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DIVINATION & AUGURY IN A MODERN LIGHT 217
a sign of illfortune; but let it be settled by the code that a raven croaking under special strange circumstances means disaster, and white swan means prosperity, and an eagle something else, and that numbers mean something, and the direction something, then friends in the unseen world could communicate, as the operator in the Morse code of telegraphy does, when the receiver knows that a short stroke means "e" and a long one means 't."
So in the same way with throwing the staff, dreams, consulting of cards; prophecy by means of them requires the possession of mutual code, be the understanding what it may, and differing possibly among different people; but, given the code, and person whose muscles or movements may be influenced, and the explanation and reasonableness of the practice is easily seen. Here may be also an explanation of the practice called Horary Astrology, of deciding on a course of action by casting a figure of the heavens for the precise movement when the thought first presented itself, or the event that started the proposal occurred. If we have an established code, understood by certrin denizens of the spirit-world, that a certain position of a planet means encouragement and another means warning, we can easily be advised by unseen friends who have only to wait for a certain moment of time and then to prompt the thought in our brain to cast a figure. They could also, of course, just as easily prompt a feeling directly of success or danger within our brain, and they do so,
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