Divination is using a collection of physical objects, selected randomly, to uncover information that one did not know before. Some people believe that it’s possible to see into the past, the future, and things one couldn’t otherwise know by using divination. Others believe it’s just a way of getting information from your subconscious mind - the objects tell a story according to the symbolism you assign to them, and that story tells you something about yourself.

Tarot cards are one of the best-known divination methods. Other types of cards are also used, and they may or may not have different categories of cards within the deck like a Tarot deck does, or may have specific cards that make up the deck. For example, a traditional Lenormand deck always has 36 specific cards. Oracle decks can have any number of cards. Tarot decks always follow the same structure. Oracle decks may have a structure or not; if they do, it’s not the same for all oracle decks.

Crystal balls are also well-known because of pop culture, and you can absolutely use them for divination. I read them sort of like looking at those Magic Eye posters that were popular in the 90s - I pick a shape or reflection of light on or in the crystal ball, then stare at it until my eyes stop focusing quite right, and then I see shapes that I can interpret. (I don’t offer this as a service yet; I’m not confident I can interpret it well for other people.)

Runes and ogham are two examples of divination systems where specific symbols are used, but you can draw those symbols on any small objects you have, like stones, slices of wood, slices of antler or bone, or pieces of metal. (You can make a rune set by drawing on pennies with a Sharpie if that’s all you’ve got!) Ideally, the objects are all about the same shape and size so you don’t choose based on shape or size. 

Dice have been used for divination for centuries and there are some specific methods used in history, but my own method is something I started developing in 2022.

Charm casting and throwing the bones both use small objects like runes and ogham, but they don’t need to be uniform in shape or size. I don’t throw the bones so all I’ll say about it is that it appears to be similar to charm casting in terms of what you do - select some of your objects at random and then place them at random on a marked surface. The meaning assigned to the object and the meaning assigned to that location on the surface combine to give the meaning. For charm casting, you can use just about anything that’s a good size for holding in your hand with a bunch of other objects.

Other diviners find meaning in the flight of birds, the shapes in used tea leaves, and the shape of clouds. You can make anything into a divination system if you decide what it means when you see a certain thing. For example, if you assign a meaning to each number and each letter of the alphabet, you could read license plates for hidden meaning.

I don’t think anybody has a full, satisfying, and universal answer to this question. Skeptics would say it’s a combination of the human tendency to find meaning in everything and the Barnum Effect, which means that people are inclined to be open to statements about them making sense and being right, even if there’s no way the person making the statement could have known that.

Others say that there are no coincidences, ever. I’m not entirely satisfied with this explanation because it tends to be packaged with beliefs that I’d consider spiritual bypassing. Spiritual bypassing is when a spiritual belief brings comfort in the moment but is used to avoid facing the truth and growing. 

In this case, some people believe that before we’re born, we decide what’s going to happen to us so that we can learn and grow, and we make agreements with others that they will help us do this. That sounds nice at first, but consider that this means victims of violence supposedly agreed to be brutalized by others and others agreed to do it. I don’t believe that we need to be hurt that way in order to grow; it’s different from tough love that expects us to be accountable and face the consequences of our own mistakes. I believe we could all learn and grow in the ways that we need in a world without violence. Likewise, things like cancer and car accidents cause suffering that isn’t needed to help us grow; if I could get rid of them, I would. So if you asked me, I do believe that there’s a reason for everything, but sometimes the reason is that people are cruel, our bodies are fragile and imperfect, or we aren’t all-knowing.

I agree that divination can help us access information in the subconscious, but I don’t think that’s all there is to it. But I know that it’s helped me, and others I know, so I’ll keep on doing it.

In general, a good question:

• Focuses on what you can do, not what someone else will do, because you can only really control your own actions.

• Is realistic even if it’s ambitious. If you want to know how to become an NBA player and you’re 5’2”, it’s not going to happen. If you want to know how to break into fiction writing at age 60, you’ve got a chance…if you’re willing to sit down and write a book, and if you’ve been procrastinating on that, the answer you might get is, “Actually sit down and write your book.”

• Leaves room for something better - for example, if you ask how you can get a specific job at a specific company, maybe they’ve already picked someone and the interviews are just going through the motions. Or what if you’d be happier elsewhere?

• Fits the type of divination used. I’ll get into more detail about this in the articles about the divination methods I use, but it helps to know what kind of problems that divination system was built to solve. 

• Fits the person doing the divination. Some specialize in a particular topic like relationships, health, or spiritual growth. I don’t specialize in a topic; I specialize in identifying concrete actions you can take to improve your situation. (Of course, if there’s a mismatch on this, the answer is frequently to find a different reader who is a better fit. You don’t have to stick to only one reader.)

You may want to try identifying the next step in your aspirations before forming a question, to hopefully avoid getting a “you need to write your book” answer. If you know your next step is to write the book, you can ask something like, “How do I overcome the barriers that are keeping me from writing my book?” 

Sometimes divination will still give you the “you need to write your book” kind of answer, or an answer that doesn’t seem to be for the right question. 

If it’s the “just do it” answer, maybe you can or should figure it out on your own and that’s part of the process, or you want to be a published author without going through the work of writing a book and the divination tool is trying to draw your attention to that, or you’re looking for more reassurance when really it’s time to get started even if you’re still nervous. 

If it seems to be answering a different question, maybe the divination tool thinks you actually need to know about something else - you’ll be fine with writing your book, but some other part of your life is about to get shaken up. Or you should be incorporating a specific part of your life into the book. (I got several unexpected “oh hey, let’s talk about your relationship!” answers when I needed to consider how my partner fit into a specific part of my life and I had been focused on going it alone.) Or maybe you want to be published but you also feel happier spending time with your family and should consider if that’s a better use of your time.

Seemingly unsatisfying answers can also mean that you need to know or do something before you’ll understand or accept the real answer. If you’ve been writing and writing, and honed your craft, but need to have a particular experience before you can write the book you were meant to write and publish, you might get an answer about that experience (that you haven’t had yet, so you don’t know what it’s talking about) or an unexpected sign to rest, like the 4 of Swords in the Tarot.

You should feel comfortable talking to the reader and should be able to ask about the reader’s policies. You shouldn’t ever be pressured to pay for more than you intend to or get surprised with fees after a reading. It’s reasonable to want a reader who understands your situation; works with gods, spirits, guides, and/or ancestors that you are okay with them inviting in; and works in a way that fits with your own spirituality and practices. (If you want someone who works extensively with angels or the dead, I’m not your person, I’ll be up-front about that, and if I can, I’ll refer you to someone who may be a better fit.)

I’ll write about the specific way I do different types of readings on the pages about those types, but here’s the general idea:

First, you prepare yourself and the area if you feel you should. Different readers have different opinions on this. Activities you might include are:

• Grounding and centering. This means cleansing yourself of any energy that is stagnant or not fully “you”, as well as excess energy you don’t need, frequently by sending it into the earth to be recycled. (The earth does this like trees take our carbon dioxide and turn it back into oxygen for us to breathe - you don’t have to worry about gunking up the earth by doing it.) Meanwhile, you relax, calm yourself, and focus on who you are; if you know how to do energy work, you can check that your energy centers and pathways are feeling healthy. The Psychic Energy Codex by M. Belanger is a good beginner’s guide to energy work.

• Protection. This can be done in many ways, including praying for your gods, spirits, guides, and ancestors to protect you; wearing a protective symbol; using something that is associated with grounding like salt or black tourmaline; or using a sigil. Sigil Witchery and Visual Alchemy by Laura Tempest Zakroff are good books on sigils; start with Sigil Witchery. 

• Calling on gods, spirits, guides, and ancestors. You can ask any of these to help you and give you information. Many readers give answers based on more than divination alone, and these are some sources that may tell you what you need to know.

• Clearing the energy of your tools. Readers may do this before a reading, after, and/or between readings. A couple of simple methods are to knock on a card deck three times (like you’re knocking on a door) or to breathe on your tools.

A couple of notes on gods, spirits, guides, and ancestors:

• Make sure, in whatever way, the ones you call on are agreeable to the person you’re doing the reading for; this can be asking for only those they would accept to join you, it can be asking that person what is okay for them, or it can be publicizing who you call on and telling folks not to come to you if it’s not okay with them. I work with Loki sometimes but I’m not going to invite him to help unless I’m reading for someone who accepts how much chaos he can bring with him. I also wouldn’t knowingly do a reading for anyone who disrespects Loki or any of the others I call upon.

• Remember: Ancestors can be anyone who helped make you who you are today; they don’t have to be your actual relatives and you don’t have to ask any relatives you don’t want to, or who you think wouldn’t want to be involved in things like this. As a nonbinary, bisexual person, I honor the “trancestors” - all of the trans people who have gone before - and the queer ancestors. There’s somebody you can call on, even if you don’t know it yet.

Next, you focus on the question and the person asking it. The person asking is frequently called the querent. You shuffle and cut your cards or otherwise randomize whatever tool you’re using; for runes, ogham, or charms, for example, you can put them in a bag with opaque sides (so you can’t see anything inside) or a dice cup and shake it well.

Once you’re satisfied that everything is random - at least random enough that you can’t predict what you’re going to select - you choose however many of the objects that you need. If you’re setting them down in a specific pattern, like a Tarot spread, you place them in the pattern. If you’re doing something more random, like charm casting, you can drop them on the reading surface or slowly let them fall from your hand one by one while moving your hand over the surface.

Next, you look at what is where, and combine those two things to get the meaning of each object. Even better if you can look at objects that are near each other, or otherwise connected (such as past, present, and future cards in a Tarot spread) or opposed (such as strength and weakness cards in a Tarot spread) and find a link between them. These connections are what make a reading into one cohesive thing rather than a bunch of different data points. If you can tell a story about what’s happening using many or all of the objects, you’re doing very well. 

If you know anything about the situation that the querent is asking about and can connect elements of the reading to your knowledge, that’s good confirmation that the rest is correct too. If you don’t know anything, you can pause and ask whether a part of the reading that the querent would already know about, like the past card in a Tarot spread, sounds familiar; if they say yes, that’s confirmation. (If they say no, consider how else you might interpret it.) If you think the cold, aloof intellectual in their “past” card is their dad and they say their dad was never like that, maybe it’s another relative, a teacher or mentor, even the querent themself. 

I don’t like to know too much about the situation before a reading because I don’t want it to bias me, so I may ask the querent to give me no more information than necessary to answer my questions. But if I hear I’m on the wrong track, I try to figure out if there’s a right track or if the reading is just completely off. Sometimes it’s a bad day for it, or I don’t connect with the querent the way I need to.

Once you’ve finished your interpretation, you ask if the querent has any more questions. You may be able to answer them based on what you already know, or may need to draw another card or rune or whatever. (Although at a certain point, your tools will probably be like, “I said what I said” and start repeating or giving you gibberish. You can’t get all of the answers to everything in one session.) I like to either let the querent take a photo of the reading or give them at least one photo, maybe more, depending on how many are needed to show everything in its place. It’s easier to do this than go rooting back through your Tarot deck when they ask, days later, “What did you say the hidden factor card was?”

Then you end the reading, mostly by repeating or reversing anything you did in the beginning:

• Ground and center again, and tell yourself you’re done; some readers mentally lock away that knowledge or that part of themself inside their head so that it doesn’t spill over into everyday life.

• Reduce your protection down to what you use on an everyday basis. If you asked a god, spirit, guide, or ancestor to provide it, thank them and tell them you’re done. (You probably don’t want to tell them to leave unless you really need to be by yourself at this point, but it’s polite to let them know you no longer need the level of attention you did during the reading.)

• Thank any gods, spirits, guides, or ancestors that you asked to help in any other way (including just to witness) and tell them you’re done.

• You can clear the energy of your tools now; if you feel it’s necessary or useful but you don’t do it before readings, now may be the right time.

In the woo woo sense, intuition is your sense of knowing things that you can’t know through mundane sources. It may feel like receiving information through your physical senses even though you know it’s not coming from those physical senses; for example, if your physical sense of hearing is strong, you may hear things in your mind. Other times, information pops into your head without a sensory impression; you just know. 

This information may come from your gods, spirits, guides, and/or ancestors. It may come from the energetic connections between you and the querent. (Some readers ask for your name and maybe your birthday at the start of a reading to give them a better connection to you.) For me, I believe I’m tapping into the magic in us and all around us, and sometimes there’s something floating on that current that I need to know.

This is actually enough for some folks to get all the answers they need without using divination tools, although they still might use the tools to avoid freaking people out; it’s more comfortable for some querents to think the cards or the runes are magic than to think the intuitive person is (and maybe they are too).

I think everything’s magic, but I realize that’s not necessarily a useful answer to the question. I think there are spirits behind some of these systems, like spirits of each of the runes, and that any divination tool you use is going to develop a personality if it didn’t have one already. I believe that’s why a divination system you made up last week can give you meaningful answers. (So I guess, going back to the question of how it works, my own answer is that I’m an animist - I believe everything has a spirit - and I believe everything is connected through the magic/energy making up everything.)

If you have any further questions about divination, please use my comment form to ask!