Sunday, May 22, 2011

Better Living with Astrology and Tarot

My new book, Better Living with Astrology and Tarot, is now available at lulu.com. The book explains astrology and Tarot starting with basic concepts, and shows you how to use both for planning personal development.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

What is Divination?

For the purposes of this article, we will assume that the universe was not the result of a random incident, but was instead designed. We will also assume that the design is holographic; that is, information about each item and event also exists at other times and places. We will assume further that events in the universe are not all the result of random chance, that at least some of them were planned by the designer to provide learning opportunities.

Divination, then, is the art of using tools that work with the interconnected nature of the universe to get information about events and any lessons those events may have been intended to teach. Two popular examples of divination tools are astrology and Tarot cards.

Divination is useful because by getting information about future events, we can decide to learn the lessons those events are intended to teach up front, therefore mitigating the effects of those events, or in some cases, rendering the events unnecessary.

As an example, let's say that John Doe goes to see an astrologer. The astrologer notices that the planets Saturn and Pluto will soon be in a stressful alignment to where the planet Venus was at John's birth. In astrology, the planet Saturn signifies restriction, selectivity and focus, and sometimes fear, while Pluto signifies transformation, and Venus signifies how we value things and people. The astrologer tells John that he should examine his attitudes about what he owns and the people in his life. He tells John this because the alignment mentioned above is known to cause financial stress and changes in relationships.

Now John had been in the habit of making unnecessary purchases using credit cards.  John has a choice at this point: he can take the astrologer's advice or ignore it. If he takes the astrologer's advice, he would probably think things over and conclude that it's more important to have nice people in his life than nice things. He could then decide to put away his credit cards and spend more time cultivating friendships. If he ignores the advice, he will end up in bankruptcy court around the time the alignment happens, and eventually reach the same conclusion, but he will have learned the hard way.

What's important to note about this example is that the astrologer didn't simply tell John what was going to happen. He told John something better: what to do about it. Most importantly, he gave John the opportunity to learn a needed lesson the easy way instead of the hard way. This is how astrology and other divination tools are meant to be used.