I’ve been a diviner and a teacher for twenty years and a shaman for at least half of that. I write quite a bit and lecture here and there and I am often asked how to divine or how to do spae or seidhr well. It’s a simple question. What the person is really asking is this: “how do I do what you do?” The answer however is not so simple or perhaps I should say not quite so convenient to the practitioner. To begin with all three of those words imply very different techniques and practices. To be sure, there is some cross-over for the experienced practitioner, but in the cold, hard light of semantic fact, we’re dealing with three disparate things; and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

Spae and seidhr have become conflated over the years through the work of the Heathen group Hrafnar, which, in the 1980s, presented their reconstruction of the spae sequence in “Eirik the Red’s Saga”. For some reason, they termed what they do “oracular seidhr.” It involves a fairly elaborate performance with the seeress taking center stage. I am not, for many reasons a fan of Hrafnar style oracular seidhr (though it can work well for those trained in this method) and this is not what I personally practice. (1)   I am far more of the “if you want seidhr or spae sit down and do it” school of practice. That being said, traditional seidhr has very little to do with oracular work. It more often involves sorcery: either journeying forth for some particular intent, or actively weaving weal or woe into a person’s individual threads of wyrd.  That’s pretty heavy stuff. Spae, on the other hand, is reading wyrd and scoping out whatever there is to see there….in other words, a type of divination.

Divination by itself is an overarching term for the many practices that allow one to access a person’s wyrd, read the state of their luck, and ferret out patterns, possibilities, and potentialities of their fate and future. It can refer to any number of techniques, which may, to varying degrees, involve the development of the gift of precognition. Certainly being a good diviner involves an ability to follow many disparate threads to their source, to read patterns extrapolating on the macrocosm of a querent and his or her situation by examining the often confusing and fragmented aspects of the many little microcosms that so often make up the tapestry of our history and our choices, combined with an exquisite sensitivity to emotional and energetic currents. The good news is that to some degree all of these skills can be developed, though having some measure of inborn precognition is very helpful. The bad news is that it can be incredibly difficult even for someone naturally talented to develop a consistently high level of accuracy—and I believe that a good diviner must have at the very least 99% accuracy all the time. You read that rightly: all the time. That can, and rightly so, put a tremendous amount of pressure on the diviner which makes it all the more important that we learn to maintain ourselves and our skills effectively and well.

There are numerous tools by which these aforementioned skills might be developed and accessed:  runes, tarot, lithomancy, tasseography, augury by bird-flight (one of the oldest recorded types of divination originally practiced by Etruscan haruspices), extispicy, scrying, throwing the bones, ophiomancy and the list could go on and on. The system doesn’t really matter.  There are literally hundreds of methods of divination that have been used throughout history. In general, the diviner will choose to focus on one or two methods that work the best for that individual. Some systems are better for certain types of questions than others. Some, like runes, involve negotiating with a family of non-human spirits which has its pros and cons. Learning which system is best used for which querent is part of becoming a good diviner. I generally tell my students to master two systems well and then have at least one more as a back up. Sometimes querents will have a negative response to a particular system (I have one querent, for instance, who is terrified of runes); if a spirit is involved, sometimes that spirit will not wish to aid a particular person (I’ve had this happen with the runes), and sometimes it’s good to have a way of double-checking yourself. Also some systems are more taxing to the diviner than others. One of the best diviners I know has mastered twenty seven systems! When I started out (with tarot) I didn’t think I would ever be any good at divination. In fact, I was pretty sure I was awful at it. Doing my first reading for a friend was both embarrassing and terrifying. That divination has become one of the primary aspects of my work as a shaman I find both amusing and ironic, as well as gratifying.

There are elements to being a competent diviner that are very personal and choosing one’s tools, and the process which one undergoes in order to gain competency with those tools is one of those very personal processes. It’s important not to invest more in the tools than what is actually there. In some cases, as with runes or tarot, there are spirits (or in the case of tarot a spirit) to which the actual tools themselves are conduits. Those spirits don’t cease to exist if the particular tools are lost. Nor does a diviner lose his or her skill  if the tools are absent. The ability to divine becomes a way of consciously looking at the world, a headspace that one can slip into at will, as deeply or lightly as one might wish. Eventually, a truly skilled diviner will learn to read without anything at all, to simply sink his or her consciousness into the threads of wyrd itself and read what is writ there. That takes years however, and very diligent study.  

This actually brings up another good point. We usually speak of divination as the act of ‘reading’ fate, but in reality, the actual process of divining is more like translating and interpreting than reading. Very rarely is it as clear-cut as reading words printed on a page. More often, awareness and knowledge comes to the diviner subtly; sometimes there are images, smells, tastes, sensations – divination can often be quite kinesthetic for some of us – in addition to bursts of insight or knowledge. Sometimes there is Deity or spirit input. How the knowledge comes to the diviner is very much part and parcel of that diviner’s learning style, background, and mental filters as well as the needs of the querent.  It’s very, very interactive. In many respects, the diviner isn’t reading so much as translating the knowledge being accessed into the concrete medium of words and ideas and then interpreting those words and ideas into spoken language the querent can comprehend. There’s a give and take there, a reciprocity. It’s taking the fast, fluid rushing vastness of wyrd and compressing it, teasing out the salient points, and transforming it into something that can be clearly communicated. Communicating as clearly as possible is one of the most binding and sacred obligations of any seer. I often experience the flow of information, once I have accessed it, as a rushing river, or vast interlocking threads of wyrd. I can touch and examine these threads, or catch threads from out of that rushing river, but sometimes, admittedly, knowledge rushes by too quickly to be captured. Sometimes one can pull those threads, or bits of knowledge back, but sometimes not. I’ve noticed over the years that the greater the diviner’s facility with language and multi-cultural awareness, the more effective he or she will be in this process of translation. In essence, you’re giving yourself more and more varied tools with which to work.

Once a reading has been done, it is always in the wyrd. Very experienced diviners can, weeks or months later, backtrack and find the space that reading takes up, the knot that it makes, its position, its texture in the wyrd itself and, like opening a book in a vast library, access that reading and draw upon it for context for the same querent in further readings.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, the Gods will prohibit a diviner from speaking or conveying in any way what he or she sees. I and my colleagues have termed this ‘having a gag order.’ You can see it clearly. You know just what it means, but you are completely unable to tell the querent. If you open your mouth to speak, nothing comes out. There are usually very good reasons for that, which have nothing to do with the diviner. Sometimes, the Gods will block the diviner, actively block him or her from seeing anything about a particular querent. It is always Their prerogative to intervene in such a way. The proper thing for a diviner to do is to respectfully acquiesce, as frustrating as that may sometimes be.

Beyond this, there are some truisms about becoming a diviner that seem to hold true pretty much across the board. So I’m going to give folks a short little step-by-step guide on how to lay a foundation for excellence in the practice of divination, excellence and safety.

  1. Cleanliness is next to godliness: in order to maintain objectivity and a high level of what we term signal clarity (the ability to read accurately and to hear/experience the Gods and ancestors accurately) one must be energetically clean. As with physical cleanliness, this is not something that is done once and then never again. Maintaining energetic cleanliness is an ongoing process. I recommend cleansing the room in which one reads and oneself before and after every single client. On the days that I’m seeing clients, I smoke my reading room with recels of mugwort. I make offerings to my ancestors and ask them to watch over me and protect me. I asperse with Florida water before and after each client. I set out bowls of water by my front door, and throughout the public areas of my house to disperse negative energy. These are discarded outside after my client leaves. I also take a cleansing bath and work in a space that has permanent shields. Sometimes, malicious ancestors and other spirits can come in with a client. Keeping incredibly clean helps one to avoid interference or influence of those beings. It only takes one bad experience to realize why this is so amazingly important. I tend to bath and change clothes immediately after my client leaves too, because negative emotions and energy can adhere to the reader and, if there any malicious spirits involved in the client’s problems, I want to make sure there is no lasting connection to me and mine. So I recommend a cleansing bath, or, if that really is impossible, at least changing clothes and aspersing with Florida Water thoroughly after the client leaves.
Of course all this presupposes a high degree of preparation and mindfulness surrounding the entire divination process. That is as it should be though. Divination is a very, very sacred undertaking, not to be done lightly. If I have to (or choose to) do divination outside of my workspace, or on the fly without preparation, I will at least pray and ask my ancestors to watch my back.

2. Ward as though your life depended on it: My house is fully shielded all the time. It was part of my moving-in process—right up there with buying my mundane security system. Added to that, I have a workroom in which I see clients that has special, stronger shields on it. As a student of mine once said, shields are like condoms: better to have one and not need it than need one and not have it. Seriously, folks. Divining well requires a curious mixture of warded vigilance, keen awareness of threads and patterns, and open sensitivity united through active use of one’s skills and gifts. That’s not an easy thing. Wards allow the diviner to open up as much as is necessary, to sink fully into the flow of wyrd without worrying about any external, energetic distractions. They also offer protection against anything unpleasant that might be dogging the querent (it may not happen often, but it does occasionally occur). For those that aren’t sure how to ward and shield, I recommend my colleague Sophie Reicher’s book “Spiritual Protection,” (available at amazon.com) and/or Cat Yronwode’s online hoodoo course (this course is available at www.luckymojo.com). Hoodoo has many effective and easy to use techniques for warding space.

3. Your ancestors are your best protection: I cannot overemphasize the importance of developing an ongoing practice of honoring one’s ancestors. More than anything else, this is the most important work that you will ever do. Moreover, your own ancestors have your back. Most of them have a vested interest in seeing you happy, healthy, and successful. They can protect you during your work and will, if you ask, and take the time to develop a working relationship with them. Now, going into the ins and outs of how to do that is beyond the scope of this brief article, but there are many good resources out there. I highly recommend the recently released “Weaving Memory: A Guide to Honoring the Ancestors” by Laura Patsouris, available at amazon.com or http://www.asphodelpress.com/specialty.html. I also have numerous articles on my blog to help get you started: http://krasskova.weebly.com/blog.html. Just look under the “ancestors” tag to the right of the blog.

4. It’s all about signal clarity: This is a skill in which one can develop a high level of excellence. Maintaining that should be the goal of every committed diviner. For that reason, most of us are absolutely obsessed with maintaining good signal clarity. An awful lot of things can affect how well we divine, how well we can sense/hear the Gods and ancestors, how deeply we allow ourselves to sink into the flow of wyrd. It’s important to learn what helps increase your signal clarity. Some people have culled certain items (like processed food) from their diets; others order their schedules for a few days prior to a reading so that they can get a lot of sleep. Others engage in ascetic practices, some who are called to it in ordeal, others in certain rituals….this is another of those areas that is remarkably individual: each person must find what works best for him or her but regardless of what that may be, maintaining a high level of signal clarity must be top priority. The cold, hard truth of the matter is that if you can’t make the necessary sacrifices to keep your signal clarity open, then you shouldn’t be divining. Period. The corollary to that is that if you know you’re signal clarity is compromised (illness can do it, so can exhaustion or emotional stress) then you have an obligation not to read for clients. We all go through periods where our signal clarity is compromised. It happens. It’s called life. The responsible thing to do is not to read for others during that period. It’s also entirely likely that a diviner may not be able to accurately read for him or herself. I find that strong emotion in the diviner can block signal clarity. This is why maintaining a completely objective headspace is so important. It’s also why most serious diviners I know have other diviners to whom they go when they need readings themselves.

5. Keep your ego out of it: To divine well, as I noted above, the diviner must enter into completely objective headspace. What we feel about a thing, whether what we’re being given makes us comfortable or uncomfortable, whether we like or dislike the querent – all of these things make absolutely no difference. Diviners have a duty to leave all of those things at the door. We are there to find, translate, interpret, and convey information. What the querent does with it is not our concern. We must however, be very concerned that our own issues, feelings, problems, etc. do not in any way color the reading. The diviner must be centered and utterly objective. This can be learned through practice and hard work. All of which leads me to the next point.

6. Own your shit: There are no free rides in spiritual work, and that holds true most especially in divining for others. You are putting yourself in the role of conduit for the wisdom of the Gods, for the ancestors, for whatever there is to be seen and spied within the querent’s wyrd. That is an awesome and humbling responsibility. There is no room for arrogance, hubris, but also no room for any unresolved issues. You must obey the first maxim at the ancient oracle of Delphi: know thyself. Every motivation, every emotion, every response must come from a place of self-knowledge. This work is never about you. Upon taking up the mantle of diviner, we lose the luxury of lying to ourselves, of living in self-oblivion, of deluding ourselves about anything. We must be brutally honest about ourselves, our emotions and we must do the necessary work to find a place of centered wholeness and balance. Divination is a type of sacred service. It’s not about us and we’re not allowed to pretend that it is. Cultivate honest humility and take complete responsibility for yourself. This is also part and parcel of maintaining proper cleanliness within this practice. There’s no other way to truly do this work well.

7. Develop some sort of devotional practice: hand in hand with honoring one’s ancestors, developing an engaged and consistent devotional practice is a necessary life-line for any really good diviner. The Holy Powers keep us honest. They also support us and provide opportunities for deepening our understanding of our craft. The healthiest and most self-sustaining thing you can do is to develop a relationship with the Gods, committing your divinatory work to Their service.
 The word ‘divination’ comes from the Latin divinare: to be divinely inspired. Sometimes, divination moves beyond translation and interpretation. Sometimes the Gods can take a very direct hand in it. There is something beyond divining. Sometimes, the Gods will grab the diviner and pour themselves through his or her words. I call this ‘oracling’ or ‘being taken up as an oracle’ and I have known very few who were able to be taken up in this way. I don’t pretend to understand the ins and outs of being taken as an oracle. It is not Deity possession. I’ve experienced both and they are completely separate things, though oddly parallel in some ways. The closest I can come to describing it, is that in divination the diviner is a conduit for what is being seen and translated. He or she is a very active reader and translator. With oracle work it is more a matter of being taken up by the very flow of wyrd itself, or by a Deity and having the knowledge pour, without any other interface or translation process directly through the mouth of the diviner. In the first process, the diviner maintains control of when and how deeply he or she delves into the wyrd; in the second, the diviner is not in control. I do not know if one must also be able to sustain Deity possession (which takes a particular gift or mental wiring) in order to be taken up as an oracle, or if it is something all its own. This is something that I am researching now but I have no answers, only awe at the graces given to us by the Gods.

Finally, it should be noted that there can be a physical cost to intense divination sessions. To be quite blunt, I have been laid out after heavy amounts of work. Now, this is usually only the case with seriously advanced divination.  Headaches, muscle aches (particularly if Deity possession or oracle work was involved), nausea, disorientation, exhaustion, and tics are not uncommon. This can be offset by eating properly, getting enough sleep, and regularly doing some sort of exercise to keep one’s energy flowing properly. I usually recommend qi gung or tai chi. I also recommend limiting the number of clients seen daily. I almost never see more than two clients per day. Part of doing divination well means doing your best to take care of the tools you use, most importantly your body (secondarily, by cleansing your divination system every so often). I’ll be the first to admit, that I’m not so good at taking my own advice here. Still, it’s something to think about and speaking from my own missteps, something to try your best to integrate into your daily living. The better you are at taking care of your body, the easier you will find the advanced levels of divination because the deeper you will be able to go into the wyrd without dreading what I like to term the ‘non-alcoholic hang over” the next day.

Most of all, take pride in what you do and strive always to do it well. Have that in mind as your goal. In engaging in divination, you are entering into an ancient and sacred art. You are becoming part of a very holy lineage, a tradition stretching back thousands and thousands of years. As we honor our ancestors by blood or adoption, so too we who are diviners should honor those diviners who came before us, who served their Gods, honored their ancestors, and graced their people with this sacred gift. Once upon a time, divination was revered. It was recognized as a sacred craft, practiced in temples and holy places. We then, are the contemporary inheritors of the oracles of Delphi, the volvas mentioned in Tacitus’s “Germania,” the seeress summoned forth from the dead by Odin. There was a time, in some cultures, where armies did not move without a diviner’s say so and in others where we were revered like manifestations of the Gods. The corollary is that there is a tremendous responsibility assumed by anyone taking up divination, especially when seeing clients.  We must sacrifice and work very hard to gain a consistently accurate skill set. It should never be taken lightly. It’s not a parlor trick and it’s not a game. (2)

I’ll tell you something secret though: every single time I see a client, even after twenty years as a diviner, I still get nervous before the session begins. I suppose that’s good: it keeps me humble. 

  1. For all that I may disagree with certain elements of their approach, Hrafnar really opened the door for the greater development of magico-religious rpactices within contemporary Heathenry. They were really the first group to say that these things were a valuable part of Heathen practice and to experiment with ways of integrating them into community ritual life.
  2. Quoted from http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Sacred-Craft-of-Divination.html#



This article first appeared in the online magazine 'Crow Calls"
 


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