Pagan Portals - Divination: By Rod, Birds and Fingers

by Melusine Draco

Divination is only a small part of a witch’s stock in trade, and although a basic introduction to the subject can be learned from books, proficiency will only come through vigorous practice. This proficiency comes through the discovery of certain secret matters by a great variety of means, correspondences, signs and occult techniques. Before a witch can perform any of these operations with any degree of success, we need to develop the ‘art of seeing’ and the ability to divine with rod, fingers and birds. Divination is what could be referred to as the practical element of Craft magic, and we don’t even have to be witches to be able to read the portents. But it helps! A companion volume to Pagan By Spellbook & Candle and Pagan By Wolfsbane & Mandrake Root, from popular Moon Books author Melusine Draco.

112 pages, Paperback

Published August 31, 2018

About the author

Mélusine Draco originally trained in the magical arts of traditional British Old Craft with Bob and Mériém Clay-Egerton. She has been a magical and spiritual instructor for over 20 years with Coven of the Scales and the Temple of Khem, and writer of numerous popular books including Liber Agyptius: the Book of Egyptian Magic; The Egyptian Book of Days; The Egyptian Book of Nights; The Thelemic Handbook; The Hollow Tree, an elementary guide to the Qabalah; A Witch's Treasury of the Countryside; Root & Branch: British Magical Tree Lore and Starchild: a rediscovery of stellar wisdom. Her highly individualistic teaching methods and writing draws on ancient sources supported by academic texts and current archaeological findings. She now lives in Ireland near the Galtee Mountains and has several titles currently published with John Hunt Publishing including the Traditional Witchcraft series.

Reviews

[Dorum · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that divination was used to infuse some randomness in the people's life back then. It Kind-of receded slowly in importance starting with the Enlightenment period. The reason was partly the ascent of the materialistic world view.

However I do think that there is at least some good in it.

1. First, over-relying on reason does tend to make one more prone to mistakes. This is true for a variety of reasons: we never have complete data, we are always working under finite time constraints and additionally our reasoning powers are also prone to error. Be aware that I am not by any means saying to ignore reasoning. It is obviously one of our most important qualities and it would be foolish to do so. I am just saying that it has its limits, and beyond a certain point one cannot rely on it. I believe that in Gary Klein's Streetlights and Shadows he makes an argument that when two options are very close to one another it is more profitable to choose one at random rather than use reasoning to decide between the two.

2. The second point I am trying to make is that some degree of randomness is not only necessary but very useful in life. This is similar to yeast when baking bread, or making beer. This is the reason why randomness is purposefully used in many computer algorithms that are otherwise deterministic. For example in cryptography, in multi-threading situations, and in countless other hard problems. This is the same in life.

I do remember some section of Katabasis by Xenophon, where the greeks delay attacking the Colchians multiple times because the omens are bad. On a whole the thing is somewhat frustrating, but to be honest there is some obvious utility in keeping the actual date of the attack random and unknown. The greeks were not seeing it this way, but the explanation itself does not matter as much as the actual behaviour and result. (Consider for example the mechanism by which a muscle grows. We DO know since prehistory that lifting heavy things makes a muscle strong. However the actual explanation as to how that happens has changed quite a bit along the road).

3. The third reason why one might consider this mode of thinking useful is related to connection with the insider and outside world. One may use the outsider world as seeds of thinking and inspiration about the current events happening to him. This is similar to what the auguries with birds are. Or one might use some feature like pendulums and so on to give some more concrete representation to vague feelings and fears. These are in a way ancient tools for brain storming, or even ice breakers. The modern corporation has to re invent them in similar line. The SWOT analysis and tools like boats and floating balloons for sprint retrospectives are eerily similar to the way Roman auspices divided the sky. And I do believe that creativity is reliant on good tools for providing random input to our conscious mind.

I do think that in our current culture and world view we see each other very much separated, both by our subcconscious and by the external world. Some bridges of connection to them ight be useful.


4. Now for the disadvantages.

Granted this can become too much... One might become a dogmatic interpreter of such ideas and actually I do understand how it can do more harm than good. But I cannot say that it is a completely useless mode of thinking. I can totally see how someone might be so stupid use this mode of thinking in diagnosticating disease instead of actually doing proper blood tests and so on. And I can see how someone might disregard proper study and reasoning in favour of this mode of thinking.

So I guess that at some point that is why this type of thought went into disfavor. You kindof needed for man to become aware of his own intrinisic power. Relying on the cosmos and on the uncoscious is needed, and relationship to it is important. But the powers at our disposal are great in themselves as well, even thouh they are not infinite. God's mind is vast and ultimately unknowable, but it is not COMPLETELY unknowable.

[Allie Marini · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a very slim volume (only 80 pages) that basically covers different kinds of divination techniques, what they're called, and a basic description of how to do them. More like a glossary of terms with a little info about each kind, and it follows the title -- divination performed by different kinds of rods (different kinds of wooden staffs), birds (owls, crows, etc.) And fingers (cartomancy, pendulums, runes, etc.) It's decent enough if you're interested in expanding your divination practice and want to know more about what's out there, but it's more of a starting point than anything else -- you're not going to learn much about each kind of divination outside of what it's called, what it involves, and a very basic description of how to do it. It'll narrow down what you're looking for in the next book. For its short length it's not really worth the price (to me, anyway) but if you can find it for $5 it's a good addition to your shelf. I think I expected more from it, so for me it was kind of disappointing, though what's in it is solid enough. The bird divination section was the most interesting for me, since I don't know much about that. Rods wasn't my thing and it's 1/3 of the scant page count. Fingers section were things I already know a lot about, hence feeling a smidge disappointed.

[Isabel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I was hoping for. Very little actual instruction in performing divination