One of the customs that makes Neo-Pagan theology so different from most other mainstream religions is our practice of ritual and religious divination. Fortunetelling can also be done for completely secular purposes―and often is, sometimes by the same people who do religious community divination, because the skills are the same and they want to help support themselves in the rest of their life―but specifically religious divining has been done for thousands of years. In secular divination, the diviner seeks to tap into the “cosmic library” regarding one person’s fate or current situation, with or without the aid of spirits. In religious divination, the Gods themselves are specifically asked to reveal the answer to a situation, usually relating to their worship or their worshipers. It is assumed that they will have an opinion on the matter, and that their opinion will probably be based on a broader and more informed perspective than our own.
Many mainstream religions eschew divination, with the reasoning that it “steals God’s powers”. (In other mainstream traditions, the objection is that it comes from the Devil―which is irrelevant to our world view―or that it shows a lack of faith because if God wanted to tell you, God would be direct, which we also believe is not necessarily true.) In Pagan traditions, divination has been accepted in ways that range from enthusiastic to suspicious, but even in the traditions that suspect it, the validity of the practice is not suspicious so much as the skill and honesty of the practitioners.
In the minority of Pagan groups who eschew divination for religious purposes, their objection seems to stem from a perception of the diviners themselves as being highly likely to insert their own message instead of the will of the Divine, and an inability of the watching clergy and congregation to discern the diviner’s skill and clarity. This is a valid fear―and one which is dealt with in the aforementioned by myself and Kenaz Filan on talking to the spirits―but divination as a spiritual practice is deeply entwined with Pagan religious history, and we know it.
Temples almost always had professional diviners, and before that tribal priests and shamans did the job for their people, figuring out who could be called upon for aid and who should be propitiated.
Auguries and omens were a means by which our Gods communicated with their worshipers, as was trance mediumship.
Kings, generals, and chieftains consulted the most famous oracles, who became famous largely due to their accuracy.
Those of us who have performed religious divination know that the idea of “stealing divine powers” is ludicrous. We can’t steal divine powers. It’s not possible, and the idea itself is an immense act of hubris. We are only allowed to see what the Holy Powers allow us to see, and they are absolutely capable of stepping in and shutting down our perceptions, or erecting a sudden wall between us and our desired information. In many divination systems there is even a specific sign or symbol which means
“Sorry, you don’t get to know that.” When this comes up in a reading, I take it as the Holy Powers saying, “This will be much more meaningful to you if you figure it out yourself, rather than just hearing it come out of the mouth of some diviner.” It might also be “There’s a long-term good reason why you don’t get to know that yet, and to explain the reason would be to give too much away.”
Divination is no more stealing divine power than, say, a microscope might be. We can’t see microbes with our physical eyes, and before we knew how to look at them, we were much more likely to be killed by them. Most of us would not agree that microscopes are “cheating” and that we should all be trying to live with only the information we can gather with our ordinary, unassisted senses, especially when it comes to saving people’s lives.
Similarly, divination is just another kind of technology, and like all technologies, the Gods are quite skilled at helping or blocking results.
Believing in and using divination does throw a different slant on our religious beliefs, however. While I am sure that all Pagan polytheists would agree that there is a great deal about the Gods and spirits that we cannot comprehend, and that some of those mysteries will probably remain mysteries forever, the presence of divination does increase the horizons of what we actually do consider to be knowable. We might ask questions about the best spiritual or mundane direction of a seeker, or the best action in a difficult situation, or what Gods or spirits that seeker should be consulting, and what those spirits might want of them. Religious divination tends to be less about love life or career, the top subjects for secular readers, and more about spiritual life direction.
It can be a useful skill for a clergyperson who does pastoral counseling; when it is done properly, it can give insight into potential paths that the counselor might not have figured out on their own. It can also ask about deities themselves―what they might want, how they work in the world, what their nature might
be. It is a good way for the Gods to communicate with people who don’t have the right wiring to consistently hear the voices of ethereal beings, but need a specific message given to them anyway.
Divination is practiced in non-western polytheistic religions as well; Hindu temples never stopped having diviners, and Vedic astrology directs the lives of a sizeable percentage of India.
Buddhism also has a variety of divination methods associated with it; while “pure” Buddhism is not technically polytheist at all (and actually has a number of early writings that speak out against divination), it merged with the original polytheistic religions everywhere it settled, and adopted their pantheons, their divinatory methods, and the assumption of their people that the new priests would offer this service as well. Later Buddhist writings explored arguments justifying divination in order to make theological peace with this adopted practice, and it is still customary in most of Buddhist Asia.
Even the most divination-resistant faiths have some kind of practice of attempting to speak to the divine forces, if only through prayer. One could consider religious divination as a form of highly structured prayer, with the structure set up in such a way as to make it as effective as possible for the Holy Powers to get through any messages they may have for us. After all, we can’t make them talk; nor can we force the Akashic Records (or whatever you want to call it) to open for us merely because we demand it. If we consider the information that is given to us through divining―whether about our own lives or about the nature and desires of the Gods―to be a gift to us that is only given if it would be in the long-term best interest to do so, then we will not fall into any traps of hubris. However, as the man who first looked through a microscope discovered, what can be known is much, much more than we ever expected.
All theological discussion of divination eventually ends with the question of Fate, and usually people insist on asking either/or, black-and-white questions about whether we are all destined to lockstep through our lives with no free will, or whether there is no such thing as fate. As usual―and with what you’ve learned about a polytheistic worldview so far, you should be expecting this answer―it’s not that simple, and there is no one answer that works for everyone. As far as we can tell, everyone destiny―and the amount of “destiny” one has―is very individual. Some people are allowed to mess around, make all their own choices, and rack up their own consequences; they are truly the captain of their own
ships, for better or for worse. Some people have very strong destinies which will drag them, kicking and screaming if necessary, down a specific path to a set end. Most people, however, are somewhere in the middle; there are particular lessons that they will be made to learn, others that will simply be offered (sometimes repeatedly) in the hopes that they will willingly take them on, and a great deal of free will to screw up in between.
How does one find out what sort of destiny you have? Well, for thousands of years, and currently in many places in the world, one finds out through divination. (Astrology is particularly good at giving a general picture of one’s destiny, or lack of it.) And, as any diviner will tell you, people with a strong destiny spend a great deal of time complaining about how little free will they have, and people who are here to make their own choices spend a great deal of time complaining about how they wish they knew what they were supposed to be doing. Even with all the information that the Gods are willing to give us, we still aren’t satisfied … and perhaps that is one of the most important lessons of all.