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Cast The Bones Into The Fire
Jan. 13th, 2009 06:16 pmThis came up in a conversation I was having with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
telyanofcelore , and the theory was interesting enough I thought it might make a good post, so here ya go!
So, one of the things I do, as a Wiccan (although I did this before I was one), is use divination tools. My tool of choice is the I Ching (which involves casting coins or yarrow stalks and then interpreting the corresponding reading in the I Ching book), in large part because that's what I grew up with. My mom likes to tell the story that when she was trying to decide whether or not to divorce my dad, she did a reading and ended up with one that said "get rid of your old goat." I've done I Ching readings before I applied for jobs, when I was deciding what college to attend, even when I was trying to figure out if I wanted to go to China. As soon as I find my coins, I'm going to do one about my major, because it's something that's been starting to freak me out a little (okay, a lot). Other people use tarot, numerology, or runes with great success, although none of those ever really clicked for me.
But what's the point of divination? What do I actually expect to gain by flipping a couple coins and reading what some Chinese guy wrote 2000 years ago, or by picking stones marked with funny symbols out of bag, or laying out sets of cards in a pattern? I mean, as a modern, enlightened, science-oriented person who believes in evolution and global warming and genetic engineering, do I really trust my fate to divinatory tools I bought at a used bookstore?
Well, no, not exactly.
See, I don't invest my divinatory tools with any extraordinary power. I don't believe, honestly, that if I can just find the one right method, I'll know every pitfall awaiting me in the future, every potential wrong turn I could make, the name, career, and physical description of the guy in the queue who is going to be my soul mate and eventual husband. I don't think divination works that way. I do believe that it is possible to see the future - I've seen enough of my mom's extremely specific hunches turn out to be true to know that when she says something is going to happen, it is going to happen - but I don't think it's something you can do sitting on your living room floor with a pack of tarot cards and a guide you bought at Barnes & Noble.
I think that divination, when you use it correctly, lets you see what you already know. Which, hey, sounds a like a bit of a let-down, doesn't it? If you already know something, you don't really need to get out the runes to figure it out. If I want to know what my homework is for my contemporary lit class, I'm not going to do an I Ching reading; I'm going to think about today's class and remember the professor told us to finish reading Jane Eyre. But it's a little more complicated than that.
Divination lets you figure out the things that you don't know that you know.
Nine times out a ten, when you are faced with a given problem in your life, I think you know what the best or the right solution is. But our brains aren't very straight-forward places, and just because something is the best choice doesn't mean it's the easiest, or the most fun, or the least painful. So it's pretty easy for it to get bogged down in what we want to do, and what we think our spouse wants us to do, and what we can afford to do, and what will give us the easiest out, and what will keep us from having to confront someone, and what the neighbors will think, and what our parents will think, and before you know it things are so muddled that we can't begin to figure out what we should be doing. It's really easy to get lost in that headspace.
Which is where divination comes in. By introducing an element of randomness, whether it is the turn of a coin or the drawing of a card, you clear through all the junk that is stopping you from making a decision, and get a chance to really listen to yourself. In a certain sense, I think critics are right when they say that divination is just you projecting your own thoughts onto an objective and unrelated text (a text being anything you can interpret in this case), but that ignores the real value of this process. I've never done an I Ching reading that wasn't unnervingly spot-on to my situation, and I've never regretted a decision I made as a result of my readings - because every time I did one, I was forced to face the facts I already knew, deep down, about my situation and my options.
I don't use divination as a means of telling the future; I use it as a means of deciding, given my current circumstances, what choice is most likely to have positive effects for me in the long run.
Of course, your mileage may vary.
ETA: Wow, I really love this icon.
telyanofcelore , and the theory was interesting enough I thought it might make a good post, so here ya go!So, one of the things I do, as a Wiccan (although I did this before I was one), is use divination tools. My tool of choice is the I Ching (which involves casting coins or yarrow stalks and then interpreting the corresponding reading in the I Ching book), in large part because that's what I grew up with. My mom likes to tell the story that when she was trying to decide whether or not to divorce my dad, she did a reading and ended up with one that said "get rid of your old goat." I've done I Ching readings before I applied for jobs, when I was deciding what college to attend, even when I was trying to figure out if I wanted to go to China. As soon as I find my coins, I'm going to do one about my major, because it's something that's been starting to freak me out a little (okay, a lot). Other people use tarot, numerology, or runes with great success, although none of those ever really clicked for me.
But what's the point of divination? What do I actually expect to gain by flipping a couple coins and reading what some Chinese guy wrote 2000 years ago, or by picking stones marked with funny symbols out of bag, or laying out sets of cards in a pattern? I mean, as a modern, enlightened, science-oriented person who believes in evolution and global warming and genetic engineering, do I really trust my fate to divinatory tools I bought at a used bookstore?
Well, no, not exactly.
See, I don't invest my divinatory tools with any extraordinary power. I don't believe, honestly, that if I can just find the one right method, I'll know every pitfall awaiting me in the future, every potential wrong turn I could make, the name, career, and physical description of the guy in the queue who is going to be my soul mate and eventual husband. I don't think divination works that way. I do believe that it is possible to see the future - I've seen enough of my mom's extremely specific hunches turn out to be true to know that when she says something is going to happen, it is going to happen - but I don't think it's something you can do sitting on your living room floor with a pack of tarot cards and a guide you bought at Barnes & Noble.
I think that divination, when you use it correctly, lets you see what you already know. Which, hey, sounds a like a bit of a let-down, doesn't it? If you already know something, you don't really need to get out the runes to figure it out. If I want to know what my homework is for my contemporary lit class, I'm not going to do an I Ching reading; I'm going to think about today's class and remember the professor told us to finish reading Jane Eyre. But it's a little more complicated than that.
Divination lets you figure out the things that you don't know that you know.
Nine times out a ten, when you are faced with a given problem in your life, I think you know what the best or the right solution is. But our brains aren't very straight-forward places, and just because something is the best choice doesn't mean it's the easiest, or the most fun, or the least painful. So it's pretty easy for it to get bogged down in what we want to do, and what we think our spouse wants us to do, and what we can afford to do, and what will give us the easiest out, and what will keep us from having to confront someone, and what the neighbors will think, and what our parents will think, and before you know it things are so muddled that we can't begin to figure out what we should be doing. It's really easy to get lost in that headspace.
Which is where divination comes in. By introducing an element of randomness, whether it is the turn of a coin or the drawing of a card, you clear through all the junk that is stopping you from making a decision, and get a chance to really listen to yourself. In a certain sense, I think critics are right when they say that divination is just you projecting your own thoughts onto an objective and unrelated text (a text being anything you can interpret in this case), but that ignores the real value of this process. I've never done an I Ching reading that wasn't unnervingly spot-on to my situation, and I've never regretted a decision I made as a result of my readings - because every time I did one, I was forced to face the facts I already knew, deep down, about my situation and my options.
I don't use divination as a means of telling the future; I use it as a means of deciding, given my current circumstances, what choice is most likely to have positive effects for me in the long run.
Of course, your mileage may vary.
ETA: Wow, I really love this icon.