Oracle of Coin

Several years ago at Pantheacon, I bought a book of Lon Duquette's called "The Book of Ordinary Oracles". From this book I can tell you that I will never look at a quarter the same way and that the jar of coins on the dresser is finally being put to good use. I was fascinated by the premise that everything, absolutely everything, is an oracle if you just know how to phrase the question. Yes, it strikes a cord in my universe. That cord is the one closest to my high school fascination with Douglas Addams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The answer to "Life the universe and everything is ... 42" since we worded the question badly. Least I digress...

In Ordinary Oracles he talks about all sorts of oracles, but a few caught my fancy. I love the music of Billy Joel and spent a day going through every song lyric I could find and matching them up to the Major Arcana of Thoth deck. It involved spinning the Wheel of Fortune (that was constructed of a large blow up of the Thoth Wheel of Fortune card mounted on a lazy Susan) and matching the card to the reading. It was interesting and functional. Not to mention an incredible party game. It just had too many moving parts to be practical. It was ,however, gloriously prophetic and cagey!

Frater POS had lost his thumb drive and out of pure desperation I grabbed a coin to find it. With the words of Frater RO , "Why do magickians use magick as a LAST resort???" ringing in my ears I set off. A few flips of the coin and viola! I had the elusive and TINY thumb drive out from it's super secret hiding spot. In all honesty, that day I became a believer. It was hidden in a side pocket of a suitcase that we had used a while before. Since I did not know that he put that in there, it would have stayed in there for a VERY LONG TIME. Even though he saw me do it, he still claimed that it was "IMPOSSIBLE!". He thanked me for the thumb drive and then retrieved his files with the phrase "It's just a coin... that is impossible" under his breath. Until the next time he lost his tarot cards...

The tarot card incident defined some of the questioning methods. I asked the coin if the cards were in the temple. It affirmed that they were and in searching the side altars, we did indeed find tarot cards. It was not however the RIGHT set of tarot cards and he mused "humm I forgot I put those in there." When I defined the question as to which deck of cards, I immediately "found" my deck of the same cards. So after a bit of muttering and reformulating the question to include HIS deck of the particular cards, they were found immediately. He again thanked me for them and left muttering about it "being impossible."

I have used it a few times for other magickians and have found it to be very accurate. Once everyone gets over the disbelief that a coin is tied into the fabric of the universe, then it moves smoothly along.

Since that time a few more parameters have been defined. First off the coins are not very good with time, so if something spent a long time there it might direct you to that area. Also moon void of course and mercury direction shifts cause it quite a bit of grief. As with all divination, the more specific the better the answer. Since it is a coin you can only ask yes or no questions and as such is great training to get your mind into the right spot.

So here is how I do it:

1. I grab a quarter, though any coin will do. I ask it if it is the oracle for this set of questions. I flip it in the air, catch it and place it on the back of my hand. If it comes up heads the answer is "yes" and I move to the next step. If it comes up tails, I pick another coin. I keep doing this until one of them comes up heads. It has taken as many as 5 coins.

2. I ask it which side is "yes". If heads is "yes" then tails is "no". You only have two options here. This is an important step that I omitted once and it led me on a long wild goose chase... until I remembered and got it straightened out.

3. I get a very clear mental image of what I am looking for and then start asking very specific questions on location. For example Frater POS loses his wallet and I am trying to find it first thing Monday morning. I would first ask "Is Frater POS's wallet in the house?" If I get a "yes" then I ask if it is in a particular room being as specific as I can. "The bedroom" can mean many rooms here so you have to specify. If I get a "no", I immediately ask if it is in the car. Usually this points me there within just a few steps.

For whatever reason this particular pentacle is great at finding Earthly and material things. It works for more esoteric matters too, but it is damned good at finding lost items.

WORDS OF CAUTION!!!
1.I have found that the coin does not understand walls and so has pointed me in directions that were correct if I could walk through walls ( a skill that I am still trying to do here on the material plane...). Be specific as to the room if you are in a house.

2. If you have a lot of magick and entities around your house, you need to ask if someone or something is obscuring your readings. On occasion my HGH has gotten in my way because I was not supposed to find something yet. Also the Goetia can move things and obscure them, if you have them around make sure you ask this question/ series of questions. I have had several things obscured for my/our own good.

3. Remember vague questions give vague answers. Be specific and use as many adjectives as it takes to describe what you are looking for. If you have a particular term for the item, then use it. The point is to make sure that the universe via the coin, KNOWS what you are asking. From that point it is really straight forward.

Good luck and enjoy!