The Seventeen Magic Tablets

All seventeen ‘Magic Tablets’ fanned-out in no particular order.

This is another Tablet of Fate-format lesson. I like the Tablet of Fate type of divination tool for their accessibility, ease of use, ability to store flat, and great creative potential; tablets of fate are limited only by your imagination. When I came across these particular tablets of fate, I thought at first glance that they looked like the sort of divination tool you’d use with kids. They had a very basic, color-by-numbers look to them, and a small number of short, to-the-point answers. Closer inspection revealed some of these tablets, such as the Bird of Paradise, the Circle and the Star, and the Diamond, really don’t deal with subject matter which would appeal to a young child. What these tablets of fate lack in depth, they make up for in breadth of subject matter. Choose the right ones to consult, and you can come away from your session with a well-rounded view of what’s just up ahead for you in the near-future. But yeah, in a pinch, I suppose you could use these for coloring sheets.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, Page 8

Dice Divination Meanings–A Clarification

About a month and a half ago, I was asked by a reader of this blog ‘in connection with dice divination, what is the meaning of the numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 etc.?’ This question made me realize that, in the course of the two lessons I’ve done on dice divination, I failed to be sufficiently clear about the meanings of all the various possible dice-rolls. And if I confused one reader, chances are I confused more than one.

So, to answer that reader’s question, and in case I may have confused other readers as well, I decided to run a correction in the form of a column which consists solely of the meanings of the dice rolls in dice divination, and to present a clear master-list of meanings for the various-numbered throws in dice divination. For those of you who are perfectly clear on dice-roll meanings, and for whom this is a tiresome repeat, I assure you I am working on another divination lesson entry, having nothing to do with dice divination, which I hope to post soon, but in the meantime, I’m putting this out there for clarity’s sake.

These meanings will apply universally, whether you’re doing a two-dice throw, a three-dice throw, a four-dice throw (not that I’ve ever heard of that, but hey, innovate), or a five-dice throw. There are such things as single-die throws, but those have an altogether separate set of meanings and rules of operation. I am including the numerological significance of some of the numbers, in case you want to take those meanings into consideration in your interpretations.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4

The General Order of Divination Lessons–An Overview

Eager to bring you some new and different divination method or tool, I’ve grown this site haphazardly, with no thought or immediate concern for establishing any sort of order to it. The problem this created was brought home to me recently by a new reader of this site, who wanted to take the lessons in order and wanted to know how to do that. It was then I realized what a disorganized mess I’d created. For a retired librarian, this realization was mortifying. We’re all about order. I apologize for this oversight.

So righting what I see as a great wrong, I’m going to list here what I consider the proper order in which to take these lessons, if you want to do these lessons as an actual divination curriculum. Proceeding on the principle that you must learn how to crawl before you can walk, and you must learn how to walk before you can run, I have tried, in each category, to establish a sensible progression of lessons from simplest to the increasingly-complex. My intention is that, by this progression, your intuitive and psychic abilities will be strengthened bit-by-bit. This can aid you in divining, since many divination methods rely on the diviner’s own intuition in correctly interpreting the message.

Please keep in mind, this Master List of the Order of Lessons is a work-in-progress. I may tinker with the order a bit, suddenly add lessons I hadn’t originally planned-on doing, and some lessons may even get moved to an altogether different category. Some of these lessons I haven’t gotten-to yet, so I must beg your patience. Italics indicate those lessons I haven’t yet created.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7

The Mystic Tablet & The Coiled Serpent

Here’s a few more gems I came across in my searches. These charts are the type of divination tool I call a ‘tablet of fate’, where you point to a particular feature on a diagram or picture, then go to a coded list associated with that diagram for your fortune. This form of divination is several centuries old. The first tablets of fate appeared in chapbooks in about the 1600s and later. What I like about this divinatory format is its ease of use; you just download it, print it out, grab a pointer of some sort, and you’re set. I also like the creative possibilities of it; the tablet of fate format is limited only by your imagination.

THE MYSTIC GYPSY TABLET

This and the following tablet reportedly come out of European gypsy culture. According to the source I found this in  ‘…This extremely popular method of fortune telling began in the Middle Ages and was, at that time, regarded very highly in most gypsy camps throughout Europe. It was considered for a long time to be superior to all other methods.’ Anymore, whenever I see a claim of very old age for a particular divination tool, the skeptic in me comes out and I want to put such claims to the test. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and the Mystic Tablet of the Gypsies assumes a certain degree of literacy which I know simply wasn’t common in the Middle Ages. My testing tool of choice in such matters is the yes-and-no stones. The conversation went as follows:

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6

Smoke Divination (Capnomancy)

A LITTLE HISTORY

This is another one of those divination methods which probably actually started with a bunch of Neanderthals in a cave, but the best I can tell you is it’s verifiably somewhere between three and five thousand years old. Author Eva Shaw said it was originally practiced by the ancient Babylonians, who used specifically cedar branches or cedar shavings as fuel for the smoke, and that they are said to have divined this way only on certain sacred days in the Babylonian calendar. The ancient Druids had a variation on this called dendromancy, for which they used both mistletoe and foliage cut from sacred oaks.

Author Charles Godfrey Leland stated that the ancient Etruscans had a variety of capnomancy in which sesame seeds and black poppy seeds were cast on hot coals and omens were drawn therefrom. If the seeds popped, then it was believed next year’s crop would be a good one. This form of capnomancy is actually something called causinomancy, which is the art of divining by observing how special objects either placed or thrown on the fire, burn. Causinomancy comes from the Greek word ‘kaustos’ which means ‘burned.’ As a general rule of thumb, if the special object cast into the fire burns rapidly, that is considered a favorable omen, and if it burns slowly, or it doesn’t burn at all, that is considered an unfavorable omen. If you throw a burnable item as directly as you can onto a fire or hot coals, but it somehow manages to bounce off something and lands smoldering on the periphery of the burning area, that implies a rejection of your efforts or desires, and it will not come to pass.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7

Alectryomancy-Chicken Divination

Roman mosaic depicting two roosters divining in a circle–or getting ready to fight. Picture courtesy of acienttimeslogspot.com.

It’s been a while since I discussed any divination methods which I would consider to fall under that category I call ‘Artomancy’, so I feel it’s time I return to that subject. There’s been a renewed interest in urban farming in recent years, born of concern about where our food comes from, how far it travel to reach us, and what augmentations need to be made to the food in order for it to arrive at our table in edible condition. Some people in urban or suburban areas even raise their own chickens, which opens up the door to a method of divination thousands of years old—divination by chicken. Yes that’s right, chicken. The technical term for this form of divination is alectryomancy, or alectromancy. It is by the first term that I shall refer to it in this lesson.

This form of divination is best if you’re looking for a name, an acronym or a hint as to the identity of someone. Its forte is concise answers. It was the sort of divination practiced by people anxious to know whodunnit, who’s the next boss, or who they will marry. I suppose if you’re an author and you’re considering several different titles for your next book, this approach to divination could be made to work for that, too. But this isn’t the divination tool to use if you’re one of those who want a whole-sentence-length answer to their question.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Ever since the days of the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians, there have been societal pronouncements on which days of the year are officially considered ‘lucky’ and ‘unlucky.’ As the existence of the Coligny Calendar from the 2nd Century C.E. indicates, even Celtic peoples (and presumably their priesthood, the Druids) had a list of officially-designated ‘good’ and ‘evil’ days. The provenance of such lists is usually ascribed to ‘learned astrologers’ or angels who handed the master list of good and bad days over to somebody important-enough to garner a mention in the Christian Bible. Given that there are only 365 days in a year, 366 in a leap year, there’s bound to be some overlap in the lists, but from what I’ve seen of such lists, there’s quite a bit of diversity too. Oftentimes, it’ll differ based on whether said-list of lucky and unlucky days is for purposes of agriculture, romance, starting things, or general fortune.

What constitutes a ‘lucky’ day? The consensus is, they’re days on which some good event or unanticipated gain comes to us, seemingly from out of the blue. They’re days on which taking a big risk or embarking on a new endeavor or project will greatly pay off for us, either immediately or sometime further down the road. In terms of children born, a lucky day is traditionally considered to bless them with particular good fortune in life, and will endow them with certain characteristics which will aid them on their way to success. What constitutes an unlucky day? The consensus is, they’re days on which some bad event or unanticipated loss comes to us, seemingly from out of the blue. They’re days on which taking a risk or embarking on a new endeavor or project not only doesn’t pay off, they bring us unanticipated loss, trouble, sorrow, pain and other complications we didn’t see coming. In terms of children born, an unlucky day is traditionally considered to endow them with a disadvantage and undesirable characteristics which will pave the road to misfortune for them.

Such hard-and-fast universal lists of what constitutes ‘lucky’ and ‘unlucky’ days of the year I was skeptical-of at first. After all, aren’t the success or failure of our days a matter of what kind of energy we bring to them? Doesn’t luck and misfortune vary from person to person, independently of a hard-and-fast list of days? Then I came across the lists (pictured above) of unfortunate days for males and females, plus a list of days considered propitious for love and marriage. These were some more gems I found in ‘Grand Orient’s’ A Manual of Cartomancy. How old these lists are, Grand Orient doesn’t say. But as with the Wizardology Cards, I was forced once again to confront my facile assumptions when I gave it a good look.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4

Reading with the Geomantic Symbols: the Twelve-House Approach

Sorry for the long break folks, life got a bit hectic for a moment there. I introduced the Geomancy Cards (Symbols) some time ago, but I recently came across another way of reading them in a rather old book, A Manual of Occultism by an author who went by the obvious pseudonym, ‘Sepharial.’ This approach uses the western twelve-house horoscope chart as the lay-out pattern for the geomancy cards, and the author ‘Sepharial’ gave specific meanings for each geomancy symbol in each house (see PDF attachment further on in the lesson).

Having tried the Geomancy Cards in the 12 houses on a few test subjects, and it seems to me this variety of reading would be good for three specific purposes: 1.) Getting a ‘read’ on someone you haven’t met yet, but have been informed you’re going-to 2.) Doing an annual personal reading or progress-report reading, or 3.) Doing a one-card reading with more pinpoint accuracy.

In the case of the second state purpose, you could modify your reading by choosing to draw a card for only certain houses, and skipping the rest if they don’t apply to your situation/question. Or, it may be you have only one burning question, which only one house of the horoscope chart addresses, which is my reasoning behind the third stated purpose, a one-card, spot-check reading. One-card readings usually only give you a general status report on your life right now. Doing a one-card reading and employing the horoscope-chart with it can give you a tailored status report for a specific area of your life.

Just finished writing an e-book and want to know how it will fare? Lay a card on the ninth house, which among other things, represents publications. Met a good prospect for marriage and you mercinarily want to know if they’re financially sound? Lay a card on the second house, which represents personal finances, and another card in the eighth, which represents joint finances. Want to know what their stumbling block is, or the sort of enemies they have? Lay a card on the twelfth house, known as the house of self-undoing and secret enemies. Want to know what sort of opposition you face in your latest endeavor? Lay a card on the seventh house, which is the house of marriage, contracts and open adversaries. Learn the meanings of each house in a horoscope chart and the meanings of each Geomancy card, and you can do pin-point, on-the-spot, and accurate readings for a wide-variety of questions.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4

An Universal Oracle: Fun With Yes, No & Maybe Answers

This is another little gem I came across while perusing ‘Grand Orient’s’ A Manual of Cartomancy. What makes this a ‘universal oracle’ is that all the answers are yes, no, or conditional answers. The author, Grand Orient, states from the beginning, “It should be understood that I do not put forward the method of this oracle as a very serious system of divination. It rather belongs to the order of diversion.” This sounded much like one of the standard disclaimers which card readers and psychics on YouTube are obligated to say when they make a prediction. They are obligated to state that their predictions are ‘For Entertainment Purposes Only,’ and not to be taken as a serious source of information.

Having looked it over, I admit this is very much one of those divination tools which could double as a party game, if you choose to use it that way. But if you approach this tool in a spirit of sincerity, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work as a serious divination tool, provided you accept of its built-in limitations, the limitations being it comes with a limited number of questions and answers. I’ll get more into the author’s reasoning about this tool and what constitutes ‘occult’ at the end of this lesson. For now, let’s get into…

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6

The Egyptian Protocol: Another Numerological Technique

On the left: the system itself, in one easy chart. On the right: a blank worksheet for trying it out.

While perusing A Manual of Cartomancy, 4^th edition, I came across this curious little system, which the author claims is a variant of the ‘Oracle of Human Destiny’—a much longer oracular system I’ll probably get into later, but like several other divination systems I’ve covered, this one is credited to Egypt as its place of origin. “It is allocated, not without reason, to the peculiar genius of the Sphinx” relates the author, ‘Grand Orient’.  “It has, however, the merit of simplicity, and continued practice, accompanied by observation of results, may produce a curious quality of shrewdness, which often answers to foresight.” Grand Orient didn’t give this numerological technique a specific name, it had no ‘catchy’ title. So after some thought, I decided to call it ‘The Egyptian Protocol’, since it’s attributed to some nameless numerologist in Egypt and it follows a particular order of operations.

This numerological gem employs addition and, more-unusually, division. You’ve got to admire how many different ways mathematics-o-philes have come up with to calculate human destiny. Grand Orient didn’t specify what circumstances this divination system is best-used for, but a quick perusal told me this system is best-used-for daily forecasts or particular-day forecasts. Since the two variables in the equation are the day of the week for which you are forecasting a prediction, and the moon’s age since the last new moon, and since there are only six possible general predictions which can result, it just naturally looks like the sort of divination system designed for daily use.  

Pair this up with ‘The Prophetic Coin’ and you might have an effective and useful two-part daily divination system. But this one is definitely for people who like doing math problems. If you have a child out of school on break, whom you want to both educate in divination, and keep their mathematics skills up to par, you could kill two birds with one stone by teaching them this forecasting system.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7