The Tantric Dakini Oracle

by Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger

a review by John Gilbert

The Tantric Dakini Oracle by Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger (ISBN 089281137-4) is a combination deck and book set published by Destiny Books, a division of Inner Traditions International, available at $35.00 through the publisher or your local bookseller.

The Tantric Dakini Oracle is a 64 card deck based on the 64 Dakinis. A Dakini is an archetype of feminine wisdom-energy. These archetypes are inside every person. Some are creative. Others are destructive. Destruction is a necessary requisite to creation as the new replaces the old. To create you must destroy. Create something new and something old dies.

The cards numbered zero through twenty-one closely correspond to the Major Arcana of a standard tarot deck. The cards numbered twenty-two through sixty-one can easily be made to correspond to cards from the Minor Arcana of the standard tarot deck. Cards sixty-two through sixty-four are temporal cards of the Past, Present and Future.

Each card represents one of the sixty-four Dakinis. The symbols on each card are described in detail so the reader can easily understand the energy behind the card. Divinatory meanings are given for each card.

You don't need to understand the Dakinis in order to use this deck. What you need understand is the energy driving the Dakini. The authors make this information easily available and easy to understand. These energies are Universal and each of us contains each of these energies.

Drawing one card a day gives us a very good daily read on where we are today, what we need to be aware of as we move through the day, and what we might want to avoid today. The main problem with this oracle, as with all forms of divination, is it will always tell you the truth regardless of what you want or desire. It will always give you the correct answer whether you like it or not.

I read the book through once comparing the cards to the description in order to understand the symbols better. I didn't bother to memorize the meanings of each card though this could certainly be done. I drew one card a day for several days, made a note of the card, its meaning and my feelings about the card in my Tarot Journal, and went about my day. At the end of the day I compared my memories of the day to the wisdom of the cards.

The result? One hundred percent correct whether that was my intention of not. The energies predicted by the cards did in fact come into my life. How I handled those energies was much improved because I had been forewarned and more prepared than usual. It wasn't because I expected the energy to manifest. I didn't. But I was prepared just in case it happened. It did - inevitably.

My next experiment was to draw one card for the month. I drew card 37 The Fire of Sacrifice. The book says: Recognize the ability of the self to let go of all habits and habit-forming thoughts. Replace these with conscious rituals of worship. My, my after a month of self-exploration I'm appalled at all the habit-forming thoughts and little habits I've accumulated over the years.

Just when you think you're about done making progress you learn about a whole bunch of new things you need to work on. Evidently, we just keep on making progress. Maybe that's the real secret. The Dakini Oracle is one way to keep discovering where that progress needs to be made right now. It's a good oracle for daily, weekly or monthly self-readings. It's a good oracle to share with your friends and clients on an occasional basis. It's a good oracle.

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