I’d like to try and pick up a thread from an earlier discussion about conspiracy theory and alchemy. But instead of alchemy, I’d like to shift the focus to another occult art: divination. Divination, generally speaking, deals with the uncovering of the future through some supernatural agency.

How exactly one does this is hotly disputed. Various arcane systems have been invented by cultures throughout history. The main thing that they seem to have in common is that they deal with the analysis of complex chaotic patterns. Marie Louise Von Franz (a star student of Jung’s) offers an explanation of this in her mind-blowing book On Divination and Synchronicty:

Almost all non-number divination techniques are based on some kind of chaotic pattern, which actually is exactly like the Rorschach test. One stares at a chaotic pattern and then gets a fantasy, and the complete disorder in the pattern confuses one’s conscious mind. […] One cannot make head nor tail of a chaotic pattern; one is bewildered and that moment of bewilderment brings up the intuition from the unconscious.

If this sounds a little far-fetched, consider this more every-day example from Demian by Hermann Hesse (who was also incidentally, a follower of Jung’s):

With rigid eyes I stared at the fire as I sank into dreams and silence, seeing forms in the smoke and images in the ashes. […] In the dying glow of the fireplace gold-gleaming threads were combining into nets, letters of the alphabet and images were appearing, reminiscences of faces, animals, plants, worms, and snakes.

This sort of day-dreaming in front of the fire is something which we can all relate to on a more personal level, I think. Your mind starts to wander off on various topics, until suddenly something snaps you back to reality. This is the same principle upon which divination systems like throwing bones, I Ching, tarot cards, etc worked. That, and you’re presented with a temporary alternate semiotic framework to apply to whatever event you may be trying to divine information about. Such alternate frameworks help expose trends and relationships which you were blind to in their original context. This ability to reveal underlying relationships and trends is a major factor of what makes people use these systems to unveil possibilities for the future.

In a similar way, conspiracy theorists use the complex chaotic patterns inherent in media, current affairs, and history to bring to light deep information from the unconscious. Instead of analysing cracks in a tortoise shell, the flight patterns of birds, or the way a pair of dice fall, conspiracy theorists wrap their minds around the hidden motives of government officials, propaganda released by corporations, or trails of money secretly connecting diverse organizations.

These incredibly complex overlapping structures have a bewildering effect on the conscious mind, allowing bits of bigger truth to come floating up to the surface from below. Let’s combine this with our discussion of conspiracy theory and alchemy.

Conspiracy theory is a practical technique whereby we rearrange outward semiotic structures, and in so doing make psychological and spiritual changes within ourselves. Conspiracy theorists concentrate their time on transmuting the “base matter” of current events, official stories, propaganda and public relations into the gleaming golden truth buried within.

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.