Divination Spells
Before you can choose a spell, sometimes you need to choose a course of action. In order to do that, sometimes you need more information than you already have---or than seems humanly available. That’s where divination comes in. Divination is the magical art of receiving information about future events right now in the present. (It is also used to achieve greater understanding of past and present happenings.) Diviners, also known as readers, use tools, rituals, spells, and systems to reveal hidden information. Diviners thus practice prophetic arts, the mantic arts, after the Greek word “mantikos,” meaning “prophet.” Words concluding with the suffix -mancy indicate some form of divination.
Once upon a time, as with shamans, every town had a respected professional diviner or two providing these prophetic services. Persecuted, driven underground, forced to practice secretly in back rooms or not at all, the loss of professional readers didn’t stop people from requiring their services. People learned to provide those services for themselves, sometimes as highly structured ritual, sometimes in the guise of party games.
The divinatory methods included here descend from those homemade arts. They do not require special texts, years of study or, in theory at least, a professional reader: in other words, complex systems like tarot, playing cards, runes, the I-Ching, and similar are not included. Some systems are obviously more suitable for some households and individuals than others, but theoretically all can be reproduced by the magical layperson.
Methods included offer the opportunity to access other realms, other beings, and other people in order to receive needed information. Some offer a source of divine inspiration; others encourage you to discover your own hidden fonts of psychic or subconscious knowledge.
Systems of divination and fortune-telling operate according to the principle of synchronicity, as do magic spells in general. Synchronicity rejects the concept of coincidence. Events occurring at exactly the same moment share something in common and may be used to reveal something about each other. The trick is learning how to recognize and understand these revelations.
As its name indicates, divination puts you in direct contact with the divine. There is a sacred, magical aspect to even the most raucous party method. Divination should be treated with the respect shown to other spells. Appropriate cleansing and protection rituals should be considered. Divination tools, even the simplest pebbles, shells, or dice, are ritual tools and should be treated with similar care and respect.
How do you choose the right system for you? In some cases, the choice is obvious: certain spells were designed for specific situations. The very question needing answers, the very information required, determines the method. In some cases, your own abilities set directions: it takes a different kind of personality to scry patiently in a pan of black ink than it does to pierce a bible passage with a needle. In other cases, let the choice choose you: the desire the spell awakens within you is its invitation to perform.
It goes without saying that every method and every incident of divination begins with a question. The most difficult part of divination may come in formulating the question. Don’t leave it vague: oracles delight in tricks, especially puns and word games. Take the time to formulate exactly what it is you wish revealed in clear, lucid, precise language. Write down the question, so that you can later compare it to the response, better interpret its nuances and implications and also eliminate arguments if performing group divination!
(from The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells by Judika Illes)
