On Social Media

As for the moment, most of us spend our days inside, confined between four walls, it seems perfectly natural that interaction increased on social media. As we’re lacking real life contact, we naturally turn to what remains, the virtual world of FaceBook, Instagram, Twitter and a few others. 

But the virtual world has its own problems, it’s not always a nice place to be. Of course, I’m not talking about genuine conversations between real friends, etc…

But it seems that sometimes it brings the worst out of people. If you look at any discussion about politics, or other sensible subject, people start arguing immediately. What should be a civil discussion often turns nasty very quickly. And lots of people end up unfriended or blocked as a conclusion.

Being locked down seems also to have brought to the front a lot of conspiracy theories or particular agendas. Particularly in a year of election, a lot of nasty stuff is happening, making social media a place which is rarely soothing for people.

As I just got a new Lenormand, the Malpertuis, I threw a few cards to see what message I should retain from social media interactions, and see if my assumptions were correct about the motivation behind a lot of what we see.

I used a spread that I described in the past, the coven. I did a demonstration of this spread about a year ago. 

It is made of 13 cards that can be read in many different ways: lines, columns, diagonals, curbs around the cards, for instance. But also, it could be peeled like an onion, layer by layer. It’s like a square of 9 on steroids.

First of all, the card insets show a majority of clubs and hearts. Difficult cards mixed with emotions and feelings. Always a bad mixture.

The Fox as focal point. Interesting. And not surprising at the same time. Social media is a place where we have to be careful about what we see. Literally lots of foxes over there. Wrong perceptions abound. A world of smoke and mirrors. So, the first reflex is to be careful and check thoroughly what we see. 

I like to start by looking at the main horizontal and vertical lines, to get a general sense of what we’re getting.

The horizontal line shows that most of what we see is just opportunistic. A chance is taken to deliver something that plays with our beliefs and stress levels. That’s how we find the pain described by the cross: something seems like an opportunity, but in fact it stresses us, most of the time for the wrong reasons.

Vertically, we see what is at the core is a real snake pit. Messages are delivered to play with our perception of what we receive.

If we summarize what was described up to now, social media is an opportunistic place for many, a way to deliver messages by playing with our beliefs, perception and stress levels.

Let’s look now at the inner cross, Rider, Snake, Cross ans Moon. We can move easily into a trap, a treacherous place, that at the end creates pain, playing with our feelings of insecurity. Like the moon reflecting the light of the sun, not everything is like it appears. We always have to to go back to the Fox at the center, who gains what.

Of course, not everything is as bad. The corners, if taken by themselves, show some hope mixed in with the annoying stuff. We also see some beautiful and strong stuff (bouquet, bear), generating deeply rooted feelings (heart, tree).
The problem is how to distinguish the good stuff from the bad one. I still don’t like to see the Snake caught in between the Bouquet and the Heart. Same for the Cross between the Heart and the Bear. Not everything is as it seems. Going back to the Fox in the middle, we always have to be careful of what we see, the Snake can certainly represent bad intentions.

The outer cross, Clover, Letter, Mice, House, gives another layer of motivation. In the way between how the messages are delivered home, we go through opportunities and stress.

As we can see, all this is a play to get something. A play where our feelings, perceptions, and stress levels are involved, as well as our sense of insecurity and missing something. A need is created to create a reaction in us. We are played by people having an agenda. 

Let’s look at the sides to see if we can get more motives behind that behavior. 

On the left side, we have Bouquet, Clover and Tree, surrounding the Rider. It starts with a chance. An opportunity to wrap something unhealthy in a beautiful envelope. And it is delivered.

On the right side, the Mice show that all this raises our stress levels, by playing strongly with our feelings (heart, bear), and our beliefs (cross). But at the end, all this creates some feeling of pain.

At the top of the spread, we can see a message nicely wrapped, but treacherous at the core. The bottom part shows that it creates a strong unhealthy reaction when delivered, playing with our perceptions.