Divination

Many Jedi have or can have the ability to foresee the future. I know it is said that we should be mindful of the living force, but it is my opinion that if we have any forknowledge, we should not ignore it. So here are some ways to divine thanks to wikipedia:

• Astrology: by celestial bodies.
• Augury: by the flight of birds.
• Bibliomancy: by books (frequently, but not always, religious texts).
• Cartomancy: by cards.
• Cheiromancy/palmistry: by palms.
• Gastromancy: by crystal ball.
• Extispicy: by the entrails of animals.
• Feng Shui: by earthen harmony.
• I Ching divination: by the I Ching; a form of bibliomancy.
• Numerology: by numbers.
• Oneiromancy: by dreams.
• Onomancy: by names.
• Quija: board divination.
• Rhabdomancy: divination by rods
• Runecasting/Runic divination: by runes.
• Scrying: by reflective objects.
• Taromancy: by Tarot; a form of cartomancy.
• Necromancy: by the dead, or spirits/souls of the dead/recently dead

Interesting, but what I know divintation as is that its more of a guide. You can use your runes to help see inside of yourself, to heal or to see what you may need to work on. Tarot can be used much the same way. You probably won't see your future mapped out (not that it's impossible), but you may get a clue as how to act in a given situation. For example car shopping. A pendulum can help pick out the diamon from the lemon. Though, good old fashioned common sense is helpful too.

The most fun thing about divination is that absolutely anything can be used. You just have to know how to read it. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff people use. Like catomancy - reading cats movements. :laugh:

I use many different tools for divination - dream work, tarot, stones, etc. They way I see it is this: the Force speaks to us all the time but the translation of those words needs some work. When we're in trance-states or dreams, we are communicating directly with the Force in a non-physical way so our interactions are limitless. That's why we can do things like fly, change into animals, etc. But when we are awake and conscious, we have a physical-based sense of awareness and so see things in a different way. Translating between the two states takes practice and tools for divination allow us to do that.

As you quite rightly say, Wendaline, anything can be used for divination. Imagine a set of secret codes set up to communicate secretly with a friend. You both need to establish what letters or words correspond to the code - you need a cipher or code book. Divination is the same - you determine what each of the cards, runes, etc mean and the Force uses that code to communicate.

For example: imagine you believe that the 2 of Cups refers to forming a close bond with another person. When you ask a question about relationships and the Force wants to know about forming a close bond with another person, it will guide you into selecting the 2 of Cups.

That's just a simple example. The more complex the code, the more intricate the answer. Thank you for digging this topic up again, Wendaline

Wendaline wrote: Interesting, but what I know divintation as is that its more of a guide. You can use your runes to help see inside of yourself, to heal or to see what you may need to work on. Tarot can be used much the same way. You probably won't see your future mapped out (not that it's impossible), but you may get a clue as how to act in a given situation. For example car shopping. A pendulum can help pick out the diamon from the lemon. Though, good old fashioned common sense is helpful too.

The most fun thing about divination is that absolutely anything can be used. You just have to know how to read it. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff people use. Like catomancy - reading cats movements. :laugh:

Thanks for this insight Wendaline!
And thank you for yours Master Mark!

For me divination is a personalized "fluid art." In my opinion/belief: as the Force/Tao/whatever-you-call-it can "flow like water" our understanding of it and of any insights gained from our understanding of it should be as fluid. I tried learning the Tarot and other well-established forms of divination and quickly grew bored with them.

In my understanding of things this is because I tend more towards the characteristics of Dionysos (a sort of "patron" of mine, though I use that word in it's loosest sense...hahaha) than those of Apollo. The way I see things currently Apollo seems to like revealing secrets through more defined tools and "systems" whereas Dionysos, the Nymphs, and Hermes seem to enjoy more fluid systems.

I look at divination and "inspiration" (AKA ecstasy AKA divine ecstasy AKA "ekstasis" )as equivalent states of being/mind. However, I am a deeply spiritual/religious person, so your mileage may vary! :side:

Master Mark,

Wonderfully put. While deployed I did not have my normal focusing objects so I used a deck of cards. I meditated on it and internally decided what the cards would represent and began giving Tarot readings for the troops to some amazing clarity and detail.

Divination tools are a way to create an understandable image that you can better interpret the communication.

Personally, I find all of these aids to be very pretty. It is enjoyable to gaze upon them, to handle them (shuffling cards and kneading a bag of stones are quite pacifying) and to 'play' with them.

As the future is a potentiality in constant motion, these items enable us to interpret symbolically elements of scattered along a probability curve. I find it amusing when the self-appointed 'debunkers' of activities such as divination attempt to make probability and coïncidence serve to disprove the possibility of it. Through the keen philosophical eye, it is most certainly, let us agree, a symbolic interpretation of what probabilities, which coïncidences, are likely to manifest. Why not ? If all the things the Force is doing It is doing Now, then the future manifestations are probability, can be a bit random, and all fall under 'what may be'.

So, therein lies the difference, and what seems truer herein than other possibilities (one should deny nothing), is that the more intelligently defined one makes one's symbols (the cards, runes, stones, entrails ... behaviour of cats -- whatever) the less accurate one's divination can be. This for the tendancy that the intellect prefers to know what 'will be' and is not content to see in the flow of the Force what 'may be'.

Divination is more reliable than a weather forcast, more reliable than the stock market, but please do not attempt to see your lottery numbers in this way. And please also be careful of the confidence one may be tempted to place in any who claim a 'too certain' clairvoyance. We cannot 'see' the future as we watch cinema, nor would we want to. Should our clairvoyance truly come from the Force, what we will witness is what is happening off-set rather than on the screen. And we need no cards, no crystals nor cats for that ...

As part of my studies and out of sheer curiosity getting the better of me, I purchased a deck of Tarot cards and an instruction manual. I also bought a set of runes, but I haven’t opened the box yet. I’m not a spiritual individual and I am yet to be convinced of human psychic potential but as I said, I’m a curious person and thought I’d see how it all works. I don’t particularly believe in the magic of mass-produced cards stamped out on a production line alongside baseball cards and Magic: The Gathering decks though. If it was an old, dusty deck with some serious history, maybe. After sorting through all the different themes I found a classic-styled one.


In reading about the cards and giving thought to destiny, fate and cards, I eventually came to a conclusion after sorting them out. The way people think about their fortune after a telling or after a Tarot card reading is how philosophers, meditators and others think about their lives. An ‘awakened’ individual, such as a Force Realist, or so we’ll refer to them for this article, is aware of themselves and their lives. Tarot cards offer a temporary surge of insight and willingness to really ‘soul-search’ and think about their lives. A, in what I hope doesn’t sound too condescending, moment of clarity and brief experience into what it’s like to be in realisation of the Self.

Most of those I find to be awesome amplifiers to existing psychic potential. However if one lacks honing their intuition and psychic abilities even the best amplifier is sub part. That in mind, attachment to an amplifier can create familiarity as which is good and bad. On the one hand you wind up with an awesome method of looking forward and inward. On the other hand you loose the ability to do this as intuitively (if your not careful). It is all give and take as is all things.

UraharaKiskue wrote: Most of those I find to be awesome amplifiers to existing psychic potential. However if one lacks honing their intuition and psychic abilities even the best amplifier is sub part. That in mind, attachment to an amplifier can create familiarity as which is good and bad. On the one hand you wind up with an awesome method of looking forward and inward. On the other hand you loose the ability to do this as intuitively (if your not careful). It is all give and take as is all things.

Exactly, I agree. You said what I was trying to get across much better than I could hope to, thank you!

This was really the point I was trying to get across: I tend to lose any "ability" I have for intuitive divination if I focus too much on learning or developing a code. When I use divinatory methods or tools I have to include it in my spiritual practices (most commonly Bakhic in nature, haha) in order to receive any insights about myself or the world around us. I'm certain, however, that other people use such tools as tarot and runes to great effect. Personally, when I "learn" something (e.g. The traditionally accepted meanings and uses of tarot cards or runes) it becomes more of an intellectual than spiritual activity. I am getting better at accepting all things as inherently spiritual/as parts of the Force (AKA the Tao) but its still more helpful to keep my intellectual activities somewhat separate from my "spiritual" or "meditative" activities.

I was given ' The Visual I Ching ' when I was 14, but I never used it for divination. Instead I used it to develop a sensitivity to the natural world, which I guess could lead to divination. I've still got it here, it looks great so I might have a go at it as intended for once!!!