Approx. Reading time: About 3 Minutes
Introduction
There are many different styles of divination.
It’s always good to try out several styles, to see what you would be most interested in practicing. Some people resonate better with one style over another. The more common styles of divination are cartomancy, symbols on materials, tea leaves, pendulums, scrying through crystals or water, numerology, and personal psychic abilities. In this introduction, we’ll cover a brief breakdown of the more common styles.
Divination through Cartomancy
Cartomancy is divination through the use of cards or a deck. The most recognized deck styles are Tarot cards, Lenormand cards, and Oracle cards. The most used tarot deck is the Rider-Waite deck.
- Tarot card decks consist of 78 cards, 22 Major Arcana cards and 56 Minor Arcana cards.
- Lenormand card decks consist of 32 cards, each one unique in its imagery and meaning.
- Oracle card decks come in many varieties, the amount and style of cards will be different from deck to deck.
The main difference in use is how structured the responses will be. There’s a spectrum of response definition and clarity. Tarot decks would be on the more defined and clear side, while Lenormand decks would be in the middle with some wiggle room for interpretation, and Oracle decks would be on the end of open interpretation.
Symbols on Materials
Throughout history, many cultures developed their own methods of divination. One of the most common styles was symbols carved, burned, or emblazed on a material that’s common for the culture. Such as Scandinavian Runes, which are symbols carved onto bones, stones, precious gemstones, etc. Jiaobei is a common Chinese divination, using red or black blocks shaped like crescents made of wood, bamboo, or most recently plastic.
Tea Leaves
Tea leaf reading (AKA. Tasseomancy) is one of the most commonly accessible forms of divination as it requires no special tools or training – just an awareness of one’s own intuition which can be achieved through the act of enjoying the tea itself. Tasseomancy is largely dependent on psychic intuition. Tea is poured into a cup without the use of a strainer. After the tea is finished, the reader can look over the leaves in the bottom of the cup or flip the cup on the saucer and read the leaves from there.
Pendulums
A pendulum can be made up of many different materials, generally speaking, it is a length of cord with a weighted item on the end, so as the name suggests, the whole piece can swing. This style of divination can be done with a reading mat or not. It’s a method that uses your intuition to focus the energy around you and channel it into the pendulum. The swing of the pendulum answers the question you ask.
Scrying through water or crystals
Scrying is defined as foretelling by using a polished crystal or other reflective object or surface. It’s an ancient art of divination for the purpose of receiving information. This method is completed by gazing, into or upon, a crystal, or reflective surface then allowing the physical eyes to relax and letting the inner psychic eye open to receive desired visions and information.
Numerology
This style of divination is one of the methods that do not require any psychic abilities. There are different ways to calculate out forecasted information. Numerology has a few different ciphers for letters connected to numbers. Normally the letters calculated are from the person’s full name. Repeating numbers in a person’s life can have special meaning too.
Moving Forward
This section will expand on each style and some styles we haven’t started to cover here. Divination can be more than tools, sometimes it’s personal abilities. Additionally, we’ll cover natural clairvoyance and other such abilities.
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