Volume I
Chronicle Twelve

Divination

The ability to look into the future, the past, the distant and long forgotten places. How does this work? Why is it that a person can study their whole lives and yet still be unable to master the art. Why is it that one with zero training can possess such a gift without any effort at all.

Is it the tools of the art that makes all the difference or perhaps not? The tarot, is it magical or simply ink and cardboard? US Games is not a magical company and the materials they use to make tarot decks are also used to make children's games. So how does these tools work? A random pull of the cards or the throw of the runes. The interpretation of the abstract like the reflections in a crystal or the shadows in a mirror. How can something so irrelevant mean so much?

Those are the questions and here are the answers. First of all, the portrayal of divination and psychic abilities by Hollywood is wrong and best be forgotten. In the movies, the psychic will have flashes of visions or transported away into another dimension all the while completely unattached to conscious existence. Makes for a good movie, but that's not how it is and anyone who claims it so should reconsider what exactly is happening.

Divination is the ability to acquire knowledge and this is how it operates. Imagine if you will that you are standing next to a very tall wall. The sun is shining and there is a gentle breeze. Your surroundings feel comfortable and your feel pretty good. You then pull an egg out of your pocket and throw it over the wall.

At that exact moment, does the sun not feel the same? Does the wind not feel the same? The egg is out of visual sight and your environment has not changed and the same can be said of your frame of mind and disposition.

The egg in your hand is now the past and in the present there is no indication that you threw the egg over the wall, in fact it could easily be still in your pocket. In this split second in time, what is different?

Knowledge. You know that there is an egg on the other side of the wall and is about to hit the ground. You can almost visualize what it will look like as it hits the ground. The way it will sound, the way it will feel, you simply just know what's going to happen next. This is how divination operates. One second, you have no idea and the next you know what's going to happen.

So, where does this knowledge come from? Some will tell you that it just comes to them and although that may be how they perceive it to be; that is not entirely true. Why was the egg on the other side of the wall in the first place? It was because you put it there. In the same manner, knowledge comes to you because you make it come to you.

Many study and fail divination like sitting in front of a math book and screaming, "Learn darn it learn!" without opening the book, reading the book or comprehending the book. Like I have said in the past, wanting is not enough, you have to make it happen and you have to know that you are able to make it happen. As I have written about Faith and Will in chronicle one, it too applies to divination.

How does one make the knowledge come? First you must understand how divination works and what is really happening. We shall use our old friend Passive Acquisition to answer these questions.

Physical
In the physical world it's so subjective. One person will say he/she must touch an object to know. Another will just know. One person flips cards while another uses the abstract. What this all means is that the physical is a tool. A method of manifesting a tangible result that can be interpreted. As a tool, it is not the source, but rather a reaction to the source.

The Past and Future
Where can one see the past and the future? It would have to be where both are visible and that can only be possible outside of the existence of time. The ethereal plane.

Knowledge beyond one's Self
All about ourselves and our Self is with ourselves to discover, but that which is beyond our Self requires us to make a connection to retrieve this information. Where is it possible that we would be able to connect with anything and everything? How would such a connection be possible? It would be possible if our perception of Self in that particular state was different and more than what we perceive as Self in this existence. As one exists as part of a whole one may perceive itself as the whole just as we perceive ourselves in the physical as complete entities. The higher planes.

Subjective Knowledge
Divination is often misinterpreted or down right incorrect. The psychic made a mistake. How can mistakes be possible? In the ethereal and the higher planes, what is simply is and there is no dissipation and everything is revealed as it is. How can what is the truth become wrong? It can't and that is why such knowledge can not be coming from the ethereal or the higher planes. Where the truth must be interpreted and what exists is what one creates is the astral plane.

What does this all mean?
Knowledge may be tapped into from where ever you want and if you don't care, you could be bringing it in from anywhere or in some cases from all over the place. You make the connection and the knowledge comes.

How to Connect
How does one make the connection? Well, it can't be done by just standing there screaming, "Connect, darn it. Connect!" no matter how loud or how willful your words may be. It's like brainstorming or creativity. In fact it works a lot like these functions.

Suddenly, a great idea just popped into your head. Where did it come from? It wasn't there a second ago. Why did it come now? Could it be that you were trying to think of a good idea?

When you come up with an idea, come up with a new approach, or a solution to a problem, it is because you made it possible by allowing yourself to be open to such things. Before the part of you mind that thinks can think about the new idea, the part of your mind that listens must feel and experience the idea.

The part of the mind that thinks and calculates, desire and commands is our Will. The part of the mind that senses and feels, perceives and reacts is our Self. Drop a brick on your foot, do you not feel pain? Read a sad story, do you not cry? It is our Self reacting to the environment and situation.

Divination requires that your Self experience what is and your Will to focus on what your Self is experiencing. It also requires one more thing. You need to make the connection.

How does one connect to other planes?
It is done through mind states, the language of the ethereal plane. And here's another old friend that makes this possible. Sensorial Association is a key element in making the connection.

This is how it's done.

1. Focus on an item, situation, or subject.
2. Sensorially associate it to a mind state. By doing so, what you have done is equate the target to the mind state, thus the mind state represents the target. The mind state is the target objective.
3. Being that the mind state represents the target objective and the mind state is also your state of being; you have just made the connection to the target objective and you are coexisting as yourself and the target objective. In other words, your Self is now experiencing what it is to be the target objective.
4. Focus on what you are experiencing (and I don't mean physically). For your Will to take such a passive role, it is almost as if you are shutting your Will down. Warning, a natural response is for your Will to make a leap of assumption and try to anticipate what the Self will be experiencing. Another common error is to switch your focus completely onto your Self, thus loosing focus on the target objective and severing the connection and loosing the mind state. The Will must do both, which is actually beneficial, because focussing on the target objective helps pacify the Will with preoccupation.
5. Finally all that you need is patience. The information will pop into your head like ideas, actually more like memories in the manner that they feel. Like memories when you suddenly remember something, you never question it's validity. To you, your memories are completely true and never false.

Tarot Cards and other Tools
How is it that something so random can actually accurately foretell the future? The answer is that it is not random. The concept of something being purely random is in fact a myth. Everything is being affected by everything else and nothing occurs for no reason at all.

Tarot as well as other tools of divination are affected by the one imprints upon it. There are two basic methods how this imprintation is done.

Method One
Allowing the focus or target of the divination to imprint upon the divination tool. This is done when the psychic asks the questioner to shuffle the deck. By doing so, the questioner imprints his or her energy upon the tool and this energy then affects the physical properties of the tool.

In life, we imprint our energy onto everything we touch and leave an energy trail everywhere we go., This is how these crime solving psychics are able to collect information on criminals. It is through reading the residual energy patterns left behind.

If one were to be the luckiest person on earth, every time this person were to roll the dice; the dice would turn up sevens. Every time this person were to drive into a parking lot, an opening would appear in front of the entrance way. To pick a bunch of numbers would be to win the lottery every time. How is this possible? It is because the energy pattern of such a person is affecting the physical world and it is the same process that fixes a deck of tarot cards as the questioner shuffles them.

Method Two
Not allowing the questioner to imprint onto the divination tool, yet the psychic is still able to read the information. The is done when the psychic swings a pendulum for example. What is actually happening is that the connection is made on another plane and this is done through the psychic.

This form of connection is a lot tougher and the burden is on the psychic to make the connection. Once this connection has been established, the psychic then uses his or her own impression of the connection to affect the physical world. In other words, the process of energy affecting the physical world is still the same, but in this case it is through the psychic.

Channeling

There is no rule that dictates that an object must have a physical body in order for a connection to be made. Channelers understand this all too well as they connect to what they call entities from other planes.

Again, the process where this is done is through mindstates and thus the ability to connect to an entity directly requires the ability to assume the specific mindstate.

How does the Channeled entity know things?

There are two ways that a channeled entity would know information.

1. The entity may not be an entity at all. Keep in mind that we often place names upon things and perceive things in ways that allows us to better comprehend what is happening and perhaps it may not be what is actually happening. The entity in fact may be nothing more than a state of existence where the psychic is at one with everything on that specific plane.
2. The entity may very well be an entity and is in fact giving this information through the psychic. This occurs when and because the entity is actually at one with everything on that specific plane. This is why so often Angels are channeled, which is because Angels are always in tune with the nature of the Universe being a part of nature.

In any case or however you perceive it, the process is still the same. The psychic must listen and experience the state of the Self and interpret it's reaction to this existence. 

Departing Thoughts

Let us discuss the most powerful and greatest form of currency that has ever existed on this Earth. Unlike the mighty dollar or all the gold in Europe, the value of this currency does not change. It can not be forged or falsified and it can not be possessed or hoarded because it is so powerful and we can not control it. It controls us. The currency I speak of is called Karma.

Karma is a form of currency and in many way we are at it’s mercy. Our entire lives revolves around earning and spending this currency known as Karma. In life everything has a price and this price is paid through Karma.

In the mundane world, should you wish to buy a car or any other product, anyone can write a check, but the real question is that do you have the currency to cover the check and pay for the product? In the magical world, anyone can do a spell, but the real question is that do you have the good karma to spend on making the spell work?

In the mundane world, you can spend money you do not have by getting a loan, but eventually you will have to return the money you borrowed or pay for the consequences of not doing so, such as through a repossession or simply by ruining your credit. In the magical world, you can also make a spell work by removing from your intention that no harm may come from the spell as well as other safety clauses we spellcasters put in our rituals. The spell will work, even though you did not deserve it to work, but you will have to pay for the spell working through earning good karma or face the consequences of being hit with bad Karma to pay for the spell.

In the mundane world you can cause damage to other people’s property and face the consequences of having to reimburse other people for your actions. In the magical world, it’s called doing bad things and it comes back threefold.

In the mundane world, you can save money for a rainy day. In the magical world, it’s called earning the right to use magic as needed. It is also called, building good Karma to improve one’s existence. However you perceive it, it is still the acquiring of good Karma to negate and dissolve bad Karma.

It is said that the Magician is the master of Karma. Let it be known that Karma is not this mystery force swirling around us like the wind. It is a specific force and one that once understood can be a friend to the Magician and not solely the deliverer of misfortune.

A final word of advice. That folded bill or silver coin in your pocket or wallet is more than just a piece of paper or a metal alloy. It is Karma incarnated into physical form. We have given it this power by assigning it value. Spend it wisely as if it was Karma you are spending, because that is exactly what it is. Abuse it and you will loose it. Spend it wisely and it shall return threefold.