How To Use Tarot And Astrology In Science Fiction Part 3 - Suspend Reader Disbelief

How To Use Tarot And Astrology In Science Fiction

Part 3

Suspend Reader Disbelief 

Previous posts in this discussion:
Tarot:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/10/index-to-posts-about-or-involving-tarot.html

Astrology:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

Part 1
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-to-use-tarot-and-astrology-in.html

Part 2
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-to-use-tarot-astrology-in-science.html

And now in Part 3, we'll look at UFO reports, which are (oddly) lumped in with the "Paranormal" (which includes ghosts).

In ordinary consciousness, people go about their business never giving a thought to ghosts, telepathy, teleportation, prophecy, or kidnapping by UFO.

So when they do turn their attention to such occult phenomena, it is like peering into a compartment where you keep ridiculous ideas, a toy box of concepts to push around into new patterns just for fun.

Most readers of Romance or any of the Fantasy (even Science Fiction) genres don't "take it seriously."  So as a writer, you don't have to work hard to attain "suspension of disbelief."

However, if you're writing a book to be published as non-fiction about such phenomena, you have to hammer away incessantly at convincing people that their toys are real.  It's part of the appeal of the Christmas Classic, The Nutcracker where toys come alive.

Tarot and Astrology, as they are mass-marketed for profit, are regarded like toys by most people.  These toys produce fun stuff, but they don't mean anything and don't have to be taken into account when living your day to day existence.

Romance is like that (until you do experience it for real).  The "for real" experience is like the toys in the toy box coming alive, an astonishing moment suspended outside of time.

In psychology, that moment is called "cognitive dissonance" -- and that experience of reassessing what is and is-not real is the essence of the fiction writer's craft.

To work across the boundary between the real and the inside of the toy box, the writer must study both fiction and  non-fiction.

The New Year's fare in Newspapers is peppered with "psychics" making predictions about the coming year (and other linear prognosticators doing "if this goes on.")  Tarot and Astrology get featured, as they sometimes do for Halloween (see my Halloween Tarot/Vampire story, "False Prophecy" in: Through The Moon Gate (and other tales of vampirism)

https://www.amazon.com/Through-Vampirism-Jacqueline-Lichtenberg-Collected-ebook/dp/B004MPRUZM/

In August (the silly season) newspapers carry stories about UFOs.  When people are bored (because Congress isn't in season, all their friends at work are on vacation so projects stall, the kids are home going stir crazy), they open their toy box of ideas and get lost in playing with them.  It's amusing and refreshing.

Non-fiction about UFO visits to Earth, about Astronauts sightings, other credible witnesses, photos (which we disbelieve more so now than ever), occupy that part of the mind.

I've been a UFO-NUT since grammar school when I found that section in the library and had my Mom take the books out so I could read them.  I never believed any of it, but could construct a world where it was true, "...they are watching us!"

Then I met a couple people (at different times) who told of their own abduction by a UFO.  Very convincing, especially since they weren't giving speeches about it for money or writing books, or being paid by a newspaper, etc. No profit motive, just a disturbance in life.

I have friends who follow the UFO reports, so one time I was at a speech where the guy was selling a book on the topic, and spent over an hour presenting "evidence" for the validity and verification, the credibility of witnesses, etc. -- pounding away at trying to prove (to an audience of true believers) that UFOs are real.

So afterwards, I listened to everyone reinforcing their true-belief, buying the autographed book, and treating the author as if he were important.

I waited for most to leave, then asked him why, if his case actually convinced him, he is still trying to convince people.  If these visitations are real, then accept that and move on to the next logical step -- or to debating what that step should be.  If it's true, act as if it's true.  If it's not true, shut up.

I've never before or since seen such a totally flummoxed speaker.

He simply had no answer, and as far as I could tell, had never considered that option -- assuming what he knows to be true is in fact true, and going to the next step.

So, I'm still a wide-open question on UFOs in general, kidnappings in particular.  It seems to be the reason these people write these "non-fiction" books is to make money. There's more profit in manufactured or exaggerated evidence and sincere insistence on the impossible than there is in the truth.

And that gives you a formula for a hot-hot-hot Romance Character, a UFOLOGIST who doesn't know he doesn't believe what he's peddling.

To write such a story, you need a theory of reality built by ripping items from the headlines - using newspaper stories widely believed as if they are fact.

And you need a theory of existence that explains how and why Tarot and Astrology work, how they are related to each other, and what Aliens From Outer Space have to do with that.

Astronomy and Astrophysics are barreling toward Astrology and Tarot (yes, Tarot is more like Astrophysics, if you look aslant the right way).

Here's a TOY BOX item for you:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-the-many-worlds-interpretation-of-quantum-mechanics-has-many-problems-20181018/

Subtitle of that article:
The idea that the universe splits into multiple realities with every measurement has become an increasingly popular proposed solution to the mysteries of quantum mechanics. But this “many-worlds interpretation” is incoherent, Philip Ball argues in this adapted excerpt from his new book Beyond Weird.

Tarot is all about decision points in life, and what you USE of your interior, spiritual, innate or learned skills and resources to navigate the white-water-rapids of life's decision points.  This article discusses the new mathematical and quantum physics view of multiple universes -- which has been a staple of science fiction since before JACK OF EAGLES by James Blish (author of the first STAR TREK novel published, SPOCK MUST DIE):

https://www.amazon.com/Jack-of-Eagles/dp/0380611503/

Today, people believe in science even without understanding all that hard stuff.  Science has produced usable results (smartphones for one), so people believe in human interference with the cyclical climate surges (glaciations followed by polar melts over millions of years) because it is settled science.

With the setting aside of religion in most organized forms, humans search for things to believe in.  UFOs, Romance, Science, multiple universes, all have their share of true believers.

To write science fiction romance of the caliber of James Blish's JACK OF EAGLES, you need to grab and incorporate a bit of speculative science and weld it to a bit of speculative occultism, then build your entire world selecting every detail to symbolize or illustrate that composite element.

Psychics have long predicted, in the New Year's Prediction issues of the papers, that this year Aliens will arrive, reveal themselves, or that we will get a signal from outer space proving there are people out there.

So, to get your readers to suspend their disbelief, you must accept your belief in your fictional world as real.

STAR TREK the original series, (all cardboard sets and flat colored backdrop paintings) as popular and gripping because the actors were able to treat what they were doing as REAL (even when it was using a salt shaker to detect an Alien's state of health).

Writing is a performing art.

Accept the reality of your fictional world, your specific blend of the Esoteric and the Scientific, and sidestep reader disbelief.

Your readers believe in Romance, and believe in Science, and some believe in UFOs (at least during August).

Accept what they believe as actually real.  Don't be like the UFO lecturer and be unable to understand what is implied if the belief is real.  Accept the reality, and plot onwards through the next action, and the next.

Your characters have to implement their decisions out of the unconscious assumption that these elements are real.

So, suppose your Character is to meet up with (or be kidnapped by) a UFO alien.

What is this Alien?

Use widely believed science to answer that question.

We are now (with orbital telescopes) discovering the size of our Universe,

https://www.cnet.com/news/hyperion-is-an-ancient-cosmic-beast-formed-2-3b-years-after-big-bang/

Another outlet, Gizmodo, (probably working off the same publicist's press release) gives more depth, pointing out Hyperion's relationship to the supercluster Earth is in, Laniakea.

https://gizmodo.com/trying-understand-the-size-of-this-new-space-discovery-1829824870

I discussed Laniakea here:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/02/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-18.html

For decades, science fiction has been speculating about parallel universes (and anti-matter ones -- do read the STEN series).

Here are entries where I discuss the STEN SERIES.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-8-use-of-co.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-9-use-of-co.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-10-use-of.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/theme-character-integration-part-1-what.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/acquiring-new-techniques-part-1-pun.html

So what sort of Alien arrives by UFO (yes, I do love both THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and STARMAN), and kidnaps a human?

Once you determine what sort of alien, you should be able to derive why he would do such a thing.

Keeping in mind the size of the Universe we are now exploring by reading energy particles that are billions of years old, and keeping in mind all the new science produced from putting humans in weightlessness on space stations (showing how humans can't survive a trip to Mars or living there - we are gravity dependent and cosmic-ray sensitive), think hard about an Alien poking around Earth.

If we can't go to their planet (because settled science says so), then how could they come here?

Your readers keep their UFO knowledge in their toy boxes.   Make them take that knowledge out of the toy category.

How are we going to go visit Aliens who lived billions of years ago, and will be long dead by the time we get there?

Look around at current science headlines.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/#570035995a67

And look at what Forbes has been reporting on Artificial Intelligence

https://www.forbes.com/insights-intelai/ai-issue-2/

Forbes -- a financial organ -- talking about the size of reality and the nature of consciousness, intelligence, and robots as tools.

If we can create Artificial Intelligence, we can begin to determine if intelligence is related to the Soul -- and therefore what makes a Soul Mate.

Before we get to such spiritual questions, it is very likely we'll be sending AI entities to Mars and/or Venus - maybe to explore, to send back resources, to terraform, to build a habitat humans can live in.

Remember, with the nailing of the Higgs Boson, we are starting to get a handle on mass, weight, and perhaps one day, artificial gravity so we can take our fragile bodies out to the stars.

One might expect "Aliens" to haul their habitat around with them, too, but likewise to send ahead a wave of Artificial Intelligence -- not just robots programmed to do things, or remotely controlled as we try to do, but AI that can learn, think, reason, conclude and act.

Perhaps an AI explorer was sent out as an ordinary Intelligence, but along the way somehow acquired a Soul?

Perhaps your Main Character is kidnapped by an Alien AI with a Soul, and the experiments described in so many UFO books are actually an investigation into whether humans have Soul, and if so what Soul might be, where it comes from, and how it can be lost.

Or perhaps the UFO denizens are just trying to find Soul Mates?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

How To Use Tarot And Astrology In Science Fiction Part 1 - Real History

How To Use Tarot & Astrology In Science Fiction

Part 1

Real History 

Tarot and Astrology Just For Writers are indexed here:

Tarot:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/10/index-to-posts-about-or-involving-tarot.html

Astrology:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

The Fantasy genre has focused on two major plot-drivers (some call these tropes).
1) Who Gets To Be King (depicting government by Aristocracy)
2) A Secret Society Of Magicians Co-exists With Normals (Muggles)

The secret, underground society that works hard to keep itself un-noticed by mundanes (muggles) tends to dominate "Urban Fantasy" these days.

That concept symbolizes the blurring effect we see with Neptune Transiting Pisces -- which Neptune "rules" -- and thus blurring the edges and meaningfulness of "facts."  This has made "fake news" a feature of daily life, but each points the finger at the other screaming "fake."  That's NEPTUNE on the loose, and is actually not the way Neptune functions best.

That is the "vice" of Neptune.  Each Astrological planet has a way of manifesting as a "Vice" (an anti-life function) and a "Virtue" (a pro-life function).

Neptune is the planet of the "reality" behind reality, the astral plane where one simply thinks and believes and it is so.  Thus as noted so many times in these posts, Neptune is the signature planet of the years of a person's life where Romance dominates.

When Neptune makes a transit contact with key points in a Natal chart, the person's perception of reality shifts -- kind of like the optical illusions that have become such popular memes.  Blink, and it's one thing, blink and it is the opposite -- so "which is it?" becomes the question.

People rage into emotional arguments over optical illusions.

The argument over whether there exists such a thing as Soul Mate, or Happily Ever After, has the same emotional-rage flavor.

Consider whether the cause of the emotional-rage, adamant advocacy for one side or the other, both arise from the same "place" inside the human makeup.

Some philosophers give up and just declare that there is no such thing as "reality" at all -- everything is illusion.

Some adopt the idea that there exists an objective, hard fact, reality that can be discovered by Science -- therefore, "settled science" is to be obeyed if you want to survive.  See the raging, terror-driven argument over Climate Change -- listen to the tone of voice advocating each side -- does it sound the same to you as the argument over "Fake News" or the argument over "Happily Ever After?"

Are all these emotion-fueled raging, adamant, life-or-death depends on forcing the other to accept, believe, act upon, MY VIEW OF REALITY?

Look at the Religious Wars raging around the Globe.  We had the Catholic vs Protestant war in Northern Ireland spilling into London with bombings.

Now we have the Moslem Religion torn apart, sides taken aligning with whichever son inherited The Prophet's mantle, and as far as I've been able to discern the issue, it's all about which side gets the Divine Privilege of destroying all the Jews, ridding the world of that People and bringing the Islamic version of the Messiah.

On another front, we have serious shooting wars raging in skirmishes around the globe, brewing and stewing up Revolution - the exact same emotional tenor and tone as the "Fake News" argument over what is real (Saturn) and what is not (Neptune.)

Writing teachers teach that story is story -- throughout time, always the same -- because human nature never  changes.

"Human Nature Never Changes" is an adamantly declared Universal Truth one must believe in to sell fiction.

Classics of Literature are "classic" because they outline, starkly showcase, some element of Human Nature that all of us must understand to be educated and wise.

As you all know, my series, Sime~Gen, (14 volumes and still growing) is a science fiction series based on the premise that Writing Teachers -- and High School reading teachers, and university Literature Teachers are just plain wrong.

https://www.amazon.com/Sime-Gen-14-Book-Series/dp/B01N4SG08Q/

Human Nature has changed, is changing, and will change.

Not only that, but we (as humans with that nature) get to choose what aspect of us to change into which aspect -- whether to go forward or backward in our Nature Evolution.

We can revert to unmitigated savagery, or we can progress toward unmitigated Kindness.

Sime~Gen is built on the premise that if we, as humans, don't choose to advance in Compassion, then we will be hammered into accepting Compassion, Soul by Individual Soul, whether we like it or not.

We must change our Nature, or it will be changed for us.

The premise that our Professors (what Fantasy Genre based on government by Aristocracy would term our "betters") are just plain wrong is formulated by using the thinking process of the science fiction genre.  Thus the result (whatever esoteric, or fantasy elements might be included) is pure science fiction.

You do the same thing with any branch of science -- What If "They" (Authority) Is WRONG?

What If...
If Only ...
If This Goes On ...

Those are the speculations that science fiction is based on.

"If Only..." is the essence of Neptune's perception of reality.

Many esoteric thinkers regard Neptune influenced opinions as based on a "higher reality" -- a perspective of reality from farther away, from an angle which reveals the interlaced fundamentals of Body and Soul, the juncture of the spiritual and material.

Many call those who see that juncture, "Wise."

Tarot and Astrology are very old disciplines, much older than Science.

Tarot and Astrology are the science of the Unseen (unsee-able).

If you study the historical development of Science, you find that Alchemy is the predecessor of Chemistry.  Now, Chemistry (and Physics) can do much of what Alchemy was believed to do.

In every way, the thinking processes that led to these early attempts to gain ascendancy over Mother Nature -- agriculture, genetics, materials science (flint, copper, iron, bronze) -- all lead to today's "science."

And all of them are rooted deeply into Tarot and Astrology -- but their social acceptance relies on their refutation and rejection of Tarot and Astrology.

Tarot and Astrology are about Human Nature evolving and changing upon interaction with the physical world studied by Science.

Science is about Mother Nature evolving and changing upon interaction with Science.

In other words, they are two halves of a whole.

Science reveals "the truth" about the physical reality in order to give humans complete command over their environment.  That is why the Earth's climate responding to "human activity" is something so terrifying, so horrifying, that these very scientists who measure it can not accept it - the Earth is "out of control" -- and science must control.

Human Nature, on the other hand "never changes."

"What if ..." when human nature refuses to change, and insists on hammering Mother Nature into shape, Mother Nature responds by hammering back?

What if the solution is not to control Earth's Climate but to adapt human nature to the ever-shifting climate?

Look back into pre-history, using archeology and paleontology.  Over many shifts of climate, we see primates adapting and adapting until we find "modern man."  And "Modern Man" migrates and adapts, creates shelter, clothing, hunting tools, agriculture etc etc.

And through all that adapting of human nature (including learning to fight each other with ever-more-powerful weapons), we also developed the studies and wisdom of Tarot and Astrology (which are now disparaged).

So why aren't we accepting climate change and adapting - moving our cities back from the edges where water will rise, building habitats under water, mapping where the arable land will move to as ocean currents shift (farming tropical fruit at the poles?), learning to use the ocean as food source, etc.

Wait a minute.  Who says we won't do this, eventually?  Haven't the survivors of cataclysm done exactly that throughout pre-history?

What do we, today, know that they didn't know?

In Astrology, we know of the existence of planets beyond Saturn.  In Tarot, we know that humans have Free Will and shape fate by choices.  In Religion, we know that the choices that matter involve the Relationship with God developed over a lifetime.  (We know that those who are in critical illness, or dire trouble, benefit when others pray for them.)  Compassion matters. Kindness matters.  We can't quantify it, but Love matters.

There is another dimension where all living things are "stitched" together into some sort of pattern we, with ordinary consciousness, can't see.

So a writer can "reveal" this interface between the esoteric dimensions of creation and the everyday, concrete world studied by Science, using both plot (events in the real world) and story (Character changes on impact of real Events).

The best genre for revealing esoteric truth is Science Fiction Romance -- a science challenge, "what if authority is wrong?" coupled to a Character Arc where the impact of one Character's Soul upon another Character causes them both to change in ways shaped by their ability to understand the sequence of Events.

One good example of this process is the TV Series, X-Files.

So what might such a couple learn as they become a couple?

Look carefully at our Neptune Transiting Pisces (its own sign) shaped world.  Note also that currently Pluto is transiting Capricorn (not at all its own sign).

Neptune's vice is confusion, and Pluto's vice is power run amok (war).

We've noted above how Neptune's illusion and blurring of reality is sowing confusion over the whole globe.  It's not a problem.  It does that periodically, and humanity has survived it -- even learned a thing or two in the process.

Pluto cycles are about 248 years.  Neptune cycles about 165 years, give or take.

So look at now, then look back at Pluto transits and History.  Pluto was only recently "discovered" but that doesn't mean it wasn't active before that (many astrologers accept the idea that a planet is active in human affairs only after it has been discovered -- what if that's not true?)

When the USA was formed, Pluto was in Capricorn (where it is now).  The USA was formed in revolutionary war, and immediately launched a foreign war (Tripoli of Marine Corps Hymn fame).

The USA Natal Pluto is at the end of Capricorn, so the expansion of the 1800's was accompanied by the transit of Pluto into Aquarius, the sign of the USA's Moon and MC.  Aquarius is about Freedom, sudden explosive change, independence, and the "Flower Children's" mission of "Finding Yourself" (otherwise known as the Australian walkabout.)

After stewing through the Articles of Confederation phase, then the intense conflict over writing a Constitution to govern two incompatible ideologies, the Colonies launched a campaign of exploration, conquering the continent.  It was the era of the Mountain Man, the Buffalo Hunter, Gold Discovery in California, Wagon Trains, Oklahoma Land Rush, and of course Indian Wars.

If you know Astrology, you see immediately how all the historical elements in that list are manifestations of Pluto.

The incompatible ideologies that are blended in the USA Constitution are:
A) Government Is Order Imposed By Aristocrats Who Know Better Than the Uneducated In Classics And Science (they wanted George Washington to be King)
B) Government is Order That Protects Citizens From Government (domestic or foreign).  (they wanted Freedom)

The dichotomy is rooted in two incompatible takes on Human Nature.  A) Human Nature Never Changes, and B) Human Nature Rises To The Occasion

A) Humans can't be trusted to govern themselves, but the best among them can Rule better because they are educated.

B)Humans don't need Rulers.  Humans, even the uneducated in classics and science, are good at judging the Nature of other humans, and thus can choose who to hire to run government according to their assessment of Character.

Putting these two incompatible ideologies together was the Pluto in Capricorn innovation (Pluto's virtue is innovation, vice disruption).  A new form of government was established, and to date, at the verge of the USA Pluto return to its place, no other Nation has adopted this Constitution.

So a new governmental form launched a century of Exploration of The Unknown Continent.  And in that century, the 1800's, many other governments went exploring, searching for minerals and resources, and conquered peoples.

The Science Fiction Writer looks at this Pluto through Capricorn and into Aquarius as it manifested last time, and looks back and back through many cycles, seeing innovation and exploration (and war) periodically through history -- usually over resources which were hidden or revealed by advancing or retreating glaciers.

What will happen to human civilization as the oceans rise once again, glaciers retreat revealing what?

Do you see the potential for Science Fiction Romance in postulating what might be revealed by retreating glaciers?  Buried civilizations, UFO, time-travelers time machine?

https://medium.com/@heilygrave/usaf-veteran-films-ufo-flying-at-mach-17-sends-4k-video-to-nasa-49d72bb7ed9e

Tracing the cycle of Pluto backwards through the epochs when it was in Aquarius, extrapolate what might come about this next time, in the 2000's?

Surely we will explore space.  We already are sending robots and remote-controlled devices to planets, asteroids, moons, and telescopes or probes beyond our solar system.

https://www.space.com/42131-asteroid-ryugu-mascot-landing-new-images.html

There may be other planets to discover, too.  Maybe that long-long cycle of outer-planets will trace the way Human Nature has changed and point the way toward future changes. Are we becoming more vicious and ferocious, or are we becoming more kind and compassionate?

Or are some of us becoming one, and some the other?

Does encountering Reality change the human Soul?  Or does encountering a human Soul change Reality?  Or both?

Formulate an answer to those questions and you can create a THEME which will support a very long series, such as the ones I've been reviewing for you here.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com