We are all psychic, whether we like it or not. Our brains operate more like time machines, and information from the future must influence choices made in the past. This is an evolutionary transformation.
—Dr. Fred Alan Wolf33
What Dr. Wolf is actually saying is that time is not linear—it does not travel in a straight line. He is also suggesting that we are quite capable of not only looking into the future, but of changing our choices of behavior on the basis of what we see—meaning that each person has several futures available to him or her. Life is not fixed or fated.
A reading is not a parlor game, and at some point in time you may be trying to explain Dr. Wolf’s philosophy to the individual whom you are reading for. People with closed minds have difficulty understanding that the world is a vast universe of choices. The divination tool allows you to review these choices and then find the best solution or path of movement that would be best for you.
Most Witches choose at least one divination tool to support their spiritual needs. The problem with divination tools is that everyone tries to make them complicated, when, honestly, the message is the message is the message. Any Witch, once they have learned the basics of divination, should be able to pick up any divination tool and use it immediately, even if they have never seen it before (and yes, you can have a cheat sheet). What I’m trying to say is, although the tools are different, the mental process is always the same.
Divination is not the work of some strange devil. All you are doing is scientifically “viewing” that future light path or cone that, given the current actions of yourself or your client, will most likely unfold.
Why Use Divination?
Divinatory tools (Tarot, I Ching, runes, yes/no stones, playing cards, lots, shells, cartouche, scrying, and predictive astrology, to name a few) are keys to unlock your subconscious mind. By themselves, these tools of divination mean nothing. They will not work alone. They need your higher mind to perform. Witches use divination (the art of telling the future, past, or present) to aid us in our magickal applications as well as everyday life; however, we must always be reminded that we cannot rely on divination alone to assert ourselves and our ideas into the physical world, and they cannot take the place of calm, rational thought or the mental process of decision making that we, as humans, must endeavor to perform on a daily basis.
The Truth About Divination
When a client sits down, ready to have a reading with me, I give them the following speech. I know it so well that I rattle it off like a freight train clanking full throttle down a brand-new track:
“The Tarot is a tool, nothing more, nothing less. A reading is like a road map, and provides you with information so that you may make wise choices, just like when traveling on a road you can use a detour, or you can go under the speed limit through highway construction. A Tarot reading merely represents signposts on your highway of life. Your future is not fixed or fated. It is a subtle fabric that billows and folds with your experiences and your choices in life. I will not read beyond six months, as there are too many choices that you could make between then and now to make the reading an accurate one. A card reading tells you what will most likely happen should you stay on the path you are presently traveling. There is no boogyman standing over my shoulder telling me your future: not a ghost, an angel, or a demon. The cards are merely a psychological tool that we will use to try to make your future a better one. Within the next fifteen minutes, consider me your best friend. I have no judgments on your life choices. Do you understand?”
Whether they have understood my speech or not is evident at the end of the reading. If they ask me questions like “Will I ever get married? Will I lose weight? Will I find my soulmate? Will I get pregnant?” I know they haven’t listened to a word I’ve said. My answers to these questions are:
1. Do you want to get married?
2. Do you want to lose weight?
3. I don’t believe in soulmates.
4. I have a ritual for you if you want to get pregnant.
To me, if you want to get married in the future, or if you truly want to lose weight, you’ll do it. If you want to be a famous writer, you’ll do it. If you want to find the cure for cancer, you’ll do it. Desire has incredible influence on what you accomplish in life, and what you don’t. Like I said in the speech, nothing is fixed or fated. Now, if the client said, “I’m trying to get pregnant, do you have any advice for me?” then that’s a whole different ball game and we could certainly read the cards on that. If they said, “I’m working on a weight-loss program, can we see if I’m making wise choices?”—there again, we could read on that. The decision in both cases has already been made, and we’ll look ahead to see the result of those decisions. The cards cannot decide for you. You must make the choice.
The hardest question to answer, but the one most frequently posed by the more spiritual clients, is “What is my mission in life?” My answer is always “That which you most enjoy doing.”
What Can We Use
a Divination Tool For?
Keeping in mind that any divination tool is only an aid used by the higher mind, the tool can serve a variety of purposes:
• We can use the symbolism of any card or lot (runes) as a catalyst in magick: a visual (or tactile) trigger.
• We can determine which way is best when confronted by two options.
• We can determine what is most likely to happen, should we stay on the path we are currently traveling.
• We can attempt to counsel others (notice I say attempt!) through the use of the cards. However, a divination tool should never be used in place of qualified medical expertise. Meaning, if you feel sick or if you are having a rough time getting over the death of a friend, you should seek appropriate help. Divination never precludes qualified legal or medical services.
• We can use the tool to decide if we should do a particular ritual, if a magickal plan of action is in our best interest, or in choosing the right spell to fit the circumstances.
• We can use our divination tool for meditation, vision questing, or dream catalyst or analysis purposes. This is extremely useful when first learning the tool.
• You can use the divination tool to determine the past, the present, or the future about a subject or individual by following the path of his or her decisions. However, there are ethics to this. I don’t know how you will eventually use your divination vehicle, but I never pry into another person’s affairs unless their choice in some way has or will directly affect my life. The only time I sway from my personal code is if I am working on a criminal case.
• Some divinatory procedures are used to train the magickal student in areas of energy work. For example, many Witches are taught dowsing and psychometry primarily for the experience of sensing and manipulating energy rather than strictly for the idea of pure divination.
The tool you use is as flexible as you choose. Its primary use is up to you. All divinatory tools require years of study to acquire expertise, but this doesn’t mean you cannot use the vehicle you have chosen immediately, nor does this mean your readings will be lousy for the next ten years. Time, and patience, are required.
Divination Tips
My best advice in studying any divinatory tool is to use the following framework.
• Acquaint yourself with the tool through a hands-on approach. Look at all the cards, or symbols, or whatever. Use your hands, your imagination, and your logical thought process equally. If you are using cards or a tool that is highly colorful with many pictures, talk to the characters on the cards. Keep a running dialog. You will be surprised how much you’ll learn. Place one unit (one card, one rune, etc.) under your pillow each night when you go to sleep.
• Take your time. Do not expect things from yourself that you are simply not ready to produce. Keep notes of sequences that keep popping up.
• Lose your fear of being “wrong.” The tool is never wrong, but sometimes you won’t interpret the tool correctly. For now, at the beginning, don’t force yourself, and don’t give up. Take little steps and build slowly. You will benefit. Know that, at some point, you will be wrong. In fact, sometimes you are supposed to be wrong.
• Remember to take a break while learning, even if it is a few weeks or so. Sometimes, we need to grow within to reach the higher aspects of the tool we are using. That means we must be patient. We must allow ourselves to assimilate the information so that we may use it to our advantage later.
• Keep a record, at least when you begin, of your readings. This is vital. It allows you to see where you were correct in your interpretations, and where you were in error.
• Compile a separate notebook of your personal study. Remember to annotate where you got what information for later use. You may need, at some time, to teach this same material, and you will want to know where you got your information. Even if you don’t want to know, the student will inevitably ask you, “Where did you get this?” Although you would like to tell them “It’s a secret,” since you have no clue where you dug up the information, that would be unfair. Best to keep accurate records.
• Use as many resources as you can when studying any divinatory tool. Books, tapes, interviews with readers, discussions with others. The more resources you use, the broader your knowledge.
• Have divination parties with your friends. The premise contains ten prewritten questions that everyone reads for. At least one question should be a local (or national) unsolved crime. One member of the group should keep track of the case until (if ever) its completion, along with what each individual claimed in his or her reading. This type of gathering is better in person, where the divination vehicle can be laid out on a large table and all can view it.
• For the first month, don’t use any resource material. Just read from the gut. Your work will be better for it.
One thing I can tell you for sure: you will never stop learning the tool you choose. Even after twenty-five years of reading the Tarot, I am still learning new things about the system. Gut feelings are the basis of psychism. I call them “red flags”—kind of like little men down in the basement of your mind who jump up and down, screaming and waving crimson pennants, trying to get your logical mind to listen. Learning to listen to these feelings takes patience and the willingness to make mistakes. Sometimes our logical mind tries to fake being a little man in the basement. The logical mind whispers stuff to you, and then you get royally confused. Was that a gut thing? Or was that my brain trying to logically sort things out?
You will have to be patient and be willing to spend LOTS of time learning the difference between those two voices. No one can do this for you but yourself. Diligent practice of meditation, visionquesting, and dream analysis can help you speed this process along, but it will still take time. Patience, again, is the key.
I am sure that you have seen unusual practices that different readers incorporate in an effort to perform. You will develop some odd traits, too; however, keep in mind that this is unnecessary behavior and what may work for one reader will not serve another well. From covering your divination tool with a black cloth to keeping a moonstone with your cards, these are all personal foibles, and are only as important as you allow them to be.
Here are some common practices:
• Cleanse your divination tool under the full moon or the noonday sun.
• Between readings, use a rattle to break up negative energy over the tool.
• Rub your hands with a “vision oil” before readings and after an especially difficult reading.
• Pass the tool over sacred flame.
• Utter a favorite prayer before the divination process.
• Use a special colored candle to reflect the type of divination you wish to perform.
• Sprinkle holy water over the tool after a particularly difficult reading.
• Use a special cloth on which to lay your divination tool.
• Entreat the assistance of a dead loved one.
• Knock on the deck three times after it has been shuffled to set the energies for that reading.
• Cut the cards in a specific way.
• Place a statue, crystal, or other protective device on the reading table. (This is very important if you will be reading in public like a tea house, psychic fair, or other areas with large numbers of people.)
• Learning to trust your intuition is by far the most difficult thing to do when using a divination tool. Many experienced readers, including myself, claim that when the juices are really going, the reader will not recall what he or she said to the client. This is because your higher mind has taken over, and you are in the alpha level of mind when you are speaking to the client. The very best thing to do is just open your mouth and let ’er rip. This takes practice because your logical mind is throwing a tantrum, saying, “No, no, no! That can’t possibly be right!” My advice? Do not read your suspicions, read what is there.
Know this:
• The tool will often give the information that the client (or you) most needs to know, not necessarily what you want to know.
• Each reader will develop a specialty, meaning that they are very good at certain types of questions and abysmal at others.
• Most people lie to themselves. They will also lie to you, consciously or unconsciously.
• Most people will not hear the entire reading. The mind is a very selective grandma. They may block out statements that apply to what they already know (especially true in individuals who are also psychic and who are readers themselves). Other people will tune out things that they don’t want to hear about and will purposefully avoid that subject, or walk away from the table blocking what you may have said in their own best interests. Other individuals will be so inundated with information that they will pull out the best parts of the reading, or those things that relate to what they really wanted to know, and miss several other issues.
Pitfalls in Divination
Although there are a few I can think of when dealing with clients, the worst pitfall will be the hole your logical mind will dig for you. I can remember one reading where I did not listen to my intuition, and I did not read the cards as they stood. My logical mind told me that my friend could not be pregnant because my misguided memory told me that she had gone through surgery in the past and wasn’t capable of it. Therefore, I read the cards in another way. I was wrong.
You will also discover that there are certain people that you can’t read for, or something will happen between you and a client that will forever change your capabilities of reading for them: meaning you have to quit. They, or you, may be subconsciously twisting the reading. It can happen. Acknowledge it, and deal with it.
Know, and understand, that sometimes you will be wrong. Just flat-out inaccurate. Factors here may include:
• You are tired, sick, overworked, or mentally dealing with an issue of your own that clouds your judgment. You must learn how to say no to people when you are in this position.
• The universe thinks it is a very bad idea that this person is seeking a reading at this time. They must make decisions without the help of an intuitive tool. This could be karmically based, or simply a need for this person to stand on his or her own two feet.
• Not wording your question correctly. This is a big, fat hole that you can fall into before you realize you’re at the bottom. This especially happens when you are experienced at reading, think of the question quick, then throw the cards (or whatever). Halfway through the reading you realize you forgot the question. Absolutely infuriating.
• Asking too many questions at one time that deal with different issues. I really hate it when a client sits down and says, “I want to know about this, or maybe that, or how about . . .” while he or she is shuffling the cards, or they are gossiping about someone else. A bad reading can also result if they aren’t into the reading, or they are not paying attention to the business at hand and are chatting about something else. You must be firm and stop them, have them concentrate, and then reshuffle the cards or shake the bag, or whatever it is you are doing.
• Rule of thumb: If by the third sentence into their reading the client looks confused or claims this isn’t right, just smile and say, “Then let’s reshuffle.” If they ask why (some of them will), simply say they need to concentrate on what they most want to know so that you can give them the best, most accurate reading.
• Readings for yourself can get tricky. Once you know your divination tool inside out and upside down, you also will have the ability to influence that tool. Now, in a way, that’s okay, because you can influence the outcome of the event as well by hard concentration; however, there are certain people who have a habit of negative concentration and they inevitably receive the negative cards or lots that they were thinking about. When this happens, it is time to use a different tool for yourself.
• Being “too positive” or “too negative.” If you are too negative, you’ve got a problem: Stop reading for awhile until you pull yourself out of whatever funk you are in. Too positive can be a blessing if you are reading for a living, but fooling yourself is the trap you can snap on your own life if you are not careful. If the situation is bad, and you know it, and if the reading does not show light where you need it, do magick.
• You can’t turn psychism on and off like a light bulb. Sometimes you will be really in the flow, and other times, nothing. This is especially true with the more mind-altering types of divination, like scrying and psychometry.
• A disbelieving audience can diminish or destroy your concentration. Don’t be a show-off. If a friend makes fun of you, but they want a reading anyway, tell them to forget it. A divinatory tool is not a Victorian parlor game and you don’t need to be the brunt of their angst.
Reading for Others
Once you are comfortable with your divination tool, you will most likely want to read for other people. When you are first learning, be sure to tell those whom you read for that this is new for you. Make sure you give ground rules on the types of questions they may ask or how much time you plan to devote to these trial-and-error readings. In the beginning you will enjoy reading for others and will openly look for opportunities to use your new skill, but there will come a point (and it never fails) that people will begin to abuse you for your skill. They don’t do it on purpose (okay, some will).
At first, my teenage daughter adored reading the cards for her friends and their mothers, but after awhile, they only wanted to call her, see her, or have her visit because she could read, and then they would ply her for hours with questions. Not only is this tedious, but it is also very tiring. Finally, my daughter came to me, asking what to do. Here were my suggestions:
• Don’t carry your divination tool with you anymore. Leave it at home, especially when you go to a party (unless you think the party will be dull, or you want to be the center of attention).
• Impress upon your friends and family that the divination vehicle is a tool, not a toy, and should be treated with respect. You can’t just ask “any little old question” and expect to get a reasonable answer. They are for goal planning and conflict resolution.
• From the beginning, don’t read for friends or family who are psychologically unsound. Becoming dependent on you, or the cards, is not how to deal with life.
• Learn to say no politely and stick to your guns.
• Bluntly tell people you won’t read over the phone anymore.
• Limit the questions or the time.
To the Witch, the divination tool is not merely a window to the future or a peep into the past. It is a vehicle from which we can build better lives for ourselves and assist others too. The divination tool should be a part of your spiritual plan, not the overall plan itself.
Meditation and Your
Divinatory Tool
A very simple technique of meditating on your chosen divinatory tool is to work with one card (or unit) at a time. Just relax and look at the card. Try not to have a running dialog in your brain. When you mind wanders, gently bring it back. Start easy: one minute, tops. Then go to two, and finally to three. A kitchen timer works well for those of you who are worried about seconds. This type of meditation is classified as passive, where you don’t let your mind wander or allow yourself to visualize anything but the card. Once you have practiced passive meditation with your divinatory tool, you can move on to active meditation, where you incorporate your choice of visualization to link with the card or symbol, link thoughts through word association and write them down, or hold an internal conversation with the pictures on the card. For example, if you want to be successful at something, you may pull out the Sun card in the Tarot deck and form a picture of success in your mind while holding the card. This simple type of active meditation done every night for thirty days can help push you forward into the success that you desire. It sounds so simple, but it works.
Meditation for the Dawn
There is nothing more awe inspiring than working magick as the sun sprays golden light across the heavens when the dawn graces us with the beginning of a new day. Although most people equate Witches with the night, we are just as powerful during the daytime as well!
Supplies: Proper dress for the climate; one white seven-day candle; lighter; your divination tool.
Instructions: Carefully select special card, lot (if you are using runes), or symbol from your divination tool that best describes something that you would like to accomplish in the future. Check the newspaper or almanac to determine when the sun will rise on the day you choose to do this magick meditation. On the chosen day, sit outside facing east with the unlit candle before you.
Take several deep breaths and relax. Ground and center. Close your eyes and connect with the nature around you: the trees, grass, perhaps ocean and sand. If you live in the city, don’t despair: the earth is under you, there are birds and squirrels, maybe a windowbox or even a coffee can with flowers, and the sky above. Nature is there, even if she is hidden by concrete, macadam, and stone. Slowly, you will feel the nature spirits around you, which will fill you with a pleasing, peaceful sensation.
As the sun begins to peek over the horizon, hold your candle up to the light so that the ball of the sun (in your view) sits on the unlit wick. Blow one soft, deep breath onto the candle. Close your eyes and ask for the blessings of Spirit on this new day, on your life in general, and on your specific request. Lower the candle and light the wick. Set the burning candle in front of you, on top of or near the divinatory representation you brought with you.
Close your eyes and connect with your Spirit helpers. This could be the angels, a totem animal, or your support group on the other side of the veil (yes, we all have one). Suddenly, where you are sitting will feel crowded, and that’s perfect. You’ll feel love all around you. You may also plug into other souls who are doing the exact same thing that you are: communing with Spirit and the sunrise. You may see (in your mind) someone sitting on a hill in an unpopulated area, or perhaps you will connect with someone standing on top of a tenement building. The name or the face doesn’t matter; the communion with the divine does.
When you are finished, take the candle inside and allow it to burn continuously in a safe place. If you aren’t allowed to have candles, you can still do this meditation and use your divinatory tool. Simply hold the tool toward the sun as you would the candle. You may like this meditation so much that you practice it at sunrise on a regular basis.