Divination
Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 6:50 am
Here is an article on divination found on
http://www.cosmovisions.com/$Divination.htm[list]
Google translation
Divination
Divination or mantic is based on the belief in a permanent revelation that the gods make to humans about past or future events. It regularizes these revelations by specifying the methods by which we can interpret the will of the gods or question them, the people and places with whom they most willingly enter into communication. Faith in divination is an essential part of ancient religions. No state, almost no human would have dared to undertake something important without consulting the gods. This belief was the main strength of the religions of classical antiquity.
“Without divination, the Greco-Italic religions, sustained by the mere effort of the imagination which gave birth to them, would have collapsed early in the void of their doctrines; they would have suffered the fate of the theories which awaken their needs without satisfying them, and which succumb under the weight of their practical uselessness. Divination was the most obvious benefit that energetic and proud peoples such as the Greeks and Romans could derive from their religion. They did not place the goal of human life outside earthly existence and did not intend to fall asleep in the lazy resignation of the softened races who ask their gods to act in their place. Nothing, therefore, responded better to their desires than an always open source of information applicable to the conduct of life, of advice which did not degenerate into orders and did not suppress personal initiative. »(Bouché-Leclercq).
Divination is based on the same principles as prayer; like this, it is a request for assistance addressed to the divinity, but it leaves more room for human activity, because it only asks for advice, information that humans will then want to use.
Divination is a natural product of the religious idea; it only supposes the existence of divinities superior to the human in intelligence, the possibility for the human to enter in relations with them; this being conceded, divination constitutes the profit which the believer derives from his relations with the gods. Nothing could be simpler than this consequence and more in accordance with the idea that Western peoples have of the divinity. From the intellectual point of view, divination is extra-rational knowledge; the revelation granted by the gods makes known things which one would not learn by the only effort of reasoning and the ordinary procedures of science; one penetrates into the domain of the supernatural knowledge which the human mind cannot obtain by its own strength. Divination therefore applies in the first place to the future, the future of individuals or societies, of concrete beings, which, by the complexity of the problem, escapes all scientific forecast; it also applies to the present and the past insofar as ordinary procedures investigation cannot suffice to enlighten them. Although this second usage has struck philosophers less, it is no less important than the other, and it would be a mistake to reduce divination to a science of omens. It was applied as much to the past as to the future. All of cathartic, the science of atonement and purifications for defilements (often ignored even by the culprit), concerns the past.
Fortune Teller_Lucas van Leyden_16th Century
The definitions we have just presented target only the intellectual side of the problem of divination, the penetration of divine thought by human intelligence. This is how the Greeks put the question, and their mantic can be defined as a supernatural science. But among the great majority of peoples, mantic is not distinguished from magic. Magic, which is the art of producing effects contrary to the laws of nature, is closely related to divination; it no longer places divine intelligence at the service of man, but divine power; the distinction is sharp in theory, but minimal in practice. Divination can be understood in magic; in the part called theurgy, (it designates the set of processes by which humans can effectively relate to the divinity or, more generally, to supernatural powers) many of these methods borrow the aid of recipes or magic formulas whose effects they then interpret. As soon as divination is no longer limited to the observation of fortuitous incidents, as soon as it involves the human will in the production of the signs on which it operates, it borders on magic. In the Homeric poems, the magic instruments are numerous: the belt of Aphrodite, the rod of Circe, the song of the sirems, etc. All iatromantic, divination applied to medicine, is a branch of magic. The first soothsayers of Greece, like Melampus, were magicians.
In the Greco-Roman period, the theurgists who extort their secrets from the gods only repeat the action of Menelaus against Proteus in the Odyssey. It is therefore impossible to completely separate divination from magic; however to confuse them would be a mistake, and, if one wanted to deal only with magic, one would leave aside a whole part and not the least considerable of the science of the supernatural. We must maintain the fundamental distinction between magic which allows humans, by virtue of certain formulas, to subordinate natural forces to themselves, and divination, a contemplative science, which in no way encroaches on divine freedom and is limited to to put divine thought in relation to human intelligence. The distinction we make is a historical fact; it was started in Chaldea where divination has become a science analogous to the natural sciences in its methods and its claims; it was consumed in Greece where the rational mind of the Hellenes brought divinatory methods to their perfection; European populations have always had a tendency to be satisfied with divination by discarding magic, and even today divinatory methods attract to those who practice them an immense clientele, while in our civilization there is only some traces of magic (apart from the formulas of sacrifice that religions have incorporated). We will therefore keep the usual distinction between divination and magic because it corresponds to the reality of facts for the peoples of the West. For the Orientals, on the contrary, magic dominates.
Let us try, to conclude these generalities, to briefly determine its philosophy. Divination indeed raises metaphysical problems and presupposes solutions which are far from being universally accepted. The problems raised are almost insoluble, and the difficulties here opposed by logic to faith are so serious that even popular intelligence has realized it. At first glance it seems that faith in the usefulness of divination is no more questionable than faith in the usefulness of prayer. Prayer aims to obtain divine intervention in order to improve human destiny; divination aims at the same result; by providing humans with information about the past, present or future, they must always improve their future. But, as soon as one reflects, one realizes that divination involves an antinomy. The future can only be known if it is determined in advance; however, if it is determined, it cannot be modified; knowledge of the future is either impossible or unnecessary. In the presence of the order of the universe, this idea imposes itself, that it is governed by immutable laws, and this is what the science of omens supposes; but by that very fact it ruins its effectiveness, which can only subsist if the future is indeterminate, depending on the whim of free beings. More scientific than magic in its conceptions, divination is in a less clear position. Applied to human destiny, it becomes united with all the discussions on freedom and determinism. It presupposes both, determinism in theory, freedom in practice, and thereby condemns itself. We will return to these discussions when we indicate the attitude taken by the Greek philosophers towards mantic. Let us be satisfied with observing that this one can adopt an intermediate position by considering the future as determined, but only in its general lines, which makes it possible to foresee, not the precise facts which will be later, but the general conditions. in which a human or a community will be placed, and thus indicate to them in advance the dangers to which they will be exposed, while there is still time to avoid them. Thus, a road which goes from one point to another can take markedly different routes, even if the main stages are determined in advance. The psychological difficulties which complicate the problem of freedom do not hinder divination. It is moreover obvious that this one, to be effective, supposes divine freedom and human freedom.
Through time and space
Antiquity
The Hebrews
Nine kinds of divinations are mentioned in the Bible.
The first took place by inspecting the stars, planets and clouds; it is judicial or apotelesmatic astrology, what Moses calls Meonen.
The second is referred to as Menakhesch, which the Vulgate and most performers have rendered omens.
The third is called Mekascheph, which the Septuagint and the Vulgate translate as evil spells, or occult and superstitious practices.
The fourth is called Khabarim, enchantments.
The fifth was to question the python spirits.
The sixth, which Moses calls Iddeoni, was properly spell and magic.
The seventh was carried out by evoking and questioning the dead; it was therefore necromancy.
The eighth was rhabdomancy, or going out by the wand or sticks, which is discussed in Hosea; to this eighth species we can relate the belomancy that Ezekiel knew.
The ninth and final was hepatoscopy or inspection of the liver. The same book also mentions fortune tellers, interpreters of dreams, divinations by water, by fire, by air, by the flight of birds, by their song, by lightning, by lightning. , and in general by meteors, by land, by points, by lines, by snakes, etc.
The Greeks and the Romans
Divination was a considerable part of Greek and Roman theology; it was even authorized by law, especially among the Romans. Cicero, in his Treatise on Divination, first examines whether it is true that there may be any, and says that the philosophers had three opinions on this subject. Some maintained that, as soon as one admitted gods, it was necessary to admit divination; the others claimed that there could be gods without there being divination; others, finally, were convinced that, even if there were no gods, divination could exist.
The Romans distinguished divination into artificial and natural. They called artificial divination, a prognosis or an induction based on external signs, linked with upcoming events; and natural divination, that, which foreshadowed things by a purely internal movement and an impulse of the spirit, independent of any external sign. They subdivided it into two species, the innate and the infused. The innate was based on the supposition that the soul, circumscribed in itself, and commanding the various organs of the body, without being present there by its extent, had essentially confused notions of the future, as we would say. convinces, they said, by dreams, ecstasies, and what happens to some patients on the verge of death, and to most other humans, when threatened with imminent peril. The infuse was based on the assumption that the soul, like a mirror, was illuminated on events that interested it by a reflected light from God, or from the spirits.
They also divided artificial divination into two species: the experimental one, drawn from natural causes, such as the predictions that astronomers make of eclipses, etc., or the judgments that doctors make on the end of diseases, or conjectures. what form policies on state revolutions; the other consisting of capricious practices, based on judgments accredited by superstition. This last branch used earth, water, air, fire, birds, the entrails of animals, dreams, physiognomy, lines of the hand, points brought at random, names, movements of a ring, of an airlock, and the works of some authors; whence came the spells called Prenestines, Virgilians, Homerics.
The Middle Age
In the Middle Ages, we find in the East and the West many of the methods of divination common in Antiquity. Christians and Muslims have preserved for the prophets the respect transmitted to them by the Jews. In the East, where divination is constantly complicated by magic, the most popular method, the one which tends to absorb all the others, is astrology.
Germans, Celts, Latins.
In the West, the Germanic and Celtic populations had also practiced divination by mixing rites and practices of conspiracy. The prophetic ecstasy of women is found in all these religions from Brittany to Scandinavia. The Celts and the Germans questioned the sources, the sound of the wind in the trees, the flight of birds, the entrails of the victims, the dreams, Among the fortuitous omens, we always attached great importance to the first meeting that we was doing when leaving home. In another order of ideas, the judgment of God, ordeals are similar to divination. (sort of tests which one had recourse in particular during the Middle Ages to ensure the innocence or the guilt of an accused, and which took their name from what they supposed a divine intervention in favor of the good right ) Christianity retained this practice, although it hunted down most of the others that ended up being confused with witchcraft. He could not proscribe palmistry and made use of stichomancy, divination by verses or isolated sentences by applying it to the Bible. Astrology was, in Europe as in Asia, the characteristic method of divination of the Middle Ages. Completely ruined by the progress of science, it has left an empty place. But the Gypsies brought a great reinforcement to the mantic, by a series of practices which are attached to the sidereal divination.
The Slavs
The Slavs had several modes of divination. The first was carried out as follows: We threw wooden discs called kroujcki, white on one side, black on the other, into the air. When the white side was up, the omen was happy, and ominous, if black prevailed. When one showed the white side and the other the black side, success must have been poor. The second divination was done by means of the horse Swetowid. The third was drawn from the evolutions described by the flight of birds; the fourth, the cries of animals and their meeting; the fifth, ripples of flame and smoke; the sixth, of the course of water and the different forms that the waves and the foam took; the seventh was done by mingling wicker branches together, then removing them one after the other, at a set time, and pronouncing consecrated words.
To discover thieves, the Czechs employed the following means. They assumed ten directions corresponding to the ten fingers of the hands; and after getting drunk on tobacco smoke, if one of their fingers were to tremble, they would declare that the thief had gone that way.
Muslims
Muslim law prohibited divination, however, the confidence that the people had in it was so powerfully rooted, that Muhammad himself, the destroyer of the cult of idols, could never destroy the illusions of magic, of astrology, of omens, dreams, etc. Despite the severe prohibition that the law makes, not only have they always reigned in Arabia, but they have spread to all the countries where the first Muslim Arabs printed, saber in hand, the character of Islam. and that of their superstitions.
We see, in the history of these peoples, how much they influenced the projects of the monarchs, political operations, revolutions States, on the destiny of nations, as on the particular fate of families and ordinary individuals.
Sheikhs, or superiors of dervish communities, ostensibly exercise divination, and in this regard they are highly accredited with the great as with the common people.
Modern divination
Faith in divination is still very much alive today, having survived all scientific advances as well as religion. Except in the exceptional cases where religion accepts manifestations of prophetic ecstasy, which popular credulity requires acceptance by the heads of the Church, it is practiced only by free diviners enjoying low esteem. (note: Love that one!) The main methods are derived from astrology; the most common is cartomancy; divination by coffee grounds, egg white, etc., are also astrological in their origins. Oniromancy (study of dreams) has retained many followers and the ever-increasing baggage of traditional interpretations makes it possible to devote true volumes to the Keys to Dreams. Palmistry (study of the lines of the hand) is also practiced. Finally, ominal divination, the interpretation of fortuitous omens still has a great influence on the popular imagination, and we know that in the countries of the South it is still often used by those who take lottery numbers. Let us add the ideas on the double sight, applied by sleepwalkers.
Divinations elsewhere
The Chinese
In China, when it was a question of founding a city, or of deciding some important business, one consulted fates; which is done in two ways: either by a certain plant called chi, or by the tortoise shell. It is not clear how in ancient times divination by the chi plant was practiced. In modern times, a bundle of leaves of this plant is placed on the right and left; mysterious words are recited, and by taking a handful of leaves from each bundle, they augur according to their number. Take a dry stalk of this plant, split it open, and cut it into thin sticks, one foot long. We guess by means of the sacred book, called Yi-King. Divination by the turtle was done by placing fire on a tortoise shell, and predicting from the direction of the streaks that the heat formed there. In the Yi-King, we see the former chief Tan-Fou placing the fire on the tortoise shell; before settling with his tribe at the foot of Mount Khi. Elderly officers were responsible for interpreting the emperor's dreams. Diviners also explained the dreams of powerful men. The sight of a magpie was a good omen; on the contrary, it was unfortunate to see a black crow or a red fox.
Lord Macartney teaches us that, in all their important undertakings, the Chinese of the imperial era seek to know the outcome, either by consulting their deities or by implementing various superstitious practices. Some put in the hollow of a bamboo several small consecrated sticks, marked and numbered. The consultant, kneeling in front of the altar, shakes the bamboo, until one of the sticks falls to the ground. One examines the mark, and the one which corresponds to it in a book which the priest holds open, answers the proposed question. Sometimes the answers are written on a piece of paper stuck inside the temple. Others throw into the air a wooden polygon, each face of which has its particular mark; and when it falls, the sign above it is the one that indicates the answer. If this response is favorable, the one to whom it concerns bow down with gratitude, and undertake with confidence the affair which interests him; if not, he throws the same wood into the air a second and third time, and the last irrevocably decides what to do.
Tibetans
In Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, there are various methods of divination. Sometimes the lamas guess by tracing on a sheet of paper the eight figures called Koua and certain Tibetan words. They also represent these eight koua with grains of gray barley, and tear off the threads of different colors. They also guess by counting the beads of their rosary, by drawing lines on the ground, or by burning sheep bones. Sometimes they look in a bowl of water and see what has to happen. Women also practice this art. Another way of guessing is that the diviner opens his sacred book, presents it to the questioner, and the latter clearly recognizes future happiness or misfortune. This way of guessing has some analogy with the sacred spells employed in China.
The Muysca
Among the Muyscas, people of the Bogota plateau, in Colombia, when a child came into the world, to find out whether he would be happy or unhappy, we took a little cotton that we moistened with the mother's milk, and that 'we then wrapped it with rushes, so as to make a ball, which we threw into the river. Six young people, good swimmers, immediately rushed forward: if the current carried the ball before they could reach it, it was believed that the child would be unhappy; otherwise, they brought it back in triumph as an indication of certain happiness. They were then celebrating a feast; then each young boy approached the newborn and cut off a lock of his hair, until he had none left. This hair was thrown into the river, and the child was then bathed in it.
------------------------------
Sources
--Yves de Sike, Histoire de la divination, Larousse, 2001.
--Ervan Dianteill, Des dieux et des signes, initiation, écriture et divination dans les religions afro-cubaines, EHESS, 2001.
--Collectif, Divination et rationalité en Chine ancienne, Presses universitaires de Vincennes (Extrême Orient / Extrême occident n° 21), 1999.
--Toufic Fahd, La divination arabe, Actes Sud, 1999.
--Jean-René Jannot, Devins, dieux et démons (regards sur la religion de l'Etrurie antique), Picard, 1998.
--Christian Guyonvarc'h, Magie, médecine et divination chez les Celtes, Payot, 1997.
--Simone Kalis et Pierre Erny, Médecine traditionnelle, religions et divination chez les Seereer Siin du Sénégal, la connaissance de la nuit, L'Harmattan, 1997.
--Jean Nougayrol, Divination en Mésopotamie ancienne, PUF, 1992. -
--Raymond Bloch, La Divination, essai sur l'avenir et son imaginaire, Fayard, 1991.
--Nicole Cazauran, Divination et controverse religieuse en France au XVIe siècle, Rue d'Ulm, 1987. -
--Collectif, Divination et rationalité, Le Seuil, 1974.
--A. Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire de la divination dans l'antiquité, rééd. Jérôme Millon, 2003.
--Cicéron, De la divination, Les Belles Lettres, 1992.
http://www.cosmovisions.com/$Divination.htm[list]
Google translation
Divination
Divination or mantic is based on the belief in a permanent revelation that the gods make to humans about past or future events. It regularizes these revelations by specifying the methods by which we can interpret the will of the gods or question them, the people and places with whom they most willingly enter into communication. Faith in divination is an essential part of ancient religions. No state, almost no human would have dared to undertake something important without consulting the gods. This belief was the main strength of the religions of classical antiquity.
“Without divination, the Greco-Italic religions, sustained by the mere effort of the imagination which gave birth to them, would have collapsed early in the void of their doctrines; they would have suffered the fate of the theories which awaken their needs without satisfying them, and which succumb under the weight of their practical uselessness. Divination was the most obvious benefit that energetic and proud peoples such as the Greeks and Romans could derive from their religion. They did not place the goal of human life outside earthly existence and did not intend to fall asleep in the lazy resignation of the softened races who ask their gods to act in their place. Nothing, therefore, responded better to their desires than an always open source of information applicable to the conduct of life, of advice which did not degenerate into orders and did not suppress personal initiative. »(Bouché-Leclercq).
Divination is based on the same principles as prayer; like this, it is a request for assistance addressed to the divinity, but it leaves more room for human activity, because it only asks for advice, information that humans will then want to use.
Divination is a natural product of the religious idea; it only supposes the existence of divinities superior to the human in intelligence, the possibility for the human to enter in relations with them; this being conceded, divination constitutes the profit which the believer derives from his relations with the gods. Nothing could be simpler than this consequence and more in accordance with the idea that Western peoples have of the divinity. From the intellectual point of view, divination is extra-rational knowledge; the revelation granted by the gods makes known things which one would not learn by the only effort of reasoning and the ordinary procedures of science; one penetrates into the domain of the supernatural knowledge which the human mind cannot obtain by its own strength. Divination therefore applies in the first place to the future, the future of individuals or societies, of concrete beings, which, by the complexity of the problem, escapes all scientific forecast; it also applies to the present and the past insofar as ordinary procedures investigation cannot suffice to enlighten them. Although this second usage has struck philosophers less, it is no less important than the other, and it would be a mistake to reduce divination to a science of omens. It was applied as much to the past as to the future. All of cathartic, the science of atonement and purifications for defilements (often ignored even by the culprit), concerns the past.
The definitions we have just presented target only the intellectual side of the problem of divination, the penetration of divine thought by human intelligence. This is how the Greeks put the question, and their mantic can be defined as a supernatural science. But among the great majority of peoples, mantic is not distinguished from magic. Magic, which is the art of producing effects contrary to the laws of nature, is closely related to divination; it no longer places divine intelligence at the service of man, but divine power; the distinction is sharp in theory, but minimal in practice. Divination can be understood in magic; in the part called theurgy, (it designates the set of processes by which humans can effectively relate to the divinity or, more generally, to supernatural powers) many of these methods borrow the aid of recipes or magic formulas whose effects they then interpret. As soon as divination is no longer limited to the observation of fortuitous incidents, as soon as it involves the human will in the production of the signs on which it operates, it borders on magic. In the Homeric poems, the magic instruments are numerous: the belt of Aphrodite, the rod of Circe, the song of the sirems, etc. All iatromantic, divination applied to medicine, is a branch of magic. The first soothsayers of Greece, like Melampus, were magicians.
In the Greco-Roman period, the theurgists who extort their secrets from the gods only repeat the action of Menelaus against Proteus in the Odyssey. It is therefore impossible to completely separate divination from magic; however to confuse them would be a mistake, and, if one wanted to deal only with magic, one would leave aside a whole part and not the least considerable of the science of the supernatural. We must maintain the fundamental distinction between magic which allows humans, by virtue of certain formulas, to subordinate natural forces to themselves, and divination, a contemplative science, which in no way encroaches on divine freedom and is limited to to put divine thought in relation to human intelligence. The distinction we make is a historical fact; it was started in Chaldea where divination has become a science analogous to the natural sciences in its methods and its claims; it was consumed in Greece where the rational mind of the Hellenes brought divinatory methods to their perfection; European populations have always had a tendency to be satisfied with divination by discarding magic, and even today divinatory methods attract to those who practice them an immense clientele, while in our civilization there is only some traces of magic (apart from the formulas of sacrifice that religions have incorporated). We will therefore keep the usual distinction between divination and magic because it corresponds to the reality of facts for the peoples of the West. For the Orientals, on the contrary, magic dominates.
Let us try, to conclude these generalities, to briefly determine its philosophy. Divination indeed raises metaphysical problems and presupposes solutions which are far from being universally accepted. The problems raised are almost insoluble, and the difficulties here opposed by logic to faith are so serious that even popular intelligence has realized it. At first glance it seems that faith in the usefulness of divination is no more questionable than faith in the usefulness of prayer. Prayer aims to obtain divine intervention in order to improve human destiny; divination aims at the same result; by providing humans with information about the past, present or future, they must always improve their future. But, as soon as one reflects, one realizes that divination involves an antinomy. The future can only be known if it is determined in advance; however, if it is determined, it cannot be modified; knowledge of the future is either impossible or unnecessary. In the presence of the order of the universe, this idea imposes itself, that it is governed by immutable laws, and this is what the science of omens supposes; but by that very fact it ruins its effectiveness, which can only subsist if the future is indeterminate, depending on the whim of free beings. More scientific than magic in its conceptions, divination is in a less clear position. Applied to human destiny, it becomes united with all the discussions on freedom and determinism. It presupposes both, determinism in theory, freedom in practice, and thereby condemns itself. We will return to these discussions when we indicate the attitude taken by the Greek philosophers towards mantic. Let us be satisfied with observing that this one can adopt an intermediate position by considering the future as determined, but only in its general lines, which makes it possible to foresee, not the precise facts which will be later, but the general conditions. in which a human or a community will be placed, and thus indicate to them in advance the dangers to which they will be exposed, while there is still time to avoid them. Thus, a road which goes from one point to another can take markedly different routes, even if the main stages are determined in advance. The psychological difficulties which complicate the problem of freedom do not hinder divination. It is moreover obvious that this one, to be effective, supposes divine freedom and human freedom.
Through time and space
Antiquity
The Hebrews
Nine kinds of divinations are mentioned in the Bible.
The first took place by inspecting the stars, planets and clouds; it is judicial or apotelesmatic astrology, what Moses calls Meonen.
The second is referred to as Menakhesch, which the Vulgate and most performers have rendered omens.
The third is called Mekascheph, which the Septuagint and the Vulgate translate as evil spells, or occult and superstitious practices.
The fourth is called Khabarim, enchantments.
The fifth was to question the python spirits.
The sixth, which Moses calls Iddeoni, was properly spell and magic.
The seventh was carried out by evoking and questioning the dead; it was therefore necromancy.
The eighth was rhabdomancy, or going out by the wand or sticks, which is discussed in Hosea; to this eighth species we can relate the belomancy that Ezekiel knew.
The ninth and final was hepatoscopy or inspection of the liver. The same book also mentions fortune tellers, interpreters of dreams, divinations by water, by fire, by air, by the flight of birds, by their song, by lightning, by lightning. , and in general by meteors, by land, by points, by lines, by snakes, etc.
The Greeks and the Romans
Divination was a considerable part of Greek and Roman theology; it was even authorized by law, especially among the Romans. Cicero, in his Treatise on Divination, first examines whether it is true that there may be any, and says that the philosophers had three opinions on this subject. Some maintained that, as soon as one admitted gods, it was necessary to admit divination; the others claimed that there could be gods without there being divination; others, finally, were convinced that, even if there were no gods, divination could exist.
The Romans distinguished divination into artificial and natural. They called artificial divination, a prognosis or an induction based on external signs, linked with upcoming events; and natural divination, that, which foreshadowed things by a purely internal movement and an impulse of the spirit, independent of any external sign. They subdivided it into two species, the innate and the infused. The innate was based on the supposition that the soul, circumscribed in itself, and commanding the various organs of the body, without being present there by its extent, had essentially confused notions of the future, as we would say. convinces, they said, by dreams, ecstasies, and what happens to some patients on the verge of death, and to most other humans, when threatened with imminent peril. The infuse was based on the assumption that the soul, like a mirror, was illuminated on events that interested it by a reflected light from God, or from the spirits.
They also divided artificial divination into two species: the experimental one, drawn from natural causes, such as the predictions that astronomers make of eclipses, etc., or the judgments that doctors make on the end of diseases, or conjectures. what form policies on state revolutions; the other consisting of capricious practices, based on judgments accredited by superstition. This last branch used earth, water, air, fire, birds, the entrails of animals, dreams, physiognomy, lines of the hand, points brought at random, names, movements of a ring, of an airlock, and the works of some authors; whence came the spells called Prenestines, Virgilians, Homerics.
The Middle Age
In the Middle Ages, we find in the East and the West many of the methods of divination common in Antiquity. Christians and Muslims have preserved for the prophets the respect transmitted to them by the Jews. In the East, where divination is constantly complicated by magic, the most popular method, the one which tends to absorb all the others, is astrology.
Germans, Celts, Latins.
In the West, the Germanic and Celtic populations had also practiced divination by mixing rites and practices of conspiracy. The prophetic ecstasy of women is found in all these religions from Brittany to Scandinavia. The Celts and the Germans questioned the sources, the sound of the wind in the trees, the flight of birds, the entrails of the victims, the dreams, Among the fortuitous omens, we always attached great importance to the first meeting that we was doing when leaving home. In another order of ideas, the judgment of God, ordeals are similar to divination. (sort of tests which one had recourse in particular during the Middle Ages to ensure the innocence or the guilt of an accused, and which took their name from what they supposed a divine intervention in favor of the good right ) Christianity retained this practice, although it hunted down most of the others that ended up being confused with witchcraft. He could not proscribe palmistry and made use of stichomancy, divination by verses or isolated sentences by applying it to the Bible. Astrology was, in Europe as in Asia, the characteristic method of divination of the Middle Ages. Completely ruined by the progress of science, it has left an empty place. But the Gypsies brought a great reinforcement to the mantic, by a series of practices which are attached to the sidereal divination.
The Slavs
The Slavs had several modes of divination. The first was carried out as follows: We threw wooden discs called kroujcki, white on one side, black on the other, into the air. When the white side was up, the omen was happy, and ominous, if black prevailed. When one showed the white side and the other the black side, success must have been poor. The second divination was done by means of the horse Swetowid. The third was drawn from the evolutions described by the flight of birds; the fourth, the cries of animals and their meeting; the fifth, ripples of flame and smoke; the sixth, of the course of water and the different forms that the waves and the foam took; the seventh was done by mingling wicker branches together, then removing them one after the other, at a set time, and pronouncing consecrated words.
To discover thieves, the Czechs employed the following means. They assumed ten directions corresponding to the ten fingers of the hands; and after getting drunk on tobacco smoke, if one of their fingers were to tremble, they would declare that the thief had gone that way.
Muslims
Muslim law prohibited divination, however, the confidence that the people had in it was so powerfully rooted, that Muhammad himself, the destroyer of the cult of idols, could never destroy the illusions of magic, of astrology, of omens, dreams, etc. Despite the severe prohibition that the law makes, not only have they always reigned in Arabia, but they have spread to all the countries where the first Muslim Arabs printed, saber in hand, the character of Islam. and that of their superstitions.
We see, in the history of these peoples, how much they influenced the projects of the monarchs, political operations, revolutions States, on the destiny of nations, as on the particular fate of families and ordinary individuals.
Sheikhs, or superiors of dervish communities, ostensibly exercise divination, and in this regard they are highly accredited with the great as with the common people.
Modern divination
Faith in divination is still very much alive today, having survived all scientific advances as well as religion. Except in the exceptional cases where religion accepts manifestations of prophetic ecstasy, which popular credulity requires acceptance by the heads of the Church, it is practiced only by free diviners enjoying low esteem. (note: Love that one!) The main methods are derived from astrology; the most common is cartomancy; divination by coffee grounds, egg white, etc., are also astrological in their origins. Oniromancy (study of dreams) has retained many followers and the ever-increasing baggage of traditional interpretations makes it possible to devote true volumes to the Keys to Dreams. Palmistry (study of the lines of the hand) is also practiced. Finally, ominal divination, the interpretation of fortuitous omens still has a great influence on the popular imagination, and we know that in the countries of the South it is still often used by those who take lottery numbers. Let us add the ideas on the double sight, applied by sleepwalkers.
Divinations elsewhere
The Chinese
In China, when it was a question of founding a city, or of deciding some important business, one consulted fates; which is done in two ways: either by a certain plant called chi, or by the tortoise shell. It is not clear how in ancient times divination by the chi plant was practiced. In modern times, a bundle of leaves of this plant is placed on the right and left; mysterious words are recited, and by taking a handful of leaves from each bundle, they augur according to their number. Take a dry stalk of this plant, split it open, and cut it into thin sticks, one foot long. We guess by means of the sacred book, called Yi-King. Divination by the turtle was done by placing fire on a tortoise shell, and predicting from the direction of the streaks that the heat formed there. In the Yi-King, we see the former chief Tan-Fou placing the fire on the tortoise shell; before settling with his tribe at the foot of Mount Khi. Elderly officers were responsible for interpreting the emperor's dreams. Diviners also explained the dreams of powerful men. The sight of a magpie was a good omen; on the contrary, it was unfortunate to see a black crow or a red fox.
Lord Macartney teaches us that, in all their important undertakings, the Chinese of the imperial era seek to know the outcome, either by consulting their deities or by implementing various superstitious practices. Some put in the hollow of a bamboo several small consecrated sticks, marked and numbered. The consultant, kneeling in front of the altar, shakes the bamboo, until one of the sticks falls to the ground. One examines the mark, and the one which corresponds to it in a book which the priest holds open, answers the proposed question. Sometimes the answers are written on a piece of paper stuck inside the temple. Others throw into the air a wooden polygon, each face of which has its particular mark; and when it falls, the sign above it is the one that indicates the answer. If this response is favorable, the one to whom it concerns bow down with gratitude, and undertake with confidence the affair which interests him; if not, he throws the same wood into the air a second and third time, and the last irrevocably decides what to do.
Tibetans
In Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, there are various methods of divination. Sometimes the lamas guess by tracing on a sheet of paper the eight figures called Koua and certain Tibetan words. They also represent these eight koua with grains of gray barley, and tear off the threads of different colors. They also guess by counting the beads of their rosary, by drawing lines on the ground, or by burning sheep bones. Sometimes they look in a bowl of water and see what has to happen. Women also practice this art. Another way of guessing is that the diviner opens his sacred book, presents it to the questioner, and the latter clearly recognizes future happiness or misfortune. This way of guessing has some analogy with the sacred spells employed in China.
The Muysca
Among the Muyscas, people of the Bogota plateau, in Colombia, when a child came into the world, to find out whether he would be happy or unhappy, we took a little cotton that we moistened with the mother's milk, and that 'we then wrapped it with rushes, so as to make a ball, which we threw into the river. Six young people, good swimmers, immediately rushed forward: if the current carried the ball before they could reach it, it was believed that the child would be unhappy; otherwise, they brought it back in triumph as an indication of certain happiness. They were then celebrating a feast; then each young boy approached the newborn and cut off a lock of his hair, until he had none left. This hair was thrown into the river, and the child was then bathed in it.
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Sources
--Yves de Sike, Histoire de la divination, Larousse, 2001.
--Ervan Dianteill, Des dieux et des signes, initiation, écriture et divination dans les religions afro-cubaines, EHESS, 2001.
--Collectif, Divination et rationalité en Chine ancienne, Presses universitaires de Vincennes (Extrême Orient / Extrême occident n° 21), 1999.
--Toufic Fahd, La divination arabe, Actes Sud, 1999.
--Jean-René Jannot, Devins, dieux et démons (regards sur la religion de l'Etrurie antique), Picard, 1998.
--Christian Guyonvarc'h, Magie, médecine et divination chez les Celtes, Payot, 1997.
--Simone Kalis et Pierre Erny, Médecine traditionnelle, religions et divination chez les Seereer Siin du Sénégal, la connaissance de la nuit, L'Harmattan, 1997.
--Jean Nougayrol, Divination en Mésopotamie ancienne, PUF, 1992. -
--Raymond Bloch, La Divination, essai sur l'avenir et son imaginaire, Fayard, 1991.
--Nicole Cazauran, Divination et controverse religieuse en France au XVIe siècle, Rue d'Ulm, 1987. -
--Collectif, Divination et rationalité, Le Seuil, 1974.
--A. Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire de la divination dans l'antiquité, rééd. Jérôme Millon, 2003.
--Cicéron, De la divination, Les Belles Lettres, 1992.
