Divination and oracles

by Michael Loewe; Carmen Blacker, Michael J. Lowe

First published in 1981, Divination and Oracles analyses the religious practices of the ancient world as they have been witnessed from Scandinavia to Tibet and Japan, from the third millennium BC until the present day. Divination and the consultation of oracles formed part of the religious practice of the ancient world and are part of the living folklore of the contemporary societies. They are subjects that are of immediate concern to anthropologists and not infrequently to the historians of early science. Written by the specialists in the early history of European and Asian Civilisations, the chapters call on the evidence of the written word of history and the surviving artefacts and inscriptions of archaeology. They describe the different methods that have been adopted and examine the types of question that feature in man’s attempt to seek guidance from other powers. The contributions show how an appeal to the irrational can affect the decision of prophet or statesman, or the way of life of farmer or sailor; and how such an appeal can also stimulate scientific enquiry into the cycles of nature. This book is a must read for scholars and researchers of religion, comparative religion, and ancient history.

244 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last week I read Divination and Oracles Edited by Michael Loewe and Carmen Blacker, written in 1981 it is a collection of essays by different experts on the way different cultures practiced divination. The areas covered were; Tibet, China, Japan, The Classical World, The Germanic World, The Babylonians and Hittities, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Israel and Islam. The book itself was only about 240 pages so it didn't leave much room for a great deal of discussion or analysis but looked at some of the basics of each area.

The chapter on Tibet was interesting and unique in that it was written by Lama Chime Radha Rinpoche who was the only author to actually believe in the methods he was describing. He took a much clearer stance on the East versus West divide than I'm used to reading about in scholarly works but despite his biases it was a very good account of the different divination methods used by Tibetans, and what they were used for. Divination in Tibet seemed to be used by almost everyone for all sorts of matters. Lamas were instructed to always keep the divination vague so as not to loose credibility which was interesting and not something you'd expect someone to admit. The essay also included a short look at the history of Buddhism in Tibet which I do not know anything about but the tales he told were really interesting and seemed a lot like the miraculous tales in "Journey to the West", people changing into monsters and demons, demons and gods being converted to Buddhism etc.

Michael Loewe's chapter on China was a little disappointing as he left so much uncovered. He only looked at three areas, bones and shells,yarrow stalks and the book of changes, and Feng shui. Interestingly enough the next chapter on Japan also looked at 3 different methods of divination, turtle shells which were inspired from Chinese divination, Dream Oracles, something else quite common in China that was not mentioned in Loewe's essay, and the inspired medium, something else also found in Chinese culture. These chapters were responsible for my earlier thoughts on divination and the role of women in religion.

The Classical world chapter looked a lot at the role of Oracles. The author quoted from ancient texts a great deal, as opposed to the other authors who had used personal knowledge, archaeology and texts to support their arguments. It seemed that unlike the East mostly the oracles were used by the elite rather than by ordinary people in day to day matters. (Though the earliest Chinese oracles were just done by Kings). The Germanic world in contrast seemed to have many more divination practices, those used by the army and those used by the common people. The Germanic world also had a woman seeress who would visit homes and answer people's questions but who would also hold meetings where she could be asked questions concerning the future of the community and individual problems.

Evidence for the rest of the chapters was very fragmentary and therefore it was much harder for the authors to draw conclusions about how often rites were practised and what was involved. While the book was not attempting to take a cross cultural look at the phenomena I think it would be interesting to do so. See how the Gods were contacted, who was answering the divination, how the different practices compared, and who was the person needing the knowledge.

It was a fairly interesting book, though too shallow in scope. The areas that I knew something about it presented very little new knowledge. It did give a concise overview of different methods of the divination practised. And while not drawing any of it's own conclusions I found myself drawing my own.