Since the dawn of time, one question has crossed the mind of each and every single person that has ever lived:
“What is going to happen?!”
Fortunately, for just as long as people have been desiring to unravel the mystery of the future, there have been diviners, psychics, astrologers and mystics who have, through the use of different tools, practices, and knowledge of occult laws, offered insight and predictions about what lay ahead.
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Let’s look at some of the different methods of fortune-telling and how best to use them.
Predictive Astrology
Astrology can be used to predict the future in very many ways, perhaps the most valuable of which is in the examination of transits through the birth chart.
Each of us has a birth chart, which is a map of where the planets were the moment of birth, and this birth chart represents a complete portrait of your psyche and the spheres of experience in your life. As the planets orbit the zodiac year by year, they make aspects to the placements in your natal chart, triggering major life events.
This kind of natal chart reading can be of tremendous value and a great consolation when you are going through a very difficult period because it provides insight into the purpose of your current suffering— that is, what lesson you are meant to learn from the current ordeal— as well as a time frame for how long it will last.
It can be a great relief to know exactly when the hardship will be over, and what skill or attitude you are meant to be integrating into the personality!
When we willfully embrace a planetary transit like this and consciously choose to work on the healing of the weakness that the planet is exposing, the transit can become far easier because we are not blindly resisting change.
Conversely, natal chart readings also reveal when we have luck and good fortune on our side. When you have fortuitous transits to the natal placements, you can take greater risks and be more assured of success. Having awareness of what is “in your stars” is an excellent foundation for making life decisions.
Divination
Divination is perhaps the most common method of reading the future. When we use divinatory tools like Tarot Cards, Runes, the I Ching, or Geomancy, we are essentially holding up a mirror to a certain part of life, and letting the mirror reveal what energies or qualities are “at play” in that situation. The energies are represented in symbolic language or image.
A divination reading gives us a vibrational “snapshot” or an energetic portrait of the situation, revealing the primary influences that produced the situation, their current state, and how they will unfold into the future if we continue on the current trajectory.
The purpose of a reading like this is to be able to observe the situation from a “bird’s eye view”, and then determine the best path forward for ourselves based on what we have learned.
For instance, in a Tarot reading, the questioner focuses on the matter of concern and draws cards from the deck. The cards chosen will reflect or mirror the dominant energies that are active in the realm of the question, as well as the natural trajectory of their unfoldment.
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The cards may show people, situations, or attitudes that are contributing to the current state of things or developments that are about to manifest imminently. Often the cards reflect the inner state of the questioner himself.
Fate vs. Free Will
As soon as you spend any time working with oracles, you are bound to start wondering about concepts like “fate”, “destiny” and “free will”. Many people struggle with the idea that the future can be predicted because it implies that our future is already written and that there is nothing that we can do about it.
This is not the case. It is more complex than that!
The truth is that the future is a mix of “written” and “unwritten”.
Right now, there are many pathways that are lined up ahead of you as potential trajectories for your future. It is as though you are now standing at a crossroads with a hundred different paths before you.
When you practice certain behaviors consistently, or you consistently make the same kind of choice over and over again, or you focus upon and rigorously prioritize certain goals, activities or feelings, then certain trajectories become more and more likely, and thus start to solidify more concretely as the Road of your future, while other trajectories become less and less likely, and thus gradually fade away from your vibrational crossroads.
In other words, pathways that are initially “possibilities” over time become “probabilities,” and then eventually become so likely that they are essentially certainties. This is due to the force of momentum that has gathered behind the energy that you have focused upon in a sustained way— intentionally or unintentionally.
Thus, when you get a prediction from a divinatory tool like the Tarot or the I Ching, sometimes what is predicted is basically inevitable and “set in stone”, whereas other times the future is more malleable.
If energy has not built up much momentum, it is more subject to conscious influence. If we have put a lot of energy in a certain direction or practiced a kind of behavior consistently for a long time, or if we have taken severe or dramatic action, then it is a lot harder to stop the momentum that has built up.
Often the Tarot will indicate this malleability with a reversed card, showing that the energy is in a weaker state, either because it is very new, very old, repressed, or dormant.
You Create Your Reality
In many cases, the predictions given by a divination reading are heavily contingent on your current approach or attitude toward the situation.
This is important to remember, especially if you experience a negative reading! If you change your approach, you may change what the oracle predicts for you, because you are halting on the path that you are currently on and choosing a different one to go down. This changes your options.
The best way to handle a difficult divination reading is to diagnose the source of the tension, recalibrate your approach, and then apply these changes in your life. After some time has passed, you can get another reading, and you will likely find that more pathways to success have opened up!
One of the most valuable aspects of divinatory tools like the Tarot or I Ching is that they help us to become conscious of our own biases and motivations, and they reveal to us how dramatically our behavior and our attitudes are affecting the conditions of our lives.
One excellent way of using these tools is to ask what energy, attitude, or approach would be most beneficial for you to bring to your situation. This puts you in a pro-active and empowered orientation to your own future and is a far healthier way to use oracles.
Your future is not something that just happens to you, and you must not let a negative-sounding prediction from an oracle or an ominous warning from an astrologer discourage you from pursuing whatever you want.
There is always a path to what you want if you can remain open to life and flexible in your attitudes! Life is a sea of energy, and oracles help to reveal the direction of the currents, and how strongly the currents are moving.
Once we get an energetic reading, we can adjust our behavior to “go with the flow” and follow the path of least resistance!
Mary West is a metaphysician, writer, astrologer, and Magician. She teaches her students how to work with astral energy to enhance personal power, growth, productivity, and illumination.
