The omikuji is a written oracle drawn at a shrine or temple, a strip of paper that tells the drawer their fortune, and it is one of the most common small acts of divination in Japanese religious life.
Drawing the lot
The worshipper draws a lot, often by shaking a numbered stick from a box, and receives the corresponding paper slip, which declares a general level of fortune, from great blessing through to misfortune, and gives specific readings for matters such as health, business, study, travel, love and the awaited person. The omikuji is thus a compact oracle covering the ordinary concerns of life, obtained for a small offering, and reading it is a familiar part of a visit to a shrine, especially at the new year.
Tying away the bad
If the fortune is poor, or by some customs whatever it says, the slip is commonly tied to a rack, a tree or a wire in the shrine grounds, a practice widely understood as leaving the bad luck behind at the shrine so that it does not follow the drawer home, and the racks hung with knotted white slips are a characteristic sight. A good fortune may be kept. The omikuji is offered at both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, another sign of the intertwining of the two traditions, and it belongs to the same everyday religious world as the ema and the omamori, an accessible and light-hearted yet genuinely meant approach to the unknown through the drawing of a lot.