mo

Oct

2015

Divination Querent Etiquette and Advice

After having an…interesting client for my mo dice divination service recently, I decided to make a list of things to keep in mind to be a good client when receiving divination. Some of these are etiquette and out of respect to the diviner, some of them are to make the reading more useful for you.
One Oracle

The image sums it up, if you go to someone to get a reading on something, that’s it, don’t shop around until you get an answer you want. If you believe in divination, and the skill of the diviner, it isn’t their fault something crappy is in the reading, and if you avoid it, go to others until you hear what you want, then you won’t get anything out of it. You see enough people and eventually someone will tell you the future you want, it’s useless to go that route. The only exception I would say to this, is if you’re planning a major life change, and you decide before getting your first reading that you’ll see three people (or whatever), because then you’re going in knowing it’s part of a bigger picture, if you decide during/after the divination session you want more opinions, it’s because you didn’t like what you heard. Sadly reality doesn’t care if you like it, so you’re better of dealing with it. I can, and have, declined clients who mention that they’ve already seen another diviner, unless they’ve given me a good reason on why they didn’t trust the other reading or why another is warranted.
Know your question
Vague and broad questions can be useful for a very loose overview. “Tell me about my love life” “How do my finances look?” But for the most part your ability to get a good answer out of divination is having a clear sense of your question. A lot of good diviners (and I’d like to put myself in that group, at least for this category) will spend time discussing your question, and help you figure out what it is that you’re actually looking for. Not all can or will, but even if they will, you’re better off having a clear sense of what you want to ask. Think of it like any other question, how do you feel when you meet someone at a party and they say “So, tell me about you.” What do you say, that’s way too broad. “What’s your favourite Disney movie?” There is a question you can answer and actually engage. “What is the Sun?” That’s a really big question, what do you want to know? “How does the Sun build complex elements?” Again, better. Unfortunately not all diviners will help you work out good questions, but even if they will you should have a sense of what you’re looking to find out.
Question, don’t counter
Every once and while a diviner will say something that doesn’t line up, either in reality or your perspective. It’s an interpretive art, so maybe something was translated wrong. If you want a useful reading question that interpretation to understand it, don’t counter it as being wrong. If I say something about stress with your mother, and you have a great non-stressful relationship, don’t attack that mistake, ask if it could be someone else? Could it be someone you mother, could it be a nurturing woman in your life. Instead of shutting down because something is wrong, see if there is a reason they’re off, could it just be an interpretive mistake? Within reason. Always be critical of what other people tell you, especially diviners you don’t know, but there is critical and then there is contradictory.
They’re the expert, for this moment
You know your life, they know their tools and their reading. Nothing is more “dangerous” to a divination than having a client who somewhat understands the system. Each tarot card has dozens of ways it could be read in any circumstance, the thing is the diviner is the one tied into the reading. What you were taught a card meant, is often far less relevant than how the diviner is reading it at that moment. I know this could seem to contradict the point above, but this is about challenging them based on your understanding of the system. If they say the Four of Disks means something you’ve never heard before, go with it, they’re in the flow of the reading, it’s their deck, and their methods. If I might add my personal insult, the mo dice divination I use requires me to have received specific initiations, performed hundreds of thousands of mantras, and be practiced in a specific set of rituals. Yet occasionally when I do a reading someone who has read a book on the system will question my interpretation based on their text.
Listen, don’t reinterpret
We’ve all seen it I’m sure, the divination says one thing, and no matter what the reader says, the client twists it around. You can be as straightforward as possible, and yet they’ll reply as if you said something totally different. “Yeah, the cards say this relationship is a horrible idea and no good will come of it.” “So you’re saying we have to make sure we’re communicating our emotions?” “No, I’m saying the relationship is doomed.” “So it will take some work. Gotcha.” Do not get me wrong, as the one receiving the reading it is your job to make it apply to your life, but that is not the same as wildly reinterpreting it to say what you want. If you think it could mean something else, like I said above, you can question, politely and from a curious position, but that’s not jumping right from the Tower to “Happily ever after.”
One question/theme at a time
This goes back to know what you’re asking. It also depends on the type of reading you’re getting. I’ve had someone buy a dice divination session with me, which is quite clearly one question, and then proceeded to give me a list of fifteen different and vastly unrelated questions. They obviously didn’t know what they really wanted to know, and it took a lot of extra time on my behalf just to get to the point. (They’re lucky, in person my divination sessions are charged on an hourly rate) Also, for getting practical and useable results you’re better off focusing on a narrow set of things. So if you have 20 minutes with a tarot reader, don’t ask about love life, your job, your family, and your investments. Pick a theme, maybe two, and investigate them.
Talk with the reader
It might be interesting to really test a reader, see how psychic they are, just sit down in front of them and have them give it a go. Interesting, yes, but not the most useful. If I’m spending most of my time and energy trying to pick up details from the aethers, I can’t use that time and energy to help give you useful answers. Not only that, but you’re a complex person, your life is large, and sometimes there is stuff going on you’re not aware of. So you’re having trouble at work, and you ask me to be all psychic and tell you what’s wrong in your life, I tell you your mother is dying, you laugh cause she hasn’t mentioned anything wrong. So you don’t hear what you wanted to hear about, and might reject what I do tell you. If you tell me you have something wrong at work, then we can look at that. As my tarot teacher used to say to me “You don’t go to the doctor and say ‘I’m sick, guess what’s wrong with me.’ You tell them some symptoms.” If you want a useful reading, talk with the reader, give us feedback, let us know what you think is wrong, what you want to know about, and we can look at that. Otherwise we’re looking at your entire life, and trying to pull out relevant information to satiate your curiousity.
Use the information to make a plan
This is probably one of the most important pieces for someone receiving a reading, and if you ever get a live reading with me, it’s probably a big chunk of the session. Think for a moment, how many tarot readings and what not have you received? Now how many of them gave you relevant information? Now, how often did you actually make good use of that information? The thing is most of us, myself included, get the information and think “Oh that’s interesting” or “I expected that” or “Good to know” and leave it at that. Then events play out more or less the way they were going to anyways. Make a plan on how to use the information, and make it fast, or you’ll never use it. I usually get my clients to come up with one concrete action they can take within 24 hours. It doesn’t have to be major, but it has to be concrete, they can’t just say they’ll think about what to do with the information, no, they have to write it out. If it’s about something you can’t act on right away, then your action can be to make a to-do list for when you can act, set a calendar reminder on your phone, and start work when you can. Then along with the action in the next day I usually have them set out a concrete action for the next week, or month, depending on the scale of the reading. The important thing is to do something that sets into motion working with the reading, otherwise you just take the information and it is in one ear and out the other.
These are just a few of my thoughts on how to be a good querent and make the most of your readings. What other ideas do people have, both are readers, and those receiving the divination?

Oct

2014

Substitutes

A popular practice in Tibetan magick is to make a substitute, which is by no stretch just a Tibetan or Buddhist practice, pretty much every culture has something similar. Though you don’t tend to see it in ceremonial magick, I suspect because of the disconnect that happened between living culture and practice. I’m going to share a variation on the Tibetan substitute, I say variation because every teacher probably has it done a little differently, and every practitioner has their own twist I’m sure. Making substitutes is one of the most common suggestions that come up in a mo dice reading. It’s used to uncross (in Western parlance), to make peace between you and a spirit you’ve offended, to misdirect magickal attacks, or to release stubborn connections.
One thing I like about Tibetan substitutes is that they’re fairly impermanent (shocking I know). I remember years ago making a doll substitute with a friend to help with some rough shit going on, and while it worked I was stuck with this little doll until I learned how to safely release it.
For making the substitute base you need flour, butter, salt, and water.
I don’t know if anyone ever actually has a recipe or proportion my advice is basically what I’ve been offered and what I tell people “mix the stuff together until you get a stiff dough that isn’t sticky.” Obviously it’s more flour than anything, butter and water are the next main ingredients, and barely any salt is needed. Make a fist-sized ball, you won’t need too much.
When you have the dough ready there are a few steps to align it with you, first make it into a ball and hold it in your non-dominant hand, then with your dominant thumb press firmly down on the dough to leave a thumbprint and a hole most of the way through the dough. The thumbprint is the first step of aligning it to you. Now that you have this cave in the dough ball you can fill it with something else to connect to you. Depending on the severity of the issue, what you’re comfortable with, and whatever considerations you have, you can either breathe into the hole (probably the “weakest” of connections), spit into it, put in some blood/semen, or work in some nail or hair clippings that were taken off just to put into this.
With all of these feel free to put more work behind it. For instance when breathing or spitting into the dough I usually very consciously breathe in slowly and let the energy I breathe in fill my body and mix with it, then from my core I breathe out slowly of my own energy. If I’m going to spit, as I breathe out I try to “filter” the energy and my breathe apart forming a ball in my mouth, which I then mix with the saliva to spit. When producing blood/semen or taking hair/nail clippings you can see your essence gathering into the appropriate spot and then leaving your body with it.
Mix the dough again, and then make a human-shape from it. This can be very loosely human, mine often look a bit like deformed starfish, but you can see the sense of arms, legs, and head.
Now you connect to the substitute. Visualize a white spot of light in your forehead (an Om if you know the Tibetan alphabet and care to be that traditional) and from that little pearl of light see a ray of light stream into the dough-person and hit the same spot leaving behind a smaller white spot. This is your physical energy and sensation. Then from your throat a red spot does the same to their throat. (It’s a red Ah if you want to be traditional) This is your energy in the sense we generally use the term in magickal circles. Then from the heart a dark blue spot to their heart. (A Hum to be traditional) This is your mental energy, or awareness.
Take a moment to reconnect all three, and then one at a time, and just see yourself pour into the substitute. Through these connection points anchor what you feed into the substitute and see it taking on more and more of your essence. Depending on why you’re making a substitute you can focus on grabbing extra connections to you and putting them onto the doughbody, that way certain people or things currently attached to you will be connected to the dough form.
You can breathe on it / into it again, name it your name and address it as such, whatever else you want, but it is essentially done.
Now depending on why you’re making it, it’s time to dispose of it. Make sure it is “sealed,” that the three points are no longer connected to you, you do not want to dispose of a dough form that is actively tied into you. You can toss it into a wild place, a cemetery, offer it to a tree, or submerge it in water.
If you’re using a substitute as a general uncrossing type procedure, then any method of disposal is fine. If you’re making amends to a local spirit, leave it somewhere that is heavily their domain. If trying to throw a specific person off track leave it between your place and theirs (if you know it) or in a cemetery.
As it’s just flour and water it will be more or less gone in a few days due to animals and weather, and hopefully whatever you’re trying to rid yourself of will be gone too.

Dec

2011

Divining Direction: Planning Magick

Recently I’ve been talking with an occultist from the city; he asked me about my “occult odd-jobs” as mentioned on my About page. He asked me hypothetically what I’d do for someone asking about wealth magick. There are two “levels” of service I provide. One is a very simple one size fits all; granted what it is changes from time to time but it’s usually a charm and a short petition, no real depth or detail. The other is more in depth, rather than just tossing wealth magick at someone I investigate the source of the issue and work out how to solve this case specifically. More time intensive, but I prefer it. So I couldn’t really answer…until about a week and a half after that someone contacted me for some financial work. With her permission I’m going to talk about the process of the investigation and how I decided what to do. For people who are used to just tossing magick blindly at problems hopefully this will show a bit more about narrowing down and focusing the aims. Sometimes it is a very narrow and clear cut process, sometimes like this it is a bit more intuitive and open-ended.
To start off with I generally use a Mo divination. It is very clear in regards to what is causing a problem and how to solve it. So I cast the die and received Ah Tsa – The Bright Star. This lists the various types of wealth coming your way. I was actually very confused by this, the person is having financial problems and the first step of the divination essentially said “Don’t worry about it, money is on the way.”
I then turn the tarot, but usually I have a clear direction in mind thanks to the Mo, this time I didn’t. Using the Watcher Angel Tarot I began my spread. “What do I need to know to improve “Moni”’s finances over the next month?” XXI – The World – Metatron. Everything must be pulled together magick-wise, the answer will come from everything I’ve learnt. This wasn’t going to be easy, it’s a card about magick, but it’s about the completion, everything used along the way, whatever my method was to be it wasn’t going to be simple.
Understanding the cause is important in planning. If Moni was unemployed, just divorced, or recently robbed, each would require a different magickal path to help best. So what is the cause of the financial problems? IV – The Emperor – Azazel. The Emperor is a sign of the system, so I’m pretty sure the money problem is the government’s fault. Another problem would likely be giving others control and not being active enough.
How can the issues of the Emperor be overcome? Nine of Pentacles. Create, art projects, produce, accept the windfall that is coming and charge into it. I didn’t know what this meant.
After the first stage of divination was done I contacted Moni with the results and asked for more details. It felt very odd, I’ve never had to say “You want me to do some financial magick, but apparently money is already on the way.” Anyways, I got my clarification one of the main issues is the government recently recalculated her deceased husband’s pension and started sending her almost half what they used to. So it was a government issue, another smaller part of it, was Moni runs a hobby jewellery business on the weekends and in fighting with the government over the benefits she’s been too stressed to keep it up, even though it wasn’t a major loss it started to add up. I asked since apparently money was on its way if she wanted my services still, she decided even if it looks like it is improving she’d like some help so we began looking at this as financial maintenance magick.
Continuing the divination: What can I do magickally? Two of Swords – Stalemate. This just gets better and better. I wasn’t sure what to think about this, tossed around a few ideas in my head and none clicked, so I turned to the book and read “Opposing forces are locked in balance, for the moment.” That clicked. Mercury is Retrograde and turning stationary tomorrow. That’s the “for the moment.”
What can I do after Mercury goes Direct? VIII – Strength – Turiel. Okay maybe there was a bit of bias using the Watcher Angel Tarot, but aside from the meaning of the card I felt it was pretty clear it was to be an Angelic working. Strength is always about a subtle power to me, coercion, and grace, so this is going to be a gentle working. Not a strong evocation, but something gentle. I’ve sent Moni an Angelic Seal to use and she is to offer it water, bread, and a tealight candle each day along with a two sentence prayer. I’m doing the same thing on my end, except the Angel is receiving an eight-fold offering (a Buddhist practice) each day with a longer prayer and petition and a specially crafted honey jar filled with the usual things and a few offering ingredients specific to this angel. This will be done until at least January first, when Mercury it out of its shadow. Moni can continue it after that point, but until then is the only obligation on our part.
While checking the astrology of the situation I realized Jupiter is also Retrograde (people only complain about Mercury) and while not horribly transiting her chart, it could be better, but it’s almost over. So I asked what I could do once Jupiter goes Direct? King of Wands. This is a card about passion and strength, the ability to forge ahead, to pick a goal and trample over anything to get it. Don’t be deceived by how the King is lounging, he only looks so relaxed because he is so confident. King of Wands is also Fire of Fire. So lots of Fire and trampling obstacles, to me it was a pretty clear choice. Once Jupiter is Direct I’ll perform a Riwo sangchö (ri bo bsang mchod), a type of smoke and fire offering. Along with the traditional ingredients in the offering I’ll include several with Jovial attributes. This offering is accompanied by a ritual, in this case the offering will be dedicated primarily to Jovial forces, to help pick them up in Moni’s life as Jupiter comes out of Retrograde, to feed and prime these attributes, as well as to clear obstacles from Moni’s path. Also a request that Jupiter keep the path open, and an evocation to a Jovial spirit with the aim that Moni continues to get her benefits and the government doesn’t try to cut out any more.
So Moni is getting a variety of services, like the World indicated. Some Ceremonial Magick, some Hoodoo, some Buddhist rituals. As her problem apparently is taking care of itself this became more of a financial magick tune-up, rather than a rescue, which is unusual, but not a bad idea. Some work on keeping what is functioning working well, as well as work to try to call in some new life to these matters.
Mayhaps from time to time I’ll post these type of reports, just to show a little bit of what can be done about narrowing down your magick. As this was a tune-up it didn’t get as precise as I often would, but I think serves as an example of the process of figuring out what is to be done.