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How to Use Everyday Objects for Folk Fortunetelling, by Cory Thomas Hutcheson

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

When you imagine someone "fortunetelling," what images come to mind? For a lot of people, it's a crystal ball or a stack of tarot cards. There's absolutely nothing wrong with those methods when handled with care and thought, but as many witchy folk know, divination goes well beyond what so often gets portrayed by Hollywood. For those inclined towards folk magic, the tools of prognostication and metaphysical diagnosis are often both a bit strange and incredibly commonplace. That's because divination is so commonplace in North American folk magical practices, and therefore it makes use of commonplace objects. Diviners, however, often use those objects in uncanny and unusual ways, which renders them powerful tools for gaining insight into worldly (and Otherworldly) problems.

Below I offer an exploration of a variety of folk magical divinatory methods making use of common objects. What you find here is drawn from the pages and practices of American folklore (a subject about which I am deeply passionate, as evidenced by my rather massive book on the subject). No matter who or where you are within North America, chances are there are similar practices around you and within your own communities if you look for them.

• Sieve and Shears: A sieve—a straining device most often used for food—could be suspended on the end of a pair of shears or scissors to answer questions. These were often used in fortunetelling games (not dissimilar to games like MASH or those little paper fortune tellers that kids used when I was growing up). If the sieve began rotating clockwise when a question was asked, it indicated "yes." If it went counterclockwise or fell off balance, that was a "no." In a bygone era, a sieve would have been made from materials like willow withes, which have their own magical lore (as they are often used to bind a witch's broom, or "besom"). The sieve and shears method even appears in Aggripa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, published in the sixteenth century, so the practice has a decent pedigree.
• Bible and Key: The use of a Bible or other book for divination is known as "bibliomancy," and it's a subject I've written about before on my own website in terms of folk practice. In most cases, book divination is done by turning randomly to specific passages and reading the first thing found by pointing at the page, a process known as "scanning." There are more prescriptive methods, too, such as predicting fortunes based on one's birthday by indexing them to particular Psalms based on gender and date. One method, however, that we find imported from Europe and fairly well-known in areas settled by English, Irish, or Scottish-speaking colonizers, is the use of a Bible and key. The key is inserted into a Bible (sometimes at a specific passage such as Psalm 49), then the book is bound up tightly so that the key can't slip out. The person making this charm suspends the key between their fingers, using the Bible as a sort of pendulum weight, and asks questions. The key will begin moving in response to queries, with the reader needing to establish which direction means "yes" and which "no" at the beginning of the divination session. This method is even mentioned in Reginald Scott's Discoverie of Witchcraft from 1584, so it's quite old!
• Coins and Cards: Plenty of people know about using tarot cards for divination, but in recent years a burgeoning vogue has appeared for learning to read fortunes using playing cards. Playing cards derive from the same sources as tarot cards (with most scholarship suggesting all such cards emerged from games involving tiles printed paper cards from places like India and China). So it makes sense that playing cards have just as much a place in fortunetelling as their better-known tarot cousins. There are a wide variety of methods for reading them, ranging from the very detailed and intricate Lenormand card system to the Spanish method involving removing all the Queens to variations found in places like Kentucky or other parts of the American South that were often codified in well-known rhymed verses. It seems most readers had their own particular methods based on years of practice and fine-tuning, so each person's approach might inspire someone else but be distinctly different as well (I am no stranger to this phenomenon, as I have even written a book about my own method for doing readings and then interpreting them by linking them to folk or fairy tales). Similarly, coins are incorporated into divination in a few ways. One divinatory ritual known as the "Calling Circle" involves surrounding a young baby with a variety of objects like coins, a knife, a Bible, and a whiskey bottle, and then seeing which the baby chooses. If they choose the coins, they will go into banking (or, depending on your interpretation, be stingy with money), while the other objects indicate a life of violence, holiness, or vice, respectively. The Chinese fortunetelling system known as the I Ching also makes use of coins in some cases, interpreting them through a process known as geomancy.
• The Egg and Glass: This method is simple enough that you can go to your kitchen and do it anytime (so long as you keep eggs on hand). There are several different variations on this practice. One of the best-known is the limpia found in Mexican and Mexican-American curanderismo. In that system, the egg is usually used to cleanse a person of spiritual maladies by rubbing them and praying. The egg is then cracked into a glass of water and interpreted based on the shapes that appear, such as bubbles or "curtains" of egg whites draping down like ghosts. Spots on the yolk or foul smells can indicate witchcraft or curses as well. This method was also connected to the Salem witch trials, as an account (published a good bit after the trials were done) indicates that some of the young women involved in the early hysteria had been playing a game called a "Venus glass," in which an egg was cracked into water and then read or interpreted to provide information about future husbands.
• Ring and Hair: The last method is one used in very particular circumstances, but one that might be adaptable to even broader work by a clever folk magician. In parts of the rural South and even into the Midwest, a woman can discover the sex of her baby by taking her wedding ring and suspending it by a piece of her hair over her tummy. If it moves back and forth, it indicates a girl, while movement in a circle usually indicates a boy (although some sources wind up reversing these, so it's a good idea to ask the ring to show you which is which first). While this is almost exclusively used in pregnancy situations in folklore, I can easily imagine someone seeing the links between things like marriage, birth, and more as indicative of other fortunetelling possibilities (such as asking the ring to help choose between various potential suitors).

These methods are simply a small handful of the incredible variety of everyday divinatory practices found in American folklore. Truly, almost anything, from dish rags to brooms to broken plates and dropped knives, could potentially tell a tuned-in reader about what they might expect to happen.

What makes these methods so valuable to us today isn't just the actual practices, but the sense of "ordinariness" that we see in them. While it's all well and good to collect tarot decks like they're going out of style (and I do the same with playing card decks, so I'm absolutely not judging!), understanding that everyday methods of divination are valuable and rich traditions of their own can help us figure out what works best for us. You may be the sort of person who can divine based on the way your soup boils on the stove, or the way smoke rises from a candle you've extinguished, or even which song comes up next on your Spotify playlist. All of those are the sort of folk magic our forebears would have turned to, and they can be sources of insight and inspiration to us today, as well.

Whatever method you turn to, I encourage you to look within your folk communities like family and neighbors (and family here can be chosen family just as readily as anything biological). You'll likely find plenty of divinatory possibilities if you just listen, pay attention, and ask the right questions. Which is really what divination is all about, right?

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2021. All rights reserved.

I have just returned from seeing a psychic. I shuffled the tarot cards and he started to deal. He picked up on some correct things but asked if I was very skeptical. He told me he couldn't read me because he was blocked. I had been rushing all morning, and he said I needed to calm down as things were flying everywhere. I did not pay a fee, and have booked to see him again on a day I know I will be calmer, but he may say the same thing. My sister went in after me and he couldn't read her either. I think she is more skeptical than me. We never said we were sisters but this may be why he couldn't read her. What do you think?

Alexandra

Susyn:

I have had off days and been unable to read for a number of clients in a row. While it's possible your energy was too scattered for the psychic to read you, it's interesting that he was also unable to read your sister. It sounds like perhaps he was the one who was having an off day - not you.

In my many years as a psychic reader, I've found that skepticism is not necessarily a block to reading someone. Once a client sits down and gets absorbed in the tarot cards, their walls usually come down. This is what I love about tarot: the cards provide plenty of focus for the reading process.

If the problem is actually coming from the client because they are skeptical or closed up, I'll try a different approach to get them to relax and allow the information they're looking for to emerge.

When a psychic does a reading, the information they receive comes from the client; the psychic is merely a channeler who is tapping into the truths the client carries within. Psychics know that if they're unable to connect with an individual on a spiritual level, the reading will be poor. Because people come to psychics seeking important information, it's essential that they are open to and interactive in this process.

Another thing to consider is that it may have not been the right time for a reading. Even the best psychics can be blocked from information if the time isn't right. This is the Universe's way of protecting people who aren't ready to hear certain things or know too much about the future.

Before you visit this psychic again, there are a few things you can do to align with a positive experience. First, be sure you have thoroughly researched his credentials. Hopefully, you were recommended to him by a trusted friend, for it's best to choose psychics based on word of mouth and reputation.

Second, make a list of questions you want to address with him. This will clarify your concerns and help the psychic access the answers you most need.

Since most of us live busy lives, most of my clients show up harried and rushed. A reading is best done in a calm, peaceful atmosphere, so arrive a few minutes early and practice a brief meditation or sit quietly before you enter.

Finally, do not be afraid to be interactive during your reading by offering feedback or affirming what he's telling you; this will help you get clearer direction. I often tell my clients, Think of me as a doctor: tell me where it hurts and we can get down to business!

Using these guidelines should make your next reading a more fulfilling experience.

*****

Oceania:

I know I will be calmer but he may say the same thing. There's that skepticism! It's difficult, if not impossible, to read for people who are skeptical, closed, arrogant or not present in the now. A helpful reading requires a client to be trusting, open, humble and aware. You won't be ready for Spirit's message unless you surrender your agenda beforehand. The reader needs a place for channeled information to go, and that would be your open heart and receptive mind.

It was not sisterhood but rather shared skepticism that got in the way of the readings that day. Since you ARE siblings, you and your sister might join forces and examine your upbringing. I suspect one of your parents was skeptical, fearful or mistrusting, and the two of you absorbed that outlook on life as a means of protecting yourselves from hurt.

I have a client who fears things will be taken from her, so she hoards. Shoring up against loss has left her imprisoned, unable to move around freely or entertain visitors. (There's no place to sit down!) Every surface area is covered with things she thinks she might need someday, for she does not trust that the universe will provide for her as she goes along.

This client also hoards money. In her mind, it should travel down a one-way street into her bank account and stay there. She reminds me of a dragon perched atop a treasure trove. Since money unspent is nothing more than potential energy, a more useful vision is to see money moving along a circular route. We offer something of value to the world, receive money, and then redirect it towards goods and services that enhance our lives.

We each have an energy gate. When we're skeptical, the gate is closed and it's difficult for energy in any form (information, money, love) to get in or out. When we're gullible, the gate is wide open; we let too much in and too much out. The ideal is to balance between those two extremes by using our best judgment to decide when to open the gate and how much.

Skeptics who never give love a chance have their gates locked. Those who dive in to each new encounter as if it will be forever are gullible. (There's an old joke about that type of person and how they show up for first dates in a U-haul truck!)

Your skepticism is valuable, but only when balanced with a willingness to be open to new experiences. Suspend your skepticism and replace it with trust for your next reading. If the reading isn't useful, you may not choose to return to that reader, but at least the reading will have been able to take place!

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.