In my book The Well of Remembrance (1994), I wrote about the Nordic myth of the well at the foot of the World Tree, from which you could drink in order to know your past history and, if you drank deeply enough, the past history of the greater world in which you live. The guardian spirit of the well and the World Tree was Mimir (whose name means “memory”), and you had to get Mimir’s permission to drink from the well—permission that was granted only in response to sincere questioning or intention. We can use the mythic image of the well of memory to assist the process of divination to the past. The symbolic act of drinking from a well reflects the double movement of regression and integration involved in memory divination: you lower a cup into the well and you bring the water back up and drink it, assimilating the essences of your remembered experiences.
Transposed to the individual level, the world tree is the fulcrum of your life-world and evolving self-system, poised between your past and your possible futures. In the space-time dimension, the world tree (which is also the “tree of life”) is the central vertical axis through which cosmic-spiritual life energy is channeled into your space-time vehicle or body-and-energy-field. The physical vehicle of your soul is also the vessel of your alchemical transformations.
When awareness is centered in the tree axis of our present life-world and energy field, the past is situated either “below” (as with the image of the well) or “behind” (as with the image of the road we’ve traveled). Correspondingly, for the purposes of visioning the future is “above” and “in front” (where we’re headed)—and can be accessed by rising to the top of the tree axis and tracking along the probable paths spread out in front.
There are several ways to move attention into the past: one, used commonly in psychoanalytic or hypno-therapeutic procedures, is via an “affect bridge”—letting the present painful feeling or symptom guide us to its source or origin. One can ask (or intend) to retrieve a memory that is relevant to resolving a difficulty or problem in our present life. More broadly speaking, to get a better understanding of how we became the person we have become, we can track to an earlier stage or transition of the life cycle using our internal time monitor.
For the purposes of this exercise, we will look at the transition of the first Saturn return, in the late twenties. Those who are in their twenties can choose to look at the transition of first leaving the parental home. You may want to arrange a quiet place and a time free from distractions, and listen to a recording of rhythmic drumming or rattling to facilitate concentration, for a suggested period of twenty to thirty minutes.
Calm and center your mind and align internally with the four directions and the spirits of the local place and time.
Formulate your intention or question for the divination—to recognize the impact of the Saturn return transition of your late twenties.
Ignite the light-fire energy-sun in the center of your heart-field, letting the purifying action spread out spherically, and invoke the Presence of your Higher Self-Spirit, staying centered in an attitude of empathic observation.
Invoke the spirits of nature from the animal, plant, and mineral realm to guide and assist you, especially those with whom you have already established a working alliance.
Invoke the spirits of your human relations, your familial ancestors, your teachers, mentors, and guides (whether living or in the spirit world), as well as any deities with whom you have an affinity. Particularly invoke the assistance of Mimir the Rememberer, Keeper of the World Axis.
Lower the cup of your awareness into the Well of the Past, situated at your feet, and ask to know, feel, and sense the changes in your life—the place you lived, the work that you did, the relations you were involved with—around your late twenties, and the impact of those changes on your subsequent life.
Bring the cup back up, and as you drink from it, feel the memory essences from those past experiences spread throughout your being—your present mental and emotional state, and your physical body from head to feet.
When you feel complete, give thanks to the spirits who guided and assisted you, and communicate your findings, either speaking to a friend or writing in your journal, remembering and reconnecting these past experiences into your present life-world and self-system.
“Drinking from the Well” exemplifies one of the imaginal psychic tools we can use for memory divination work. We can also “look into the well,” and with a similar double movement, bring the memory pictures back into the present field of awareness for integration. There are hints in the poetic Eddas that the Nordic seers used both methods for divining with Mimir’s Well. A third method is “immersion in the well,” where one is completely absorbed in the thoughts, images, feelings, and sensations of the past experience. This is what is called an “absorptive trance” in hypnotherapy; or in German, Versenkung, a state of “being-sunk-down-in.”
Another imaginal alternative for accessing the past is to walk back along the road of our life to retrieve the memories. Such images are useful aids when learning to focus attention in meditative divinations. Skilled psychic seers may simply track along the time lines following their intention—and with practice anyone can learn to do this, for oneself and for others.
We can use such methods to reconnect with the formative years of our youth and childhood, healing painful residues as needed and accessing forgotten visions for creative inspiration. The period of earliest infancy (where most people say, “I have no memories”), as well as the perinatal (around birth) and prenatal period, is particularly susceptible to being accessed via absorptive trance or immersion states, because the somatic component of experience predominates during that phase.
Going further back we can even access, with conscious remembering, the impact of conception: we can recognize how the mother’s and father’s emotional state at that time—their visions, hopes, and fears—were imprinted in our psyche, along with the genetic predispositions, both weaknesses and strengths, encoded into the nucleus of every cell of the body.
We are not locked into unchanging patterns by these pre-dispositions. Rather, they form the threads that we are constantly weaving and reweaving into the tapestry of our being through our life experiences and the choices we make. In states of meditative divination we can consciously separate these threads (in the analytical operation the old alchemists called separatio) and reweave them into healthier and more beautiful patterns, better suited to our soul’s chosen path of life expression.
The yogic and Buddhist traditions speak of these predisposing threads and connecting patterns as samskaras (literally, “together-acting”). In modern psychological language we could call them character traits. Their implanted presence in our psyche is irreversible, but they may be either expressed unconsciously in our life experience or modified by intentional practice. Besides the ancestral samskaras, we also bring with us, prior to birth and conception, the karmic residues from past incarnations. These too are woven into the tapestry of our being—and may exert profound (and usually unconscious) influences on our character and relationship interactions. These karmic influences can also be explored and integrated through divination—work that is akin to past-life regression therapy.
Working with the karmic patterns from past incarnations brings us to the realm of our immortal human souls, beyond the linear space-time framework of our personal history. This dimension of our beingness is present in the here-now field of our life-world, as well as simultaneously present before conception and after death. When we consciously connect with this realm, we can experience the unobstructed communion of the triad of souls of mother, father, and child. In experiencing the unconditional and joyous love shared at this level between souls, we can ask to know the primary purpose and vision of our life, and the reasons for the choice of the particular family and society into which we were conceived and born. Those who have obtained, whether spontaneously or through intentional divination, a sense of their life vision or mission usually find it easier to disengage themselves from unhealthy, useless, or distracting situations or relationships and focus their energy on realizing their soul’s highest purpose.
This is how we can understand the meaning of the ancient Zen koan, “What was your original face before you were born?” A koan is a divinatory question that the Zen Buddhist teacher would give a student to stimulate their inner questioning—and was not necessarily to be answered. The concept of “face” symbolizes the direction of intention, as in “Which direction are you facing?” Thus, I would translate this koan as follows, and recommend it for the reader’s meditation and reflection: What was—and still is—your soul’s vision for this life?
When tuning in to the communion of three souls (father, mother, child) we may also come into contact with the ancestral soul council. This is a larger group of beings, including grandparents, elders, teachers, and angelic spirit guides, who are our spiritual support team and counselors throughout our incarnated life and in the Spirit World beyond. It is not uncommon for individuals to recognize their life partner in this soul group that was present at the time of incarnational choice. This discovery gives deeper meaning to the feeling and thought lovers may have when they first meet—that they were “meant to be together.”
Some of the beings in our spiritual soul family and council are individuals with whom we may have had connections in other lifetimes, in different relationships. Recognizing the extra emotional charge from such past-life connections is often helpful in gaining perspective and compassion for current difficulties. Sexual transgression from a parent toward a child may sometimes be due to a kind of “bleed-through” of erotic feelings from another life where the two were lovers or spouses—which is not in any way to excuse the perpetrator or minimize the damage such transgressions cause.
As we come to recognize and consciously attune and commune with the council of ancestral souls and angelic spirit beings who were present at the beginning of our incarnation, we will also recognize them as the council that meets with us for the nonjudgmental life review after our discarnation—when we have “shuffled off this mortal coil.”
Shamanic traditions and modern research in remote viewing agree that with “nonlocal awareness” we can as readily “see” the future as the hidden present or the past. The following scenario illustrates how a simple shift in perspective allows us to transcend the local space-time framework. Imagine you are driving along a winding mountain road, where you can’t see what’s coming around the next curves. Now imagine you are able to adopt a bird’s-eye view from a couple of hundred feet up in the air: now the winding road lies in plain sight, and you can see into the future of the driver below.
Notice that you are seeing probabilities and not predicting—you may see a yellow truck the driver will likely encounter a couple of turns further down the road, but you cannot say for certain what the nature of the encounter will involve. Nor does seeing the lines of future probability and possibility detract from so-called “free will.” On the contrary, by anticipating future conditions we are able to make better choices, to avoid mistakes and dangers, and to move toward realizing our ultimate purpose.
Envisioning the future involves a similar double movement of awareness, as does the memory divination to the past. In this case, in order to divine probable future states of our life-world, we rise with awareness to the top of the energy field, which corresponds to the crown of our World Tree. From that high perspective we identify the most probable line of development, use that line to track to a future time of our life-world, and then bring the impressions gathered back to the present for integration. In the following exercise, we will look five years ahead—which will allow us to use the changed appearance of small children in our life-world as a kind of internal consistency test. Again, I suggest you arrange a quiet place and time free from distractions for about twenty to thirty minutes, and listen to a recording of rhythmic drumming or rattling to facilitate concentration.
As with the well of memory, the image of the crown of the tree facilitates the divination and, in time and with practice, becomes unnecessary. The basic process, as with all kinds of divination, is (1) to ask to know, feel, or sense, thereby putting ourselves in receptive mode; (2) to note or become aware of what it is we’re receiving or perceiving—whether thoughts, images, feelings, or sensations; and (3) to translate what was received or perceived into verbal or pictorial form for communication and integration.
The process is facilitated by having one person (the guide) verbalize the instructions and questions, while the other (the seeker) focuses on their inner perceptions and verbalizes the answers being received or channeled. As in shamanic journey work, tracking and concentration is facilitated by having the guide give a moderately rapid rhythmic beat with a rattle or drum.
Calm and center your mind and align with the four directions and the spirits of the local place and time.
Formulate your intention or question for the divination—to identify the probable changes in your life-world of relations in five years’ time.
Ignite the light-fire energy-sun in the center of your heart-field, letting the purifying action spread out spherically, and invoke the Presence of your Higher Self-Spirit, staying centered in an attitude of empathic observation.
Invoke the spirits of nature from the animal, plant, and mineral realm to guide and assist you. For this kind of clairvoyant divination, it’s especially useful to invoke the assistance of a far-seeing bird spirit ally, such as Eagle, Hawk, or Raven.
Invoke the spirits of your human relations, your familial ancestors, your teachers, mentors, and guides (whether living or in the spirit world), as well as any deities with whom you have an affinity.
While staying centered with your main focus of awareness in the heart-field, send a strand of perception vertically upward to where you sense the upper rim of your energy field (approximately ten to fifteen feet above your head). Circle around, scanning your present body and location and the web of relations constituting your life-world. Note that in front of where your body is situated there are a number of pathways radiating out, some clearer, wider, and brighter than others. While scanning these pathways identify the strongest or clearest and immediately lock on to that one—analogously to scanning the radio frequency dial and selecting the station with the best signal-to-noise ratio.
Staying on that frequency time line, begin moving forward, with intention, to five years from the present. Like a bird circling down for a closer look, ask to know or see the place where you are (i.e., will be). If you don’t recognize the place, ask what place it is. If you don’t get a place name, ask to see or know what kind of place it is (e.g., indoor city, outdoor wilderness, seashore, etc).
Ask to know or see what kind of work or activity you are engaged in at that time. Note the impressions you are getting and intend to remember them, but don’t let your attention wander off into analyzing, interpreting, or criticizing yourself for assumed inadequacy.
Ask to see the close human relations in your life, especially any children—if their appearance is changed, you will know that you are seeing them as five years older (whereas adults may not look that different). If there is someone close to you in your world in five years that you don’t recognize, you can ask who it is and what your relationship is with that person.
You may also ask to see or know more about your family, your community, the larger society, and the world. Simply ask, note the answer you’re receiving, or that you’re not getting an answer at this time, and move on. You’re gathering impressions and storing them in memory, the way a bird might gather twigs for its nest.
When that process feels complete, return to your present life-world, carrying the gathered impressions with you. Give thanks to all the spirits that guided and accompanied you. Descend from the crown of your tree of vision to center yourself again completely in the heart-field. Feel the essences from those visions spread throughout your being—your present mental and emotional state, and your physical body from head to feet.
Communicate your observations, either speaking to a friend or writing in your journal, as you integrate these probable and possible visions into your present life-world and self-system.
The visions of our possible future received in these divinations come to us as gifts from the higher spiritual realms of being, in response to our intention and questioning. They may help us solve problems we are carrying from the past by showing us probable outcomes and resolutions of difficulties, or by offering alternative courses of action (the “course-correction” vision). They can show us how certain relations and situations may evolve, providing us with encouragement to make healthful choices and inspiration to realize our highest ideals. In contrast to the remote viewing paradigm, where the intention is to view nonlocal objects or situations while neutralizing personal bias or beliefs, the divination paradigm is focused on providing healing and guidance for our evolving self-system and life-world, using heightened and purified awareness.
As we practice conscious divination for ourselves we also become more skilled at assisting others in their divinations. The focus of our questioning can expand to include our family, our community, our society, and our world. Here the divination process begins to resemble what in traditional societies was called prophecy or the oracular function. I have become convinced through my own experience that while some individuals, whom we call “psychics,” may be naturally gifted at clairvoyant seeing (perhaps from genetic predisposition), the potential is naturally latent within all—and can be developed through consciousness-raising meditative practice.
There is one difference between our relation to the past and to the possible future, which are otherwise symmetrical and equally accessible to divinatory seeing. This is expressed in the difference between the concepts of fate and destiny. Fate, like karma, is concerned with what has been spoken or done, the debts and guilt incurred, and the inevitable consequences of past actions, in this life or another. Destiny (as the linguistic connection to “destination” implies) is our open-ended future, the soul’s vision for this life that we may or may not realize or realize partially.
The most expansive and far-reaching future visioning occurs when we connect with the council of ancestral souls and guiding spirits. As we’re given deepening awareness of our soul’s vision for this life, we come to recognize where in our lives we’ve been on track to realize that vision, and where we’ve lost our way and become distracted by useless illusions and obsessions. From the perspective of our spiritual intelligence and guidance, we begin to see the course of our life in a complete arc: from the incarnational choice before conception through birth and the formative years, the middle years, and the elder years, weaving and reweaving karmic patterns with the parental generation behind us and our children’s generation ahead of us.
Expanding consciousness with intention increases our freedom and ability to make choices in accord with our spiritual guidance and our soul’s vision. From this perspective we come to know and accept the certainty that all the roads we travel in life end with our death—and that this dying is merely the transition to another realm of being in which our souls continue the cosmic game of learning and growing, on this Earth and in infinite other worlds in the great Universe.