What is Divination?

Essentially, divination is a structured inquiry to obtain knowledge about past, present or future, either from sources within oneself, or from another individual, sometimes called a diviner or psychic. In traditional cultures and esoteric traditions as well as the contemporary “New Age” sub-culture divination is usually practiced in conjunction with a symbolic system such as the ancient Chinese I Ching, the Nordic Runes, astrology, the medieval Tarot cards, or the reading of patterns of stones or bones or small sea-shells, or gazing into a crystal ball. In Graeco-Roman times the professional diviners, called augurs, interpreted the patterns made by flying flocks of birds, or a slaughtered animal’s entrails.

We may regard such systems as divination tools or accessories, through which the mind of the questioner-seeker and the diviner are taken out of the usual cognitive framework of rationality and causality. In the business world, it is often said that in order to solve problems or devise new approaches, we have to “think outside the box.” A problem always and only exists as a problem within the usual framework of our rational thinking. So the non-rational divination symbol systems serve to shift our perspective, our point of view, out of the box. We can see that at the core of all these methods there is the process of asking a question and obtaining an answer.


In addition to the use of these formalized symbolic accessories, there is another and more direct way to access inner spiritual knowledge, and that is to go into a heightened or expanded state of consciousness. In an expanded state of consciousness, such as a shamanic drumming journey, or an experience with a psychoactive plant substance, or a concentrative meditation, we transcend the time-space framework of ordinary reality, and can ask our questions from the spirit world, or the divine world (hence the term ”divination”). Thus the essential process in divination involves a questioner or seeker (also sometimes called “querent”) asking questions and the diviner obtaining answers, by non-rational, non-analytical means. In the inner traditions of shamanism and alchemy the querent and the diviner are one and the same person, accessories are dispensed with, and one taps into direct intuitive knowing.


The importance of being clear and explicit about one’s question cannot be over emphasized. If we approach a wise person or teacher or counselor we can hardly expect to learn from them unless we are clear about what we are asking. Similarly, in any kind of divination process, whether using a symbolic template, or going into an expanded state of consciousness, the value and significance of the information or guidance received is very much a function of the manner of the question. Asking a question is a basic gesture of receptivity. If we are in a conversation and I ask you a question, any question, even a mundane one (such as “What time is it?”) I am then receptive to what you are going to say next. If I haven’t asked the question, I may or may not be receptive to what you are going to say, because my attention may be elsewhere occupied. So, when in a spiritual divination, I ask a question, addressing my inner wise self, or my intuition, or my shamanic power animal, or my ancestral spirit guide (however I conceive of this inner wisdom source), the next thought, or image, or feeling or memory that comes to mind is the response, from that wise source.


The simplest and most direct expression of this self-divination process is the phrase “I asked myself…” If I’m pondering or reflecting on any kind of issue, whether in relation to work, or interpersonal relations, or creative expression, the use of that phrase implies the belief that there is a part of me that is wiser and more knowledgeable than I am personally, at this time. Otherwise, why would I be asking the question? So, I would like to suggest to the reader, that from time to time as you read the thoughts I am presenting, you stop and ask yourself whether what is being said “rings true” or, in other words, is confirmed by your own inner wise self.

This process, divining by simply asking your inner wise or guiding self, is also involved in the practice known as dream incubation. This is one of the best ways to increase the meaningfulness of one’s dreams: before you go to sleep you ask your inner guide, your dream-weaver, for help in solving a particular issue. Whatever dreams may come can then be much more readily interpreted as symbolic answers to the question you posed.

Divination and the scientific method

Modern individuals, trained in a scientific outlook, tend to shy away from divinatory practices, fearing to give any credence to what they consider ignorant and irrational superstition. However, to say that divinatory practices are non-rational is not to say they are irrational, or based on superstition. It has been said that the divination systems, such as the Tarot or the I Ching, are simply ways of structuring intuitive knowledge. Intuition plays a significant role in the empirical research methods of science. It is intuition from which the scientist obtains the hypotheses and theories, which are then tested by observation and experiment. Albert Einstein was famous for describing the divinatory “thought-experiments” (as he called them) by means of which he arrived at his theory of relativity: he said he imagined himself traveling at speeds approaching the speed of light, and asked himself what would happen to the dimensions of space.


My friend, the pioneering English biologist Rupert Sheldrake, author of A New Theory of Life and other works, has pointed out that a scientific experiment is essentially a sophisticated form of divination – the asking of a question. In a typical experiment, whether in the natural or social sciences, all the known variables but one are held constant, so that the observations that are made (the dependent variable) can be reasonably attributed to the one parameter that is allowed to vary in a controlled fashion (the independent variable). An experiment is a divination situation in which we are asking a question of Nature, and testing our understanding of the underlying laws and forces (called “theory”).


Divination, in other words, is an empirical procedure. Intuitive knowledge is subjected to testing and verification by experience. Just as an experiment gives us results that are then used to confirm or disconfirm our theory or hypothesis, so the knowledge obtained by intuitive divinations are also subject to verification or confirmation. In the realms or medicine and healing, the divination to discover the cause of the illness is the process of diagnosis; and the confirmation of the diagnosis is in the healing or cure of the illness. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating” is the old saying, which should perhaps be more accurately stated as “the proof of the rightness of the recipe for the pudding is in the eating.”


At the same time, the fact that some insight or point of view comes from an intuitive source does not guarantee its correctness or appropriateness. Intuitive perceptions can be mistaken, just like ordinary sense perception. I may see a man walking down the street, and after a while, as the distance between us gets smaller, I realize the figure is really a woman – I correct my perception by further observation. My teacher Russell Schofield used to say that when he obtained an intuitive perception about something that seemed unusual, he would ask again and again, sometimes nine or ten times, to determine if the answer he was getting to his question was consistent. So in any divination, if the answers we get are unclear or unbelievable, we can ask repeatedly for further confirmation or clarification.


(extracted from Alchemical Divination, 2009)