This article is part of a series: Divination & Decks
No matter your belief or background, the practice of divination predates all of it. To divine is to access, interpret, and honor the patterns of nature, and from there it’s a free-for-all. Human beings have always sought to understand the vibrations found in our Universe in order to better understand ourselves. And there are endless oracles from which to do it: from Astrology to Tarot, Iridology to Craniognomy, Tea Leaves to Coffee Grounds, or Runes to the Pendulum…and these are only the tip of the iceberg.
One of my favorite methods of divining is through books: Bibliomancy (take any book and open to any page and read the first line that comes into view—interpret as your message from spirit). Bibliomancy is the art of using sacred texts, books, and other periodicals for accessing messages from the Universe. The modern origins of which are centered in using prayers or lines of text from religious writings to deliver a person from negative entities or to call on the Creator for help in some way.
Looking for signs in our environment is a way of training our self-awareness to a broader synchronicity and deeper sensitivity. Our spirit communicates all the time through our friends, family, strangers, and animals, but it also speaks to us through the illusion of non-sentient means. It is the work of these oracles to open our hearts and minds to new possibilities of living life, solving problems, or drawing down our prosperity from on-high.
The connection to suffering and empathy is empirical when it comes to our ability to read the signs offered-up by the Universe. Many years ago, I was in my twenties and living in New York City. A waitress at a jazz club, I spent the wee hours of the morning cleaning and clearing tables after the last guest had gone. The lights were dim, and the stage was quiet, with only a baby grand piano left and a single light that shone on a black wooden stool in the center of the floor. It was such an elegant vision captured in that moment, that for a minute I’d forgotten my pain and the questions on my heart that I’d prayed about just hours before, hoping for a speedy response from the Creator.
So mesmerized with the scene, in fact, I hadn’t noticed a black, tattered-cloth hard-cover book that had been printed in the 1960s, it was entitled The Complete Illustrated Book of the Psychic Sciences (©1966, Walter B. Gibson, Doubleday). There it was, sitting on the stool, seeming to blend in so well, almost to be unnoticeable. Someone had left that book to be found by me. I’d not seen it in anyone’s hands the entire night, and for days after, no one came forward or seemed to know anything about it.
Until then, I hadn’t spent much time looking to oracles as a means of communication with the spirit world, but at the time, every one of my nights had been filled with nightmares, dreams, and visions, for which I was not comprehending their full meaning—my torment was great.
The book re-awakened in me my ancient desire for a visceral, tangible relationship to myself, my environment, the world around me, and the spiritual dimensions that were ready to assist. The act of divination isn’t only to connect with other worlds, but the multiplicity of our own soul language. Oracles are an invitation to better know yourself, master your relationships with others, and to cultivate the love and compassion it takes to honor the planet we live on.
To become a medium between the world and one’s own heart is the true value of any method of augury. The messages from our soul that connect us to every part of our existence, and will deliver us from our own inner bondage, to the endowment of freedom we are born to seek.
In the spirit of the prophets who’ve laid the path for us all, using Bibliomancy and The Complete Illustrated Book of the Psychic Sciences I’d like to offer a message from the Divine. Interpret as you will, to answer the burning questions of your heart and soul.
“…Woods: If you dream of green woods you will have lucky change. If the woods are on fire make plans for your welfare and security…”
(Page 182, Line 15).