Attempt to gain insight into a question or situation
For other uses, see Divination (disambiguation)."Divining" redirects here. For pseudoscientific attempts to find water or other things, see Dowsing.
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This man in Rhumsiki, Cameroon, attempts to tell the future by interpreting the changes in position of various objects as caused by a freshwater crab through the practice of nggàm.[1]
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Divination (from Latin divinare 'to foresee, foretell, predict, prophesy, etc.')[2] is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice.[3] Using various methods throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact or interaction with supernatural agencies[4] such as spirits, gods, god-like-beings or the "will of the universe".[5]
Divination can be seen as an attempt to organize what appears to be random so that it provides insight into a problem or issue at hand.[6] Some modern instruments or practices of divination for magical practices include Tarot-card reading, rune casting, tea-leaf reading, automatic writing, water scrying, and psychedelics like psilocybin mushrooms and DMT.[7] If a distinction is made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a more formal or ritualistic element and often contains a more social character,[citation needed] usually in a religious context, as seen in traditional African medicine. Fortune-telling, on the other hand, is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Particular divination methods vary by culture and religion.
In its functional relation to magic in general, divination can have a preliminary and investigative role:
[...] the diagnosis or prognosis achieved through divination is both temporarily and logically related to the manipulative, protective or alleviative function of magic rituals. In divination one finds the cause of an ailment or a potential danger, in magic one subsequently acts upon this knowledge.[8]
Divination has long attracted criticism. In the modern era, it has been dismissed by the scientific community and by skeptics as being superstitious; experiments do not support the idea that divination techniques can actually predict the future more reliably or precisely than would be possible without it.[9][10] In antiquity, divination came under attack from philosophers such as the Academic skeptic Cicero in De Divinatione (1st century BCE) and the Pyrrhonist Sextus Empiricus in Against the Astrologers (2nd century CE). The satirist Lucian (c. 125 – after 180) devoted an essay to Alexander the false prophet.[11]
^"Anthropological Studies of Divination". anthropology.ac.uk.
^"10 Basic Divination Methods to Try". Learn Religions. Retrieved 2023-10-28.
^
Sørensen, Jesper Frøkjær; Petersen, Anders Klostergaard (3 May 2021). "Manipulating the Divine - an Introduction". In Sørensen, Jesper; Petersen, Anders Klostergaard (eds.). Theoretical and Empirical Investigations of Divination and Magic: Manipulating the Divine. Volume 171 of Numen Book Series: Studies in the history of religions - ISSN 0169-8834. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV. p. 10. ISBN 9789004447585. Retrieved 9 December 2023.
^Yau, Julianna. (2002). Witchcraft and Magic. In Michael Shermer. The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. ABC-CLIO. pp. 278-282. ISBN 1-57607-654-7
^Regal, Brian. (2009). Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia. Greenwood. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-313-35507-3
^"Lucian of Samosata : Alexander the False Prophet". tertullian.org.
Divination (from Latin divinare 'to foresee, foretell, predict, prophesy, etc.') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of...
is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. The I Ching was originally a divination manual in the Western...
from 1200 to approximately 1500, (Latin: niger, black; Greek: μαντεία, divination), broadly "one skilled in the black arts". In a modern context, the line...
Various forms of witchcraft and divination are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh or Old Testament), which are expressly forbidden. Laws prohibiting...
Geomancy translates literally to "earth divination," and the term was originally used to mean methods of divination that interpret geographic features, markings...
is sought by the believer also through consultation of divinities or divination. Traditional African religions embrace natural phenomena – ebb and tide...
On Divination in Sleep (or On Prophesying by Dreams; Greek: Περὶ τῆς καθ᾽ ὕπνον μαντικῆς; Latin: De divinatione per somnum) is a text by Aristotle in which...
Methods of divination can be found around the world, and many cultures practice the same methods under different names. During the Middle Ages, scholars...
alter the course of events usually by calling on a supernatural force), divination (attempts "to predict future events or gain information about things unseen")...
African divination is divination practiced by cultures of Africa. Divination is an attempt to form, and possess, an understanding of reality in the present...
of divination – in ancient China, mainly during the late Shang dynasty. Scapulimancy is the specific term if ox scapulae were used for the divination, plastromancy...
pinyin: Suànmìng; lit. 'fate calculating') has utilized many varying divination techniques throughout the dynastic periods. There are many methods still...
Tantra, or the I Ching have been frequently repeated by authors on card divination. However, scholarly research reveals that, having been invented in Italy...
Kuba Divination is a form of divination used by the Kuba people of central Africa. Kuba divination is practiced by specialists called ngwoom. According...
Poe divination (/pu̯e/, from the Hokkien Chinese: 跋桮; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: poa̍h-poe, Min Dong BUC: buăk-bŭi, 'cast moon blocks', also written bwa bwei, Mandarin...
contemporary adherents of Germanic Neopaganism. Modern systems of runic divination are based on Hermeticism, classical Occultism, and the I Ching. Historically...
Greek divination is the divination practiced by ancient Greek culture as it is known from ancient Greek literature, supplemented by epigraphic and pictorial...
history and meaning, leading to the emergence of custom decks for use in divination via tarot card reading and cartomancy. Thus, there are two distinct types...
7th century BC. Omens were interpreted by several methods—e.g., liver divination, lecanomancy, and libanomancy. Hepatoscopy—observing irregularities and...
summoning their spirits as apparitions or visions for the purpose of divination; imparting the means to foretell future events and discover hidden knowledge...
Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, claimed radiations (radiesthesia),...
Bu Ju (Chinese: 卜居; pinyin: Bǔ Jū; English: Divination) is a short work anthologized in the Chu Ci (楚辭 Songs of Chu, sometimes called The Songs of the...
Divination bones (Sotho-Tswana languages: ditaola, isiZulu: amathambo) are pieces of bones and vertebrae, carved ivory dice and cowrie shells used for...
I Ching divination is a form of cleromancy applied to the I Ching. The text of the I Ching consists of sixty-four hexagrams: six-line figures of yin (broken)...