Divination

The Bible is full of references to magic and divination, but we rarely find attestations of witches and witchcraft, i.e. women performing acts of black magic. However, there is a mysterious passage in the Book of Ezekiel which seems to relate exactly that. In this compelling lecture Dr Alinda Damsma throws light on the identity and practices of these women, seeing them in the context of other known activities in the Ancient Near East. More info: https://www.treadwells-london.com/events-1/the-bibles-own-witches?mc_cid=27225007b0&mc_eid=50358b363f

Powerful historical artefacts vitalize their potential agencies in specific historical moments and cause fractures in our perspectives. In this thesis, I argue that objects' power can be examined by looking at their supernatural, political, cultural, practical, and economic agencies. The thesis is based on a case study of looting in Turkey and archival research on nineteenth-century travelogues of Asia Minor. Rituals of looting attest to the supernatural agency. Rituals challenge the common perception of time and space. The contradictions between European travelers' approach to and the Ottoman locals' interpretations of historical artefacts signify objects' cultural agency. Locals' multitemporal framing of antiquities and travelers' perception of time as linear has resulted in an epistemic antinomy that defined the Ottoman experience of modernity from below. Such encounters in the Mediterranean conjuncture often necessitated the Ottoman state to fill in the power gap. I argue that this involvement sutured the antiquities' political agency in designing the Ottoman's modern statecraft and perception of cultural heritage. Besides these three agencies, antiquities have a practical agency that locals attached to their everyday lives. The economic agency of antiquities is relevant in the global market of the illicit antiquities trade. In the sphere of the antiquities market, the exchange value subsumes the antiquities' other agencies. Through in-depth case studies from Laodicea in Turkey to Heraklion in Crete, the thesis demonstrates how artefacts' times have undergone singularization. As their historical and social context unfolded, the shared sense of space within eclectic temporality has come to a halt. I contend that attempts to singularize the past narrow the culturally effective possibilities of conviviality between diverse social groups. The thesis argues that archaeologists, heritage scholars, and policymakers can contribute to the culturally viable and socially equitable ways to organize cultural heritage, should a holistic analysis, involving all the five types of agencies, be applied to the cases of looting of antiquities.

This study surveys the introduction of astrology into East Asia with a primary focus on the Buddhist experience of Indian and Iranian astrology during the eighth and ninth centuries. It is argued that prior to the introduction of Esoteric Buddhism during the 8th century, the Chinese sangha had no pressing need to observe astrology. However, following the rising popularity of Tantric rituals, which require proper timing according to non-Chinese astrological conventions, Chinese Buddhism took a deep interest in astrology. This in turn prompted a wider interest in astrology among Chinese elites, encouraging the translation of more foreign works on astrology, even outside of a Buddhist context. It is shown that around the year 800 there was a shift from Indian to Iranian sources of astrology, most likely as a result of ethnic Iranians working at court. Iranian astrology, which included a rich system of horoscopy rooted in the earlier Hellenistic tradition, prompted a booming popular interest in astrology. Buddhists subsequently took up practice of horoscopy for themselves. Chinese Buddhist astrology was then exported to neighboring countries, most notably Japan where it influenced medieval religious and court cultures.

In light of the retelling of the Golden Calf episode in Hosea 13, Philo of Alexandria, Pseudo-Philo and some Targums, the missing link between Moses’s destruction of the Calf and the slaughter performed by the Levites is identified as a judgment by ordeal. After drinking the golden dust, some Israelites developped a symptom which enabled the Levites to identify the guilty and spare the innocent.

There is in Western culture a long-lasting tradition of attention toward apparently inexplicable events and the meaning that they can have for the community.
Why observing and recording these events? Because their deviation from the natural order has a meaning that must be interpreted.
The roman writer Julius Obsequente (III-IV c. A.D.) can be considered as the first ufologist in the Western world. His Liber prodigiorum or De prodigis is an accurate compilation, and an accurate selection, of prodigious and monstrous phenomena taken from the books of the main Roman historiographer, Livius (ca. 64 or 59 B.C. – A.D. 17) for first. We will consider two kinds of extraordinary events, which had a special impact on ancient Greek and Roman cultures: multiple birth (twins and triplets) and earthquakes.
Twins and triplets had a different relevance in Greek and Roman cultures, in relation to two opposite medical explanations of multiple pregnancies (Hyppocrates vs. Aristotles). Moreover twin are a challenge to the theory of astrology. Earthquake was the second event to be interpreted. Geomancy in the Latin sense (differently form Arabic geomancy) was elaborated in order to take predictions from them.
At the beginning of the Middle Ages (VIIth c.), one of the most prominent scholars of the Middle Ages, Isidore by Seville, in his extensive and widely circulated Etymologiae records the latin lexicon of ‘prodigies’: miracula, monstra, prodigium, portentum, ostensum. We will analyse the lexicon of prodigies in Isidore and finally we will search for hints in contemporary western languages: omen, monster, prodigy, portent, miracle…
As far as the Middle Ages are concerned, in many books we find collection of prodigies but generally speaking they are neither connected with their interpretation, nor related with divination. E.g. we have collections of prodigies in Walter Map’s, De nugis curialium or Gervais of Tilbury’s, Otia imperialis, but they collect prodigies only to be enjoyed narratively.
Similarly, we have collection and record of monstra which are de-placed in extra-european spaces. E.g. some Liber monstruorum will catch some suggestions of Isidore of Seville and will emphasyse them in a separate manuscripts circulation.
Finally the West will progressively deal more and more rationally with prodigies. At the half of the 14th century we can find works such as De causis mirabilis by Nicole Oresme (1323-1382), which are devoted to deveil the bias which lead our mind to misjudge some kind of alleged prodigies.

2012 _ This dissertation deals with the ritual and sacerdotal organisation of a Cuban mythical-ritual complex of Yoruba origin, articulated around two poles with complex and sometimes conflicting relationships: Santería, based on the personalised relationship followers tie with entities called orichas, and Ifá, a divinatory pole centred on the use of the eponymous oracle. The aim is to highlight the interdependent relationships that unite these two poles. To this end, the thesis gives descriptive and analytical primacy to the structuration of the initiatory practices that constitute the basis of these practices and to their pragmatic, formal and interactional dimensions. It highlights two elements. (1) Different forms of critical reflexivity, relayed by a multi-headed social organisation, by the nature of ritual knowledge and by the indeterminacy of certain ceremonial procedures, constitute the first element on which the coherence of the whole rests. In particular, they involve debate, exegesis, contestation and, sometimes, conflict that are intrinsic of priesthood practice as well as of the ritual execution and initiation performances. (2) Two divergent conceptions of practice, conveyed by these forms of reflexivity and stemming from profoundly distinct initiatory experiences for a santero/santera or a babalao, are at the origin of the founding tension which organises this bipolar complex and the relations between its specialists. These conceptions somehow incompatible are brought into constant confrontation due to the collegial coordination imposed by the ritual, generating continuous negotiations which endow this complex with its distinctive dynamics and unity  / Cette thèse porte sur l’organisation sacerdotale d’un complexe mythico-rituel cubain d’origine yoruba articulé autour de deux pôles aux rapports complexes et parfois conflictuels : la santería, fondée sur la mise en relation personnalisée des adeptes avec des entités orichas, et Ifá, pôle divinatoire centré sur l’usage de l’oracle éponyme. L’objectif est de mettre en évidence les relations d’interdépendance qui unissent ces deux pôles. Pour cela, la thèse accorde une primauté descriptive et analytique à la structuration des pratiques initiatiques qui constituent le socle du culte et à leurs dimensions pragmatique, formelle et interactionnelle. Elle met en valeur deux éléments. (1) Différentes formes de réflexivité critique, relayées par une organisation sociale pluricéphale, par la nature des savoirs en présence et par l’indétermination de certaines procédures cérémonielles, constituent le premier élément sur lequel repose la cohérence de l’ensemble. Elles font notamment du débat, de l’exégèse, de la contestation et, parfois, du conflit, des ressorts intrinsèques de la pratique sacerdotale ainsi que de l’exécution rituelle et des performances initiatiques. (2) Deux conceptions divergentes de la pratique, véhiculées par ces formes de réflexivité et issues d’expériences initiatiques profondément distinctes, sont à l’origine de la tension fondatrice qui organise ce complexe bipolaire et les relations entre spécialistes. A priori incompatibles, ces conceptions sont amenées à se confronter constamment du fait de la coordination collégiale imposée par le rituel et engendrent des négociations continues qui impriment sa dynamique et son unité distinctives à ce complexe sacerdotal

This article is reproduced from the Second Edition of The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Lindsay Jones (2005), v. 4, pp. 2369-2375, but is unchanged from its text in the First Edition, ed. Mircea Eliade (1987), v. 4, pp. 375-382, aside from a bibliographic update. It surveys the various chief academic approaches over the past century to the study of divination as such, and presents its own analysis classifying and explaining the forms of divination.

Silla monk Jinpyo 眞表(ca. 8th centry) is known as a Vinaya master,  who rebuilt Geumsan monastery and ordained people at the ordination platform of complete equality(C. fangdeng jietan, K.bangdeung gyedan ⽅等戒壇) on the one hand, and as a Yogācāra monk on the other. The extant records in Jinpyo’s biographies, however, mostly focus on his miraculous behaviors, severe level of repentance, and practice of divination by using wooden “wheels” on the basis of the Zhancha shane yebao jing 占察善惡業報經. Such Jinpyo’s image is quite different from that of his contemporary Yogācāra monks, such as Daehyeon ⼤賢 (ca. 8th century), who is rather known for his sophisticated study of Buddhist doctrines and philosophical works. Moreover, no work is known to us that is attributed to Jinpyo. Given this, the Zhancha shane yebao jing, the sutra that Jinpyo relied on throughout his career, is worth considering as the only textual source, by which we may trace his doctrinal position. This article first considers the doctrinal connection between the ordination platform of complete equality and the Zhancha shane yebao jing, then discusses the supernatural element of the repentance and ordination in Buddhist doctrinal context, and finally examines the similarity between this sutra and the chapter of cultivating faith(C. xiuxing xinxin fen, K. suhaeng sinsim bun 修⾏信⼼分) of the Awakening of Faith(C. Dasheng qixin lun, K. Daeseung gisillon ) ⼤乘起信論.

신라 景德王代의 승려 眞表(8세기 경)는 金山寺를 중창하고 方等戒壇에서 菩薩戒를 널리 베푼 律師로 알려져 있으면서 다른 한편으로는 相宗 계통 승려로 전해져 온다. 하지만 僧傳에 기록된 진표에 대한 자료는 그의 신이한 행적이나 그가 행한 亡身懺이라는 특이한 懺法, 그리고 『占察善惡業報經』을 바탕으로 木輪相法에 의한 占을 행한 것이 중심이 되어 전해지고 있다. 이러한 내용은 진표와 거의 동시대인으로서 신라의 瑜伽祖로 알려져 있는 大賢(8세기)을 위시한 유식학 승려들이 보통 그들의 교학적 사상이나 저술을 중심으로 알려져 있는 것과는 매우 상이하다. 이와 같이 진표의 행적은 교학보다는 실천적인 면에 치중되어 있고, 게다가 진표의 저술로 알려진 것은 전무하다. 이러한 상황 하에서 진표의 사상적 성향을 가능해 볼 수 있는 자료로서 그가 의지한 『占察經』에 주목하려 한다. 먼저 율사로서의 진표가 의지한 『점찰경』과 방등계단의 사상적 연계성을 살펴보고, 이어서 『점찰경』의 참회와 수계 이론의 신이성에 대해 논의한 후, 이 경과 『大乘起信論』의 연결성을 분석함으로써 율사로서의 진표가 바탕을 둔 사상적 기조가 어떠한 것이었나를 논의해 본다.

The International Conference The Impact of Arabic Sources on Divination and the
Practical Sciences in Europe and Asia was held in Erlangen (2014 January 21-23) at
the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities, in collaboration
with the Union Académique Internationale/International Union of Academies,
the Académie des sciences du monde islamique (Amman), the Centre for the
History of Arabic Studies in Europe (Warburg Institute, London) and Micrologus
(SISMEL, Florence)

Built well over 3,000 years ago (c. 1380 BCE), the Eugal (Sum. é.u.gal) ziggurat at Dūr-Kurigalzu in southern Iraq still dominates the landscape.  Although in a heavily deteriorated state, the original ziggurat, along with modern reconstruction efforts and other buildings unearthed during archaeological excavations at Dūr-Kurigalzu can be viewed using satellite imagery from Google Earth. This work explores possible celestial orientations for various points of the ziggurat, as well as possible sunlight and shadow scenarios pertaining to Mesopotamian justice and/or divination.

This essay explores intimate relationships between Buddhism and power in contemporary Thailand. Considering practices like divination and spirit mediumship as well as more orthodox contexts like kingship and the monkhood, it argues that Thai Buddhism cannot be divorced from the race for political influence and material wealth. The essay ultimately investigates the role of religion in legitimizing social hierarchy and economic inequality in the kingdom. It also illustrates how Thai Buddhism offers opportunities for resistance, as people from the periphery appropriate idioms of morality to challenge the status quo.

While philosophy and religion were never sharply distinguished in China, what we now call Chinese philosophy incorporated, theorized, and sometimes opposed practices and views that can reasonably be called religious. These included questions about cosmogony, the problem of evil, and the relationship between human beings and the divine. Philosophers were also concerned with common aspects of religion that are now often neglected in philosophy, such as ritual and divination. Finally, the disagreements between different ways and different philosophies led to reflection on pluralism and its value. All of these fit generally into the category of philosophy of religion.

The essay deals with aspects of liminalisation in the Oneirocritica of Artemidorus of Daldis (ca. late 2nd-early 3rd cent. CE). It looks at the rites of passage included in the analysed dreams and at their interpretation. Artemidorus was concerned with alleviating potentially disturbing or subversive dream images. He was solely interested in the sociocultural meaning of dreams and paid no attention to the personal disposition of the dreamer. Every dream presented to him was interpreted along the lines of a clearly defined system inspired by observations from social life. Even dreams dealing with violence or forms of ‘social drama’ were analysed with reference to sociocultural aspects such as age, class, or gender. Artemidorus based theory and practice of his oneiromancy on a long and influential tradition which considered dreams to have substantial meaning in real life. Ancient dream divination can be seen as a form of liminalisation that discursively rendered dreams significant and that self-reflectively analysed what was socially acceptable and what was not.

https://www.ostasien-verlag.de/reihen/deutsche-ostasienstudien/doas/039.html

Auch wenn die Wahrsagung in der buddhistischen Ordensdisziplin offiziell verpönt ist, waren über die Jahrhunderte buddhistische Mönche in China in den verschiedensten Bereichen--von der Beratung Fernreisender bis hin zum Wirken am kaiserlichen Hof--als Wahrsager tätig. Wahrsagung und die mit ihr verbundenen mantischen Techniken waren selbstverständlicher Teil des sozialpolitischen Lebens. Dass man Mönchen eine besondere Fähigkeit zuschrieb, Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft durchdringen zu können, machte sie zu gefragten Beratern.

Dieses Buch analysiert erstmals dieses Wirkungsfeld der Mönche anhand einer biographischen Sammlung von 208 Mönchsbiographien aus dem 15. Jahrhundert, der Biographien wundertätiger Mönche (Shenseng zhuan 神僧傳). Auf der Basis von 22 in wörtlicher Übersetzung vorgelegten Mönchsbiographien wurden die darin enthaltenen Erzählun-gen einer eingehenden Analyse unterzogen. So entstand ein facettenreiches Bild der mönchischen Wahrsagungspraxis über mehrere Jahrhunderte, einer Praxis, die--besonders im politischen Kontext--Aufschluss über ein höchst relevantes Beraterwissen dieser Mönche erteilt, welches die ver-schiedensten mantischen Disziplinen, von der Omen-und Traumkunde über Physiognomik und Astrologie, kunstvoll miteinander in Verbindung brachte.

Ms. Dar al-kutub 193 est-il une source des impressions d'Al fasl fi usul 'ilm al raml réalisées au Caire ? Oui, elle l'est partiellement. Dans la mesure où, par une collation sur la page de titre, celles-ci disent s’appuyer sur plusieurs manuscrits anciens et où le manuscrit examiné ici semble être une copie égyptienne relativement récente, on peut raisonnablement formuler l’hypothèse de l’existence d’autres copies égyptiennes non encore signalées. Les différences entre les manuscrits soulèvent le problème de l’identification du véritable texte de Zanati et montrent la nécessité d’une édition critique de son ouvrage, qui constitue une référence majeure en géomancie dans le monde arabe, de même qu’en Afrique subsaharienne. Ce qu’assurent en tous les cas ces impressions, c’est bien la transmission d’une géomancie classique à nos contemporains.

«El Tratado de la adivinanza de Lope de Barrientos en el contexto europeo», Los reinos peninsulares en el siglo XV: De lo vivido a lo narrado. Encuentro de investigadores en Homenaje a Michel García, hrsg. v. Fernando Toro Ceballos, Andújar: Ayuntamiento, 2015, S. 101-110.

The casting of maize seeds is a tool used by contemporary daykeepers in the Ayöök (Mixe) area of Oaxaca, Mexico, which along with the prognostications and prescriptions of the 260-day calendar, helps to cure illnesses and afflictions. This divinatory practice was also employed by precolonial tonalpouhque, who were experts of reading the tonalamatl, the pictographic manuscripts with calendrical, ritual and oracular content, such as the now called Borgia Group codices. In this article maize divination will be described and analyzed, arguing that maize divination results in images that can be read in a similar way to these codices. The reading of maize is approached here by employing the concepts of signs and symbols as described by Carl Jung and the notions of chronotope and dialogical narratives by Mikhail Bakhtin. The Jungian understanding of divinatory practices as a means of gaining consciousness of oneself is also applied to argue in favor of the therapeutic capacity of reading maize, as it offers relief and triggers action.

The present paper aims at analyzing the experiential quality of what I will refer to as the hermeneutic dimension of the divinatory encounter. The analysis will consist of three parts: The first part concentrates on the relation between the content of divinatory enunciations and the way this content is understood by the person seeking out divinatory consultation. In the second part, it will be demonstrated how in most cases the enunciation evolves not in a strictly monologic way but in a relatively open, dialogic fashion. In the third and last part of the paper, it will be asked how exactly the hermeneutic and dialogic dimensions of the divinatory encounter relate to each other and why this relation may be considered crucial for the understanding of the full significance of the consultational character of divinatory praxis. Each part of the analysis will start from a close reading of an excerpt of a divinatory consultation or extra-consultational explanations offered by one of my interlocutors. 1 While the text does not explicitly address the question of the precise relation between visionary and prophetic practices, on the one hand, and divinatory practices on the other, in its emphasis on the dialogical constitution of the divinatory encounter, it points to the usefulness of examining these practices in their existential, intersubjective and social dimensions, both synchronically and diachronically, rather than solely in terms of individual cognition.

A sequence of omens has puzzled Assyriologists since 1866, when Henry C. Rawlinson published the first copy of these peculiar divinatory texts. The omens have the structure DIŠ MUL ana . . . GUR, “If a star turns into . . .”, where the object into which the star changes can be an animal, metal, stone or some other item. Such a change has been held to belong to the field of dreams or, more generally, to terrestrial events rather than to astronomy. In fact, however, these omens refer to a specific celestial phenomenon, the transformation of a “star” into a meteorite that can be picked up from the ground, as can also be seen in the phrasing of the corresponding namburbi-ritual, which some scribes appended to their recension of this omen sequence.

Losbücher, in denen der Leser durch Würfeln oder über ein Losrad zu einem bestimmten Losspruch geleitet wird, wurden in der germanistischen Forschung bislang vor allem als mantische Wahrsagetexte wahrgenommen. Die wesentliche Leistung dieser handschriftenzentrierten kulturhistorischen Studie ist es, dieses Verständnis als Fortschreiben des christlich-theologischen Magiediskurses des Mittelalters zu dekonstruieren. Der Blick in die Handschriften zeigt vielmehr, dass Losbücher nur selten als magisch-mantische Texte ausgegrenzt wurden, sondern als astrologische oder unterhaltende Texte gelesen werden konnten, in die christliche Glaubenspraxis integriert wurden und sogar im Sinn einer Mahnung vor der Wechselhaftigkeit des irdischen Glücks zu einer christlichen, jenseitsorientierten Lebensführung anleiten sollten. Das Buch bietet neben einer Textsortenanalyse die Edition des Würfellosbuchs ‚der morgen stern‘ und einen Katalog der 53 Losbuchtexte des Manuskriptzeitalters sowie der 50 bekannten deutschsprachigen Losbuchhandschriften.

Диссертация посвящена изучению народной традиции толкования сновидений в восточнославянской культуре. Основной материал исследования – рассказы о вещих снах, записанные автором в Полтавской области (2012–2018 гг.). Целью работы является выявление механизмов интерпретации сновидений, которые не отражены (или отражены слабо) в традиционных правилах толкования снов («устных сонниках»). Для этого описываются устойчивые нарративные схемы, характерные для рассказов о сновидениях, имеющих сходную логику интерпретации. Анализируя тексты, можно заключить, что сновидец обладает достаточно большой свободой при толковании сна. На осмысление сюжета сновидения влияют эмоционально-чувственная составляющая сновидческого опыта, индивидуальные ассоциации сновидца, а также контекст, в котором рассказывается и интерпретируется сон. Однако, несмотря на уникальность сновидений и обстоятельств, в рамках которых они получают интерпретацию, толкования снов отнюдь не произвольны и подчиняются закрепленным в традиции моделям, которые подробно рассмотрены в работе. Данные модели выводятся при анализе развернутых рассказов о снах, их невозможно выявить на материале толковательных текстов «если снится X – будет Y». Инвариантные структуры нарративов о вещих сновидениях коррелируют не столько c формулами «устного сонника», сколько с моделями, лежащими в основе фольклорных текстов других жанров (загадки, сказки, былички и др.).

In my paper I examine the use of Sibylline Books during Augustus' reign. I discuss the role of the Sibyl as well as the collection attributed to her in terms of cultural changes and cultural paraphrases. According to my opinion the prophetess had mainly cultural, not ritual significance. I argue for treating the interventions onto corpus of official Sibylline Books made by Augustus in the category of creating the new cultural identity for the inhabitants of the Empire.

MONTANER, Alberto, "Entre la brujería y la teúrgia: formas de la magia en el Siglo de Oro", unpublished slide presentation of a plenary lecture at the conference on «Esoterismo y Brujería en la Literatura del Siglo de Oro» held at the University of Burgos on May 5-7, 2015. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.3611.7928

Astrology is a feature of everyday conversation and the local spiritual scene in Sedona, Arizona, a small town renowned for its " vortexes ". As part of a variegated new age spirituality, astrology " works " in three main ways that are examined in this article. It is an explanatory model for misfortune; a symbolic system; and a source of epistemic capital. A series of well-known ethnographic studies of African divination are used to contextualise astrology as an American form of divination. Based on almost two years of participant observation fieldwork in Northern Arizona, the ethnographic material presented in this article illuminates the question of why astrology continues to be a relevant and useful practice for Americans, despite its widespread rejection by political and scientific authorities.

Human consternation in the face of divine silence, or apparent divine indifference to formal procedures of supplication, appears somewhat often in the Hebrew Bible. Biblical texts, especially in the Psalms and the Prophets, confront head on the difficult situations where someone makes a formal inquiry or petition to God but does not apparently receive an immediate answer from God. Ritual experts, prophets, scribes and others sought remedies for this type of divine silence , and over time hard won strategies began to take shape to ameliorate the problem. 2 The solutions sought for the problem of divine silence in Psalm 77 and the book of Habakkuk share a structurally similar logic, which explains their appeal to similar traditions and their similarities in diction.

Religiöse und spirituelle Rituale können als Repositorien kulturellen Langzeitgedächtnisses verstanden werden. Ihre Deutung ist daher hoch interessant. In diesem erweiterten Vortrag werden initiatorische Riten der südafrikanischen Bantu-Kulturen sowie die ihnen zugrunde liegenden kosmologischen und anthropologischen Vorstellungen dargestellt, mit Blick auf Entsprechungen in der Umbanda. Deren tiefe Verwurzelung im Schamanismus der Bantu wird damit bestätigt, die trotz aller oberflächlichen Verwandlungen und esoterischer Neu-Deutungen erhalten geblieben ist. Es ist deutlich, das hier ein schamanischer Komplex besteht, der zwar - unabdingbar - religiös eingebettet ist, der jedoch in verschiedenen religiösen Kontexten Aufnahme gefunden hat, auch in christlichen. Dieses Erbe hat offenkundig die Umbanda geprägt.