Basic Divination: Coins

To work with a type of Basic Divination, I decided upon coins. Since the physics and mass of most coins make it more likely that “heads” will appear more often than “tails”, I did not want to do the usual coin toss. Therefore, I decided on the Odd-Even method of coin divination. I counted out twenty pennies and prepared them and their bag for divination. Then I began to divine.

The hardest part of this type of divination for me was in forming the question. Since I was restricted to “yes” (even number of coins) and “no” (odd), I was stumped. What I finally did was to ask whether certain sports teams would win a particular game. I also asked questions such as “Will my friend ring me up today?”
After asking the question and grabbing a fist full of pennies out of the bag, I recorded my answer. My accuracy in predicting winning sports teams was dismal. It was only twenty percent correct. I suppose that if this method was truly accurate, everyone would be doing it. Instead, people usually collect team and individual statistics and base their predictions on that. (They use a form of mathematical modeling combined with intuition.)

Perhaps I asked the wrong question such as “Is Team Y going to defeat Team X” instead of “Is Team X going to defeat Team Y.” It may not seem to make a difference at first but it did make a difference in intent. (The focus on Team Y winning instead of Team X subtly changes the outcome.)

In predicting what people would do, I was more accurate. With that topic, I was right eighty percent of the time. I think it was because I knew the person’s behavior, and could phrase the question correctly.

Of course, the unconscious desire for a certain outcome played out in my divination. I wanted certain teams to win, so I pulled out the number of coins that I wanted. Furthermore, I knew certain people would act in particular ways. Since I desired a specific outcome, I would unconsciously produce that answer. Bias in this form of divination needs to be looked at before offering a final answer on its accuracy. (I do need to figure out how to remove any bias if it is possible to do so.)