“Tell me,” Wittgenstein asked a friend, “why do people always say, it was natural for man to assume that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth was rotating?”
His friend replied, “Well, obviously because it just looks as though the Sun is going round the Earth.”
Wittgenstein replied, “Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating?”
All your life you have been told that your mind ‘revolves’ around an objective, pre-existing material world. But my question to you is: how would it look, if it were the other way around?
In Part 2 of this series, Why Divination is Real, we described the four divination arts associated with the Western Tradition and introduced some of their workings. Now in Part 3 we will explore some deeper philosophical and psychological concepts that form the backdrop of our understanding of why divination is real.
These two primary concepts are those of: Idealism and the Unconscious.
These concepts are not currently well understood or represented in mainstream thought. However, aspects of both have, out of necessity, been bolted-on to materialist science and our mainstream understandings of the mind. Let’s look at some examples…
Inconvenient Mysteries
Psychotherapy can be an excellent way to glean insight into the painful patterns of our lives. But the mysterious mechanism behind how we create such patterns is not well understood. Often it is said that we do so “because it’s familiar” or such like, but this merely explains it away. The important question of how and why a person might unconsciously seek out a painful situation is barely explored. Wouldn’t it make more sense, from a materialist or evolutionary perspective, to simply avoid what was painful? Since that’s what we often consciously try to do, why does the pattern repeat regardless? What’s more, the real import of such encounters can never be reduced to a matter of simply ‘learning to stop.’
All forms of psychotherapy, spiritual practice and religious worship, when effective and beneficial, involve a productive interplay of conscious and unconscious minds, whether or not this is explicitly acknowledged. The unconscious is an essential concept in the healing professions, and is intrinsic to an understanding of spiritual growth. Even physiotherapy usually involves a psychological component, and not a physical recovery alone.
Another inconvenient mystery is what is known as the “frequency illusion.” Perhaps you once bought a new car, and then you began seeing the same make and model of car wherever you went. Implicit in this idea are the roles of a conscious and unconscious mind. Yet, incredibly, this phenomena was only coined in 1994 (technically known as the “Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon”). Just 150 years ago the idea of an unconscious was unthinkable to most. The “frequency illusion” is consistent not only with an unconscious, but also the notion that our minds affect reality. To what extent is it an ‘illusion?’
Speaking of apparent illusions, the “placebo effect” is a well-known factor that must be controlled for in trials of new medicines. It is understood that belief in the efficacy of a treatment affects the outcome. However the means by which this occurs are not well understood. The reality that physical symptoms can be both caused and cured as a result of mind remains an inconvenient but somewhat workable mystery in medicine. Yet the wider implications of this phenomenon, outside of medicine, are rarely considered.
Also consistent with many idealist principles, the “Copenhagen Interpretation” in quantum physics holds that a particle does not exist in one state or another, but in all of its possible states at the same time. It posits that the act of observing a phenomenon causes the observed reality to form into one of the many possible outcomes. It suggests that the observer’s mind plays a role in determining the outcome of quantum events.
Each of these modern principles interfaces with the concepts of idealism and the unconscious. Whilst the full implications of these two concepts have by no means been incorporated into mainstream thinking, a cursory note to them is made where raw materialism falls short in resolving our challenges. Indeed many of our problems, struggles and strife, personal and collective, can be greatly elucidated, and their true causes discerned, when we begin to actively work with the unconscious mind.
A Different Kind of Understanding
Many of these same struggles are perpetuated through psychological one-sidedness, unconscious needs leading to an incongruent mind, and an unwillingness to face personal and collective trauma. The dual concepts of idealism and the unconscious can shine a light on the real reasons behind many of our challenges, and illuminate a way forward. After all, it is impossible to know what to do about a problem, when you cannot accurately define what it is. These concepts can help with precisely that – coming to understand and define our problems more clearly.
Psychological concepts are, however, not easily grasped through a materialist lens. By nature they deal with matters that cannot be neatly captured in the way that the analytical mind prefers. Just as deeper aspects of our mind can be represented by symbols but never glimpsed directly, knowing these concepts requires more than intellectual study. It requires direct, raw experience and exploration, aided by dedicated spiritual practice.
The divination arts approached correctly form a key part of this practice. They offer profound insights into our own mind, and the workings of mind itself. In turn, the concepts of idealism and the unconscious help to facilitate our own understanding of how the divination arts – tarot, astrology, numerology and Kabbala – serve as powerful aids in our growth, even in this modern age. At the same time, you may come to see just how divination has come to be so misunderstood by wider society.
Much of what I am sharing in this article is not new. In fact many of the world’s best thinkers were discussing these ideas hundreds of years ago, offering compelling theories that yield value today in areas that mainstream science struggles to reconcile with. Science, with its drive for literal correctness, does an excellent job of modelling material existence, in a way that allows it to be manipulated and leveraged. However, no matter how intricate the model, it can never constitute an explanation in of itself. Some answers really are only attainable through personal experience and direct knowledge. In fact, all of life’s most meaningful lessons are learned, and all major rites of passage overcome, in this way. The map can never be the territory. But wishing that it was? There’s a lesson there too.
Let’s now explore each of these concepts further, before circling back to the divination arts and how these ideas might support their legitimacy and use.
What is Idealism?
Idealism is an entire paradigm of philosophy, sitting separate to the current scientific paradigm of materialism. Whilst materialism holds that matter is primary, idealism holds that mind, not matter, is the forerunner of existence. According to idealism, everything that exists in the world first had to exist in the mind.
A neat summary of idealism is put forward by 19th Century philosopher Josiah Royce:
“Idealism is the philosophy which maintains that the ultimate nature of reality is ideal, or based upon ideas, values and essences and that the so-called external, or real world is inseparable from consciousness, perception, mind, intellect, and reason in the sense of discriminatory cognition.”
Just like in materialism, idealism comprises countless alternative perspectives and ideas. It has no single, conclusive answer as to the true nature of reality. However, what the multitude of idealist philosophies share is the notion that our world is led by mind. Most forms of idealism do not even claim that an external world ‘doesn’t exist,’ but many do hold that it cannot be known in itself.
A Brief History of Idealism
Our current period of history dates the beginnings of idealist thinking to Plato, around 4th-5th Century BCE, and his Theory of Forms. Plato proposed that non-material abstract forms or ideas represent the highest and most fundamental kind of reality.
Even the earlier Vedas, from ancient India, can be considered a kind of an idealist philosophy, with their discussion of Brahman as the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality. So can the Buddhist Dhammapada, as demonstrated in the line: “All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts.” Although modern interpretations of these traditions do not agree upon whether or not they are idealist philosophies.
Idealism as a paradigm developed more formal interest during the Enlightenment period, alongside materialism. An early thinker during this period was Irish philosopher George Berkeley who proposed a form of idealism known as “subjective idealism” or “immaterialism,” arguing that the material world only exists as perception, not in and of itself. He famously encapsulated this idea in the Latin phrase, “esse est percipi,” which translates to “to be is to be perceived.” This radical perspective challenged traditional understandings of reality and would influence philosophical discussions for generations to come.
In the latter part of the 18th century, Immanuel Kant introduced the concepts of the “noumenal” world (things as they are in themselves) and the “phenomenal” world (things as they appear to us). For Kant, this distinction underscored the limitations of human perception, emphasising that our knowledge is always mediated by our faculties of understanding, and we can never have direct access to the noumenal reality.
This idea by Kant has been described as a “Copernican shift” in the philosophy of knowledge. Just as Nicolaus Copernicus revolutionised astronomy in the mid 16th Century by proposing that the Earth revolves around the Sun, Kant proposed a similarly revolutionary shift in philosophy. Instead of thinking that knowledge revolves around (or is determined by) the external world, we should see the external world as being structured by our knowledge or by the ways in which our minds operate. This emphasis on the active role of the human mind in constructing knowledge was a marked contribution to the development of idealism and a pivotal shift in the history of philosophy more widely.
The term “idealism” was more formally adopted by the philosophers of German Idealism. This includes thinkers like Johann Gottlieb Fichte who, building on the groundwork of Kant, developed his own version of idealism known as transcendental idealism. Fichte emphasised the role of the self, or “I,” which actively shapes both its own essence and the external world, referred to as the “Not-I.” For Fichte, self-consciousness is paramount; through the “I’s” activity, both the individual and the external world are constituted and continuously redefined. This dynamic interaction between the “I” and the “Not-I” exemplifies a dialectical process, a concept later expanded upon by Hegel in his idea of thesis-antithesis-synthesis. For Fichte, the essence of the ‘I’ is freedom, and this freedom carries with it moral responsibility. All of this will become relevant when we return to talking about divination.
Schelling was another key figure in German Idealism who sought to mediate between the philosophies of Fichte and Kant. He advanced a type of “absolute idealism” in which the distinction between subject and object is transcended in the Absolute — a holistic and unitary reality beyond the world of appearances. Schelling posited that Nature and Spirit (mind) are both expressions and two poles of the same Absolute. In his view, the universe undergoes a ceaseless process of evolution, with Nature and Spirit dynamically interacting and striving towards a higher unity. Schelling maintained that Nature represents the unconscious, externalised, or objectified pole of the Absolute, while Spirit represents the conscious, internal, or subjectivised pole.
After the era of German Idealism, the philosophical landscape began to diversify considerably. Many contributions were made by 19th Century British philosophers. This includes Thomas Hill Green, who argued against empiricism and utilitarianism, positing that humans have a unique capacity for self-realisation and ethical action. He determined that true freedom is not just the absence of external constraints (as classical liberals might argue) but the realisation of a self-determined moral purpose. For Green, genuine liberty is about fulfilling one’s nature as a moral being.
A contemporary of Green, Francis Herbert Bradley also criticised the foundations of empiricism and proposed a monistic view of reality. From the German idealists, he inherited the notion of the Absolute. For Bradley, the Absolute was the very ground of all existence, where all contradictions and apparent differences found resolution, and he was concerned with the ethical implications of this metaphysical view. He believed that if the world’s ultimate nature is this harmonious unity, then our moral actions should seek to embody and reflect that harmony. Ideas like those of Bradley’s can help us to understand why spiritual growth and ethical conduct are intrinsically linked, and why in the absence of ethical conduct, spiritual growth is not possible.
Idealist thought has gone on to influence many other philosophical traditions such as process philosophy, existentialism, and phenomenology, among others. As discussed earlier, idealism is not a single theory, but a paradigm of thought comprising many different philosophies. In keeping with this, the ultimate aim of this article and series is not to explain all of reality or convey a definitive, unchanging theory. It is intended to offer some tools and ideas to help with your own synthesis along the path of individuation. It recognises the impermanence of all theories and models and cautions against conflating a model with an explanation.
Nothing Lasts…
Idealism could more accurately be described as ‘idea-ism’ – Not to be confused with ‘idealism’ in the sense of having unrealistic belief in the pursuit of perfection. The latter conflicts with some tenets of idealistic thought. Consistent with the ideas of Plato is that the material world is not perfect – it can only be a mutable representation of its underlying form.
That is not to say that life or existence isn’t perfect. But when we project our ideals onto the material world without realising what is occurring, then we will inevitably suffer pain, loss and heartbreak when the material fails to meet the ideal. We will feel as though we have ‘lost’ something, ‘trapped’ in the belief of the primacy of material. Nonetheless, there must be an ideal in order for the material to exist.
This notion aligns with the concepts of ‘impermanence’ and ‘emptiness’ described in Eastern spiritual Vedic traditions and Buddhism; these are also inherent to many idealistic philosophies, helping us to better understand the nature of existence and the nature of our suffering.
“Nothing lasts, but nothing is lost.”
– Shpongle
Whilst life may not seem perfect or ‘ideal’ from our egoic perspective, many idealists do recognise an ultimate perfection to existence, implied in the notion of the underlying unity or Absolute, which is free of contradictions.
Hegel’s Dialectic
The ideas of Georg Hegel, a contemporary of Schelling, are built around this concept of the Absolute. Central to Hegel’s thought is the dialectical process, which involves the interplay of a thesis (an initial proposition or state), an antithesis (its direct opposition or contradiction), and a synthesis (a higher-level understanding or resolution that reconciles the thesis and antithesis). But Hegel viewed this process as something more profound than the progression of ideas – as the way the Absolute realises itself. This same synthesis plays out in our own lives and is an encapsulation of spiritual growth.
Hegel’s Dialectic echoes the Jungian idea of the Transcendent Function, the Buddhist idea of the ‘middle way,’ and all genuine forms of progress in our world and the wider universe – it is the way that makes the unconscious conscious, that transcends misaligned patterns and assumptions about the world, and embodies a new way that is ever more aligned with our true nature and potential. All of existence exhibits an underlying duality, and is compelled to move back towards this state of wholeness.
The divination arts can help us to navigate this dialectic process and attain self-knowledge. When we look to, say, the tarot with a question, we are seeking clarity on how to move forward. We are looking to make a decision – that is, to resolve a conflict between two or more inclinations of mind, desires or possibilities – between the way we have been, and the way we could be. A tarot reading can help us by reflecting back what is really going on for us, psychologically, and the various options available to us. Thus, it helps to make the conflict conscious, so that it can be seen clearly and resolved skilfully in the direction of wholeness.
In a similar way, reaching a broader understanding of ourselves and our path – through tarot, astrology, numerology and Kabbalah – can help us approach more of life’s situations without inner conflict. Tarot Birth Charts by Make it Conscious are one such way to help elucidate the potential we hold, and the virtues that may lie in parts of ourselves we’ve rejected.
All aspects of the divination arts are reflections of mind – of ‘ideas’ – from the various archetypes, rites of passage, life’s vicissitudes, the personality types and cognitive functions, the phasing of our lives into years, months and days, as well as the structure of existence itself – all of these are represented in the four divination arts.
The archetypes of the collective unconscious, as described by Jung, are also ideas in this sense. Like other worldly objects and projections, the arts and their symbols are not prescriptive, absolute or ‘supernatural’ – they represent the very structure of mind.
Religion vs. Materialism
Consistent with idealism is the understanding that even though one’s interpretations and explanations of an experience can certainly be spurious, experience itself is real. Experience is, in fact, all that can be ‘known,’ and the essence being reflected by experience is real. In other words joy is real, the feminine is real, the masculine is real and God is real. But that is not the same as saying that any one specific symbol of God is real, while others are not.
One of the most important impacts of post-enlightenment science has been to call into question a literal interpretation of religion and its symbols. Materialism arose during the enlightenment in response to the shortfalls of religion practiced in an absolutist way. However in doing so it too risks coming to regard itself and its own method as the absolute truth.
Today the situation is not so clear-cut in favour of raw materialism’s ongoing utility, let alone its underlying ‘truth.’ Of course, developments based on it continue to improve the material quality of life for many, but their impact on the psychological wellbeing of already materially-comfortable people, particularly those in the psychological second half of life, is less clear. Meanwhile the consequences of worshiping materialism compound.
Nonetheless, materialism forms a necessary stage in our ongoing cultural individuation. For all its foibles, the wholesome elements of materialism, employed in harmony with other values, could help give rise to a situation where more people have the means to realise more of their potential.
A New Direction in Thought
But according to some of the most prominent models of psychological development, the evolution of human thought is generally not a matter of jettisoning old ideas completely. As we have touched upon, psychic development is a process of synthesising seemingly contradictory concepts. This is exemplified in models like Spiral Dynamics and Ego Development Theory, both of which each outline nine stages of human development. To function effectively at a given stage, an individual must integrate the values and insights from preceding stages, even though their manifestations may appear incompatible. A process very much exemplary of Hegel’s Dialectic.
Idealist thought arose out of the enlightenment period largely for this reason. At the time there was so much to learn in our modelling of the external world (and there still is). Materialist science was poised to make the greatest and most immediate impact to the quality of people’s lives. But the consequences of doubling down on materialism weren’t so apparent; they paled in comparison to the benefits. Nonetheless, idealist thought began to emerge as a natural consequence of this shift.
Idealism serves to synthesise the contradictory movements of absolutist religion and scientific materialism. If mainstream society comes to assimilate the idea that objective reality might be intertwined with consciousness, there are paradigm-shifting implications. Just as Copernicus shifted our understanding from a geocentric to a heliocentric universe, individuation in the modern age requires us to recognise that our minds are central to every aspect of our experience.
While idealism is not fixed or definitive, it opens the door to a new direction in thought. It is not necessary that everyone agrees on how our reality is constructed in order to individuate. However, it is necessary for each individual that they do not restrict themselves to a materialist paradigm. Embracing the primacy of mind can open it up to new ways forward with real world implications. To that end, we also need to delve into the depths of our psyche and understand the unconscious mind.
The Unconscious
If mind and ideas are primary to existence, as held by idealism, then ‘where’ exactly do ideas go? Well, they don’t ‘go’ or ‘exist’ anywhere per se, other than as an idea, belief or potential. Ideas then become projected into our experience, in line with all else we have come to hold as true. But they are not ‘stored’ anywhere, only realised through conscious representation.
So if our unconscious thoughts, feelings, beliefs and assumptions become realised through our lived experience, through what material means exactly are we to suppose that occurs? Indeed idealism and the unconscious imply each other. A helpful way to think of the unconscious, I find, is that it is this very ‘field of potential’ implied by the idealist paradigm.
The unconscious is fundamental to our experience of the world; without it, conscious experience would be non-existent. Understanding it helps illuminate the workings of all spiritual paths and the unfolding of existence. Yet, neither exoteric religious traditions nor contemporary science has fully embraced its understanding. While modern psychology, and the efficacy of psychotherapeutic methods, hinge on a concept of the unconscious, they have not incorporated idealist thought to a commensurate degree.
The Personal and Collective
Carl Jung, building on the work of Freud, presented a concept for the unconscious in two parts: the Personal Unconscious and the Collective Unconscious.
The Personal Unconscious contains all our experiences, memories, perceptions, and feelings that were once conscious but have been repressed or forgotten. Jung suggested that these elements can influence our behaviour and experiences, even though we are not aware of them. He also proposed that this material could become conscious again under certain circumstances, such as during dreams, active imagination or in response to certain stimuli.
The Collective Unconscious, on the other hand, is said to be the deepest layer of the unconscious mind, shared among all humans. It is a kind of psychological inheritance, containing all the knowledge and experiences of our ancestors and archetypes, like psychological templates for experience. Jung believed that these archetypes are innate, universal, and hereditary. Within this are fundamental human concepts, such as the Mother, the Child, the Trickster, and the Hero, among others. The Collective Unconscious can be likened to Plato’s realm of forms, although it is more concerned with understanding the human psyche and its shared motifs across cultures
The Drive Towards Wholeness
One simple lesson from Jung’s model of mind is that we are not as congruent as our conscious ego would have us believe. We are, in fact, divided. Our psyche consists of many disparate parts, all wanting different things. And ‘our’ job, and the task of spiritual growth, is to navigate these various inclinations of mind and steer in the direction of wholeness. As part of this movement we must reconcile with the aspiration that is the Higher or True Self, our highest ideal and potential.
All of that which is contained within the mind, including the conscious and unconscious minds, can be considered the ‘Self.’ This is quite distinct from the ‘ego,’ which is only our conscious sense of self. All of our drives derive from the Self, but not all of them derive from the ego. The unconscious, therefore, contains the ingredients of our Higher Self, which we are all driving towards in the manner laid out in Hegel’s Dialectic.
Quite often, our Higher Self ‘knows’ what is best for us, while our conscious self has other ideas. Where a particular aspect of the Self has not been integrated, the ego regards what is needed as outside of it, and therefore something it needs to obtain. It can easily therefore try to grasp, hold on to or push away that which merely represents the underlying disintegrated content. The process of releasing attachments is therefore synonymous with letting go of who we think we are.
Often, this drive towards wholeness shows up in what we experience as conscience. In all cases however, any unconscious craving by the mind is a product of at least some part of it aspiring to wholeness – even when it mistakes the mere form of what it needs for the realness it represents, even when it does so to the exclusion of all else, and even when it remains wilfully blind to all danger.
We all have the freedom to embrace the call of the Higher Self and move towards it, or to choose expediency and security through attachment. This is why a life of spiritual practice is one which, despite challenges, ebbs and flows in the direction of freedom, safety, and progress, whereas a life of running away, egotism and placating conflicts, inexorably moves towards disillusionment, fantasy and chaos.
What would it mean if there was no unconscious. Such a state can hardly be imagined. There would also be no consciousness, no existence and no movement between the two. In fact everything we know and experience is a flow between conscious and unconscious. The unconscious is not evil or bad. Our exploration of it is the source of all life’s meaning. And it is nothing to be afraid of.
Divination, the Unconscious and Idealism
“I always had problems with the idea of “magical rays” affecting consciousness and destiny, and later came to realise that most of our understanding about the manner in which mind affects nature, and vice versa, are profoundly wrongheaded.”
– Michael Tsarion
These dual concepts of idealism and the unconscious point to a way out of patterns of suffering and towards individuation in the world as it is configured today. They can profoundly help our thinking in many aspects of life and existence – what spiritual growth really means, what craving and attachment really mean, why we suffer, why everything in existence takes work, why relationships take work, the value of responsibility, why intention matters, why truth is vital, what meditation really does, what behaviours lead to spiritual growth, and so on. Any apparent wisdom one has relating to these subjects, but without an understanding of the unconscious mind, is limited in its perspective, overlooking the nuances of human motivations and interactions.
We can understand therefore that it is not that magic rays from the stars or some magical mystical force determining the positions of tarot cards. The physical stars and planets do not really ‘affect our minds’ in the way purported by exoteric practice of divination. It would be closer to the truth to say that ‘our minds affect the stars and planets.’ But, more accurately, that our ideas, truths and assumptions about reality affect our conscious experience. Remember that all we see, all we can ever see, is a rendering by the mind.
Whilst this doesn’t negate the wondrous mystery of existence, it helps us to let go of any attachment, excitability and spiritual materialism around such apparently supernatural phenomena. You realise that you are not really seeing anything out there, but a rendering by the mind where, in essence, anything is possible, provided it remains congruent with what is held to be true.
Contrary to what conventional definitions of divination arts state, there is nothing ‘supernatural’ about the divination arts, in the sense of operating outside the rules of nature. By incorporating the concepts of idealism and the unconscious we come to better appreciate their legitimacy.
With that all said, I hope you have enjoyed reading this article on Idealism and Divination. In Part 4 of Why Divination is Real, we will build on these concepts and address some of the common objections to the divination arts.
