Ogham - The Celtic Divination Tool
A Brief History on Ogham: A Written Language Rooted in The Trees.
Branching Out and Blooming into Learning, Divination, and Magic.
French Tarot vs. The O.G. Ogham
Most people have heard about tarot cards. A common divination tool used by intuitive, sensitives, psychics, and others to gain better insight into a person’s past, present, and/or future life, but there are many other kinds of divination tools and techniques that exist. Tarot cards were created during medieval times in France as a socially and religiously acceptable form of “magical entertainment” within the royal courts.
Today, you can see the time frame in which these tarot cards were created reflected in some card’s “traditional” artwork depicting medieval-styled kings, queens, knights, and swords. But with most creative and artistic inventions, an original concept predates the French-styled tarot cards and its name is Ogham.
Rooted in Celtic Druid Tradition
Ogham was originally created as the first written language of the Celtic Druid people of present-day Ireland. The written language is read linearly from bottom to top and is not letters but hieroglyphs. Trees are sacred in Celtic Paganism. Reading Ogham is symbolic to the druid religion because the formatting of the Ogham symbols are written not only to resemble trees and branches but reading from the bottom up represents the perceived growth of trees.
Each ogham hieroglyph is consistent with a word, phrase, or general meaning and was used as a written form of communication within the druid people for thousands of years. There is no solidified date regarding the introduction of Ogham with the Celts but the time frame for its origination is anytime between the 1st-century B.C.E to the 300’s.
The Book of Ballymote is an Irish text believed to be written around 1390, and it references 86 to 88 different oghams, with not all being based on trees. For example, there was a subset of ogham hieroglyphs that simply referred to pigs by color and number as a way to count livestock. As well as another ogham classification solely used to count and record specific foods and crops. Anything you could want or need a list of, ogham was used for.
These lists created from the originally written ogham soon became the foundation of learning. So much so that specific places of study were established to learn how to be a Celtic/Druid Monk Poet. If an individual were to study to become a Monk Poet, they would learn about 50 oghams in three years. It is believed that there were a vast array of ogham glyphs used by the Druid Celts from the root ogham used in religious teachings to the more common glyphs used for counting or written communication. Today we only know about the ogham that has lasted the test of time such as the select few in the Book of Ballymote or some that are strewn about the Irish landscape etched into stone markers and other various places.
Monks or Poets? More Like Scholars of Magic
The Monk poets who learned ogham were revered by Celtic society and were dubbed the “Learned Class”. It may seem weird to call someone a Monk Poet, not just a monk or a poet, but the conjunction of these two words is important.
Within the Celtic Druid society of the time, monks and priests studied Celtic Paganism for religious reasons, but Monk Poets did this and more. The creation of the written Celtic language was a huge accomplishment for the druid people. Which was not only recognized as a higher and more organized way of sharing and recording information, but marked a better way to understand, learn, and notice the world around them.
Monk Poets did not just learn ogham for pagan religious reasons, they learned ogham to better understand the world around them, to explore and define it, and create new and better ogham for the rest of their people to remember it. For them, Ogham was a way to understand the universe and was seen as a form of magic. They believed the language of ogham helped to make the world real. The idea of written ogham being magic and aiding in the reality of the world translated into a few pagan divination tools such as rune casting and Celtic tarot decks.
What Is Ogham Rune Casting? Stones, Sticks, and Cards
Also called Ogham, Celtic rune casting is a pagan divination tool where certain ogham glyphs are etched into objects such as stones, or sticks. These are used to gain a better insight into the life of the person putting their intentions into and focusing their energy on the casting tools. (Remember trees are sacred in Celtic/Druid paganism.)
The glyphs or runes used in casting are the original sacred trees and recognized natural organic aspects of the world with a few more human icons added in as well. For example, Oak, Hawthorn, Ivy, and Spindle are common runes in a normal Celtic casting set. These same icons are also used in Celtic tarot decks as well. Think of ogham rune casting as the original divination technique used in Celtic druid times. Today Celtic tarot is the adapted version where the same signs and symbols are used, but instead of the runes being etched into stone, sticks, or other mediums, cards are used.
How It Works: Ogham Rune Casting: How Runes of the Old Tell of the New
To perform an ogham casting reading, traditionally the reader will have their sitter pick and choose which ogham castings they feel most drawn to. (Note: The sitter does not have to know what any of the runes say on each casting piece, they only have to pick out which rune pieces they wish to use for their specific reading.) Then sitter will focus on the portion of their life they would like more insight on. Once they think they’ve put enough of their intentions and energy into the ogham they will gently toss the ogham like dice onto a flat surface.
The reader will then read the casting as the original Celtic Druids read the written ogham language, from bottom to top. The bottom runes represent the sitter’s past or root system of their question. The middle represents the sitter’s present. And the top of the casting represents the sitter’s possible future. It is important to note that ogham rune castings are meant to provide general insight into a person’s life and possible future, not provide indefinite information.
During an ogham rune casting, some stones, or sticks may fall more to the left or the right of the casting’s general line of direction. The runes on the left represent the more negative aspects of the sitter’s life or life situation in question, whereas the runes on the right of the casting’s trunk of information will be focused on more positive aspects of the sitter’s life and/or specific question. Please understand that positive and negative do not necessarily mean good or bad, think more of them as the Ying and Yang aspects of the casting’s entire perspective. With that being said, when ogham runes are upside down, the rune’s meaning is different.
Want To Learn More? Watch and Listen!
If you want to see a real ogham rune casting, please check out my reading on our YouTube Channel! Or if you want to hear more about the history of Ogham, Rune Casting, and Celtic Tarot please listen to our Podcast episode too. Listen as our guest Julie gives Em and me our own Rune Casting and Celtic Tarot Readings shedding a lot of insight on our personal lives, business goals, and more! And remember for education and entertainment for all things Metaphysical Em and I are your META PSYCKICKS!
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