Divination: What I believe

What I Believe About Divination
Divination of one form or another has been practiced almost as long as the human race has existed. For as long as humans have been individually aware of themselves, they have wondered the same few questions over and over again. One of those questions, rather naturally, was, What comes next? Around this question, entire sciences have risen. Don't scoff: Some of those sciences are still valid today. After consulting their arcane charts and seemingly random events of nature, meteorologists are able to predict near-future trends in the weather. After examining your innards, your doctor can foretell any number of things about your health. Entire eschelons of corporate staff are given over to predicting market trends. We still desperately want to know what comes next. Rather naturally, some methods of divination have been discarded as unspecific or unscientific. Entrail reading, the casting of bones or dice, palmistry, astrology, tarot cards... These tend to result in fairly vague and often inaccurate results, and so are largely dismissed by today's intellectual. My personal belief is that divination has more than ever to offer - but don't mistake this for a belief in magic or mystical ability. What I believe is this: We all know our situations quite well, and we all know what the outcome of these situations is likely to be, whether or not we are able to reach that knowledge consciously or not. Divination, with its vagueness, actually offers a path by which we can reach the destination we require. Travelling this path, even subconsciously, requires a great deal of intelligence. In the distant past, diviners were always almost astonishingly intelligent - these people had to interpret the situations of others for them. But I think most of us are past this. I think most of us can interpret our own futures, given the appropriate tools. The tools are fairly simple to come by. Take a book - any book. A dictionary, a religious text, even a novel. Close your eyes, and think about your situation, your problem. Hold it carefully in your mind, and open the book to any page. Still with your eyes closed, place your finger on a page, and then open your eyes and start reading where your finger is. Nine times out of ten, within a paragraph or two, your eye will fasten itself on a few words that seem to be significant to the situation. This is your subconscious ringing bells in your forebrain, telling you what it is you need to know - but really already knew. What I don't believe is that divination can tell you something you didn't know before. It can tell you that your lover is losing interest - because subconsciously, you noticed the signs - but it can't tell you your boss' phone number when you have to call in sick with the flu. For that, you need one of those arcane charts I mentioned earlier: the phone book. Look. You don't need my tools to help you interpret your problem. I wrote them as programming exercises, and to help myself find my path. (Even using the much easier "penny" method, casting an I Ching hexagram takes a good while.) And as long as I'd written them, I figured I might as well share them with you. If you think divination is all bunk, then you're welcome to look anyway and criticize my programming, or go away and not look. No skin off my nose; this section is totally free of all stat-trackers and logs. I'll never know whether you were here or not, or what you did when you came. If you have feedback, if you notice a typo or a bug or want to make a suggestion for how to improve the site, or if you just want to say hi, feel free to write me. In the meantime, enjoy yourself. -- Liz

What I Believe About Divination

Divination of one form or another has been practiced almost as long as the human race has existed. For as long as humans have been individually aware of themselves, they have wondered the same few questions over and over again. One of those questions, rather naturally, was, What comes next? Around this question, entire sciences have risen.

Don't scoff: Some of those sciences are still valid today. After consulting their arcane charts and seemingly random events of nature, meteorologists are able to predict near-future trends in the weather. After examining your innards, your doctor can foretell any number of things about your health. Entire eschelons of corporate staff are given over to predicting market trends. We still desperately want to know what comes next.

Rather naturally, some methods of divination have been discarded as unspecific or unscientific. Entrail reading, the casting of bones or dice, palmistry, astrology, tarot cards... These tend to result in fairly vague and often inaccurate results, and so are largely dismissed by today's intellectual.

My personal belief is that divination has more than ever to offer - but don't mistake this for a belief in magic or mystical ability. What I believe is this: We all know our situations quite well, and we all know what the outcome of these situations is likely to be, whether or not we are able to reach that knowledge consciously or not. Divination, with its vagueness, actually offers a path by which we can reach the destination we require.

Travelling this path, even subconsciously, requires a great deal of intelligence. In the distant past, diviners were always almost astonishingly intelligent - these people had to interpret the situations of others for them. But I think most of us are past this. I think most of us can interpret our own futures, given the appropriate tools.

The tools are fairly simple to come by. Take a book - any book. A dictionary, a religious text, even a novel. Close your eyes, and think about your situation, your problem. Hold it carefully in your mind, and open the book to any page. Still with your eyes closed, place your finger on a page, and then open your eyes and start reading where your finger is. Nine times out of ten, within a paragraph or two, your eye will fasten itself on a few words that seem to be significant to the situation. This is your subconscious ringing bells in your forebrain, telling you what it is you need to know - but really already knew.

What I don't believe is that divination can tell you something you didn't know before. It can tell you that your lover is losing interest - because subconsciously, you noticed the signs - but it can't tell you your boss' phone number when you have to call in sick with the flu. For that, you need one of those arcane charts I mentioned earlier: the phone book.

Look. You don't need my tools to help you interpret your problem. I wrote them as programming exercises, and to help myself find my path. (Even using the much easier "penny" method, casting an I Ching hexagram takes a good while.) And as long as I'd written them, I figured I might as well share them with you. If you think divination is all bunk, then you're welcome to look anyway and criticize my programming, or go away and not look. No skin off my nose; this section is totally free of all stat-trackers and logs. I'll never know whether you were here or not, or what you did when you came.

If you have feedback, if you notice a typo or a bug or want to make a suggestion for how to improve the site, or if you just want to say hi, feel free to write me. In the meantime, enjoy yourself.

-- Liz