Creating an oracle system -- What to study?

Sometime in the coming year, I'm going to be working with a group to create our own oracle/divination system.

To prepare, I've collected a variety of systems (mostly cards) to study how they're constructed -- what areas of life are usually included, how the messages are phrased, the reading process, etc. (My collection is listed below.)

Can anyone suggest any other systems or resources that would be particularly useful to study for this project? I'm especially interested in systems that take a different approach or have some other marked difference from how oracles are generally structured.

Similarly, if anyone has any advice about creating an oracle or divination system, I'd love to hear it!

Besides Lenormand, runes, ogham, I Ching, and pendulums (all of which I'm already familiar with), and tarot (which is FAR more complex than we're planning to do), I've also collected:

* the Sibilla Vera (aka Every Day Oracle)
* the Gypsy Witch deck
* the Russian Gypsy Fortune Telling deck & book
* the Whitman deck
* the Biedermaier deck
* the Belline Oracle
* the Enchanted Map Oracle & book
* the Earth Magic Oracle
* the Shaman's Pack
* the Celtic Book of the Dead deck & book
* the Celtic Wisdom Oracle deck & book
* the Hawaiian Mana deck & book
* the Psycards deck & book
* a couple other more obscure decks
And I'm planning to pick up a Kipper deck, as well.

Thank you!

~ Aster

You may want to incorporate some system of symbols that means something to you personally, or a common one such as numbers, colours or shapes. In the last year though I gave up on decks with meanings and systems made up by other people and did most readings with The Photographic Card Deck of The Elements and The Photographic Card Deck of the Solar System. These were never designed for divination and the way I use them is to look at the images and text on the cards - which is factual information, history or stories - then come up with the oracular meanings by analogy. There isn't a lot of text on the Elements cards so they're not as easy, but the large glossy book that goes with them has a lot more information and images. I read by drawing one card from each deck then compare the two - it's quite remarkable how they'll match each other to give a clear message .

2dogs said:

You may want to incorporate some system of symbols that means something to you personally, or a common one such as numbers, colours or shapes.

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Yes. The system we'll be creating is centered on the goddess Brighid, and will likely either use symbols related to the lore about Her or a set of existing symbols related to our specific group. Or some combination.

What I'm trying to research now is what aspects of life should be covered by the system (that is, most systems are able to be related to love, health, family, work, money, trust, betrayal, beginnings, endings, obstacles, journeys, choices, etc.) and how it should be structured to result in coherent and accurate readings.

If that makes sense...

2dogs said:

In the last year though I gave up on decks with meanings and systems made up by other people and did most readings with The Photographic Card Deck of The Elements and The Photographic Card Deck of the Solar System. These were never designed for divination and the way I use them is to look at the images and text on the cards - which is factual information, history or stories - then come up with the oracular meanings by analogy. There isn't a lot of text on the Elements cards so they're not as easy, but the large glossy book that goes with them has a lot more information and images. I read by drawing one card from each deck then compare the two - it's quite remarkable how they'll match each other to give a clear message .

Click to expand...

Interesting! I'll check out those card sets. It sounds like you've developed an easy to use system that works very well for you.

Thank you!

imo it's hard to make deck that will be spiritual and cover material questions?!)
btw be sure to check this out!)
http://devasofcreation.com/#!/the-cards/
I find it fantastic!^^ lolz )

reall said:

imo it's hard to make deck that will be spiritual and cover material questions?!)
btw be sure to check this out!)
http://devasofcreation.com/#!/the-cards/
I find it fantastic!^^ lolz )

Click to expand...

I didn't say it would be spiritual. It's focused on Brighid because the group is focused on Brighid, and it will likely use symbols related to Brighid's lore and/or symbols the group uses. But the system is intended for practical use, like any other divination system.

That said, I do think most systems can address both spiritual and pragmatic questions. Some are better for one or the other -- like I find ogham better for spiritual issues and Lenormand better for practical issues -- but I think most systems are flexible enough that they can be applied to pretty much any kind of question, depending on the reader's skill and comfort level.

Thanks for the link! I'll definitely check it out.

Devas of Creation is certainly different, I like the idea of representing different components of the Universe . I found some of the cards in Earth Magic had symbols that meant something to me e.g. what is the difference between a still pond, a winding river, a waterfall and rain? I would imagine the goddess Brighid would have many stories of situations and things happening from which a simple generalised meaning could be extracted, such as crossing a boundary, discovering something, helping someone, creating something, but it could be confusing to go into too many complicated details of the legends as happened with the Druid Animal Oracle .

2dogs said:

Devas of Creation is certainly different, I like the idea of representing different components of the Universe . I found some of the cards in Earth Magic had symbols that meant something to me e.g. what is the difference between a still pond, a winding river, a waterfall and rain? I would imagine the goddess Brighid would have many stories of situations and things happening from which a simple generalised meaning could be extracted, such as crossing a boundary, discovering something, helping someone, creating something, but it could be confusing to go into too many complicated details of the legends as happened with the Druid Animal Oracle .

Click to expand...

Great point about water and how it can symbolize different things depending on context.

I'm not familiar with the story behind the Druid Animal Oracle. What happened?

Oh there's nothing really wrong with it; it has the normal keywords and interpretations in the book that you'd expect, I just got irritated by the way it then went on about stuff like journeys to find the oldest animal in which each one said another was older .