Toward Ecosophy

Odds happen to be a particularly challenging abstraction for our little primate brains to rationally judge and compare. We will all fail to accurately predict the likelihood of two unlikely outcomes occurring consecutively until we manage to discover how to override our instinctual presumptions by utilizing some corrective calculating method, such as multiplying odds together. More often, we simply revert to ingrained emotional reactions whenever confronted with odds of much complexity or subtlety. That’s part of why we cling so desperately to black-or-white dichotomies and can so easily be herded into strident emotional entrenchment when confronted with nuance or uncertainty of outcome. Con artists, card sharks, and snake-oil salesmen depend on our odds-illiteracy and their own odds-facility to fleece us for all we’re worth.

I’m particularly fond of applied kinesiology as a divination practice because the part of our soul that muscle testing allows us to communicate with, the embodied part that dwells on the physical plane, is exceptionally gifted at keeping track of and comparing multiple codependent odds and likelihoods. The embodied part of our soul is the part that is continuously monitoring, extrapolating, and then adjusting the rates of all the various subconscious systems that keep our organism alive. Core temperature compared to the extremities, cross-reference that with blood pressure fluctuation upon rising from sitting, plus low salt levels and high blood sugar, add a dash of dehydration, vasodilation from recent emotional stimulation, that ongoing arrhythmia, and a lack of several nutrients in the bloodstream. “Quick, conscious mind, figure out which ones need to be adjusted in which directions simultaneously to achieve homeostasis! Oops, not quick enough — you die.” Yeah, our souls really are that much wiser and more talented than our headstrong little conscious minds care to admit. Heck, that simplified example didn’t even touch on any the subtle plane influences and parasites that our souls have to continuously take into account.

Such extraordinary horsepower, steered by such an obtuse charioteer! Thank the gods that that charioteer goes to sleep each night, so the soul gets a fighting chance to try to rebalance its various levels without constant distraction. Of course, in the hands of an uncommonly clueless charioteer, any divination practice can get dreadfully corrupted. A conscious mind that manipulatively attempts to exploit its soul by abusing any method of divination will very quickly discover precisely how much wiser and more talented its soul is, as that soul carefully calculates exactly what answers its consciousness actually needs to learn from, rather than what its consciousness had hoped to gain from. Each soul is perpetually steering its conscious awareness towards what it needs to learn, but those lessons come so much more easily when the ambitious charioteer is not cynically trying to rein in and exploit the soul's natural goodwill.

So, the embodied part of the soul can do all kinds of complex calculations of overlapping causes with complementary responses in order to obtain optimal outcomes — that is its daily grind, after all. The trick is to remember that its understanding of causes, responses, and outcomes will always be incomprehensibly more subtle and nuanced than anything the conscious mind can understand. Just as focusing on how to align one’s will with the will of any god one interacts with will considerably improve the results of that divine relationship, so focusing on coming into alignment with one’s soul will considerably improve the results of that lifelong partnership.

In this casino world we will always find ourselves dealing with statistical gaming, social shaming, and manipulative training. Our soul learned all about those dishonest techniques long ago, and our conscious mind is always learning from and relating to our soul’s wisdom, even when it doesn’t want to, even when it’s desperately trying to run away from that wisdom. It takes an awful lot of lifetimes to finally relinquish trying to escape from the soul’s deep wisdom, then quite a few more to get the hang of actually aligning with the soul and its purpose in coming into incarnation. As long as we keep running off with our fingers in our ears, it's our own dishonesty that prevents us from detecting our soul’s wisdom. Once we stop all that frantic running and actually listen, we're able to hear our soul clarifying those dishonest techniques, calculating the complex odds, and clearly warning us “That shot will be the death of you.” The house only wins when we’re running scared away from our Selves.

— Christophe

"aimed at training us to see ourselves as bundles of risk that we are responsible for managing well"

What a perfect description! You've just absolutely nailed my feelings about that worldview.