Pyromancy candle flame scrying when we set alight our intention candles and during our manifestation work, to see how the process works for us. Divination is universally concerned with practical problems, private or public, and seeks information upon which practical decisions can be made; but the source of such information is not conceived as mundane, and the technique of getting it is necessarily fanciful. The mantic (divinatory) arts are many, and a broad understanding can emerge only from a survey of actual practices in various cultural settings. A short definition, however, may be offered as a preliminary guide: divination is the effort to gain information of a mundane sort by means conceived of as transcending the mundane. You’d be surprised by all the things that scare me.” “Like what?” “You. You terrify me. And torture me a bit too.” 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. [35] In the Mayan Popol Vuh, the creator gods Xmucane and Xpiacoc perform divinatory hand casting during the creation of people. [35] 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. [36]

The Iching is the most well-known Chinese form of divination in the West. The method involves throwing coins multiple times, taking note of how they land, and interpreting the pattern created based on the Book of Changes.MODERN DIVINATION is for the tea lovers, the Howl's Moving Castle girlies, the readers who annotate their books into oblivion, the romantics with trust issues, the underestimated academics, the purple-prose lovers, the gays, and anyone looking for a book to cuddle up with on a blustering winter night. This is the witch who you usually ask what is happening with the planets, as they’re up to date on their astrology. This is the witch you go to for guidance from the cards. This is the witch that when she says “don’t go out to this restaurant”, you take note and go somewhere else. Divination is it’s own umbrella of excellent curiosities to share, explore, and discover. Divination witches do not look a certain way, they can be solitary or in a coven, they do not have either introverted or extraverted personalities, and they don’t have specific levels of formal education – but they do intuitively listen, and they do have a lot of respect for the ways of the universe even if they don’t completely understand what they are interpreting in the moment, but just trust it. Cledonism is in a class with Apantomancy in that it can be a form of seeing/hearing signs from Gods and the spirits. Cledonism was popular among the ancient Greeks. In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus hears thunder after asking for a sign and takes this as a mark of approval from Zeus. Conchomancy If you want to master Astrology, the first thing to learn is the meanings of the planets. Once you have done this, you learn about the signs of the zodiac and then the houses. Finally, you can eat up more advanced stuff like aspects, squares, etc.

Yau, Julianna. (2002). Witchcraft and Magic. In Michael Shermer. The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. ABC-CLIO. pp. 278-282. ISBN 1-57607-654-7 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. [47] Perhaps one of the most ancient forms of divination to include the use of tools, bone casting has been around for thousands of years. It has been practiced in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and everywhere in-between. The symbolism of each piece of bone used is dependent on the culture of the diviner and the traditions which they follow.

General Introductions to Divination in the Ancient World

Regal, Brian. (2009). Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia. Greenwood. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-313-35507-3 Pyromancy is divination using fire. Technically, candle divination, Xylomancy, and any divination involving burning come under Pyromancy. Rhabdomancy The methodology for practicing the divinatory skills seems to divide into two categories: the first is the observation and interpretation of natural phenomena, and the second is the observation and interpretation of man-made "voluntary" phenomena. Natural phenomena includes two major subcategories of activity: astrology and hepatoscopy. To a lesser degree, the observation of the following occurrences also can be listed under natural phenomena: unexpected storms, particular cloud formations, birth monstrosities in both man and animal, howling or unnatural actions in dogs, and nightmarish dreams.