For a Geekomancer, and especially solo practitioners, divination is one of very few ways  for them to check their work. Did that spell actually function as intended? Did they actually capture that spirit they were working on? For newbies, this is indispensable. This is also a good way to diagnose situations and get a different point of view regarding any potential situation. It’s also a good way to get the local gossip if you don’t want to leave your house and physically speak to people. 

What is Divination

Divination can roughly be defined as seeking knowledge through supernatural means. It does not need to be knowledge of the future, or even the past. Most often, I divine for the actual nature of present situations. Some might say divination is the art of being a nosy bitch, but in occult flavor. Divination can be done via cards, dice, bottle caps, charms in a bag, smoke, or any of an endless number of mediums. Back in the day, people would supposedly use the positions and colors of animal organs after they spilled as a divination medium. 

Why is it Essential

Not everyone has the same level of intuition, and not everyone experiences magic in the same ways. For those of us who cannot see or otherwise ‘sense’ many of the subtle movements of magic, divination is the only way to make sure the things do what we want them to do. In essence, it’s a way to train yourself and check the status of anything you are interested in. 

If you don’t have a teacher who you can meet in the normal world, you are going to need to train your divination skills to the point where you can get basic information with ease. 

Types of Divination Tools

Some of the most well-known methods and mediums of divination are tarot cards, oracle cards, runes, pendulums, and forms of ‘bones’ that do not necessarily need to be made out of animal bones. For those who cannot overtly use occult tools, playing card decks and bones made of common, every-day items can also be used. 

For those who cannot use physical items, there are also random number generators and phone apps that can serve this purpose. For an acquaintance of mine, digital divination works just as well as physical cards. Not all tools get along with all practitioners, either. One of the first decks I purchased, the Bone Tarot, doesn’t really get along with me. I work best with illustrated decks that have a lot of different details for me to look at and consider. I also work better with Oracle decks than I do with Tarot decks. 

Finding which tools work best for you is a long process, and it essentially the process of trying different tools over the course of a long period of time. Some suggest sleeping with a tool underneath their pillow in order to form a bond. But, there are also tools that won’t work well with each person. Those who use a Pokemon-based paradigm may want to make their own divination deck out of cards from the Pokemon TCG. That can also be applied to those who work with the Magic the Gathering paradigm.