Prophesy, Fortune Telling, and Divination

[Munin-Hugin]

For things such as mentioned in the thread title, what are your feelings on them? I find myself to be in an interesting place of thought regarding them, and am often conflicted, even in my own head space. Is what will be preordained, and regardless of how hard we struggle to avoid our fate is it going to happen? Or, when we come to know what the future holds through such ideas, do we end up subconsciously working towards that outcome even if we do not want it to take place?

Close to six years ago, I had an extremely vivid dream. In the dream, I saw myself standing in front of a tree, the base of it ringed with flowers, holding hands with a woman. We were in the process of getting married, the ceremony being overseen by a woman, and rings engraved with oak leaves were upon our fingers.

Now, at the time, I was married, and found myself thoroughly confused by the dream when I awoke. Usually, I do not remember much of my dreams, but this had been one of the few that I could recall exactly. Was it a past life? A prediction? Simply a product of having watched or read too much fantasy? After a while, I pushed it aside and seemed to have forgotten about it, for the most part. Fast forward to a year ago, I had gotten divorced, and was engaged to the woman who is now my wife. As it turned out, we got married in front of a tree in my parents' back yard (that my mom surrounded with all sorts of flowers), by a woman that I had known for over 20 years (she was a JP), and the rings we had gotten were circles of oak leaves.

So I started to think did what I dream come true because it was supposed to have, or did I make the decisions to ensure that things came out that way?

What are your thoughts on prophesy and the like?

[nbdy]

Re: Prophesy, Fortune Telling, and Divination

I think that time is perhaps like currents in the ocean, the movement is an illusion. We mostly live at the surface where that illusion feels very real. It is possible to obtain a different view, either by chance or intentionally, though you seem to be wondering whether there is such thing as chance. I don't know.

[thalassa]

Re: Prophesy, Fortune Telling, and Divination

Is what will be preordained, and regardless of how hard we struggle to avoid our fate is it going to happen? Or, when we come to know what the future holds through such ideas, do we end up subconsciously working towards that outcome even if we do not want it to take place?

I think that divination, etc is mostly a matter of within rather than without. Its your subconscious speaking--either a projected desire, or a logical conclusion of events and choices currently in action, or (with dreams, particularly) a piecing together of many things--images, events, etc (there is a good NOVA documentary online on PBS for free, and I think also on Netflix and Amazon Prime on some of the more recent as of a couple years ago research on dreaming that I totally recommend people to watch---or, its apparently also on youtube...).

How often are we wrong? How often are our dreams nonsense? I'm pretty sure most of us don't keep records on that... We remember certain dreams because they are memorable due to content or oddity or unusual vividness or waking up at an unusual place in our sleep cycle.

I would image that the imagery we remember (whether it be in a divination or a dream, etc) is something that sits in our subconscious as a potential director for behavior, either for or against something...or that we connect it with something random (think about putting your music device on shuffle--in a true random program, you would occasionally get the same song 2, even 3 times in a row...but in the pseudo-random program, you only get the same song twice in a row if it shows up on your playlist twice---there are experiments in randomness where people, told to put "random" dots on a field, space them fairly equidistant from one another...but when they are truly random, there will be odd groupings that we people would consider contrived) that occurs later. Considering the skill that our brains have at recreating and rewriting memories, it is, perfectly natural that we then think that the dream is prophetic.

I don't think anything is predetermined as some sort of kismet destiny. I think that sometimes we connect the dots of randomness because we need the line between this and that--because it is something that we want, or something that we fear, or is otherwise significant to us. Divination, etc is our subconscious talking to us...perhaps to some degree influenced by *something else*.

And even if its more *something else* than ourselves, all it does is show one possibility.

[Gleb]

Re: Prophesy, Fortune Telling, and Divination

For things such as mentioned in the thread title, what are your feelings on them? I find myself to be in an interesting place of thought regarding them, and am often conflicted, even in my own head space. Is what will be preordained, and regardless of how hard we struggle to avoid our fate is it going to happen? Or, when we come to know what the future holds through such ideas, do we end up subconsciously working towards that outcome even if we do not want it to take place?

Close to six years ago, I had an extremely vivid dream. In the dream, I saw myself standing in front of a tree, the base of it ringed with flowers, holding hands with a woman. We were in the process of getting married, the ceremony being overseen by a woman, and rings engraved with oak leaves were upon our fingers.

Now, at the time, I was married, and found myself thoroughly confused by the dream when I awoke. Usually, I do not remember much of my dreams, but this had been one of the few that I could recall exactly. Was it a past life? A prediction? Simply a product of having watched or read too much fantasy? After a while, I pushed it aside and seemed to have forgotten about it, for the most part. Fast forward to a year ago, I had gotten divorced, and was engaged to the woman who is now my wife. As it turned out, we got married in front of a tree in my parents' back yard (that my mom surrounded with all sorts of flowers), by a woman that I had known for over 20 years (she was a JP), and the rings we had gotten were circles of oak leaves.

So I started to think did what I dream come true because it was supposed to have, or did I make the decisions to ensure that things came out that way?

What are your thoughts on prophesy and the like?

I believe in prophesies, fortune telling and divination, as long as they are not absolute for the lifetime. I think that destiny influences on out lives, but fate can be always changed. I try to avoid people who do divinations, because I don't know what I will hear from them. I will only participate in such a thing if the practitioner is familiar with me, and has a lot of experience. That's what I think.

I have similar dreams, that become reality after some time. Nothing to fear, just to take them in attention.

[Rowanwood]

Re: Prophesy, Fortune Telling, and Divination

I do not believe that time is set in stone.

I think divination can help you sort out your feelings about things, but it cannot tell the future.

I think you can tap into the present and sometimes extrapolate what will happen, but that's not magic, just logic.

[loststarshine]

Re: Prophesy, Fortune Telling, and Divination

I believe that divination can show us a possible outcome. I believe in prophetic dreams my goddesses visited me in dreams and there werent any prior event i watched or read to stimulate those thoughts. I did a power point on the history of cats two years before my dreams i learned of Bast's name then. Was i wannabe wiccan in high school? No a firm atheist magic, witches were fasinating but fictional to me. Science was my only truth at that time.

I have different kinds of dreams based on the feeling i experience in them.

I used to be all about divination it was the first part of craftwork i was drawn too. I have dreamed about parts of my friends lives that they never told me about prior.

How the greeks explain it with the tapestry of life the fates weave. You can always alter the picture but some lessons are ment to be learned.

[Willow]

Re: Prophesy, Fortune Telling, and Divination

Regarding your suspiciously prophetic dream, I'd say it's possible. There are a select few things that have happened in my life that I knew would happen years prior. But they were things that were life-changing events. For everyday things, I've rarely been able to predict anything that was going to happen (at least not that I couldn't have figured out logically anyway).

Twice I was told (cryptically) what was going to happen in the future, both times it was within a 2 week time-frame and both were more like... crisis warnings? As in "get out now" warnings. But again, it's never been viable for me to look into future events that are supposed to be a part of daily life and the paths we walk to build our life. Often when I ask, the response is simply that it is going to play out as it will and all I have to do is decide how to meet it, but it really isn't my place to know beforehand (in fact, that takes all the vitality out of life imo).

I think regarding your dream, you have to really ask yourself whose idea it was to get married beneath an oak tree with the flowers and ring design, and then decide if you influenced that at all either consciously or subconsciously because of familiar thoughts. It could really go either way.

I tend to just chalk those occurrences up to happy "coincidences" and move on. You still would have married her without the oak tree and the rings, yes? Would you still have thought the dream prophetic if you had instead had a different schematic for your wedding? You don't have to answer, just food for thought.

[Lady Fang]

Re: Prophesy, Fortune Telling, and Divination

Look at a tree, each branch and twig is a different line of fate. In the end, we all end up dead and in the afterlife, its the journey that matters, and those branches are our journey. We have the choice in any situation, but only God/Goddess/higher power/ etc... knows the outcome. When I do a reading of any kind for someone, I always start out by telling them that if the cards or what-have-you set out a "future" it only one of many possible futures that person may have, because at times, the reading reveals things in or to a person that afterwards they may wish to change. I tell my patrons that the tarot and other forms readings are merely tools to give one guidance, and set out warnings when necessary, do not take this word for word because it is merely interpretation, and so on.

[Jera]

Re: Prophesy, Fortune Telling, and Divination

I do not believe that time is set in stone.

I think divination can help you sort out your feelings about things, but it cannot tell the future.

I think you can tap into the present and sometimes extrapolate what will happen, but that's not magic, just logic.

I am inclined to agree with this. I use Tarot regularly and it is helpful, but I try to avoid "predicting" the future and rather working introspectively.

[Aakosir]

Re: Prophesy, Fortune Telling, and Divination

I believe that our lives are like a tree, or map, with many different paths that branch off depending on the choices you make. When I use my Tarot cards, I'm looking for guidance, not a prediction. I don't think we can accurately predict our futures since there are many different choices and different paths

[callmeclemens]

Re: Prophesy, Fortune Telling, and Divination

I dabbled in Rune casting a few years ago, and would use them daily for insight. When the time to make a big choice arose Im ashamed to say that I, attempted to influence the outcome of my cast in my favor, and payed for it substantially. I havr matured a great deal, and plan to return to a morning cast in the near future.

[Aislin]

Re: Prophesy, Fortune Telling, and Divination

i have had really uncanny results with runes. I've had many dreams that ended up coming true... But when i tried a crystal ball i scared the he** out of myself. I was meditating looking into the crystal, and i saw a figure stand up behind me, and i know i was alone in the room. I haven't been able to look again, but i know i have to. Conquering your fear and all that, right...