# Ascension

## Purpose

Ascension is mapped as spiritual cosmology, symbolic transformation, group narrative, and game threshold. It is not presented as verified physiology. 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. **Meaning-Making** is a Forces Tile centered on Liberation & Transcendence. Its literal layer is **not-applicable**; its symbolic question is: “What useful meaning can remain while the model stays revisable?”
2. **Abundance** is a Forces Tile centered on Liberation & Transcendence. Its literal layer is **not-applicable**; its symbolic question is: “Where is surplus and access placed within liberation & transcendence shaping the situation, and what would make the response more accountable? Answer by testing how surplus and access placed within liberation & transcendence changes the conditions under which every actor chooses against agency, release, transformation, integration, and the limits that freedom must still honor.”
3. **Recursion** is a Forces Tile centered on Liberation & Transcendence. Its literal layer is **well-established**; its symbolic question is: “What is the smallest reversible action that could clarify a process acting upon itself placed within liberation & transcendence? Answer by testing how a process acting upon itself placed within liberation & transcendence changes the conditions under which every actor chooses against agency, release, transformation, integration, and the limits that freedom must still honor.”

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

- [Meaning-Making](../cards/forces/sfoc-forces-meaning-making.md) — The human act of turning events into a world that can be inhabited psychologically.
- [Abundance](../cards/forces/sfoc-forces-abundance.md) — Abundance frames surplus and access placed within liberation & transcendence as a decision environment rather than a finished answer. Its evidence discipline is transparent analogy, declared invention, and practical usefulness.
- [Recursion](../cards/forces/sfoc-forces-recursion.md) — Recursion brings a process acting upon itself placed within liberation & transcendence into focus. It operates as a recurrent pressure or organizing dynamic and asks how agency, release, transformation, integration, and the limits that freedom must still honor alter practical choice.
- [Strange Attractor](../cards/forces/sfoc-forces-strange-attractor.md) — Within the Oracle, Strange Attractor holds together the strange motif meeting the attractor motif and agency, release, transformation, integration, and the limits that freedom must still honor. That combination creates both an interpretive tool and a responsibility.
- [Trust](../cards/forces/sfoc-forces-trust.md) — Trust frames willing reliance under uncertainty placed within liberation & transcendence as a decision environment rather than a finished answer. Its evidence discipline is transparent analogy, declared invention, and practical usefulness.
- [Discernment](../cards/forces/sfoc-forces-discernment.md) — Openness joined to the ability to distinguish claim, evidence, metaphor, and need.
- [Resistance](../cards/forces/sfoc-forces-resistance.md) — The Oracle places Resistance where refusal that preserves agency placed within liberation & transcendence affects agency. It is neither mere decoration nor automatic proof, but a recurrent pressure or organizing dynamic with a declared evidence boundary.
- [Liberation](../cards/forces/sfoc-forces-liberation.md) — released agency placed within liberation & transcendence is the engine beneath Liberation. As a recurrent pressure or organizing dynamic, it reveals how a local image can carry system-scale consequences.
- [Transcendence](../cards/forces/sfoc-forces-transcendence.md) — Seen closely, Transcendence is about movement beyond a prior limit placed within liberation & transcendence under conditions of agency, release, transformation, integration, and the limits that freedom must still honor. That frame makes its gift, shadow, and limits readable together.
- [Interconnection](../cards/forces/sfoc-forces-interconnection.md) — Interconnection brings mutual dependence placed within liberation & transcendence into focus. It operates as a recurrent pressure or organizing dynamic and asks how agency, release, transformation, integration, and the limits that freedom must still honor alter practical choice.
- [Ascension Cosmology](../cards/cosmologies/sfoc-cosmologies-ascension-cosmology.md) — What makes Ascension Cosmology consequential is the meeting of transformation toward a higher state meeting the cosmology motif with agency, release, transformation, integration, and the limits that freedom must still honor. The card preserves that meeting without universalizing it.
- [Resistance Network](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-resistance-network.md) — Resistance Network frames refusal that preserves agency meeting the network motif as a decision environment rather than a finished answer. Its evidence discipline is transparent analogy, declared invention, and practical usefulness.
- [Ascension Program](../cards/programs/sfoc-programs-ascension-program.md) — The Oracle places Ascension Program where transformation toward a higher state placed within power & control affects agency. It is neither mere decoration nor automatic proof, but a deliberate mission, project, protocol, or coordinated operation with a declared evidence boundary.
- [The Storm](../cards/events/sfoc-events-the-storm.md) — the storm motif placed within liberation & transcendence gives The Storm its distinctive charge. Read it through agency, release, transformation, integration, and the limits that freedom must still honor, with claim-level sourcing, incentive analysis, falsifiability, and harm review kept visible.
- [Breakthrough](../cards/events/sfoc-events-breakthrough.md) — Breakthrough gathers a field around the breakthrough motif placed within liberation & transcendence. Its deeper subject is a promise of transcendence can release an old enclosure or bypass repair in the world at hand.
- [Crash Retrieval](../cards/events/sfoc-events-crash-retrieval.md) — Crash Retrieval names a threshold where the crash motif meeting the retrieval motif changes what participants can notice or do. The card keeps ufology and disclosure culture distinct from symbolic use.
- [Life Review](../cards/events/sfoc-events-life-review.md) — An NDE motif of experiencing one’s actions from multiple perspectives.
- [Exodus](../cards/events/sfoc-events-exodus.md) — the exodus motif placed within liberation & transcendence gives Exodus its distinctive charge. Read it through agency, release, transformation, integration, and the limits that freedom must still honor, with transparent analogy, declared invention, and practical usefulness kept visible.
- [Ascension](../cards/events/sfoc-events-ascension.md) — The Oracle places Ascension where transformation toward a higher state placed within liberation & transcendence affects agency. It is neither mere decoration nor automatic proof, but a threshold that produces a meaningful before and after with a declared evidence boundary.
- [The Harvest](../cards/events/sfoc-events-the-harvest.md) — Within the Oracle, The Harvest holds together collection at a threshold placed within liberation & transcendence and agency, release, transformation, integration, and the limits that freedom must still honor. That combination creates both an interpretive tool and a responsibility.
- [Ascension State](../cards/states/sfoc-states-ascension-state.md) — Within the Oracle, Ascension State holds together transformation toward a higher state placed within liberation & transcendence and agency, release, transformation, integration, and the limits that freedom must still honor. That combination creates both an interpretive tool and a responsibility.
- [The Great Awakening](../cards/myths/sfoc-myths-the-great-awakening.md) — The Oracle places The Great Awakening where civilizational scale meeting a changed account of what is real affects agency. It is neither mere decoration nor automatic proof, but a durable story-pattern through which communities organize possibility and fear with a declared evidence boundary.
- [Ascension Narrative](../cards/myths/sfoc-myths-ascension-narrative.md) — Read Ascension Narrative as a durable story-pattern through which communities organize possibility and fear shaped by transformation toward a higher state meeting causal meaning carried by story. The useful inquiry is not belief alone, but what ask what becomes possible, what material condition changes, and who might be abandoned by escape.
