Divination and Human Nature: A Cognitive History of Intuition in Classical Antiquity

by Peter T. Struck

Divination and Human Nature casts a new perspective on the rich tradition of ancient divination―the reading of divine signs in oracles, omens, and dreams. Popular attitudes during classical antiquity saw these readings as signs from the gods while modern scholars have treated such beliefs as primitive superstitions. In this book, Peter Struck reveals instead that such phenomena provoked an entirely different accounting from the ancient philosophers. These philosophers produced subtle studies into what was an odd but observable fact―that humans could sometimes have uncanny insights―and their work signifies an early chapter in the cognitive history of intuition.

Examining the writings of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Neoplatonists, Struck demonstrates that they all observed how, setting aside the charlatans and swindlers, some people had premonitions defying the typical bounds of rationality. Given the wide differences among these ancient thinkers, Struck notes that they converged on seeing this surplus insight as an artifact of human nature, projections produced under specific conditions by our physiology. For the philosophers, such unexplained insights invited a speculative search for an alternative and more naturalistic system of cognition.

Recovering a lost piece of an ancient tradition, Divination and Human Nature illustrates how philosophers of the classical era interpreted the phenomena of divination as a practice closer to intuition and instinct than magic.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Greece, Spirituality

300 pages, Paperback

Published October 23, 2018

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Divination and Human Nature, Peter T. Struck examines the nuances, connections, and differences in perspectives on divination of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Neoplatonists. As his fascinating exploration makes clear, these philosophers viewed divination as a serious matter worthy of philosophical attention. In looking at these thinkers' views on divination, one also learns about their perspectives on a wide range of interconnected themes - the body, the divine, nature, and more. As someone with a keen interest in divination (especially cartomancy, astrology, and geomancy) and with an academic background in philosophy, I enjoyed this book very much.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first came across this book while reading Iain McGilchrist's The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World. In that book, Iain discusses different paths to knowledge, including science, reason, intuition and imagination. There's a fascinating discussion about one man who consistently beats the odds gambling on horse races. I used to think that successful gamblers ought to be sitting there with a computer spreadsheet trying to factor and weight dozens of variables. The fact that someone could succeed in this field, without even understanding how he does it, completely blew my mind; that someone could simply watch a horse for a few minutes before a race begins and very reliably win money off of that information is mindblowing. What's more, if someone were to start asking him questions about how he did it, and pull him into a discursive mode of thought, ie; begin to reason about which horse will win, he would change his opinion, and the results would be poor.

The ancient analog to this horse bettor is the Pythia of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The high priestess served as its oracle, where her body was seen as a vessel capable of communicating directly with the divine. I imagine she would look something like MacBeth's witches -- skinny, illiterate, 50+ years old.. and a woman. Women were seen to be more earthly, which is a fancy way to say intuitive. In other words, when we are unable to articulate how we know something, we call that intuition. Peter Struck makes the argument that our capacity to know things vastly exceeds our ability to explain how it is that we know things. And not everyone has an equally sharp intuition. I believe that it can be trained, and I believe that many esoteric traditions were built on the same assumption -- organizations like The Golden Dawn or Freemasons felt that intuition could be trained.

Now Iain McGilchrist points out that the right hemisphere is much more embodied than the left, meaning that it has much better integration with the gut (which has about as many neurons as a dog's brain). As a decision maker you are often faced with a choice: should you trust your gut, or try to reason your way through your problems? Both reason and intuition heavily rely on the right hemisphere, but what if our bodies carry additional information that we are only partially aware of, and that we can't articulate? Struck calls this surplus information.

The ancient world had many strange ways of trying to tap into this surplus information, from studying the entrails of dead animals, to dreams, to examining the flights patterns of birds, watching the stars, and consulting a professional: The Oracle.

Let me actually suggest that our societal focus on rationality today might be misguided. If a kid asks us for career advice, we might begin by showing him how much money he could earn doing different things, which is very rational. And then he might start eliminating options based on that. Then we might tell him, because we are very sensible, that he should major in something practical, like business or finance, and that a liberal arts education is a sham. The Oracle flips this paradigm on its head. Instead of telling the kid how to think, the Oracle provides guidance in the form of a puzzle. The information delivered in this way actually serves to keep the decision maker in a non-discursive mode of thought, rather than a logical, sequential mode of thought. Should we make our most important life decisions without even understanding how we did it? Personally, I no longer trust any sort of algorithmic process to make serious life decisions. While the career question is up for debate, I think most would agree that you most certainly should choose your romantic partner based on gut feeling.

In addition to the Pythia, Struck explores the thoughts of Plato, Aristotle, Posidonius and Iamblichus. I don't want to get too deep into those sections, but I would highlight a few things:

Aristotle on dreams: Dreams could provide clues about the health of the body long before any official diagnosis.
Posidonius on the soul: While the soul is distinct from the body, the two are linked through a concept called sympathy. When the soul is embarrassed, the body, through sympathy, becomes flushed. When the body is cut, the soul, through sympathy, feels pain.
Iamblichus on divination: Instead of seeing this as tapping into the divine, instead Iamblichus sees divination as demonic, which means spirit, but had a connotation closer to earthy, and intuitive.

That gives us a clear interpretation of the Delphic oracle. She wasn't communicating with the divine, but rather she was very strongly in touch with her embodied intelligence. That makes her a fascinating figure to understand, and I think Peter Struck nailed it.

[Gregory Amato]

I don't feel nearly qualified to rate an academic book like this, but maybe a few observations from me as a lay reader will help guide others.

This book is written for Struck's academic peers or for laypeople already very well educated on the topic. And I am not one of those people, just a dude looking for some insights into how ancient people thought about what we would call, today, magic. Despite my newness to the subject, I found Struck's work fairly accessible within that context. Not an easy read, but doable for people interested in the subject matter.

I also found plenty of interesting material in the book to think about and many sources to look at for further reading.

Readers already familiar with Greek language and philosophy will likely have a significantly easier time than I did, and probably get more out of it.