Don’t Trust a Stranger! Vet Anything Using Divination

So, if you’re interested in the three Ms (Meditation, Mysticism, and Magic) of the Western Esoteric Tradition, as I have recently become, you may be feeling deluged by the staggering numbers of schools, philosophies, gurus, groups, and … ulp… secret societies that all offer the very best way to reach your spiritual goals. They have all found the best way, only their approaches are all different. Which one is the best? Well, this is a big part of my vetting process.

Sidenote- you can also use these techniques for insight into normal everyday stuff. I just happen to use up most of my normal at the day job…

Divination! Sounds scary, right? I used to think that the first step to divination was to make a deal with dark forces, like Satan, one of his demons, or Facebook. You know, something bound to suck your soul dry. Then through my experience writing scifi and fantasy books, where I learned to listen to my Muse, one’s personal source of inspiration, I realized that divination methods like Tarot, I Ching, or Dream Journaling are methods of tapping into the part of your mind that communicates only in symbolism, and sometimes even beyond your own mind.

To say that I’m sure what consciousness(es) put each and every thought into that part of my head, or what my Muse actually is would be overstepping my personal experiences, but it would also be unnecessary (for now anyhow), and here’s why. Like the title of this article promised, Tarot, I Ching and Dream Journaling are excellent methods vetting. So, I suggest you only take my word for it as far as initiating your own experiment with divination. Try them out and you’ll see what I mean. Also, check out my article on cleansing before you dig in, it’s definitely a prerequisite.

Now let’s take a look at each one.

I Ching

I’m starting with this one because it’s easy and free. While I did go out and buy a lovely hardback edition with more supplemental information than the translated text itself, you can access the exact same translation of I Ching, or the Book of Changes, for free online. In fact, I save the link to the site as an icon on my phone to use in case I need to get advice from thousands of years’ worth of sages while out of the house. Other than that, the only investment needed is three coins. You can probably find them around the house. Check under your couch cushions.

In order to get a prophesy, the first thing you need is to ask a question. You are curious about something, aren’t you? I’m guessing yes, since your are reading about how to vet out stuff for yourself in a magical sort of way. Next clear your head. When I was brand new, I would do my I Ching reading or Tarot after my morning meditation. Now, I can actually clear thoughts away and remain in a place of mental stillness for a couple minutes on demand, so I do that. Then get out your journal, grimoire, book of shadows, or whatever you kids are calling it these days and write down the date, method “I Ching”, your question, and then 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (each on its own line). It’s important that you start at the top with six and work your way down.

Now the coin tosses! Flip all three coins. Or shake and drop. I do that so I don’t have to go hunting coins everywhere, since I can’t catch three at once. Your result will be one of four possibilities and you’ll assign each one a symbol.

• –-x— All tails. Then write 6 on the side.
• — — Two tails, one head.
• ——- Two heads, one tail.
• —0— All heads. Then write 9 on the side.

Just to be clear, the x and the 0 in the lines are there to assign a special addition to your message.  There are really only two symbols that you use to make glyphs: — — and ——-. The six and the nines you note on the side of each symbol when you flip all heads or all tails lead to the special bonus message or messages under the segment at the end of your message called “The Lines”. Only read the ones that apply to your coin toss.

Don’t give up yet! I know it sounds confusing, that’s why I’m going to lay out an example I tossed today.

1/4/2021

I Ching Reading

Should I share my esoteric experiences and readings in a blog, a discord server, and in emails?

6. —0— 9

5. — —

4. — —

3. — —

2. — —

1. ——-

I flipped #1 first and recorded bottom to top. My sixth and final flip got me a bonus message. Yay! It’s important to note here that while flipping, the only thought in my head was my question. Remember, we’re pulling stuff from between our own ears, not from the evil shadows of urban myth.

The bottom three are going to form one glyph and the top three will form another glyph. Tosses 1-3 are the glyph on the vertical column and tosses 4-6 are the horizontal column. Once you’ve identified your column and row find the number (1-64) that is your message. That’s correct. Chinese sages through the millennia agree that there are only 64 outcomes to any problem. After several consultations, I’m beginning to agree!

Our symbols are:

——-     — —

— — & — —

— —     ——-

That got #27 which is I or Corners of the Mouth.  Here’s the part that requires a bit of interpretation. You read the description, the judgement, and the image, then think about how it is an answer to your question. I write down a few quotes that resonate with me.

Here’s what I wrote down for this reading, “The bottom glyph is to nourish myself while the top glyph is to nourish others.” To me, that means share what you’ve learned. I then read the line for 9 in the top and intuited that I need to use caution with what I share.

This is the final push I needed to take an article I wrote for the subscribers of my former fiction website and turn it into a blog series about my journey into the esoteric. This reading was also the reason that this article was what I began working on that night! So I could teach you, my Dear Readers, to follow your own inner voice and vet information instead of believing the most persuasive talker or writer.

I then leave the back of my page empty so when I revisit readings after time passed, I can leave a follow up note to see how things actually worked out.

A final note on I Ching, the Wilhelm translation is the one I’ve heard good things about and the only one I’ve used.

Tarot

There are many decks for divination, but the one I have experience with is the Rider Waite deck. It was illustrated by a woman who was a Golden Dawn initiate and incorporates a ton of esoteric symbolism into each picture. I won’t go deep into how you should you Tarot for two reasons. One, when you buy a deck, it comes with instructions. Two Josphine McCarthy, a prolific author on Magic, and head of Quareia, a FREE online magick training curriculum, did a wonderful job with that here.

While I Ching is the advise from your wise old friend, Tarot readings are like the virtual tour of your query. Tarot’s symbolism is also cool because the Major Arcana aligns with the twenty-two paths on the tree of life, which also aligns with the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. This leads to our final form of divination. I wanted to do Tarot reading on the reoccurring symbolism I flagged in my dream journal to better understand my own dream language. So I tagged keywords, tallied, generalized, clumped, and sorted until I felt I had reached the bottom layer. Then I discovered I had twenty two major reoccurring symbols!

Yes, the very same number of paths to wisdom on the Tree of Life, and the same number of Major Arcana on the Tarot deck! So I played a matching game and sure enough, with hardly any effort, I had a Trump Card for each of my reoccurring dream symbols!

Dream Journaling

Modern science isn’t sure about the value of dreams, but I spent six months writing all of mine down and about three hours finding symbols that served as a sort of hieroglyph to begin learning how to decode these messages.

I love books and I know there are plenty out there on dreams, but one thing I know about symbolic divination is that it’s all about what the symbol means to the dreamer or querant. Not what it meant to someone else living some other life. For that reason, at least while I’m starting out, I’ve opted not to go out of my way to read dream books. I chose instead to record my own.

I keep a journal on my dresser with one of those little book lights on them. Then when I have a dream I quietly shuffle out to the couch, click on my book light and record it. I also leave the rest of the page blank so I have room later in the week to go back and record an interpretation. Some folks will have the luxury of recording their voice with an app or writing in bed, but my wife is a light sleeper and I don’t want to poke the bear.

I don’t find messages in every dream, perhaps there aren’t messages in each one, perhaps I haven’t learned enough of the language yet, but last week (my first since the Tarot card match-up I described), out of a dozen dreams, three of them held a message I could relate to something currently unfolding in my life. That’s why it’s important to read through them weekly, so that you can catch the messages while you still have time to act upon them.

Aren’t you glad I shared that with you up front? I’d been recording them for six months before it occurred to me that there were messages in there!

So there you go! For the price of a deck of Tarot cards and an empty journal, you can sort out which path is best for you, which is good but isn’t the right fit, which is a total waste of time, and which one will do you harm. I’ve used it to vet Quareia, to avoid training with other esoteric programs, and even to decide to share this article with you! Not to mention all the normal day to day stuff. I even did a cluster of readings to finalize my decision to move from downtown to someplace woodsy.

Is this article full of baloney? Now, you’ve got the skills to tell me.