In Search of the Divine

Let's democratise divination!

On dating apps, when you create a profile, you are encouraged to fill in personal details that are supposed to help ensure you find better matches. In the name of having preferences, you can filter your feed to show only people or exclude people from a particular religion, which is somewhat disconcerting to me. I feel this way probably because I grew up surrounded by Chinese christians who were brought up to only want to date people like themselves and I just know that they will use the heck out of those filters. Anyway, one of the options available under ‘religion’ was ‘spiritual but not religious.’

This made me pause. What does it mean to be 'spiritual’? Many of my friends (either lapsed Christians or people whose parents used to make them visit temples) identified most closely with this because it just feels like the best fit. ‘Spiritual but not religious’ is a separate category from ‘atheist,’ even ‘agnostic.’ Does being spiritual mean you do yoga every morning and meditate with your wrists on your knees, reciting “ommmmmmm” until you magically feel refreshed and aligned with the universe? Does it mean feeling one with nature, bowing to trees, smiling at the rain, and sunning your butthole? Or does being spiritual mean dabbling in the occult, obsessing over crystals, putting hexes on people you hate, and using an ouija board?

Photo by Josh Rangel on Unsplash

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Recently, I attended a panel discussion on astrology and tarot as fields of study to pursue. There were some interesting points brought up about how these practices distort hegemonic discourses and the patriarchy because they directly go against empiricism and binarist thinking, which we all know are notorious favourites of men, especially religious men of science. Putting aside the irony of religious men having faith in an unknowable god but insisting that there are only two sexes, assigning value to moon cycles and little printed symbols often rubs people the wrong way. We all know that one guy who rolls his eyes when someone brings up star signs (why is he always either a virgo or a scorpio?), and you won’t be hard-pressed to find a man who is very eager to denounce tarot reading as a bunch of woo-woo new-age shit (just throw a rock at any university’s faculty of engineering). It seems that there are ‘correct’ ways of making sense of the world, and then there is nonsense stuff that girls like.

One speaker compared modern-day tarot reading to older, more traditional forms of divination which the average Chinese person is familiar with, like the 八字 (ba-zi) or 易经 (i-ching). There was a point made about how these older forms tend to work towards reinforcing oppressive patriarchal expectations. I can see why, especially if you consider how (Chinese) people primarily used divination to find out when they will be blessed with children (i.e., sons) or whether they will be successful in their national exams (so they can get a good job, afford a dowry, and quickly produce more sons). Asian cultures are especially unforgiving towards women who fail to fulfil the desires and expectations of the men around them (I recommend ‘The Woman Warrior’ if you’d like to read about this). Many Chinese beliefs thus contain and contribute to misogyny. A woman born with an inauspicious ba-zi, something entirely out of her control, is labelled inferior goods and cannot possibly hope to marry well. A woman born in the year of the tiger, through no fault of her own, will make a bad wife (i.e., headstrong, disobedient, hot-tempered, difficult to subdue or control) and so infanticide rates spike once every twelve years. The examples go on and on, and divination is unfortunately a part of a system that continuously hurts and punishes women simply for existing.

I remember attempting palmistry with friends in primary school. We counted the number of lines on our palms, both unfurled and clenched, and arbitrarily ascribed meaning to them based on what we heard from someone else or from our elders at home. An unbroken line means you will live a long and healthy life. A line with small breaks means you will face severe illness or injury. A line with a large break means you will die young. Three lines on the side of your palm beneath your pinky means you will have three lovers in your lifetime. One line at the heel means you will have one child. These two lines curving away from each other means you will experience happiness, et cetera. We came up with a whole religion that required our lives to be set in stone, every major and minor event predetermined by the fleshy folds of our hands. The language of lines and indentations on skin, unchangeable and difficult to ignore, was as good as prophecies carved onto bedrock. It was good fun, but I couldn’t help wondering and worrying if all the scary things predicted were actually going to come true. I spent so many moments looking over my palm-lines, hoping that misfortune would not befall me.

Personally, I do occasionally practise i-ching—picture me sitting at my desk, tossing coins and doing math in a little notebook—when I find myself in need of solutions. If there is a god, I believe that they would give signs to those who seek them out; even if there is no god, there is the universe and chance, which counts for something when you just need a direction, any direction. When my infant was born, I submitted their details to my spouse’s traditional eldest aunt so that she could get a diviner to suggest auspicious characters for the infant’s name. This was of paramount importance. Someone once told me that she did not get a diviner for one of her children’s names and that’s why he developed a learning disability (this one is quite…👀). It’s so interesting to me how in Singapore, people can go to church every Sunday but still make sure they do all the ‘correct’ things as per Chinese culture because they want to play it safe, even though the beliefs are technically incommensurate. I say technically because to me, they are not; in both cases, there seems to be an irrepressible belief in a higher power whose guidance we can seek if we just carry out our little rituals¹.

Something really interesting brought up was how kings in the past used to have a team of astrologers to help them predict crises and find auspicious dates to do things. A speaker said that billionaires still do that so they can know when stock markets will crash or when the economy will dip (if such a thing is even truly knowable). I think it does relate to the idea that in the hands of those in power, divination is often used as a tool to maintain said power, which a speaker said was a “masculine approach².” It also suggests to me that the “commodification of mystic arts³” has always existed and always will, for as long as it is profitable, and it is not simply a recent Gen Z Tiktok trend. Using these arts for the individual and for introspection thus feels subversive, and I am all for democratising divination. Let this tool of kings be used to help people process their trauma and articulate their emotions. Let it help women find community and peace. The best power to wield is power over ourselves.

Photo by Viva Luna Studios on Unsplash

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I think spirituality, in the sense that makes most sense to me, is more of a consistent effort to practise mindfulness. I see patterns and cycles everywhere, heightened by the reminders on my home screen’s moon phases widget. We take for granted that the sun will rise and set each day, but seasonal depression is a real thing so the people who worshipped the sun as their life-source were honestly not that far off. The earth cycles through the seasons; the uterus has its own moon-like cycles. Remembering all this is to remember that human life exists in tandem with all other life. All our little nitty-gritty human stuff (like money, reputation, career advancement) means nothing when you see a larger design. It is freeing and empowering. As for tarot reading, it is reflective and grounding. I love doing readings for myself and my friends, and I feel heartened when friends approach me for readings when they’re at a turning point in their lives. Even a simple three-card spread invites you to reevaluate your life, process your feelings about your past, and seriously consider what kind of future you want. You’re not reading what’s there, but reading into what is there. It’s all in the cards, meaning, nothing is.

1. Something brought up during the panel discussion was the search for meaning being very understandable, especially in the absence of role models. I think many people who lapse in their faith and turn to the so-called occult do so because they do not feel adequately supported/ seen. One tells you that you must follow all the rules, if not you are a sinner; the other tells you that nothing bad is permanent and that meaning depends on how you interpret the signs. One is obsessed with the past (what happened 2000+ years ago, supposedly); the other is forward-looking and encourages you to hope in the future.

2. In contrast, a feminine approach would be to use astrology or tarot as a tool for social representation or reflection, to nurture a relationship with nature, or for collective healing. Democratisation is already happening, and I don’t think it a coincidence that it is usually people who are alternative themselves (queer people, most obviously) who are drawn to these arts.

3. This was brought up in a discussion about how new practitioners learn the bare minimum and then start advertising their services in three weeks. There seems to be a sense of urgency to quickly jump on the bandwagon and establish yourself before the market becomes oversaturated, and while it is not harmful, it’s not very respectful and cheapens the practice. At the end of the day, being an astrologer or tarot reader is a sacred practice.