Divination in Depth

I am truly awed when I pick up a die, (singular of dice). A small piece of plastic that is normally associated with board
games and gambling. These days it can have any number of faces ranging from two to a hundred, although the
commonest is the six-sided cube.
Whenever it is used in a board or any other game it exemplifies the mathematics of probability. Throw the die and
any one of six faces may be obtained, hence the chances of a two, for example, are one in six. So throughout the
game, you are battling with the probability that the number you actually want has only a one in six chances of
appearing.
If you are using a die with ten faces, a D10, then the probability of any number occurring is now one in ten. The
greater the number of faces the lower the probability of one particular number occurring on a throw.
The oldest known dice are about 5,000 years old and are associated with a backgammon board. In ancient cultures it
is difficult to be certain how dice were used. We know that board games sometimes served divinatory purposes as
did dice on their own. At the Oracle of Delphi many dice were found which suggests that those who could not afford
the hire of the oracle could at least have dice cast to answer their questions.
The use of dice in a divinatory context is based on the same principles as using Tarot cards or Runes or the Yi Jing. In
all four cases the results of a random selection is linked to an oracular text. Such processes have been labelled as
correlative thinking. This is most clearly seen when looking at the Chinese use of the Yi Jing:

Rational or logical thinking, grounded in analytic, dialectical and analogical argumentation, stresses the
explanatory power of physical causation. In contrast, Chinese thinking depends upon a species of analogy
which may be called correlative thinking. Correlative thinking, as it is found both in classical Chinese
cosmologies (the Yijing (Book of Changes), Daoism, the YinYang school) and, less importantly, among the
classical Greeks involves the association of image or concept-clusters related by meaningful disposition
rather than physical causation. Correlative thinking is a species of spontaneous thinking grounded in
informal and ad hoc analogical procedures presupposing both association and differentiation. The regulative
element in this modality of thinking is shared patterns of culture and tradition rather than common
assumptions about causal necessity.
The relative indifference of correlative thinking to logical analysis means that the ambiguity, vagueness and
incoherence associable with images and metaphors are carried over into the more formal elements of
thought. In fact, the chaotic factor in the underdetermined correlative order has a positive value as an
opportunity for personalization and self-construal. In contradistinction to the rational mode of thinking
which privileges univocity, correlative thinking involves the association of significances into clustered images
which are treated as meaning complexes ultimately unanalyzable into any more basic components. In the
Western tradition we are familiar with astrological charts which provide the most familiar illustration of
correlative thinking.
Correlative thinking is the primary instrument in the creation, organization and transmission of the classical
curriculum in China, from the Book of Songs to the Analects to the Yijing.. Perhaps the most overt
illustrations of the Chinese resort to correlative thinking in the classical period are to be found in the period
of the Han dynasty (206 BCAD 220). During the Han period, vast tables of correspondences were employed
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to identify and organize the sorts of things in the natural and social world which were thought to provide a
meaningful context for ones life. One such set of tables, called tables of five, compared the five phases
(wood, fire, earth, metal, water), the five directions (north, east, south, west and centre), the five colours
(green, red, yellow, white, black), the five notes, and so forth. Other types of correlation employed the
twelve months, the twelve pitches, the twenty-eight constellations, the heavenly roots and the earthly
branches. Such classifications include body parts, psycho-physical and affective states, styles of government,
weather, domestic animals, technological instruments, heavenly bodies and much more.
Though the contents of many correlative schemata are often prima facie the same as the subject matters of
the Western natural sciences, there is a crucial difference in the manner they are treated. In China,
correlations were not employed as a means of dispassionately investigating the nature of things. Correlative
descriptions are, in fact, prescriptions. Correlative schemes oriented human beings in a very practical
manner to their external surroundings. Thus, the Chinese were concerned less with astronomy than with
astrology; they were far more enthusiastic in the development of geomancy than geology. Science was
always understood as ultimately subject to prevailing human values.
HALL, DAVID L. and ROGER T. AMES (1998). Chinese philosophy. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London:
Routledge. Retrieved June 05, 2013, from http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/G001SECT2

In his introduction to the Yi Jing, called the I Ching at that time, Jung explains the role of correlational thinking:
The Chinese mind, as I see it at work in the I Ching, seems to be exclusively preoccupied with the chance
aspect of events. What we call coincidence seems to be the chief concern of this peculiar mind, and what
we worship as causality passes almost unnoticed. We must admit that there is something to be said for the
immense importance of chance. An incalculable amount of human effort is directed to combating and
restricting the nuisance or danger represented by chance. Theoretical considerations of cause and effect
often look pale and dusty in comparison to the practical results of chance. It is all very well to say that the
crystal of quartz is a hexagonal prism. The statement is quite true in so far as an ideal crystal is envisaged.
But in nature one finds no two crystals exactly alike, although all are unmistakably hexagonal. The actual
form, however, seems to appeal more to the Chinese sage than the ideal one. The jumble of natural laws
constituting empirical reality holds more significance for him than a causal explanation of events that,
moreover, must usually be separated from one another in order to be properly dealt with.
The manner in which the I Ching tends to look upon reality seems to disfavour our causalistic procedures.
The moment under actual observation appears to the ancient Chinese view more of a chance hit than a
clearly defined result of concurring causal chain processes. The matter of interest seems to be the
configuration formed by chance events in the moment of observation, and not at all the hypothetical
reasons that seemingly account for the coincidence. While the Western mind carefully sifts, weighs, selects,
classifies, isolates, the Chinese picture of the moment encompasses everything down to the minutest
nonsensical detail, because all of the ingredients make up the observed moment..
The ancient Chinese mind contemplates the cosmos in a way comparable to that of the modern physicist,
who cannot deny that his model of the world is a decidedly psychophysical structure. The microphysical
event includes the observer just as much as the reality underlying the I Ching comprises subjective, i.e.,
psychic conditions in the totality of the momentary situation. Just as causality describes the sequence of
events, so synchronicity to the Chinese mind deals with the coincidence of events. The causal point of view
tells us a dramatic story about how D came into existence: it took its origin from C, which existed before D,
and C in its turn had a father, B, etc. The synchronistic view on the other hand tries to produce an equally
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meaningful picture of coincidence. How does it happen that A', B', C', D', etc., appear all in the same
moment and in the same place? It happens in the first place because the physical events A' and B' are of the
same quality as the psychic events C' and D', and further because all are the exponents of one and the same
momentary situation. The situation is assumed to represent a legible or understandable picture.
Foreword to the I Ching - By C G Jung.

So I throw some dice and a set of numbers is selected randomly. This takes place at a particular time, in a particular
location, in a particular season, with a particular frame of mind and I am the agent that makes this happen. I may
have plans and expectations in mind and recent experiences which have affected me. The numbers on the dice have
a divinatory meaning supplied by a book, as does the selection of a Tarot card or Yi Jing hexagram. All the
circumstances coalesce into that particular moment in time: they correlate.
However what also needs to be considered is the role of the unconscious mind. This is often neglected in an
explanation of divination or given cursory treatment. However this is a crucial part of the equation and so of great
importance.
Therefore we need to have a clear of what we mean by the unconscious mind and its capabilities.
A few comments trawled from the Internet (sorry no links), showing the different processing capacity of both the
conscious and unconscious mind. When we use divination, we are primarily tapping into the vast reservoir of the
unconscious and thereby accessing its wisdom.

When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros
and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come
from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we
should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature. Sigmund Freud

Neuroscientists have shown that the conscious mind provides 5% or less of our cognitive (conscious) activity
during the day and 5% they say is for the more aware people, many people operate at just 1%
consciousness. Dr Lipton also says that the unconscious mind operates at 40 million bits of data per second,
whereas the conscious mind processes at only 40 bits per second. So the unconscious mind is MUCH more
powerful than the conscious mind, and it is the unconscious mind which shapes how we live our life.

If youve ever had the experience of dj vu, or a sudden, strong intuition about a person or something that
was going to happen, then youve heard your unconscious mind trying hard to get in touch with you. If
youve ever had a gnawing sensation in your gut that things just arent going right, despite the fact that on
the surface, the day seems fine, then youve heard your unconscious mind at work, picking up on cues youre
not consciously aware of, warning you about them. Or if youve ever been made uncomfortable by someone
youve just met, someone who seems friendly enough, then youve heard alarm signals coming from your
unconscious mind about contradictions in that persons superficial friendliness masking perhaps some deeper
anger or angst.

The conscious mind has limited processing capabilities, compared to the unconscious mind. The conscious
mind is dominated by the logic of natural language partitions represented in the narrative of a linguistic
description. George A Millers paper The Magical Number Seven, plus or Minus Two is a reference point for
research into the limitations of our capacity for conscious awareness. Miller suggests conscious processing is
limited to just seven plus or minus two bits of information. We refer to the conscious mind as the
representation of the immediate map you have conscious access to. Your conscious mind expresses itself
through your internal running commentary on the events you experience in any one moment.
The unconscious mind is everything else in the mind-body system that is not conscious in that moment. We
say somehow your unconscious mind has the complete knowledge of the system that is you. Your
unconscious has amazing processing capabilities compared with the conscious mind. Research shows the
unconscious mind absorbs millions of bits of sensory information through the nervous system in any one
second. Miller showed a number of remarkable coincidences between the channel capacity of a number of
human cognitive and perceptual tasks. In each case, the effective channel capacity is equivalent to between 5
and 9 equally-weighted error-less choices: on average, about 2.5 bits of information.

The conscious thought is said to have limited capacity while unconscious thought is said to be unlimited.
Other than unconscious processing, conscious thought cannot focus on more than one thing at a time and
can only process between 10 and 60 bits per second (Dijksterhuis & Nordgren, 2006). The entire human
system combined can process 11,200,000 bits per second and compared to this, the capacity of conscious
thought processes is very low. Therefore conscious processing can only deal with a very small percentage of
all incoming information; the rest is dealt with unconsciously. Dijksterhuis, Aarts and Smith (2005) adduced a
vivid example for this theory: they assumed that it takes about 6.6 billion bits to decide if or if not a person
wants to buy a house, therefore if people were only to rely on consciousness, it would take about 4 years to
make this decision.

Experiments were performed to measure the decision making prowess of the unconscious mind and they
showed that when there are multiple variables to be considered in a given decision making situation, the
unconscious mind can actually be a better decision maker than the conscious mind.

In light of the evidence the "division of functions" between the non-conscious and consciously controlled
aspects of human cognition appears to be quantitatively and qualitatively asymmetrical. Most of the "real
work" (both in the acquisition of skills and the execution of cognitive operations such as encoding and
interpretation of stimuli) is being done at the level to which our consciousness has no access. Moreover, even
if the access to that level existed, it could not be used in any way because the formal sophistication of that
level and its necessary speed of processing exceed considerably what can even be approached by our
consciously controlled thinking. The "responsibilities" of this inaccessible level of our cognition are not limited
to the "housekeeping" operations such as retrieving information from memory or adjusting the level of
arousal; they are directly involved in the development of interpretive categories, drawing inferences,
determining emotional reactions, and other "high-level" cognitive operations traditionally associated with
consciously controlled "thinking."

On top of all of this we have to appreciate that consciousness has very limited access to the information that
has been processed by the non-conscious. Our brains are able to deal non-consciously with about 11 000 000
bits of information per second, but we are only conscious of between 2.6 and 40 bits per second! (The lower
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and upper limits of this rather astonishing calculation, made independently by various researchers, can be
seen in Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion , 1991.) Our consciousness lags at least half a second behind
non-conscious processes.
So to function at full capacity, so to speak, we need to harness the power of our unconscious. The following is a
modern understanding of Tarot divination which takes into account the importance of the unconscious:
For centuries, the tarot has been an interactive narrative system employing such new media principles as
nonlinearity, randomness, modularity, and algorithm. As a visual system employing symbolic open imagery,
cartomancy facilitates cognitive processes such as analogical thinking, pattern recognition, and
communication with the unconscious; processes which serve to foster creativity, intuition, and psychic
integration in the participant.
Introduction
Sophisticated divination systems employ many dynamic media principles that today were discovering anew
through the capacities and potentials of computer technology.
The impact of the computer on our media, and our minds, is clearly revolutionary. The computer heralds an
age where principles of non-linearity, randomness, variability, and interconnectedness, to name a few, are
metamorphosing our media, and in so doing foregrounding important aspects of our consciousness that
have been devalued by the trajectory of the rationalist arrow. Its useful to remember, or discover, that
these principles have in fact been exemplified in ancient media systems like the Yi Jing and the Tarot.
What does it mean to be masterful as a new media designer? We must be fluent in the language that is
unique to the computer (no small challenge) and at the same time have some kind of fluency in all the
various traditional mediums we are repurposing. One meaning-making framework that infuses almost all
creative mediums is that of narrative. Narratives like novels and myths are like contextualized maps, serving
an orienting function at the same time that they resonate in the individual to create empathic meaning.
Today, because we are ready for it technologically, there is an upwelling of interest and an increasing
hunger for successful computer-based narrative. Tarot surpasses contemporary digital interactive narrative
in its ability to create coherent, structurally sound, and meaningful user experiences. Here the protagonist is
most assuredly You. The setting, the events, the conflicts and characters of the story relate very directly to
your personal experience, assuring a personalized depth of significance, and yet a seemingly random plot
order does not suffer from fracturing and chaos in contrast to computer-based interactive narrative today.
Tarot works as interactive narrative at the same time that its employed, most often, as a divination tool.
Divination is commonly defined as the practice of ascertaining information from supernatural sources with a
formal or ritual and often social character, sometimes in a religious context. Websters Online defines
divination this way:
1. the art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by
the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers
2. unusual insight: intuitive perception.
Im using definition two. In this thesis, any supernatural aspect of divination translates simply to the (even
still) mysterious aspects of the mind; those aspects that are currently in hot investigation by cognitive
scientists. I define divination as the process by which messages from the unconscious mind are decoded.

The brain is constantly processing 400 billion bits of information per minute, but our conscious awareness
involves only about 2000. This is happening in our minds all the time; were receiving and processing all that
information, information that doesnt go away, but just isnt integrated into our conscious awareness.
Cognitive scientists believe that, much more than likely, all that information remains in our unconscious.
What do we not know that we know?
The tarot accesses, structures, and integrates that unconscious information; its a medium that retrieves
relevant information from perhaps the most enormous database of all, the brain, and then organizes and
creates meaning from that information through interactive narrative.
In our age of digital communication, with its charge of the promulgation and proliferation of multitudinous
perspectives, such an integrative pursuit may be of particular interest in and of itself. The mind is a
seemingly chaotic system that every individual creatively contends with. The information we are subjected
to is undoubtedly multiplied exponentially in our time. An important, immanent challenge of new media has
moved beyond access to multiple points of view (we are, happily, achieving that) to successfully integrating
multiple points of view within the individual.
Many people who are unfamiliar with divination systems like the I-Ching and Tarot hold an assumptive
perspective that such systems amount to mere fortune-telling quackery. As there are technophobes, there
are Tarotphobes. This prejudice, though, can be grounded in a grain of truth, as any technology risks
potential for abuse. Particularly when a reading is performed for one person by another, the potential risk
of abdicating personal responsibility for choice-making can shadow and distort the function of divination.
Additionally, agendas might be involved that dont serve the best interest of the client. For this reason,
throughout most of this document, I approach the divination process as an individual pursuit. Yet even then,
although Tarot ideally fosters self-reflection and personal authenticity toward decision making, there still
remains the potential for the kind of addictive dependency that is inherent in any technology: the
technology becomes a crutch, instead of a tool. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell when we control our
technologies, and when they wind up controlling us.
Nevertheless, one of the most interesting benefits of the cartomantic reading process, and a main focus of
this thesis, is that it enhances creative thinking. Creativity entails the discovery of hidden orders/patterns
inherent in seemingly chaotic systems, as well as their authentic integration in application. The deliberate
employment of processes inherent to cartomancy like analogical thinking, filling in the gaps, pattern
recognition, and the immersion into what Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence) calls the flow state, all
strengthen the creative faculties. Perhaps the creative faculty strengthened most of all is intuition, that
mystery ingredient so valued by all creative individuals.
http://www.dynamicmediainstitute.org/thesis/ancient-divination-parallels-new-media-cartomancy-interactive-context

Sam Websters thesis provides an overall interpretation of how divination works. Although he does not address the
issues in terms of directly opening up a route to the unconscious, nevertheless it is implicit and underlies what he
writes:

Towards a General Theory of Divination by Sam Webster, m.div., mage, July 1993, ed. 2002
In any decision-making it is to our advantage to learn what we can of the present so that our decision may
be well informed. Divination has long been used in this manner. Now is an opportune moment in which to
examine how divination works. New philosophical and analytical tools have been developed that can
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interpret the process of divination as something intelligible and not wholly ineffable. For this study we will
apply the philosophy of organism developed by Alfred North Whitehead also called process thought,
general systems theory developed by Ervin Laszlo, and cybernetics as presented by Gregory Bateson.
Besides understanding the issue better, the value of a theory is that we can generalize from one application
to others.
Two questions emerge when we attempt to form a general theory of divination. First, how can the world in
which the diviner operates affect the divinatory system or technique, and second, how can the divinatory
system adequately express the real condition of that world.
To describe the link between a divinatory system or technique and the diviner and their world many would
use the Hermetic aphorism, "As above, so below." But, since our planet is whirling around its star through
space which has no up or down, some interpretation of this metaphor is necessary to apply it.
In the first place the diviner, or querent, is coterminous with their world. No real separation can be made
and so what is happening in the world in also happening in the subject. In our tradition this is described in
those expressions that see the human as a Microcosm of the World as Macrocosm. While this is an apt
poetic or metaphorical expression it does not tell us how the process works. To explain it we turn to
Whiteheads philosophy of organism.
The relationship between a Macrocosm and the Microcosm arises out of the real and mutually dependent
relationship that the world, the entities in it, and the moments of their existence each have in the process of
their genesis. Creation is not finished but is a continuous process constituted by the coming into being of
each moment of experience. Each moment is a manifestation and a result of the total process of the world
and everything in it. A moment comes into being fleetingly, and is the experience of that moment, and then
time passes on to the next moment. The moment that was ends, but in its ending becomes a factor that
effects every moment there after.
There are several important aspects of this process; the whole world effects every individual moment of
existence, each moment of existence embodies the influence of the rest of the entire world, and that
moment, after it has ended, will effect all future moments. An important quality of any individual moment is
its unity. Any given moment may be constituted by several parts, such as the diviner, the querent and the
pack of cards, but the moment of the reading possesses a unity from being a single experience.
Returning to our aphorism, "as above, so below," above can now be interpreted as the world that impinges
on and determines the becoming of each moment. Below is then the actual moment that is becoming and
which recapitulates that which is above. When we apply this to a divinatory reading, all of the past finds
expression in the moment in which the reading is made. This includes the diviner, the querent and their
intentions as formulated in the question, and includes the world in which the moment of the reading
occurs.
Another factor contributing to the unity of the moment of the reading is the effect of feed-forward and
feed-back between the reading and the divinatory technique. The discipline that examines this process is
called cybernetics. Cyber means pilot and we will have further use of the piloting metaphor later. However,
now we may draw out the unity of the process through this example from Gregory Bateson: The
consciousness of a blind man walking down a street, feeling his way by means of his cane can not be limited
to just his brain, or the hand perceiving through the cane. Rather it must be seen as spread throughout the
whole loop from brain to hand to cane to foot to ground to ear, etc., feeding back perception and feeding
forward course corrections. In the same way the consciousness of the reader can be said to be spread
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through the device as well as through her body, the querent, the world, and so on. Thus the reader and the
technique all form a unity whose character is conditioned, as discussed above, by all antecedent influences.
Like the blind mans use of the cane, a divinatory system is used to extend the range of the readers senses.
Since everything within the feedback-feed forward loop of the moment of the reading (to combine both
approaches) is effected by the influences of the world, an undetermined potential, such as the randomness
of the cards or coins, will be determined by the influence of the world of the diviner and querent. The
mechanism of chance is used as a means of harvesting the subtle effects of the world upon the reading.
The undetermined arrangement of the symbols through the randomizing of those symbols during, for
example, the shuffling of the cards, is made open to determination by those influences that can effect
otherwise random events. The randomizing lays the symbols open to subtle manipulation. This is because
there can be no true randomness in actuality, only in potential. Once the cards are shuffled they must be in
some determined order. Traditional cultures had long concluded that the Gods were able to influence the
outcome and so used the drawing of lots or sortilege to determine answers. Hence this discipline is called
divination, as it gives the Gods a chance to speak. What was the potential of randomness before the reading
is now conditioned by the presence of the question and the questioner, and presents the influences it is
able to express to the reader. What is needed is a way to harvest those influences adequately.
In traditional societies the notion of omens and the practice of reading them is common and important.
Omens are moments in time where certain phenomena co-occur and are able to be interpreted by someone
attentive to the pattern the phenomena embody. These classically occur at the moment in which a crucial
decision must be made. Then a flight of birds, an over-boiling kettle, or the sudden sighting of a particular
meaning laden number clarifies the choice to be made. In recent days C.G. Jung termed this acausal coarousal of events synchronicity. What is happening in an omen and its interpretation is the intuitive
apprehension of the general character of a whole series of events (the decision, its antecedents, its
consequences and all concerned with them), in a single event (the omen).
The relationship of part to whole determines the adequacy of the divinatory systems expression. In the
same way as an event which is part of an entire stream of events show the character of the entire stream,
so can a set of symbols, what we are usually dealing with in divinatory systems, show the character of the
entire world for a question. The adequacy of any system of divination directly dependents on how well that
system of symbols models the larger system that is the diviners or querents world and life. If it can not
represent a particular influence impacting on the individual it will not be able to indicate that in the reading.
In our world however there are innumerable influences that impact us. Representing them all with
individual symbols in a system of divination would render it huge and unwieldy. Nor would it be able to
engage influences that had not previously been catalogued.
There is a principle in the world that will permit us a way through this dilemma. It is the systems nature of
all experience. The essential nature of a system is that it has an inside and an outside. While this is a spatial
metaphor it also applies to temporal phenomena in that every event has both a beginning and an end which
bracket the temporal region in question.
Systems, by the fact that they enclose, have a property of wholeness about them that can be exploited for
divination. Any wholly enclosed region comes into contact with the whole of the rest of the world at its
boundary. In this way the part of the whole world that is the system under study maps the space outside
the system onto the surface of that system. Transferring this analogy to a semantic system of symbols, the
adequacy of a symbol set comes through the degree to which it maps the whole of the world it addresses.

Every divination system contains a finite number of parts. Through the permutations of those parts it is able
to present a description of a situation in the larger world of the diviner. Whether it is doing this through the
78 Tarot cards, the 64 Yi Jing hexagrams, or the 16 Geomantic symbols, it is doing so by means of the
correlation between a whole set of symbols and the ultimate whole that is our World.
Although they do not look exactly alike, a set of images (i.e., Tarot) and the human-experienced
environment both have deep structural similarities because they are both closed finite sets. Obviously the
78 cards are finite, but so is every occasion of human experience as it has a beginning and an end, if only
birth and death. This finiteness enables each to be compared, even if the finiteness of the one is as a
symbolic representation of the Universe and the other a temporal finiteness of a life.
Two differences between systems of divination are particularly relevant. One is that some have more parts
and possess more potential interrelationships among the parts than others do. More parts mean a greater
ability to model the details of the given world. In other words more parts provide greater resolution. The
other is the finite arena of experience the system addresses in its constitution.
Respecting this finitude, Tarot for instance, can be described as focusing on the unfolding of the soul in its
initiatory journey while African Geomancy is excellent for matters of business and wealth and for love and
simple happiness. This is partly because its power is rooted in the Gnomes, but also the symbols it employs
principally have their associated meanings in those areas. For determining subtle influences respecting
spiritual development Tarot is better, and for determining the time of actions, Astrology is better. This
guides the choice of system used by the diviner and is a qualitative matter best left to the practitioner. The
Yi Jing is especially helpful when a choice of action is to be decided.
However, the focus of this point is quantitative. By having more symbols with which to represent the factors
impinging upon the querent a finer degree of resolution about the matter is available to the diviner. One
has more detail about the matter at hand. However, too much detail will muddy the reading. The problem
respecting the quantity of detail is evident in the numbers of cards used in a Tarot spread. For some
questions a single card or a set of three is adequate but usually it does not give enough data. However, a
spread that uses most of the deck would overwhelm the reader and render the reading worthless. Besides
which, youd be looking at the whole work at once, the condition you were in before starting the reading.
Thus it is common to use but a fraction of the deck. Doing so essentially asks the question: What of the
whole of the universe am I facing in this question. The whole of the universe is represented by the whole
deck. The part being faced is represented by the set of cards drawn in the reading.
Now we may return to our cybernetic analogy. Cybernetics is the discipline of choosing between actions
towards some goal. It is interactive in that choices have to be made again and again in response to
circumstances that change with each choice. With cyber meaning pilot, the root metaphor of cybernetics is
that of a ship being piloted on its course which is constantly modified by the wind and waves and with
respect to the shore and undersea terrain. Feeding back to the pilot is the perceptual skill of determining
location by sighting on the sun and stars and reading maps, buoys and the effects of wind and wave.
Feeding forward is the pilots skill at manipulating the rudder and engines. In combination this brings the
ship to its intended harbour.
The use of divination is functionally identical. We learn from the reading about the forces impinging upon us
and adjust our actions accordingly. We can make judgments about the future by reading the influences of
the moment. However, this metaphor can be expanded still further if we recognize that the space we are
piloting through in divination is a semantic space of meanings and values.
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In this semantic space we may continue to use the analogy of motion. We are either moving towards an
influence upon our lives which means that it is increasing in predominance, or we are moving away which
means that it is decreasing. There are naturally many influences upon us all at the same time. It is the union
of them that constitutes the total influence. Each influence, as it were, is a single cord pulling us in its
direction and we are at the confluence of a number of such cords each pulling with a different strength. The
resultant of all those pulls is the direction we actually travel.
In divination we are seeking to determine what is pulling on us and with what intensity respecting the other
influences. In a divinatory system that models the whole of the world like Tarot, each of the cards
represents one influence. If we were to express this spatially we could arrange the cards about our point of
view on the surface of a sphere. Let us imagine each card (though this could work with I Ching hexagrams or
geomantic figures as well) as a facet cut in that sphere. In abstraction from any real situation, we could say
that all of the cards have an equal influence upon us. Expressed in terms of cords as above, each of the
cards cords would have an equally strong draw. For this reason they are arrayed equidistantly from us on
the surface of the sphere. This symbolically represents the whole of the universe in a systematic manner. In
a real situation, when we lay out a spread, a portion of that whole becomes visible. We expressed this
above as the portion of the universe being faced by the querent. The cords associated with each of the
cards visible in the spread may be said to be stronger than those not visible. Also, their strengths respecting
each other will be graded by their placement in the spread and the nature of the question. The more
important the card, the stronger would be its cord. For example in a question about the past, the past card
will be most important while in a question about spiritual influences the above card would be most
important (in, e.g., the Celtic Cross).
While this model is really too simple for the Tarot, that is, cards dont really all have the same weight, it
gives us a picture of a spherical arrangement of known influences about the person of the reader. As
cybernaut or pilot one may perceive the influences expressed in the cards or other divinatory symbols as a
ships pilot does the stars. In a reading one takes sightings of the stars that give location and direction to
ones travel. This constitutes the feed-back phase of the cybernetic cycle. However all divinatory symbols
can also be used for feed-forward purposes to make course corrections. To do this requires a symmetric
reversal of the process of divinatory reading.
In a reading we use randomization to permit the world and the gods, (our unconscious), to effect the
outcome and make their influence known. In this case the world and the gods provide both meanings,
in terms of the symbols presented, and the relative values of those meaning-symbols by their relationship to
querent and question. To reverse this process we must provide both the meanings and the values. Meaning
is easily provided by the choice of symbols and their arrangement to the senses of the practitioner. Value
can only be derived by the extent to which the practitioner feels the influence of the symbols. The more
strongly they are felt the greater the impact they will have on the life of the practitioner. This process
invokes the principle presented above that every moment effects every subsequent moment.
To use our cybernetic spatial metaphor what we are doing is strengthening the cords associated with the
symbols used in the feed-forward process. This changes the balance of the influences effecting us and thus
changes our direction of travel. We are piloting our lives.
Divination in general can be seen as a process of harvesting from the world the subtle influences upon the
matter. Those influences effect the reading in the same way as they effect everything else, through
participating in the process of their becoming as elements in their constitutions. Divinatory systems can
adequately express the real condition of the World by presenting the World systematically and the relevant
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part of that World through a portion of that system. The result of the use of divination is the ability to
choose a course of action in its feed-back mode and to effect a course adjustment in its feed-forward mode.
Divination is a tool for accurate piloting.
CAN A DIVINATION ALWAYS BE TRUSTED?
Divination is a technique for harvesting information about the nature of the world. It can be trusted to the
same extent as any other information harvesting system and no more.
In a reading there is always a problem situation which spurs the reading. This may be monumental and
explicit or it could be trivial and implicit such as in a daily reading. Regardless, it is the task of the divination,
or any other information harvesting technique, to be able to tell us something useful about the situation.
However, there are three general areas in which any technique may fall down:
First, the question posed may or may not be relevant to the problem. Skill and experience usually eliminates
this problem, but it is often the case that the querent presents a question fairly far afield from the real
issue.
Second, the technique may or may not be calibrated to the critical influence respecting the question. One
might use geomancy for a subtle spiritual problem or Tarot for a question respecting physical wealth. Here
we come up against the principle limitations of any system. Whole systems design such as we see in the
Tarot handles the problem elegantly.
Third, the diviner may or may not be able to interpret the reading accurately. Here lies the greatest source
of error. It does not matter if our technique gives us the correct information if we can not understand it. Our
own emotional static may distort our interpretation. We may be inexperienced with the issue at hand and
thus unable to truly comprehend the data. Or simply we may not have sufficient skill or technique to fully
employ the information harvesting tool.
Lastly we must reckon with what we have learned from post-Newtonian physics. Heisenberg demonstrated
that any measurement of a system will change that system and so it is impossible to not to change the
outcome by the very asking of a divinatory question. This should remind us that we have free will and any
reading is subject to a change in decision.

Some information based on non-European culture reaches similar conclusions.

Research into African divination has followed its own path compared to western investigations, in part because of the
centrality of its anthropological basis. Divinatory practice is also quite different in that meaning is usually
negotiated between the client and the diviner. The divination is not considered finished until the client is fully
satisfied he has understood his predicament and is able to take appropriate remedial action. In Toward a Theory of
Divinatory Practice, Barbara Tedlock, Ph.d., offers some interesting conclusions that mirror some of the ideas already
presented.
It is only by engaging with diviners and observing their acts of divination, in the spirit of the principle of no
privilege, that we can study divination as we would any other meaningful social or cultural phenomena.
While divination has been thought of as either inductive (i.e., rational) or mediumistic (i.e., nonrational),
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many peoples worldwide have long practiced a combined or integrative form of consciousness. Integrative
consciousness involves disclosure and orientation. In any one instant during a divination, little or nothing
may be said. Instead, a silent language of objects and signs may be used for the presentation of felt realities,
for reflection, meditation, and interpretation. If words are used, they are often cryptic, poetic, and highly
allusive, sometimes even spoken in a foreign or archaic tongue. The images these words and objects conjure
are paradoxical and evocative: they create and are created by a sense of discovery. By paying attention to
what diviners say about and do during divination, we can develop a theory of divinatory practice. Wherever
this has happened, we have uncovered integrative ways of knowing along a cognitive continuum
stretching from ratiocination to intuition. The ongoing interactions between these divergent forms of
cognition suggest that the various forms of consciousness manifested during divination are much more
complex than we once thought. Recent findings in biophysics indicate that cognition is found not only in the
brain and nervous system but also throughout the entire protein matrix of our bodies, most especially in our
connective tissues. Divination is a way of knowing that depends only partly on cognitive information from
our brains and nervous system. It also depends, perhaps to a larger extent, on the electronic conduction of
information stored throughout the tissues of our bodies. This is why divination, as an embodied human
universal, will simply not go away. Although it has been laughed at, legislated against, and banned by the
church, it continues to be practiced worldwide and always will be.

So back to my dice with its book of interpretations. I throw the dice and obtain some numbers. These numbers
represents everything that is happening at the time they were thrown. All external events, most of which I was
unaware of and also internal events, again, most of which I was unaware of, form part of the reading. Exactly the
same is happening when selecting a Tarot card or generating a Yi Jing hexagram.
My lack of awareness is primarily due to my limited consciousness. I can only attend to a few things at the same
time: Millers seven plus or minus two. However my unconscious has vastly more information on tap. If it doesnt
have the exact answer already, it can construct an answer through its powerful capacity for intuition and creativity.
By becoming receptive and open to the readings selected by my divination, I engage in a dialogue with my
unconscious and obtain knowledge that was not readily available otherwise: I have my answer.

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