When you think of a fortune teller, the image that typically comes to mind is a heavyset woman wearing a head wrap, lots of gold and exotic, beaded clothing. She can usually be found in a dark room decorated with purple tapestry.
Six feet tall and slender, wearing blue jeans and a white shirt and offering his services around the University campus, Asa Downing is far from that image.
“(People) are going to expect a look and they shouldn’t,” Downing said. He goes on to say that if someone doesn’t match the typical look of a job field, he or she is less likely to be, as he puts it, “full of shit.”
Downing cannot entirely explain what his initial inspiration for getting involved in divination was, but he attributes some of it to boredom. After he moved 11 years ago from San Francisco to Milton-Freewater, a 6,500-person town in eastern Oregon, Downing’s lifestyle slowed drastically. “There’s hardly anybody there. I went for a month and a half without seeing another human face except for what was on TV, and now I hate Cheers.”
A friend gave Downing a book on tarot and he began making his own deck with index cards and colored pencils. “I’d read the definition of one card and I’d draw it on the index card,” he said. “I did this every day; 78 days later I had a full deck.”
Now, having had just more than a decade of experience with divination, Downing considers himself a professional fortune teller, though the money is not great. Downing only charges “whatever amount of donation you would like to give,” the sum of which he estimated to be less than what he would make on minimum wage.
“Often with people he’s never met before, they get eerily accurate readings,” said Mike Bazanele, a long-time friend of Downing. “I’ve had a couple, but I don’t like to know too much about my own future.”
Downing could be considered the vagabond of fortune tellers, delivering fateful answers to people across the Northwest. Downing was born in Walla Walla, Wash., but has been moving since age six. He has lived in Washington, Idaho, California and all over Oregon. This is Downing’s fifth time living in Eugene. “My average time spent in one town is two years,” he said.
Downing’s official title is artist and diviner – or someone who tells the future using tools, but he makes no claim to supernatural powers.
“ESP plays no factor into what I do, no intuition,” Downing said. “Science and magic are not at opposition. They are not dichotomies. They’re intertwined in a tragic love relationship. Magic loves science, especially quantum physics. Science abhors magic, loathes the presence of magic.”
Downing’s skills do not entirely convince all of his customers.
“I personally have an interest in serendipity and believe in some sort of order in the universe,” University junior Daniel Durrant said.
After hearing Downing’s spiel in the EMU, Durrant found Downing at Espresso Roma Café. “I was looking for reaffirmation that there is some kind of power, God or religion, some kind of knowing,” Durrant said.
The process of having your fortune read to you via tarot cards begins with the subject shuffling the cards. The cards are then handed to Downing, pointing toward him. He then places 10 cards on the table, arranging them in a specific, asymmetrical manner. Downing then explains the meaning of both the card itself and its location.
Durrant’s assessment of his own experience with Downing: “I’m still kind of baffled by it,” he said.
Downing recognizes that there is a large group of disbelievers. However, he said he would ask them how they came to disbelieve. “Perhaps you’ve heard people tell you that fortune-telling isn’t real and so you’ve dismissed it,” he said. “Until you submerse yourself in something, you can’t really say anything about it. If you’re going to scoff at anything, experience it first. Know what you’re talking about before you badmouth anything.”
A closer look
Dice: | Two 10-sided dice (red and white or clear) are used. The red tells the left-handed aspects of the person and the white the right-handed aspects; the combined number represents an overview of the person. |
Pendulum: | Establishes a conversation between the diviner and the subject’s subconscious. “You ask certain questions and the subconscious will answer by swinging the pendulum in certain directions and certain intensities,” Downing explained. |
Scrying: | Downing’s favorite form of divination is the crystal ball. But he uses dark glass instead. “The bottom of a beer bottle works the best,” he said. “You don’t look for answers in the beer; it’s on the bottom.” This form of divination, Downing says, is most effective, but the most erratic. “You can’t control what it is you see; you can only suggest to see certain things,” he said. |
Numerology: | The least effective form of divination, Downing says. It breaks down the person’s name and uses his or her birth date, etc., to give a layout of their personality and compatibility with other subjects. |
Chiromancy:: | Palm reading; uses the lines on palms to form meanings. |
Signature analysis: | Uses the curves and slants of a signature to judge and appraise a person and their future. |
Tarot cards: | Uses a deck of 78 cards with medieval drawings that allude to specific meanings. The diviner places 10 cards in a specific arrangement, corresponding to an aspect of the subject’s life. |