Books Keep Secrets, Too

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Here's a points-out-the-obvious-a-lot statement: Books are fantastic. But I found a way recently, with some random twist of fate and an awesome tumblr blogger, for books to be even more fantastic than they already were.

I learned what bibliomancy is! It is another form of intuitive divination -- and while no divination is entirely "simple" in and of itself, this one comes just as easily to me as any other form I've tried. (Well. I'm still learning the Runes and am still a bit apprehensive of my ability to read them. I feel resistance; a sort of "Go back to the books, grasshopper," kind of feeling.)
So first thing's first. As with any divination, part of what I have to do is to clear my brain out; that means my self-doubt, my list of to-dos, my random thought processes, or notions of how repetitive college life can be. This, I think, is essential for how I've experienced bibliomancy -- it's a quick reading. (Although just like any other form, it could be complex and take a while to interpret.) I feel like I have to KNOW when to open the book and where to start reading. And I do. But not if my mind's a jumbled mess. (Okay. Maybe it is more often then not, but I SWEAR. I SWEAR I can clear it out at least momentarily.) Next step is for me to focus on the querent's energy (I can write more on that, but it would be in and of itself another blog post) and their question if they had one, and then open the book. There's the whole "what if I'm crazy!? What if I'm wrong!?" thing that might pop through my head, but I'm working on not letting that get in the way. Just open the book and read -- that's all I tell myself. I cannot divulge a lot of information on readings I've done for others, but I can offer a sample one that I worked for myself:

The question was "Will I be in a romantic relationship sometime soon?" (Please, go ahead and judge >_> It was a rather dumb question to ask, but I'm a Pisces. We get this way sometimes.)

I read from my small, gold-leaf pocket version of "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien and got this passage:

“The Elven King looked at Bilbo with new wonder. “Bilbo Baggins!” he said. “You are more worthy to wear the armor of elf-princes than many who have looked more comely in it. But I wonder if Thorin Oakenshield will see it so. I have more knowledge of dwarves in general than you have perhaps. I advise you to remain with us, and here you shall be honored and thrice welcome.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Many things can be interpreted from this reading, but the conclusion I came to was this: Be amongst those who would honor you, even if it's not a romantic relationship as you hope. Your friends are much better company than you think! Time spent with them is more fulfilling than worrying about having a relationship soon with a person or possible people who don't appreciate you or see you as you are meant to be seen.

Much of it is going to be intuitive and the rest is going to be your ability to use the psychic gifts you already do possess. Some of the intuitive part may also come from English-Major-esque things like reading between the lines as is done endlessly in such classes -- and also some of it is throwing the "let's take it all literally" right out the window. Here, I am represented by Bilbo Baggins. The Elven King is the Spirit or Higher Self, ect. Thorin Oakenshield is the people who would be shallow, wrongly judge me or not appreciate me as I should, and the other elves? Well, those would be my friends in this situation.

So in my eyes, the reading was incredibly accurate. It suited well, didn't confuse me. I didn't second-guess myself. This was all done in the span of about six minutes with a clear head.

One thing I learned about Bibliomancy is that traditionally, the Bible or other "holy" texts were used. But like a good tarot deck, the tumblr blogger I told you about earlier mentioned that it works better if you know the text that you plan to use well. What I have on hand that fits both criteria are as follows: "The Hobbit" by Tolkien, "The Prose Edda" and "The Poetic Edda." There's another cool vocabulary term for the day, which I am totally going to look into -- Rhapsodomancy -- or divination by poetry -- it's kind of an offshoot of bibliomancy now-a-days. Books keep secrets, too. But the right kinds of readers can pull even the best kept secrets off of the pages. I hope one day that my own books will be used for such ends.