A short introduction to divination for beginners: learning to read the web

Time for a short introduction to divination for beginners! Divination is the art of gaining insight into oneself, an issue or situation by means of divinatory tools or methods. If used properly, it can give you profound results. I myself use several different tools and methods for divination purposes. Which one I pick varies according to my purpose and mood. Each way of divining means to read the weave of the web as it stand at that time, cos by knowing how we got where we are we can know where we’ll go.

“You’ll marry once and have three children”

Divination doesn’t assume to foretell the future. It is a way to envision the probable outcome of a matter based on the forces currently at work. So it isn’t a “you will marry once and have three children” show. Rather, it is meant to be a consultation with your own inner self. It aims to help the seeker gain insight into the forces at play and thus give them a guideline for the path to follow. You can also see that in the meaning of the verb ‘to divine’: to discover by intuition or insight.

You can use the art of divination for yourself, for instance when your head’s in the way of your intuition and you need a method to access it. Or just because you enjoy exploring matters this way. You can also have someone else divine or read for you. In this blog I talk about the methods I personally use and what my ground rules are when I divine for someone else.

Divination is not a theatrical trick fit for fairgrounds

In order to achieve proper divinatory readings, both reader and seeker need to fully commit to the process. For me that means that the seeker explains the situation at hand and the questions arising from it in a clear manner. That way the reader can focus on the right matter without being side-tracked by things that are irrelevant. I myself only work on this basis. Anyone who is looking for tricks and theatrics is kindly asked to go to the nearest fairground.

Divination involves concentration and tapping into the web of wyrd. In order to do this, one needs to understand how wyrd, or fate, works. This is not the christian type of fate in which some god tests mere mortals, but rather how our ancient forebears understood it. Not only does one need to understand wyrd; one needs to be fully conscious of its existence and kind of ‘see’ it.

I can’t fully describe how this works. Not so much cos this isn’t something for the untrained to enter into – we all are born able to do it, but many lose it on the way – but mostly cos it cannot be captured in words. The best I can do is use metaphors like ‘web’, ‘tapestry’, ‘weaving’ and ‘spinning’ to try and give you a glimpse of what it means to walk wyrd.

Methods of divination: reading, scrying and intuiting

I myself employ three ways of divining: reading, scrying and intuiting. The difference between the reading and scrying is that the first uses tools that convey fixed images or concepts. The latter only provides a surface for the images that I need to see and kind of reads like a film. With both methods I let the meaning of what I see come to me intuitively.

Which brings me to method three, intuiting. Intuiting what I basically employ during consultations. I listen carefully to what, for instance, people tell me about their situation and let my instincts tell me what is going on without having my head interfere. My head comes into the process at a later stage when I connect what my instincts have told me to my knowledge and experience.

From detailed imagery to receiving whatever is offered

When I read, I read tarot, runes or bones. Tarot provides the most intricate and detailed source of imagery and conceptualisation and bones the least. When I scry, I use fire or water. Which one depends on where I am, what I have at my disposal and what I feel I need to use at that time. Scrying is my preferred method of divination when I don’t have a clear question or when I just want to ‘see’ what’s going on with the world. Reading is my preferred method when I have a defined situation or question that I want to look into.

I’ll tell you more about these methods in later blogs.