How do tarot cards work?

Even if you don't believe in magic, tarot cards can "work."

Many traditional forms of divination are straightforward. You throw runes that spell an answer, poke a finger at random into a bible, or feel around in a handful of animal guts. A question is asked, and an answer is given. Someone may or may not stare into a crystal ball or bowl of water.

By comparison, the tarot cards are far more than a simple fortune telling tool. Many people use them to find answers about the future, and those answers can be found. But the tarot cards also act as a set of psychological prompts, which ask the questioner to consider things in a broader scope. Tarot cards don't just "tell your fortune," they also ask you to consider what the future means, what forces will shape it, and what part you yourself will play in bringing that future to bear.
 
There is no single explanation for how the tarot cards work, meaning the mechanism by which you end up drawing the correct (i.e. relevant) cards from the deck. 

The most mundane and boring explanation is that there is no grand order, that your brain finds patterns in the cards where there aren't any, and that (if someone else is reading your cards for you) there is an element of the classic "cold read" happening. But even if this is the case, the tarot cards' symbolism can be helpful, prompting you to consider the larger or deeper meanings behind the events which are happening in your life.
 
Some people believe that you subconsciously shuffle the deck such that the relevant cards end up on top. Others believe that the deck is like Schrodinger's cat, and that the cards are blank until just before you turn them over. Still others believe that a guiding force - be it angels, spirit guides, or what have you - move the cards around into the proper order as you shuffle.
 
Telling someone's fortune is an interesting proposition. It presumes that the future is fixed - otherwise, there would be no way to tell it. I can't tell you the plot of a movie that hasn't been written. But I can tell you the plot of a movie that I have seen, but which you have not yet watched. 
 
But if the future is fixed, what happens when you tell someone about it? If I tell you that you will slip on a banana peel, you will look down, see the banana peel, and step over it. If your actions change the future that I just told you about, then how can we say that the future is fixed?
 

New evidence claims Jesus was married

Were he and Mary Magdalene husband and wife?

The new discovery of an ancient sheet of papyrus has thrown the scholarly world into an uproar. This papyrus was written in Coptic during the fourth century. A historian at Harvard Divinity School has translated it as saying (among other things) a quote from Jesus referring to his wife. Jesus is further quoted as saying that his wife "will be able to be my disciple."

The papyrus and the scholar's findings were made public this week in Rome, at a conference of Coptic scholars. The papyrus' owner (a collector of rare Greek and Coptic papyrus fragments) has asked to remain anonymous and the provenance of the scrap of paper (about the size of a business card, according to MSNBC) is unknown. However, experts have concluded that the paper is most likely not a forgery.
 
Christian scholars have debated for centuries about the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and there have been rumors that Jesus had a female disciple. This tantalizing scrap of historical record adds fuel to both of those fires. 

It's not just a musty old historical debate, either. If Jesus had a female disciple, it would greatly improve the standing of women in the Catholic church among others. Historically, the religious oppression of women has been partly due to the inferior roles women were assigned in the Bible. But if Jesus had a wife - an equal - as well as a female disciple, it might change some minds. 
 
After all, the entire reason that the Vatican ruled that women cannot become priests or married men is due to the example that Jesus supposedly set. But what if this tiny scrap of paper turns that conventional wisdom on its head?
 
Of course, it may be too early to jump to these conclusions, much less to lionize Dan Brown for having promoted the idea of Mary Magdalene having been married to Jesus. Fans of The Da Vinci Code are crying "Aha!" in the wake of this revelation. It seems to bolster Brown's claims (which he lifted whole cloth from Holy Blood, Holy Grail) that Mary Magdalene was a far larger figure in biblical history than history has portrayed.
 
But when you get right down to it, this is just a scrap of paper on which someone, 400 years after the death of Jesus, wrote about Jesus being married. I can pull out a sheet of paper and write that Jesus was married to Pippa Middleton and they drove a minivan full of four kids plus the family dog to soccer practice. But that doesn't make it true, no matter how many scholars translate it.

Who's REALLY behind the anti-Islam movie that incited riots?

Actors were tricked into making it.

Last week, angry mobs attacked the American consulate in Libya, killing four Americans. This outbreak of violence began in outrage over a new movie produced in the west, which rudely depicted the prophet Mohammed. But what is this movie, exactly? Where did it come from, and who produced it? And why?

At first, some people thought that the movie didn't exist at all, that it was a plant or conspiracy, a thinly veiled excuse to attack American institutions in Libya. But it turns out that the truth is stranger still. 
 
"Innocence of Muslims" is a low-budget film described as "amateurish." It depicts the prophet Mohammed - which is in itself a grave offense to Islam. Worse still, Mohammed is depicted "as a womanizer, buffoon, ruthless killer and child molester." The violence began when clips of this movie were played by an outraged local news station.

When making the movie, the filmmaker called himself Sam Bacile. (Authorities have revealed him to be Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, "a convicted felon with a history of using aliases to hide his actions.") Bacile told his actors and crew that he was making an Arabian desert adventure set 2,000 years ago, revolving around a man named George. 
 
Bacile misled 79 people into filming his movie. After it was finished, he dubbed "Mohammed" over the word "George." 
 
Imagine waking up one morning to find that you were tricked into filming a movie that had literally led to rioting and murder. Actress Anna Gurji is terrified. Actress Lily Dionne feels overwhelmed and betrayed. No doubt everyone else involved in the production (except Bacile/Nakoula) feels the same way. 
 
Why did he do it?
 
Bacile/Nakoula told one of his actresses that he "wants the Muslims to quit killing." (How would a blasphemous movie depicting Muhammed as a child molester accomplish that?) He told the Wall Street Journal that he was an Israeli-American real estate developer with wealthy Jewish backers. (Israel says Bacile does not have Israeli citizenship, and condemns his actions.) In an interview, Bacile said that his movie was "a political effort to call attention to the hypocrisies of Islam." He told a production member that he was a Coptic Christian who raised money for the film in Egypt. 
 
So who really bankrolled "Innocence of Muslims?" Chatter online points the finger at everyone from the International Banking Conspiracy to the CIA, and everyone in between. We may never know the real answer.
 
 

It's snowing dry ice on Mars

Mars may look just like Arizona, but the Red Planet's weather is even more extreme.

On Earth, snowfall happens when water in the air drops below the freezing point of water (32F) and falls to the ground in flakes. But on Mars, it snows dry ice: frozen carbon dioxide. When the CO2 in the Martian atmosphere falls below the freezing point of CO2 (-193F)  flakes of frozen CO2 fall to the ground in what scientists believe is the only example of carbon dioxide snow in our solar system.

Every year in winter, Mars experiences a massive cloud that gathers over the south pole. This persistent cloud can be as much as 310 miles across. It is a huge seasonal blizzard that can dump inches - even feet - of fluffy white CO2 snow on the planet's surface. 
 
Mars may look just like Arizona, but the Red Planet's weather is even more extreme. Of all the planets in our solar system, Mars has the most Earth-like set of seasons, due to the planet's tilt and the similarity to our proximity to the sun. Mars has observable seasons, polar ice caps, and Earth-like storms. 

But that is where the similarity ends. The average temperature on Mars is, more or less, -67F, which is the sort of temperature Earth only sees in the depths of winter in the polar zones. Over the course of a year, the warmest day on Mars will top out at about 87F. The coldest day will bottom out at about -225F.
 
Most of the Martian atmosphere is carbon dioxide. This makes Mars' weather much more extreme and changeable, compared to the weather on Earth. We also have the benefit of our oceans, which help to moderate the climate. Not so on Mars, where weather patterns can sweep across the planet without anything to stop them. 
 
Stranger still, in some places, at some times, the snow falls up. Mars experiences severe sudden warming at times, when the sun hits it on a clear day. When this happens in an area where CO2 ice has formed, the CO2 evaporates (sublimates) upwards. This creates upside down rivulets, as the CO2 trickles up a slope into the air. Dubbed "spider gullies," these were a mystery for years before NASA scientists were able to crack the case.
 
If Earth's climate engine is based on the process of water evaporating into the atmosphere, Mars' climate engine is based on the process of CO2 sublimating into its atmosphere. Scientists still don't fully understand all the ramifications of this intriguing difference. But they do point out that if you had a thick enough space suit, you could potentially go skiing in the CO2 snow one day.
 
 
 
 

Woman finds ex-boyfriend hiding out in her attic

Creepy felon was spying on her.

If you hear noises in your attic, there are a lot of things that might spring to mind. Squirrels, rats, or possums, for the literal-minded. Or resident ghosts, for the paranormally inclined. But here is one thing you might not suspect as the cause of the noise: your creepy ex-boyfriend.

But that is exactly what happened to a South Carolina mother of five named Tracy. Twelve years after she and her boyfriend broke up, "she heard a thump from up above and saw nails start popping out from her bedroom ceiling." Upon investigation she discovered that her ex-boyfriend had been living up there for the last two weeks, ever since being released from prison. 
 
Earlier this year, the man (who is unnamed, as he is still at large) was convicted of stealing her truck. While serving his sentence, he had sent Tracy numerous letters from jail in which he professed his love for her, and swore that he had changed.

 After being released, the man took up residence in her attic. Police found several large fast food cups "filled with feces and urine." They also discovered that the man had "rigged the ceiling vents so that he could look down at Tracy in her bedroom from his spot in the attic."
 
My first thought on hearing this story was that the man was acting under the influence of this 1995 made for TV movie starring Neil Patrick Harris. "The Man in the Attic" starred Anne Archer and Len Cariou as a married couple. Archer is cheating on her husband with Neil Patrick Harris, with the twist being that Harris is secretly living in the couple's attic.
 
The movie was inspired by real world events that took place in the late 1800s. Dolly, the wife of a wealthy textiles manufacturer conducted an affair for 10 years with a boyfriend named Otto who was hiding in their attic. Neighbors had started noticing Otto coming and going at all hours, so they hit upon the idea of just hiding him in the house. Otto later described himself as Dolly's "sex slave."
 
Tracy and her five children are not sleeping well these days. After the initial discovery, her ex-boyfriend ran out of the house and escaped, and is still at large. Given how many of these situations end up in tragedy, here's hoping that Tracy and her family are able to remain safe from this dangerous and creepy ex-boyfriend.

West Seattle Hum: made by a fish?

Could the mating call of the Midshipman fish be the culprit?
UPDATE: The West Seattle Hum has been identified as coming from an industrial operation that vacuums dry goods (like wheat) out of ships' holds. Just as everyone suspected, it's not aliens or fish: it's industrial noise.
 
Last week, several West Seattle residents reported being bothered by a loud droning low-frequency hum that could be heard at night. One resident even managed to catch some great audio of the sound, which you can here archived here on the West Seattle Blog. Her recording starts with some typical street noises, but the hum kicks in around :30.
 
This hum has been heard off and on throughout the years. I remember hearing it when I lived on Alki, it was something that echoed through the air in the wee hours of the late summer nights, when the city was sleeping. I worked night shift, so I was awake when most people were not. I always wrote it off to the multitude of light and heavy industry sites within a few miles, from cargo containers being loaded at the shipyards, to the steel mill right beside the West Seattle bridge.
 
But this time, residents complained, and all the businesses in the area claimed it wasn't them. So what, then, could be the cause? 
 
Some people think they have found the answer. But frankly, I have my doubts. Just because you see something on the evening news, that doesn't make it true! Even Jim Forman seems skeptical about this one.
 
The culprit, so some claim, is the Midshipman fish. This small bottom-dwelling fish produces a very loud mating call. It is a droning hum at about the same frequency range as the West Seattle hum. The Midshipman fish mates in late summer, and at night, which matches the time that the noise is being reported.
(Then again, perhaps you just can't hear it during the day. West Seattle has a lot of ambient noise during the daytime that would mask many subtle noises.)
 
The raw call of the Midshipman fish is only somewhat similar to the West Seattle Hum. And although it is loud for a fish, even marine biologists doubt that the noise could carry for miles overland to wake West Seattle residents.
 
However, someone pointed out that last week - when the hum was being reported - an empty container ship was docked at the mouth of the Duwamish. The theory is that the ship served as a resonance chamber for the Midshipman fish's mating calls, booming the noise out to the surrounding area. This would certainly account for the West Seattle Hum's distinctly metallic sound. But to be honest, I still don't buy it. I will be eager to see what new theories and evidence turns up in the nights to come.
 

Buying, cleansing and storing a Tarot deck

It's not as complicated as some might make it sound.

If you have ever been curious about the Tarot, you may have done a bit of reading up, but been put off by all the seeming rules. Do this! Don't do that! Always do it this way! Never ever ever do this! 

The truth is, handling the Tarot is very much up to interpretation. The only real rule is, "Do what feels right." Unfortunately a lot of people take that rule and run with it, and mistake "what feels right for me" with "what everyone should do all the time, lest DISASTER BEFALL THEM."
 
As with so many things in life, your intentions matter more than the specifics of your actions. Treat your cards with respect, approach them with an open mind and an open heart, and you will do fine.

Buying Tarot Cards
The first myth many people encounter is that "You can't buy a deck of Tarot cards for yourself, they have to be given to you as a gift." This, quite simply, is wrong. There is no reason not to buy a deck of Tarot cards for yourself. Professional diviners and Tarot card readers almost universally believe that this myth is ridiculous.
 
There are hundreds of different Tarot decks. The Rider-Waite deck is the most popular, but don't let that sway your purchase. You should buy whatever design speaks to you. 
 
Don't be afraid to buy a second-hand deck. Assuming they are in good shape, used decks can be a great deal for people on a budget. 
 
Cleansing Tarot Cards
Whether you buy your cards new or used, the next step will be cleansing them. Quite frankly, "cleansing" is more about you than the cards. Your cleansing ritual only needs to be as elaborate as you need to feel that the deck is "clean" and ready for your use. 
 
This page has a great run-down of rituals that you can use individually or in combination. I also like their recommendation to cleanse your cards by "holding the Tarot deck firmly in your hand and striking down sharply on a table or other solid object." This gets to the heart of the ritual, which is that your intention is what manifests the change.
 
Storing Tarot Cards
Many experts recommend storing your cards inside a natural substance, whether it is a wooden box or a cloth made of natural material. Once again, this is up to you. If you have a beautiful swatch of cloth, feel free to use it, even if it contains man-made fibers.
 
As long as you are protecting your cards from physical damage, the details matter less than your feelings. You could even simply rubber band your cards together and store them in a drawer, if you did it with respect.

Siberian ice age flower is reborn

No word yet on whether they plan to try and extract dinosaur DNA from a mosquito preserved in amber.

 About 32,000 years ago in Siberia, a squirrel industriously hoarded a whole lot of seeds and fruits in a river bank. Last winter, a team of Russian scientists coaxed some of the seeds into blooming in the lab, and an ancient white flower has been brought back to life.

In 1995, Russian researchers studying ancient soil composition ran across about 70 squirrel burrows from Upper Pleistocene rodents. Each burrow was packed full of stored seeds, nuts, and fruits - some burrows held up to 800,000 ancient treats. The squirrels never returned to claim their spoils, but the researchers found that some of the buried plant material was still viable.
 
The burrows were located below the permafrost line, where the ground remains frozen year round. In the burrow chambers the conditions were stable: they were 125 feet below the ground level, and kept at a constant temperature of about 20 degrees. It was perfect storage conditions, cool and dry and dark, except for one thing: the rock walls around the burrow contain radioactive elements, which would have slowly bombarded the seeds with radiation over the eons. Not much radiation, granted, but 32,000 years is enough time for a lot to accumulate.

 
Researcher Svetlana Yashina took on the task of reconstituting the seeds. She took tissue from inside immature, unsprouted fruits. She soaked this tissue in a liquid growth medium that gradually brought them back to life. In laboratory conditions carefully calibrated to resemble those of Ice Age Siberia, she coaxed the tissue into sprouting, and then flowering. After cross-pollinating the plants, she verified that the plants were all fertile, and had created the second generation.
 
This particular flower, S. stenophylla, still blooms on the Siberian plains. But the ancient variety which Yashina reconstituted has several differences from the modern plant. It is a fascinating look at plant evolutionary biology; most of us think of the evolution of dinosaurs and woolly mammoths, but plants have been evolving too. These older plants grow slower roots, but produce larger flowers and more buds.
 
The race is on to find ancient plants preserved in this fashion. Climate change means that the permafrost line is dropping, causing millions of acres of land to thaw deeper than ever before. If the thaw reaches these caches, they will rot and become unviable.
 
In the wake of this success, researchers have announced that they will return to the site to look for the preserved remains of even older plants. No word yet on whether they plan to try and extract dinosaur DNA from a mosquito preserved in amber.

Natalie Wood's death no longer ruled accidental

What really happened on the yacht with Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken?

The death of Hollywood star Natalie Wood has long been the subject of bitter conspiracies. In a surprising move, after nine months of investigation, today the Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner has stricken the word "accidental" from Wood's death certificate, and ruled her cause of death as "drowning and other undetermined factors." It's a small move, but for many, it is a move in the right direction.

Some of the facts are clear. On November 28, 1981, Natalie Wood boarded a boat along with her husband Robert Wagner, Christopher Walken and the captain of the boat. They were celebrating the end of filming the movie "Brainstorm," which starred Wood and Walken. All three of them reportedly got quite drunk at a restaurant before heading out on Wood's yacht to Catalina Island.
 
En route to Catalina, Wood went overboard during the night. The next morning, authorities found her body a mile away. A small inflatable boat was beached nearby. Wagner speculated that Wood had been annoyed by the sound of the dinghy banging against the side of the yacht, went out in the darkness to try and fix the noise, and instead slipped into the water and was lost.

At the time, Walken and Wagner both testified that Wagner and Wood had been arguing earlier in the evening, but that their argument had quickly faded. However, according to the autopsy report, "Wood had bruises on her body and arms as well as a facial abrasion on her left cheek."
 
For decades, people had speculated that Wood and Wagner were fighting, and that Wood was thrown overboard as a result - either deliberately, or knocked overboard when Wagner smacked her. Wood had been drinking, as well as taking an anti-seasickness medication, which increases the effects of alcohol. It would not have taken much for her to drown under those circumstances. 
 
And what of Christopher Walken; has he been covering for Robert Wagner all these years? According to Hollywood gossip, Natalie Wood had been having an affair with Walken on the set. Could this affair have led to the fight between Wood and her husband, Robert Wagner? Walken has long denied any romantic involvement with Wood. 
 
Last November, the captain of the boat finally came forward. He confessed that he had lied to police during the initial investigation, and said that "a fight between Wood and Wagner had led to her death." The case continues to be under active investigation. Here's hoping the truth comes out one day.
 

Cat ladies more likely to commit suicide?

Toxoplasmosis infection correlates to higher suicide rate in women.

As a cat lady myself, I have long been fascinated with the strange puzzle that is the toxoplasma parasite. Alarmingly, a new study shows a strong correlation between toxoplasmosis in women and suicide attempts. Odder still, women with toxoplasmosis are more likely to commit suicide by violent means (stabbing, gunshot, jumping) than non-infected women.

Scientifically known as Toxoplasma gondii, this parasite is communicated to humans through the cat's waste, typically by cleaning the litter box. (Not only is it a gross job, it's also potentially parasitic!) In its normal life cycle, the toxoplasma parasite infects rats and mice. It makes them unafraid of the smell of cat urine, and more likely to take crazy risks. By subtly controlling the behavior of infected rodents, toxoplasma positions them to be eaten by cats, which are crucial for its next life stage.
 
But when cats came to live with us, so did the toxoplasma parasite. Clinically, toxoplasmosis (the disease caused by infection with the parasite) is relatively harmless in non-pregnant adults with a healthy immune system. (Because it can cause spontaneous miscarriages in pregnant women, women who are or wish to be pregnant are advised to stay away from the litter box.) You might come down with vaguely flu-like symptoms for a little while. No big deal.

However, several broad statistical studies have shown that toxoplasmosis seems to have an effect on human behavior over the long term, too. Between 10 percent and 20 percent of the population in the United States is infected with toxoplasma, and the infection correlates to a lot of interesting and unusual personality changes. People infected with toxoplasma become more fond of cats, for one thing. 
 
Toxoplasma infection has also been linked to schizophrenia: schizophrenics are four times as likely to be carrying the toxoplasma parasite than non-schizophrenics.
 
Toxoplasma's effects are also strangely gender specific. Women are more likely to be rated as "warm" or "friendly," while men are more likely to become "suspicious and antisocial." Toxoplasmosis is linked to a higher incidence of risk taking behavior in men. And in women, it is linked to an increased incidence of suicide.
 
Women with antibodies to T. gondii are 1.5 times more likely to attempt suicide. And stranger still, the worse the infection, the more likely it is that the woman will attempt suicide. 
 
Whether or not you are a cat lady, if you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, please reach out for help. In the United States you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24/7 at 1-800-273-8255.

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