#divination set

What does “custom” mean? The first thing you need to realize about a customized divination method is that it belongs to you. No one else. It’s power is yours, it should serve you. Try things out until they feel right. And what feels right to you, is right for this system. What works for you is not for others to decide.

You know everything about yourself. More than even tarot will ever know. So use that knowledge to create a method of divination that plays on your strengths, mitigates your weaknesses, and turns your natural abilities and inclinations into an asset.

Deciding a Method Divination comes in many forms. Are you a physical person? Maybe you need to be shuffling cards or throwing stones or flipping coins. Are you an intellectual? Maybe you need to be interpreting the meanings in puzzles or creating patterns out of numbers. Whatever it is you’re good at,  make it a key aspect of your practice.

I, myself, am naturally a physical person. I can’t sit still. I need my hands to be doing something. So I chose a technique that involves movement. I have to shake my dice, and toss them around. But I’m also very good at seeing connections. So the proximity of the dice to each other on their given spaces on my mat changes the meaning of how I read.

Deciding on Tools Do you collect things? Do you assign special meaning to numbers or pictures or objects? Does your practice consider something to be sacred? Use those things in your new divination method.

As a child, I used to collect rocks. All rocks. I gave them names and meanings and would throw them around my room. Where they landed and what “face” they were showing (that rough patch on the side? that indent on the top? what about the smooth, shiny spot in the center?) told me what they were trying to say to me. In my new method of divining, I refined this with dice, and each number on the die is treated like the face of a stone. But it’s still just a glorified version of my stone throwing. And the spaces in my room are replaced with a hand-made mat, that has zones for certain aspects of a situation. I think in broad, sweeping strokes and refine my ideas later. The mat represents those broad strokes, and the dice are the intricate details.

Deciding on Mechanics What are your strengths? Lean into that and make your divination into something that turns them into an asset. Even mechanically. Are you naturally good at categorizing things? Create a mat with zones. Are you good at interpretation? Then leave a lot of room for it in your method. Good at finding pictures in the clouds? What do those pictures mean to you?

What are your weaknesses? Do you struggle with applying things to yourself? Create a method you consider objective. Do you love something so much it’s distracting? Find a way to either avoid using it, or to mitigate the distraction it causes.

I personally work in medicine, and I have a deep love of mythology. Both play an important role in my divination. And, I’m a Shinto-Pagan. Eastern philosophy (sourced from Japan, not western interpretation of it), is a key part of how interpretation works, on a fundamental level, for me. But, because I’m using a set of D&D dice, two dice have the number 12. Which is my favorite number. Whenever I see it, I play much more attention to it. Even though the associations with 12 have no more weight than any other number in my method. So to mitigate that hyperfocus, I’ve taken one dice and given it “positive” connotations, and the other “negative” for the number 12. So if 12 does pop up, it’s not always a good thing, and my urge to hone in on it will result in a more balanced reading, rather than an always-good one.

Give It Purpose Divination tools always have their strengths and weaknesses. Tarot is great for a detailed look at broad topics, but practitioners debate about whether “yes and no” questions are really best for it. So in what parts of your life do you need answers? What’s not covered in what you’re already doing? Do you want it to specialize in something or do you want a general tool?

My personal set is good for overlooking situations, and understanding the people around me, but it is not a “yes or no” type of set. It’s great at making lists of factors and seeing things as they are with clarity, but it doesn’t hand out solutions to problems. I use it to see where I’m at, rather than where I’m going.

Make It Yours This is the part where a lot of people just kinda give up. They hunt for the lore to back up their style, or for the traditional correspondences to line up. And I’m here to tell you that none of that matters. None of it.

What do you feel about the things you’ve chosen? If you want a method that will speak to you, you need to put yourself into it. What memories are invoked when you think of the symbols you’ve chosen? What do you associate with those animals you painted on those rocks? There’s your meaning. Use it. This is literally all about you!

If you want those traditional aspects to your divination, that’s okay. Just make sure they resonate with you, and that you’re not just adding them to feel legitimate. You can’t be an imposter when you’ve created something new and yours.

Give Yourself Room to Grow and to Fail Sometimes we don’t get things right on the first try. And that’s okay. Give yourself that space. And be willing to go back and make changes as you grow and learn how you work with this method best. Sometimes it takes a few shots. Sometimes, it just takes time. I spent six months making mine, even with all this understanding of who I am and what I’m good at. It’s okay to take time, to put your creativity to it’s limits, and to backtrack once in a while. Few things in magic work out in their first iteration; divination is no exception.

And there you go. It’s really as easy or as complicated as you want to make it. And in the end, you’ll have a full divination set, all your own, that speaks to you in ways it will never speak to others. I hope you have fun learning about how you divine, and how you can create something personal and meaningful through magic and your own power.

Happy creating!