Of all the methods of divination, one of the simplest is interpreting tea leaves and coffee grounds. It is fairly easy to master – almost anyone with plenty of patience can study the various symbols and their meanings in detail. A feel for reading the grounds is very important, yet according to tradition you don’t need mediumistic gifts to read something in a cup.
Which cup?
Any cup or mug can be used for a reading. The inside should be white and free of any pattern or colour, so that the images take shape clearly as you interpret them. A large cup is better than a small one.
The traditional ritual
The ritual traditionally associated with reading the grounds is easy to remember. The person asking the question drinks the brew right down to the bottom – the grounds and their shapes are then visible on the sides and base of the cup. Next they take the cup in their hand and swirl it three times anticlockwise. While doing so, it’s a good idea to silently ask the question they want answered.
Your first look into the cup may be discouraging, because you don’t really know what you’re looking at. But if you examine the cup carefully from different angles, images and symbols will begin to appear. Sometimes nothing can be seen – don’t give the task up as hopeless. According to practitioners, the cause is usually a lack of concentration.
The whole and the details
In every reading it’s important both to consider the overall appearance of the cup and to pick out the individual symbols. Only by combining the two perspectives do you get the full picture of the reading.
A symbol’s position and timing
Observing where individual symbols lie makes it possible to place the predicted events in time:
- symbols near the rim of the cup herald events in the near future,
- the deeper the signs lie, the more distant the future they describe.
Size and clarity
The size of a symbol gives a clue to the importance or scale of the event. When interpreting, you also need to consider the symbol’s clarity – whether it is clean and distinct or blurred.
A “yes” or “no” answer
If you only want a “yes” or “no” answer, a different method of interpretation is used. Rather than focusing on all the symbols, you look only at those that seem relevant to the question asked. It may happen, however, that there are no such signs in the cup. In that case the good and bad signs are carefully counted, and whichever are in the majority indicate the answer.
What to avoid
Tradition also carries a warning about reading coffee grounds and tea leaves: you shouldn’t examine the same person’s cup three or four times a day. Such efforts will simply end in disappointment – the later signs and images will contradict what the first cup showed.
It’s best to treat reading the grounds as a traditional practice and an opportunity for reflection, rather than as a sure forecast of events.
From the archive of our esoteric magazines. Written by astrologers and esoteric specialists working with our editorial team; edited and translated for HOROSCOP.SPACE. © All rights reserved.
