who, what, where, when, how, why, and which. If you stop and think about it, you will realize that these words are in actuality, not really questions, but merely words used to modify some more fundamental base question. Virtual chaos suggests that there is really only one base question, and every other question that can be asked is some kind of derivative of it. What is this base question? The most famous expression was penned by William Shakespeare: "To be, or not to be, that is the question." Virtual chaos shortens this to "Am I?"

The key to understanding this question is the word "Be". There are nine forms of the word in the English language: be, can, do, have, is, may, must, shall, and will. There are also past and future tense versions of these words, bring the total to twenty two. These are called linking verbs, helping verbs, or simply verbs of BEing. It would appear then, that BEing is the only question. No question can be asked without at least implying it, and your own existence. So every question that has ever been asked, seems to boil down to: How does it relate to me, (my being)?

Bob's dog is dead. Big deal, who's Bob? You know, Bob, with one 'O'. Oh, bummer.

Only when you can link Bob to yourself, does this worthless bit of trivia begin to mean something. This is the way that the gauge theories of quantum mechanics and relativity function when they are applied to consciousness, something must link the two items together. The information that the individual is able to receive is directly related to the level of complexity, with which it can formulate the question. This allows very detailed and precise observations to be made, with regard to both physical, and spiritual systems. Since observation is seen to play the determining role in deciding the wave/particle choice, the highly articulated question is able to discern very minuscule distinctions in its reality. According to the above argument then, belief in the validity of the observation creates the self fulfilling prophecy that increases the probability that it is right. Both spiritually and physically.

Emotion and intellect also appear function in accordance with model. If enough people tell you that you are doomed, you will begin to believe them. You will think doomed, and grow despondent. This is the reason that positive affirmations seem to work so well. A thousand observations give the same value for pi, so chances are, they are very probably true. Likewise, if every time you fail, you tell yourself that you are improving, your unconscious will begin to play it back to you just prior to repeating the failure that put it there. It then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, and finally a reality.

Expecting a calamity will cause the individual to prepare for it. Choices will be made which increase the likelihood of its occurrence, at the expense of eliminating other viable options. This is an extremely dangerous and counter productive situation. Consider the last recession. The media told us for six months how terrible the recession was before we could see it effecting us. And when it was over, they had to tell us for another six months before we started buying again. What would have happened if we didn't know there was a recession, and had continued to buy?

By expecting ourselves to be able to handle our own problems, we give ourselves the power to improve our situation. Believing the situation can be improved will lead us to search for the viable options that will accomplish this. By using articulated questions to search for those options, we become able to break the problems into pieces we can do something about. By knowing what to do, and believing that we can do it, our unconscious will begin to play it back to us. It then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, and finally a reality.

We at virtual chaos believe that humanity can, and will, find solutions to the problems it is currently faced with. We expect to find our way to help.


Magic 8 Ball is a registered trademark of Tyco Toys Inc. - Happy Fun Ball is a joke.
Virtual chaos is in no way associated with the former, and appreciates the latter.


[Home] [Virtual Science] [Virtual Phenomena] [Virtual Humanities] [Links] [Email]