Divination was an elective course taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It taught methods of divining the future, or gathering insights into future events, through various rituals and tools.

to divine = to guess

- what is divination and what types of divination are there

- what are some divination techniques 

- have a tea drinking party and try out a divination technique -  tea leaves reading

- making predictions as a form of prophecy.

A book of prophecies.

Each of you is going to try his/her hand at making prophesies for the future. You will make prophecies by HOUSES. And we will put them all in a book. Only the future will show how accurate were your prophecies.

What is divination?

Divination is magic which attempts to foresee future events. There are several types of Divination.

1. The most imprecise is what is commonly known as “fortune-telling,” and this is what Professor Trelawney teaches at Hogwarts. 

2. The second kind of Divination is what is practiced by the centaurs. 

3. The third type of Divination is called "seeing". This is true Divination, although what the Seer reveals is usually in the form of a Prophecy which then itself requires some interpretation. A Seer, one who possesses the Inner Eye, doesn’t seem to have control over their Seeing. They also go into a trance and speak in a completely different voice. Most of the time, after speaking the Prophecy, the Seer doesn't remember a thing about it.

There are several fortune telling techniques

• astrology - reading the future from the stars 
• cartomancy - fortune telling using a deck of cards 
• crystal ball - seeing the future in a special crystal ball 
• dream interpretation - telling the future from the dreams 
• palmistry - reading the future from a person's palm
• reading tea leaves - telling the future from the shape of the tea leaves. 

Text source (the text has been slightly adjusted and completed)

Watch this video of a Divination class with professor Trelawny, from Harry Potter to see another fortune telling technique. Can you tell what are they using to tell the future?

At SMILE during the Divination Class we will practice fortune telling in two ways:

Tea Party with Tea Leaves Reading

It is called tasseography and it consists of reading the patterns the tea leaves leave on the cup. It is all about using your intuition and reading the symbols you see on the inside of the cup.

Have a tea party with your class.

Best Tea for Tasseography

Tea reading is best when using loose leaf tea. Using tea bags will rob you of the sediments, that allows the leaves to form patterns. As a result, you won’t be able to extract any information. That’s why using loose black or oolong tea is best when reading. You can use any variety of loose leaf tea

Steps to reading tea leaves. 

1. Make a cup of tea and let it steep.

Best cup for the procedure is a cup that is white inside and the shape of it is narrower at the base and wider at the brim:

2. Drink it, but leave a teaspoon or so in the cup.

3. Swirl the cup in your left hand counter clockwise.

4. Invert the cup, pause for a minute, then, turn the cup over from the right hand side, look closely at the pattern of leaves.
5. Take a picture of the inside. Post it in the padlet below.

You will earn a yellow bean for a post of your cup onthe Padlet above.

Read more about the procedure, some symbols/shapes and an example of prophecy

on the Tea Association of the USA Inc Page

Choose a cup that belolngs to a student in a different country and write a prediction based on the symbols/shapes you see in the comments to the photo on Padlet.  Include all the symbols/shapees that you see in that cup in your prediction.

Here is an example of a cup with symbols/shapes:

Source

The symbols/pictures that you will see in the cup may be different from what others see and that is perfectly fine. Let's not forget that we are doing this for fun.

Also... very important - keep it positive! Nobody wants to hear negative predictions about the future. Let's not forget that this is SMILE - and let's pass this learning experience with a smile.

 You will earn 2 pink beans , worth 9 points each, for a positive interpretation of the cup, based on the information provided or on your imagination.

You can write more than one interpretation and earn more points for your house.

Write your name, country code and house name to gain beans for your house.

Use WILL to make predictions!

Prophecies

or Seeing - you will try to see with your Inner Eye and make a prediction about the future. This is going to be done together with your house. It is going to be a House Prophecy. For that we are going to meet online and work together with the house.

There were people in all times that made predictions about the future. The most famous names that are associated with forseeing the future are Nostradamus (a writer), Vanga (a clairvoyant), as well as some scientists who are well known to you like Nikola Tesla, Steven Hawking, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Bill Gates.

Here are some of their predictions.

Their predictions were not arbitrary they have based their predictions on some tendencies and scientific facts.

Can you make similar predictions together with your House mates and describe them, why do you think it is likely to happen.

Use WILL for making predictions!

Write your House Phrophecies here. There is a page where you can brainstorm with your house. For this write your predictions. Later together with your house mates you are going to put them together in a text. 

For each of your prophesies you will get a yellow bean , worth 6 points.

CLASS EVALUATION