{"id":10122,"date":"2014-09-01T01:10:55","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T06:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=10481"},"modified":"2014-08-20T17:14:23","modified_gmt":"2014-08-20T22:14:23","slug":"seeing-the-signs-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2014\/09\/01\/seeing-the-signs-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing the Signs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Divining With Dice<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have a small Crown Royal Bag that I carry with me everywhere I go. In it is a deck of Rider-Waite Tarot Cards, a white quartz crystal, a rosary and a set of dice. I have a folded piece of paper with seventeen divinatory meanings written on it \u2013 from two to eighteen \u2013 representing the various ways the dice can fall after being thrown. I copied these from Sasha Fenton\u2019s The Fortune-Teller\u2019s Workbook. Fenton calls this \u201cThe Simplest Method\u201d and \u201cthe oldest method of reading dice.\u201d (Fenton, 78) They follow along the basic lines of numerology \u2013 twos are partnership, fives are strife, tens are success, etc. Generally I decide beforehand how many times I am going to throw the dice \u2013 I pick a number between one and ten \u2013 and then I throw the dice three or four or seven times \u2013 how many times I have decided to throw. I add up the numbers that the dice present to me and then reduce to the lowest possible number. That is number I use for a divinatory meaning. I refer back to the list I have \u2013 although I am learning quickly the meanings of the list, since it is so close to the same meanings of the every other number system, including the Tarot.<\/p>\n

Sasha Fenton outlines several ways of working with dice. One is making a circle on a piece of paper and dividing it into eight or twelve sections and labeling each section with the various issues that you or your querent are interested in \u2013 work, home, money, relationships, etc. Or you could use the twelve Astrological houses. Obviously, this is a much more in-depth reading and I confess that I have not yet tried this! But I will!<\/p>\n

In The Fortune-Telling Book by Gillian Kemp, there is a history of divination by dice, which is called astragalomancy, after the word \u201castragus\u201d, meaning bone. She writes, \u201cThe ancients divined the future by shaking and tossing two astragals, the right and left ankle bones of sheep.\u201d (Kemp, 81) This is where the term \u201croll the bones\u201d comes from \u2013 as any Rush fan could tell you \u2013 and of course the Rush album \u201cRoll The Bones\u201d has a background of dice! And floating bones!<\/p>\n

She also writes about the custom of blowing on the dice before tossing them. Anyone who has been to a casino or watched a movie about playing craps knows about blowing on dice for luck before throwing them. She reports that, \u201cWelsh Romany Gypsies\u2026say it is lucky to blow on dice before shaking them, to blow away evil spirits.\u201d (Kemp, 81) She also writes that you should choose whether to use two or three dice. I have always used two, simply because it\u2019s easier to add two dice than it is to add three but she says that, \u201cTwo dice give a prophecy; three dice not only give a prediction but also reveal character traits of the person who rolls the dice.\u201d (Kemp, 82) Casting with three dice is called Cleromacy and if I am reading the chart in Kemp\u2019s little book correctly, it appears to be much more complicated. Since I am still a novice in this particular form of divination, I am going to stick to working with two dice for the time being.<\/p>\n

Of course, in this modern technological age in which we live, there is an internet option for divining with dice. Check out www.serenapowers.com\/dice.html<\/a> for information on the history of dice, the many different kinds of dice and how Western dice differs from Asian dice. You can virtually throw the dice, after asking a question, and get a pretty decent answer. www.http:\/\/spiritusarcanum.tumblr.com\/post\/29278618720\/astragalomancy-divination-with-dice<\/a> also has really good information for anyone who is interested in the art and history of Astragalomancy.<\/p>\n

In the upcoming months, I will be writing more about this subject, as I learn more about it and I become more adept in this form of divination. Stay tuned!<\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/strong><\/em>
\nFenton, Sasha. The Fortune-Teller\u2019s Workbook: A Practical Introduction to the World of divination. Wellingborough, England: The Aquarian Press, 1988
\nKemp, Gillian. The Fortune-Telling Book: Reading Crystal Balls, Tea Leaves, Playing Cards, and Everyday Omens of Love and Luck. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2000
\nwww.serenapowers.com\/dice.html<\/a>
\nwww.http:\/\/spiritusarcanum.tumblr.com\/post\/29278618720\/astragalomancy-divination-with-dice<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Divining With Dice I have a small Crown Royal Bag that I carry with me everywhere I go. In it is a deck of Rider-Waite Tarot Cards, a white quartz crystal, a rosary and a set of dice. I have a folded piece of paper with seventeen divinatory meanings written on it \u2013 from two to eighteen \u2013 representing the various ways the dice can fall after being thrown. I copied these from Sasha Fenton\u2019s The Fortune-Teller\u2019s Workbook. Fenton calls this \u201cThe Simplest Method\u201d and \u201cthe oldest method of reading dice.\u201d (Fenton, 78) They follow along the basic lines of numerology \u2013 twos are partnership, fives are strife, tens are success, etc. Generally I decide beforehand how many times I am going to throw the dice \u2013 I pick a number between one and ten \u2013 and then I throw the dice three or four or seven times \u2013 how many times I have decided to throw. I add up the numbers that the dice present to me and then reduce to the lowest possible number. That is number I use for a divinatory meaning. I refer back to the list I have \u2013 although I am learning quickly the meanings of the list, since it is so close to the same meanings of the every other number system, including the Tarot. Sasha Fenton outlines several ways of working with dice. One is making a circle on a piece of paper and dividing it into eight or twelve sections and labeling each section with the various issues that you or your querent are interested in \u2013 work, home, money, relationships, etc. Or you could use the twelve Astrological houses. Obviously, this is a much more in-depth reading and I confess that I have not yet tried this! But I will! In The Fortune-Telling Book by Gillian Kemp, there is a history of divination by dice, which is called astragalomancy, after the word \u201castragus\u201d, meaning bone. She writes, \u201cThe ancients divined the future by shaking and tossing two astragals, the right and left ankle bones of sheep.\u201d (Kemp, 81) This is where the term \u201croll the bones\u201d comes from \u2013 as any Rush fan could tell you \u2013 and of course the Rush album \u201cRoll The Bones\u201d has a background of dice! And floating bones! She also writes about the custom of blowing on the dice before tossing them. Anyone who has been to a casino or watched a movie about playing craps knows about blowing on dice for luck before throwing them. She reports that, \u201cWelsh Romany Gypsies\u2026say it is lucky to blow on dice before shaking them, to blow away evil spirits.\u201d (Kemp, 81) She also writes that you should choose whether to use two or three dice. I have always used two, simply because it\u2019s easier to add two dice than it is to add three but she says that, \u201cTwo dice give a prophecy; three dice not only give a prediction but also reveal character traits of the person who rolls the dice.\u201d (Kemp, 82) Casting with three dice is called Cleromacy and if I am reading the chart in Kemp\u2019s little book correctly, it appears to be much more complicated. Since I am still a novice in this particular form of divination, I am going to stick to working with two dice for the time being. Of course, in this modern technological age in which we live, there is an internet option for divining with dice. Check out www.serenapowers.com\/dice.html for information on the history of dice, the many different kinds of dice and how Western dice differs from Asian dice. You can virtually throw the dice, after asking a question, and get a pretty decent answer. www.http:\/\/spiritusarcanum.tumblr.com\/post\/29278618720\/astragalomancy-divination-with-dice also has really good information for anyone who is interested in the art and history of Astragalomancy. In the upcoming months, I will be writing more about this subject, as I learn more about it and I become more adept in this form of divination. Stay tuned! Works Cited Fenton, Sasha. The Fortune-Teller\u2019s Workbook: A Practical Introduction to the World of divination. Wellingborough, England: The Aquarian Press, 1988 Kemp, Gillian. The Fortune-Telling Book: Reading Crystal Balls, Tea Leaves, Playing Cards, and Everyday Omens of Love and Luck. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2000 www.serenapowers.com\/dice.html www.http:\/\/spiritusarcanum.tumblr.com\/post\/29278618720\/astragalomancy-divination-with-dice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}