Divination

Not to be confused with Divinization. For other uses, see Divination (disambiguation).
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This man in Rhumsiki, Cameroon, attempts to tell the future by interpreting the changes in position of various objects as caused by a freshwater crab through the practice of nggàm.[1]
Basic concepts
Social and cultural anthropology

Divination (from Latin divinare "to foresee, to be inspired by a god",[2] related to divinus, divine) is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual.[3] Used in various forms throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact with a supernatural agency.

Divination can be seen as a systematic method with which to organize what appear to be disjointed, random facets of existence such that they provide insight into a problem at hand. If a distinction is to be made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a more formal or ritualistic element and often contains a more social character, usually in a religious context, as seen in traditional African medicine. Fortune-telling, on the other hand, is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Particular divination methods vary by culture and religion.

Divination is dismissed by the scientific community and skeptics as being superstition.[4][5] In the 2nd century, Lucian devoted a witty essay to the career of a charlatan, "Alexander the false prophet", trained by "one of those who advertise enchantments, miraculous incantations, charms for your love-affairs, visitations for your enemies, disclosures of buried treasure, and successions to estates",[6] even though most Romans believed in prophetic dreams and charms.

Categories

Russian peasant girls using chickens for divination; 19th century lubok.

Psychologist Julian Jaynes categorized divination into the following four types:[7]

  1. Omens and omen texts. Chinese history offers scrupulously documented occurrences of strange births, the tracking of natural phenomena, and other data. Chinese governmental planning relied on this method of forecasting for long-range strategies. It is not unreasonable to assume that modern scientific inquiry began with this kind of divination; Joseph Needham's work considered this very idea.
  2. Sortilege (cleromancy). This consists of the casting of lots, or sortes, whether with sticks, stones, bones, beans, coins, or some other item. Modern playing cards and board games developed from this type of divination.
  3. Augury. This ranks a set of given possibilities. It can be qualitative (such as shapes, proximities, etc.): for example, dowsing (a form of rhabdomancy) developed from this type of divination. The Romans, in classical times, used Etruscan methods of augury such as hepatoscopy (actually a form of extispicy) (for example, Haruspices examined the livers of sacrificed animals). Augury is normally considered to specifically refer to divination by studying the flight patterns of birds. But also, the use of the rooster through alectryomancy may be further understood within that religious character and likewise defined as a cockfight, or cockfighting[8] with the intent of communication between the gods and man.
  4. Spontaneous. An unconstrained form of divination, free from any particular medium, and actually a generalization of all types of divination. The answer comes from whatever object the diviner happens to see or hear. Some religions use a form of bibliomancy: they ask a question, riffle the pages of their holy book, and take as their answer the first passage their eyes light upon. Other forms of spontaneous divination include reading auras and New Age methods of feng shui such as "intuitive" and "fuzion".

In addition to these four broad categories, there is palmistry, also called chiromancy, a practice common to many different places on the Eurasian landmass;[9] it has been practised in the cultures of India, Tibet, China, Persia, Sumeria, Ancient Israel and Babylonia. In this practice, the diviner examines the hands of a person for whom they are divining for indications of their future.

Historical examples

Ancient Egypt

The Oracle of Amun at the Siwa Oasis was made famous when Alexander the Great visited it after delivering Egypt from Persian rule in 332 BC.

Hebrew Bible

Deuteronomy 18:10-12 or Leviticus 19:26 can be interpreted as categorically forbidding divination. However, some would claim that divination is indeed practiced in the Bible, such as in Exodus 28, when the Urim and Thummim are mentioned. Some would also say that Gideon also practiced divination, though when he uses a piece of fleece or wool in Judges 6:36-40 , he is not attempting to predict the outcome of an important battle; rather, he is communicating with God. Communicating with God through prayer is not the same as divination, though both are open, typically two-way conversations with God. In addition, the method of "casting lots" used in Joshua 14:1-5 and Joshua 18:1-10 to divide the conquered lands of Canaan between the twelve tribes is not seen by some as divination, but as done at the behest of God (Numbers 26:55).

Ancient Greece

See also: Oracle and Greek divination

Both oracles and seers in ancient Greece practiced divination. Oracles were the conduits for the gods on earth; their prophecies were understood to be the will of the gods verbatim. Because of the high demand for oracle consultations and the oracles’ limited work schedule, they were not the main source of divination for the ancient Greeks. That role fell to the seers (μάντεις in Greek).

Seers were not in direct contact with the gods; instead, they were interpreters of signs provided by the gods. Seers used many methods to explicate the will of the gods including extispicy, bird signs, etc. They were more numerous than the oracles and did not keep a limited schedule; thus, they were highly valued by all Greeks, not just those with the capacity to travel to Delphi or other such distant sites.

The disadvantage to seers was that only direct yes-or-no questions could be answered. Oracles could answer more generalized questions, and seers often had to perform several sacrifices in order to get the most consistent answer. For example, if a general wanted to know if the omens were proper for him to advance on the enemy, he would ask his seer both that question and if it were better for him to remain on the defensive. If the seer gave consistent answers, the advice was considered valid.

At battle, generals would frequently ask seers at both the campground (a process called the hiera) and at the battlefield (called the sphagia). The hiera entailed the seer slaughtering a sheep and examining its liver for answers regarding a more generic question; the sphagia involved killing a young female goat by slitting its throat and noting the animal’s last movements and blood flow. The battlefield sacrifice only occurred when two armies prepared for battle against each other. Neither force would advance until the seer revealed appropriate omens.

Because the seers had such power over influential individuals in ancient Greece, many were skeptical of the accuracy and honesty of the seers. Of course the degree to which seers were honest depends entirely on the individual seers. Despite the doubt surrounding individual seers, the craft as a whole was well regarded and trusted by the Greeks.[10]

Christianity and Western society

The divination method of casting lots (Cleromancy) was used by the remaining eleven disciples of Jesus in Acts 1:23-26 to select a replacement for Judas Iscariot. Therefore, divination was arguably an accepted practice in the early church. However, divination became viewed as a pagan practice by Christian emperors during ancient Rome.[11]

In 692 the Quinisext Council, also known as the "Council in Trullo" in the Eastern Orthodox Church, passed canons to eliminate pagan and divination practices.[12] Fortune-telling and other forms of divination were widespread through the Middle Ages.[13] In the constitution of 1572 and public regulations of 1661 of Kur-Saxony, capital punishment was used on those predicting the future.[14] Laws forbidding divination practice continue to this day.[15]

Mesoamerica

Divination was a central component of ancient Mesoamerican religious life. Many Aztec gods, including central creator gods, were described as diviners and were closely associated with sorcery. Tezcatlipoca is the patron of sorcerers and practitioners of magic. His name means "smoking mirror", a reference to a device used for divinatory scrying.[16] In the Mayan Popol Vuh, the creator gods Xmucane and Xpiacoc perform divinatory hand casting during the creation of people.[16]

Every civilization that developed in Ancient Mexico, from the Olmecs to the Aztecs, practiced divination in daily life, both public and private. Scrying through the use of reflective water surfaces, mirrors, or the casting of lots were among the most widespread forms of divinatory practice. Visions derived from hallucinogens were another important form of divination, and are still widely used among contemporary diviners of Mexico. Among the more common hallucinogenic plants used in divination are morning glory, jimson weed, and peyote.[16]

Ethnographic examples

Buddhism

Buddhists in Asia divine by different methods.[17]

Serer religion

Main article: Saltigue

Divination is one of the tenets of Serer religion. However, only those who have been initiated as Saltigues (the Serer high priests and priestesses) can divine the future.[18][19] These are the "hereditary rain priests"[20] whose role is both religious and medicinal.[19][20]

Yoruba religion

Main article: Yoruba religion

The Yoruba people of West Africa are internationally known for having developed the Ifá system, an intricate process of divination that is performed by an Awo, an initiated priest or priestess of Orunmila, the spirit of the Yoruba oracle.

Sweden

Main article: Årsgång

Småland is famous for Årsgång, a practice which occurred until the early 19th century in some parts of Småland. Generally occurring on Christmas and New Year's Eve, it is a practice in which one would fast and keep themselves away from light in a room until midnight to then complete a set of complex events to interpret symbols encountered throughout the journey to foresee the coming year.[21]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Anthropological Studies of Divination". anthropology.ac.uk.
  2. ↑ "LacusCurtius • Greek and Roman Divination (Smith's Dictionary, 1875)". uchicago.edu.
  3. ↑ Peek, P.M. African Divination Systems: Ways of Knowing. page 2. Indiana University Press. 1991.
  4. ↑ Yau, Julianna. (2002). Witchcraft and Magic. In Michael Shermer. The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. ABC-CLIO. pp. 278-282. ISBN 1-57607-654-7
  5. ↑ Regal, Brian. (2009). Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia. Greenwood. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-313-35507-3
  6. ↑ "Lucian of Samosata : Alexander the False Prophet". tertullian.org.
  7. ↑ Jaynes, J. The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind. Houghton Mifflin. 1977.
  8. ↑ Encyclopaedia Perthensis; or Universal dictionary of the arts, sciences, literature, &c. intended to supersede the use of other books of reference, Volume 1; Printed by John Brown; 1816.
  9. ↑ Bhojraj Dwivedi. Wonders of Palmistry pp. 16-20
  10. ↑ Flower, Michael Attyah. The Seer in Ancient Greece. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.
  11. ↑ Bailey, Michael David. (2007). Magic and Superstition in Europe. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. pp. 52-53. ISBN 0-7425-3386-7
  12. ↑ "Council of Trullo - Apostolic Confraternity Seminary". apostolicconfraternityseminary.com.
  13. ↑ Bailey, Michael David. (2007). Magic and Superstition in Europe. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. pp. 88-89. ISBN 0-7425-3386-7
  14. ↑ Ennemoser, Joseph. (1856). The History of Magic. London: Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. p. 59
  15. ↑ "Wiccan Priest Fights Local Ordinance Banning Fortune Telling (Louisiana)". pluralism.org.
  16. 1 2 3 Miller, Mary (2007). Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico. London: Thames & Hudson.
  17. ↑ Keown, Damien. (2003). A Dictionary of Buddhism. Oxford University Press. p. 23. ISBN 0-19-860560-9
  18. ↑ Sarr, Alioune, « Histoire du Sine-Saloum » (introduction, bibliographie et notes par Charles Becker), in Bulletin de l'IFAN, tome 46, série B, nos 3-4, 1986-1987 pp 31-38
  19. 1 2 Kalis, Simone, "Medecine Traditionnele Religion et Divination Chez Les Seereer Siin du Senegal", L'Harmattan (1997), pp 11-297 ISBN 2-7384-5196-9
  20. 1 2 Galvan, Dennis Charles, "The State Must be our Master of Fire : How Peasants Craft Culturally Sustainable Development in Senegal", Berkeley, University of California Press, (2004), pp 86-135, ISBN 978-0-520-23591-5.
  21. ↑ Kuusela, T., 2014. Swedish year walk: from folk tradition to computer game. In: Island Dynamics Conference on Folk Belief & Traditions of the Supernatural: Experience, Place, Ritual, & Narrative. Shetland Isles, UK, 24–30 March 2014. [Online]. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/6624109/Swedish_Year_Walk._From_Folk_Tradition_to_Computer_Game [accessed 09/07/14].

Further reading

Academic

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