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Divination (page 2)
All divination, by
whatever method, follows the same pattern:
1. A question is
formulated, ranging from something very specific — such as
"Should I marry this woman?" or "Will I win at the races
today?" — to general enquiries of the type "What will my
future life be like?"
2. A physical mean is
used to provide a connection between the enquirer and the
diviner —
such as an intimate possession, to touch the seer, or to make an
arbitrary choice of cards or objects, or any random arrangement of
things from which he does not make a conscious selection. Or the
diviner
may utilize some device, such as a pendulum or crystal ball, on which he
can concentrate so intensely that the perception of his surroundings withdraws
to the point where he is effectively in a trance. Drugs are sometimes
used for this purpose.
Divination is not
concerned with predetermined events. The
diviner can give advice only on
the basis of predicting the outcome of a particular course of action, maybe
suggesting an alternative; but he cannot state that any future event will
definitely occur.
Every age has had its share of visionaries, seers who seem
to posses a kind of second sight that enables them to peer through the walls
of time. And it is not the past or the present, but the future that holds
the greatest allure for would-be
soothsayers; and not just any future, but
the fascinating matter of human fate — be it the destiny of an individual,
of a nation, of the world or of the universe.
In Babylon, supposedly
god-inspired kings may have been the first prophets. In the
Gilgamesh epic,
believed to have been first recorded as long ago as 2000 BC, the semi-divine
ruler dreams about an upcoming fight; his mother, a goddess, tells him that
he and his enemy will then become fast friends. And it came to pass, just as
Gilgamesh had been told in his dream.
The legendary
Sumerian king
Enmenduranna, who was supposed
to have lived before the Flood, was said to have codified the rules of
prophesy. Certainly the seer's art was well developed by the time of the
First Dynasty of Ur, around 2500 BC. Prophecies were delivered in the name
of the ruler and said to be inspired by the gods, but they were made by
professional seers, who developed a number of divinatory systems involving
inspection of sheep's livers and other natural objects.
See
Augur,
Dowsing,
Tarot,
Heptameron,
Demonology, Sortilege,
Demonomancy,
Casting Black Magic Spells,
Commanding Spirits,
The Tarot Store,
The Chakra Store and
Divination & Scrying Tools and
Supplies.
Sources: (1)
Dictionary of the
Occult, Caxton
Publishing; (2)
Spence, Lewis,
An Encyclopedia of
Occultism, Carol Publishing Group;
(3) Steiger, Brad and Sherry Hansen,
The Gale Encyclopedia of
the Unusual and Unexplained,
Thomson Gale; (4)
The Encyclopaedia
Britannica Eleventh Edition Handy Volume Edition, Oxford
University Press; (5) Bailey,
Nancy (editor),
The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Spells and Magic,
Sterling
Publishing;
(6) Dunwich, Gerina,
A Wiccan's Guide to Prophecy
and Divination, Carol Publishing Group.
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