Left or Right? Polarity in Divination
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Moving on from my recent essay about the observer’s proper orientation to the left and right pillars of the Qabalistic Tree of Life, I set out to explore the significance of the left and right sides in divination.
In Western mystical circles, the passive left side is often referred to as the receptive, intuitive, compassionate conduit through which we route inspiration from a higher source of wisdom. This seems to be the premise behind the traditional instruction to cut a shuffled tarot deck “with your left hand, to the left;” the cards are likely to be more amenable to cooperation if handled gently and reverently with the non-dominant hand. (Left-handers can skip this part.) The idea is that intuition flows more freely into the “left-hand” channel, which then reciprocates in kind by delivering highly-sensitive, nuanced insights by way of the deal. (Orthodox kabbalists would take issue with this assessment since the “left hand of God” is characterized as meting out punishment while the right hand dispenses mercy.) In my nonreligious opinion, the harshest outcome we can expect from this awkward, off-handed approach is a paper cut!
The active right side and its eponymous hand are the purveyors of directed force, and their emphasis is thought to be too abrupt and callous for the delicate task of imparting finesse to a reading. I don’t know about you (unless you’re a “leftie,” that is), but to achieve the desired effect I’m going to swat at an angry hornet with my stout right hand and not my clumsy but oh-so-sensitive left, hopefully avoiding the kind of “negative feedback” we might anticipate from a mishandled deck of tarot cards (maybe a “stinging rebuke?”). I’m not one who believes that a stack of cardboard has a “personality,” but it’s intriguing to imagine that its inanimate sensibilities might be offended by such crass treatment. I’m thinking of Omar Khayyam’s admonition to the potter thumping his wet clay: “Gently, brother, gently pray!”
The concepts of deasil (clockwise) and widdershins (counterclockwise) might also be brought into the discussion. Although in its earliest form the Scottish word “widdershins” basically meant “having a bad hair day” (hair standing on end or sticking out in all directions), in this case we might see it as going against the flow of the objective experience that presents itself to our waking consciousness in “solar” fashion. Divination, on the other hand, is more subjective and engages the currents of the subconscious mind; we could consider it “coming out of left field” in the sense that fortune-telling has been called an irrational (or “lunar”) act. In modern usage, widdershins means “left-handed, wrong or contrary,” stigmatizing “lefties” far and wide, but I’m not sure Wiccan ritualism accepts this premise.
In my own practice, I typically ask my querents to “cut with the left hand, to the left” mainly because I see it as part of the established “theater of tarot” and not because I’m convinced it makes a huge difference. But, furthering the agreeable illusion, I will restore the sub-packs to a single pile with my right hand in the same direction, “closing the loop” so to speak. This has nothing to do with the theological premise of “left-hand” and “right-hand” paths to damnation or salvation, but instead loosely echoes the circulation of “Divine Light” in the body. For the most part, though, it’s just a bit of theatrical window-dressing.
Although the “map” of spiritual energy transfer between the chakras doesn’t assume such a marked lateral bifurcation of flow, instead displaying more of a serpentine, side-to-side undulation from top-to-bottom and back, when I think of primordial “Earth energy” entering through the soles of my feet rather than at the crown of my head, I visualize it traveling up the left side of my body and back down the right, forming a pathway. The left leg and left hand work in concert with other “left-side” functions to accept and process the impulse and the right-side cohort gathers it up, extracts its essence and returns it to the source (while theoretically engaging the “third eye” chakra as a kind of “gatekeeper” at the turn-around).
None of this has any scientific or metaphysical basis that I know of, it just seems right when contemplating the act of “grounding” through direct (that is, unshod) contact with the Earth (but please don’t quote me as an authority on it). I will sometimes meditate on this polarized evolution when in need of balance, envisioning its steady-state entry and exit as a “normalizing” force. In electrical parlance, the left side suggests the “negative pole” toward which electrons flow, and the right side signifies the “positive pole” from which they depart in traveling back around the closed circuit. If it were to enter both sides at once, the tapped energy would go nowhere due to a lack of induction akin to electrical potential across the poles of a battery, and the effort would be of little consequence in connecting with the Earth since, to be duly energized by its power, our subtle body must be “networked” in a dynamic chain that parallels the chakra model. (Hmm, maybe if I were to stand on one leg like a heron or Ian Anderson and then switch legs periodically . . . )
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on April 30, 2023.
