Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Find Love With These 18 Old Halloween Fortune-Telling Tricks

by Lucas Reilly

Before trick-or-treat, the sugar lobby, and mass-produced David S. Pumpkins costumes took over Halloween celebrations, fortune-telling games were one of the most popular ways to enjoy our spookiest holiday.

This was especially true in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Halloween is rooted in the festival of Samhain, the Celtic New Year, in which worshippers believed the gates between our present reality and the netherworld briefly shut down. It was a night for consulting the spirit realm for advice—especially on love and marriage. In fact, Halloween was just as romantic as our modern Valentine’s Day, if not more so.

With Lisa Morton’s exhaustive book The Halloween Encyclopedia as our guide, we’ve cobbled together some of the best romantic divination techniques from the Celtic New Year celebrations. Keep in mind that as far-fetched as some of these fortune-telling games may seem, they were largely viewed as playful parlor games—opportunities for friends to set potential suitors up, or for a bashful lad or lass to spark a courtship. When playing a game, “a clever hostess will send two unsuspecting lovers by different doors;” Martha Orne suggests in Hallowe’en And How to Celebrate It, “they are sure to meet, and not infrequently settle matters then and there.”

Perhaps it's time to bring a few of these back?

“If someone peels an apple in one piece and throws it over his or her shoulder or head, 
it will fall in the shape of a future love’s initial.”

1. Acquire a newborn baby. Encourage it to sip from a bowl. Afterward, return the baby. Retain the bowl and fill it with water, then cut all 26 letters of the alphabet from a newspaper or magazine—or write the letters on 26 slips of paper—and place the papers into the bowl. Leave it to sit overnight. The next morning blindfold yourself, dip your hand into the bowl, and pull out the same number of slips as letters that are in your name. Using those slips, you should be able to spell the name of your future spouse. (You can thank the people of Newfoundland for this custom.)

2. Eat an entire salted herring, bones and all, in three bites. Do not drink water. Go to bed. In your dreams, prophetic visions of your future spouse shall appear. (Also possible: indigestion.)

3. Find a blackberry bush. Crawl underneath the branches. In the moonlight, you may find the shadow of your future beloved. (Also possible: blackberries.)

4. Procure two apple seeds. Wet the seeds. Designate one seed for “Love Interest A,” and the second seed for “Love Interest B.” Press the seeds against your forehead or eyelids. Wait. The first apple seed to fall will indicate the least faithful of the two suitors.


5. Trespass on your neighbor’s garden. Strap on a blindfold, and began searching for kale. Upon finding the vegetable, attempt to pull the kale from the dirt. The shape of the kale's root shall foretell your future: “A straight stalk foretold a tall straight handsome mate, and dirt clinging to the kale promised money,” Morton writes. (Don’t snicker: This divination was once a popular matchmaking tool in Scotland, and, if you’re of Scottish descent, there’s a chance that you owe your entire existence to a stalk of kale.)

6. Step outside and pluck a hair from your head. (If balding, skip to the next divination.) At nightfall, toss the hair into the wind. The direction the hair flies will indicate the direction from which your future spouse will come. In 1714, the English dramatist John Gay mentioned this custom in this poem:

    I pluck this lock of hair from off my head
    to tell whence comes the one that I shall wed.
    Fly, silken hair, fly all the world around,
    Until you reach the spot where my true love is found.


7. Spread a fine layer of cornmeal near your bed. (People with carpet can probably skip this one.) Sleep. In the morning, the name of your future spouse will be scribbled in the powder. (This bit of divination was supposedly practiced by children in the American South.)

8. Grab an egg, prepare a glass of water, and school yourself in oomancy! Crack the egg and carefully drip the whites into the water three times: The goop will contort to form the initials of your future beloved. (But be careful: Morton writes of a young man who was so disturbed by his eggy divination, he “drank heavily and became a beggar who committed suicide by downing laudanum.” The girls of Salem also attempted to read egg whites, and, well, we know how that turned out.)



9. Book a ticket to the Scottish Highlands, specifically to Ross-shire where this trick supposedly originated. Find a field in which the furrows run north to south. Wait for dark. Enter the field from the west, and gently walk over 11 furrows. Stop at the 12th, wait, and listen for your fortune: If you hear sobbing, you may die early; if you hear music, your future will be joyful. (And if you hear a man or woman grumbling about getting off their lawn, your future likely holds a trespassing charge.)

10. Find a snail. Go to the hearth, scoop up ashes, and scatter them across a plate. (Hearthless? Use flour!) Place the snail on the plate and go to sleep. In the morning, check the snail’s slime trail: It will have spelled the initials of your true love.


11. Locate the nearest lime-kiln. Then locate the nearest arts and crafts store and buy blue yarn. Throw the ball of yarn into the kiln while grasping the opposite end. Reel in the yarn. When you feel a tug from the other end, ask for the name of your future beloved, and a disembodied voice will belch his or her name. (This tradition originates in lower Scotland, where it was believed that mythical household goblins called “Brownies” lived in the kilns—and, well, everywhere else.)

12. Buy a knife and find a field of leeks. At night, walk backwards through the field, and stab one of the leeks with the knife. Hide, then watch. According to Celtic lore, your future spouse will walk through the field, pick up the knife, and chuck it to the middle of the garden.



13. Visit a farm and pull up a stalk of oats. If the stalk is missing the tiny seeds at the top—what the Scots called the pickle—then you’ll lose your virginity before marriage. (For people who have already sowed their oats, pulling up a stalk of oats is probably unnecessary.) The Scottish poet Robert Burns refers to this custom, alluding to a woman’s virginity as the “tap-pickle":

    But her tap-pickle maist [nearly] was lost,
    What kiutlin [fondling] in the ‘fause-house’
    Wi’ him that night.

14. Attain a willow branch or wand. While holding it in the left or right hand, run around your house three times. Meanwhile, whisper, “He that is to be my goodman, come to grip the end of it.” During the third lap, the fetch—that is, the living spirit—of your future spouse will appear and grab it. (Willow is a interesting choice of wand, since it used to be a symbol of curmudgeonry. In the Scottish Highlands, placing a peeled willow wand on your door was a sign that you wished nobody to enter your house.)

 


15. At midnight, scoop up a heaping spoonful of salt and insert it into your mouth. Do not swallow. Then light a candle, grab a mirror, and, while holding both candle and mirror in your hands, begin walking backward into the cellar. Watch the mirror. As you reach the bottom, you’ll see the face of your future spouse staring back at you. (According to the aptly titled Book of Entertainments and Frolics for All Occasions, “This is most easily accomplished if there be a tacit agreement that some cavalier shall be in waiting for the inquiring maid.”)

16. Place two nuts on a fire and recite these words: If you hate me spit and fly; if you love me burn away. If the nuts roll apart, you may separate soon from your spouse. If both burn, your relationship is secure. A similar divination involves placing two peas on a red-hot shovel.



17. It’s time to break out the Luggie Bowls! Place three bowls side by side: Fill the first with clear water, the second with dirty water, and the third with no water at all. Blindfold yourself and ask a friend to rearrange the bowls. Dunk your left forefinger into one of the bowls. If you choose the clear bowl, you’ll enjoy a happy marriage. The dirty water, on the other hand, indicates an unhappy marriage, and the empty bowl means no marriage at all. Robert Burns describes Luggie Bowls in a poem:

    In order, on the clean hearth-stane
    The luggies three are ranged,
    And every time great care is ta’en
    To see them duly changed:
    Auld uncle John, wah wedlock’s joys
    Sin Mar’s year did desire,
    Because he gat the toom-dish [empty] thrice
    He heaved them on the fire
    In wrath that night.

18. Pour half a pint of high-proof brandy in a dish. Ignite it. Throw a handful of raisins, nuts, candied figs, and other tiny fruits into the blaze. Then gather a group of friends and attempt to remove as many items as possible, trying your best to toss them into your mouth without getting burnt. Whoever retrieves the most fruits and nuts is destined to meet their true love in one year. (In Britain, this game, known as Snap-Dragon, was mostly a Christmas Eve parlor game—Charles Dickens wrote about it in The Pickwick Papers—but, in the United States, it supposedly became a Halloween pastime.)

Monday, October 28, 2019

Fortune Telling Dolls

I love these things!

It's a doll with a skirt of fortunes.

 

The Sibyl Fortune Teller
 
If the truth you wish to learn
Give my base a quarter turn
Find your question in this book
On its number closely look
The color too just keep in mind
Then on the base your birth month find
On nearest fold of selfsame hue
Find your answer clear and true

The little booklet has all kinds of questions, set under a planet or deity, like Venus or Apollo, like "Shall I or shall I not" and "Ought I go to a lawyer about it". Typical questions from 20s oracles etc. All questions under a specific deity is on a different colored page. The skirt then has all possible answers to these questions, like a Magic 8 Ball.



My biggest problem with my oracle doll was to come up with fortunes :-D
 
I was thinking that one could take the daily horoscope from a newspaper or something like that; fortune cookie fortunes, and glue on the skirt.




Lithomancy

Short recap of Marion Williamson's article Lithomancy in Soul and Spirit magazine


1: set up
- use 10-16 stones or crystal. 10 for each of the Astrological planets, others for things like fortune, hope, faith, love, news, home life, unexpected events, opportunities and so on.
- use 10-16 stones or crystals
-- use one stone for each of the Astrological planets.
2: divide the circle
- take a large piece of paper or cloth
- divide it into 12 equal sections, each one representing a house of the zodiac.
3: decide your time frame
- next hour? Tomorrow? Next week, month, year?
4: ask for support
- place the stones in a bag or bowl. Run your fingers through them. Think about the guidance you need.
5: let the stones fall
- you can let them fall into the circle or mindlessly pick one at a time and place in the circle
6: read the signs
- start with house 1 and move around clockwise.
- find out the keywords of each planet and each house, and read the circle like astrology

(Now, Marion is an astrologer, so of course to her this would be obvious and easy - but if you are not, divide the circle into as many segments as you think your life has areas and name the areas - and name the stones the "hope, faith, love, fortune" way - or like tarot cards or anything like that, that has a meaning to you.)
 

Look for patterns in the cast, a bit like a teacup reading.
Look if there are clusters of stones in a particular area of the circle. This means you need to pay extra attention to that area of life.
If you use pointed stones, the direction of the arrows will give you more information. 


 
Other possible ways to use the stones:

Love dilemma:
- divide the circle into as many parts as you have love interests and name the sections
- assign meaning to the stones, like "forget about it", "keep it a secret", "a fun fling", "marriage material", "overthinking it", "run for the hills", "magnetic attraction", "it's not over", and so on

"The most important thing to remember is that it's you who holds the answers. So if you think a particular stone's meaning should be different  to it's traditional interpretation, or that a different crystal should be used to represent another planet, trust your instincts - that's the whole point of the reading"

Sunday, October 27, 2019

15 Types Of Divination To Consider Adding To Your Practice

 
I don't much care whether people think divination is "just" fortune-telling.
To me it's "knowing the unknowable". Digging into the subconscious, and perhaps there is something that influences the tools and make certain cards come up, or certain signs to show up.
I don't know how it works, and I don't care.
I'm ok with the supernatural explanation as well as the scientific explanation. (Yes, there is one. We are thinking about certain things, so obviously we are interpreting the rather general symbols to mean specific things. And all the human beings are basically the same. We have the same worries and fears, the same emotions, the same motivations and all that. So, if you "believe" divination works, you will fit the "message" to your situation. If you don't "believe", you will find how it's different from your reality.)

But I am really interested about divination and different divination methods. :-)

This article talks shortly about 15 common methods of divination. We all have probably tried these:

Astrology
I think it's a bit too wide a subject to add to one's practice. Of course, when I know the subject well, I will be able to use it better. I can see with one glance how the daily star chart relates to my personal chart, I know the planetary influence, I know which planets works against mine and which work for; where in the areas of life these influences work and so on and so forth. But you can always get deeper and deeper, and to do it "properly", it takes time and commitment, and then you don't have time for anything else. This is why I don't speak about astrology in this blog. I get sucked in and I can spend hours and hours researching and checking and calculating and refining and defining and... one can go really deep into this, and before you know, you have been sucked in and start discussing Arabic parts and fixed stars and whatnot. It is very fascinating, and every now and then I miss it, but - there was a time when all I did was astrology, and had no time left for all the hundreds of other methods :-D
I don't like that.

Automatic Writing 
Might be an interesting addition to my divination practice...
I think clairvoyance, clairaudience and other clairsenses are kind of aching to this. Though... I don't think everyone can - or that it comes easier, much easier for others, and that's why it might not be a viable option for everyone. If you have to struggle and practice a lot, it might not be that valuable addition.

Cartomancy
My divination practice is like 80% cartomancy as it is :-D
Just remember that there is A LOT more cards to play with than Tarot and Oracle Cards. There's LeNormand, Deste and Kipper, there's other older decks than modern oracles, there's the "gypsy witch fortune telling deck" and other such... a lot. Non-tarot nor oracle divination decks. Find out, and you might also like them. Those really add a lot to a divination practice.

Pendulum - not dowsing. Dowsing is used to find water or other materials, not for divination. The correct term is pendulum or pallomancy (divining by swaying)

Graphology
No. Graphology is divining a person's character by his or her handwriting, and it is not suitable for divining.

Numerology
Could be. Though it's rather... specific. Limited.

Oneiromancy
Of course one should be noticing one's dreams. Though using them for divination is not a simple thing.

Palmistry
Another divination method that tells more about a person than the future or current events

Precognition
Most people have nothing of the kind, and it's probably not easy if even possible to "add to your practice"

Psychometry
Doesn't say anything about the future or current events. It talks about past and the people who have been in contact with the thing one reads.

Rune casting 
Absolutely should be added to one's practice if it isn't already part of it

Scrying
I find it easy, so sure, but it's not easy for everyone... and demands a bit more. Also, not easy to interpret.

Reading tea leaves or coffee 
Yes, would be interesting if one took a habit of reading one's breakfast cup every morning. :-)
 

So, instead of astrology, clairaudience and clairvoyance, precognition, psychometry, palmistry, numerology, and graphology, I suggest
- Bibliomancy
- Geomancy
- I Ching
- dice casting or Cleromancy
- lithomancy

So... what else... (to get the 15 :-D)
- divining with coins
- divining with melted metal (or wax, might be safer)
- the inkblot oracle

I am enamored by Carrie Paris' Magpie Oracle :-)

Experimenting :-)

 Divination is more about what happens inside your head than the tools. Anything can be used as an oracle, symbol, message, sign. So, I deci...