Divination, what is it good for?

‘Winter days, drifting away, to uh oh those winter nights, Oh, well, oh, well, oh ,well, oh uh!’

What is divination?

Welcome to part 1 of my musings on divination…

Let me tell you this straight. This is very much my experience of divination, at this point in time, through reading stuff and experiences I have had. My experiences and views may change, it is a personal journey. What you won’t find here with all 3 parts is amazing tales of the power of fortune telling and magic, what you will find is an account of the things I have tried and my conclusions and a peppering of why I think divination is useful and why we should all have a go at divining, particularly when trying to help others.

It seems fitting to discuss divination when the nights are long and dark, there seems to be more magic in the air this time of year. With the lack of light- even in cities and towns borders are blurred, we see things not in stark clarity as we walk home from work under street lamps. Urban foxes checking us out from across the street, mist in the air. If of course you don’t walk around places much, then I recommend that you do. Keep the car parked unless it is a necessity, as walking outside is where we can connect to things, people, atmosphere, animals. Even what might be a mundane walk from the London Underground to home, or to the shops offers opportunities that don’t exist when driving around in our tinned cans. Divination needs blurred boundaries, we sometimes see or feel things we don’t normally see: ‘through a glass darkly’. So here goes…

from left to right- pic 1 Hagalez rune from Meg the Wyrdo's Exploratory Rune Deck, my scrying bowl at night with a tea light candle floating on top, Pamela Coleman Smith artist for the Rider Smith Waite Tarot, a simple past present future tarot reading, scrying bowl with warm water and mugwort.

Divination is commonly thought of as a practice that is used to tell the future using occult means, it has been used for millennia across all human cultures in some form or another. Another view is to find insight or meaning in a a situation using ‘the occult’- such as asking the cards- ‘how can I make my partner happier’? ‘How can I create more abundance in my life’? By Occult I mean: ‘the hidden and unseen’ forces (from the Latin derivative for hidden) and a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs which generally fall outside of organised science and religion.

Usually a diviner- who may or may not be the querant will use various tools and techniques to find an answer to a question- Tools used could be a scrying bowl, a crystal ball, the I ching, the movement of birds in the sky, geomancy, In ancient Jewish tradition facial tics on a person’s face were a tool to read the future. The list of ways to do this are endless and appear across all cultures. Most people working with these tools agree that it is not the tools themselves that see the signs, they there to help translate for us.

Rather like reading a novel- it is not the physical words on the page themselves that are the learning but the message that the writer has intentionally put into the text. Whether the writer in the case of divination is an author outside of us, a higher power or whether we are the author of divination stories is not clear. Ramsey Dukes aka Lionel Snell defines divination as: ‘in essence we seek an answer to a question and we believe that there is a higher intelligence that can tell us. The higher intelligence may lie within us or outside us’. Lionel Snell has an excellent You tube channel by the way, you can find the link here: https://www.youtube.com/@RamseyDukes

In theory Snell postulates that we could just meditate on something, and get an answer but the signals are often weak or confused with our own thoughts and prejudices, so we impose random noise in the shape of shuffled cards, rune blocks, movements of stars to an astrological theory that delivers the right amount of noise to resonate with psychic data. It does seem that the more I feel that the divination is working or the more relevant to events the more feedback I receive and other forms of intuition seem to flow easier, rather like a lucky streak. I start to see meaning in things or syncronicity, Other times I don’t seem to make sense of the signs despite my best efforts, noise or no noise. To be honest most of the time at this stage in my practice I am not getting any coherent signs.

Above: Imagine seeing this symbol in your crystal ball or scrying ball. how would you interpret it?

What is the point of Divination?

From my own observations, divination can seek answers but it also has many other purposes that are more subtle and equally important. When someone comes to us and asks a question they are putting their trust in us as a diviner- a connection is made and the most successful readings of cards/runes I Ching are when this connection can be felt by the reader and when the one who reads it reports afterwards that they too had a connection with the reader. This actual feeling is something that frequently comes from working with magic with people- a sense of togetherness and respect and love in the best circumstances, The fact that this person may only see you for 20 minutes for a reading and you can feel this connection- which sometimes happens is a testimony to the power of magic, these two people if they know each other will open up about their feelings, past mere formalities of polite convention, or they may see a new way of looking at a problem. Again the best readers are those that make us not feel alone, that we have somehow crossed boundaries, we have converged in spirit, they read people as well as the cards. The act of divination breaks down polite trivial conversations, it enters the space of ritual and magic and becomes something above the mundane. In some ways it reminds me of boxing with a fitness partner or working out in tandem in the gym on the gloves and pads or better still dancing together. It can be a safe space for people to connect where normally social constraint may get in the way. It is a very healthy way to connect with others to feel connected, to help others and for therapy. As well as divining for others, casting magic, holding hands in a circle, brief compliments from strangers, dancing and sometimes intense intellectual one to one conversations with others can also lead to this feeling.

I wonder also whether this is a way of preserving one to one relationships- both of the romantic, familial and friendship varieties. That there is a human need using our intuition, or imagination to connect not just with a few people but to learn and feel the love from many others. This would also explain the attraction of fame and wanting to be a celebrity - which is a common dream and aspiration in modern society- a high accolade. In the modern life of a reductionist (a common modernist view) we have few opportunities to remove ourselves from our own isolated selves. So what we need is more dancing together, more holding hands, more magical connection, more singing, more opening up of our feelings to trusted skilled diviners.

Thank you for reading part 1 of my reflections on divination. Part 2 will follow in a few days. In part 2 I will be commenting on why sceptics of divination are not really looking at the whole picture, the difference between fortune telling and divination and modern forms of divination. Part 3 will discuss the methods I use the tools and my results. That will come out when I get the time to write about this stuff. Work and family need to balance with creativity and magic. We need to find time for all these things in our lives. Until then may you continue to connect, care and strive for a better world. Blessed be.