Tarot Sample by the Fool's Dog

, 30 Jan 2021

 

This is one of the best fully free tarot apps on Google Play. It is a sampler of the different tarot and oracle decks that the Fool's Dog developer has on the market, and chooses images and cards from all of her available decks.If you don't know which deck you'd like to purchase or connect with or want to know how the decks work on your smartphone or tablet, this is the perfect primer. Besides, the variety makes every reading different and never boring as you don't know which decks are going to be used. Furthermore, the mismatch sometimes brings further insights. 

The Fool's Dog has digitally published some of the best decks out there, so the selection is fantastic and covers all imaginable art styles. The main downside is, of course, the lack of image style consistency and visual congruence, which can be very important for some people to connect with any given deck. Yet, you won't notice that on 1- or 2-card readings. To be fair, I installed this app thinking that I would uninstall it quickly and this deck has become of my favs because the answers I usually get from my queries are quire on point and give me real guidance. 

THE APP

The app is fully functional and has all the pros of the Fool's Dog, which make the experience quite close to what is having a reading with real cards. It is not the same, not so tactile and energetic, but I've found that once you get used to the app, your readings are as precise as the ones you get with your real decks. The features that the app has are:

> Customizable tablecloths.

> Sound prompts for cards, which can be turned on and off.

> Journal.

> You can add your personal meaning to the cards. 

>  Plenty of layouts to choose from. 

> Able to choose the major arcana or the whole deck, upright and reverse readings, or switch off reverse meanings.

> Several kinds of shuffles and several options for selecting your card after shuffling.

> Zoomable images, so that you can check every small detail in the image. 

> Sharing feature. 

> Great quality digital images.

> The whole deck booklet or booklet available.

> Information about the deck and its authors.



Oracle of Mystical Moments by Catrin Weltz-Stein


The Oracle of Mystical Moments is both a joy and a disappointment. 

THE ARTWORK

I bought this deck because I absolutely love Welz-Stein artwork, and in that regard, I knew I would love the deck imagery. Indeed, the cards are a pleasure on their own. There is artistic congruence in the style and coloring, something that I don't take for granted, which gives the deck personality and the special surreal mood it has. The artist's world is a mix of fin-de-siecle, circus revival and oneiric images, with a predominant presence of air, water and earth elements. The moon, flying and the garden are the most predominant settings. The resulting deck is an unique wondrous mix. . 

 THE ORACLE

This is a totally intuitive deck, as there are no given rules.The intuitive way is my favourite way, but for whatever reason, despite loving the art, I can barely connect with the cards.  I don't always see the connection between the image and the meaning chosen when I cast the oracle. The cute accompanying booklet is too brief to provide much insight, except for the artist's own interpretation.

The first impression I got was that there are some suits in the deck, as the card bottom, where the meaning is written, is coloured in different pastel colours. However, upon closer inspection, these are decorative elements and seem not to connect cards between themselves. I find that confusing from a reading point of view.

I think this is a very personal deck for the artist, a deck that reflects who she is, and how she sees the world. Something done for her personal use and that she's sharing with us.

This is a predominantly feminine deck, with very few males in it, so I find difficult to inquire about things regarding relationships and males in general. I find the seduction/lovers card very funny because the guy is not there, is like she's like a rash on him, but he's not interested in her. He's somewhat frigid.

 

THE DECK

> The deck size is perfect, not too small not too big.  Easy to carry.
> Packaging is simple but the containing box is utterly beautiful.
> The card backs is simple and classy, without any fanciful detail, which is a nice contrast to the fanciful front images.
> Cardboard is the right thickness, not too thin not too thick, and flexible. The paper has a bit of satin, so the handling is pleasurable, and the shuffle easy and enjoyable.   
> Cards don't have reverse meanings. 


IN SHORT
I see this deck mostly as a collectable, something you want to have because it is beautiful, original and unique, not as much to use it on a daily basis for your oracle casts. 
 

The Faery Forest Oracle by Lucy Cavendish & Maxine Gadd

THE DECK

I use this app mostly to ask about how other people perceive me, see me and feel me, therefore to help me in relational queries. That is, I don't use the deck to ask the fairies about predictions or  advice for myself or queries about other people. I use it to be aware of which of the fairies' archetypes is working in me. Readings are usually very accurate and they match the energy that I felt I had on the day of the query. This is, needless to say, a very feminine deck and, that being the case, it might not resonate with some male users.

I LOVE

> The imagery is wonderful re concept, digital quality, coloring and overall artistic congruence. 

> One can use the app freely, intuitively, or use the guidebook to get the advice that each fairy wants to convey to the reader.

> Several layouts to choose from. 

> You can shuffle with/without shuffle sound. 

> Readings can be saved and shared.


DECK APP DOWNSIDES

In this specific deck, the contrast between the text meaning and the background is really poor, as you can see in the screenshot below. 

OCEANHOUSE APPS DOWNSIDES

> The return from the card back to the front is not intuitive. It would be just natural using the back arrow on the smartphone bottom menu to go back, but, if you do that, you'll be out of the application. Instead, you have to use the curly back arrow button in the cards, and the triangular back arrow in the information area. I have been using Oceanhouse apps for years and I still have trouble remembering the curly back arrow, just because is contra smart-phone use natura.

> Impossible to zoom in the image to focus on the small details.  

> Just one way of shuffling the cards, not several. In that regards, Oceanhouse has plenty to learn from the other major tarot app house, The Fool's Dog.

> No tablecloths available. There is one background. 

> Users cannot add their own meaning to the cards to customize the deck.

> Oceanhouse, now and then, inserts promotional info when they are launching a new app. That's annoying because all of their decks must be paid in full to be used, aren't cheap, and there is no need to bother customers with something that they might naturally be interested on and look up themselves. At least that is my case.  It is also true that sometimes they advertise discounts and special pricing, but I would rather not have adds on my fully-paid app.



Boadicea's Tarot of Earthly Delights by Paula Millet, Caroline Kenner & Stephen Linhart

, 29 Jan 2021

I have plenty of tarot apps, many of the Fool's Dog among them, and this has become an instant favorite. The artwork is superb: painting-like, classy, full of symbolism, wondrous and whimsical, multilayered, all of which make it not only pleasing to the eye but also perfect for intuitive readings. Although it is a proper Tarot, it has all the qualities that I look for in an oracle deck, i.e. the ability of reply to specific questions with specific questions without the reading having to have any specific knowledge of the Tarot. 
 
I use this app every day and the replies to my queries are always on point and relevant to the question posed. However, we find the four elements and main 
 
Tarot suits also here, but reinvented in the following way:
Combustion = Fire = Wands
Aether = Air = Swords
Fungi = Earth =  Pentacles
Octopi = Water = Cups

THE APP
Like the rest of the Fool's Dog Tarots, the app is versatile, easy to use, intuitive and muti-functional. There are plenty of spreads layouts, even a free one, and extra functionalities like:
* Allow reversed cards or not.
* Option to use Major Arcana only.
* Zoom in to enlarge card details.
* Share reading via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter.
* Animated shuffle & cut.
* Optional voice prompts.
* Customizable reading cloths, shuffling and card selection among others.

 
 

The text book, unabridged, is  also fantastic. The main summary in bold at the beginning of each card is very helpful and goes to the point, and sometimes it is just perfect in itself. Otherwise, you keep reading. 
 
Overall, one of my most reliable and favorite Tarot and Tarot apps ever. 

  


Oracle of the 7 Energies by Colette Baron-Reid

I have several Colette's decks and they are among my favourite as they are on point most times and are delightful to look at. In that regard, this deck fits the Colette's deck philosophy, but providing us with new intuitive insights and approaches to oracle readings.
 
The association of colours to each element, which is shown in the card number marquee matches the colours associated to the 7 chakras. Thus, green goes with the heart chakra, love and relationships. Blue goes with the throat chakra and communication. Purple goes with the third eye chakra and intuition. And so forth.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS DECK

> The cards and guidebook are beautifully packed in a good-quality cardboard box, with a pull-up ribbon to help get the cards out.
> The cards are quite large but not bulky or heavy and they are very flexible and easy to shuffle.
> Original conception. It mixes the four elements, the four tarot suits and the seven chakras.  
> The cards can be used together with the guidebook or on their own.  That is, it's a great deck for intuitive readings using your own system as the images are very evocative and symbolically rich.
> I love having some tarot cards reinvented, like the ace of cups, the ace of hearts, the world, the wheel of fortune, the high priestess, the trickster, and strength.
> No reverse readings.
> Amazing inspiring digital artwork that will get your intuition flowing.
> Good quality print.
> Good value for money. 


ODD TO ME
 > It took me a while to get used to the deck and to customize the meanings for me personally.
> Answers not always relate to my queries.  So, this is, so far, not as mind blowing as other Colette's decks.  
>  The element air, which goes with swords and thought is nowhere to be found in the correspondence table in pages 7 and 8 of the guidebook.  We guess it goes with the 7th suit, devoted to thought and light.
> I found at bit unsettling having images that go together in style and conception as part of different 'suits' as the show a lack of energetic and artistic congruence. For example, card 43 from the light suit is very similar in conception and style to card number 7 from the earth suit; the same can be said of cards no, 5 and 48.
>  Many of the water lilies images fit together as a glove, but they are spread all over the deck with meanings that aren't always there, at least for me. Like the cards 5 body and soul, 45 Spirit of gratitude, and 48 a burst of magic for example.
> Some cards imagery and the intuitive value given to them do not match at all for me. Said differently, there is some sort of mismatch between the message and the image. Examples, 5 Body and soul; 6 It is what it is; 12 bearing fruit;16 royal you; 24 let it go; 35 a tall tale; 37 the oracle gift; 45 a spirit of gratitude, and 48 a burst of magic.
> I wish the cards had been text-less.    



MY REINTERPRETATION
After going through the text, herewith my reinterpretation:
1- Grounded.
2- Roots. Rut.
3- Magic portal. Entering. You have to come in. The Unknown.  
4- Ace of cups.
5- Lilly pond. Lotus flower.  
6- Magic door. Door to magic. Enchanted portal.
7- Meditate. Calm your mind. Spa time.
8- Enlightened sensuality. Inner light.
9- Summer. Open rose. Fragrance of love.
10- Barriers are in your mind. Fly away. False trap. Trapped beauty.
11- Key to a magic new world. Starry night. The world is opening for you.
12- Ecosystem. Magic tree. Tree of life. Autumn.
13- The world is in your hands. A world of possibilities. Small world.  
14- Opening of the heart. Heart shining through,  
15- Chess king/queen. Ball in your court. Unlock your potential.
16- Crowned . Open heart.
17- I can hear you. Music is everywhere.
18- The wheel of fortune.
19- Wilderness. Strength.
20 - Magic night.  Enchanted.
21- Divine eye. You see everything. Crown chakra. Connection with spirit.
22- Caress. Thick skin.  
23. In my heart. Healing of the heart.
24- Thriving heart. Unbreakable heart connection.
25- Birds of a feather flock together.
26- My heart sings. Sparks in my heart. Mystical heart.
27 - Symphony of love. My heart sings.
28- Mind-heart-body connection. Enlightenment.
29- Dream power. Inner Shaman.
30- Inner burst. Orgasm.
31- Enticing. Dancer. Sensuality.
32- Meditate.
33- The trickster.
34- Portal to a new world/life. Night dream travels.
35- Looking for the maker. Vital journey. Find you identity.  
36- Heightened intuition. Third eye. Seeing through and beyond.
37- Use your oracles. Witchy. Potion. Have a tea.
38 - We are the Universe. Magic is everywhere. Magical thinking. Feel the magic.
39- Dream magic. Introspection. Making a heartfelt wish. Inner child.  
40- Convergence. Heading to the same destination.
41- Eagle point of view. Look at things from a different point of view. Wise woman.
42- Distorted mirror. Confusion. Unclear image.
43- Beautiful mind. Mindful gift.
44- Heaven. The Universe. Magic realms. Connection to the divine.
45- Beyond the ordinary. Soulful person. Special person.
46- Navigate your emotions. Feelings and emotions as a your guide.  
47- Universal love. Love made in heaven.
48- Night opening. Sweet smell.
49- Let the wind will carry you.  Fragile beauty. Lightness. 
 
 

Older Women, Younger Men: New Options for Love and Romance by Felicia Brings & Susan Winter (2000)

, 17 Oct 2020

 Now that I've finished this book, having dated some much younger men myself in the past it reflects very well some of my experiences, obstacles and challenges when dating them. Surprisingly and sadly enough, despite the book having been first been published in 2000, is still fresh and relevant two decades later.

Main Takeaways.

> Our culture has double standards for age differences between both sexes that are demeaning and damaging for women and are based on patriarchal views of relationships and of what a woman brings to a relationship for this to be successful.
> Couples with important age differences face the same challenges as other couples, and succeed and fail in the same ways and as much.
> Inter-age relationships in which the woman is much older are a new paradigm in relationships that hasn't sunk in in our culture as yet. These couples are creating new archetypal ways of relating, have to make their way on their own, and can’t look to former relationship models to guide them through this journey.
> Despite what your friends or the media tells you, there are gazillion examples of happy durable inter-age relationships in which the woman is older or much older.
> The book offers practical sound advice to face both partner's family and peers, on how to deal with women's own doubts about the relationship and body image, and advice on who not to become your younger partner's mother, teacher or just smother him, among other things. There are many real life examples and we get to see both sides, men's and women's who are/were in this kind of relationship and are/were happy and fulfilled.
> Courtship old-style works also in this kind of relationships.
>  The fact that men are much younger doesn't ever excuse their bad behavior.
> The authors reminds us of what true intimacy is and what is not is so obvious and so poignant.
> It debunks the myth that all young men who date older women are gigolos and also the myth that these older women have a wounded ego and/or are nymphomaniacs.
> There are many challenges specific to this kind of relationships.
> This quote from one of the real life stories: “God,” I prayed, “send me someone who loves my body more than I do.” (p. 154).
> You may not be what his family expected him to bring home and you may not have been their choice as his mate, but a family who truly is invested in their son’s happiness will see the benefits and happiness you bring to his life. (pp. 180-181).

Downsides.

> Perhaps the main downside of the book is the fact that the book feels a bit repetitive at times re the existence of double standards and the patriarchal weight on the views on this kind of relationships.
> Some of the examples come from couples whose age difference isn't even 10 years, something that I personally don't consider a bit deal, and is widely accepted nowadays.
> As this is a Kindle edition, I would have loved a bit of update been made using new psychology and relationships studies and the evolution of relationships in society.
 

Kindle Edition.

A good edition overall, but the two links provided re websites to dating without age restrictions mentioned at the end of  the book aren't longer current.

The Third Reich of dreams: The nightmares of a nation, 1933-1939 by Charlotte Beradt & Bruno Bettelheim (1968))


I came across this book thanks to an article in the New Yorker and an interview with the psychotherapist Martha Crawford (who has recently carried out a research project on Trump dreams) in which she quotes this book as a source of inspiration.
 
This is a terrific book that feels as fresh and poignant as ever. The book covers the period that precedes WW2. Many of these dreams came to light before the racial laws, persecution, denigration and killing of Jews started.
 
The book is short and fascinating, but not an easy read by any means. The dreams Beradt selected are really interesting, most of them very expressive.

 

Dream Reports.
Charlotte Beradt was a German Jewish journalist. After the Nazis got in power, she was forbidden to publish anything. Besides, she was arrested during the first mass detentions of Communists carried out in Germany. After her release, she started gathering dream reports. By 1939, she had gathered dreams from more than 300 people. I am not sure whether that equals to 300 dreams, as The New Yorker says, because that is not stated in the book, or at least in the edition I've read. In fact, Beradt mentions that some of the dreamers had recurrent dreams about a certain subject, so I guess the volume was higher than 300 dreams.
 
She gathered some of them by candidly asking people about their dreams. Others were obtained through friends, especially thru a doctor friend who asked his patients during consultation. The dreamers came from different social backgrounds, had different ages and gender, and were both Jews and non-Jews. A common denominator was the deep impact that the dream had had in them.
 
After writing the dreams and changing leading Nazi leaders' names to coded family-like names, she hide the transcripts inside the binding of her personal books. When the burning of books and home intrusions began in Germany, Beradt mailed her notes to friends overseas.
 
 
Publication.
During WW2, in 1943, the magazine Free World published a small selection of 'her' dreams titled, "Dreams Under Dictatorship". Beradt says in her book that the time circumstances prevented her from evaluating all the material. She published the book in German in 1966 and in English in 1968.  She recognizes the advantage of having delayed the publication. By the time she started the book, a good amount of archival and historical information was ready available, something that helped her to better contextualize the dreams she had gathered.
 
 
Types of Dreams.
Each chapter deals with a type of dream reaction to the then current political situation. Several types of dreams can be clearly distinguished.
 
Propaganda Dreams.
Political propaganda and Nazi imagery start to 'infect' dreams and appear as specific dream motifs -- banners, posters, media messages and tones. Dreamers begin to feel that life is losing its joy.
 
 
Spied-on Dreams.
Dreams involving household objects that record the dreamers' voice or thoughts at home, for the regime to spy on them. Some dreamers would censor themselves in the dream so that they couldn't be spied, even if it is by speaking in images or languages they don't even understand; this was not a dream ego's decision, but an unconscious decision.
 
 
Unable-to-Speak Dreams.
In these dreams, dreamers are reluctant or unable to speak their truth when there are Nazi people in the  dream. Another person, usually a foreigner, comes forward and speaks their mind, replicating the dreamer's thoughts.
 
 
Dissociative Dreams.
The dreamer wants to dissociate from Jewish family members, friends or love interests, even if they had just a tiny amount of Jewish blood. The regime's pressure invades and pervades their dreams, so the dreamer feels that there is nothing one can do but to comply.
 
 
Wrong-Race Dreams.
Dreamers, in their dreams, would be marginalized, confronted or punished for having physical features that weren't those belonging to the "superior" race -- Nordic traits, white skin, and blond hair. In this group, Beradt also includes dreams of dreamers suffering the same treatment not because of their race, but because they adhered to ideologies that weren't that of National Socialism.
 
 
Resistance Dreams.
Dreams from people who offered active resistance to the regime. Their dreams clearly reflect their waking life attitudes. They take action, and neither parodied, morphed or degraded themselves to conform, fit in or hide.
 
 
Wishy-Washy Dreams.
In these dreams, the dreamer has a readiness to deceive and construct alibis for oneself while getting closer and moving towards the dominant force, people and ideology. That is, there is an ambivalence between not liking what is occurring in the dream, or the people in the dream, but also longing for being part of that very group or situation they dislike. 'I don’t have to always say no anymore” summarises well this attitude of belonging.
 
 
Pals-with-Hitler Dreams.
The dreamer is friends with or advisor of Hitler, Goering, or Goebbels. Beradt says that these dreams clearly show the connection between power and the erotic. They seem to be more prominent in women, replicating the pro-Hitler voting patterns of women. By the way, these dreams came from people who weren't part of the system or didn't desire to submit to it.
 
 
The Jews' Dreams.
Their dreams dealt with problems of disorientation, depersonalization, loss of identity, continuity, emigration, nostalgia, and fear of losing one's mother tongue, among others. Fear and anxiety pervade them. More than any other dreamers, Jews were able to recognize the aims and principles of totalitarianism and foresee their consequences. Their dreams ring prophetic in retrospect and have a dream imagery with an almost-naturalistic clairvoyance. These dreams had dramatic events involving passports, visas and personal documents.
 
 
Nuggets.
Feelings.
The totalitarian regime produced alienation, isolation, loss of identity, dislocation, and feeling of not being able to psychologically escape the horror, even when the dreamers had already flown Germany.
 
We witness dreamers' anxiety, helplessness, and near absence of wish to fight back. This is so because totalitarian systems build on people's inner anxiety. At its turn, this anxiety prevents one from directing his/her resentment towards the source that generates it, and deflect it to people or situations that aren't the source of their suffering.

The dreams that reflected the dreamer's anxiety about being dark-haired or dark-skinned echo the Afro-American's attitudes toward their own skin. (It clearly shows in a  speech that Lupita Nyongo gave speaking about her feelings of inadequacy about her skin colour and her beauty.) That is, they felt that there was something undesirable within them; this feeling opened them to psychological defeat as those who saw things that way took advantage of that.

 
The Unconscious.
The Nazi regime destroyed the healthy balance between submission and self-assertion. It invaded and controlled the deepest most private recesses of the mind until, even in the unconscious, only submission remained.

Dreamers had the unconscious need to purge their own unconscious mind of any desire to fight back, of any belief that rebellion can succeed, as any expression of hatred or resistance endangered one's life.

To the personal unconscious the cost of  fighting for freedom against the regime is too high, so it considers bondage and submission a better option. That's the case even in the dreams of people who believed that they could still salvage some things.

Weaknesses.
Totalitarian regimes succeed because they aggravate people's inner weaknesses, feed on them, depriving people from the strength to fight back.

When a dictatorship establishes itself in the paternal position, it starts treating everyone as an incompetent child. Even more, everyone unconsciously assumes that that's their position. The result is a regression in the person's unconscious to the infantile stance, which further favours their manipulation and control.

If people had been unequivocally clear about their alliance or rejection of the Nazis, there wouldn't have been room for inner conflict. People in the resistance clearly stood up against the Nazis in their dreams,  and their unconscious didn't show any hesitance, conflict or double alliance.
 
 
Epilogue.
Bettleheim's Layer.
The epilogue is an essay by the then prestigious (now infamous) Austrian psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, a Jewish who was in two concentration camps but was lucky enough to survive. Beradt wasn't a psychologist, so Bettelheim commentary offers an extra layer of analysis an sums up things for the reader quite well. He's able to explain how dictatorship does to destroy people's uniqueness, inner resistance, and how it reverts adult consciousness. Using Berad'st dreams he also explains how totalitarianism can turn people into alienated fearful unconscious psychological pawns at the regime's service.

At times, Bettleheim shows a patronising attitude towards Beradt, something that I didn't like at all.

Concentration Camps Dreams.
He compares Beradt's selected dreams and dreamer's attitudes with those that the Jews in concentration camps had. Bettelheim says:
"The concentration camp prisoner hardly ever dreamt about the dangers that stalked him, nor about persecution by the Nazis. (...)  There was no more struggle in the unconscious between the wish to be oneself and the wish to give in to the Nazis, for most of what mattered had already been destroyed. (...) Most of their dreams were of the good times they had had or were going to have—reassuring themselves that the nightmare of the camps was not permanent. Others were dreams of escape or revenge. (...). We know of the dreams of resistance fighters (...) Hardly any of them were about forcing oneself to obey the enemy by suppressing one's will".

Premonitions.
Bettelheim explains the prophetic and premonitory nature of many of the dreams presented in the book as a natural phenomenon. They are a wise guess/reading of the subconscious, which clearly foresees what the situation is, and where things are heading.

The 'It' Question.
He makes the million-dollar question,"If all of us abhorred the Third Reich, why did it exist? Must there not have been feelings, unknown to our conscious mind, that condoned it, accepted it, willed it? Even among those who lived in fear and trembling of the Nazis, might there not have been in them somewhere, deep down, a layer of soul closely kin to that regime of terrible domination?"  Although his comments seems a bit insensitive and confronting, they are actually a reflection on what Jung called the Shadow, the collective version of it.
 
 
My Thoughts.
Freshness.
This book feels fresh despite the many decades elapsed since Beradt wrote it. In the current times of revival of extremism, fascism and populism, this book is a powerful reminder of how totalitarian regimes can easily mince and amalgamate our individual psyche into a mass of nothingness.

Methodology.
The fact that Beradt and/or her friends transcribed the dreams and not always the dreamer, poses some methodological questions.  Were all the reports reliable and trustworthy? Did Beradt & Co. transfer psychological personal stuff into their transcriptions?

Complex Language.
Beradt and Bettleheim's political and psychological analysis is excellent. However, the language they use is sometimes complex, and many lay readers might struggle with the authors' digressions.
 
 
No Beradt or Bettleheim's Dreams.
Beradt was a Jew and lived in Germany in the period of her study. Why didn't she share any of her dreams? Were her dreams disguised in the book?  I would have loved her comments on how the regime affected her personal dream world.
 
Bettleheim speaks about the dreams of Jews in concentration camps. However, he neither mentions anything personal. Perhaps what he says refers to himself, but I would have loved something more explicit coming from him because he had first-hand experience.

No Nazis' Dreams.
I agree with Bettleheim that it would have been good collecting dreams from the Nazis, their supporters, or those who didn't mind the regime, and then compare them with those presented in the book. However, one cannot expect Beradt to collect them because she was a prosecuted Jew and it would have not been wise to approach Nazi sympathizers and ask them about their dreams.
 
A study of this type would be really revealing. It would give us a glimpse into the collective unconscious overall, and what really created the monster. Were the regime's sympathizers also secretly resisting? Did they feel superior in their dreams? Did this people's dreams show fear of the Jews? Of the Nazis? Was their dream world much different from the non-supporters?

Nightmares or Bad Dreams?
Despite the title, there is no clear statement in the book about whether the dreams commented on were true nightmares, bad dreams or normal dreams with bad stories. We just know that some of them were recurrent and distressing. This differentiation is important to evaluate the real impact they had in the dreamer's life, and to see where the trauma sat, in which stage the trauma was.

Belonging.
I am not sure whether the best-pals-with-Hitler dreams are solely a reflection of the eroticism of power. I'd  say that, if you are in danger because a bully wants to hurth you, you would secretely wish to be friends with them so that you wouldn't be attacked. Besides, you would not understand why you you were being singled out and bullied, so it would be just natural wishing that they knew how lovely you are, and accept you for who you are, so their peers woud also see it. I also think that the transparency myth might be playing a role here. One expect well-manered warm passionate people to be good, not a killing monster.

Identity Papers.
Dreams revolving about passports and visas are  common among immigrants, even if they live in a democracy. Yet, the dream motif rightly points out to how strongly our identity and our papers are linked in the modern world.

Social Dreaming.
Beradt's book shows how dreams are both the fruit of our personal unconscious and of the collective unconscious. She says that these dreams were conceived independently of their authors’ conscious will and were dictated to them by dictatorship. We can consider it a precursor of Social Dreaming, which departs from the premise that our dreams offer infinite insight into the world we live in. "The unconscious is a source of thinking for systems and for society, and that dreams are an unconscious form of thinking that may give access to what is not otherwise known or thought."

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know by Macolm Gladwell (2019)

, 24 Dec 2019

Gladwell has the talent to speak of relevant issues that affect our modern society and still make the issue engaging and fascinating.

In Talking to Strangers Gladwell uses different study cases coming from the world of politics, espionage, business, court trials, rape, and murder, among others, to extract some common denominators that explain how and why we all relate to strangers the way we do, why we are so bad at talking at strangers, at detecting blatant lies, and seeing  what we really have in front of our us for what it is.

This is an enjoyable, fascinating and complex book waved like an Irish Jersey, using different wool threads and knitting techniques to produce an unique product. Said differently, this isn't a straightforward book. Sometimes, Gladwell seems to be talking about things that have nothing to do with the subject of the book; however, if you listen attentively, you'll realise that everything being said serves to make a point.  If you aren't able to follow a path through a forest to get to destination, this book it isn't for you; this is how the book feels, so the light isn't always there, the path might be obscure and meandering, but keep walking and you'll get there.

After finishing the book I found myself noticing some of the things he comments on the book while watching the news, or talking to my brother about his coworkers, for example. What Gladwell says is really applicable to our daily life and it allows us to see ourselves with a bit of more compassion. 

I love learning new things, and this book was packed with information I knew nothing about:
  • Default truth.
  • Transparency myth.
  • Facial Action Coding System (FADS).
  • Illusion of asymmetric insight. 
  • Kafka Scenario.
  • Myopia theory of alcohol.
  • Displacement theory.
  • And much more. 

SUMMARY OF THE BOOK

We are terrible at talking and making sense of strangers and detecting lies; even judges in court cannot escape this flaw. We all make the same assumptions about strangers, use stereotypes that are rarely true, and believe that the information we gather from a personal interaction is uniquely valuable and reliable, when, in fact, it is far from it.  This is so because our strategies in dealing with strangers are flawed by three evolutionary psychological and cultural constrictions:
1/ Truth Default Theory. We depart from the assumption that everyone we deal with is truthful. We believe something about someone not because we don't have doubts about them, but because we don't have enough doubts. DTT has evolutionary advantages as prevents us from living in paranoia and allows us to have meaningful encounters and relationships. DTT becomes a problem when we are forced to choose between two alternatives, one of them likely and the other impossible to imagine; DTT buys us in favour of the most likely interpretation.
2/ Transparency Myth. We believe that we can decipher a person's nature by looking at their facial expression and paying attention to their demeanor, as we are convinced that those are a window to their soul. In other words, we believe that their behaviour and intentions are an exact match. We can largely blame literature and movies for perpetuating this belief. It's an halo effect. Blind auditions and computer decisions are usually more accurate in deciphering strangers than people. Because we tend to judge people' honesty based on their demeanor, nervous and odd people who offer convoluted explanations aren't seen as believable, and we don't do well with mismatches and social misfits.
3/ Coupling. We aren't able to understand the importance of the context in which a stranger operates, since behaviors are linked to specific circumstances and conditions. For example, some behaviours are consciously coupled to a place or circumstance, like suicide or crime.


THE NOT SO GOOD
The introduction, where  Gladwell discuses the famous meeting between Hernan Cortes and Montezuma and their misunderstanding of each other's intentions. The episode per se is really enjoyable, but the problem was a linguistic problem, a problem of translation, not a problem of not knowing how to talk to strangers. It relates to language and communication, how language and translation work. How strangers work, not so much.

The chapter on alcohol consumption and rape. Granted, most of what Gladwell says about how alcohol affects one's brain, personality and behaviour is true. However, it adds little value to the core thread of the book, and any other example would have worked better. In addition, I find confronting some of the thing he says. I side more with the statement of the raped girl, who didn't blame the alcohol for her rape,  but culture or the way some men are educated. Why do some drunk guys rape drunk girls and not others? is a simple question that can serve to debunk his fixation on alcohol. I am not saying that being drunk doesn't contribute to the problem,  but women are raped every day in countries where alcohol is forbidden and not consumed, doesn't that say something about the intrinsic nature of the problem?

Although I found all the case studies fascinating, the conclusion we get after going through all of them is really simple -- We don't know much about strangers because we are psychologically and culturally wired to be like that, so the only thing we can do is not to apply stereotypes, act with caution and humility towards strangers. What is that supposed to mean? Are there some social, sociological or psychological strategies that we can implement to improve our approach to strangers? Some ways of communication that favor or are detrimental to dealing with strangers beyond what it is said in the book? Are there cultures where people react towards strangers in ways that are wiser and more insightful? I was left wanting a bit of more digging.
 
THE AUDIBLE EDITION
This audio book is a delight to listen to. This is one of those cases when the audio book is better than the written book, and that it's an achievement in itself. 

Gladwell, who also narrates the book, is a terrific storyteller. He knows how to use his voice to read in a way that seems natural, effortless and engaging. He's passionate about what he's talking about, so you can feel the excitement in his voice. He's not an actor or a presenter, so we shouldn't forget that.

Besides, the audio book includes Gladwell's snippets of his interviews with some of the subjects or researchers mentioned in the book. The audio book also reproduces some media and archival interviews, and includes reenactments of some private court proceedings using court transcripts. 
The book chapters are connected by a tribal song. which Gladwell heard and selected himself for the book. It seems irrelevant to the book, but it's quite the contrary.

Listening to this book was like listening to a documentary. It had that sort of freshness and cinematic quality. Delightful.

The Premonition Code: The Science of Precognition by Theresa Cheung & Julia Mossbridge (2018).

, 3 Dec 2019

The Premonition Code is a book that intends to explain precognition and promote controlled precognitive training called controlled precognition based on positive grounds and well-rounded ethics; the trainees are called Positive Precogs.

The book starts with an introduction to how the book came to be, the stories that inspired it, and the analysis of some scientific information that relates to precognition: the nature of time, causality law, retrocausality, causal loops, and multiple futures. The second part is actually where the training to develop or further your precognitive abilities and skills is discussed and explained in detail. Part three is mostly devoted to the FAQ and to speculation about what the future holds for precognitive people and precognition.

 

THE CORE OF THE BOOK

  • There is more to this life than meets the eye, precognition exists. The definition of precognition that the authors use is consistent with the many-futures theory.
  • There may be a spiritual dimension to precognition.
  • Most of the precognitive stories that people have, despite being real, they are not scientifically verifiable, or easily verifiable either. How do we know that someone has had a genuinely precognitive dream experience is nothing can know with 100% certainty at present.
  • There is a lot of disagreement about how the flow of time works and how or whether one thing causes another. 
  • The criteria necessary to validate that a precognition is genuine: 1/ Two or more correspondences between the precognition and the event. 2/ Less than two weeks delay between the precognition and the event). 3/ One could not have the way to predict the event using the conscious mind. 4/ You recorded the experience before the event happened.
  • The training to become what they call positive precogs, i.e. rained precognitive people who follow a code of contact and use their abilities for good purposes.  This code is based on:
    •  Following the R.E.A.C.H. principles: Respect for the unknown — Ethics in our use of precognition — Accuracy of our precognitive skills — Compassion for ourselves and others —Honesty in all our dealings. 
    • Adhering to the Positive Precog Time Worldview: 1/ Events in the future can influence events in the past and vice versa. 2/The future isn't fixed. 3/ No one has complete control of the future.
    • Daily practicing on controlled precognition, and record of dreams, premonition experiences, and strong impulses an insights related to future events. 
    • Following the six steps for controlled precognition: Step 1: Prepare physically, mentally and practically. Step 2: Reverse the polarity: write down an intention that supports you, and open yourself to receive. Step 3: Connect to the target: give your session a random 4 digit number, draw a squiggle, and set the intention of connecting with the target. Step 4: Learn and discern. Step 5: Disconnect from the target. Step 6: Experience the target.
    •  Following a professional code of ethics with clients.

CURIO

  • The frequency of precognition increases as the event being predicted nears. It’s really rare to have a precognitive dream that predicts an event as far as a year after the dream itself, although it happens.
  • Some personality traits are more conducive to performing well at precognition experiments in the lab. These are: Openness to experience, extroversion, belief in precognition, agreeableness, neuroticism and conscientiousness.  They are enhanced by meditation and affected by hormonal changes.   
  • Alpha and theta entrainment might help with controlled precognition.
  •  Pursuing controlled precognition in an environment that is not supportive can be destabilizing, and affect patients mentally, especially if they already have underlying psychological problems, or have a history of mental illness in their family.

I LIKED

> The authors are direct and honest about the subject, and show an unwavering enthusiasm about the benefits that training in controlled precognition can bring to one's life and the future of society. 
> The different approaches that both authors bring to precognition: science and spirit, academic and lay.
> The book is written in a very direct personal way, plain English, and is easy to understand by any lay person.
> I especially loved this statement by Dean Radin in the foreword:
"Some scientists today assert (with the same misplaced confidence displayed by Lord Kelvin) that now we understand just about everything there is to know about the physical world. They are sure they know what is and is not possible. To them, precognition is flatly impossible because today’s theories don’t allow for such nonsense. Some philosophers also believe that precognition is impossible because they think the idea of knowing the future is logically incoherent. What these scientists and scholars forget is that our theories about reality are always provisional. Our college textbooks are revised into new editions every couple of years because our understanding of reality is continually advancing." (p. 6).
> The precognitive and premonitory personal stories included in the book. I don't think there are too many!
> The controlled precognition system. It is really well explained and structured. Although they suggest the use of paper, I think it can be easily done on a tablet where you have stylus to draw.
> The presence of summary  boxes throughout the book. Also, the way the authors stop to summarize what has been said and what lies ahead. It's very didactic and helpful for the reader.
> Some of the scientific stuff related to precognition is not easy to process by lay readers. Mossbridge has really made an effort to explain those things as simple as possible, and present us with the complexity of issues that relate to precognition explained in a simple way.
> Their definition of precognition (a “memory” of the future) and the explanation on what's the difference between precognition and premonition.
> The reflections on the nature of time in chapter 2 are among my favorite thing in the book. I especially liked seeing how neither physicist, philosophers nor psychologists agree on the flow of time existence, and how little we know about this subject. I wonder if this is like the "flat earth" fallacy of our times.
> The way the authors question the law of causality using real precognitive dreams.
> The information about retrocausality.
> The code of ethics and REACH protocol that they want 'positive precogs' to follow.
> The use of proper academic notes, something especially important when some heavy scientific stuff is mentioned.
> The FAQ in part 3.
>  The controlled precognition troubleshooting guide. 
> Appendix A, which contains an example of controlled precognition, step by step. 
> Appendix B, contains a list of bibliography, websites and phone applications related to precognition. All up to date, hyperlinked and ready to use. Something that I never take for granted and that makes using any book a pleasure.
> Mentions to figures in the book are hyperlinked. Thank you. 

I DIDN'T LIKE.

> Use of the expression Higher Self to mean subconscious/the unconscious. It is confusing because HS  is commonly used in New Age books and has a standard and a status that might confuse readers.
> They call the training on precognition they promote "controlled precognition", but it is just a form of remote viewing. If they had made that clearer in the book description, I might have not purchased it. Whey? Because there are some very good books by the remote viewing masters themselves, and some of them have websites where to practice, as well.
> They speak of precognition as a gift. I think it is just an ability that one can develop, like playing an instrument, or playing sports. Of course, if you are at the top of your game in any activity you might really have a gift. Otherwise, I don't think so.
> I found difficult wrapping my head about causal loops. It might be just me, but it relates to precognition but it is not the same, but it might be  related... confusing.
> Some parts of the book are highly speculative and generic. This is especially the case when they describe how life will change if you practice controlled precognition, and the last words devoted to imagine how the future might be if controlled precognition was a mainstream activity.
>  Constant promotion of their website. Granted, they don't sell anything or charge you for joining their training program. However, it is a bit tiring, and at a certain point the reader feels that the book is just an accessory to the website.
> I don't like precognition being used or recommended to be used in anything related to the stock market. The stock market is highly unethical, so why would anyone with a good code of ethics have anything to do with a system that is populated by companies and corporations that contribute to global warming, war, poverty and destroy nations and  ruin complete families who have nothing to do with it?
> Despite the fact that they state that most spontaneous precognition arrives via dreams, there is little space devoted to discuss how premonitory dreams can come to be; leaving aside the specific dreams that they mention in the book, the information that they present on dreams is really basic.
>  One of the criteria mentioned for a genuine precognition to be valid is that there should be less than two weeks separation between the precognition and the event it referred to. My personal experience says that this is not always the case. Besides, I've read tons of books on dreams, and there are cases of premonition that take years to occur.

WHERE WAS THE EDITOR?

 I think the book needs of another reading by the editor. I found the following examples of bad edition, some of which might be just the result of the conversion of the book to electronic format. Others, no.
  • Bad bullet list —  the sentence "Wait, you might now ask – what exactly is a causal loop?" should go underneath the numbered list that summarizes what the authors had said before.  (p. 42).
  • Badly done bullet list — There is a list of the traits that 'positive precogs' tend to have, it is an example on how to make a list. The list start with three items bulleted, then comments on others, which are also part of the list but not bulleted. Homogenize please! (p. 83)
  • Not formal or really good English — "updates on what she’s found". (p. 87).
  • Badly written — "First, it’s because remote viewing an event not known until the future is not really what it sounds like – as if you see something far away in space" (p. 90).
  • Missing hyphen or space — "complex decisionmaking" (p. 93) or "anxietyproducing" (p. 162).
  • Repeated words — "can be experienced by by practicing" in (p. 123).
  • Footnotes seemed to have converted badly, and some numerical ones alternate with lettered ones.
  • Besides, some of the lettered notes are not hyperlinked (K and M especially) while others are. 

IN SHORT

Overall this is a good book, packed with information, which touches on subjects that go from the mundane to the highly scientific, from the personal to the transpersonal.

I was expecting something different from what I got, as their controlled precognition training is pretty much remote viewing revamped. However, I also think that they have a fresh new approach to it, and that their system is uncomplicated to put it into practice, although it needs of training and constant practice. 

For the rest, the book reads well, is very enjoyable, and it has a good mix of personal stories and complex scientific matters digested for the masses. However, I would have liked it more if it was written a bit less colloquially, it had been better edited, and had less references to their website. These ladies depart from ethical principles for the use and training on precognition, something that must be praised.

A very enjoyable reading and I learned a lot about things I knew nothing about.

The Premonition Code is such a great title!