Picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2020
In the magical experiments facebook group, one of the members observed that they get better results with divination when they provide themselves a map/model that allows them to filter their perception. The benefit of doing this filtration is that it allows the person to focus in on the information that is relevant, while excluding information that might be a distraction. The question that arises is: Is this the best possible way to get the most out of one’s perception of information, using divination?
It’s an interesting question to ask, especially when considering the medium through which you’re getting the information. Any divination system is already providing a filtering of sorts, because of the limitations that come with that system. If you use a pendulum, you only have so many directions that it can move and only so much information it can provide. With more advanced systems such as runes or tarot cards, more information is available, but there are still limitations because of what is presented, as well as what isn’t presented. And of course there’s another limitation often ignored, but very relevant to this question.
That limitation is interpretation, specifically your interpretation of what you’re divining. There will always be some interpretation in divination because we’re seeking to derive meaning from the presentation of information. At the same time that interpretation includes the filtering of what is considered to be extraneous information that may not seem to be relevant to what is being divined. A fascinating aspect of interpretation is the observer effect, where the act of observation in and of itself has an effect on what is being divined about. This observer effect is ideally considered in the interpretation of your reading, because the reading acts upon the issue being divined upon, and in its own right serves as a form of filtering.
I rarely do divination for those reasons. I prefer not to filter incoming information, because I’ve found that the weakness of filtering information is that it can cause you to miss variables that are important but don’t fit into your model. Of course you can’t anticipate every variable for a situation, but leaving yourself open to discovering the variables can go a long way toward developing appropriate responses that either counter them or apply them in your favor to whatever it is you are seeking.
I also am atypical of most magicians in that I do not a divination before a magical working. I don’t see the point of divining whether or not a magical working will succeed. If anything it introduces an element of doubt, which is the last thing you need when you are doing magical working. You either believe in what you’re doing or you don’t.
If I am going to do a divination reading, I end up treating it as an enchantment, and actively use it create the desired outcome. I figure that if I’m already doing the reading, it may as well be used as the active magical working, because then I’m aligning the information into specific events and actions that will bring about the result I’m seeking. A good example would be when I did a reading to find the place I currently live. My wife and I had been looking for a new place for a few weeks, but weren’t getting much luck with what we found. We decided to define what we were looking for and then did a reading to help us determine what others actions ought to be taken. I incorporated what we’d defined into the reading and use it to give us a specific direction. As soon we finished the reading, my wife opened her computer up and did a search for a new place to live and we found the place we live in now. Three days later we were able to secure that place before anyone else could.
I share the example above because if we take the next step in divination and turn it toward an applied use of magic we can get the results we’re divining for. And that’s also how I get the best use of filtering information in a given model. I turn that model of interpretation into something that actively works for me. It’s not just about gathering information, but instead using the divination system to align that information and other variables toward specific outcomes through the act of divination.
And when I use divination, I also recognize that the medium is a limitation in its own right, and plan accordingly so that I don’t filter the information too much. I have a magical entity I’ve created which has the sole purpose of bringing information and opportunities to my attention that I might otherwise out on and it’s proven invaluable as a redundancy measure that anticipates the over filtration of information and makes sure I’m in the loop on what is relevant, outside of the limitations of the medium I’m working in. I recommend taking a similar approach so that even when you filter information, you don’t miss out on details that could prove important, but don’t fit in the medium you’re working in.
