Seeing as we're in the "holiday season", just for fun, I thought I'd post about this:
Following my personal celebration of the winter solstice earlier this evening, having recently read that there was some lore regarding using the shadows cast by a burning Yule log for divinatory means, I made an attempt at the same. Staring at the dancing shadows on my ceiling, and assisted by some slight tipsiness, I easily fell into a light trance, but no visions came. It could be that I felt somewhat unable to give myself over to the change in consciousness for some reason, feeling myself gripped, for whatever reason, by an profound fear. This isn't a common thing for me, so I'll chalk it up to the fact that the folklore I had read about says that this divination method was used to foretell who would die in the coming year.
I've read also that in older times, when Christmas trees were lit by candle, similar divination was done on Christmas Eve at midnight. We have a Christmas tree in our house, and though of course it is light by electric lights, I'll give it a go with what shadows those cast when the time comes, though I suspect the alteration of consciouniousness will be less profound than that caused by flickering firelight, and thus scrying will not come as easily. I'll post again in this thread when I have my results.
Does anyone else do any similar Yuletide divination?