Hotep,
Yes. No. Well, it depends upon your definition? Unfortunately, in the western contexts, anything that involves being possessed by spirits and speaking via spiritual forces are considered pagan, hence witchcraft. However, doing the same in the name of christianity, is called the holy spirit and speaking in tongues? I guess it depends upon who is manufacturing your TV for viewing the world.
May you have long life, peace, and prosperity.
Salaam, shalom, peace
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divination is a form of communicating with the Dead.
witchcraft has often included this definition.
mediums are more likely the SAME thing.
there are 9 definitions of witchcraft in the bible. Sorcery is ONE of them.
poisoner is another. pharmecutical is the english equivelant to the translation of both witchcraft and sorcery and poisoner.
but the bible in english translates ALL “witchcrafts” as the same which is a mistake, and i think was intended to cover up those that actually practiced sorcery within the historical church(es) even among the ancient israelites. even as the whole world does today
see rev 18: 4, 23
It could be considered a form of paganism, but then, some (many?) religions (including many Christian denominations) believe in inspiration. Consider the initial wikipedia definition:
“Divination (from Latin divinare “to be inspired by a god”, related to divine, diva and deus) is the attempt of ascertaining information by interpretation of omens or an alleged supernatural agency, either by or on behalf of a querent.
If a distinction is to be made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a formal or ritual and often social character, usually in a religious context; while fortune-telling is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Divination is often dismissed by skeptics, including the scientific community, as being mere superstition: in the 2nd century, Lucian devoted a witty essay to the career of a charlatan, Alexander the false prophet, trained by “one of those who advertise enchantments, miraculous incantations, charms for your love-affairs, visitations for your enemies, disclosures of buried treasure, and successions to estates”, though most Romans believed in dreams and charms. It is considered a sin in most Christian denominations and Judaism.”
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The key, I believe is the statement, “divination has a formal or ritual and often social character, usually in a religious context.”
It is incorporated and used by most following the craft as one of the gifts you may have.
It is not essential, nor are all people practicing divination witches.
It is a natural ability , and as wicca is a nature based religion, it fits in well as a natural gift to be used whenever needed.
I discovered I had this ability at quite a young age, but the “church” frowned upon it and labelled it occult.
To fully understand the churches standpoint you have to go back a few centuries to when divination was practiced freely by “seers”. The people would pay these seers for advice in domestic matters, but the church wanted this role in leading the people. It was decided then that only the churchmen had a direct connection to god - and therefore they should be consulted instead. The seers were branded as occultists and communicators with evil spirits by the church to discredit them.
The people then paid the church for guidance - which was often the direction the crown wanted, and led to people paying the church, and the church paying the crown. Obviously when the crown wanted to invade another country - it became a religious battle, and the two have kept people at war for centuries.
To answer your question - divination is a personal ability that may be used by anyone, but most witches train harder to use it.
First of all, most divination does NOT require working with the dead. Spirit guides, in some cases, maybe,but not all. I have known many Christians who believe in and actually do astrology charts, read Tarot cards or even flip a coin (yes, flipping a coin is a form of divination).
However, in my case, yes, it is a large part of what I believe and practice, aka witchcraft.
My question for all you fundamentalist types, Do you consider any of the following good luck?
Finding a 4 leaf clover
Finding a penny heads up
Getting the bigger side of a wishbone
Carrying a rabbits foot (not too lucky for the rabbit & he had 4)
Do you carry a good luck charm?
All simplistic divination of sorts, and certainly pagan in origin.
BB
)O(
Its sugarcoated witch practices. Anything that claims to contact spirits is against God and is in fact witchcraft just under a guise of safety.
Be careful and beware. One things about spirit guides and demon’s are that they tell you some truth but their is always enough lie to lead you in the direction of deep trouble. Ask God for guidance, even better give your life to him and he will make you into the person you were born to be.
Many see it as such but I just see it as a natural connection to understanding the self and your life as of now.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with astrology, numerology, card readings, so long as your intent is pure and its not a means of contacting any entities. Astrology and numerology help you learn your karma and who you are as a person, while card readings connect with your inner surface to advise you or at least help you make sense of the answers you seek.
As for channeling or speaking with the dead, I don’t agree with it not because of religious purposes, but my thing is if we need an answer we either look to God or we look inside ourselves, in our god-center that contains the answer we seek, so why need to contact spirits when you have the answer inside of you?
Edit: What gets to me about some religious people being against it is the fact that, especially in Christianity, the holy books are filled with prophets who forsee things, including the messenger named Jesus (who was probably the greatest psychic of all). The three magi were also astrologers.
Angels are there to help (but not to be worshipped). Same thing with any other intermediary (fairies, elementals), though you must be careful because unlike angels they are not pure of heart.
Isn’t divination the making of divinity fudge? Yum!!
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Well, witchcraft is magick, correct? So i guess the question is, is divination magick?
Divination is something anyone can do. You don’t have to be a witch to divine.
yes it is a form of occult or witchcraft.