With practice, anyone can ask a question and glimpse the future as it is most likely to unfold from that moment in time. By taking advantage of certain readily available tools, you can hurl open the window to events before they unfold. When you do so, you’re stepping into the world of divination.
Throughout time and across cultures people have peered into the future with divination tools – the I Ching, tarot cards, astrology charts, patterns made by tea leaves or the toss of bones, numerology, scrying. The principle of synchronicity lies at the heart of every divination system. When you toss coins or lay out cards, they form a pattern intrinsic to that moment. The pattern, Carl Jung pointed out, is meaningful only if you’re able to verify the interpretations through your knowledge of the subjective and objective situations, as well as the unfolding of subsequent events.
The term ‘divination’ comes from the Latin divinare, meaning ‘to foresee,’ and it probably was practiced even before humans learned to control fire. Diviners among the ancient Babylonians read patterns in animal entrails, in smoke, oil on the surface of water, and through the behavior of animals. The Druids favored crystal balls and read patterns in knotted tree roots, the calls and movements of birds, and in the patterns of clouds and stars. The ancient Greeks had their Oracle at Delphi, of course, but also divined patterns in dreams, in the murmuring of springs, and by tossing small stones or pieces of wood, knucklebones, or dice.
In Mesoamerican religious life and in every civilization from the Olmecs to the Mayans and Aztecs, divination was a part of daily life and scrying was commonly practiced. This system involved looking at any smooth or translucent surface— water, stones, crystals, mirrors— with the belief that images about the future would appear.
Eventually, divinatory tools were created. Around 1,200 B.C., the Chinese used a divination system called fuji, similar to a Ouija board, which was followed a millennium later by the I Ching. Tarot cards arrived in Europe from Turkey near the end of the Middle Ages, where related card games had existed for centuries.
Any question you ask a divinatory tool is personal, a one-time experience that can’t be replicated. So, like art, it falls outside the scientific process. It exists as a subjective reality, one that can confirm your own anecdotal encounters and explorations.
My two favorites are the tarot and the I Ching. The tarot is fascinating because it’s visual and the 22 major arcana card images are archetypal. From the first card in the Major Arcana, The Fool, to the last one, The World, our journey through life is depicted.
The other 56 cards in the deck represent the details, events, people, and situations in our lives. My favorite deck is the round Tarot of the Cloisters, where the images are presented like stained glass. I’ve had the deck for about 20 years and it’s difficult to find now. I’ve never thought there’s much point in reading reversed cards and this round deck makes that impossible!
The I Ching – a divination system that dates back several thousand years to ancient China – is chatty. I use the Richard Wilhelm translation and also enjoy Adele Aldridge’s take on the I Ching. With this system, there are 64 possible hexagrams you can get by tossing 3 coins six times. Heads count for 3, tails are 2, and the numbers 6 (three tails) a broken line, and 9, a solid line, are considered to be changing lines that become either solid or broken. Visionary Terrence McKenna believed the I Ching illuminated the nature of time.
These days, I use an app for the I Ching – the I Ching Pocket App of Wisdom – that I have on my phone and my iPad to toss the coins and then look at the interps of James de Korne or Adele’s interps. She is illustrating every line in each of the 64 hexagrams – a staggering total of 960 lines! – and knows this stuff inside out. And I email Nancy Pickard, who for years was the only other person I knew who used the Ching, thus my name for her – Mistress of the Ching.
When I need a quick answer I pose a question, then open a book at random and point to a spot on the page. Sometimes, the word or phrase makes no sense at all. But other times, the word/phrase is right on target. Another method I love is to think of a question and state that the next thing I hear will answer it. This works nearly every time.
So, tapping into the future is something we can all so and you don’t have to wait for a dream, vision, or a hunch!
What I like about your round stained glass cards is that the glass fragments also look kinda like a spider web (especially The Fool card), which to me implies everything being connected.
Good point! I never thought of that, Daz.
Thanks for this. I really like the idea of asking the question and then have the next thing you hear answer it. I’m going to try it.
It’s amazingly accurate for us, Nancy.
I use a deck called the OSHO Tarot and normally just choose one card from it when I need advice. I and a number of my friends have found it relevant and helpful (there is an accompanying book which explains the advice of the card.) There are also free on-line versions of this where you can select one card or many and get a reading.
I like that deck!
Great article!
Although I’ve been a Tarot reader for many years, I haven’t been using divination systems much in the past few years. But I thought I’d try your “instant answer” technique, and darn if it didn’t produce a comprehensive result! Thanks.
I do that open and point technique a lot!
I love my Waite Tarot deck. Have had it for decades and even now I will simply handle it,shuffle it, as I’m watching TV or otherwise occupied in ways that don’t require my hands to keep my energies in it. I write my question or concern on a small piece of paper and place it underneath the significator. It can be astonishing in its relevance! Also use the “open book and point” method and again am frequently astonished by the relevance!
I started out with Waite.
Trish,
Grateful for your mentoring on this. Now to the i ching , which was difficult to get started, will try your iOS APP method.
Did you see the New Yorker piece on tarot? Or better yet, i ask all interested to read Gareth Knight’s on going history of western tarot that looks at the folks involved before Crowley and Waite. Incredible amount of research, he is also the carrier of the torch for Dion Fortune’s work.
Be well,
Laurence Zankowski
Didn’t see the new yorker piece! Thanks for alerting me.
Interesting post. The only method I use regularly is what you call ‘a quick answer’. I’ve many books, so take one at random. It really is surprising how the ‘answer’ has a relevance – sometimes even the page number.
We use that method too, Mike. It works!
Of course I love this post because you mention my own I Ching Meditations where I have been slugging away at this for more than 40 years. I would like to mention that I also have I Ching Inspirations available on Amazon which does include all 64 hexagrams – just not illustrated in the same way. Last year I created an I Ching Tarot deck with the same number of cards and size of the standard Tarot deck. I also love the Tarot. My deck is out of print at the moment for reasons too tedious to explain in this posting. I too used to have a round Tarot deck – probably 30 years ago. I lent it to some one in need and never got it back. Huuum??
An I Ching tarot deck. Wow!
I have been a fan of the I Ching for decades. I think I’ll look up that app. Thanks! 🙂
You’ll like that app!