What Form of Divination?

[The Sum of Awe]

I have done this for a while now, maybe a year or so, but just recently I compared it to Divination. Would it could as Divination? Under what category?

Basically, I say 'If this isn't this way, that will happen, but if this is this way then that will not happen' and stuff that like, in my head.

Example: If I didn't leave my door open, then I will stay outside of my room. If I did leave it open then I will go in my room.

Example: If I see any dog today, the weather tomorrow will be cold. If I don't see any dog today, the weather tomorrow will be warm.

I am ignorant of these things, so I make a binary of it to tell me what I should do or what will happen or if something did happen that I'm unaware of, etc.

I never thought to relate this to Divination, but I have practiced it before I even knew the word Divination. I don't keep track of if it works or now.

Also; for things like the dog one, I will not try to avoid or look for dogs, I just go with the flow with whatever happens.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Sounds like baseline superstition to me.


...though technically I guess it falls under Augury.

 

[Quintessence]

Yeah, augury/omen sounds right. Your methods seem a bit arbitrary though, but I don't imagine you're giving us the complete run down. I am used to omens being predicated on the notion of synchronicity or a more structured method of interpretation.

 

[Willamena]

...though technically I guess it falls under Augury.

Just the opposite --augery is magical, not mechanical. "If this...then that" is a glimpse at the Machine of Destiny, its wheels and cogs turning, grinding out fate to produce a result. Magic, in contrast, occurs in the moment, and for no other moment; for you, the observer, and for no one else.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

I think it works, but possibly is only placebo.

 

[Willamena]

There is a great story about St. Augustine in conversation with his good friend Vindicianus, who well understood divination. "Augustine asked him how it was that many true things could be foretold by astrology. Vindicianus replied that

. . . the force of chance, diffused throughout the whole order of things, brought this about. For if when a man by hap-hazard opens the pages of some poet, who sang and thought of something wholly different, a verse oftentimes fell out, wonderously agreeable to the present business: it were not to be wondered at if, out of the soul of man, unconscious what takes place in it, by some higher instinct an answer should be given, by hap, not by art, corresponding to the business and actions of the demander.

"The argument is a beautiful exposition of divination and it is worth careful consideration. Astrological correspondences come about by 'chance', so the study of them cannot constitute a true discipline or 'art'. On the other hand, Vindicianus allows that merely chance occurences may also be wonderful and meaningful. Here is Jung's synchronicity. These coincidences are genuinely meaningful because a certain higher faculty of the soul, of which we are unconscious, seizes on the occasion to inform us of something we should know. Extending Vindicianus's observations, we may say that the unconscious prompts consciousness through signs.

"The 'wonderously agreeable' correspondence, applied to symbolism, is the vital power in divination."
(quoted from The Moment of Astrology, by Geoffrey Cornelius)

Divination is the sign that is brought to the attention of the conscious mind "by hap," not by design; by some 'other' voice, not by calculation.

Hope that helps.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Just the opposite --augery is magical, not mechanical. "If this...then that" is a glimpse at the Machine of Destiny, its wheels and cogs turning, grinding out fate to produce a result. Magic, in contrast, occurs in the moment, and for no other moment; for you, the observer, and for no one else.

Augury is divination via the observation of nature. That's what he's doing. It's horribly flawed and outdated, but it falls under augury.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Augury is divination via the observation of nature. That's what he's doing. It's horribly flawed and outdated, but it falls under augury.

Why is it flawed and outdated?

 

[Willamena]

Why is it flawed and outdated?

Because people make it out to be mechanical, not magical.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Because people make it out to be mechanical, not magical.

I think it is more like random. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

 

[Willamena]

I think it is more like random. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Maybe the batteries are low.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Why is it flawed and outdated?

Because we now know the world isn't a machine or an organism. It's chaos.

Also, augury is usually based on experience and observation, not just random prediction.

 

[Willamena]

Because we now know the world isn't a machine or an organism. It's chaos.

Also, augury is usually based on experience and observation, not just random prediction.

I can't help it, have to say it... Randomness, at least some of it, is based on observation.

And if the world is chaos, it's also order.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

I can't help it, have to say it... Randomness, at least some of it, is based on observation.

And if the world is chaos, it's also order.

"The absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth"