[UA] Postmodern Divination Practices

Robin Pfeifer robinpfeifer at web.de
Sat May 4 07:16:17 PDT 2002


Today I found a book in a local shop describing how to use your mobile phone
for divination. How's that for postmodern magic?

Basically it was an adaptation of the I Ging to mobile phones. Think of a
question, take the most important word of it, take the first six letters of
that (add a word if the most important one is shorter than that), type them
into the display, then take the numbers and make them full line / broken
line according to wheter they are even or odd. Then look up the definition
of the resulting hexagram in the book. Now that I've given away the
procedure you can use any old I Ging book, too!

The snag of course is that divination needs a random element. Say, you want
to know the following: 'How do I get heaps of money?' The operative word
being 'money', and the next being 'heaps' you get 'moneyh' which results in
666394, that's hexagram 25, 'Innocence'. The explanation in my book tells
me, wait for it and it'll come. And that will be the same result for
everyone. How much more fun would it be if you asked your question first,
then waited impatiently for anyone to call you, and the last six digits of
the caller's number make the result. Anyone for Mobilomancy?

Robin


_______________________________________________
UA mailing list
UA at lists.uchicago.edu
http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua




More information about the UA mailing list