DESTINY AND THE FUTURE
Web links : Click HERE for one of the most ancient and respected of divination techniques, the I Ching. I have chosen to put this link here as it does not include any other links to black magic or occult sites! To learn how the universe stands for you at the moment you will need three coins and a little patience.
Recently, Nostradamus has been back in vogue. A hoax e-mail suggested that he had predicted the events of September 11th and many people believed this was true. In fact, the e-mail invented things he never said and even dated his sayings long after he had died.

But many people believe that the future is open to be read, if only we have the right vision.

In my own youth, I believed I could foretell the future in dreams. I even found and photographed a very local species of butterfly because of a dream in which I saw it clearly, in the sun, on the branch of a tree in a particular wood. The next day it poured with rain and so I let it drop. But at 6.00pm the sun suddenly shone and I leapt onto my bike and headed for the wood. As soon as I got there, I saw the tree, one branch caught in a shaft of sunlight. I approached the branch and there, in all its glory, was a White-letter Hairstreak - the same butterfly I had seen in my dream and the first I had found in that wood.

Over the last few years I have listened to many students recount their dreams. Very often, they tell of similar experiences - that they dreamt something and then it happened the next day.

Foretelling the future is not only big business (astrology, palm-reading, tarot cards &c.) but it also figures large in the cultural history of the West. The prophets of the Bible, notably Isaiah, spoke of events that would happen hundreds of years later. Joseph interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh and saved the people of Egypt from starvation. Romeo and Juliet are described at the beginning of that play as being 'star-crossed lovers', meaning that their destiny was already written in the stars.

But there are big problems with accepting that some people can tell the future. Above all, it means that the future is already decided - otherwise we could not read it.

Philosophers and scientists have grappled with this problem. Einstein's theory of relativity has as a consequence that if information can be transferred at greater than the speed of light then it will be received before it was sent. It is generally taken as dogma that this cannot happen, though it is not logically impossible providing free will does not intervene to create paradoxical vicious circles (I know I am going to have a car accident, so I don't get into a car &c.).

The questions I should like you to think about for Thursday or Tuesday are :

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