# High Strangeness

## Purpose

High strangeness keeps multiple hypotheses active when reports resist a single ontology. Trickster effects, witness context, folklore, and material evidence are not flattened together. This chapter is an index and a method: it shows how to explore the subject without collapsing documented history, current research, reported experience, fiction, community belief, and Oracle synthesis into one truth claim.

## Reading Method

1. **Locate the Tile.** Read its Primary Class to learn what kind of thing it is, then its Inquiry Domains to learn which questions it can illuminate.
2. **Name the material mode.** A science-fiction, mythology, political-mythology, experiential-report, or established-science label identifies context; it is not a score of spiritual or personal importance.
3. **Read claims layer by layer.** Begin with the literal-and-empirical layer, then the cultural-and-historical layer, and only then the symbolic-and-divinatory layer. An evidence state applies to one bounded claim, not to the Tile as a whole.
4. **Open the sources.** A concept-specific citation can support a history or bounded claim. A class-level contextual citation only locates the Tile in a wider field. Neither one certifies every interpretation.
5. **Follow typed edges.** Compare the exact verb and rationale. “Fictionalizes,” “opposes,” “echoes,” and “investigated-by” are not interchangeable. A resemblance edge is not proof of historical influence.
6. **Integrate through action.** Use Gift, Shadow, Threshold, and the integration practice to identify one grounded choice that remains useful even if a favored ontology is wrong.

## Worked Comparison

1. **Grey** is a Beings & Roles Tile centered on Intelligence & Otherness. Its literal layer is **unverified**; its symbolic question is: “What feels observed but not understood?”
2. **Tall Grey** is a Beings & Roles Tile centered on Intelligence & Otherness. Its literal layer is **unverified**; its symbolic question is: “What changes when look for learning, intention, reciprocal response, refusal, and alternatives to human resemblance, rather than assuming the preferred interpretation? Answer by testing how the tall motif meeting clinical otherness introduces intention, perspective, and the possibility of reciprocal encounter against agency, difference, recognition, and the ethics of meeting a mind unlike one’s own.”
3. **Nordic** is a Beings & Roles Tile centered on Memory & Identity. Its literal layer is **experiential-only**; its symbolic question is: “What remains useful in Nordic if its strongest literal claim proves false? Answer by testing how the nordic motif placed within memory & identity introduces intention, perspective, and the possibility of reciprocal encounter against continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together.”

Compare these examples by asking what changes when the class, evidence state, or edge verb changes. Do not treat the most vivid Tile as the most factual. When a reading crosses into health, identity, conspiracy, or current politics, show the card’s safety flags and preserve an alternate explanation.

## System Links

- [How to Use](HOW-TO-USE.md) for reference, reading, and game workflows.
- [Graph](GRAPH.md) for edge semantics and provenance.
- [Divination](DIVINATION.md) for reflective reading rules.
- [Glossary](GLOSSARY.md) for Classes, Domains, Modes, and Evidence States.
- [Source Registry](../research/SOURCE-REGISTRY.md) for source tiers, scope, and rights.

## Canonical Tiles

- [Grey](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-grey.md) — The small, large-eyed visitor of modern abduction and contact lore.
- [Tall Grey](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-tall-grey.md) — The Oracle places Tall Grey where the tall motif meeting clinical otherness affects agency. It is neither mere decoration nor automatic proof, but an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role with a declared evidence boundary.
- [Nordic](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-nordic.md) — Read Nordic as an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role shaped by the nordic motif placed within memory & identity. The useful inquiry is not belief alone, but what compare recollection with records, other witnesses, missing intervals, and the cost of revision.
- [Reptilian](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-reptilian.md) — Reptilian is a way of encountering the reptilian motif placed within intelligence & otherness. Its Oracle use joins an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role to the question of agency, difference, recognition, and the ethics of meeting a mind unlike one’s own.
- [Mantis](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-mantis.md) — Mantis is a way of encountering the mantis motif placed within intelligence & otherness. Its Oracle use joins an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role to the question of agency, difference, recognition, and the ethics of meeting a mind unlike one’s own.
- [Insectoid](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-insectoid.md) — Insectoid names a threshold where the insectoid motif placed within intelligence & otherness changes what participants can notice or do. The card keeps lived and reported experience distinct from symbolic use.
- [Pleiadian](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-pleiadian.md) — Within the Oracle, Pleiadian holds together the pleiadian motif placed within intelligence & otherness and agency, difference, recognition, and the ethics of meeting a mind unlike one’s own. That combination creates both an interpretive tool and a responsibility.
- [Sirian](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-sirian.md) — Sirian is a way of encountering the sirian motif placed within contact & communication. Its Oracle use joins an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role to the question of signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding.
- [Arcturian](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-arcturian.md) — Arcturian offers an instrument for reading the arcturian motif placed within memory & identity. It becomes useful when interpretation remains answerable to compare recollection with records, other witnesses, missing intervals, and the cost of revision.
- [Andromedan](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-andromedan.md) — Within the Oracle, Andromedan holds together the andromedan motif placed within intelligence & otherness and agency, difference, recognition, and the ethics of meeting a mind unlike one’s own. That combination creates both an interpretive tool and a responsibility.
- [Avian](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-avian.md) — Avian names a threshold where the avian motif placed within contact & communication changes what participants can notice or do. The card keeps lived and reported experience distinct from symbolic use.
- [Tall White](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-tall-white.md) — Within the Oracle, Tall White holds together the tall motif meeting the white motif and continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together. That combination creates both an interpretive tool and a responsibility.
- [Hybrid](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-hybrid.md) — Hybrid brings the hybrid motif placed within memory & identity into focus. It operates as an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role and asks how continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together alter practical choice.
- [Synthetic Being](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-synthetic-being.md) — Synthetic Being brings agency constructed rather than born meeting the being motif into focus. It operates as an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role and asks how agency, difference, recognition, and the ethics of meeting a mind unlike one’s own alter practical choice.
- [Ultraterrestrial](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-ultraterrestrial.md) — Seen closely, Ultraterrestrial is about the ultraterrestrial motif placed within contact & communication under conditions of signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding. That frame makes its gift, shadow, and limits readable together.
- [Interdimensional Being](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-interdimensional-being.md) — adjacency beyond ordinary distance meeting the being motif gives Interdimensional Being its distinctive charge. Read it through world-models, observer limits, and the boundary between appearance and claim, with phenomenology, context, care, and multiple possible explanations kept visible.
- [Future Human](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-future-human.md) — Future Human brings possibility organized as aspiration meeting the human motif into focus. It operates as an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role and asks how sequence, recurrence, prediction, counterfactuals, and the difference between order and cause alter practical choice.
- [Post-Biological Intelligence](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-post-biological-intelligence.md) — The Oracle places Post-Biological Intelligence where the post motif, the biological motif, and capacity to model and choose acting together affects agency. It is neither mere decoration nor automatic proof, but an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role with a declared evidence boundary.
- [Earthseed](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-earthseed.md) — Earthseed frames the earthseed motif placed within origin & lineage as a decision environment rather than a finished answer. Its evidence discipline is phenomenology, context, care, and multiple possible explanations.
- [Archon](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-archon.md) — Archon brings the archon motif placed within contact & communication into focus. It operates as an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role and asks how signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding alter practical choice.
- [Mintakan](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-mintakan.md) — Mintakan frames the mintakan motif placed within contact & communication as a decision environment rather than a finished answer. Its evidence discipline is phenomenology, context, care, and multiple possible explanations.
- [Android](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-android.md) — The working core of Android is the android motif placed within intelligence & otherness: a pattern that can reorganize attention, relation, and action. respect for testimony does not require certifying one external cause.
- [Robot](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-robot.md) — Robot frames the robot motif placed within intelligence & otherness as a decision environment rather than a finished answer. Its evidence discipline is phenomenology, context, care, and multiple possible explanations.
- [Rogue AI](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-rogue-ai.md) — Within the Oracle, Rogue AI holds together the rogue motif meeting the ai motif and signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding. That combination creates both an interpretive tool and a responsibility.
- [Hive Mind](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-hive-mind.md) — Hive Mind brings the hive motif meeting attention, interpretation, and subjective continuity into focus. It operates as an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role and asks how attention, perception, interior experience, and the models used to explain awareness alter practical choice.
- [Machine Elf](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-machine-elf.md) — repeatable operation embodied in mechanism meeting the elf motif gives Machine Elf its distinctive charge. Read it through signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding, with phenomenology, context, care, and multiple possible explanations kept visible.
- [DMT Entity](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-dmt-entity.md) — The working core of DMT Entity is the dmt motif meeting the entity motif: a pattern that can reorganize attention, relation, and action. respect for testimony does not require certifying one external cause.
- [Walk-In](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-walk-in.md) — At the center of Walk-In is the walk motif placed within intelligence & otherness. The card treats that tension as an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role, bounded by respect for testimony does not require certifying one external cause.
- [Clone](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-clone.md) — The working core of Clone is the clone motif placed within memory & identity: a pattern that can reorganize attention, relation, and action. respect for testimony does not require certifying one external cause.
- [Synthetic Person](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-synthetic-person.md) — Seen closely, Synthetic Person is about agency constructed rather than born meeting the person motif under conditions of agency, difference, recognition, and the ethics of meeting a mind unlike one’s own. That frame makes its gift, shadow, and limits readable together.
- [Witness](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-witness.md) — Witness gathers a field around presence that preserves an account placed within intelligence & otherness. Its deeper subject is misrecognition can erase a subject or invent an agent where none has been shown.
- [Experiencer](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-experiencer.md) — Seen closely, Experiencer is about the experiencer motif placed within contact & communication under conditions of signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding. That frame makes its gift, shadow, and limits readable together.
- [Whistleblower](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-whistleblower.md) — Whistleblower brings the whistleblower motif placed within memory & identity into focus. It operates as an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role and asks how continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together alter practical choice.
- [Leaker](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-leaker.md) — Leaker is a way of encountering the leaker motif placed within intelligence & otherness. Its Oracle use joins an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role to the question of agency, difference, recognition, and the ethics of meeting a mind unlike one’s own.
- [Gatekeeper](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-gatekeeper.md) — Read Gatekeeper as an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role shaped by the gatekeeper motif placed within contact & communication. The useful inquiry is not belief alone, but what separate transmission from interpretation and require a return signal that could expose error.
- [Initiate](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-initiate.md) — Initiate brings the initiate motif placed within memory & identity into focus. It operates as an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role and asks how continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together alter practical choice.
- [Debunker](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-debunker.md) — Seen closely, Debunker is about the debunker motif placed within intelligence & otherness under conditions of agency, difference, recognition, and the ethics of meeting a mind unlike one’s own. That frame makes its gift, shadow, and limits readable together.
- [Life Review Mirror](../cards/artifacts/sfoc-artifacts-life-review-mirror.md) — The working core of Life Review Mirror is self-maintaining embodied process, retrospective integration of a life, and the mirror motif acting together: a pattern that can reorganize attention, relation, and action. respect for testimony does not require certifying one external cause.
- [Missing Time](../cards/events/sfoc-events-missing-time.md) — The working core of Missing Time is the missing motif meeting ordered consequence: a pattern that can reorganize attention, relation, and action. respect for testimony does not require certifying one external cause.
- [Life Review](../cards/events/sfoc-events-life-review.md) — An NDE motif of experiencing one’s actions from multiple perspectives.
- [Near-Death Experience](../cards/states/sfoc-states-near-death-experience.md) — A reported cluster of experiences occurring near death or perceived death, interpreted through neurological, psychological, and spiritual models.
- [Out-of-Body Experience](../cards/states/sfoc-states-out-of-body-experience.md) — Within the Oracle, Out-of-Body Experience holds together the out motif, embodied capacity and limit, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together and embodiment, care, inheritance, adaptation, disability, and the politics of transformation. That combination creates both an interpretive tool and a responsibility.
- [Astral Projection](../cards/states/sfoc-states-astral-projection.md) — Astral Projection concentrates the astral motif meeting the projection motif into a condition of mind, body, identity, or society that can be inhabited. Its value lies in examining embodiment, care, inheritance, adaptation, disability, and the politics of transformation without exceeding the evidence layer.
- [Lucid Dream](../cards/states/sfoc-states-lucid-dream.md) — The Oracle places Lucid Dream where the lucid motif meeting imaginal experience during altered awareness affects agency. It is neither mere decoration nor automatic proof, but a condition of mind, body, identity, or society that can be inhabited with a declared evidence boundary.
- [Prophetic Dream](../cards/states/sfoc-states-prophetic-dream.md) — Prophetic Dream brings the prophetic motif meeting imaginal experience during altered awareness into focus. It operates as a condition of mind, body, identity, or society that can be inhabited and asks how attention, perception, interior experience, and the models used to explain awareness alter practical choice.
- [Precognition](../cards/states/sfoc-states-precognition.md) — Precognition offers an instrument for reading the precognition motif placed within mind & consciousness. It becomes useful when interpretation remains answerable to describe the experience before choosing among neurological, psychological, social, or metaphysical causes.
- [Déjà Vu](../cards/states/sfoc-states-d-j-vu.md) — What makes Déjà Vu consequential is the meeting of the d motif, the j motif, and the vu motif acting together with attention, perception, interior experience, and the models used to explain awareness. The card preserves that meeting without universalizing it.
- [Temporal Dislocation](../cards/states/sfoc-states-temporal-dislocation.md) — the temporal motif meeting the dislocation motif gives Temporal Dislocation its distinctive charge. Read it through continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together, with phenomenology, context, care, and multiple possible explanations kept visible.
- [Panoramic Awareness](../cards/states/sfoc-states-panoramic-awareness.md) — Within the Oracle, Panoramic Awareness holds together the panoramic motif meeting the awareness motif and authority, secrecy, classification, benefit, coercion, appeal, and the practical right to leave. That combination creates both an interpretive tool and a responsibility.
- [Ego Dissolution](../cards/states/sfoc-states-ego-dissolution.md) — Ego Dissolution concentrates the ego motif meeting the dissolution motif into a condition of mind, body, identity, or society that can be inhabited. Its value lies in examining attention, perception, interior experience, and the models used to explain awareness without exceeding the evidence layer.
- [Timelessness](../cards/states/sfoc-states-timelessness.md) — What makes Timelessness consequential is the meeting of the timelessness motif placed within time & causality with sequence, recurrence, prediction, counterfactuals, and the difference between order and cause. The card preserves that meeting without universalizing it.
- [Altered State](../cards/states/sfoc-states-altered-state.md) — The working core of Altered State is the altered motif placed within body & evolution: a pattern that can reorganize attention, relation, and action. respect for testimony does not require certifying one external cause.
- [Psychedelic Contact](../cards/states/sfoc-states-psychedelic-contact.md) — Psychedelic Contact concentrates the psychedelic motif meeting reciprocal encounter across difference into a condition of mind, body, identity, or society that can be inhabited. Its value lies in examining signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding without exceeding the evidence layer.
- [Ontological Shock](../cards/states/sfoc-states-ontological-shock.md) — Information or experience making the previous model of reality impossible to maintain.
- [Chapel Perilous](../cards/states/sfoc-states-chapel-perilous.md) — The threshold where coincidence, paranoia, revelation, and play become difficult to distinguish.
- [Rabbit Hole](../cards/states/sfoc-states-rabbit-hole.md) — One anomaly opening an expanding network of hidden explanations.
- [Red-Pill State](../cards/states/sfoc-states-red-pill-state.md) — Red-Pill State gathers a field around the red motif meeting the pill motif. Its deeper subject is memory can preserve personhood while also being edited, inherited, contested, or supplied by others.
- [True-Believer State](../cards/states/sfoc-states-true-believer-state.md) — True-Believer State brings the true motif meeting the believer motif into focus. It operates as a condition of mind, body, identity, or society that can be inhabited and asks how embodiment, care, inheritance, adaptation, disability, and the politics of transformation alter practical choice.
- [Skeptical Suspension](../cards/states/sfoc-states-skeptical-suspension.md) — the skeptical motif meeting the suspension motif is the engine beneath Skeptical Suspension. As a condition of mind, body, identity, or society that can be inhabited, it reveals how a local image can carry system-scale consequences.
- [Institutional Distrust](../cards/states/sfoc-states-institutional-distrust.md) — The Oracle places Institutional Distrust where the institutional motif meeting the distrust motif affects agency. It is neither mere decoration nor automatic proof, but a condition of mind, body, identity, or society that can be inhabited with a declared evidence boundary.
- [Epistemic Trust](../cards/states/sfoc-states-epistemic-trust.md) — The working core of Epistemic Trust is the epistemic motif meeting willing reliance under uncertainty: a pattern that can reorganize attention, relation, and action. respect for testimony does not require certifying one external cause.
- [Hypervigilance](../cards/states/sfoc-states-hypervigilance.md) — What makes Hypervigilance consequential is the meeting of the hypervigilance motif placed within mind & consciousness with attention, perception, interior experience, and the models used to explain awareness. The card preserves that meeting without universalizing it.
- [Cognitive Dissonance](../cards/states/sfoc-states-cognitive-dissonance.md) — attention and interpretation as terrain meeting the dissonance motif gives Cognitive Dissonance its distinctive charge. Read it through continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together, with phenomenology, context, care, and multiple possible explanations kept visible.
- [Dissociation](../cards/states/sfoc-states-dissociation.md) — the dissociation motif placed within body & evolution gives Dissociation its distinctive charge. Read it through embodiment, care, inheritance, adaptation, disability, and the politics of transformation, with phenomenology, context, care, and multiple possible explanations kept visible.
- [Compartmentalized Identity](../cards/states/sfoc-states-compartmentalized-identity.md) — the compartmentalized motif meeting continuity claimed across change gives Compartmentalized Identity its distinctive charge. Read it through continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together, with phenomenology, context, care, and multiple possible explanations kept visible.
- [False Memory](../cards/states/sfoc-states-false-memory.md) — Seen closely, False Memory is about the false motif meeting continuity through retained traces under conditions of continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together. That frame makes its gift, shadow, and limits readable together.
- [Implanted Memory](../cards/states/sfoc-states-implanted-memory.md) — Implanted Memory brings the implanted motif meeting continuity through retained traces into focus. It operates as a condition of mind, body, identity, or society that can be inhabited and asks how continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together alter practical choice.
- [Genetic Memory](../cards/states/sfoc-states-genetic-memory.md) — Seen closely, Genetic Memory is about the genetic motif meeting continuity through retained traces under conditions of continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together. That frame makes its gift, shadow, and limits readable together.
- [Ancestral Memory](../cards/states/sfoc-states-ancestral-memory.md) — Ancestral Memory concentrates the ancestral motif meeting continuity through retained traces into a condition of mind, body, identity, or society that can be inhabited. Its value lies in examining continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together without exceeding the evidence layer.
- [Generational Trauma](../cards/states/sfoc-states-generational-trauma.md) — Generational Trauma names a threshold where the generational motif meeting the trauma motif changes what participants can notice or do. The card keeps lived and reported experience distinct from symbolic use.
- [Noospheric Awareness](../cards/states/sfoc-states-noospheric-awareness.md) — Noospheric Awareness concentrates the noospheric motif meeting the awareness motif into a condition of mind, body, identity, or society that can be inhabited. Its value lies in examining authority, secrecy, classification, benefit, coercion, appeal, and the practical right to leave without exceeding the evidence layer.
- [Posthuman Condition](../cards/states/sfoc-states-posthuman-condition.md) — Within the Oracle, Posthuman Condition holds together the posthuman motif meeting the condition motif and continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together. That combination creates both an interpretive tool and a responsibility.
- [Digital Continuity](../cards/states/sfoc-states-digital-continuity.md) — Digital Continuity gathers a field around identity or value mediated by computation meeting the continuity motif. Its deeper subject is memory can preserve personhood while also being edited, inherited, contested, or supplied by others.
- [Amnesia](../cards/states/sfoc-states-amnesia.md) — The Oracle places Amnesia where the amnesia motif placed within memory & identity affects agency. It is neither mere decoration nor automatic proof, but a condition of mind, body, identity, or society that can be inhabited with a declared evidence boundary.
- [Memory Wipe](../cards/states/sfoc-states-memory-wipe.md) — The deliberate removal of remembered continuity in fiction, lore, and symbolic psychology.
- [Isolation](../cards/states/sfoc-states-isolation.md) — Seen closely, Isolation is about the isolation motif placed within mind & consciousness under conditions of attention, perception, interior experience, and the models used to explain awareness. That frame makes its gift, shadow, and limits readable together.
- [Alienation](../cards/states/sfoc-states-alienation.md) — Alienation names a threshold where the alienation motif placed within intelligence & otherness changes what participants can notice or do. The card keeps lived and reported experience distinct from symbolic use.
- [Belonging](../cards/states/sfoc-states-belonging.md) — Belonging offers an instrument for reading the belonging motif placed within body & evolution. It becomes useful when interpretation remains answerable to name the mechanism, affected body, evidence, risks, alternatives, consent, and follow-up.
- [Existential Dread](../cards/states/sfoc-states-existential-dread.md) — What makes Existential Dread consequential is the meeting of the existential motif meeting the dread motif with attention, perception, interior experience, and the models used to explain awareness. The card preserves that meeting without universalizing it.
- [Extraterrestrial Hypothesis](../cards/hypotheses/sfoc-hypotheses-extraterrestrial-hypothesis.md) — The interpretation that anomalous craft or encounters originate with biological or post-biological intelligence beyond Earth.
