I TRY IT
Taking one of my self-created answer sheets in hand (see picture above for the results), I looked over the list of questions, selected three, then filled them out in order of importance to me on the answer sheet. In addition to asking my usual suspects from among the Spirits, I also asked the creator of the Dutch Fortune Teller to weigh-in on the answers I would receive.
The first question ‘To know what Fortune may happen unto this Child newly-born?’ I asked the Spirits to answer from the standpoint of what They would’ve said to my parents about me when I was born. This would be a good test of this system’s veracity, I thought. The question code was PO.12. Turning to the PO table in the Wheel pages, I threw the dice, and the result was 8, which gave me a result of Virgo 54. That last number, 54, led me to the Diana 97 globe. Looking down the Diana 97 list of answers to number 8, I found the following verse:
“Be of good comfort, Mother mild,
Or you, the Father of this child,
For it is lusty, sound and strong,
And therefore likely to live long
I was a nine-pound, eight-ounce baby. Of thirty-six possible hereditary diseases to which the flesh can be heir, 23andme.com indicated I have only half the chromosomes necessary for the manifestation of just one of them, so it’s not likely to happen. The oracle would’ve told my parents, don’t worry about this kid, she’s healthy and she’ll live long.
My next question was ‘Whether you shall finish the business well, which you do purpose?’ I had in mind the whole Divination Lessons project which I have been engaged in for these past eight years and longer. I’m not planning on ending it any time soon, I just wanted to know if I would ‘finish the business well.’ The question’s code is PV.4. Turning to the PV Wheel, I threw a 6, which gave me a result of Starrs 44. Turning to the Starrs 44 globe in the Globes pages, I found a notation of Saturnus 83. Sensing I wouldn’t like the answer, I turned to the Saturnus 83 list of answers, located answer number 6, and read the following:
If that you do not understand this work,
Then do not take’t in hand;
You’d better let it now alone,
Than wish too late you had done none.
My mouth screwed up in a sour expression. A rather grumpy, patronizing answer, and unnecessarily-so. I knew when I first decided to answer the question I posed to myself, ‘If I were going to design a divination class curriculum, how would I go about it?’ that answering that question was going to take YEARS of work and persevering effort. And I don’t ‘not understand this work’– divination and I are old friends. Anyway, moving on.
For the third and final question, ‘Whether you shall make a good and Happy End?’ I had to gin-up a little courage, because that question deals frankly with end-of-life circumstances. The question code for this was ZA.15. Turning to the requisite wheel in the Wheels tables, I threw a 4, which gave me a result of 4 Leo 53. Turning to the Leo 53 globe, I found a notation of Hercules 89. Hercules, the mythical hero who had twelve major tasks set for him, and achieved all twelve. Turning to the Hercules 89 list of answers, I located answer number 4, and read the following:
“A Happy Life, a Like End begets,
And when your Sun of Nature sets,
Having done good while you had breath,
Full many will lament your Death.”
Now this was a sweet fortune to draw, especially as I’d seen the less-sweet ZA.15 fortunes while creating the PDF. My reaction to the three answers I received: Well, yeah. Duh. Oh, thank you, how sweet! But I noticed that the history or mythology behind the name given to each of the answer tables had some bearing on the nature of the responses in that section, so you can tell right away if it’s going to be a good, bad or neutral answer.