Divination
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Divination (from Latin divinare 'to foresee, foretell, predict, prophesy, etc.') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice. 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 such as spirits, gods, god-like-beings, or the "will of the universe."
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. Some instruments or practices of divination include Tarot-card reading, rune casting, tea-leaf reading, automatic writing, water scrying, and psychedelics like psilocybin mushrooms and DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine). Suppose a distinction is made between divination and fortune-telling. In that case, divination is more formal or ritualistic and often contains a more social character, usually in a religious context, as seen in traditional African medicine. On the other hand, Fortune-telling 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.
Divination has long attracted criticism. In the modern era, it has been dismissed by the scientific community and by skeptics as superstitious; experiments do not support the idea that divination techniques can predict the future more reliably or precisely than possible without it. In antiquity, divination was attacked by 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.
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Divination ]
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