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Divination

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Divination is a ritualized, sometimes spiritual technique that aids in decision making. (Fortune-telling has more of a commercial feel.) Divination is a natural human expression, recognized by anthropologists in virtually all cultures in all ages, although regularly dismissed by skeptics as superstition and pseudoscience. However, one person's scientific method is another person's divination. Even to some scientists, complexity theory looks suspiciously like divination.

Any attempt by members of a culture to create a system that makes their observations of nature understandable may involve some form of divination. Humans cannot make long-term plans if they cannot predict the outcome. High trust in forecasting is critical when someone does not have the confidence to proceed. Science and the scientific method provide predictive information, generally in the form of statistics, but every day people must make decisions where it is impractical or impossible to gather information by statistics. They have to base at least part of their decision on unproven beliefs. This is when people often turn to divination.

In the US the most famous rite of divination is Groundhog Day (2 February). A large, native American rodent (a woodchuck) is used to predict the weather for the succeeding months. According to research on this practice conducted by the US Weather Service, weather divination by groundhog is statistically as reliable as a weather forecaster.

Julian Jaynes categorized divination according to the following types:

  • Omens and omen texts. "The most primitive, clumsy, but enduring method...is the simple recording of sequences of unusual or important events." (1976:236) Chinese history offers scrupulously documented occurrences of strange births, the tracking of natural phenomena, and other data. Chinese governmental planning relied on this method of forecasing for long-range strategy. It is not unreasonable to assume that modern scientific inquiry began with this kind of divination; Joseph Needham's work considered this very idea.
  • Sortilege. This consists of the casting of lots whether with sticks, stones, bones, beans, or some other item. Modern playing cards and board games developed from this type of divination.
  • Augury. Divination that ranks a set of given possibilities. It can be qualitative (such as shapes, proximities, etc.) Dowsing (a form of rhabdomancy) developed from this type of divination. The Romans in classical times used Etruscan methods of augury such as hepatoscopy (actually a form of extispicy). Haruspices examined the livers of sacrificed animals.
  • Spontaneous. An unconstrained form of divination, free from any particular medium, and actually a generalization of all types of divination. The answer comes from whatever object the diviner happens to see or hear. Some Christians and members of other religions use a form of bibliomancy: they ask a question, rifle the pages of their holy book, and take as their answer the first passage their eyes light upon. Other forms of spontaneous divination include reading auras and New Age methods of Feng Shui such as "intuitive" and Fuzion.

One of the most popular methods of divination is astrology, typically categorized as Vedic, Western, and Chinese.

Many methods of divination exist:

Related articles

External links

For Further Reading

  • Robert Todd Carroll (2003). The Skeptic's Dictionary. Wiley.
  • Julian Jaynes (1976). The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Houghton Mifflin.
  • Clifford A. Pickover (2001). Dreaming the Future: The Fantastic Story of Prediction. Prometheus.
  • Eva Shaw (1995). Divining the Future. Facts on File.
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