If you had an oracle available to you, I mean a real oracle—a person or an "entity" able to actually peek into your future, and thus provide advice and direction—what question would you ask?
Does divination work?
Divination and fortunetelling are ancient and universal human practices, meant to satisfy an inborn desire to know our futures and fortunes. A quick Google search will provide dozens of techniques and traditions from all around the world. When we come to any of these methods—from Tarot to tea leaves, from abacomancy to zygomancy—it's legitimate to ask: do the combinations of obscure signs and mysterious symbols actually contain information about our lives? Answer is: probably not. However, if the question is: do fortunetelling systems really work? Answer is: probably yes. In fact, divination systems can offer a focused and structured space for reflection, potentially fertile for psychological exploration, encouraging creativity and fostering intuition. When relieved of any expectation of literally "predicting" the future, divination can be a fun sensemaking game, to play with new ideas and discover more about ourselves, thus leading to a renewed sense of agency towards the future. So framed, divination actually does work.
Oracolarium
A latest incarnation of the divinatory impulse is Oracolarium, an exciting oracle deck I stumbled upon, that modulates ancient signals through a unique aesthetic and esoteric sensitivity. The offspring of multi-media artist Andrea Aste and conjuror in all things magical Neil Kelso, Oracolarium strikes a great balance between originality and tradition, irony and seriousness. As the portmanteau "Oracolarium" reflects it can be used both as an "oracle," a device to answer questions, as well as an "Imaginarium," a playground to cultivate the imagination.
At its core, this pack is an impressive artistic achievement: it is an internally coherent art gallery, where each card is in conversation with all the others, through a hidden web of reference and resonances. Thanks to an Augmented Reality feature, when viewed through the magic mirror of a smartphone or a tablet, these cards come to life providing a mesmerizing cinematic experience. All in all, Oracolarium is a magickal talisman, endowed with an ethereal intelligence, awaiting to be awakened and interact with human forms.
What would you like to know?
Back to square one, if you had an oracle available, what would you like to know? Here's a secret hidden in plain sight: when it comes to exploring a personal issue, the mere act of designing a well-formed question is a covert invitation to clarity of thought, not a minor endeavor indeed. This may be half of the job. The rest of the game of divination is to experiment with tools and processes, to discover what fires your imagination, making you want to engage with a practice, and harvest insightful messages.
