WATCH THIS CARD AS A VIDEO

You have chosen the blank card and may need to consult your inner truth about this rather than the oracle. Perhaps this area is still unformed, or perhaps you already know the answer but are consulting the oracle as if you didn't. (see Recognizing the Obvious)

The unformed aspects of life create room for free will. Paracelsus, the great alchemist, said we are here to "finish nature." We are subcreators here to bring form out of the formless. In writing this card, I am bringing form out of the formless mass of zeros and ones from which the card arises. This card indicates an area of formlessness you are called upon to shape.

Sometimes we think that the answer to what troubles us lies fully formed somewhere, and we need only seek out that fully formed answer through an oracle or some other means. But perhaps we are, as George W. Bush would say, "The Decider." It is not for something outside us to supply the answer; it is for us to choose the answer.

Some people fall for what I call the "museum curator fallacy." Perceiving that there is something sacred about the universe, they feel that they don't dare touch or change anything or interfere with anything. It's as if they're on a Star Trek away team inhibited from interference by the Prime Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive when actually they're in their native world where they need to be an influential player. People caught by the museum curator fallacy forget that they are not outside of the glass case — they're in it and made by nature to be an interventionist alchemist.

Another classic mistake people make is what I call the "single correct diagnosis fallacy." According to this fallacy, there is a single correct diagnosis of what's happening in a given situation. But we know from quantum physics that the universe is not as cut and dried as that. An electron is not in any particular place — it is more like a cloud of probabilities. Interpretation of what's going on is often a choice that generates a timeline. For example, a friend of mine had his wallet stolen from his tent during a festival. Unconsciously defaulting to the single correct diagnosis fallacy, he assumed he was the victim of random, meaningless misfortune. From the rationalistic point of view, this diagnosis was the most reasonable interpretation. From the point of view of Occam's Razor, the random misfortune diagnosis was the simplest explanation and, therefore, logically, the one most likely to be true. However, there are other ways to judge truth than logical efficiency. Although one could make the strongest logical case for the random misfortune diagnosis, it was a truth that was both aesthetically displeasing and disempowering. By choosing the logically efficient random misfortune diagnosis, my friend gained absolutely nothing but a demoralized sense of being a random victim.

I suggested an alternative diagnosis: that the loss of the wallet was a synchronicity. I pointed out that in dreams, losing a wallet often means a need to shed an old identity, as our wallets are full of IDs that supposedly tell who we are. I proposed that losing the wallet was a painful but synchronistic shock meant to awaken him to the need to shed an old identity that no longer served him. Since this related to things he was going through, he experienced this interpretation as empowering, transforming the painful shock into a catalyst for his metamorphosis. Notice that I incurred no moral hazard in providing him with a less logically efficient interpretation. I wouldn't use the technique, however, if I were on the jury of a murder trial, only where it's appropriate and life-affirming.

Consider that the truth is sometimes unformed and waiting for you to choose an interpretation that will govern the ensuing timeline. Consider this an auspicious occasion for you to give form to the formless.