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Back-door benefits to divination

Some months ago I decided to set aside years to skepticism and conscious non-attunement in the interest of developing my divination skills.  As I mentioned to one of the other bloggers on this site, part of that practice is by using the Lymerian oracle daily, to get a sense of how an established system works, particularly one that was used by my Hellenic ancestors.  However, I'm a money guy, so I've also been trying out coin divination, with interesting results.

That journey began with the purchase of a copy of Raymond Buckland's Coin Divination.  It's available for as little as one cent on Amazon, and my initial impression was one of being had, since there's only about six pages of original information in the book, and even that was pulled from previously-published works by the author.  Nevertheless, the few pages which aren't a rehash of the I Ching or an awkward attempt to use coins as if they were a tarot deck have some intriguing possibilities, so I have been exploring them.  It's been a very slow process of discovering a system for myself, and it's long from over, but it is has had unexpected benefits.

Beginning in early November, and concluding today, I have flipped a single coin from a set I put together and asked one question:  "Will I have more cash in hand at the end of today?"  I use a total of seven coins (one was added later in the process, after the picture was taken) in rotation, and I have recorded the results of the coin flip and the answer to the question for each day.

One thing that I have discovered is that not all coins are good for flipping.  Two of mine are replicas of ancient Greek coins, and they are decidedly unbalanced.  I have continued to use them along with the others because I wanted a full data set for the analysis I'm going to begin soon.  I'm curious if any of my coins are particularly good at answering this simple question.

Another outcome, one that will become more important in the future, is the one suggested in the image:  I am starting to recognize that each coin carries with it some associations.  The steel penny comes from a time of patriotism, sacrifice, and war in the United States.  The silver quarter was minted when we believed that money should have value in and of itself, if people were to be expected to bestow upon it the value of agreement.  As I have handled and flipped these coins, I have come to know each of them in ways that data analysis will not support; ways that will help me develop a more robust system.

And then, of course, there's the benefit of asking that question.  I selected it both because it's self-referential, and because it's easy to measure.  Either I have more cash, or I don't.  The act of measuring forces a level of awareness that I don't always have about my money.  It's often easier not to think about money, even for someone who writes about it once or twice a week and prefers cash over plastic.  I've had to do an accounting of my income and outgo every day for months.  Anything you wish to manage, you must learn to measure, so even without the other lessons, this has been an invaluable experience for me, and one I would recommend for others who wish to strengthen their money-management skills.

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Terence P Ward is a business writer and journalist who blogs under the rather cumbersome moniker of True Pagan Warrior.  He can generally be found at home, tending to his gardens and the many demands of his cats; in the alternative, follow TPW on Facebook. 

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