Tell me my future true

Divination.

The answer to all life's questions.

Making clear the unknown future.

**Will I win the lottery?
**Will I marry the man of my dreams?
**Will I get the job I want?
**Should I move in with my new boyfriend?
**Shall I quit my job and do another career course?

Fortune tellers are sought from every walk of life and in every country across the world to answer these questions. From Shamans trancing the wheel on the Steppes to a little old lady with her porcelain cup reading your leaves to the ultra-modern tarot reader with her bright gypsy scarf and dangling earings consulting the newest software on her laptop.

Some of us are true believers, others go, desperate for answers or a nudge in the right direction having already half made up their minds. Others are pure sceptics and get pressured by friends into stepping through the doorway to have their palms read, their cards told or their runes cast.

I did a search on divination on Google and was blown away by what it spat back out at me. The amount of different types of divination is really mind boggling. On Wikipedia it states that divination is : -

....the practice of ascertaining information from
supernatural sources. If a distinction is to be made with fortune-telling,
divination has a formal or ritual and often social character, usually in a
religious context; while fortune-telling is a more everyday practice for
personal purposes.

It continues to break down the different types of divination. In my collage above I have listed a few of the more common types to be encountered - tarot, i-ching, crystal ball gazing, palmistry, dowsing and a shaman trancing.

I have copied across only the "C" in the alphabet as I wouldn't inflict all of these on you, all at once. The entire article and other links can be found here:-

Capnomancy (by smoke)
Cartomancy (by cards, e.g., playing cards, tarot cards, and non-tarot oracle cards; see also Taromancy)
Catoptromancy (by mirrors)
Causimomancy (by burning)
Cephalomancy (by skulls)
Ceraunoscopy (by thunder and lightning)
Ceromancy, or ceroscopy (by placing melted wax into cold water)
Chaomancy (by aerial visions)
Cheiromancy, or palmistry (by palms) where the grooves of the hand are interpreted as signs.
Chirognomy (by hands)
Clairaudience (by psychic hearing)
Cleromancy (by casting lots or by bones; including divination by use of dice or dominoes; For divination by use of dice, see also Astragalomancy)
Clidomancy, or cleidomancy (by keys)
Coffee Grounds Divination, Coffee Tasseography: see Tasseography
Cometomancy (by comet tails)
Coscinomancy (by hanging sieves)
Critomancy (by barley cakes)
Cromniomancy (by onion sprouts)
Crystallomancy (by crystals or other reflecting objects)
Cybermancy (via computer oracles)
Cyclomancy (by wheels)

I recently went through a rough patch in which I had no idea what to do with my life, my career. So I contacted a tarot association here in London and emailed one of their training tarotmancers (if you will) with the question of questions: "do I stay in my current job or do I try and do something more creative, especially taking into consideration my own interest in the whole esoteric slant of things." Loaded question, right? Well, two days or so later, I got my answer back from my reader who had done the reading on my behalf, having pondered the question etc.

And she was positive, seeing change in my life, encouraging me to do what I thought was necessary to make me happy. I fell for it, lock stock but I didn't change my job. I need the money - as we all do - and eventhough I was desperately unhappy working for a bunch of real louts, I reconsidered and took an evening course in creative writing. I also hauled out my own tarot cards (of which I have around fifteen or twenty sets) and books and have now started studying them for myself.

I don't have the guts to walk away from my day job - eventhough I might be a "flighty" Aquarius but it doesn't mean that it is what I am. The tarot reading I got from her made me sit back, stop and think. Changes need not be large steps, they could be the small miracles that make you aware of how easy it is to change. I am more attentive to my own studies, I am more open to my friends about my interest. And you know what? As small changes go, it has worked wonderfully well. I have got a brand new selection of music to try and meditate to (all I have to do is not fall asleep) because a colleague's husband owns his own New Age music company and recording studio and he passes cd's along to me to try out. I give him feedback and tell him which shops to visit to display and sell his stock. Small steps and the courage to acknowledge who and what I am.

Which brings me to my next point - many people believe every single word a fortune teller or seer tells you. Point blank they will go and change things around, because someone advised them to. I was taught that a fortune teller gives advice in conjunction with the reading and NEVER to impart bad news. You do tell them, but not in a way which would come as a shock to them. You pass on advice which the universe sends along. You don't smack them in the face with it like a pie.

I once went for a rune reading - about five years ago, in fact - and boy, was I taken for a ride. I came away in even more turmoil than I went in with - she was contradictory and quite nasty in her advice and I came away shaking and thinking to myself "I can do that better and figure it out myself" and consequently bought myself books on runes, made friends with JV of Wistman's Wands who does beautiful hand carved runes and I am studying the stories and applications behind these ancient oracles too.

Life is a journey. I like studying. I am made for life.