divination,

Bibliography

See W. R. Halliday, Greek Divination (1913, repr. 1967); W. B. and L. R. Gibson, The Complete Illustrated Book of Divination and Prophecy (1973).

Early nineteenth century print of Roman vestal virgins performing a divination ritual. Courtesy Fortean Picture Library.

Divination

Divination is so called because it is considered a gift of the divine, or a gift from the gods. It is the art of foretelling the future—of obtaining knowledge of the unknown—using omens, portents, visions and divinatory tools. It is an art which many have perfected over the years, in various forms. Most Gypsies, for example, are experts at one or more branches of divination such as card reading (cartomancy), palm reading (cheiromancy), casting runes or dice, crystal gazing (scrying), and more. They recognize what is important in what they see and present it to the person questioning (known as the Querant). Divination was originally a tool of royalty, used in determining natural and unnatural disasters, wars and plagues, and lines of succession. The Babylonians and the Chaldeans had priests who spent all of their time in divination. The Chinese had court diviners who threw the yarrow stalks (I-Ching). The ancient Egyptians had priests who did nothing but attempt to dream the future for the pharaohs.

There are many methods of divining, possibly hundreds of them, ranging from observing dust (abacomancy) to observing the behavior of animals (zoomancy). Pyromancy, or gazing into the flames of a fire and “seeing” pictures, is something which many people have done, probably without realizing that they were indulging in divination. But whatever tools are used, they are only that … tools. They serve as a focal point for the psychic senses. It is the interpretation of what is seen that is important. The diviner must see and then interpret the signs, awakening in him-or herself the psychic ability to recognize what is important to the person for whom the reading is being done.

There may be warnings of danger, of illness, even of death. In the case of the latter, it is up to the reader to determine how best to present what is seen so as not to alarm the Querant.

Divination has been a tool of priests, seers, shamans, astrologers, medicine men, Gypsies, wise men and women for thousands of years. It is frequently referred to in the Bible. Even when divination extended beyond strictly royal use, in many civilizations only a special class of people were allowed to do the divining. The ancient Greeks had the oracles and sibyls. The Romans had a special priest class called augurers, and the ancient Egyptians also had special priests. The Celts had the Druids. Divination was done both for an individual and for a group, often being used to determine the fate of kingdoms and countries.

In its simplest form, divination can be gauging what the future may hold judging by the flight of a bird or birds. A complex form might be throwing down yarrow stalks to form hexagrams for the ancient Chinese practice of I-Ching, or mathematically working through numerology. There are enough types of divination, ranging from very basic to very complex that, with practice, most people can achieve some sort of results.

It has been said that divination falls into three categories: interpretation of natural phenomena, interpretation of artificial phenomena (such as the casting of lots), and direct communication with deity through dreams, visions, trance, etc.

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Divination

Traditions of dream divination and classification are linked to popular lore and to the attempt to find meaningful patterns in everyday life. The most important tradition of dream divination is found in ancient Mesopotamia, where more interest was shown in divination than in any other known civilization. Only in Mesopotamia did divination occupy a dominant position during the entire span of the civilization, which quite early set down divinatory lore in writing. A number of cuneiform tablets dealing with divination have been found, and some of them make predictions based on the contents of dreams. To properly evaluate the role assigned to the dream in Mesopotamian civilization, it is necessary to place the dream omens in the context of the entire range of the diviner’s art.

The Mesopotamian heritage of oneiromancy (divination of dreams) was imparted both to the Hellenistic world and to Islamic civilization. Oneiromancy is the oldest form of divination in Islam, where the influence of its pre-Islamic past is remarkable. The Oneirocritica of the second-century Greek Artemidorus represents the basis of a popular tradition of dream classification and interpretation. According to Artemidorus and those who followed him, the analysis of dreams is based on the observation of the commonality of daily experience, rather than on the belief in the existence of a divine spirit.

Dream divination plays a fundamental role in many contemporary traditional cultures. For instance, the power of Temne diviners depends upon active accomplishment in dreaming. They derive their abilities from an initiatory dream that they establish a contractual relationship with a patron spirit, whereas most ordinary people are passively acted upon in their dreams by spirits, ancestors, or witches. During divination, diviners do not merely comment on the meaning of a client’s dream, but may also ascribe a specific dream to a client who, until then, had been unaware of having dreamed it.

Dream divination can even play a significant political role in a traditional culture, as in societies where succession to leadership or other status is determined by dreams. Dream divination can be used as a way of deciding upon one claim or candidate rather than another, or even of effecting the selection of a successor from among those who had not previously claimed candidate status.

divination