The Invisible Hands in Divination
Is It All Just Meaningful Coincidence?
I’d been using divination tools for over twenty years before consciously forming an opinion about what forces were behind the choices, chances, synchronicity, and serendipities that I observed.
Reading Tarot cards, playing with ouija boards, throwing the I-ching, bible dipping, and rolling that beautiful old classic the Magic 8 Ball produced often uncanny, hard-to-ignore results. But my “jury” remained out for most of my life on the question of the forces at work in the divination phenomena — I guess I chalked it all up to [something] — but I wasn’t really sure what [thing] that might be.
There’s A Reason We Call It Mystery
Divination worked for me, more often than not, but HOW it worked the WAY it did — or WHY — I could only call a Mystery. When I was in my late teens, my training in Wiccan mysticism and university courses in philosophy, religion, and anthropology led me in two directions regarding WHY and HOW, simultaneously:
- Mysteries were not necessarily riddles MEANT to be solved down to the last detail
- Spirituality and the paranormal — if they could be explained by science — were still likely to be revealed as so increasingly complex (and complicated) that understanding would only amount to a laundry list of interconnected patterns — each piece of the puzzle an intellectual maze of knowing, in and of itself.
Basically, the layers of scientific understanding were deep and dense enough to remain mysterious; the mysteries beyond explanation were… well, mysteries.
Is Knowing Even Necessary?
Here’s something you may not have considered before — you don’t have to understand a tool to use it. Example: the ability to drive a car does not require that you know how to build one from parts.
I approached divination tools — and the results of using them — with a similar attitude: something or someone communicated information to me via these tools and I could process those messages. I stopped there, with that question mark hanging out there — for some future revelation, or perhaps never to know.
I’ve noticed that people discuss spiritual, paranormal, and religious topics as if they are based in fact — even more so there seems to be a NEED to find the facts.
Before what? I ask. Before you engage in spirit? Before you live? Have you considered that you may not — most likely WILL NEVER — KNOW the Answers to these questions, beyond a shadow of a doubt, in this lifetime. Or afterward, for that matter.
My Daddy used to say “A lot of people are going to be incredibly disappointed when they die.” He always offered this with a smile on his face — what I feel he was getting at is that the Questions we have on this side of life may cease to be relevant at all. People are seeking as if the answers will be — can be — found.
Life is not a race to be won; you don’t WIN at living anymore than you win at, say, Gardening…
Asking is Enough
When I was reading about Toni Morrison, long-time literary editor turned Nobel-prize-winning novelist (not to mention one of my personal greatest living heroes on the planet), I was struck by something she described about the significance of writing fiction.
It’s not the novelist’s job to provide answers — it’s to ask Questions. One can lead the mind of another by asking provocative questions. You don’t have to know another’s Path or exactly where it leads to point the Way…
The process of asking questions is powerful in and of itself. Ripping back the veil of the Mysteries is not the be-all, end-all point; the nature of contemplation, and the impact that exploration has on wisdom, is not dependent on answers.
Whether or not you ask Questions is all that matters; and the unanswerable, unknowable… Well, that’s why they are called Mysteries.
This permission — this freedom — to NOT have to always KNOW is powerful.
We are here — incarnate in mortal, human form — to contemplate the Mysteries from the perspective that only life can provide — and to transcend the condition. We are here to practice love, to secure joy, within the wonder of the wisdom we can obtain — what we can see — in spite of all that we can’t.
I have gained much peace through the relaxed perspective of just being Okay with the Question Marks.
So, Who Are the Invisible Hands at Work in the World?
To a certain degree, I was fine with not knowing their identities; I saw evidence of their presence, and I was left with little doubt that they were benevolent.
Slade Leaves Q&A All Over the Place
As I wrote on Erin Pavlina’s blog
You don’t have to know a stranger’s name to be saved by them or receive a life-changing message.
Reading the Present
You can probably guess who I will claim is drawing the cards in your Tarot readings.
I do want to draw attention to the significance of divining the Present — the only relevant moment. I do not believe in fortune telling; I believe reading the future is — at the very best — only an extrapolation of potentials based on the circumstances at hand. I do NOT believe in predestination or fate. I do not believe that God micromanages our activities — it’s not part of the simulation.
Me & My Favorite Druid
I was invited to return a Guest Blogging spot for Jeff Lilly’s Druid Journal with an original article you won’t find here called Drawing Cards : Storyboarding the Tarot. Jeff is one of the coolest people I’ve never met — we collaborate behind the screens — his intelligence inspires and challenges me.
Please check it out if you are interested exploring one of my favorite ways to approach working with Tarot.
This article requires a part two — I had more to say here than I realized.
Some Questions for You
Before I elaborate further on who the Invisible Card Dealers are, you tell me:
- Who do you believe is responsible for placing Signs in your sight?
- Who do you feel is orchestrating the magical coincidences?
- Who is arranging the fantastic serendipities you’ve encountered?
- Who is fixing you up with the marvelous people who come along and change your life forever, for the better, at just the right time?
- Is someone or something planting that Message where you will be sure to find it?
- Does the beauty and wonder in your world reveal itself like a perfect Easter Egg hunt sometimes?
- Who is half-hiding from you, yet showing you the way in sweet glimpses you know you are meant to discover?
Who Are the Authors of Chance?
I want to hear your theories first…
You tell ME who you think is dealing the hands.
Seek Wisdom — Practice Love
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Who is dealing the hand?
It has never been ‘clear’ to me exactly
‘who’, but I am quite sure it was the poem
Desiderata, that has allowed me to accept
it does not matter.
“You are a child of the Universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”
Thanks to Max Ehrmann for writing the poem (1927)
and Les Crane for putting Desiderata to music.(1971)
I can hardly begin to explain the valuable life
long lessons I learned upon hearing this in
my early teen years.
‘No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should’,
has become a life mantra of sorts for me.
If you’ve never heard Crane’s Grammy winning
Desiderata, I found it presented here….
As you watch the video, look for a scene where
4 little children are sitting connected arm in arm…
And aren’t we all ~connected~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kPzJWuG9RM
[…] More: Slade written a companion piece to this article on his own site, The Invisible Hands in Divination. It’s the first of a series on divination, something he’s had long experience with and has done professionally. […]
Deb,
Thanks for sharing the poem.
“…the universe is unfolding as it should…”
Very similar to the Message I receive a lot from my guides (which like you, has become something of a mantra for me):
“All is as it should be.”
For the past few days I’ve been playing with tarot cards and I really haven’t done it much before. So I’m not really an expert on the topic, but nevertheless let me dive in with my point of view on where the messages come from and then other people can maybe point me in the right direction. This post compared with what happens when I read the cards reminds me of a literary concept called the intentional fallacy. Basically, the idea is that literary critics shouldn’t judge what a work means by something as irrelevant as what we think the author might have intended it to mean. Just because John Milton was a Puritan Christian doesn’t mean that Satan isn’t the hero of Paradise Lost. Instead, we look at the text itself and think about what it actually says.
“Reading” is a pretty good metaphor for what I do with my brand new set of tarot cards. I have to be careful to get an interpretation which isn’t just me making up a fantasy about what I would like the cards to say. I do my best to interpret correctly. Sometimes this means looking at what the cards are saying as a whole. Sometimes this means looking at the details of cards and digging for specific meanings. But either way, when I read the cards, I have to do my best to listen or interpret carefully just as I would do if I were reading a literary text or having a conversation with a person who was saying complex things that I wanted to understand. But simply because I am using the same interpretive skill set with the cards that I use when talking with people or reading the things that they write does not necessarily mean that there’s a force somewhere and somehow that is speaking to me. There may be no *intention* at all on the other side, and yet the part of my brain that deals in metaphors and free associations can still get useful and sometimes incredibly perceptive insights by shuffling a deck of symbol-rich cards, choosing the first few, and then pretending that they have something to say. In fact, sometimes when I talk to people, I get the same kinds of insights that weren’t there before either in my brain or in the brain of my dialogue partner.
I suppose we could call this the psychological interpretation of the divination phenomenon. I’m not trying to be dogmatic about it and say there aren’t forces out there. In fact, I think there are. I’m just trying to explain what dealing with the cards feels like for me.
Something I read once concerning how to divine with runes might be relevant here. The advice was simply to try to set aside all your expectations, desires, and ego-driven selfishness before you try to do a reading. (Actually, it’s probably good to try to do this all the time, but let’s be realistic here…) The point being that only when you silence yourself can you really “hear” what the cards/runes/tools are saying.
I also find I get better (more accurate) results when I “raise my vibration”, i.e. get myself into as big-hearted and compassionate mood as I can. One way I do this sometimes is to actually imagine a note, a pure tone, that starts pretty high and then ascends beyond hearing; and I try to imagine that the note comes from somewhere over my head. (This imaginary tone also sometimes gets rid of headaches!)
So what I think the source of divination is: a combination of spirits, guides, and gods that you can “tune in” to. The quieter your own ego-thoughts, the better you can hear them. The higher your “vibration”, the better quality of spirit you’re able to connect with.
But as Slade says: if you’re getting good results, it hardly matters what the source of the info is!
Rob,
The intentional (literary) fallacy is a great point to introduce. Even history itself is subjective to the agenda of the Questioner. We see this with Biblical interpretation as well - as a historian, or a literary biographer, your agenda determines much of what the text “reveals” to you. If you go in with a game-plan - a focus - asking a specific Question, and more importantly, wanting to find a certain type of answer, you can plunder any piece of information and find supporting examples.
Kind of like the idea that the history of war is written by the Winner.
I think it’s important to at least consider, in your Milton example, that an author may be a channel - in an artistic, or literal sense - a vessel for the product. A really good writer can play Devil’s advocate - even when the message is contrary to a personal agenda.
It would be presumptious to assume the Voice and the Source are 100% identical to the Scribe or the Vessel - I might describe a writer or a reader as a Filter.
Many authors have had at least one work that they claim is different from their others - channeled, dictated, not consciously labored after so much as chased…
One of the hardest things about doing Readings - especially for people that you may know personally - is getting out of the information’s way, and not embellishing or editing it in assuming what the Questioner wants to hear.
If you are doing readings for yourself, there is an even greater sabotaging force/agenda at work, which may undermine the information you receive, or at least color the results.
I’ve noted people who will request multiple readings, or consult multiple sources about the same topic or question, who are essentially looking for “what they want to hear.”
Part of what is actually powerful about using divination tools is that they can help you enforce the personal distance a bit. You have to be aware that really you already “know” what you’re asking about, and are looking for reinforcement. I am guilty myself of looking for “yes men” among my guides, or nagging after the response I WANT to hear.
Let me just restate that for many years I considered the phenomenon purely psychological - I felt that even though some of it was mysterious, my interpretation had to be personal at some level. It was only AFTER accepting the growing, overwhelming clairaudience that it occurred to me that I might be able to use the tools (of divination) to communicate with the same entities.
Think of it as cell phone communication versus talking to someone physically in the room with you. I can call you with a phone while sitting right beside you. There will even be a delay - a limitation or degradation of the voice - based on the delivery medium. Which is the better sound? Which is louder? Which one is more trustworthy?
Even though the tools of divination might impose some distance - force you to consider an answer you may not want to hear - a dispassionate message, the interference of the ego must be released.
Our information mind/ ego will talk us away from - out of - intuition, more than the other way around.
I personally find that establishing strict rules and limits helps me stay on track - I never do more than 3 readings in one sitting. I rarely even use more than 3 cards.
And I never allow myself to “start over.”
Are you guys familiar with the Web Bot Project?
I ran across a blogger who has already digested and summarized some of the material quite well - I haven’t explored this author’s other articles, so I’m not passing any judgement on his site, mission, or agenda. He deserves credit for blogging a nice break-down on what the Web Bot Project does, in the context of oracle:
Source for this summary.
Get On Board for The Rapture of The Nerds
Let me just go on record right now and say - not to anyone in this comment thread, but just generally - STOP the negative, harrowing, paranoid End of Days perspective. There is a radical paradigm shift approaching the human race, and whether or not that becomes our End or our New Beginning is entirely dependent upon what we do with it.
Not being consciously aware that we have a literal Ascension approaching is second only to Planning on an Apocalypse, when it comes to pessimism and self-fulfilling prophecies.
The approaching New Age is a spiritual one only by way of adaptation - it will ride in on technology - it’s sometimes disparagingly referred to as The Rapture of The Nerds. It’s officially called The Technological Singularity - the point in human history where we will transcend biology.
You can read a digest about The Singularity and The Law of Accelerating Returns here.
Jeff: I like that idea about raising your level of compassion. I can see how I’ve gotten better insights on life when that level has happened to be higher, but I haven’t consciously tried to raise it on my own. I may do that the next time I use the cards. And in life in general as well.
Slade: It sounds like we’re going to need a conversation about personality or the absence there of or the plurality there of some time. These are pretty complex ideas. I have one set of ideas that come from spiritual backgrounds and another set that come from psychological and early literary backgrounds and right now the two aren’t fitting together very well. For now I figure I’ll put that on the back burner.
When you started to think of divination as being something more than psychological, did you look back at the time when you did assume that the meanings from the cards were psychological and change your mind about where the messages were coming from? When you do readings now, do you ever do them simply to address what’s going on in your own psyche? Do you find that forces talk with you through them even if you don’t invite them?
It’s a bit hard for me to use the phone analogy, because I’m not sure I can tell the difference between the crackling of static, a voice, or me fantasizing the static into at least a fuzzy voice because I want to hear *something* out there.
General comment:
When I was a kid I used to love to play with games. I didn’t know how to cope with competition very well then, but I could take a game in my room and just fiddle around with it for hours. I even tried to play chess against myself. So in a way, Tarot feels very natural for me because in a way it feels a lot like a game for one. And strangely enough, at least before the reading, the rational side of my head can be very helpful because it tells me to make sure that the reading is ‘fair’ and that I follow the rules, even if I’ve just made them up immediately before the reading. I’ve followed your advice doing only one or two readings at a time and not starting over either. (Do you mean drawing new cards or trying to read the ones you’ve got again?) And I probably won’t use too many more than 3 cards because of time constraints.
I’ve had circumstances where I’ve tried to listen to God or the universe or some other higher power, and so I would pray and then I would figure that the first thing that came into my head must be the answer from some divine power. Only now looking back, I figure it usually came from my ego or something like that. The problem I found there was that sometimes I felt like my ego was rushing to give me the answer it wanted, because if it did it early, it would be ‘the voice of God’.
Now, as I do my tarot readings, I’m also struggling to avoid letting my ego try to beat my intuition to the answer it wants.
My process works like this: I journal my answers. I put down my first impressions first. But I also put down those other impressions too. To some extent, I try to use an improv technique where if you’ve got multiple actors on stage and one of them says “hey watch out for that car!” then everybody pretends there’s a car there. So the first readings get built on rather than worried about. But then I put in alternate readings of the cards too. Sort of like recording varient translations of a difficult word in an ancient text. And I don’t use those alternate readings to say “hey, the correct answer to my question might be X” since that would be cheating. It’s more like “the stuff on this card could also be read this way.” It’s a way for me to try to make sure I’m being honest about what the cards are saying and not just looking for the answer I want. Ultimately though, I look for a sense of groundedness where I’ve done the best I can to get to the deep meaning of the cards in front of me. And that usually means I’ve at least gotten a lot of insight on the question I’ve brought to the table. Are there better ways to make sure my ego isn’t taking over my reading?
I’ll take these bullet by bullet, if I can manage to get each point copied without pasting any more source code into this box.
For most of these “Who…” questions, my answer is “I don’t know.” I used to know, or at least had an answer that suited me in the past. Now, though, I don’t have a name for That Who Is anymore. Part of the answer includes myself, but my limited perspective is not the whole.
* Who do you believe is responsible for placing Signs in your sight?
* Who do you feel is orchestrating the magical coincidences?
* Who is arranging the fantastic serendipities you’ve encountered?
* Who is fixing you up with the marvelous people who come along and change your life forever, for the better, at just the right time?
* Is someone or something planting that Message where you will be sure to find it?
Yes. Sometimes, I need to look. Other times, I can’t help but to find. The answers are always there, but I need to be ready to receive them.
* Does the beauty and wonder in your world reveal itself like a perfect Easter Egg hunt sometimes?
Always, when I’m ready.
* Who is half-hiding from you, yet showing you the way in sweet glimpses you know you are meant to discover?
I don’t know the name… It is the Whole, of which we are all parts.
If someone is searching for an authoritative voice on the whys of divination then Jung is your man. He wrote an incredible amount amount divination, particularly tarot. His basic theory behind why it works is that of synchronicity - as most of you probably know - and it follows what Slade was saying above about the cards being a reflection of the present with some clues about what may happen in the future if we stay on our current path.
One of the things that first drew me to tarot was my love of symbology. I studied art history and did some graduate work toward an advanced degree in philosophy. I was particularly fascinated by the work of Nelson Goodman and his symbol theory. One of the reasons why I became interested in tarot in the first place is the fact that it is pure symbology.
I realize that as I think about my studies in the context of what Slade is asking about divination I have a lot to say on the subject. Perhaps it deserves a post (or a book!) of it’s own. But one thing that I will say here is that how any person interprets symbols around him depends entirely upon the various symbolic systems that he has at his disposal. Every part of our life informs how we see things so that in the end we each have a very particular personal decoder book for interpreting symbols of every kind, from characters in a work of literature to images on a canvas to tarot cards placed in front of us in a spread.
I believe that doing tarot readings for ourselves is a good way to help us sort through our complex emotional and psychological lives. As my first tarot teacher advised, it’s also the best way to develop a personal relationship with the cards, to gain a deeper understanding of their meaning that will help you become a better reader. But I often seek out another reader when I want to get a reading to address an important issue or a level-setting glimpse into my life at a particular time - my birthday or the new year for example. It is true that we are not objective in our readings for ourselves and I believe that the subjectivity another reader brings to the cards is necessary for us to see things in the cards that might otherwise have been clouded by the desires and fears that we project onto the cards when we read for ourselves.
In the answer to the question of “Who?” I like what Adam has to say: “It is the Whole, of which we are all parts.”
Adam,
Wow, yes - The Whole of which we are all parts. Brilliant!
Thank you for the bullet-points, and for beautifully articulating such difficult questions.
I certainly have a sense of what my own answers to these questions may be, but the validity of the “answers” are SO personal… For me to simply try to “instruct” or lecture on this subject would lead an individual further away from the truth of it.
The Mysteries make beautiful conversations - starting points - and the discussion remains alive in that gray space.
Your contribution is a rich collection of the parts to this scrumptious Whole.
Angela-Eloise,
Rock on, sister!
I agree so fully with this intensely personal language concept. I want so much to encourage spiritual exploration from this very “jump off” - I encounter so many people handicapped by the notion that the Translation is in “the book.”
I feel that the “canned answers” are damaging to the process if they are not put in their proper place - which is to say that the Guide Books are guides, not Google Maps.
You have to start learning how to interpret somewhere, and as with any language, immersion is key, but at some point, you have to come full circle to not just responding with memorized phrases, but actually inventing with language, on the fly…
This is hard to pin down.
And by the way, YES it does sound like a book of its own, and the level of balance your comment displays here - between Academic Study and Personal Reflection - says to me that there is indeed a book - your book on the subject… That book, is, of course, the One that requires you to write it.
I am eager to read That Book.
Rob,
I’m not at all surprised that they don’t fit, but where is what YOU FEEL?
The ego - the thinking mind - is a loud mouth rushing in to take over the conversation, and you feed him with the “set of ideas that come from…” all those sources of information that are not your Heart.
Wisdom is not information. The Mind processes DATA. What we call “psychic” vibes, gut, intuition, etc, is processed through the Heart Chakra, not the Head. Not even the Crown. These are all valid entry points, doorways, service elevators - but the Mind does not process Emotion. It’s like a delivery going to the wrong department. The package can be signed for and a place can be made for it - it can be stored away on the wrong floor of the Self - never reaching the destination - the place where it can be put to use.
The Mind has a way of cataloguing spiritual and emotional items - like a museum - without their being used. The Mind, which the Ego likes to tell you is YOU, because that’s the limited place where it resides, has you believing that because you’ve tagged a piece of information and stored it in a glass case with track lighting, that you OWN it somehow.
You are not just your Mind or just your ego - and there is a variety of communication forms, they are not all best relegated to the Mind’s warehouse. The ego plays a heavy-handed Librarian Watch Dog monster - telling the other parts of you that they can’t “check out” or “sign out” the contents of those glass cases, and they certainly can’t cart them off outside the ego’s jurisdiction. He will throw a fit, demanding security clearance, acting like a Dragon hoarding a treasure it has no use for…
I would say that the Ego, no matter how fast he appears to be in racing forward with the answer NEVER outruns pure Consciousness. Divine Communication occurs immediately - your higher self - your intuition - your guides - your link to God - whatever you want to call it - can’t be outran.
The Mind rushes forward with great fanfare, a parade of entitlement, brandishing its Information Catalogue, and screams through a megaphone “I won! I’ve got the Answer.”
Sure, when it senses the threat of your listening for something softer, it will costume itself accordingly. But I don’t believe the thinking Mind can EVER beat the Intuitive mind, or the Heart, or the even the chemical response of your physical body.
The Mind must always extract “proof” from its academic storehouse - that takes time. No matter how fast it runs the race, it simply has more steps to execute.
You may be missing that instant, waiting for a split second for Mind to speak. Consciousness - your divine link - angelics - messages that come through without needing all the STUFF - they are not limited by Time.
You process divine consciousness immediately, and each fragment - millisecond - beyond that has missed the boat and is waiting on Mind to show up.
The Mind and the Ego show up on stage - always AFTER - and immediately snap your attention and focus to them. They come in with a leafblower - blasting out that whiff of pure knowing before you’ve had a chance to hang out with it.
It’s like a beautiful smoke ring starts to form, and before you’ve had the chance to hold it, study it, watch it, the Ego throws open a doorway and brings in a storm of destruction.
Or how about this metaphor. Picture yourself skydiving. The moment you leap - the Question - you’re there, falling. What you are after is that moment when the body first sensed nothing - no attachment…
You are immediately falling AWAY from that moment, putting ever increasing amounts of distance between yourself and the moment of the leap. Not only did you “miss it” but the Mind and the Ego arrive with distracting information - about the view, the sensation of falling, the impending danger of the ground, counting the proper seconds to the rip cord.
The Message you were after has passed, and even if you look back up at it, you’re moving away from it so quickly, that the Ego and the Mind have center stage - with a spotlight of Fear.
To get to that moment again, you have to get back in another plane and do another jump.
So, in this metaphor, the key is to hold that first brief instant that begins the fall. To feel it totally, before all the other stuff starts happening.
If you leap, entirely focused on the parachute… well, it’s a wasted jump.
Where does divination figure into that above metaphorical rant?
I feel that divination tools are a method for externalizing the Moment - freezing it - for you to hold and examine or contemplate.
The catch is: divination tools, like Tarot Cards, are like an electron microscope - they kill in the process of capturing. You are exploring the details of a fossil.
The externalization has its own set of challenges - not the least of which being that your intellectual interpretation process is the domain of the Mind, and the ego has more opportunities to keep trying to steal the show.
As Angela-Eloise talked about, this issue is more pronounced in reading for oneself. Externalizing the message, and the interpretation by involving another person, keeps this in check.
I was nagged by a medium friend of mine constantly to stop using cards, that cards were interfering with the authentic connection. He was right.
Tools can’t compete with clairaudience. It’s kind of like receiving a phone call, but instead of just putting the phone to your ear and listening, you hand the phone off to a 6 year old and ask her to draw you pictures of what the call was about.
Sure, you can look at the pictures all day long - but are they “better” or are they more “accurate” or are they “faster” than just taking the call?
No.
But they do allow for additional contemplation and a different set of information. Sometimes, you may need to freeze, pause, rewind, or run an instant replay.
I approach Cards as a way to “record the segment.” I don’t always want to record everything, or watch it more than once. Often, catching it LIVE is all you need.