Drawing divinatory dominos

2018-07-11

Everybody has held dominos, these small tiles with black dots, at some point in life. They are known all over the world. But did you know they were also used to perform divinatory draws?

Dominoes, a game with divinatory powers

Dominoes are known as a game comprising 28 white tiles, each of them being split into two. Each part has a number of dots, which are usually black. These different parts and number of dots enable the players to make varied mathematical combinations.

This game comes from an extremely ancient Asian game that is still practiced today in China and Japan: Mahjong. It is also used as an oracle. It is composed of 144 white rectangular forms called “tiles”. "Mahjong" means "sparrow that chirps", in reference to the noise the tiles make when they are being mixed up.

The term "dominos", by contrast, comes from the white and black color of the robes worn by members of the Dominican religious order.

For connoisseurs, dominoes have always been more than a mere board game because they hold divinatory power.

Divinatory dominos, an extremely ancient art

We know today that divination through dominos has been practiced for a very long time. The first traces of the divinatory dominos date back twelves centuries before our era and were found in Ancient China.

But others were discovered: according to legend, some dominos were found intact in Egypt in the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun . It is therefore highly likely that divination through dominos is a practice that is as old as the world itself.

These two civilizations (Egyptian and Chinese) have a long divinatory tradition behind them. It is, therefore, no wonder that they had been seeking to exploit the "vibratory potential" of dominos in order to get predictions about the future.

Today, this game has evolved but mediums all around the world remain interested in their divinatory power. But in reality, everybody can perform a domino draw. It is most likely one of the most accessible forms of divination that can bring answers very quickly.