Many Taiwanese temple visits involve some form of divination, and observing or participating in this is one of the most direct ways to engage with living folk religion.

The most common form is 筊杯, or “moon blocks”: a pair of wooden or bamboo crescent-shaped blocks, one side flat and one curved. The petitioner kneels before the deity, states a question, and drops the blocks on the floor. The combination of faces — one flat up and one curved up — constitutes a “yes” answer; two curved faces up is a “laughing answer” (meaning the deity finds the question inappropriate or unclear); two flat faces up is a “no” answer. Watching a devotee consult the 筊杯 — sometimes repeatedly until they receive the answer they are seeking — is a vivid illustration of the interactive, transactional relationship between the Taiwanese faithful and their gods.

求籤, or fortune sticks, is another widely used method. A cylindrical container of numbered bamboo sticks is shaken until one stick falls out; the corresponding numbered slip of paper, collected from a rack on the wall, contains a verse and a fortune. Many temples have multilingual fortune-slip translations, including English.