I wouldn't normally wish to quote former US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, but for once:
...And follow with an edited version of my post from 2007 touching on mysterious unknowns.
A one-to-one consultation with an astrologer, in person, is something I haven't experienced, having never been in the right place at the right time. I have visited tarot readers on one or two occasions over the years, and had my hand read by fortune tellers. I've attended spritualist meetings, even dabbled in a bit of basic magic. Mysteries such as these have intrigued me for as long as I can remember.
The search for evidence and answers has often been disappointing. Astrology has been consistent in providing me with evidence that "something" is going on, though nobody knows what it is. This is the reason I've chosen to persist in trying to understand when astrology works and when it doesn't. It's a known unknown. The reason why astrology works, when it works, may well turn out as an unknown unknown - something we haven't yet discovered, a factor of which we have as yet no concept at all.
Many consider astrology to be in the same category as fortune telling, tarot, magic and mediums. I don't. Any evidence proving that those other areas of mystery "work" has been scant. A few scattered incidences over a very long period, have been just sufficient that I can't quite close the door, and my mind, on the idea that there is something else going on too.
The scattered incidences:
1 ~~~ A tarot reader, who was probably also a medium in the 1960s, in Devonshire, UK, told me that someone was speaking to her, and that he had a peculiar way of using the expression "it was real" in his conversation (meaning that something was very good). I immediately recognised this person. He wasn't anyone close, simply an acquaintance, but his idiosyncratic way of using the word "real" always used to amuse me. He had died in a car accident some years before. I hadn't even thought about this person much, but was very surprised to recognise him immediately from the reader's description.
2 ~~~ Many years ago (1970s), I persuaded my late partner to accompany me to a spirtualist meeting. The speaker there pointed to him during the meeting and said, "Do you know Peter, wearing RAF uniform?" He gasped, "Yes". "Well, he is saluting you", the speaker said. I knew already that my late partner had had a close friend called Peter, in his youth, during WW2, in the Royal Airforce. Their plane was shot down over France and they escaped together. Sadly, Peter's wife had been unfaithful while he was away in the forces, and he commited suicide just after the war ended.
3 ~~~ Many Moons ago, when I was still a young teenager, a fortune-teller told my mother that I would marry someone "from over the sea, and end my days abroad". That wouldn't sound too unusual nowadays, but in the 1950s before air travel was common, computers still unheard of, it was extraordinary! Anyway, the prediction has been vindicated three times. The second time wasn't a marriage, but a 33 year relationship. # 1 husband was from Italy. # 2 from Northern Ireland. # 3 current husband is American. And here I am, ending my days abroad (hopefully not too quickly). I'm pretty sure that this incidence wasn't what's known as "a self-fulfilling prophecy". I did harbour thoughts of retiring to Spain, which might have been seen as such. I never could have envisioned what actually happened!
4 ~~~ A fortune teller told me, back in 1973 or thereabouts, that there would be 3 men in my life. I was already aware of two - an ex-husband and a current partner. This prediction worried me for a long time. I took it as a sign that I'd somehow lose my partner. I did, but not for another 30 years! Then # 3 appeared.
I can find no logical explanation for any of these instances. They may be manifestations of some magical mystery - an unknown unknown, a mystery beyond anything we are at present capable of understanding.
"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."
...And follow with an edited version of my post from 2007 touching on mysterious unknowns.
A one-to-one consultation with an astrologer, in person, is something I haven't experienced, having never been in the right place at the right time. I have visited tarot readers on one or two occasions over the years, and had my hand read by fortune tellers. I've attended spritualist meetings, even dabbled in a bit of basic magic. Mysteries such as these have intrigued me for as long as I can remember.
The search for evidence and answers has often been disappointing. Astrology has been consistent in providing me with evidence that "something" is going on, though nobody knows what it is. This is the reason I've chosen to persist in trying to understand when astrology works and when it doesn't. It's a known unknown. The reason why astrology works, when it works, may well turn out as an unknown unknown - something we haven't yet discovered, a factor of which we have as yet no concept at all.
Many consider astrology to be in the same category as fortune telling, tarot, magic and mediums. I don't. Any evidence proving that those other areas of mystery "work" has been scant. A few scattered incidences over a very long period, have been just sufficient that I can't quite close the door, and my mind, on the idea that there is something else going on too.
The scattered incidences:
1 ~~~ A tarot reader, who was probably also a medium in the 1960s, in Devonshire, UK, told me that someone was speaking to her, and that he had a peculiar way of using the expression "it was real" in his conversation (meaning that something was very good). I immediately recognised this person. He wasn't anyone close, simply an acquaintance, but his idiosyncratic way of using the word "real" always used to amuse me. He had died in a car accident some years before. I hadn't even thought about this person much, but was very surprised to recognise him immediately from the reader's description.
2 ~~~ Many years ago (1970s), I persuaded my late partner to accompany me to a spirtualist meeting. The speaker there pointed to him during the meeting and said, "Do you know Peter, wearing RAF uniform?" He gasped, "Yes". "Well, he is saluting you", the speaker said. I knew already that my late partner had had a close friend called Peter, in his youth, during WW2, in the Royal Airforce. Their plane was shot down over France and they escaped together. Sadly, Peter's wife had been unfaithful while he was away in the forces, and he commited suicide just after the war ended.
3 ~~~ Many Moons ago, when I was still a young teenager, a fortune-teller told my mother that I would marry someone "from over the sea, and end my days abroad". That wouldn't sound too unusual nowadays, but in the 1950s before air travel was common, computers still unheard of, it was extraordinary! Anyway, the prediction has been vindicated three times. The second time wasn't a marriage, but a 33 year relationship. # 1 husband was from Italy. # 2 from Northern Ireland. # 3 current husband is American. And here I am, ending my days abroad (hopefully not too quickly). I'm pretty sure that this incidence wasn't what's known as "a self-fulfilling prophecy". I did harbour thoughts of retiring to Spain, which might have been seen as such. I never could have envisioned what actually happened!
4 ~~~ A fortune teller told me, back in 1973 or thereabouts, that there would be 3 men in my life. I was already aware of two - an ex-husband and a current partner. This prediction worried me for a long time. I took it as a sign that I'd somehow lose my partner. I did, but not for another 30 years! Then # 3 appeared.
I can find no logical explanation for any of these instances. They may be manifestations of some magical mystery - an unknown unknown, a mystery beyond anything we are at present capable of understanding.
GP: Just to add a wee bit more to your "sense of mystery", I can confirm similarities to your own experiences by what happened to myself as well as to several people I know sufficiently well to believe what they told me.
ReplyDeleteAnd there is an intriguing explanation, conditional to accepting the following premise:
All things exisiting are connected.
Humans in particular and very much so, because of their multi-dimensional (in space and time) psychic links (call it soul, spirit, whatever).
A competent astrologer/seer/fortune teller probably has a developped "sixth sense" enabling him/her to link into the consulting person's existing (present, past and future) connections. Èt voilà!
Some psychics can often know about the past owners of a given object.
Now if that is not "proof" of other dimensions (unknown, normally) to exist and function, I would be at a loss to explain anything further. Or maybe, one should not even try to explain, keep with the unknowns forever...
Anonymous/Gian Paul ~~
ReplyDeleteI agree that there must be something of the kind you describe going on, if we are to try for any kind of logic.
Then again, unknown unknowns, so unimaginable - inconceivable - to us, might be hiding just under the surface of things. :-)
GP: Why do the English like hats? Prefer your other picture...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/low_concept/2003/04/the_poetry_of_dh_rumsfeld.single.html
ReplyDeleteAnd so Slate has compiled a collection of Rumsfeld's poems, bringing them to a wider public for the first time. The poems that follow are the exact words of the defense secretary, as taken from the official transcripts on the Defense Department Web site.
The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing
anonymous/Gian Paul ~~
ReplyDeleteLOL! you sound like Professor Higgins (Rex Harrison) in My Fair Lady, GP Oh why can't the English, why can't the
English.... (learn to speak!)
;-)
I don't wear a hat - hardly ever, so whenever I do (due to a bout of strong sunshine) I like to record it.
I get tired of seeing my face staring directly back at me, GP, I like the slightly hidden, side view versions better. There'll no doubt be another change before long....or back to the previous. :-)
libramoon ~~~ Thanks for the original (I assume) version of the quote. I took my quote from a quotations page. I guess these are apt become slightly mangled or modified in the telling - or perhaps Rumsfeld has used the words more than once in speeches, in slightly modified versions. :-)
ReplyDeleteI disagree. I like the hat picture. I would flip the picture, though, so you're not looking away from your words.
ReplyDeleteKaleymorris ~~ Hmmm - I'll try that, see which looks better. The little photo is really part of the profile though, and it's facing that paragraph. The pic comes up whenever I comment on my own blog or on other Blogger-type blogs - that's really its main purpose, I think.
ReplyDelete:-)
kaleymorris ~~~ done! Yes, Blogger has placed the pic to the right of comments but to the left of the profile paragraph, for some reason. Main purpose is in comments, I guess, so...thanks for th idea K. :-)
ReplyDeleteFlipping the photo still has your profile photo looking at your most recent blog entry, which I think is the most important part of the page!
ReplyDeletekaleymorris - yes, it's better flipped. :-)
ReplyDeleteI've flipped the other pop arty Warholy one too and made a darker shade variation, just for a change....I ought to be looking left anyway - to match my politics! ;-)