Divination

This article was taken from:
Grolier's Academic American Encyclopedia

(1/1) Article number: 0086920-0 divination.

Divination is the practice of foretelling the future by means of alleged preternatural powers. It is based on the belief that the future is predetermined, that all things, however casual or accidental they might appear, have significance, and that the pattern of coming events can be read from them. The practice has been common to all peoples from earliest times, often through the medium of a PROPHET, SHAMAN, SIBYL, or person temperamentally equipped to go into a state of trance.

Ancient diviners foretold the outcome of great undertakings, advised whether war should be declared, and worked out auspicious times for constructing temples, electing public officials, or passing important laws. The Egyptians and Babylonians held special classes of priestly diviners; the Greeks consulted ORACLES, especially at DELPHI; and the Romans had a state-sponsored college of augurs, a select group that read the future by studying the behavior of birds or the markings on the liver or entrails of sacrificed animals.

Divination includes all methods of fortune-telling: card reading, crystal gazing, palmistry. In ASTROLOGY the general direction of a person's life is read from the position of the stars at the time of his or her birth. Dream interpretation was once a popular form of divination.

BENJAMIN WALKER

Bibliography:
Bascom, W., 16 Cowries: Yoruba Divination (1980)
Halliday, Sir William Reginald, Greek Divination (1913; repr. 1967)
McIntosh, Christopher, The Astrologers and Their Creed (1969)
Parke, H.W., Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy in Classical Antiquity (1988).

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