What do you think "Divination" is?

Gloria Jean

Is "Divination" a way to foretell the future? Does the future exist? Here is what Wiki had to say:

"Divination can be seen as a systematic method with which to organize what appear to be disjointed, random facets of existence such that they provide insight into a problem at hand. If a distinction is to be made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a formal or ritual and often social character, usually in a religious context, as seen in traditional African medicine; while fortune-telling is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Particular divination methods vary by culture and religion."

Do we create our personal future with our minds, by what we do or what we believe, or are we simply victims of fate?

What do you think?
 

JSNYC

I think divination is "reading the signs" (whatever those signs may be or wherever they are found). When a situation unfolds and "you know where this is going", that is divination. The only reason people raise their eyebrows when this is linked to Tarot cards is because they believe those cards "have nothing to do with what is going on". We know better. ;)

As far as the future... The future is nothing more than the present from a different perspective. Just like people focus on what is "outside" them to avoid looking "inside", some people also focus on "knowing the future" simply because they can't figure out the present. What other reason is there to know the future other than to know what to do today (or to feel better about today)?
 

SunChariot

Jenny_writer said:
Is "Divination" a way to foretell the future? Does the future exist? Here is what Wiki had to say:

"Divination can be seen as a systematic method with which to organize what appear to be disjointed, random facets of existence such that they provide insight into a problem at hand. If a distinction is to be made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a formal or ritual and often social character, usually in a religious context, as seen in traditional African medicine; while fortune-telling is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Particular divination methods vary by culture and religion."

Do we create our personal future with our minds, by what we do or what we believe, or are we simply victims of fate?

What do you think?
Click to expand...

My personal belief is that, for me at least, divination is as its name implies: a communication with the Divine. For me I believe that I am asking the questions of G-d/my angels who them send me the right cards to answer the quesions and help me to see what I am meant to in them.

As for the future, I definitely believe it is changable. MOST times. Some things are unavoidable as they contain important life lessons that we truly need to learn and that cannot be learnt any other way, OR they are part of a sacred contract with someone or some thing that we agreed upon before our births. But for the most past in my understanding, most of the time the future can be changed.

I think in one sense is created by our thoughts. Thought are energy. But also because our thoughts create our moods and our moods affect our actions and our actions affect our futures.

I guess you could call those rarish times when the future cannot be changed "fate" if you wanted to. But is is not usually in play in my experiences and the cards can be a wonderful tool to change the future not just to predict it.

Babs
 

Gloria Jean

Great answers! I think reading tarot is very similar to "reading the signs," and that a person with no tarot cards at all can ask a question (as they do the tarot) and receive the answer in signs they find anywhere in their outer world or daily life. (It happened to me a few times.)

Communication with the "Divine" brings into question, "What does one consider as the Divine?" Some imagine it is God, angels, or perhaps their higher self or the one self that we are all a part of.

I think of it it as the spiritual side of all things and maybe the secret knowledge of the subconscious.
 

linnie

Thank you for your wisdom, SunChariot... yes! I love the way you put things! :)

SunChariot said:
My personal belief is that, for me at least, divination is as its name implies: a communication with the Divine. For me I believe that I am asking the questions of G-d/my angels who them send me the right cards to answer the quesions and help me to see what I am meant to in them.

As for the future, I definitely believe it is changable. MOST times. Some things are unavoidable as they contain important life lessons that we truly need to learn and that cannot be learnt any other way, OR they are part of a sacred contract with someone or some thing that we agreed upon before our births. But for the most past in my understanding, most of the time the future can be changed.

I think in one sense is created by our thoughts. Thought are energy. But also because our thoughts create our moods and our moods affect our actions and our actions affect our futures.

I guess you could call those rarish times when the future cannot be changed "fate" if you wanted to. But is is not usually in play in my experiences and the cards can be a wonderful tool to change the future not just to predict it.

Babs
Click to expand...
 

linnie

Jenny_writer said:
Communication with the "Divine" brings into question, "What does one consider as the Divine?" Some imagine it is God, angels, or perhaps their higher self or the one self that we are all a part of.

I think of it it as the spiritual side of all things and maybe the secret knowledge of the subconscious.
Click to expand...

All of the above, for me... along with the stones, the trees, the wind, the water... Anything that allows you to sit with the Sacred :)
 

Carla

Divination is perception by intuition.
 

Grymdycche

I don't believe there is necessarily an anthropomorphic kind of divinity that guides or records our life: but nor do I believe, like most skeptics or cynics, that life "moves" in completely, totally random, second to second changes that we can never see or figure out.
I think life plays out in currents, streaks, winds. It's also kind of the way a school of fish or a flock of birds can all instantly change direction as though they're one single organism. In one's lifetime, there seem to be countless tendencies, inclinations, propensities, if you will, of fate; things happen in streaks and groups, and what affects the large also affects the small; so the way cards or runes "fall out" are affected by the same "tide" that is affecting the current flow of every other aspect of your life.
It's essentially like wetting your finger and holding it up to see which way the winds are currently blowing. No need for spirits or deities to be involved, IMO.

This does, of course, suggest something a bit more to random day to day existence then, (like, say, Wyrd) so it may simply depend on your definition of divinity.
I also don't see divination as strictly an unveiling of the subconscious, as some do: tarot can tell you things you simply did not or could not have known, subconsciously or otherwise, so I don't personally believe it all comes from within.

I also see two aspects of divination: character analysis, and fortune telling. Some systems, like Palmistry, will focus more on the former. There is, of course, overlap, as the way you are and the way you behave will have some impact on the way things turn out, but not entirely; there are also many other outside factors influencing your life path at any given moment.
 

Gloria Jean

Carla said:
Divination is perception by intuition.
Click to expand...


AHHH but then what is intuition?
 

Gloria Jean

Grymdycche said:
I don't believe there is necessarily an anthropomorphic kind of divinity that guides or records our life: but nor do I believe, like most skeptics or cynics, that life "moves" in completely, totally random, second to second changes that we can never see or figure out.

I think life plays out in currents, streaks, winds. It's also kind of the way a school of fish or a flock of birds can all instantly change direction as though they're one single organism. In one's lifetime, there seem to be countless tendencies, inclinations, propensities, if you will, of fate; things happen in streaks and groups, and what affects the large also affects the small; so the way cards or runes "fall out" are affected by the same "tide" that is affecting the current flow of every other aspect of your life.
It's essentially like wetting your finger and holding it up to see which way the winds are currently blowing. No need for spirits or deities to be involved, IMO.

This does, of course, suggest something a bit more to random day to day existence then, (like, say, Wyrd) so it may simply depend on your definition of divinity.
I also don't see divination as strictly an unveiling of the subconscious, as some do: tarot can tell you things you simply did not or could not have known, subconsciously or otherwise, so I don't personally believe it all comes from within.

I also see two aspects of divination: character analysis, and fortune telling. Some systems, like Palmistry, will focus more on the former. There is, of course, overlap, as the way you are and the way you behave will have some impact on the way things turn out, but not entirely; there are also many other outside factors influencing your life path at any given moment.
Click to expand...


That is a lot to mull over above.

How about the theory that time is not at all what we think it is, and we may be living in a multi-dimensional universe with many paths and crossroads to many different futures, all of them possible and getting there depends on our thoughts, choices, attitudes and actions. We create all possible futures with our thoughts and intentions, and the "flow" or "tide" is simply the momentum we have created ourselves, and it appears that we are caught up in that tide.

What we don't realize is that we created it. Groups and group minds and attitudes can work together in the creation of these tides.
 
On the importance of tea Etsy?