Tag: subconscious mind

Let’s Talk Witch – Dream-Work

Fantasy Comments & GraphicsDream-Work

 

There are a lot of different theories on why the mind does dream. Some believe that it is a way to connect to the subconscious and that the mind uses this opportunity to work through issues that have come up during the day. It is also theorized that dreaming is important when it comes to memory and learning.

In many cultures, people actively try to enter the dream state in order to find answers to their questions. Lucid dreaming is something that most cultures in the world have tried to make use of.

Whilst we cannot really be absolutely sure what the reason is for dreaming what we do, their is no doubt that analyzing the dreams can provide valuable information.

Whether you believe that dreaming is the soul’s way of accessing the astral plane or spirit world, or that it is the subconscious mind’s way of communicating with us, dream-work can be really useful.

In order to really get the benefits though, it is important to be able to properly interpret the messages that the mind is sending to you. The only way to sort out useful information from nonsense is to keep a record of what you have dreamt so that patterns in the dreams can be recognized.

The best way to do this is to make sure that you have paper and a pen on your bedside table. It is best to write out what you can remember the minute that you awaken. You can jot down key ideas that can aid your recall of the dream later.

Recording what you have dreamt is important because it let’s the waking mind know that remembering the dreams is important. Otherwise the mind will just put dreams in the file and forget category and you won’t be able to recall them, no matter how hard you try.

Try to capture the essence of the dream in five words or less – this in itself can be a helpful tool in determining what the dreams meant later as the mind will isolate the key themes for you.

The more often you repeat the process of recording your dreams, the better you will get at remembering them and the easier it will be to start interpreting them.

It can also be helpful to keep a record of what phase the moon was in alongside the keywords of the dream. This will help you to identify the times of the month that more helpful information is provided – dreams can be wilder at different times.

When it comes to interpreting the dreams, it is more important to follow your own gut instinct than to rely on outside interpretations. Dream dictionaries are rather generic and can possibly point to what a dream might mean but they can also be wildly inaccurate – they cannot possibly take your own personal experiences into account and these can have a huge impact on what you dream.

The problem with interpreting dreams is that symbolism plays a huge part in them and you might never really be sure what it means. You might be dreaming about something that you have a real fear about, or you could be dreaming about something because you ate something that disagreed with you.

That is why it is important to have a proper record of dreams. When you do, you will notice what themes recur and will be able to interpret the dream accordingly.

Whilst it is true that you cannot control what you dream about, you can influence it by what you think about when you get into bed. If you want some clarity on an issue, try thinking about it for a few minutes after you have turned in for the night. You might be pleasantly surprised at the outcome.

Witchcraft: The Ultimate Bible: The Definitive Guide on the Practice of Witchcraft, Spells, Rituals and Wicca
Justin Kase

 

The Daily OM for April 14th – Where the Soul Is

Where the Soul Is
Finding the Place You Belong

by Madisyn Taylor

There will likely be times in your life when your soul evolves more quickly than your circumstances.

There will likely be times in your life when your soul evolves more quickly than your circumstances. Your subconscious mind may be ready to move forward long before you recognize that you are destined to embrace a new way of life. Your soul intuitively understands that changing habitats can be a vital part of the growth process and that there may be one part of you that is eager to move to another home, another state, or another plane of existence. But the ties that bind you to your current mode of being can make moving into this next stage of your life more challenging than it has to be. If you find it difficult to move on, consider that just as people in your life may come and go, your role in others’ lives may also be temporary. And many of the conditions that at first seemed favorable served you for a short time. When you are ready to match your situation to your soul, you will find that you feel a new sense of harmony and increasingly connected to the ebb and flow of the universe.

Moving on can be defined in numerous ways. Your forward momentum may take you from your current locale to a place you instinctively know will be more nurturing, comfortable, and spiritually enriching. Once you arrive, your misgivings will vanish, and you will know that you have found a sanctuary. Similarly, subtle changes in your values, goals, or emotional needs can motivate you to distance yourself from one group of people in order to reassociate yourself with individuals that are better able to support you. For example, this could mean moving away from your birth family in order to find your energetic or spiritual family. The route you need to travel may not always be clear; you may feel inspired to change yet be unsure as to why or how. Clarity may come in the form of a question if you are willing to seriously ask yourself where your soul is trying to take you.

In a way, moving from one point to another when you feel strongly driven to do so is a way of bringing your spiritual and earthly energies together. It is a two-step process that involves not only letting go but also reconnecting. You will know you have found your destination, physical or otherwise, when you feel in your heart that you have been reborn into a life that is just the right shape, size, and composition.

 

Source:
The Daily OM

What Is An Astral Candle & How To Make One

Astral Candle

An astral candle is used in our tradition to represent a person, generally yourself, on the altar. It is used at Esbats to link your subconscious to the group’s subconscious. Because the altar represents the subconscious mind, when you are doing work alone, the altar is your subconscious representation. But in a group, it represents the group mind, and so to link ourselves to that group mind, we light our astral candle and place it on the altar. It also signifies that we are here of our own free will, and we intend to fully participate in the coming ritual

 

How To Make An Astral Candle for Your Altar

Referring to the table below, you will use a larger candle for the primary colour as your base, and a smaller candle for the secondary colour. You will carve your name, birthdate, symbol or sigil on the larger candle. You can use a “sacred toothpick” or your Athame, or your Boline, whatever your tradition or your own personal preferences dictate. You can carve into this candle whatever you use to symbolically represent yourself; whether that be your craft name, or some glyph or sigil. You can put your astrological sign on there also.

Now, use the smaller candle to drip onto the larger one. This is best done over a paper towel, as it gets a bit messy. You can drip in any patterns that please you, spirals, stripes, dots, whatever. When covered to your satisfaction – add breath to your candle by blowing on it. This joins your essence, your breath, to the candle. Hold the candle with your pinky’s together, palms out, with the candle resting on your pinky fingers, and the wick up. Start from the base to the wick, blowing up. Turn the candle 1/3 around, and blow from base to wick up again. Turn the candle once more 1/3 turn, and blow again up from base to wick. (3 turns, 3 breaths)

Dressing – anoint with your zodiacal oil by putting oil onto palms and rubbing them vigorously together. Then starting from middle to wick, rub palms on candle up 3 times. Now turn the candle around, so that the base is at the top, and dress from middle to base 3 times. Turn the candle again so that the wick is at the top and then dress from base to wick 3 times. It is not necessary to put more oil on your hands to do this, one application will be enough oil.

Protect this candle because it now has a psychic link to you.

 

 

Source:
WindyValley

 

 

So What’s the Deal With Divination?

So What’s the Deal With Divination?

Author: Brunhilde   

That everything occurring in our physical world must first have manifested in the astral plane is the traditional theory behind the art or act of ‘divination’. It is in this astral plane that the patterns of our lives and the events affecting our physical world first take shape. So, if you want to know the future on our physical plane, you can look into the astral plane and see what development is occurring there now. It is knowledge from this astral plane that you are accessing when you perform divination.

How Old Is It?

It is believed that some form of divination existed during the Stone Age. This period spans the time when the races of mankind made the transition from nomadic life to life in stationary farming communities. This transition made the individual villages and tribes more reliant on assistance from the local nature spirits. These communities were no longer able to migrate to other areas if their local food supplies ran out. By establishing farming communities, they tied their continued existence to the local food supply. Therefore, people were well motivated to contact the local nature spirits and establish a rapport with them. One clear way to communicate with the spirits was through the practice of divination. We know that the people of the ancient world relied on divination to make many of their important decisions. Each culture had its own methods for seeking advice from the spirit world. Every leader, from the heads of state to tribal councils to family elders, would utilize some form of divination on a regular basis. It was considered wise and prudent to do so.

How Do You See Into the Astral Plane?

Well, you can’t use the eyes in your face. Instead, you will be looking for signs in the astral plane by using your inner eye. You will be using your psychic sense, your spiritual essence, to open a pathway into the astral plane. You can do this by training your mind. For best results in any type of divination, you should practice placing your mind into a meditative state. It is in that altered state of awareness that you can perceive the subtle energies you are seeking.

What Is a Positive Aspect of Performing Divination?

In addition to helping you to make better decisions, another dividend of practicing divination is that it helps you to develop your psychic abilities—even if you think you don’t have any. All forms of divination require the practitioner to use their psychic sense. We all possess this sense, although it is usually not as strongly developed as our other five physical senses. After all, we have used our other five since birth! Your sixth sense may be understandably weak. But by practicing divination, you can develop and strengthen it. So if you want to be more psychic, learn a skill like divination.

Are There Negative Aspects to Performing Divination?

Of course. You can develop an unhealthy need for constant divination. You can become too dependent upon the process for help. You will feel that you are unable to make even a simple decision without consulting the spirits. You certainly don’t want to become insecure in your own decision-making process. Remember that divination can only suggest a certain course of action to you. In the end, it is you who must make the final decision. So use divination wisely.

Can We Really See Into the Future?

No, divination doesn’t do that. It can only show you a probable result, if nothing changes. Of what value is it then? Well, divination allows us to access more information regarding the question we are posing; information that is not readily apparent to us. Taking all of this additional information into account, we can now make a better decision in the here and now.

You Talkin’ To Me?!

When you perform a divination, you are usually posing a question. Some psychic practitioners, especially those who perform divinations professionally, use the aid of a spiritual third party to facilitate their divination. They may call upon this psychic helper to aid them in accessing the astral plane or assist them in interpreting the answer they receive. This third party can be the practitioner’s own personal spirit guide, a guardian angel, or a teacher spirit. You, too, can choose to perform divinations this way. If you choose to use a facilitator, then you can specifically ask them to help you see the answer to your question. And you can ask them to assist you in interpreting the answer you receive.

Talking To Yourself

To what or to whom are you asking your question? You should decide that issue before you practice divination, because your choice of facilitator may have some bearing on the type of answer you receive.

Perhaps you feel you are not accessing the astral plane when you perform divination. Some people believe that they are simply speaking to their own subconscious mind. They believe that they are communicating with their internal psyche and allowing their personal intuition to take control over their practical, pragmatic conscious mind. You may feel more comfortable with this explanation of divination.

When you think about it, all of our senses are constantly recording information that cannot be brought to the immediate attention of our conscious mind. There is simply too much information for our conscious mind to handle at any given moment. As the saying goes, T.M.I! So, our senses wisely store this glut of information in our subconscious mind. Think of your subconscious mind as a vast repository for all the information gathered by your senses. When you perform divination, you are allowing your subconscious mind to access all of that information. You can then use that data to make a better informed decision. That decision will appear as the answer to your divination.

It’s All in the Past

This idea of communicating with your subconscious mind is valid on more than one level. Many people believe in the idea of past lives and reincarnation. Some folks who believe in reincarnation propose that all the knowledge of our past lives is stored in our subconscious mind. Which makes for a huge personal database! If you believe in this idea, then for you divination is a way to access past-life information.

For example, perhaps you are seeking to answer a question concerning a problem you are having in this life. Maybe you had the same problem in a past life. Or many past lives. Wouldn’t it be great to draw upon all that previous experience dealing with the same problem? Your divination question could be worded to partake of that previous experience in your past lifetimes. For you, divination may be the simple act of viewing your personal storehouse of knowledge. You are scanning your database to help you to make a wise decision in this life.

It’s Already IN There

Some folks believe that all the knowledge you need to succeed in this lifetime is already stored in your brain. When you were on the Other Side, you decided what tasks you would accomplish in this current lifetime. You formulated your goals and decided how best to achieve them. You gathered and stored the information you would need to meet those goals. You arrived here, in this physical plane; with your life-plan and your necessary data already stored in your subconscious. You just need a way to access it and divination is one way to accomplish that task.

Info In Your Aura

There is some evidence that your thoughts and memories are not stored in your mind, conscious or otherwise. You may store information in your light body or aura body, that part of you that transits to the afterlife when your physical body dies. As noted by Debbora Wiles of Psychic Schoolhouse, there are numerous accounts of patients who have been declared clinically dead, but were resuscitated and survived. These patients later described a scenario in which they lifted up out of their physical bodies and hovered in the air above the scene of their death. They heard and saw everything that took place while they were dead. Then their physical body was revived and they floated down back into it. After being revived, they were able to recall in vivid detail all of the activity taking place around them while they were dead.

They have memories and thoughts of the event, even though their brain at the time was no longer functioning, no longer receiving data. These accounts would seem to indicate that our thoughts and memories are not stored in our brains. They are stored in our light body. When we die, our light body detaches from our physical body. Our light body takes our thoughts and memories with it into the afterlife. If we are revived and must transition back into our physical body, our light body reattaches, bringing our thoughts and memories back in with it. So it may be that we are all accessing information stored in our light bodies when we perform divination. That explanation is just one of many ideas on this topic.

What Are Good Times to Perform Divination?

Personally, I like to follow lunar cycles. Through experience, I have found that my divinations performed on the dark of the moon, when the moon and the sun occupy the same zodiac sign, are always more profound for me. The dark of the moon is the lunar phase associated with the Crone, and I have always been drawn to the Crone aspect of the goddess. But you should try performing your divinations in all the lunar phases and see which one works better for you. Start with the lunar phase that appeals to you the most.

Perhaps you are more influenced by solar energy. You may feel that sunlight energizes you psychically. Then changes in sunlight may affect your divination. You may choose to perform divination during certain times of the day, or in the first half of the year (northern hemisphere) when the sunlight is growing stronger every day.

You may be more influenced by seasonal energies. Perhaps there is a certain season of the year that holds more attraction for you than the others. During that season, you may feel more emotionally energized and attuned to psychic energies. For you then, that season may be the time when your divinations are most accurate.

Why Should I Care?

Another element that influences the success of your divination is the importance of your question. How vital is your need for an answer? The more crucial the question, the more heightened are your emotions and the more psychic energy you will pour into the divination process. That surplus of psychic energy will strongly empower your ability to receive the answer you seek.

How Do I Begin?

Examine some of the divination methods currently available. There are many. Tarot, scrying, runes, pendulums, they all require you to use your psychic ability. Explore all the methods you can find. Over time, one method will intrigue you more than the others. Begin your journey with that one. You may add other methods down the line.

Divination is a skill. And like all skills, it must be practiced in order to achieve familiarity and success. Some people have a special innate talent for it, a knack, as it were and they will achieve success at divination sooner than others. But most people will improve their abilities with practice. So don’t give up too soon and cheat yourself out of this wonderful experience.

How Long Does It Take?

It is an unfortunate hallmark of modern society that we are all conditioned to receive instant gratification. We become impatient with standing in lines or waiting our turn. Our ancient ancestors were more conditioned to waiting for results. They knew that some things were worth waiting for, especially esoteric knowledge. They learned vast amounts of information, committing that knowledge to memory over long years of study. In our modern technologically based society, we have forgotten our recent past. We expect to acquire a skill immediately. Sorry, but that is not the case with divination. So try to curb your impatience and give divination, and yourself, a chance to succeed.

My first attempts at divination involved scrying. However, I did not experience success the first time I tried it. But I kept practicing and after a few months I began to receive and interpret messages on a regular basis. And those messages became more and more accurate as I improved my ability to understand and interpret them.

If you can’t decide which method of divination to try, investigate several forms. Over a period of time, you will be attracted to one process and prefer it to all the others. Learn and practice that one process; really work at it. The results will be worth it!

Blessed Be.

 

_______________________________________

Footnotes:
 Atwater, P.M.H. The Magical Language of Runes. Bear and Company Publishing, 1990.

McCoy, Edain. Magick and Rituals of the Moon. Llewellyn Publications, 2001.

Thorsson, Edred. Runecaster’s Handbook: the Well of Wyrd. Weiser Books, 1999.

Reflection Spell

REFLECTION SPELL

This calls for casting a circle because you are using your subconscious mind, and not your conscious mind. Use a round, blessed mirror. Light Patchouli incense. Smear a light coating of allspice around the outer Circle, starting at the top, going in counter clockwise position. Chant:

Bind this (man/woman) I name ________
Bind him/her from our home and life.
Give us peace, remove the strife.
Let their will be free, as long as he/she stays away from me.
Protect our family from this day forth,
Allow _______ to never darken our door.
Reflect back now and please be Quick.
Keep him/her away, if _______ breaks the spell.
Make him/her hear well,
If _____ Comes back here
Make _____ become violently ill.
As I have Willed, So it shall be.

Thank all Elements for attending the right. Close Circle.

Focused Dreaming

Focused Dreaming

Using Dreams to Answer Your Deepest Questions

By , About.com

Once in a while each of us has our own pressing question, from “What is the meaning of life?” to “How can I solve that problem at work?” What many people don’t realize is that we may already have answers to those questions buried deep in our subconscious mind, and we can often access those answers through our dreams and dream analysis.

Step-by-Step Dream Tips

1. Set an intention At bedtime, after you’ve closed your eyes and before you go to sleep, “program” yourself to dream an answer to a particular question. Say to yourself, “I intend to dream answer about _____,” and insert your topic of choice. This can be a specific question like “What can I do to make exercise more fun?” or a general area like “What do I need to be aware of, health-wise?”
2. Concentrate on the question. With eyes still closed, think about the question for about 30 seconds – what information you’d need to answer the question, what kind of answer would be most helpful, what the most challenging aspects are.
3. Visualize receiving the answer. For the next 30 seconds (eyes still closed), imagine that it is now sometime in the future after this question has already been answered. Visualize discovering the answer and how that feels, and how you then used the answer to make a decision, solve a problem, make a change in your life, etc. How do you feel now that the matter is resolved? Imagine these things in as much detail as possible, and really feel the emotion and satisfaction of having your question answered. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know how it will actually turn out – just imagine things any way they come to mind. The point of this is to connect with the idea of getting the answer.
4. Clear your mind Just before going to sleep, release all thoughts about this. Clear your mind by imagining all your thoughts and concerns floating out of your head and dissolving away. Say to yourself, “I open my mind to the answer.” Then go to sleep.
5. Review your dream. When you awake after having a dream, review the dream in your mind from beginning to end before you even open your eyes. This will help you recall the feelings and nuances of the dream, and help you remember it so you can write it down – both of which will help in interpreting the dream to get your answer. Note: You might not have a dream with the answer the same night. It might come on one of the following nights, or not at all.
6. Record your dream Immediately after your mental run-through of the dream, write down a description of it from beginning to end, with as many details as you remember. Include any feelings you felt during the dream and after you woke up, symbols that seemed especially significant, and any intuitive sense you have about its meaning. (It’s okay if you have no idea of meaning at this point). This is a very important step, because dream details tend to fade as you become more awake.

Interpreting Your Dreams

If you don’t see an obvious answer in the dream, try any or all of the following tools to help interpret your dream and discover your answer:

  • Annotate your dream descriptions. Read through your dream description, and as you read it make notes of any feelings, thoughts, glimpses of images, “gut feelings” about meaning. Don’t think it through – just relax, read, and see what comes to mind. Then read it again and see if your notes give you any new clues.
  • Dialogue with your dream. Start a written dialogue with your dream, or with a prominent symbol from it. Write as yourself, then imagine that you are the dream and switch to the dream’s perspective.
    • Me: Dream, are you holding any answers I haven’t yet discovered?
    • My Dream: There’s more to me than you’ve figured out so far. Look more at the middle part of my story.
    • Me: Ah, you mean the part about the tree growing out of the pavement.
    • My Dream: Yes, think about what that symbolizes.
  • Focused Writing. With several pages of blank paper, re-read the dream and then start writing anything that comes to mind. Write every word, whether it makes sense or seems to pertain to the dream. No one will read this but you. Prompt yourself with questions like the following, and see what insights come forward:
    • If I knew the messages in this dream, what would they be?
    • The answer is already within me. Now, how is the dream symbolizing it?
    • What would I expect this dream to be telling me?
  • Use your intuition. Make up your own exercise to help get to the bottom of your dream meaning and find your answer. Imagine that your dream is a character and let it write it’s own story. Or draw a picture of the dream, showing how the details fit together. Or start looking at the smallest symbols first, then the more significant ones (sometimes the smallest ones turn out to be the most significant!). Or start at the end and work your way back to the beginning. Follow your instinct and your creative imagination.
  • Try again later. Set aside your dream and come back to it again in a few hours. Re-read it, and see if any new glimpses of meaning show up. Try some of the other techniques just described.
  • Consult an expert. If you’re still not coming up with a clear meaning for your dream, you might want to contact a dream expert to help you with the analysis process.

Daily OM for January 9th – Curative Attentiveness

Curative Attentiveness

Being Aware of Your Thoughts

by Madisyn Taylor

We seldom accept negative comments from others, however, we so often accept our own inner negative chatter.

Few people enjoy the company of individuals whose attitudes are persistently negative. Yet many of us tolerate the critical chatter that can originate within our own minds. Since we are so used to the stream of self-limiting, critical consciousness that winds its way through our thoughts, we are often unaware of the impact these musings have on our lives. It is only when we become aware of the power of such thoughts that we can divest ourselves of them and fill the emptiness they leave with loving, peaceful affirmations. Many people, upon paying careful attention to their thinking patterns, are surprised at the negativity they find there. But when we take notice of involuntary thoughts in a nonjudgmental way, we initiate a healing process that will eventually allow us to replace intimidating and upsetting self-talk with positive, empowering thoughts.

While the occasional downbeat or judgmental thought may have little impact on your contentment, the ongoing negativity that passes unnoticed can have a dampening effect on your mood and your outlook. When you are aware of the tone of your thoughts, however, you can challenge them. Try to be conscious of your feelings, opinions, and judgments for a single day. From sunup to sundown, scrutinize the messages you are feeding into your subconscious mind. Consider your thoughts from the perspective of a detached observer and try not to judge yourself based on the notions that come unbidden into your mind. Simply watch the flow of your consciousness and make a note of the number of times you find yourself focusing on gloomy notions or indulging in self-directed criticism.

As you become increasingly aware of your patterns of thought, whether positive and negative, you will gradually learn to control the character of your stream of consciousness. Endeavor always to remember that the images and ideas that pass through your mind are transient and not a true representation of who you are. In training yourself to be cognizant of your thoughts, you gain the ability to actively modulate your mood. The awareness you cultivate within yourself will eventually enable you to create a foundation of positivity from which you can build a more authentic existence.

The Daily OM

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So What’s the Deal With Divination?

So What’s the Deal With Divination?

Author:   Brunhilde  

That everything occurring in our physical world must first have manifested in the astral plane is the traditional theory behind the art or act of ‘divination’. It is in this astral plane that the patterns of our lives and the events affecting our physical world first take shape. So, if you want to know the future on our physical plane, you can look into the astral plane and see what development is occurring there now. It is knowledge from this astral plane that you are accessing when you perform divination.

How Old Is It?

It is believed that some form of divination existed during the Stone Age. This period spans the time when the races of mankind made the transition from nomadic life to life in stationary farming communities. This transition made the individual villages and tribes more reliant on assistance from the local nature spirits. These communities were no longer able to migrate to other areas if their local food supplies ran out. By establishing farming communities, they tied their continued existence to the local food supply. Therefore, people were well motivated to contact the local nature spirits and establish a rapport with them. One clear way to communicate with the spirits was through the practice of divination. We know that the people of the ancient world relied on divination to make many of their important decisions. Each culture had its own methods for seeking advice from the spirit world. Every leader, from the heads of state to tribal councils to family elders, would utilize some form of divination on a regular basis. It was considered wise and prudent to do so.

How Do You See Into the Astral Plane?

Well, you can’t use the eyes in your face. Instead, you will be looking for signs in the astral plane by using your inner eye. You will be using your psychic sense, your spiritual essence, to open a pathway into the astral plane. You can do this by training your mind. For best results in any type of divination, you should practice placing your mind into a meditative state. It is in that altered state of awareness that you can perceive the subtle energies you are seeking.

What Is a Positive Aspect of Performing Divination?

In addition to helping you to make better decisions, another dividend of practicing divination is that it helps you to develop your psychic abilities—even if you think you don’t have any. All forms of divination require the practitioner to use their psychic sense. We all possess this sense, although it is usually not as strongly developed as our other five physical senses. After all, we have used our other five since birth! Your sixth sense may be understandably weak. But by practicing divination, you can develop and strengthen it. So if you want to be more psychic, learn a skill like divination.

Are There Negative Aspects to Performing Divination?

Of course. You can develop an unhealthy need for constant divination. You can become too dependent upon the process for help. You will feel that you are unable to make even a simple decision without consulting the spirits. You certainly don’t want to become insecure in your own decision-making process. Remember that divination can only suggest a certain course of action to you. In the end, it is you who must make the final decision. So use divination wisely.

Can We Really See Into the Future?

No, divination doesn’t do that. It can only show you a probable result, if nothing changes. Of what value is it then? Well, divination allows us to access more information regarding the question we are posing; information that is not readily apparent to us. Taking all of this additional information into account, we can now make a better decision in the here and now.

You Talkin’ To Me?!

When you perform a divination, you are usually posing a question. Some psychic practitioners, especially those who perform divinations professionally, use the aid of a spiritual third party to facilitate their divination. They may call upon this psychic helper to aid them in accessing the astral plane or assist them in interpreting the answer they receive. This third party can be the practitioner’s own personal spirit guide, a guardian angel, or a teacher spirit. You, too, can choose to perform divinations this way. If you choose to use a facilitator, then you can specifically ask them to help you see the answer to your question. And you can ask them to assist you in interpreting the answer you receive.

Talking To Yourself

To what or to whom are you asking your question? You should decide that issue before you practice divination, because your choice of facilitator may have some bearing on the type of answer you receive.

Perhaps you feel you are not accessing the astral plane when you perform divination. Some people believe that they are simply speaking to their own subconscious mind. They believe that they are communicating with their internal psyche and allowing their personal intuition to take control over their practical, pragmatic conscious mind. You may feel more comfortable with this explanation of divination.

When you think about it, all of our senses are constantly recording information that cannot be brought to the immediate attention of our conscious mind. There is simply too much information for our conscious mind to handle at any given moment. As the saying goes, T.M.I! So, our senses wisely store this glut of information in our subconscious mind. Think of your subconscious mind as a vast repository for all the information gathered by your senses. When you perform divination, you are allowing your subconscious mind to access all of that information. You can then use that data to make a better informed decision. That decision will appear as the answer to your divination.

It’s All in the Past

This idea of communicating with your subconscious mind is valid on more than one level. Many people believe in the idea of past lives and reincarnation. Some folks who believe in reincarnation propose that all the knowledge of our past lives is stored in our subconscious mind. Which makes for a huge personal database! If you believe in this idea, then for you divination is a way to access past-life information.

For example, perhaps you are seeking to answer a question concerning a problem you are having in this life. Maybe you had the same problem in a past life. Or many past lives. Wouldn’t it be great to draw upon all that previous experience dealing with the same problem? Your divination question could be worded to partake of that previous experience in your past lifetimes. For you, divination may be the simple act of viewing your personal storehouse of knowledge. You are scanning your database to help you to make a wise decision in this life.

It’s Already IN There

Some folks believe that all the knowledge you need to succeed in this lifetime is already stored in your brain. When you were on the Other Side, you decided what tasks you would accomplish in this current lifetime. You formulated your goals and decided how best to achieve them. You gathered and stored the information you would need to meet those goals. You arrived here, in this physical plane; with your life-plan and your necessary data already stored in your subconscious. You just need a way to access it and divination is one way to accomplish that task.

Info In Your Aura

There is some evidence that your thoughts and memories are not stored in your mind, conscious or otherwise. You may store information in your light body or aura body, that part of you that transits to the afterlife when your physical body dies. As noted by Debbora Wiles of Psychic Schoolhouse, there are numerous accounts of patients who have been declared clinically dead, but were resuscitated and survived. These patients later described a scenario in which they lifted up out of their physical bodies and hovered in the air above the scene of their death. They heard and saw everything that took place while they were dead. Then their physical body was revived and they floated down back into it. After being revived, they were able to recall in vivid detail all of the activity taking place around them while they were dead.

They have memories and thoughts of the event, even though their brain at the time was no longer functioning, no longer receiving data. These accounts would seem to indicate that our thoughts and memories are not stored in our brains. They are stored in our light body. When we die, our light body detaches from our physical body. Our light body takes our thoughts and memories with it into the afterlife. If we are revived and must transition back into our physical body, our light body reattaches, bringing our thoughts and memories back in with it. So it may be that we are all accessing information stored in our light bodies when we perform divination. That explanation is just one of many ideas on this topic.

What Are Good Times to Perform Divination?

Personally, I like to follow lunar cycles. Through experience, I have found that my divinations performed on the dark of the moon, when the moon and the sun occupy the same zodiac sign, are always more profound for me. The dark of the moon is the lunar phase associated with the Crone, and I have always been drawn to the Crone aspect of the goddess. But you should try performing your divinations in all the lunar phases and see which one works better for you. Start with the lunar phase that appeals to you the most.

Perhaps you are more influenced by solar energy. You may feel that sunlight energizes you psychically. Then changes in sunlight may affect your divination. You may choose to perform divination during certain times of the day, or in the first half of the year (northern hemisphere) when the sunlight is growing stronger every day.

You may be more influenced by seasonal energies. Perhaps there is a certain season of the year that holds more attraction for you than the others. During that season, you may feel more emotionally energized and attuned to psychic energies. For you then, that season may be the time when your divinations are most accurate.

Why Should I Care?

Another element that influences the success of your divination is the importance of your question. How vital is your need for an answer? The more crucial the question, the more heightened are your emotions and the more psychic energy you will pour into the divination process. That surplus of psychic energy will strongly empower your ability to receive the answer you seek.

How Do I Begin?

Examine some of the divination methods currently available. There are many. Tarot, scrying, runes, pendulums, they all require you to use your psychic ability. Explore all the methods you can find. Over time, one method will intrigue you more than the others. Begin your journey with that one. You may add other methods down the line.

Divination is a skill. And like all skills, it must be practiced in order to achieve familiarity and success. Some people have a special innate talent for it, a knack, as it were and they will achieve success at divination sooner than others. But most people will improve their abilities with practice. So don’t give up too soon and cheat yourself out of this wonderful experience.

How Long Does It Take?

It is an unfortunate hallmark of modern society that we are all conditioned to receive instant gratification. We become impatient with standing in lines or waiting our turn. Our ancient ancestors were more conditioned to waiting for results. They knew that some things were worth waiting for, especially esoteric knowledge. They learned vast amounts of information, committing that knowledge to memory over long years of study. In our modern technologically based society, we have forgotten our recent past. We expect to acquire a skill immediately. Sorry, but that is not the case with divination. So try to curb your impatience and give divination, and yourself, a chance to succeed.

My first attempts at divination involved scrying. However, I did not experience success the first time I tried it. But I kept practicing and after a few months I began to receive and interpret messages on a regular basis. And those messages became more and more accurate as I improved my ability to understand and interpret them.

If you can’t decide which method of divination to try, investigate several forms. Over a period of time, you will be attracted to one process and prefer it to all the others. Learn and practice that one process; really work at it. The results will be worth it!

Blessed Be.

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Footnotes:
Atwater, P.M.H. The Magical Language of Runes. Bear and Company Publishing, 1990.

McCoy, Edain. Magick and Rituals of the Moon. Llewellyn Publications, 2001.

Thorsson, Edred. Runecaster’s Handbook: the Well of Wyrd. Weiser Books, 1999.