The Ancient Art of Divination

Divination is an ancient healing craft which has been used for centuries to make the invisible world visible. To be a diviner, or seer, into other realms requires the Art of responsible Gatekeeping between the Worlds.

Gatekeepers and diviners are shamanic practitioners whose function is to purify the energies they let in and out of their being. By attuning to, cleansing, and bringing these energies into balance, Gatekeepers become the Wisdom Keepers of the World. 

BEZA Initiates of the Five Elemental Bodies of the Medicine Wheel serve the transformational power of love for the benefit of all beings.

Introduction to Divination

Divination (from Latin divinare ‘to foresee, reveal, foretell, predict, prophesy, etc.’) is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice. Using various methods throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed to attain harmony and balance in their lives by reading signs, events, or omens, or through contact or interaction with ‘supernatural’ agencies such as ancestors, spirits, elemental spirits, gods or god-like-beings, or the “will of the universe”.

Divination can be seen as an attempt to organize what appears to be random so that it provides insight into a problem or issue at hand. Some instruments or practices of divination include Tarot-card reading, rune casting, tea-leaf reading,automatic writing, water scrying, and psychedelics like psilocybin mushrooms and DMT. If a distinction is made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a more formal or ritualistic element and often contains a more social character, usually in a religious or spiritual context, as seen in traditional African medicine. Fortune-telling, on the other hand, is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Particular divination methods vary by culture and religion.

In its functional relation to magic in general, divination can have a preliminary and investigative role. The diagnosis or prognosis achieved through divination is both temporarily and logically related to the manipulative, protective or alleviative function of magic rituals. In divination one finds the cause of an ailment or a potential danger, in magic one subsequently acts upon this knowledge.

Like astronomy, geomancy used deduction and computation to uncover significant prophecies as opposed to omens, which were a process of “reading” visible random events to decipher the invisible realities from which they originated. It was upheld by prophetic tradition and relied almost exclusively on text, specifically the Qur’an (which carried a table for guidance) and poetry, as a development of bibliomancy. The practice culminated in the appearance of the illustrated “Books of Omens” (Falnama) in the early 16th century, an embodiment of the apocalyptic fears as the end of the millennium in the Islamic calendar approached.

Dream interpretation, or oneiromancy, is more specific to Islam than other divinatory science, largely because of the Qur’an’s emphasis on the predictive dreams of Abraham, Yusuf, and Muhammad. The important delineation within the practice lies between “incoherent dreams” and “sound dreams,” which were “a part of prophecy” or heavenly message. Dream interpretation was always tied to Islamic religious texts, providing a moral compass to those seeking advice. The practitioner needed to be skilled enough to apply the individual dream to general precedent while appraising the singular circumstances.

The power of text held significant weight in the “science of letters”, the foundational principle being “God created the world through His speech.” The science began with the concept of language, specifically Arabic, as the expression of “the essence of what it signifies.” Once the believer understood this, while remaining obedient to God’s will, they could uncover the essence and divine truth of the objects inscribed with Arabic like amulets and talismans through the study of the letters of the Qur’an with alphanumeric computations.

In Islamic practice in Senegal and Gambia, just like many other West African countries, diviners and religious leaders and healers were interchangeable because Islam was closely related with esoteric practices (like divination), which were responsible for the regional spread of Islam. As scholars learned esoteric sciences, they joined local non-Islamic aristocratic courts, who quickly aligned divination and amulets with the “proof of the power of Islamic religion.” So strong was the idea of esoteric knowledge in West African Islam, diviners and magicians uneducated in Islamic texts and Arabic bore the same titles as those who did.

From the beginning of Islam, there “was (and is) still a vigorous debate about whether or not such [divinatory] practices were actually permissible under Islam,” with some scholars like Abu-Hamid al Ghazili (d. 1111) objecting to the science of divination because he believed it bore too much similarity to pagan practices of invoking spiritual entities that were not God. Other scholars justified esoteric sciences by comparing a practitioner to “a physician trying to heal the sick with the help of the same natural principles.”

Mesoamerica

Divination was a central component of ancient Mesoamerican religious life. Many Aztec gods, including central creator gods, were described as diviners and were closely associated with sorcery. Tezcatlipoca is the patron of sorcerers and practitioners of magic. His name means “smoking mirror,” a reference to a device used for divinatory scrying. In the Mayan Popol Vuh, the creator gods Xmucane and Xpiacoc perform divinatory hand casting during the creation of people. The Aztec Codex Borbonicus shows the original human couple, Oxomoco and Cipactonal, engaged in divining with kernels of maize. This primordial pair is associated with the ritual calendar, and the Aztecs considered them to be the first diviners.

Every civilization that developed in pre-Columbian Mexico, from the Olmecs to the Aztecs, practiced divination in daily life, both public and private. Scrying through the use of reflective water surfaces, mirrors, or the casting of lots were among the most widespread forms of divinatory practice. Visions derived from hallucinogens were another important form of divination, and are still widely used among contemporary diviners of Mexico. Among the more common hallucinogenic plants used in divination are morning glory, jimson weed, and peyote.

Japan

Although Japan retains a history of traditional and local methods of divination, such as onmyōdō, contemporary divination in Japan, called uranai, derives from outside sources. Contemporary methods of divination in Japan include both Western and Chinese astrology, geomancy or feng shui, tarot cards, I Ching (Book of Changes) divination, and physiognomy (methods of reading the body to identify traits).

In Japan, divination methods include Futomani from the Shinto tradition.

Personality types

Personality typing as a form of divination has been prevalent in Japan since the 1980s. Various methods exist for divining personality-type. Each attempt to reveal glimpses of an individual’s destiny, productive and inhibiting traits, future parenting techniques, and compatibility in marriage. Personality type is increasingly important for young Japanese, who consider personality the driving factor of compatibility, given the ongoing marriage drought and birth rate decline in Japan.

Japanese tarot

The adaptation of the Western divination method of tarot cards into Japanese culture presents a particularly unique example of contemporary divination as this adaptation mingles with Japan’s robust visual culture. Japanese tarot cards are created by professional artists, advertisers, and fans of tarot. One tarot card collector claimed to have accumulated more than 1,500 Japan-made decks of tarot cards.

Japanese tarot cards fall into diverse categories such as:

• Inspiration Tarot (reikan tarotto);
• I-Ching Tarot (ekisen tarotto);
• Spiritual Tarot (supirichuaru tarotto);
• Western Tarot (seiyō tarotto); and
• Eastern Tarot (tōyō tarotto).

The images on tarot cards may come from images from Japanese popular culture, such as characters from manga and anime including Hello Kitty, or may feature cultural symbols. Tarot cards may adapt the images of Japanese historical figures, such as high priestess Himiko (170–248CE) or imperial court wizard Abe no Seimei (921–1005CE). Still others may feature images of cultural displacement, such as English knights, pentagrams, the Jewish Torah, or invented glyphs. The introduction of such cards began by the 1930s and reached prominence in the 1970s. Japanese tarot cards were originally created by men, often based on the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot published by the Rider Company in London in 1909. Since, the practice of Japanese tarot has become overwhelmingly feminine and intertwined with kawaii culture. Referring to the cuteness of tarot cards, Japanese model Kuromiya Niina was quoted as saying “because the images are cute, even holding them is enjoyable.” While these differences exist, Japanese tarot cards function similarly to their Western counterparts. Cards are shuffled and cut into piles then used to forecast the future, for spiritual reflection, or as a tool for self-understanding.

Taiwan

A common act of divination in Taiwan is called the Poe. “The Poe” translated to English means “moon boards”. It consists of two wood or bamboo blocks cut into the shape of a crescent moon. The one edge is rounded while the other is flat; the two are mirror images. Both crescents are held out in one’s palms and while kneeling, they are raised to the forehead level. Once in this position, the blocks are dropped and the future can be understood depending on their landing. If both fall flat side up or both fall rounded side up, that can be taken as a failure of the deity to agree. If the blocks land one rounded and one flat, the deity indicates “Yes”, or positive. “Laughing poe” is when rounded sides land down and they rock before coming to a standstill. “Negative poe” is when the flat sides fall downward and abruptly stop; this indicates “No”. When there is a positive fall, it is called “Sacred poe”, although the negative falls are not usually taken seriously. As the blocks are being dropped the question is said in a murmur, and if the answer is yes, the blocks are dropped again. To make sure the answer is definitely a yes, the blocks must fall in a “yes” position three times in a row.

A more serious type of divination is the Kiō-á. There is a small wooden chair, and around the sides of the chair are small pieces of wood that can move up and down in their sockets, this causes a clicking sound when the chair is moved in any way. Two men hold this chair by its legs before an altar, while the incense is being burned, and the deity is invited to descend onto the chair. It is seen that it is in the chair by an onset of motion. Eventually, the chair crashes onto a table prepared with wood chips and burlap. The characters on the table are then traced and these are said to be written by the deity who possessed the chair, these characters are then interpreted for the devotees.

South Africa

AmaXhosa and AmaZulu

The Xhosa peoples contain individuals who practice divination known as sangomas. The diviner of the Amazulu (the Zulu people) of South East Africa is known as Izinyanga Zokabula, or an Inyanga.

Traditional Initiation

In the period of initiation, the man, to begin with, abstains from certain foods, and eats only a small amount of the foods he does eat. He complains about bodily pain. He dreams many things (he has become a house of dreams). He finally becomes ill and goes to a diviner to seek help, but the man stays unwell for perhaps two years. At this time he is already possessed by Itongo. His hair falls out. His skin is now dry. About this time he becomes aware of his divinatory powers which are heard and seen by his sneezing and yawning repeatedly, and is also now liking snuff very much, taking this often. He suffers convulsions in illness and has water poured over him, at which time the convulsions stop for a while. He cries and weeps. During the night sometimes others go to sing with him, after he has awoken them with his own singing, after having composed a song. His body is now emaciated. During the initiation the sleep pattern of the initiate changes to a number of brief periods and awakens to be active singing songs and leaping inside and outside (like a frog). The village makes an effort to make the initiates Itongo white. At this time, a well-respected and known Inyanga makes ubulawo (an emetic) for the initiate, the initiate and the Inyanga spend two days together, then the initiate is himself an Inyanga.

Impepo

The initiating Inyanga first eats black impepo, to take away dimness from the inner sight, then white impepo. White impepo is used to maintain trueness of inner sight after the black impepo. Both are emetics. The Inyanga sleeps with black impepo (under the head) to make the dreams clear and true.

Divination Training with BEZA

Human beings are the current expression of millions of years of evolutionary transformation. We have emerged into existence from galactic stardust, into foundational Earth elements, into life forms, homo-sapiens, and then, through a very long line of ancestors, we arrive on the scene as who we are today.

Humans are inherently mythological beings – the species that uses the language of symbology to create meaning. Countless mystics from traditions the world over, speak of our mythological journey as a cycle of dream-like states in which we are constantly prodded to awaken into our inherent enlightenment.

Divination is one of many guiding tools used to access awakening – the state where our ancient mystical wisdom is made visible and practical. Becoming a diviner or seer is akin to being a mentor and guide into the mystical realm.

The year-long Gatekeeper Apprentice Training around the Elemental Medicine Wheel and a 22-Day Divination Training Intensive in South Africa facilitated by Ekan Nangaku, a master-diviner of 15 years, teaches how to engage Mother Earth’s Elements as harmonic tools to reveal the rituals needed for clients to create harmony between the realms.

During training, BEZA supplies their apprentices with a divination manual and all the items needed for their starter divination kit. Students are asked to acquire some additional items beforehand and personalize their divination cloth. While on the training apprentices embody the healing remedies or prescriptions during their initiation into ancient ceremonial practices.

References

Wikipedia – Divination; Wikipedia – African Divination