Intro to divination

The word divination is based on a Latin word that means "the faculty of foreseeing." Through the art of 
divination, practitioners seek to discover the divine meaning behind "chance" events.

Divination can open up the mind to the wonders of the spiritual world and the unseen forces at work in the 
shadows of the visible universe. 

Divination by stars, cards, and alphabets are the three most popular 
western methods of divination that have survived into the twentieth-century. Better known now as 
astrology, cartomancy and numerology, these three techniques are often employed by those trying to gain 
glimpses of future events.

Some form of divination be it Tarot, scrying, reading the heavens or casting rune stones or I-Ching coins, 
has been practiced in every society, ancient and modern. Most methods required tools of some sort such 
as: mirrors, standing water, crystal ball, pendulum, tarot cards, coins, sticks, stones, or animal entrails. 
The methods are as varied as the practitioners and though no method has ever proved better than another, 
those who practice will have a preferred, well practiced method.

Mine is the tarot. I even favor decks. At this moment the Radiant Rider-Waite Deck is my first choice with 
the Connolly Tarot by Eileen Connolly second and the Golden Tarot Deck third.

There are many theories about the Tarot's origin. Some cite gypsies, some the Hebrew Qabalah probably 
because the 22 cards of the Major Arcana seem to correspond with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

My favorite story is that in the great library of Alexandria, Hypatia, a famous librarian renowned for her 
wisdom, housed scrolls containing all the knowledge Throth had given to humanity. That knowledge was 
summarized into a series of 22 tablets that found their way to a band of roving people, or gypsies who 
copied the symbols of the tablets onto cards that became the Major Arcana.

While the actual origins of the tarot are uncertain, we do know that the first written account of divination 
through the use of cards is attributed to cartomancer Jean-Baptiste Alliette, a professional tarot occultist 
better known as "Etteilla", in 1770. He was the first to publish divinatory meanings for cards. Then Arthur 
Edward Waite brought them to popularity in the Twentieth Century for his commissioning the artist Pamela 
Coleman Smith to create what he called the "rectified" Tarot and his new deck, Rider-Waite Tarot, is still 
one of the most popular today.

Whatever its beginnings the tarot contains a timeless wisdom that a reader can tap into to find the 
answers to life's toughest questions.

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