By Asteria |Staff Writer|
In the light of our new divination fortune telling endeavors, featured in the Expressions section, on the back cover the newspaper, we asked students what was their take on divination and fortunetelling in general.
“Isn’t that kind of like the fortune tellers at carnivals and stuff?” asked Sam Salazar, a student at Chaffey College.
There are numerous of different ways in which one can read their future: tea leaves, tarot cards, numerology and astrology.
Even staring into a candle flame to read the shapes that appear is considered a form of divination.
Divination found it’s way into pop culture through shows like Charmed, Supernatural, Once Upon a Time and Merlin.
In fact, it’s become so common that divining cards can be picked up from stores like Target, Urban Outfitters and even ordered online stores like Etsy.
There are different types of cards for divination, with the two most popular being tarot or oracle.
Oracle cards are a much simpler form of divination, lacking the same structure that tarot requires, which involves different suits, alignment of cards and other necessary things.
In a tarot deck, there are 78 cards always and is made up of 5 different suits that are also split into the major and minor arcana.
Oracle cards have no rules, and one reads them as they believe fit.
If card reading isn’t your thing, maybe you’re a fan of horoscopes.
Everyone knows their sun sign, but not everyone else knows about the rest of their birth charts.
“I don’t even know what a birth chart is,” said Elliot Navarro, a student at Chaffey College.
Strictly speaking, with a birth chart, there’s a lot more to learn about yourself.
A birth chart is made up of different components that all point to the person that you are, or are in the process of becoming.
This includes your sun sign which is what most people know as their zodiac, their moon sign, the positions of planets and how they affect your personality, and the different “houses” of the zodiac.
The houses involve different aspects of your life, such a money, power, sex, addictions and other important milestones.
“The zodiac wheel is based on the sun’s apparent yearly rotation about our Earth (along the ecliptic), while the wheel of Houses is based on our Earth’s 24-hour rotation about its own axis. The 2 wheels join together at points derived by calculations involving your exact birth time and astronomical birth coordinates. Then, the planets are described in 2 ways: as being in a zodiac sign, and also as being in a House. For example, two people may both have a Libra Sun sign, but one may have the Libran Sun in his 12th House, while the other may have his Libran Sun in his 1st house. This could make for two very different types of people.” (Corrine Lane. (19 Aug. 2009). 12 Astrological Houses – Astrology Lesson 4. In Free Astrology Lessons (4). Retrieved from https://astrolibrary.org/houses/)
If the stars cannot answer questions to what one seeks, then maybe numerology may be more suitable.
Numerology is just as it would sound; using numbers to predict the future or give answers to those probing questions asked in life.
Probably the vaguest type of divination, numerology is fairly easy to learn.
There are different variations, but the Latin alphabet system is most commonly used in divining, wherein letters of the alphabet are assigned to a number 0-9 and messages or “signs” are seen with these numerical patterns.
More of a type of code than a divining method, but still qualified as such.
Another type of divination many are familiar with is palmistry or palm reading.
“It was a super cool experience having my palm read, although I’m still kind of skeptical about how real it is,” said student, Lexi Hernandez.
The lines on our hands are meant to tell what kind of life we live, and palmistry is much more concrete than any other divining method.
It is considered more accurate because every time you look at your hands you will be reminded of what it all means.
Divination, fortune telling—whatever you call it— know that this type of practice has been around for a long time.
While Western culture typically shies away from practices linked to the supernatural, it still continues to fight for relevancy in our forward thinking world.
***Note: pseudonym is being used on all divination readings which are done by Clairissa Gonzalez
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