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Divination at Dragonspace
Abacomancy, geloscopy, haruspicy, cleromancy, floriography...It might all sound like a foreign language, but it’s actually just the tip of the iceberg that is the wonderful world of divination.
Cultures all over the world have practiced divination for centuries. While often considered to be ‘fortune-telling’, divination is much more multifold and complex. In essence, divination is a means of gaining subconscious insight into a present challenge or situation. This insight might then affect the way you see your future path laid out, or the actions you take, hence the connection to prophesy and fortune-telling.
There are almost countless kinds of divination techniques. You’re probably wondering what the opening methods mean, so we’ll happily enlighten you. Abacomancy = interpretation of patterns in dust; geloscopy = divination through laughter; haruspicy = studying omens in animal entrails; cleromancy = casting of lots (e.g. rolling dice) and floriography = the hidden language of flowers. And that’s just a few! It would take scrolls and scrolls to go through them all, so we’ll share some of the methods that we favour here at Dragonspace.
RUNE CASTING
Historically, runes were an ancient writing system, used before the adoption of the Latin alphabet. But these jagged symbols were also believed to hold magical properties. The 24 runes most commonly used in rune casting and rune magic are collectively known as the Elder Futhark, with each rune symbol having a specific meaning or association. For example, the ‘Fehu’ rune is the rune of wealth and fulfilment, while the ‘Algiz’ is the rune of protection and opportunity. We’d recommend the Rune Site for full rune meanings.
Rune casting is the act of drawing small stones etched with rune symbols from a bag and placing the ones you draw in a specific pattern on a surface. The positions/points within the pattern represent states such as the past, the future, present challenges and outcomes - much like a tarot spread. The symbolic meaning behind the rune that lands on each position helps you gain insight into challenges or important decisions you might be facing in your life, and possible paths of action. Like all divination, the key to casting runes is in your intention and personal connection to the practice. Choose runes that feel right for you - be it the colour, size or texture - and work on forging a familiarity between the stones and your hands.
PENDULUM MAGIC
Helping customers choose a pendulum is one of our favourite tasks here at Dragonspace. These gemstone beauties are gorgeous, so people often flock to one because they love that particular crystal, or an elegant shape caught their eye. However, just like buying a car, it's a good idea to test a pendulum to see if it’s truly the right fit for you...though intuition can also work!
Pendulums can be used in a few ways, but we recommend customers hold the pendulum by the tip of its chain over the centre of your open palm and wait for it to start moving. It will - trust us! Strong movements indicate a strong connection, whereas a pendulum that weakly wobbles probably isn’t the right fit - though might be for a different customer.
Pendulums work by ‘programming’ the tool to move in one direction to indicate a positive response, and another to indicate a negative response. Once the pendulum is programmed, you can then use the tool to help you answer questions, from personal ones (‘do I want to change my job?’) to more specific ones (some people believe that holding a pendulum over a map can help you find lost things).
Browse our pendulum collection here - (even if you can't test them, one might jump out at you from the screen).
INCENSE READING
The heady aroma of our incense collection is a big part of the sensory experience of Dragonspace - you can smell it as soon as you walk in the door! Jasmine, patchouli, green tea, cedar, ‘Dragon’s blood'...the scents are varied and personal. Most people buy incense for its aroma, but patterns in incense smoke can also be used for divinatory purpose.
Called ‘libranomacy’ or ‘libanomancy’, divining through incense smoke is most effective when using loose incense or resin cast on burning coals. This allows you to interpret the ‘pops’ and ‘crackles’ the incense makes whilst burning. But the direction of the smoke from a burning stick or cone of incense can also be interpreted. For example, if the smoke moves away from you, it suggests a negative outcome; if it moves towards you, it suggests a positive one; if the smoke clusters, it suggests profit and triumph; if it’s fragmented, it suggests loss or defeat. In Ancient Babylonian times, incense divination was used during times of war or conflict to determine fates of enemies and battle. These days, it can be used in much the same way as rune casting, pendulum magic or tarot and oracle readings - to help you figure out personal matters and conundrums.
Browse our incense and incense holder collection here.
And of course, there are the ever-popular tarot and oracle cards, which we wrote about previously in a post here.
Introduction to Tarot & Oracle
What is the Tarot?
The first recorded use of tarot cards dates back to the 14th century. The cards' original purpose was primarily for games and gambling, like modern playing cards, but throughout the centuries they have been adapted to divinatory purposes. Tarot has had a renewed popularity in the last decades, however their use has expanded from simple divination to a tool for meditation, reflection, problem analysis and the opening of our intuitive faculties.
Tarot is a tool for better understanding our lives through universal archetypal symbols, and how they relate to our personal journey.
A standard tarot deck contains 78 cards:
- 22 Major Arcana or Trump cards depicting the fool's journey towards enlightenment. Representative of the path of the mythical hero, this journey is one of adventure and self-discovery.
- 56 Minor Arcana cards:
- 40 Pip cards (Ace through Ten of each suit; typically Cups, Swords, Pentacles and Wands)
- 16 Court cards (Page, Knight, Queen and King of each suit)
Consulting the tarot allows us to gain fresh perspectives on situations and problems in our lives, as well as to connect to our intuition.
What is the Oracle?
Oracle cards are loosely based on the tarot system of divination, but allow for more flexibility in structure and organization. Unlike the tarot, oracle decks can have any number of cards, and can be used for general inspiration or focus on specific topics such as feminine deities or animal spirit guides. In general, oracle cards encompass other non-tarot systems of traditional divination such as runes, the I Ching, and the Lenormand.
Because of the variety inherent to oracle decks, each deck comes with a booklet instructing the user on the meaning and interpretation of each card.
Getting started
Choosing a deck
Selecting a deck of cards, whether tarot or oracle, is a personal and subjective choice. The approach we recommend is to select a deck that appeals to your imagination and draws you in at first glance, and then to learn to associate the symbols and illustrations on the cards to form an understanding of the tarot or oracle cards that you select. As mentioned, each oracle deck will come with a resource included for reading the cards. As a standardized system the tarot has many resources both online and in print. Our best-selling beginner's guide to the tarot is Tarot: Plain and Simple by Anthony Louis.
It is important to remember that allowing your intuition to speak for the meanings of the cards is essential to personalizing the process and finding alternative solutions to the problem at hand. Definitions serve as a general basis for understanding the cards, but you will learn that each card has different meanings for different people and in different positions in a spread.
Many beginners who want to start out with a very basic tarot deck will opt for the Rider Waite. Many newer decks are based off of the imagery of the Rider Waite, while others take an independent approach to the design of the cards. To purchase a deck, please click here and narrow down your selection to tarot or oracle on the left-hand column.
Learning to read the cards
Each card in a tarot or oracle deck carries a particular meaning. Ultimately reading the meaning of a card requires an understanding of: the meaning of the card, its position in the spread, the surrounding cards, the nature of the question, and the reader's intuition.
It's important not to get overwhelmed at this initial apparent complexity of understanding the cards! Beginners can get to know their cards by looking at them carefully and creating visual associations between symbols and their meanings - for example mountains can represent obstacles, while birds can be aspirations. You can also try pulling one card each morning, contemplating it's meaning both for you personally and in its traditional definition, and at the end of each day reflecting on how the day's events connect to the ones presented in the card.
Below is an example of a card from the Major Arcana and it's associated meaning and symbolism.
The World: XXI (last card in the Major Arcana)
Archetypes according to Carl Jung are the universal situations, feeling states and behaviour patterns of the collective unconscious. The World is the last Trump card in the Tarot, and represents the conclusion of the journey of The Fool (card zero). In the depiction on the left from the Rider Waite deck, the circular wreath surrounding the figure on the World Trump symbolizes the completion of the journey, the achievement of wholeness and actualization of the self, as well as the circular nature of life.
The four symbols in the corners of the card are a human head, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. These can be interpreted as the Four Evangelists from Christian traditions, four signs of the Zodiac, or their corresponding representations as the elements. This fourfold structure of the physical world encircles the center of the world where the divine can manifest.
In readings, the card symbolizes the natural end of things, and reaching the final stage in achieving a plan or goal. The end of a journey and the sense of wholeness that accompany it are embodied in this card.
Comments or questions? Please feel free to leave them below!