Devoured by Flame

Divination is the most widely used form of communication with the Divine. The Divine can use the symbols and meanings of different outcomes to convey a message just as much as They can convey a possibility in the future. The Gods tend to be more in line with metaphor and analogy more than They are basic words and skills that we humans require to talk. Though it is very likely for us to realize the Gods can have a conversation with us using our own language, we also have to recognize that the Gods’ “first” language is not widely deemed by us to be a language in the first place.

If it is true that the Gods concept of time and space is not linked to the material realm but rather the non-corporeal beings outside of them, then the best way to relate to Their own understanding is by uses of ideas and meaning. We cannot connect to Them without using our own brains and forming ideas and relationships to context through our daily experiences. Divination with tarot, oracle cards, and runes can make those concepts into the Divine language and interpret what is being said through a shared framework instead of using one that is laying around somewhere.

The framework is easy – using archetypes that are universally constructed in nature and behavior tend to be the best way to describe something to a human just as easily as it is the best way for an infant to describe a color just by pointing at it when words become an obstacle. I’m not saying the Gods are infants, but just like how deaf people need to use sign language to communicate, most often the Gods need Their own language to communicate as well.

We tend to think of the Gods being similar to humans for some reason. We think They are more than humans and should be capable of reaching us no matter the conditions. And while this is true, it takes a sort of rapport between us and them to build this framework because it cannot happen within a vacuum. 

First, we can discuss how using the divination methods of tarot, oracle, and runes can better be used to assist in divining a message and the different stages one can look at using these methods to then create sentence fragments and pieces of knowledge that are more easily shared through words – otherwise known as channeling. 

Beginning Uses of Cartomancy

First, it is important to use only one deck per Deity you are trying to communicate through them with. If you use more than one deck, it becomes way too varied and associated with many things and art that can lean over Their dealings with you. You want to start simple and then build up.

For example, I used to use the popular The Wild Unknown by Kim Krans to talk to Loki and to understand the ideas He is trying to convey to me. I also had a matching oracle deck that would also be helpful in conveying different factors. Both of them would sit on Loki’s altar so that He also knows that these decks are His and I use them to ask questions and get answers and context for what we’re trying to solve together. 

His energy would then be transferred to the cards and I would get more accurate answers consistent with Him and His work and our work together. 

I would combine experiential meaning with the meaning of the cards. For example, when I was first discerning whether the being I was talking was Loki, I would look for symbols of His that would make it easier to recognize who I was talking to. However, given the fact that Loki doesn’t like giving me answers that I expect, He often wouldn’t actually use that symbolism unless I was desperate. More on that later. However, if everything was going to plan and Loki was amenable to using my system of thought so I can discern Him, He would use the Knight or King of Wands to describe Himself. Otherwise, when referring to His teacher aspect to me, He would often regard Himself as the teacher or Hierophant or the problem solver of Judgment. 

Both scenarios would distinguish Him and His causes through means of archetypal usage and understanding that are aligned with how I better understand Him. This only came through time and practice as well as noting repeating cards and circumstances that take place over time. This is when a journal comes in handy or writing down the different answers you receive. The changes that may happen with the same question being asked are worth also noting because the changes can relay what’s really going on compared to how it might be different between one time period to the next. 

However, as I said before, problems with this method vary based on who you are working with. Loki often plays mind games or tricks and will give you whatever answer you’re wanting to hear to throw you towards whatever outcome He thinks is important – whether that outcome is what you’re wanting to happen, it doesn’t matter. He can use things like fear and expectations to make you come around to learning a thing or two. Unless you know Him and His strategy, it is incredibly difficult to use just one system to understand Him. 

Getting to know how your Deity undertakes this sort of thing is equally important. You can ask Them what kind of answers you should expect to hear, how They might use this to Their advantage to getting you to hear them, or how They might throw you through the wringer just to make a point. On the flip side, when I talked to Thor using tarot cards, the answers were always extremely straightforward and cut and dry. It truly depends on whom you’re working with and how much They regard the use of this and how They might teach an answer instead of giving it to you. On more than one occasion, Loki fed me the answers I wanted to hear before actually getting me to hear them. 

In this phase, you can use a spread to get to the bottom of this, and elaborate as necessary. I recommend using smaller two to three card spreads to answer a question rather than four or five as it takes a bit more nuance and the more open you are to changing the way it operates, the easier the conversation through the cards can happen. 

Tarot Conversations

Once you have this down, you can move onto using the cards as meanings into conversation. Learning the meanings of the cards and how they relate to the Deity and how They work can take years of practice just because you are learning based on how you learn and not how everyone else around you has taught you. But from there, you can start a conversation with the cards by pulling one at a time rather than using a spread. 

For example, you can start by asking a “what do you need me to understand?” And you pull a single card and you get The Fool. Well, given what I know about the meaning of the card as well as what I know about Loki, this is very much His sort of lesson. He operates similarly to The Fool by being light on His feet and only rolling with the wind rather than making plans. So I’d ask the next question based on that – “how can I be more flexible to change?” Or even “how can I make use of this energy to better understand my life?” And go from there. It’s better to know the basic meanings and then put them as the answer rather than complicate it by knowing every nuance. Usually, your gut instinct is important here. If the first meaning of the card comes into your head, use that one. This could even be helpful with the decks that have single word phrases on the bottom that help describe the meaning. 

Moving forward with my first example, I pull the next card from answering the question of the Fool, and get 8 of Swords which means self-victimization. This example would mean I need to stop getting into my own head and using this as a way to hide from the world because I believe that the world is out to get me. We all deal with this. So my next question would be how can I break through this barrier in getting to not be so caught up in my own head and story? And then moving on from there, a great many other questions can arise. 

Using Tarot to Start a Conversation

Once you have this kind of distinction with the cards down, you can move forward and have words you can use to encourage the use of what would be widely known as a “godphone.” Once you hear one thing, you may even begin to hear another and surely enough, more words will come to the front of your mind and match what’s going on with the cards. 

This is easier done when you have experience answering the thoughts in your own head about it and distinguishing your own thoughts with the answer you have made. However, I have found that through the years of using the same deck with Loki, I can start a conversation with Him using any single card and sometimes it’ll start the conversation if I’m already having a hard time distinguishing His voice from others, or I will use it as context from which the framework of the idea will be used and have the conversation from there. 

Troubleshooting

Your frame of mind is the most important to think clearly about what is being said and make the most of the use of the cards without your bias getting in the way. 

That being said, here’s a list of things you don’t want to be doing before trying this technique. 

Do not be in a state of upset. If you are just coming down from grief, you have a lot of stressors in your immediate environment, or on the verge of a panic attack, you will not be open to receiving any advice let alone be talked down from it. It takes a great amount of skill to hear the Gods through occasions like this and it is next to impossible for the common practitioner. Calm down, see a therapist, or get help before ever attempting to have a conversation with a God. Otherwise, you could twist the meanings to be the worst case scenario and it would not help anyone.

Do not watch a horror films, or any other media like the news or be on social media and doom scroll. This can also encourage upset and paranoia. You will be unable to think in a way that is clear and straightforward and it will not benefit you in the slightest. Paranoid divination is also a thing that can happen. At this point, it would be best to reach out to a third party who doesn’t know what’s going on for their opinion. Otherwise it’ll just be automatically biased towards whatever you’re paranoid about. 

ADHD, anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and depression can also create issues where there are none. Being medicated and otherwise treated with talk therapy among other treatment plans are a good thing to look into while doing this kind of work. Trauma and other issues are typically easily triggered once you begin to divine. In order to step out of mindsets that were once contributory to trauma and other issues, you need to break the cycle and that cannot happen by continuing down the business-as-usual approach. You will need talk therapy and other medications to assist you in discerning what you are hearing as psychosis is easily triggered and can lead to worse spirals than before. 

Do meditate, clear your mind, and be of a sound mind, body, and emotional well-being. You don’t have to be perfect by any stretch of the imagination, you just need to be less likely to twist the answers into something else. This, of course, takes trial and error and I can’t give you any sort of information that will otherwise impact you or your own biases, that needs to be what you perceive. Allowing yourself to step into an alternative state of mind will be more easily done when you have allowed yourself to let go of the world around you for at least 5 minutes at a time. If that isn’t possible, consider waiting until a time that it is. The Gods can wait.

Try to not have any expectations with how things should happen. The best answers may surprise you with how accurate they are while arriving at a different conclusion all the same. If you go into this with expectations on how a God should behave, you’re already setting yourself up for failure. If you have not done appropriate discernment before placing a suggestion that you are in relationship with a being you may not be in relationship with, your answers may also may not make any sense ever. I would reconsider who you’re talking to and see if there’s another being or relationship you’re striving for. 

For example, if you assume you’re agreeing to work with Athena but you don’t know Her very well, you may end up not knowing the context from which you’re agreeing upon. That will ultimately make your answers become more problems for you to solve and the context just wouldn’t be there at all. Use it wisely. Don’t assume things. 

It is always possible that you are wrong. It doesn’t matter how long you claim to have been Spoused to a Deity or how long you claim to have worked with Them. No matter who you are, you are still working with a Being who is unseen to the naked eye. I have met people who have learned they are not who they think they are to a Deity after 5 years and are in for the shock of their life when they find out otherwise. Even when you have it on good terms that you are right, there is always a possibility you are misinterpreting the context and framework from which the God is working from. 

Do not write off your experiences leading up to this point, but take into consideration that they can be used in a wrong way that the Deity did not intend. Keep an open mind no matter how emotionally loaded the question is – but do not overwhelm your brain with doubt. There is a balance here – the more open you are to discovery and experience, the less likely you are to be wrong about what you’re experiencing. 

You can have the right steps to come to the wrong conclusions and that typically is due to context being invalidated by the world we live in now. You cannot know things that come from the aether. 

I’ll talk about this more in my next post about encouraging a balance between being right and being wrong. Until then! Thank you for reading and please let me know your thoughts!