Toss the Bones: How to create and use a bone set

Witchcraft and divination often go hand in hand. I vividly remember my first encounter with tarot reading and was fascinated as I learned to read and feel the cards. Some witches prefer oracle cards or reading tea leaves or dowsing pendulums. These are all amazing methods of divination, but there is one type of divination that I don’t see that often in modern crafts: bone tossing.

It may seem like an archaic and very outdated way of seeing the future, but throwing the bones can offer witches some unique advantages that other methods may lack. This form of divination really puts you in touch with your inner voice, the psychic part of you that only knows and just needs a little nudge to unlock your true potential.

What throw bones?
Bone throwing is essentially just a set of fortune reading tools. They are usually made of bones (obviously), shells, trinkets, and other such things. No two bone toss sets are the same, each witch will craft and collect her bones based on her personal throwing style and often a set will change significantly over time.

Each piece of the set has a meaning, but the meaning of each piece is not as important as the relationship of the pieces to one another. How they fall, where they touch, the distance or lack of each piece combine to create a narrative that helps illuminate the question the caster posed.

Many people avoid bone throwing because it seems difficult to learn. It seems very interpretive and not particularly concrete, and many people are used to the rather clipped and dry meanings found in beginner’s tarot books. While bone tossing is certainly more interpretive and intuitive than other forms of divination, it’s not difficult to learn. The creation process is actually the most important step in learning how to use them. It introduces you to your personal set and creates a deeper connection with your tools than you could have with commercial divination tools.

Throw Bones: The Pros and Cons
That said, throwing bones isn’t for everyone. Here’s a quick rundown of why you might or might not want to try bone tossing.

Advantages:

1. Throwing bones is very personal. As you will see below, there is a default set to start with. From there, though, you can add and remove pieces, invent and tweak things as you see fit. There really is no right way for your bone set!
2. Bone throwing is also an excellent way to harness the psychic power if you’re not quite sure how to use it. This method of divination will help you access these deeper psychic messages and massively enhance your intuition when you need it.
3. There is also something to be said for how direct this form of divination feels. There is something that really helps you connect to the earth, to previous generations of witches, and to your own primal nature. This is a tool made from what you have available, natural objects, handmade jewelry and the like. It is shaped by your reality and your circumstances and that is often lost in the digital age. If you sometimes struggle to connect with the physical, human part of your spiritual self, the Bone Toss can feel like a revelation.

Disadvantages:

1. Bone tossing can be a fairly fleeting form of divination. If you’re not in the right headspace, having a particularly “blocked” day mentally, or the bones just don’t like your question, you may not get an answer at all! Thankfully, it’s usually easy to tell when this is happening. A reading will feel flat and uninspired at times like these, and you’ll know to just put the bones away for another time.
2. Unless you are someone who has a psychic side, this type of divination may never work for you. Now I want to clarify here that I am a firm believer that EVERYONE has psychic abilities, but only some people know how to access them. Some people have blocked these abilities since childhood. Some people have been told that their intuition is silly and not worth listening to. Others have belittled their imaginations so many times that they think any idea not directly related to physical reality is definitely wrong. And many of them don’t realize it! If you don’t have psychic abilities right now and are looking to learn, I strongly believe it is possible to learn that dexterity and bone throwing can be a great tool to overcome those barriers.

3. Bone toss sets can be very delicate. This can make them a bit difficult to travel with and reading in public places (it’s definitely not fun when a bone slides across a crowded floor to potentially be stepped on and crushed!). If you do a lot of Divination in public places or if you travel a lot, it can be difficult to keep a set of throwing bones intact. There are ways to mitigate damage while traveling. However, if you are in this boat, you should craft your set with sturdiness in mind.

How to collect and create your own bone set

Creating your own throwing bones should be a fun and intuitive process. It may be something you all do in one afternoon, but most likely this process will take a little longer. Once you start, the pieces tend to find their way. You can start with 3 or 5 pieces, but as you start your normal life you’ll notice things just begging to be added to your set. People will drop by with strange gifts for you, you’ll find strange items that call out to you, and before you know it your Bone Toss set will be complete.

So what kind of items are you looking for? Despite the fact that I call this a bone toss set, the items don’t all have to be bones. If you’re feeling squeamish, you don’t have to include bones! For me, collecting feathers, bones, and pretty rocks has always been a favorite pastime, but you might as well lean into it other ways. Maybe you love seashells or have a collection of antique jewelry. You can include things like buttons, pieces of driftwood, bottle caps, crystals, carved wooden figures, and just about anything else you can think of. The main criterion should be whether it speaks to you or not.

Does it feel right in your set?

Each item represents something in your set. You must select one bone to represent yourself (this should be slightly larger than the rest in comparison). The importance you attach to each bone is up to you. Below is a list of what I’ve included in my set in the past. However, if you don’t want some of these or feel like you need some that aren’t illustrated here then you can change things up to your liking. Just make sure you have enough pieces with a wide enough range of meanings that you get more detailed readings and don’t have to grasp at straws.

bone ideas:

• That I
• Health
• wealth
• Family
• Love
• magic
• Yes (or as I prefer to call it, the green lightbone)
• No
• Evil / bad intentions
• Masculine
• Female (these sex bones are useful when you don’t know who is involved in a situation and want clarification)
• One/Many (this should be a two-sided item)
• Truth (this shows the true desires of your heart)
• Other (if you want to read for someone else)

Destiny or Decision (another two-sided element indicating whether or not you can change the situation)

My current kit doesn’t include all of these pieces, and your kit doesn’t have to have every one of them. If you want what I would consider an absolute basic set, use numbers 1-6, 9, 10, 11, and 13. That’s 10 pieces that give nice, detailed readings without taking forever to collect each piece .

Please take your time with the search process. If it’s falling fast, that’s great, but if it’s slow, don’t rush. There is nothing worse than a set of bones that is not contiguous and cannot be read. Save yourself the frustration, give the process plenty of time, and trust your intuition when it says, “Ooh! The thing!”

You can dedicate the bones to their purpose if you wish, but I’ve always found that they just know. The pieces that find their way into my set are meant to be there and are aware of their purpose.

When you have all your parts and are ready to learn how to use them, you will also need a throwing material. This is a piece of fabric with markings so the reader can see how important each piece is.

The basic setting is a cloth with two circles in each other. The smaller circle is anything that is directly involved, within the larger circle are things that are indirectly involved, and anything outside of that is not a factor. My personal throwing stuff is simply a black cloth with a gold halo spray on it. Things that fall within the circle are relevant, vaguely related in the halo, and irrelevant on the outside. Play with this basic setting, try different styles or create your own. Remember, this divination kit should be all yours!

It’s also a good idea to have a bag or box to keep all the pieces together when you’re not using them. Lost pieces can throw off an entire reading.

When you’re ready to use your set, it’s time to really dig deep and find your psychic self. Don’t worry, we will do this step by step.

First, place your towel on a soft surface. Very hard surfaces can cause parts to bounce. I usually read on a carpeted floor or yoga mat.

Place the self bone right in the middle of your fabric. Pick up the rest of your set (or a bowl, whatever you prefer) and focus on your question or the situation you want to illuminate. They can play with the bones, they a…