Types and Methods of Divination

Types

 

1. Natural (untaught, unskilled) including those who are born with it already developed, manifested through dreams and vision in which the diviner was a passive subject, and the prediction coming from a power supposed to be shared by ancestors and/or siblings or close relatives.

2. Artificial (taught, studied) comprised all foretelling from signs found in nature or produced by man. Here the diviner was active, and the divination came apparently from his own skill and observation. St. Thomas Aquinas classifies all mediums as belonging to this category. As the invocation of spirits is perfected through skill and practice. Hence, the occult practitioner is able to receive messages either through a direct the invocation of demons and spirits, or by embracing dreams, portents, or prodigies, and necromancy, and divination with tacit invocation through signs and movements observed in objects in nature, such as stars, birds, figures, etc., or through signs and arrangements produced by man, such as molten lead poured in water, casting of lots, etc. Dreams here mean those expressly prepared and prayed for with hope of intercourse with gods or the dead. Portents or prodigies are unusual and marvelous sights coming from the lower world

Methods

The variety of divinatory methods is large. Scarcely an object or movement in the heavens, on the earth, or in the air or water escaped being metamorphosed into a message of futurity. Add to these the invention of man, and there is a glimpse of the immense entanglement of superstitions in which pagan people groped their way. They can, however, be grouped into three classes, as seen from St. Thomas's division. A detailed list has been given by St. Clement of Alexandria in his "Stromata", and others of the Fathers.

1.  Under the first class, express invocation of powers other than that of God. They include:

• oneiromancy or divination by dreams;
• necromancy, by so-called apparitions of the dead or spiritism (including the conjuring of the dead through the ouija board); apparitions of various kinds, which may be either external or in imagination;
• Pythonism or by possessed persons or those who are in a trance-like state, as the Delphic Pythoness;
• hydromancy, by signs in water (including dowsing or water divining);
• aeromancy, by signs in air;
• geomancy, by signs in terrestrial substances including feng shui which seeks to manipulate the flow and direction of energy based on aesthetics, location, and position of objects and buildings;
• aruspices, by signs in the entrails of victims, etc.

The third eye falls into this category as it is directly linked with the capacity to communicate with the preternatural realm, which is the world of fallen angels and spirits. It is a means or power by which divination is done. When the power is used this allows the spirits to create a bond with the users, slowly putting them under the spirit’s influence.

The reading of hearts and thoughts are also included in this class. It is not really a reading of thoughts, as that is reserved only to God, but is a telepathic communication from the spirit of divination giving information about experiences of the person in front of the psychic. In this case this becomes an occult or hidden knowledge. When a person has this psychic capacity, then the control of the spirit of divination is fairly advanced.

2.  The second class, is the implicit invocation, reading, interpretation of signs found ready-made in nature

• judicial or genethliac astrology, which is the interpretation of destiny based on the position of the heavenly bodies on one’s birthdate; pretending to tell the future through the stars;
• augury, divination by reading of omens. Giving an interpretation from something that is casual like those of the of birds, covering prediction through their mode of acting, feeding, flying, and also the neighing of horses and sneezing of men, etc.-- with us it comprises all foretelling by signs; by omens, when chance words are turned into signs;
• chiromancy or palm reading, when the lines of the hand are read; and many similar modes.
• Horoscopes fall under this category as it interprets the position of celestial bodies like planets, stars, constellations to determine the fortune of people born under certain signs. 

3. The third class, is the tacit invocation and reading of signs from man-made actions like interpreting points or lines on paper or pebbles thrown at random, or dice-like objects; drawing of straws; cutting and reading cards; letting a staff fall or measuring it with the fingers saying, "I will or I will not"; opening a book at random, called Sortes Virgilianae. This last transferred to the Bible is still common among some Christians. Trying to decipher God’s answer to certain prayers by randomly opening a book in the bible and reading the first verse the finger points to.

Hypnotism to induce an altered-state of consciousness leading to a kind of “astral projection” is also used for purposes of divination. The returning to the past to one that has no scientific access to (e.g. going back to the womb or access in the life of others that they do not have knowledge about) or the going to the future, as if one has power over it at will is an arrogance against the divine providence and wisdom that directs all things. Therefore since no man has power to go back and forth even mentally in spiritual time and space, the information received is a deception coming from the evil one. It is the evil one recreating the conditions in the mind of the diviner allowing the person to believe either he has returned to the past, or has seen the future.

(Reference: Graham, Edward. "Divination." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. Accessed 19 Dec. 2014 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05048b.htm)

In the Philippines, the mantatawas uses a method using the melting of candle wax over a basin of water and determining through the shape it forms the identity of the instigator of a hex that caused a strange malady on its victim. There are also those who divine using leaves. All these are categorized under the third class.

Mangtatawas the reading of the cause of sickness using candle wax.

Photo borrowed from: https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7100/7340644186_eb7495ba7a_z.jpg