Editing Divination (section)

==History==
[[Image:ChickenDivination.jpg|thumb|[[Russia]]n peasant girls using [[chicken]]s for divination; 19th-century [[lubok]].]]

===Antiquity===
The [[Nymphaion (fire sanctuary)|eternal fire at Nymphaion]] in southern [[Illyria]] (present-day [[Albania]]) also functioned as an oracle. The forms of divination practiced in this natural fire sanctuary with peculiar physical properties were widely known to the ancient Greek and Roman authors.<ref>{{cite book|last=Anamali|first=Skënder|authorlink=Skënder Anamali|chapter=Santuari di Apollonia|pages=127–136|editor-last1=Stazio|editor-first1=Attilio|editor-last2=Ceccoli|editor-first2=Stefania|title=La Magna Grecia e i grandi santuari della madrepatria: atti del trentunesimo Convegno di studi sulla Magna Grecia|volume=31|series=Atti del Convegno di studi sulla Magna Grecia|publisher=Istituto per la storia e l'archeologia della Magna Grecia|year=1992|language=it|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6L0jAQAAIAAJ}} pp. 134–135.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Larson|first=Jennifer Lynn|title=Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|location=New York|year=2001|isbn=978-0-19-514465-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1ww3m1vSRtsC}} pp. 162–163.</ref> The Oracle of [[Amun]] at the [[Siwa Oasis]] was made famous when [[Alexander the Great]] visited it after conquering Egypt from Persia in 332 BC.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Gardiner|first1=Alan Henderson|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lzhBbsElbKAC&q=The+Oracle+of+Amun+at+the+Siwa+Oasis+was+made+famous+when+Alexander+the+Great+visited+it+after+conquering+Egypt+from+Persia+in+332+BC.&pg=PA381|title=Egypt of the Pharaohs: An Introduction|last2=Sir|first2=Alan Henderson Gardiner|date=1961|publisher=Clarendon Press|isbn=978-0-19-500267-6|language=en}}</ref>
 
{{bibleverse|Deuteronomy|18:10-12}} or {{bibleverse|Leviticus|19:26}} can be interpreted as categorically forbidding divination. But some biblical practices, such as [[Urim and Thummim]], [[Cleromancy|casting lots]] and [[prayer]], are considered to be divination. Trevan G. Hatch disputes these comparisons because divination did not consult the "one true God" and manipulated the divine for the diviner's self-interest.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hatch |first=Trevan G. |date=2007 |title=Magic, Biblical Law, and the Israelite Urim and Thummim |url=https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1074&context=studiaantiqua#:~:text=The%20Urim%20and%20Thummim%20was%20an%20object%20given%20to%20the,the%20prophets%20on%20God's%20terms. |journal=Studia Antiqua |volume=5 |issue=2 |via=Scholars Archive}}</ref> One of the earliest known divination artifacts, a book called the Sortes Sanctorum, is believed to be of Christian roots, and utilizes dice to provide insight into the future.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Klingshirn |first=William E |date=2002 |title=Defining the Sortes Sanctorum : Gibbon, Du Cange, and Early Christian Lot Divination |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/10252 |journal=Journal of Early Christian Studies |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=77–130 |doi=10.1353/earl.2002.0011 |issn=1086-3184|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Uri Gabbay states that divination was associated with sacrificial rituals in the ancient Near East, including Mesopotamia and Israel. Extispicy was a common example, where diviners would pray to their god(s) before [[Vivisection|vivisecting]] a sacrificial animal. Their abominal organs would reveal a divine message, which aligned with [[Cardiocentric hypothesis|cardiocentric]] views of the mind.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gabbay |first=Uri |date=2016 |title=The Practice of Divination in the Ancient Near East |url=https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-practice-of-divination-in-the-ancient-near-east |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240414030617/https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-practice-of-divination-in-the-ancient-near-east |archive-date=April 14, 2024 |website=TheTorah.com}}</ref>

====Oracles and Greek divination====
{{See also|Oracle|Greek divination}}
Both oracles and seers in ancient Greece practiced divination. [[Oracle#Greece|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 ({{Langx|el|μάντεις}}).<ref name="Princeton Classics">{{cite web | title=The Seer in Ancient Greece | website=Princeton Classics | url=https://classics.princeton.edu/research/bookshelf/seer-ancient-greece | access-date=28 November 2022}}</ref>

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]], [[ornithomancy]], 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.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Flower|first=Michael A.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/290580029|title=The seer in ancient Greece|date=2008|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-93400-9|location=Berkeley|oclc=290580029}}</ref>

The disadvantage of 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.{{citation needed|date=November 2019}}

During battle, generals would frequently ask seers at both the [[campground]] (a process called the ''hiera'') and at the [[battle]]field (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 [[omen]]s.{{citation needed|date=November 2019}}

Because the seers had such power over influential individuals in ancient Greece, many were skeptical of the accuracy and honesty of the seers. 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,<ref>Flower, Michael Attyah. ''The Seer in Ancient Greece.'' Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.</ref> and the [[Stoicism|Stoics]] accounted for the validity of divination in their [[Stoic physics#Divination|physics]].

===Middle Ages and Early Modern period===
{{further|Medieval magic|Renaissance magic|Folk Catholicism}}{{Artes prohibitae}}
The divination method of casting lots ([[Cleromancy]]) was used by the remaining eleven disciples of Jesus in {{bibleverse|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 [[emperor]]s during [[ancient Rome]].<ref>Bailey, Michael David. (2007). ''Magic and Superstition in Europe''. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. pp. 52-53. {{ISBN|0-7425-3386-7}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://apostolicconfraternityseminary.com/council_of_trullo.html|title=Council of Trullo - Apostolic Confraternity Seminary|work=apostolicconfraternityseminary.com|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110707152243/http://apostolicconfraternityseminary.com/council_of_trullo.html|archive-date=2011-07-07}}</ref> [[Fortune-telling]] and other forms of divination were widespread through the [[Middle Ages]].<ref>Bailey, Michael David. (2007). ''Magic and Superstition in Europe''. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. pp. 88-89. {{ISBN|0-7425-3386-7}}</ref> In the constitution of 1572 and public regulations of 1661 of the [[Electorate of Saxony]], capital punishment was used on those predicting the future.<ref>Ennemoser, Joseph. (1856). ''The History of Magic''. London: Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. p. 59</ref> Laws forbidding divination practice continue to this day.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://pluralism.org/news/view/147|title=Wiccan Priest Fights Local Ordinance Banning Fortune Telling (Louisiana)|work=pluralism.org|access-date=2009-10-06|archive-date=2011-07-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727180737/http://pluralism.org/news/view/147|url-status=dead}}</ref> The [[Waldensians]] sect were accused of practicing divination.<ref name="Golden 2006 p. ">{{cite book | last=Golden | first=R.M. | title=Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition | publisher=ABC-CLIO | issue=v. 4 | year=2006 | isbn=978-1-57607-243-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LyoZAQAAIAAJ | access-date=2023-05-05 | page=}}</ref>

[[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.<ref>{{cite web|last=Kuusela|first= Tommy|year= 2014|title= 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|url= https://www.academia.edu/6624109 |access-date= <!-- 09/07/14 -->}}</ref> 

In [[Islam]], [[astrology]] (''‘ilm ahkam al-nujum''), the most widespread divinatory science, is the study of how celestial entities could be applied to the daily lives of people on earth.{{sfnp|Leoni|Lory|Gruber|2016|p=13}}<ref>Greenwood, William, and Andrew Shore. "[https://blog.britishmuseum.org/seeing-stars-astrolabes-and-the-islamic-world/ Seeing Stars: Astrolabes and the Islamic World] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201020200415/https://blog.britishmuseum.org/seeing-stars-astrolabes-and-the-islamic-world/ |date=2020-10-20 }}." Curator's Corner Blog. [[The British Museum]], 2017.</ref> It is important to emphasize the practical nature of divinatory sciences because people from all socioeconomic levels and pedigrees sought the advice of astrologers to make important decisions in their lives.{{sfnp|Leoni|Lory|Gruber|2016|pp=10, 16-17}} [[Astronomy in the medieval Islamic world|Astronomy]] was made a distinct science by intellectuals who did not agree with the former, although distinction may not have been made in daily practice, where astrology was technically outlawed and only tolerated if it was employed in public. Astrologers, trained as scientists and astronomers, were able to interpret the celestial forces that ruled the "sub-lunar" to predict a variety of information from [[lunar phase]]s and drought to times of prayer and the foundation of cities. The courtly sanction and elite patronage of [[Muslims|Muslim]] rulers benefited astrologers’ intellectual statures.{{sfnp|Leoni|Lory|Gruber|2016|pp=13, 16-17}}

[[File:Safavid Dynasty, Joseph Enthroned from a Falnama (Book of Omens), circa 1550 AD.jpg|thumb|Joseph Enthroned. Folio from the "Book of Omens" (''[[Falnama]]''), [[Safavid dynasty]]. 1550. [[Freer Gallery of Art]]. This painting would have been positioned alongside a prognostic description of the meaning of this image on the page opposite (conventionally to the left). The reader would flip randomly to a place in the book and digest the text having first viewed the image.]]

The “science of the sand” (''‘ilm al-raml''), otherwise translated as [[geomancy]], is “based on the interpretation of figures traced on sand or other surface known as [[geomantic figures]].”{{sfnp|Leoni|Lory|Gruber|2016|p=21}} It is a good example of Islamic divination at a popular level. The core principle that meaning derives from a unique occupied position is identical to the core principle of astrology.

Like astronomy, geomancy used deduction and computation to uncover significant [[Prophecy|prophecies]] as opposed to [[omen]]s (''‘ilm al-fa’l''), which were process of “reading” visible random events to decipher the invisible realities from which they originated. It was upheld by [[Prophecy|prophetic]] tradition and relied almost exclusively on text, specifically the [[Quran|Qur’an]] (which carried a table for guidance) and poetry, as a development of [[bibliomancy]].{{sfnp|Leoni|Lory|Gruber|2016|p=21}} One example for this is this Qur'an from Gwalior, India, which includes a set of instructions to use the Qur’an as a divinatory text. It is the earliest known example of its kind.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sardar |first=Marika |date=2020-08-28 |title=The Gwalior Qur'an |url=https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/khamseen/topics/2020/the-gwalior-quran/ |access-date=2025-03-29 |website=Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online |language=en-US}}</ref> The practice culminated in the appearance of the illustrated “Books of Omens” (''[[Falnama]]'') in the early 16th century, an embodiment of the apocalyptic fears as the end of the millennium in the [[Islamic calendar]] approached.{{sfnp|Leoni|Lory|Gruber|2016|p=26}}

Dream interpretation, or [[oneiromancy]] ''(‘ilm ta’bir al-ru’ya''), is more specific to Islam than other divinatory science, largely because of the Qur’an’s emphasis on the predictive dreams of [[Abraham]], [[Yusuf (surah)|Yusuf]], and [[Muhammad]]. The important delineation within the practice lies between “incoherent dreams” and “sound dreams,” which were “a part of prophecy” or heavenly message.{{sfnp|Leoni|Lory|Gruber|2016|pp=26-27}} [[Dream interpretation]] was always tied to Islamic religious texts, providing a moral compass to those seeking advice. The practitioner needed to be skilled enough to apply the individual dream to general precedent while appraising the singular circumstances.{{sfnp|Leoni|Lory|Gruber|2016|pp=26-31}}

The power of text held significant weight in the "[['Ilm al-Huruf|science of letters]]" ''(‘ilm al-huruf''), the foundational principle being "God created the world through His speech."{{sfnp|Leoni|Lory|Gruber|2016|p=31}} The science began with the concept of language, specifically [[Arabic]], as the expression of "the essence of what it signifies."{{sfnp|Leoni|Lory|Gruber|2016|p=31}} Once the believer understood this, while remaining obedient to God’s will, they could uncover the essence and divine truth of the objects inscribed with Arabic like [[amulet]]s and [[talisman]]s through the study of the letters of the Qur’an with alphanumeric computations.{{sfnp|Leoni|Lory|Gruber|2016|p=31}}

In Islamic practice in [[Senegal]] and [[The Gambia|Gambia]], just like many other [[West Africa]]n countries, diviners and religious leaders and [[Alternative medicine|healers]] were interchangeable because Islam was closely related with esoteric practices (like divination), which were responsible for the regional spread of Islam. As scholars learned esoteric sciences, they joined local non-Islamic aristocratic courts, who quickly aligned divination and amulets with the "proof of the power of Islamic religion."{{sfnp|Graw|2012|pp=19-20}} So strong was the idea of esoteric knowledge in West African Islam, diviners and [[Magic (supernatural)|magicians]] uneducated in Islamic texts and Arabic bore the same titles as those who did.{{sfnp|Graw|2012|p=19}}

From the beginning of Islam, there "was (and is) still a vigorous debate about whether or not such [divinatory] practices were actually permissible under Islam,” with some scholars like [[Al-Ghazali|Abu-Hamid al Ghazili]] (d. 1111) objecting to the science of divination because he believed it bore too much similarity to [[Paganism|pagan]] practices of invoking spiritual entities that were not God.<ref>Francis, Edgar W. "Magic and Divination in the Medieval Islamic Middle East." ''History Compass'' 9, no. 8 (2011): 624</ref>{{sfnp|Leoni|Lory|Gruber|2016|p=13}} Other scholars justified esoteric sciences by comparing a practitioner to "a physician trying to heal the sick with the help of the same natural principles."{{sfnp|Leoni|Lory|Gruber|2016|p=17}}

===Mesoamerica===
{{see also|Mesoamerican religion}}
Divination was a central component of ancient [[Mesoamerican]] religious life. Many [[Aztec religion|Aztec gods]], including central [[creator deity|creator gods]], were described as diviners and were closely associated with [[Magic (paranormal)|sorcery]]. [[Tezcatlipoca]] is the patron of sorcerers and practitioners of [[Magic (paranormal)|magic]]. His name means "smoking mirror," a reference to a device used for divinatory [[scrying]].{{sfnp|Miller|2007|p={{page needed|date=November 2021}}}} In the [[Maya mythology|Mayan]] ''[[Popol Vuh]]'', the creator gods [[Xmucane and Xpiacoc]] perform divinatory hand casting during the creation of people.{{sfnp|Miller|2007|p={{page needed|date=November 2021}}}}  The Aztec ''[[Codex Borbonicus]]'' shows the original human couple, [[Oxomoco]] and [[Cipactonal]], engaged in divining with kernels of maize. This primordial pair is associated with the ritual calendar, and the Aztecs considered them to be the first diviners.<ref>Sandstrom, Alan R. "Divination." In [[David Carrasco]] (ed). ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures''. : Oxford University Press, 2001.</ref>

Every civilization that developed in [[pre-Columbian 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 in Mesoamerican culture|mirrors]], or the [[Cleromancy|casting of lots]] were among the most widespread forms of divinatory practice. [[Vision (spirituality)|Vision]]s 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]].{{sfnp|Miller|2007|p={{page needed|date=November 2021}}}}