The Dilemmas of Divination

For as far back as anyone in my family can remember, someone has always practised some sort of divination. A grandmother read the tea leaves, a great aunt interpreted candle flames, another read ordinary packs of playing cards. For most people however, divination nowadays means the Tarot, the Runes, a crystal ball or sometimes, palmistry. As we’ve become more tolerant, so the methods of reading seem to have become fewer. 

 

But what does divination do? And what should you expect from a reading? Although some fortune tellers (we’ll call them this simply because it’s easier) claim to predict events in the future, most will admit that divination is really a mirror to the querent’s self. In other words, it mostly tells us that which, in our heart of hearts, we know already. The cards, the runes, the crystal ball will often show us the undercurrents already present in our lives, together with suggested methods of resolving problems or dealing with relationship.

 

But not always. I have come across people who have had some very dramatic and not always pleasant experiences with divination. For example, there was a story in my family of two young men who had a card reading back in the 1920’s.   The fortune teller told one that he would die an uncanny death, and indeed he did, falling off a bridge some years later. (It was always said that the reading preyed on his mind and he jumped.) The other young man was told that he would suffer a disfiguring accident to his face, and he lost an eye in a freak accident before he was twenty. 

 

Even if the fortune teller really did see such events in the cards, was it the right thing to tell them? And was it right to tell them without suggesting ways they might change their future? Who knows? 

 

Neither of the men escaped their predicted fate, so we could argue there was little point in telling them since the knowledge could not help them. On the other hand, such stories do help reinforce the belief that there is some truth in fortune telling. A bland, one-size-fits all reading would soon have been forgotten, but here I am, eighty-odd years on, telling you this dramatic story. So perhaps there was some sort of purpose to it after all.

 

My own early experiences with divination were with palmistry. I became good at reading hands at quite a young age, although the discovery that my own manner of death was literally written ‘in my hands’ was a tad unsettling. Weirdly, and perhaps because I was so young, I just grew to accept it, and never changed my lifestyle to try and prevent it. 

 

This is in marked contrast to Lord Kitchener who was told by the palmist Cheiro (Count Louis Hamon) that he would die by drowning. Lord Kitchener was so convinced of the truth of the prediction that he even took swimming lessons in a desperate attempt to avoid such a death. As it turned out, Cheiro was quite right, and Lord Kitchener drowned in the First World War with the sinking of HMS Hampshire (along with several hundred others.) 

 

To be honest if I ever came across something like that on somebody else’s palm, I’m not sure that I would tell them about it. I’d probably prefer to say something like ‘you should stay away from water whenever possible’ instead. This is because I’m not even certain that such things are the real purpose of divination, though they certainly help others to believe in its effectiveness. I certainly wouldn’t like to tell them anything that would prey on their minds!

 

Over the years I experimented with other methods of divination and fortune telling. Tea leaves were great, so very graphic and fun to do, but of course they went out of fashion once tea bags became popular. But with training they could be uncannily precise. I can well remember once doing a reading and finding the tea leaves had formed themselves into a tall pair of boots on the side of the cup. The querent (a keen horse rider) returned a day or so afterwards to tell me that someone had given her an almost new pair of boots later that same afternoon! Trivial yes, but convincing!

 

I did a great deal of tarot reading at one time, and found this was the only method of divination that was affected by the prevailing weather conditions. Was it something unique to the tarot or just me? I’ve heard other tarot readers mention that cloudy skies and bad weather would often make readings difficult, and this was certainly my own experience. Given that Welsh weather has more than its fair share of rain however, I thought it was better to find a method that didn’t play me up the moment that cumulonimbus clouds appeared on the horizon.

 

The runes came to the rescue. I have always loved them, not least because they rely so heavily on symbolism which I find frees the subconscious, making them easier to work with. That’s something that works well for me, although others prefer the more pictorial prompting you find in the tarot. 

 

Of course, whatever method you use, there always comes a time when you are accused of reading the client, rather than reading the runes (or cards etc.)   How do we avoid such accusations? I find one of the best ways is to give people the option whether or not they want to tell you what their question is about. If they don’t (and that’s fine by me) they have to understand that the reading will be a little more cryptic and they will have to do some of the interpretating for themselves. I can read the runes, but I can’t and won’t even try to guess the question!

 

Of course when people do tell you their question, then the reading is easier to interpret for them. Even so, I try to look for things they haven’t asked about, hoping that these will help to convince them of the truth of what I’m telling them. So if someone asks you about their love life and you can suddenly tell them about their job, this helps them accept that there really is ‘something to this fortune reading thing.’

 

All forms of divination can be tiring. Nowadays I certainly wouldn’t like to be doing them every day for any length of time (though back in my youth I did!) When I was young I was always told that divination should be approached solemnly, with due consideration, etc., etc. Nowadays the emphasis is often more on a playful approach. 

 

There’s something to be said for both methods. A relaxed approach can often yield brilliant results, but at the same time it’s important to remember that you are dealing with people who can often feel quite raw and vulnerable by the time that they come to you for some answers.

 

A good ‘fortune teller’ does more than interpret symbols. He/she has to know the best way of putting a reading into words, of making it accessible to the querent.   Always remember that any reading must be a partnership between reader and querent, otherwise it’s just a lecture!