Divination is an important feature of cultures all over the world. While some may still question the efficacy of divination systems, they continue to serve their communities by diagnosing ailments, prescribing healing treatments, and solving problems. Yet despite their universality, there are relatively few comprehensive studies of divination systems. This volume seeks to fill this gap regarding the use of divination in healing. Here some of the world’s leading authorities draw on their own fieldwork and participation in ritual to present detailed case studies, demonstrating that divination rituals can have therapeutic effects. As the contributors examine the systems of knowledge that divination articulates and survey the varieties of divinatory experience, they seek to analyze divination as an epistemological system, as a social process, and as a therapeutic endeavor. While some of their findings reinforce traditional assumptions about the importance of social control, spirit relations, and community support in the divination process, the authors place these considerations within new epistemological frameworks that emphasize the use of alternative modes of knowing. In this wide-ranging volume, readers will find coverage of classic Ifa systems; Buddhist-influenced shamanic practices in the former Soviet Union; the reconciliation of Muslim beliefs and divinatory practices in Thailand; Native American divination used in diagnosis; Maya calendrical divination in Guatemala; mediumistic and chicken oracle divination among the Sukuma of Tanzania; Ndembu divination, focusing on the process of collective healing; and divination among the Samburu (Maasai) of Kenya, featuring dialogues from actual healing sessions. Together, these contributions argue for new perspectives on the study of divination that emphasize not only the epistemological roots of these systems but also their multifaceted therapeutic functions. Divination and Healing is a rich source of both data and insight for scholars of ritual, religion, medical anthropology, and the psychology of altered states of consciousness.

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Healing Divination teaches people how to develop psychically using methods based on the author s native spirituality. The book covers how to work with herbs and plants and how totems and power animals can give us with the ability of clairsentience, clairvoyance and clairaudience. There are lessons in divination including how to make your own oracle deck and how to do readings using cartomancy. ,

In this intimate ethnography, Raquel Romberg seeks to illuminate the performative significance of healing rituals and magic works, their embodied nature, and their effectiveness in transforming the states of participants by focusing on the visible, albeit mostly obscure, ways in which healing and magic rituals proceed. The questions posed by Romberg emerge directly from the particular pragmatics of Puerto Rican brujería (witch-healing), shaped by the eclecticism of its rituals, the heterogeneous character of its participants, and the heterodoxy of its moral economy. What, if any, is the role of belief in magic and healing rituals? How do past discourses on possession enter into the performative experience of ritual in the here and now? Where does belief stop, and where do memories of the flesh begin? While these are questions that philosophers and anthropologists of religion ponder, they acquire a different meaning when asked from an ethnographic perspective. Written in an evocative, empathetic style, with theoretical ruminations about performance, the senses, and imagination woven into stories that highlight the drama and humanity of consultations, this book is an important contribution to the cross-cultural understanding of our capacity to experience the transcendental in corporeal ways.

Words of Inspiration gently guides you in discovering the hidden influences that impact your life on a daily basis. This unique method of self-divination features spiritually-based readings, healing intentions, and reflective questions for self-improvement. Whether you are at the beginning of your spiritual awakening, are seeking a fuller and richer meaning to your soul's purpose, or are looking for guided insight into your spiritual-intuitive side, this book will be your constant companion as you progress through the various stages of spiritual development. Used daily, this method of self-healing will assist you in not only recognizing specific life-issues, but also in drawing out the positive aspects of your life's journey, as well as lovingly pointing out habits or attitudes that may need changing in order for you to work toward achieving your life's purpose. A normal deck of playing cards, used in conjunction with this book, is all that you need to begin the process of intuiting a new life for yourself today!

The basic purpose of the alchemical divination processes is to help individuals obtain problem resolution and visionary inspiration for their life path in its interpersonal, professional, creative, and spiritual dimensions.