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A Dictionary of Sociology (4 ed.)
... Divination is an act that tries to foretell the future or discover the origin of a situation—usually of a calamity or illness. It does this through the consultation of an oracle or deity by a religious specialist, the...
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World Encyclopedia
... Foretelling the future by interpreting various signs. Omens are often thought to be found in cards, palms, or the entrails of sacrificed...
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A Dictionary of the Bible (2 ed.)
... A supposed method of obtaining information. Divination was widely practised in the ancient world. In 5th–4th cent. bce Greece the priestess, called Pythia, uttered * oracles at Delphi after inhaling the vapour believed to contain the revelations of the god Apollo. Other divinations were made by observing the flight of * birds or scrutinizing the liver of slaughtered animals. Paul and * Silas encountered a slave girl who had a * spirit of divination (‘soothsayer’, NJB) at * Philippi (Acts 16: 16 ff.). In * Greek , the girl is said to be...
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A Dictionary of Cultural Anthropology
...divination [from Latin divinare , ‘to predict’] A range of techniques for arriving at knowledge of uncertain, incomplete, or unrevealed information. Common techniques involve the interpretation of celestial arrangements, dream analysis, augury, casting of objects, or reading the results of animal sacrifice, among others. Historically, anthropologists questioned the truth value of divination, including Sir E. B. Tylor who referred to it ( 1871 ) as a ‘sincere but fallacious system of philosophy’. Yet its persistence and ubiquity speak to its ongoing...
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A Concise Companion to the Jewish Religion
...what the future will bring, safely leaving his destiny in God's hand. Yet there are references in the Bible to apparently approved methods of divination. Joseph used a silver goblet for the purpose of divination (Genesis 44: 5), though this was said of Joseph in his capacity as ruler in Egypt, the land of magical practices. Eliezer, Abraham's servant, when he was sent to find a wife for Isaac, practised divination in order to know which maiden would be the one God had...
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A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology
...Celtic New Year, 1 November ( Samain in Old Irish ), was a popular time to practise divination, to see who would survive the winter or who would marry a young maiden. Druids , both male and female, were thought adept at divination. In many stories heroes and heroines, notably Deirdre , have their fate foretold at birth. To ignore such warning is to court disaster, as Conaire Mór shows. Divination might take many forms: signs from nature, omens, and dreams. Astrology may have been practised; an early Irish word for astrologer appears to be nél(l)adóir...
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Frank R. Trombley and Alexander Kazhdan
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
... , foreseeing or prediction of future events or disclosure of hidden knowledge. Various mantic arts were inherited by the Byz. from ancient practice but were transformed and christianized. They can be divided into two major forms: “natural” divination based on the spontaneous observation of the world and inductive (“artificial”) divination originating from the use of special means. To the first group belong the observation of celestial bodies ( astrology ), of meteorological events and natural phenomena (e.g., thunder [see Brontologion ] and ...
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Karin Schlapbach
The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine
... a thoroughly Augustinian outlook (divination as characteristic of pagan antiquity; the problem of free will ). In sum, apart from the fact that he provided arguments for the opponents of divination, Aug.'s impact on subsequent views on divination lies in his tight association of divination with magic, in his linking of divination to the problems of predestination, grace, and free will, and in his positioning of divination as foreign to Christianity. ...
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The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Thought
...when divination at birth prognosticated such potential. Entry into the field of divination among the Xhosa and Zulu of South Africa is perceived as a spiritual calling and preceded by an affliction of illness by the ancestors. The individual is believed not to choose to be a diviner but is chosen by the ancestors and has to be cured before training in the techniques of divination commences. However, there is no doubt that diviners and charlatans occasionally manipulate and conjure tricks to exploit unsuspecting suppliants under the guise of divination....
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The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
... . The art or skill of divining ( sc ., by use of ‘divinity’ or deity) that which is unknown—e.g. the future, the identity of culprits, lost items, the best partner for marriage, etc. Divination may be entirely divorced from the gods, and usually is undertaken by recognized and designated specialists who use mechanical means or manipulative techniques. J. Collins ( Primitive Religion , 1978 ) attempted a classification of ten methods: (i) by dreams; (ii) by presentiments; (iii) by body actions; (iv) by ordeals; (v) by possession; (vi) by...
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The Oxford Dictionary of Islam
...Divination Art of knowing that which cannot be known by empirical or rational means. The Quran condemns practices connected with pagan cults, and divination is officially abrogated in Islam, but many Islamic thinkers consider it a divine gift and a type of prophecy. Considered a part of folk religion, it incorporates astrological and magical methods. Types include interpretation of dreams, observation of footprints, morphoscopic and genealogical lines, chiromancy, observation of shoulder blades, invocation of celestial bodies, making oneself invisible,...
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Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable (19 ed.)
... There are numerous forms of divination. The following appear in the bible : astrology (judicial) ( Daniel 2:2 ); casting lots ( see under cast ) ( Joshua 18:6 ); hepatoscopy ( Ezekiel 21:21 ); oneiromancy ( Genesis 37:5–11 ); necromancy ( 1 Samuel 28:7–14 ); rhabdomancy ( Hosea 4:12 ); teraphim ( Genesis 31 , Zechariah 10:2 ); and witchcraft ( 1 Samuel 28 ). There are various other references including divination by fire, air and water, thunder, lightning, meteors, etc. For example: Genesis 40 and 41 , 2 Kings 27:17 , 2...
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The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World
... . The comprehensive term for divination in the Islamic tradition is kihānah, a term derived from Semitic antiquity. It is connected to all aspects, practical and theoretical, of the art of knowing that which cannot spontaneously be known. Ironic as it may seem, divination remained a subject worthy of the attention of many a serious Islamic thinker despite the fact that a frequently quoted ḥadīth had declared that “there is no kihānah after the Prophetic Mission.” Ibn Khaldūn ( d. 1406 ) places divination at the lowest rung of prophetic attributes, a...
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The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World
...presented in Cicero 's On Divination . Xenophanes , the Epicureans , Carneades and others denied the possibility of divination. Some Peripatetics defended ‘inspired’ prophecy such as the Pythia's ( see delphic oracle ) or that through dreams , while rejecting inductive divination from signs; most Stoics (notably Posidonius) vigorously defended both types, basing their justification upon the powers of gods, fate, and nature or the doctrine of ‘sympathy’ between the different parts of the world. See stoicism . Roman Divination stems from the belief that...
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The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures
...Colby . The Daykeeper: The Life and Discourse of an Ixil Diviner . Cambridge, 1981. Contains much information about divination among the contemporary Ixil Maya of highland Guatemala, including discussion of the ritual calendar. Durand-Forest, Jacqueline de . “La divination dans le Méxique modern.” In La Divination , edited by André Caquot and Marcel Leibovici , pp. 151–246. Paris, 1968. Thorough summary of divination among contemporary groups in Mexico. Nicholson, Henry B. “Religion in Pre-Hispanic Central Mexico.” In Handbook of Middle American...
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Robert Christopher Towneley Parker and Jerzy Linderski
The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.)
...Vergilianae ). Popular divination was often scorned as charlatanry (by Ennius , Cicero , and the elder Cato ( M. Porcius Cato ( 1 ) : a haruspex could not but laugh on meeting another haruspex), and the government was particularly suspicious of astrologers and inspired prophets. In the Christian empire all forms of divination were prohibited and persecuted, though never eradicated. A. Bouché-Leclerq, Histoire de la divination dans l'antiquité 1–4 (1879–82); A. S. Pease , comm. on Cic. Div. (1920–3; repr. 1963); La Divination dans le monde...
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The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (3 ed.)
...by observing birds, by interpreting dreams and chance events as significant—an opportune sneeze, a meaningful word casually spoken. At one point he keeps the army in suspense for several days because omens are interpreted as unfavourable. These forms of divination are found in Homer, except for divination by sacrifice which probably came to Greece from the Near East in the early archaic period. (According to Arrian , lobeless livers from a sacrifice presaged the death of Alexander the Great.) Dreams might need a professional interpreter, or the dreamer...
Divination Reference library
John G. BLAIR and Jerusha McCORMACK
Berkshire Encyclopedia of China
...Divination Bǔshì 卜筮 Divination (practices that seek to predict the future) seems to have been common everywhere among human societies since prehistoric times. Primitive hunters presumably used some form of divination to determine which animals to hunt and when, whereas agricultural communities relied on divination to decide when and what to plant. Within recorded history divination has long been important in both China and the Western world. Chinese practices of divination can be traced back to the oracle bones of the Shang dynasty ( 1766–1045 ...
CLERGYMEN: divination Quick reference
A Dictionary of Superstitions
...: divination 1950 Woman, c. 50 [Forfar, Angus] If you counted all the ministers you saw up to 100 the next man you spoke to would be your future husband. We used to haunt the Lour Road, where most ministers...
GATE: divination Quick reference
A Dictionary of Superstitions
...: divination 1883 BURNE Shropshire 177. A bachelor was told, if he would notch three notches in a gate that had five bars on it, for nine nights, he would see his sweetheart the last...
