Cards by Jinn

I am an Augur.
The definition of augury is essentially the definition of divination, which is the process of deciphering signs to predict the future. But the practice of augury stems from nature, and using signs from nature specifically, rather than the term divination, which describes the art of deciphering the future using any means really,  whether it be from tea leaves left in a cup and saucer, tarot cards, a pendulum, or the flight patterns of birds.  So, all augury is divination, but not all divination is augury.

In Ancient Rome, at the college of Augurs of Rome, there were initially 5 official Augurs, men who whose job it was to decipher signs in nature to predict outcomes of public events and issues.  They would use thunder and lightening, comets, stars, animals, birds, odd events, to predict the future.  The number of official state appointed augurs continued to grow in Rome and the variety of ways they would perform the auguries grew as well, as there are limitless ways that signs appear to us in life.   In augury, there were two classes, or ways to define the sign.  Class 1 is a sign that appears because a question is being posed, and it is called Auspicia Impetrativa.  Class 2 is an unasked-for sign that appears randomly,  called Auspicia Oblativa. The augurs at the College in Rome were only concerned with class 1, as their duty was to look into official acts of the Republic/Empire, and if the outcome of the augury was good, ie, a good omen, the act would proceed.  If the outcome of the augury was unfavorable, the events were delayed until a better time.1

I am an Augur, living in a modernized version of the republic.  For years, I have looked to animals, nature, and odd events to predict other events, to predict the future. The earth is a living organism in and of itself, and animals and weather, stones, plants, stars, man, everything is linked by the spirit of the divine. The thunder will come if you call it and the moon will be where you want it to be, when you want it.  Everything in existence is linked together by everything else in an unending web, from the center of the source of the all.

Birds… I look up and see a hawk, and it is a good sign, unless I hear their hungry cry, and then I know that there is a need that will remain unfulfilled.  If I see two hawks playing up in the air, circling, intermingling, flying in figure eights, I know there will be love.  If I am stressed or angry, and I don’t want to be, then I summon the vultures to me, and they do come, and then they carry away whatever I don’t want.  But If I am doing augury, and I ask for an omen about a random subject in general, and then I see the vulture, then I know it is an unfavorable omen.  When I ask a question, and I see a butterfly, does it come toward me (good), fly away (bad)  does it go from left to right (good) or right to left (bad)?

One day on a walk, I had a sudden vision of a snake wrapped around me, but I was startled out of the vision by a red car speeding too fast and too close by me.  A minute later down the road, I saw a dead snake that had just been run over by the car that had just passed me by so close.  I moved it to the side of the road in the dirt, and then I kept walking.  On my way back up the road, I saw a hatchling (a baby snake) scooting across the road with the same markings I had noticed from the dead snake.  I witnessed a full cycle of death and life on my walk, and it all started with a day dream of a snake squeezing me.   After the walk, in my life, a series of events occured that prompted me to make important changes in myself. That is what a vision quest is.  You may not  see it coming, but when it happens, it is profound.  This perhaps, would be considered augury of class 2 Auspicia Oblativa.

Late at night when I am thinking, and I pose a question in a formal augurial manner, Auspicia Impetrativa, (such as “will I get this”…or what will happen with that”…)  I will hear the owls outside respond to my thoughts, as if on cue.  I will hear the sharp shrill metallic scream of the screech owl, and I know the outcome will be difficult in the current thought or topic.  If I hear the barn owl, I know things will be less intense and slower.  Outside…the Bats, they are trouble.  The closer they get, the more trouble is coming.  When I hear the coyotes cackle and howl because they made a kill, then I know that the bonds between individuals  will hold, and all will work together to overcome the odds.  And then there are the invisibles, and the whisperers, and well…um..no comment.

My vocation is augury; it is a challenge and a gift.  However, I dont live in pagan Rome where I would have been highly respected and regarded.  In perhaps most major civilizations, augury, divination, fortune telling, reading omens, were so important to everyone…the individual and the society as a whole.  Divination was part of the structure of functioning government in most cultures of times past.  Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, the Aztecs, the Maya, Native America.  But then the practice of augury had to go underground because of certain religions, as the doctrines of the judeo/christian/Islamic traditions do not allow or approve of divination in any form.  So as a modern-day augur, it is hard to get respect. 

Those that turn to a diviner, psychic, or augur, don’t openly discuss it with their friends and family, and quite often, they are talking to me in secret.  Which is ok, I perfectly understand why, and it does not offend me.  We live in a society and time where it is not always socially acceptable to openly discuss matters of the occult.  But I hope that will someday change, because in the huge and vast subject of the occult, there are wonderful things to learn, and great secrets to know, and one of these jewels is the ancient art of augury.

Sources
1.   Three Books of Occult Philosophy written by Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim,
Annotated by Donald Tyson, Llewellyn Publications 1993 — Chapter L111–Notes– Notation #2. Auguria