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Interesting new ways of divination?

 
 
Sirhan Sirhan Solo
06:09 / 06.12.02
Lately, I've been trying to come up with new ways of divination. Thus far, however, I've come a bit short. I've tried using a pair of dice as a half-assed divination system, along the same lines of Craps (i.e. - 2,3,12 = bad news, 7,11 = good news), but it hasn't yielded much of anything. Anyone have any particularly novel ideas?
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
07:28 / 06.12.02
My favourite new method of divination ever is Ghadis's inspired technique of 'Aggresive Curiosity' which involves accosting people on the tube who are reading books and getting them to read out the line they're currently reading - repeat several times until a clear divinatory message is made apparent.
 
 
Sebastian
10:37 / 06.12.02
WOW!! I LOVE that. Just as it reads it sounds tuned to be my specialty. And just to think that most people here in the subway are reading Lord of The Rings, yeah, I am doing it right away.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
12:53 / 06.12.02
Barbelith seems to be a moderately useful divination method.
 
 
dj kali_ma
16:15 / 06.12.02
A couple of non-traditional divination methods I have used:

1.) Telemancy. Of the static-on-the-telly and snippets-of-conversation-whilst-channel-surfing-and-asking-questions variety.

2.) Advertising Gods. There is a running commentary in the advert world that has nothing to do with the products they're trying to sell. The sigils used in advertising, the words commonly invoked... they've all been shanghaied into this rather seedy existence, and they rather appreciate it when you talk to them, and they'll talk back to you sometimes. Requires the running commentary and question-asking in your head while randomly keeping one's eyes open for phrases. Works best in public transportation.

::a::
 
 
FinderWolf
16:45 / 06.12.02
I've had some interesting random divination things happen to me recently -- yesterday evening, I was worrying about a certain situation (got some surprising news that could change my life greatly a few hours before), and as I walked into the subway in NYC, I passed a guy wearing a very unsual hat with a quote from the Bible: from Corinthians, "We walk not by SIGHT but by FAITH." I took it as the universe's way of saying "It'll all work out, don't worry."

Minutes later, I stepped over a newspaper page that proclaimed boldly in a big headline of some ad: LIFE CHANGES FAST! I smiled and laughed. Clearly someone was trying to tell me something with two such strong messages in a row. As I looked around, I saw a magazine stand vendor was smiling at me and laughing along with me, almost as if he was sharing the joke with me.

 
 
cusm
17:19 / 06.12.02
Aah, scitzotypal syncronicity divination. My favorite I mostly do the trick (similar to aphonia's Advertising Gods bit above) where I think about the problemat hand while driving, walking, or otherwise being bombarded with random stimulus. At some point, something will catch my eye and it'll have the message I seek. Sometimes its a license plate, a bumper sticker, a sign, a piece of trash, a t-shirt, whatever. Syncronicimancy, I suppose.

I also like yahoomancy: Enter the question into some crummy search engine, and look at the results. Click where you feel you need to. The first message that hits you in the pages you see that makes sense is the result. If you're good with the syncronicity method, you'll learn to know when what you see is a message after awhile. Its a funny state of mind to be in to do it right, I'll have to say.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
17:27 / 06.12.02
I've tried yahoomancy, but I found that I couldn't stop "selecting." Y'know when you play minesweeper and you've cleared out a section but hit a bomb, then start a new game and automatically start clicking around in the areas that were cleared in the last game? Like that. It's not random stimulus, it's what you want to hear.

Though, in light of the "trapped in yr own fiction" thread, maybe we should tell ourselves what we want to hear.

What? I'm the only one here that can play minesweeper for 4 hours? Nevermind.
 
 
FinderWolf
17:29 / 06.12.02
How about online readings? I've found them to be surprisingly accurate sometimes. All of the ones I've done are FREE, like this cool tarot deck based on Hollywood images, with free readings:

http://www.hollywoodtarot.com/10card.html

check it out!
 
 
mixmage
18:12 / 06.12.02
Along the lines of yahomancy and syncronicimancy, I have used a technique of thumbwheeling. Rocking up and down a thread, catching a word or phrase at the end of each swing, gradually moving from one end of the thread to the other. The Instead Thread reads great backwards.

Like cusm said, it's a funny state of mind to be in. When you can scan a google list and read it as an unbroken statement, that's what it feels like... at least for me. Haven't used it in a while, but I did adapt it to reading comics, Taking a spiralling path through the frames, randomly flipping backwards and forwards. I used Kissing Quimper and DK2 together quite well.

Another method was random comic book selection. First time I did it was Leave it to Chance issue 1 [eh, Jenny? ], an impulse buy on the intuition that I may be able to glean some sort of info by treating the story/characters/dynamic as a reading. Gradually refined to flipping to random pages in multiple titles, taking each frame/page as a "card" in my comic tarot. Last time I did it, I had just read the "It's snowing... no it's beginning" bit in the Invisibles at home, first frame I flipped to at the store shows Tank Girl noting to the audience that it had just started snowing for no reason.
 
 
Sirhan Sirhan Solo
09:30 / 08.12.02
To jump off on some of these ideas (which, by the by, are great), perhaps Googlemancy over Yahoomancy? There's the "I'm feeling lucky" option which could eliminate some of the "selecting" problems that Qalyn mentioned.

Also, Mixmage reminded me of Scott McCloud's "3 Card Nancy" game: taking individual cartoon strip panels from "Nancy," whiting out any text/dialog, then shuffling the panels as cards to do Tarot-like spreads. Could be an interesting pop-magic tool.
 
 
Warewullf
20:20 / 08.12.02
Go into Word

Think of your question

Randomly type characters, remembering to put in spaces every few keystrokes

Highlight all and do a spell check

Look for meaningful words/phrases



I correctly predicted the early demise of a friends relationship with this method.
 
 
TheFoolofChaos
21:33 / 08.12.02
Fool Stones
By IO
AKA
The Fool
(Excerpt from "Banish with Laughter")

Statement of intent; It is our will to create a bag of divination stones.

Purpose
Divination
Illumination

Materials
A black velvet bag
64 small stones, found objects and clay figures.
(All should be fairly unbreakable!)

Quest
Wandering where ever, find through intuition the 64.
Each must be the perfect metaphoric ambiguous answer.
Modify to taste with artistic flare

The Fool Stones
1) A miniature figure of a man
2) A miniature figure of a woman
3) A black marble
4) A white marble
5) A miniature sword
6) A miniature cup
7) A miniature wand
8) A miniature pentacle
9) A octarine stone
10) A red stone painted with crossed swords
11) A orange stone painted on brain
12) A purple stone painted on
13) A yellow stone painted on sun
14) A green stone painted on heart
15) A blue stone painted on $
16) A black stone skull
17) A tiny comedy mask
18) A tiny drama mask
19) A miniature bottle of light spirits
20) A miniature bottle of dark spirits
21) A miniature empty bottle
22) A battery
23) A golden wrapped condom
24) A tampon
25) A broken pocket watch
26) A golden die
28) A tiny gold pyramid
29) A golden apple
30) A miniature gold bell
31) A chaos button
32) A question mark button
33) A exclamation mark button
34) A very small Buddha
35) A box of matches
36) A Yin Yang button
37) A tiny globe
38) A pacifier
39) A safety pin
40) A silver spoon
41) A tootsie pop
42) A mood ring
43) A heart shaped locket
44) A key in a lock
45) A fake huge diamond ring
46) A $ sign money clip
47) A very small purse
48) A dead credit card
49) A Monopoly car
50) A matchbox truck
51) A tiny jumbo jet
52) A Monopoly red house
53) A Monopoly green house
54) A tiny fake cell phone
55) A very small plastic magnifying glass
56) A very short pencil
57) A Band-Aid
58) A cherry cough drop
59) A old rusty key
60) A fake dog shit
61) A miniature toy gun
62) A tiny skeleton
63) A small angel
64) A small devil

The Full Hand Reading
Place Chaos Cloth on the ground. Place the significator on the Chaos Cloth.(This can be the male figure, female figure or some object that represents the question.) The question is asked aloud. Reach into bag pulling a hand full of Fool Stones out and cast them on a Chaos Cloth. Read by pure intuition.
 
 
A
23:50 / 14.12.02
Hey...Im posting under my roomates name. I did a great one in a class recently. It involved everyone being given a rectangular card with a point on each side...everyone had to draw a shape on the card the only prerequisite being that the shape had to at least touch each point. Then everyone had to write a word on the back. It was a really intense class and everyone (as far as was reported) took a really ritualistic approach to the whole process. After everyone had completed there card they lay them down one by one, forming a giant pattern...then someone else would come in and rearrange that pattern. Eventually one group would be given the job of presenting the picture to the class as a coherrent whole...present it how it was supposed to appear. In each case a central card was chosen...then other groupings of cards were chosen and turned over aswell...on the basis of some apparent visual link or other casual web. The resulting sentence fragments and the discussions which ensued where quiet intense.
 
  
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