CHAPTER VIII

MAGIC AND DIVINATION

+882+. The regulation of relations with the superhuman world has been

attempted by means of friendly social intercourse with supernatural

Powers, and by studying their methods of procedure with a view to

applying these methods and thereby gaining beneficial results. Friendly

social intercourse is practical religion in the higher sense of that

term. The application and use of superhuman procedures takes two lines

of action: the powers of superhuman agents may be appropriated and used

independently of them, or the object may be simply to discover their

will in order to be guided by it. The first of these lines is magic, the

second is divination. While the two have in common the frank and

independent employment of the supernatural for the bettering of human

life, their conceptions and modes of procedure differ in certain

respects, and they may be considered separately.

MAGIC[1536]

+883+. The perils and problems of savage life, more acute in certain

directions than those that confront the civilized man, demand constant

vigilance, careful investigation, and prompt action. So far as familiar

and tangible enemies (beasts and men) are concerned, common sense has

devised methods of defense, and ordinary prudence has suggested means of

providing against excessive heat or cold and of procuring food. But

there are dangers and ills that in the savage view cannot be referred

to such sources, but must be held to be caused by intangible, invisible

forces in the world, against which it is man's business to guard

himself. He must learn what they are and how to thwart or use them as

circumstances may require. They could be studied only in their deeds,

and this study involves man in the investigation of the law of cause and

effect. The only visible bond between phenomena is that of sequence, and

on sequence the savage bases his science of causes--that which precedes

is cause, that which follows is effect. The agencies he recognizes are

spirits, gods, the force resident in things (mana), and human beings who

are able to use this force.

+884+. But belief in such agencies would be useless to man unless he

also believed that he could somehow determine their actions, and belief

in the possibility of determining these appears to have come to him

through his theory of natural law. The reasoning of savages on this

point has not been recorded by them, but the character of their known

procedures leads us to suppose that they have a sense of a law governing

the actions of superhuman Powers. Being conscious that they themselves

are governed by law, they may naturally in imagination transfer this

order of things to the whole invisible world; spirits, gods, and the

mana-power, it is assumed, work on lines similar to those followed by

man, only with superhuman breadth and force. The task before the

originators of society was to discover these modes of procedure in order

to act in accordance with them. The discovery was made gradually by

observation, and there grew up thus in process of time a science of

supernatural procedure which is the basis of the practice of magic.

This science does not necessarily regard the superhuman power as

purposely antagonistic to man. Rather its native attitude appears to

have been conceived of as one of indifference (as nature is now regarded

as careless of man); it was and is thought of as a force to be guarded

against and utilized by available means, which, of course, were and are

such as are proper to an undeveloped stage of social growth.

+885+. Magic is a science of sequences, but only of sequences supposed

not to be explicable from ordinary experience. When the savage puts his

hand into the fire or receives a spear-thrust in his body he recognizes

visible and familiar causes of pain, and accepts the situation as a fact

of life, calling for no further explanation. But when the pain comes

from no familiar tangible source he is driven to seek a different sort

of source. A cause there must be, and this cause, though superhuman,

must follow definite methods--it must have the will to act, and it must

have knowledge and skill to carry out its designs. To discover its

methods man must observe the processes of nature and imitate them, and

must at the same time have in mind familiar human modes of action. The

savage scientific explanation of mysterious facts is that superhuman

Powers are intellectually akin to human beings; the question of motive

in such Powers (except in the case of developed gods) seems not to be

considered. The basis of magical procedure is imitation of nature and of

man. This principle is supplemented by the conception of the unity of

the world, a feeling at first vague, that all things have the same

nature and are bound together in a cosmos; animals and men, trees,

stones and waters, and fragments of all these are parts of one great

whole, and each feels, so to speak, what is done to or by one of the

others. This feeling, derived from observation and reflection, is not

formulated, but is influential in the construction of the unconscious

philosophy of the savage.

+886+. The methods of man's magical procedure follow these principles;

they are as various as the sequences that savage man thinks he

observes.[1537] Many of them are suggested by natural phenomena. Since

rain was observed to fall from the sky, it was held that in time of

drought it might be obtained by casting water into the air and letting

it fall, or by dipping a stone in water and letting it drip; in general,

by any process in which water falls on the ground. The wind might be

raised by ejecting air from the mouth (as by whistling). Or ordinary

human actions might be imitated: a stick thrown or pointed toward an

enemy, it was believed, would cause a spear to enter his body;[1538] a

hostile glance of the eye, indicating desire to inflict injury, might

carry ill luck.[1539] In such cases the fundamental conceptions are the

sympathy that comes from unity and the activity of the pervasive mana.

These conceptions are visible in procedures in which action on a part of

the human body, or on an image or picture of it, was supposed to reach

the body itself. The possession of a piece of the bone, skin, hair, or

nail of a man might enable one who had knowledge of superhuman laws and

processes to affect the man with sickness or even to cause his death.

Contact of objects naturally suggests their unity, but the sympathy

between them was not held to be dependent on contact; a man's bone

remained a part of him, however far it might be separated from him. A

dead body did not lose its virtues; the qualities of a dead warrior

might be acquired by eating his flesh. The mysterious unity of things

seems to have resided, in savage thought, in the omnipresent mana, a

force independent of human limitations. Not that there was a definite

theory on the subject, but something of this sort seems to be assumed in

the ideas and usages of many low tribes.[1540]

On the other hand, a magical effect may be set aside by magic. A sick

man, believing his sickness to be the work of a magician (the usual

savage theory of the cause of bodily ills), sends for another magician

to counteract the evil work; and a magician, failing to cure his

patient, ascribes his failure to the machinations of a powerful rival.

In all such cases the theory and the methods are the same; the magic

that cures is not different in principle (though it may differ in

details) from the magic that kills.

+887+. The facts observed by practicers of magic probably contributed to

the collections of material that furnished the starting-point for the

scientific study of physical phenomena. The interest in the facts arose

at first simply from their relation to magical procedure--it was from

them that certain laws of supernatural action were learned, and men thus

got control of this action. Magic is essentially a directive or coercive

procedure and differs in this respect from fully formed religion, which

is essentially submissive and obedient.

+888+. It is true that coercion of divine beings appears in

well-developed religions. A Babylonian goddess (Nana) was carried off by

the Elamites to their land that she might there do duty as divine

protector; restored to her proper home 1635 years later, she resumed her

old functions.[1541] The Egyptians are said by Plutarch to have slain

their divine animals if these failed to avert or remove calamity.[1542]

Prometheus and certain Homeric heroes are victorious over gods. In some

savage tribes divine kings are put to death if they fail to do what is

expected of them. A god was sometimes chained or confined in his temple

to prevent his voluntary or constrained departure. A recusant deity was

sometimes taunted or insulted by his disappointed worshipers.[1543]

There is, however, a difference between the two sets of coercive acts.

The force used by developed religion is physical, that employed in magic

is psychological and logical. When a god is chained or carried off, it

is only his body that is controlled--he is left to his own thoughts, or

it is assumed that he will be friendly to his enforced locus. Magic

brings the supernatural Power under the dominion of law against which

his nature is powerless. Religion, even when it employs force,

recognizes the protective function of the deity; magic is without such

acknowledgment, without emotion or worship. While it has, on one side, a

profounder conception of cosmic force than appears in early religion, it

is, on the social side, vastly inferior to the latter, to which it has

necessarily yielded in the course of human progress. Nevertheless, if

religion in the broadest sense includes all means of bringing man into

helpful relations with the supernatural world, then magic is a form of

religion.

+889+. The much-discussed question whether magic was the earliest form

of religion is not susceptible of a definite answer for the reason that

we have no account of man's earliest conceptions of his relations with

the world of invisible forces. There is some reason to hold, as is

remarked above,[1544] that in the lowest stage of life known to us men

were logically indifferent spectators of the world, but in general stood

in awe of phenomena, so that fear was their prevailing feeling. It may

be surmised that this feeling would engender a sense of antagonism to

such superhuman Powers as came to be conceived of, on which would

naturally follow a desire to get control of them. Yet it is impossible

to say at what stage of social development the necessity would be felt

of establishing friendly relations with the Powers. The two lines of

effort may have begun and gone on side by side, the two springing from

the same utilitarian impulse, but each independent of the other--a

coexistence that actually appears in many tribes; finally the coercive

effort tends to yield to the kindly influences of organized society.

There is no ground for calling magic a "disease of religion." The

presumption, from the general law of progress, is that, when there is a

chronological difference, the socially lower precedes the socially

higher. Religion and magic come to be mutually antagonistic, except in

cases where religious authorities adopt magical procedures, giving them

a theistic and socially useful coloring. Magic has been a natural, if

not a necessary, step in the religious organization of society.[1545]

+890+. Since religion and magic have in common the purpose to establish

relations with extrahuman Powers the dividing line between the two is in

some cases not easily fixed--the same procedure may be held to belong in

the one category or the other, according as it invokes or does not

invoke the aid of a god in friendly and submissive fashion. We may thus

be carried back to a time when a sharp distinction between the two did

not exist, as there was a time when such a distinction is not visible

between "gods" (friendly divine members of the human community) and

"demons" (unfriendly outside beings), both classes being regarded simply

as agents affecting human life. Even when some fairly good form of

organization has been reached it is often hard to say to which class a

particular figure belongs. The Hawaiian Pele (the "goddess" of the great

and dangerous volcano) is often vindictive, and then differs little or

not at all from a demon that sends sickness and death.[1546] The

Babylonians gave the same name (_shedu_) to a class of demons proper and

to the divine or half-divine winged beings (to which, apparently, the

Hebrew cherubs are allied) that guarded the entrances to temples, sacred

gardens, and palaces.[1547] The Navaho beings called _yei_ and _anaye_

seem to hover on the border line between the divine and the demonic

classes.[1548] The difference between the two seems to be merely that

the one class (the gods) has been adopted (for reasons not originally

ethical) into the human community, while the other has not received such

adoption.[1549] In such a case a given figure may easily pass from one

class into the other. According to the Thompson River folk-lore the sun

was once a cannibal but became beneficent.[1550] The early Christians

converted the Græco-Roman gods (_daimonia_) into "demons."[1551] There

being this fluid relation between supernatural beings, it is not strange

that such a relation should exist between procedures intended to act on

them.[1552]

+891+. Magic, as we have seen, is based on the observation of sequences,

and before the development of reflection and the acquisition of a

knowledge of natural law the disposition of human beings is to regard

all sequences as exhibiting the relation of cause and effect. A typical

example is that of the anchor driven ashore, a piece of which was broken

off by a man who died soon after; the conclusion was that the anchor

caused his death and therefore was divine, and accordingly it received

religious worship.[1553] In the course of ages thousands of such

sequences must have been observed, and these, handed down from one

generation to another, would shape themselves into a handbook of magic.

They would, however, be constantly reëxamined and sifted under the

guidance of wider experience and a better acquaintance with natural

causes, and this process, carried on by experts, would give rise to the

science of magic as we find it among lower tribes.

Magic, like religion, is a social product. The two, as is remarked

above, may coexist in the same community. But when a State religion is

established to which all citizens are expected to conform, the pursuit

of magic assumes the aspect of departure from, and hostility to, the

tribal or national cult. It is then under the ban, and can be carried on

only in secret[1554] (as is the case with prohibited religions also).

Secrecy of practice is not of the essence of magic; among the Australian

Arunta, for example, magical ceremonies constitute the publicly

recognized business of the community acting through its accredited

representatives; the partial exclusion of women and uninitiated boys

from these ceremonies (and from political councils) is due mainly to the

desire of the elders to keep the power in their own hands. The State

religion may sometimes be forced by public opinion to adopt particular

magical procedures.

+892+. It was natural that the specific study of sequences and laws

should fall into the hands of special persons and classes of men. The

human agent in the discovery of laws is the magician (sorcerer, shaman),

who, since he was generally a physician also, sometimes received the

name of "medicine man." As the office of chief arose for the direction

of social culture and political affairs, so the office of magician arose

naturally for the direction of supernatural relations. He may have been

the earliest religious teacher and guide.[1555] He knows the will and

nature of the supernatural Powers and is therefore a necessity to men.

He is specifically in charge of all that relates to the control of these

Powers.

+893+. In the course of time there arises a differentiation of

functions, and, when religion becomes friendly, the office of priest is

created. The priest, like the magician, understands the will of the

gods, but his procedure is intended simply to propitiate them or to

discover their will in particular cases.[1556] He is a development out

of the magician in so far as friendly religion is a development out of

magical religion.[1557] The prophet also, in the rôle in which he

appears among the Greeks, is a development out of the old magician; he

knows the will of the gods and is thus able to predict events. This is

the character of the old Hebrew seer; the Hebrew prophet, originally a

seer, assumed in the course of time a quite different character--he

became a preacher of ethical religion.

+894+. The office of magician, once established, became subject to all

the rules that govern official persons in barbarous, half-civilized, and

civilized societies. Of the way in which the position was attained in

the earliest times we have no information, but in relatively low tribes

it appears that it is attained in various ways. There is sometimes a

suggestion of vocation in a dream or a vision.[1558] Among some tribes a

candidate for the office has to undergo a process of education, that is,

of training in the signs by which the presence of superhuman Powers is

recognizable and of the way of dealing with disease and other

evils.[1559] It is not unusual that the candidate is required to submit

to a test, sometimes of physical endurance (as is required also in the

case of the young warrior), but chiefly of susceptibility to

supernatural influences and capacity of insight, and of the conduct of

magical operations.[1560] Generally in the lower tribes the office comes

by free choice of the individual, or by choice of the body of magicians,

without regard to the social position of the man. In West Africa, says

Miss Kingsley, everybody keeps a familiar spirit or two for magical

purposes; this is unlawful only when the spirit is harmful.[1561]

+895+. In somewhat more advanced societies the office falls into the

hands of families and descends from father to son, in which case the

younger man is instructed by the older in the secrets of the

profession.[1562] In some higher religions magical performances are in

the hands of certain clans or tribes. In most of these cases women as

well as men may be masters of the art. In the more advanced systems it

is often the case that it is especially women who are considered adepts;

so it was in Babylonia;[1563] in the Old Testament Saul seeks the woman

of Endor;[1564] Thessalian witches were famous;[1565] women who tie

magical knots are provided against in the Koran by a special form of

prayer;[1566] in Europe, medieval and later, the practicers of magic

have generally been women.

+896+. The grounds for the ascription of magical superiority to

women--whether from their supposed greater susceptibility to demoniac

influence, or for some other reason--are not clear. In the lowest tribes

sorcerers are commonly men[1567]--the profession is an influential and

honored one, and naturally falls into the hands of leading men; the

magician is often the most powerful man in the community.

+897+. Reputation for magical power appears sometimes to attach to a

tribe or other body of persons as the representatives of a religion

which is adopted by a lower community. Possibly this is the explanation

of the rôle ascribed at an early period to the Mazdean Magi.[1568] The

Magi (apparently Median of origin) formed the priestly tribe of the

Mazdean religion, and we do not know that they played originally any

part as sorcerers. But it seems that they were so considered in Greece

as early as the fifth century B.C.,[1569] and after the Moslem conquest

of Persia and the suppression of Zoroastrianism a fire-worshiper or

Magian is especially a representative of magic.[1570] On the other hand,

it sometimes happens among adjoining tribes that the lower become the

special practitioners of magic,[1571] which is then considered to be a

mysterious art, alien to the official religion, and therefore proper to

the ministers of the old mysterious cults.

+898+. The power exercised by the magician extends over the whole world

of men and things, and is generally considered to be practically without

limit. He guards men against diseases, noxious beasts, and all other

forms of injury; he destroys one's enemies and guards one against plots

of enemies, including other magicians; he is able to induce or destroy

love, to give physical strength, to inflict disease, to kill, and to

restore to life; he ascends to heaven or descends into the world below;

he is able to coerce the gods themselves; in fact, he does everything

that a god is commonly supposed to do--the tendency was to identify the

magician and the god.[1572] Such identification is natural or necessary

in early faiths, inasmuch as it was held that there was no difference of

nature between men and gods. A god was as a rule the stronger. But how

gods arose and how they gained their superior strength was not clear,

and it might thus easily happen that a man should acquire powers equal

to those of divine beings.[1573]

+899+. The methods employed by the magician to effect his purpose are

various. In early times it is usual for him to fall into an ecstatic

state; by drinking intoxicating liquors, by violent movements, or by

contemplation he gets out of himself and comes into relations with the

mysterious potencies. In such a condition he acts as his imagination

suggests.[1574] But in the organized forms of magic long experience has

devised various means of producing results beyond the power of ordinary

men. Certain objects are magically charged with supernatural power

(charms), and these worn on the person guard the possessor against

malign influences. Various formulas are employed which are supposed to

coerce the Powers; these are sometimes names of ordinary objects

regarded as sacred, the name of some plant or animal.[1575] Names of

divine persons have special potency. The name of a god was supposed to

carry with it his power, and the utterance of his name secured all that

he could secure; thus, in the early Christian times the tetragrammaton

YHWH (Yahweh) had absolute power against demons.

+900+. Similar efficacy attached to sacred compositions, prayers,[1576]

and the like. The Mazdean petition, Honover (Ahuna-Vairya), was so

employed, and in Christian circles even the Lord's Prayer. Charms or

incantations often took rhythmical form--verses, couplets, or quatrains

were widely used. All such methods were the product of ages of

experience.[1577] They were handed down from generation to generation,

often in families or classes of magicians, were modified or enlarged

from time to time, and thus came at last to form a literature.

+901+. In the great civilized religions magical practice gradually

assumed a tone somewhat different from that of the earliest times. It

continued to be coercive toward evil Powers, but in regard to the good

Powers it assumed rather to discover their modes of action. It was not

anti-religious; it remained alongside of the official religious systems

in friendly relations. It relied on the assistance of the good gods and

not on that of the demons. There was good magic and bad magic, white

magic and black magic, as these came to be called. A procedure of white

magic can thus, from the point of view of religion, hardly be

distinguished from prayer to a deity. The difference between the two

appears to be that the magic produces abnormal or violent effects, which

experience taught could not reasonably be expected from the deity. It is

the old crude science brought (as the lesser divine Powers were brought)

into a relation of subordination to the chief god of the community.

+902+. Elaborate magical systems are found in some of the ancient

national religions. In India the Atharva-Veda, though it contains a mass

of crude old material, is nevertheless recognized as one of the sacred

books, standing by the side of the Rig-Veda, though of less authority

and significance than that. The Atharvan was originally a priest of

fire, but in this work he becomes simply a magician; the immense number

of magical procedures in the book provided for all emergencies of

life.[1578] The Babylonian magical formulas also go back to an early

time, but they were preserved by the priests and recognized as a

legitimate element in the religious practice.[1579] The old Egyptian

stories introduce a number of magical proceedings, and the formulas have

been preserved in treatises.[1580] Of the earliest periods of the

Mazdean religion we have unfortunately no records; in the time of the

decadence of the national religion, especially in the Thousand and One

Nights, the fire-worshiper or Magian is commonly a wicked magician, as

was natural since he belonged to a faith hostile to Islam, and the

practicer of good magic is generally a Moslem.[1581] The early Greeks

and Romans appear not to have been greatly interested in magical

practices, though these existed.[1582] But a great outburst of magic

occurred in the Græco-Roman world in the first and second centuries of

our era, the magician being, however, generally not Greek or Roman, but

of an inferior alien race.[1583] Among the old Hebrews we have no

details of magical procedure except in the invocation of the dead;[1584]

this procedure was denounced by the prophets as hostile to the worship

of the national god, but it continued among the people a long

time.[1585] The practice of magic existed abundantly among the early

peoples of Europe, the Teutons, and others. The primacy, however, in

magic belongs to the Finns and Lapps, alien races regarded as inferior

in civilization.

+903+. The hold of magic on the minds of men is shown by the fact that

it has persisted up to the present day. Its basis is a belief in occult

powers and the conviction that man may attain to mastery over them.

Certain forms of this belief, called theosophical, are held by many at

the present day; it is supposed that men are capable of transcending the

ordinary limitations of humanity. In general, however, the whole system

of magic yielded gradually to the organized religions, the essence of

which was a friendly and rational relation with the deity. Religion has

organized itself in accord with the general organization of human social

systems. It has seen the necessity of getting rid of force, of depending

on humane feeling, cultivating simply friendly relations, attempting a

unity of work, a coöperation of divine and human forces. All this has

worked against magic. In addition to these tendencies the constantly

growing belief in the domination of natural forces has made it

impossible in civilized societies to accept the powers called

magical.[1586]

+904+. To sum up: magic is a means of securing superhuman results by

adopting the methods of the superhuman Powers.[1587] It may be coeval

with religion proper or may have preceded it in human religious

organization. In any case it has been, up to the present day, the rival

of religion, though more and more driven to take a secondary place. It

has collected physical facts which have served as a basis for the study

of physical science and have indirectly furthered the cause of religion

by leading men to recognize natural law and also by necessitating a

distinction between theistic and other superhuman results.[1588] In the

absence of distinct religious systems it has been a bond of social

union, and to that extent has been a civilizing influence. On the other

hand, it has fostered belief in a false science of sequences and thus

helped to introduce confusion into thought and the conduct of life. The

aim of religion has been, and is, to banish magic from the world.[1589]

DIVINATION

+905+. Divination is the science that seeks to discover the will of the

supernatural Powers by means of the observation of phenomena. Men desire

to learn the causes of present and past misfortunes and the story of the

future, that they may know at any moment what is the best course to

pursue. The underlying supposition is that these things are indicated by

the appearances and movements of the various objects of the world. It is

in these phenomena that the purposes of superhuman forces become visible

to man; the gods, it is held, cannot but so reveal themselves (for they

produce all phenomena), and man's task is to discover the laws of

phenomenal revelation. The question of the motive in this revelation is

not distinctly raised, but it is taken for granted that the Powers are

willing to help man by guiding his uncertain footsteps; their attitude

is so far friendly--they belong in feeling to the human community.[1590]

Divination has in common with magic the assumption of the unity of the

world and its control by law, and the search for divine activity in the

facts of life. But the two differ essentially in their aims. Divination

seeks to learn the divine will in order to be guided; magic studies

divine action in order to imitate it and accomplish divine results.

Divination is an inquirer, and its virtue is obedience; magic is an

investigator, and its virtue is achievement. Both are self-seeking, but

divination is the more reverent and allies itself more easily with

religion. But both tend to become corrupt and decadent, and their rôles

are determined from time to time by the conditions of the communities in

which they are found.[1591]

+906+. The organization of divination resembles that of magic in several

respects. It comes to have its special functionaries, into whose hands

all its authority falls. The divinatory power (like the magical) comes

to a man sometimes as a gift of nature (that is, of a god) or in some

mysterious external way, sometimes as a result of a course of training

in which the significance of the various signs is learned. It is

sometimes a property of a clan or a family and descends from father to

son, always, however, under the condition of instruction of the young by

the old. The diviner, like the magician, sometimes performs various

ceremonies for the purpose of bringing himself into relation with the

gods, and his utterances are frequently given in an ecstatic condition.

In this condition he is said in some instances (as among the

Todas[1592]) to speak a language not his own, with which in his ordinary

state of mind he is unacquainted, or to utter words that are not

understood either by himself or by others. Ecstasy means possession by

the deity; the interpretation of the diviner's words, which, in the

ecstatic condition, are the words of a spirit or a god, is sometimes

left to the bystanders, or, if unintelligible to them, must be recovered

by the seer himself when he returns to his normal condition.

+907+. The highest development of ecstasy is found in the prophet

proper. Originally the prophet was a foreteller and acted under the

inspiration of a god, a divine seizure that was allied to madness. The

ravings of the savage shaman[1593] are repeated in the ravings of

Cassandra and in the excited utterances and bodily exhaustion of the

early Hebrew prophets.[1594] A nobler use of ecstasy is exhibited in the

youth of Byblos, who rescued an unfortunate Egyptian envoy from insult

and secured him honorable treatment.[1595] The more advanced thought

tended to abandon the abnormal state of the diviner and make him simply

a recipient of divine knowledge by the favor of a god--the gods came to

choose thoughtful men instead of beasts as their intermediaries.[1596]

The Hebrew prophets whose utterances have been preserved, from Amos

onward, are men of insight, essentially critics of the national life,

and moral watchmen; but features of the old conception of divinatory

power continue for some time to attach to them.[1597]

+908+. The differentiation of functions between magician, diviner, and

priest appears to have taken place at a comparatively early period,

though it is probable that in the earliest times all these characters

might be united in a single person. As soon as an organized religion is

established the priest acquires his specific function as intermediator

between men and gods, often, however, retaining the power of discovering

the will of the deity.[1598] Magic, as we have seen, tends to become an

unsocial and hostile thing, and the magician is in later times punished

or discountenanced by public opinion. The diviner, on the other hand,

has generally retained possession of his public for the reason that he

is in sympathy with the gods of the community and his work is held to be

wholly friendly. In all stages of religious development, except the very

highest, he has been recognized by public opinion and by law as a part

of the religious constitution of society and has often attained great

civil and political power.[1599] Among civilized peoples he comes to be

a man of learning, acquainted with many things besides the mere signs of

the will of the gods.

+909+. Divinatory signs may be grouped in various classes according as

they belong to the outer world or to men's inward experiences, and

according as they present themselves without or with preparation by man.

Outward signs in ordinary occurrences which, so far as human initiative

is concerned, are accidental may be called, for convenience, "omens."

Uncommon occurrences may be called, if they appear in the forms of men

and animals, "prodigies," and if they are seen in the physical world,

"portents." These designations are arbitrary, and sometimes two or more

of them may be appropriate for the same event. Inward signs are dreams,

revelations in the ecstatic state, and prophetic inspirations.[1600] We

may begin with divination from the observation of external objects, and

consider first such as are accidental (omens, prodigies, portents).

+910+. Omens, prodigies, and portents are to be regarded as the product

of ages of experience. The observations of early men seem to them to

show that certain appearances are followed by certain events, and the

details of experience, handed down and interpreted by successive

generations, are in the course of time sifted, systematized, and

formulated. In savage and half-civilized communities divinatory signs

are usually simple, drawn from appearances of familiar objects and

occurrences. They become more complicated in civilized times--they are

mingled with elaborate astrological ideas. Divination becomes a science

for the practice of which a technical education is required. Belief in

omens and other signs survives among the highest civilized peoples long

after the conceptions on which they rest have been abandoned. The origin

of signs among savage peoples may often be traced with more or less

probability; in the case of such as survive in periods of high culture

the origin is necessarily obscured by the lapse of time and can be

surmised only by comparison with earlier conceptions.

The belief in such signs may be traced over a great part of the world.

It is found among the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Hindus,

Chinese, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Arabians, and at a later time among

the Celtic, Slavic, and Teutonic peoples.[1601] At the present day it

occurs most highly developed in Polynesia, Northern Africa, Southern

India, and Central Asia; it is relatively unimportant in Western and

Central Africa, North America, South America, and Australia. One

difference between divination and magic thus appears to be that the

latter is vigorous in savage communities that pay little attention to

the former. Further collections of facts may require a modification of

this statement; but, in general, it would seem that an organization of

signs, demanding, as it does, orderly reflection on phenomena, is proper

to communities that have advanced beyond the hunting and nomadic stages.

For the rest, there are few objects or occurrences that have not been

regarded at some time by some people as indications of divine will in

respect to present, past, or future events.

+911+. A fair illustration of the early belief in omens is afforded by

the divinatory system that prevails in Samoa and the neighboring group

of islands.[1602] It appears that all omens are derived either from the

movements of animals that are regarded as incarnations of deities,[1603]

or from phenomena that are held to be produced immediately by deities.

The flight of owls, bats, or rails, according to its direction,

indicates the result of a battle or a war; the howling of a dog is a

sign of coming misfortune; if a centipede crawls on the top of a mat it

is a good omen, if on the bottom of a mat it is bad; it is unfortunate

when a lizard crosses one's path; if a basket be found turned upside

down in a road, this is a sign of evil; the way in which sacred stones

fall to the ground is an indication of the future. The animals mentioned

above (and there are many other such) are all regarded as incarnations

of deities. So as to portents: loud thunder, taken to be the voice of

the great god Tangaloa, is a good sign; the significance of lightning

(which also is sent by the god) depends upon the direction taken by the

flash. An eclipse is regarded as a presage of death. A similar system of

interpretation of signs is found elsewhere. The Masai and the Nandi draw

omens from the movements of birds.[1604] In Ashantiland the cry of the

owl means death.[1605] When in Australia the track of an insect is

believed to point toward the abode of the sorcerer by whom a man has

been done to death, the conception is probably the same. The modern

Afghans hold that a high wind that continues three days is a sign that a

murder has been committed.[1606] Examples from Brazil, Borneo, New

Zealand, Old Calabar and Tatarland are given by Tylor.[1607] In the

early Hebrew history it appears that a rustling in trees was looked on

as a sign of divine intervention.[1608]

+912+. In ancient Babylonia and Assyria an elaborate system of

interpretation of ordinary occurrences prevailed--the movements and

appearances of various species of birds, of bulls, of dogs of all colors

are noted, with minute interpretations.[1609] The Greeks recognized

omens in the acts of various animals, especially in the flight and cries

of birds; so important were these last that the words for 'bird' came to

be employed for 'omens from birds' and even simply for 'omens';[1610]

Aristophanes, laughing at the Athenians, declares that they called every

mantic sign 'bird'.[1611] Skepticism, however, appears in Hector's

passionate rejection of the signs of birds and his declaration that the

best omen is to fight for one's country.[1612] A similar mantic

prominence of birds appears in ancient Rome where the terms for the

observation of birds (_auspicium_, _augurium_) came to signify 'omens'

in general. The preëminence thus accorded to birds was due perhaps to

the fact that they move in a region above the earth, the larger species

([Greek: oiônos]) seeking the sky near the abode of the gods, as well as

to the frequency and variety of their actions.[1613] The feeling of

direct contact with the deity appears in the significance attached to

the movements of a sacrificial animal: if it approached the altar

willingly, this, showing accord with the deity, was a good omen, and

unwillingness was a bad omen.[1614] Among the later Romans the entrance

of a strange black dog into a house, the falling of a snake through the

opening in the roof, the crowing of a hen were unfavorable signs which

prevented the immediate undertaking of any new affair;[1615] these were

all unusual and therefore uncanny occurrences. Some of the animals that

furnish omens are totems, and in such cases the totemic significance

coalesces with that of the omen; the animal that appears to the young

Sioux candidate as his manitu has both characters--it is the sign of

divine acceptance and the embodiment of the divine patron.[1616]

+913+. Prodigies connected with the birth of children are numerous. The

complete or incomplete character of the infant's body, various marks and

colors, and the number produced at a birth have been carefully noted by

many peoples. The birth of twins seems to have been more commonly

regarded in savage and half-civilized communities either as a presage of

misfortune (as being unusual and mysterious) or as a sign of conjugal

unfaithfulness (as indicating two fathers, one of whom might be a god).

Interpretations of births are given in Babylonian records.[1617]

Everywhere monstrous births, misshapen forms, and abnormal colors in the

bodies of men and beasts have been regarded as indications of divine

displeasure.

+914+. That the stars early attracted the attention of man is shown by

the fact that constellations are recognized in some lower tribes--for

example, in the New Hebrides Islands, among the Todas, the Masai, the

Nandi, and elsewhere.[1618] Since all heavenly bodies were regarded

originally as divine, and later as controlled by divine beings,

sometimes also as the abodes of the dead or as the souls of the dead, it

was natural that astral movements should be looked on as giving signs of

the will of the gods. Astronomy appears to have been pursued in the

first instance not from interest in the natural laws governing the

movements of sun, moon, and stars, but from belief in their divinatory

significance. How far this study was carried on all over the ancient

world we have no means of knowing; but, as far as the records go, it

was the Babylonians that first reduced astral divination to the form of

a science,[1619] and it is probable that from them it spread over

Western Asia and India, and perhaps into Europe. Babylonian and Assyrian

documents contain many accurate statements of the appearances of

heavenly bodies; and in the third or second century B.C., as we learn

from the Book of Daniel, the term 'Chaldean' was synonymous with

'magician.' While astronomy was pursued by the Egyptians with great

success, whereby they made a notable construction of the calendar, they

seem not to have cultivated astrology, though they associated certain

stars with certain gods and with lucky or unlucky days.[1620]

+915+. Of all divinatory methods astrology has played the greatest rôle

in human history, and is still believed in and studied by not a few

persons. It derived its prominence originally, no doubt, from the

splendor and mystery of the sidereal heavens; the identification (by the

Babylonians) of certain planets with certain deities gave it more

definite shape. It was necessarily a learned pursuit, and, falling

naturally into the hands of priestly bodies, was developed by them in

accordance with the needs of the situation. Rules of interpretation were

established that became more and more specific. In the early period of

astrology it was concerning matters of public interest that information

was sought--crops, wars, and the fortunes of the king as the head of the

nation.[1621] At a later time, but before the beginning of our era, in

accordance with the growth of ethical individualism, the stars were

interrogated for the destinies of private individuals;[1622] the aspect

of the heavens at the moment of birth, the horoscope, announced the fate

of the nascent man.[1623]

In the hands of the Chaldeans astrology remained exclusively or largely

a science of omens. An advance toward a higher conception, however, was

made by their identification of certain planets with certain

gods,[1624] whereby the regularity and certainty of movement of the

astral world were carried over to the world of divine Powers. When, in

the centuries just preceding and following the beginning of our era,

Chaldean astrology was adopted by the Greeks and Romans, it was

organized by them in accordance with their philosophy, and it entered

into alliance with all the higher religious tendencies of the period. In

the unchangeableness of stellar movements the Stoics saw a principle

substantially identical with their doctrine of fate. Along various lines

(in Judaism and Christianity, and in the mysteries of Mithra and Isis)

men were moving toward the conception of a single supreme ruler of the

world, and astrology fell into line with this movement. The starry

universe was held to be the controller of human life, worthy of worship,

and able to call forth emotion. Thus astrology became a

religion[1625]--it was adopted by learned and unlearned, its ethical and

spiritual quality being determined by the character and thought of the

various groups that professed it. For some centuries it was a religious

power in the world; as a religious system it gave way gradually to more

definite constructions, but it survived as a science long after it had

ceased to be believed in as a life-giving faith.

The persistence of faith in it as a science is an additional

illustration of men's demand for visible signs of the intervention of

the deity in human affairs;[1626] as often as certain supposed

embodiments of the supernatural are discarded, others are taken up. The

earlier philosophical views of the relation of the heavenly bodies to

human life are now generally abandoned, and such belief in this relation

as now exists has no scientific basis, but is founded on vague desire.

In savage and in civilized times eclipses, comets, the appearance of a

new star, and earthquakes have been regarded as indications of the

attitude of the deity--sometimes favorable, sometimes unfavorable.

+916+. The words and actions of men and their normal peculiarities of

bodily form have furnished comparatively few divinatory signs, the

reason being, probably, that in early times animals and other nonhuman

things arrested the attention of observers more forcibly, while in later

times such acts and forms were more readily explained from natural

conditions and laws. The palpitation of the eye, which seems sometimes

to uneducated man to be produced by an external force, has been taken as

a presage of misfortune. A burning sensation in the ear is still

believed by some persons to be a sign that one is being talked about; in

early stages of culture the sensation was regarded as a warning sent by

the guardian spirit or some other superhuman being. Sneezing was once

looked on as a happy omen: when Telemachus gave a resounding sneeze

Penelope interpreted it as a sign that news of his father was at

hand.[1627] An act performed without ulterior purpose may be taken to

symbolize some sort of fortune. When the Calif Omar sent an embassy to

the Persian King Yezdegird summoning him to embrace Islam, the angry

king commanded that a clod of earth should be brought and that the

ambassadors should bear it out of the city, which they accordingly did;

and this act was taken both by Arabs and by Persians as a presage of

Moslem victory--the invaders had a portion of Persian soil.[1628] An

element of magic, however, may have entered into this conviction; the

bit of soil was supposed, perhaps, to carry with it the whole land. A

chance word has often been seized on as an indication of the future, or

a proper name taken as a presage.

+917+. The belief in the sacredness or divinity of the human body has

led to the search for divinatory signs in its parts. But it is only the

hand that has been extensively employed in this way. The hand has

offered itself as most available for divination, partly, perhaps,

because of the variety and importance of its functions, partly because

of the variety of lines it shows and the ease with which it may be

examined. Chiromancy, or palmistry, has been developed into a science

and has maintained itself to the present day; but it has largely lost

its divinatory significance and has become a study of character, which

is supposed to be indicated by the lines of the hand. In its divinatory

rôle it has often been connected with astrology.

+918+. The preceding examples deal with occurrences that present

themselves without human initiation. In certain cases the materials for

divination are arranged by men themselves. In such methods there is

always an appeal to the deity, a demand that a god shall intervene and

indicate his will under the conditions prepared by men, the assumption

being that the god has prepared the event or thing in question, and

that, when properly approached, he will be disposed to give his

worshipers the assistance desired. The casting of lots and similar

random procedures have been common methods of divination the world over.

The African Kafir diviner detects criminals by the fall of small objects

used as dice. The Ashanti discover future events by the figures formed

when palm wine is thrown on the ground, and from the nature of the

numbers, whether even or odd, when one lets fall a handful of nuts. In a

dispute the Yoruban priest holds in his hand a number of grass stalks,

one of which is bent, and the person who draws the bent stalk is

adjudged to be in fault.[1629] The Hebrews had the official use of

objects called "urim and thummim" (terms whose meaning is unknown to

us), which were probably small cubes, to each of which was somehow

attached an answer "yes" or "no," or the name of a person. Thus, when

David inquired whether he was to attack the Philistines, the answer

seems to have been "yes."[1630] When it was a question who had violated

the taboo announced by Saul, the urim and thummim first decided that it

was not the people but the royal family; and then, as between Saul and

Jonathan, that it was the latter who was guilty.[1631] According to the

Book of Ezekiel the Chaldean King Nebuchadrezzar drew lots by arrows to

determine what road he should take in a campaign.[1632] The old Arabs

employed a species of divination by arrows, which, when thrown down, by

their position indicated the will of the gods; and in the division of

the flesh of a beast slaughtered by a clan or group, the portions to be

assigned to various persons were determined by the drawing of

arrows.[1633] Divination by lot was also largely employed by the Greeks

and the Romans.[1634] The method called "sortes vergilianae" is still in

vogue; it was and is a custom among pious persons, Christian or Moslem,

to learn the course that they are to take in an emergency by opening a

Bible or a copy of the Koran at random and accepting the first words on

which the eye falls as an indication of the divine will, the deity being

supposed to direct the eye.[1635]

+919+. One of the commonest and most important methods of divination in

antiquity was the examination of the entrails of animals

(haruspication). Of this system there are a few examples among savage

peoples,[1636] but it has attained special significance only among the

great civilized nations and especially among the Babylonians, the

Etruscans, and the Greeks and Romans. The slaughtered animal was

generally held to be itself sacred or divine, and, as it was offered to

the deity, it was a natural belief that the god would indicate his will

by the character of the inward parts, which were supposed to be

particularly connected with the life of the animal. Of these animal

parts the liver was regarded as the most important. The liver was for

the Babylonians the special seat of thought, whether from its position

or its size or from some other consideration we have no means of

knowing. The explanation of the form and appearance of the liver became

itself a separate science, and this science was developed with

extraordinary minuteness by the Babylonians. The whole structure of the

liver, together with the gall, bladder, and the ducts, was analyzed, and

to every part, every line, and every difference of appearance a separate

significance was assigned. Thus hepatoscopy, demanding long training and

influencing political action (and, doubtless, calling for ingenuity and

tact in interpretations), assumed great importance in Babylonia and

Assyria; and it was hardly less important among the Etruscans, the

Greeks, and the Romans.[1637] It is held by some scholars that Babylonia

was the original home of the developed science, whence it passed into

Greece and Italy.[1638] It may be recognized in Babylonia in the third

millennium B.C., and there is no improbability in the supposition that

Babylonian influence was felt in Asia Minor and Eastern Europe; but, in

view of the number of possibly independent centers of culture in this

region in ancient times and the paucity of data, the question may be

left open.

+920+. Other parts of the animal bodies also were employed in

divination. Tylor[1639] mentions the examination of the bones of the

porcupine among North American Indians, the color giving indications as

to the success of hunting expeditions. The shoulder blade, when put into

the fire, showed by splits in it various kinds of fortune. The heart was

of less significance in ancient thought than the liver, it being of less

size, and its function in the circulation of the blood not being known.

The brain also did not come, until a comparatively late period, to be

regarded as the seat of the intellect.[1640]

+921+. From these external signs we may now pass to consider divinatory

facts derived from men's inward experience.

_Dreams._ The importance attached all over the world to dreams as

presages is a familiar fact. It would appear that among savage peoples a

dream is regarded as representing an historical fact, the actual

perception of an occurrence or a situation. It is believed that the

mysterious inward thing, the soul, endowed with peculiar power, is

capable, during sleep, of leaving the body and wandering to and

fro;[1641] why, then, in its journeys, should it not be able to see the

plans of friends and enemies, and in general to observe the course of

events? We do not know the nature of savage logic in dealing with these

visions of the night, but some such line of reasoning as this, it seems

probable, is in their minds. The soul, they hold, is an entity,

possessing intellectual powers like those of the ordinary living man--it

sees certain things, and its knowledge becomes the possession of the man

when he awakes. Thus the soul in dreams is a watchman, on the lookout

for what may help or harm the man. Perhaps there is, even in low tribes,

a vague feeling that it has extraordinary powers of perception; whether

such a feeling, if it exists, is connected with a belief that, during

sleep, the soul is freed from the limitations of the everyday corporeal

man we are not able with our present data to say.[1642] Savages often

follow the suggestions made in dreams[1643] (particularly when they are

vivid) and are confirmed in their faith by occasional fulfillments of

predictions; the mind, working during sleep on the observations made by

day, may sometimes fall on situations that afterwards really appear, and

a few such realizations are sufficient to establish a rule or creed.

+922+. This naïve conception of dreams as products of the soul's

perception of realities survives to a greater or less extent among

higher tribes and nations, but finally gives way, when some sort of

theistic construction is reached, to the view that they are sent

immediately by deities. An approach to this view appears in North

America when, for example, a Pawnee Indian sees in a dream some being

who gives him important information, though in the folk-tales nothing is

said of the source of the dream.[1644] A step in advance appears in the

belief of the Ashanti, according to which the existence of a tutelary

family deity is indicated in a dream;[1645] it is, however, not clear

whether or not they hold that the tutelary deity has himself suggested

the dream. In the higher religions a dream is often sent by a patron

deity as a prediction or for guidance in a coming emergency. Doubtless

it was only in the case of specially distinct dreams and such as related

to important matters that attention was paid to them--the deity

intervened only in affairs that called for his special direction.

Examples are numerous in the history of the great nations of antiquity.

The Egyptian King Merneptah in a time of great danger had a dream in

which the god Ptah appeared to him and bade him banish fear;[1646] and

the Hebrew Yahweh is represented as having sent dreams to a king of

Egypt (probably in the interests of the Hebrews) to warn him of a coming

famine.[1647] The Assyrian Ashurbanipal was favored with special

communications from Ishtar, and the god Ashur in a dream ordered Gyges,

King of Lydia, to submit to the Assyrian king.[1648] In some documents

of the Pentateuch Yahweh regularly announces his will in dreams to both

Hebrews and non-Hebrews;[1649] and a Hebrew writer of a later time (the

third or second century B.C.) represents the God of Israel as giving

Nebuchadrezzar an outline of the history of the rise and fall of the

kingdoms of Western Asia and Greece.[1650] A god might employ a dream

for a less worthy purpose: Zeus sends a dream to Agamemnon to mislead

him and thus direct the issue of the war.[1651] So important for life

did the Greeks conceive the dream to be that, as it would seem, they

personified it.[1652]

_Incubation._ Divine direction by dreams was not always left to chance.

The custom arose of sleeping near a shrine (_engkoimesis_, incubation)

where, doubtless, after appropriate ritual preparation the god was

expected to signify his will in a dream (his generally friendly feeling

was assumed and the dream would be of the nature of an answer to

prayer). This was one of the means employed by Saul when he desired to

learn what would be the issue of the impending battle with the

Philistines.[1653] In Greece, and later in Italy, the most famous shrine

of incubation was that of Asklepios (Aesculapius), which was widely

resorted to and came to exert a good moral influence.[1654] The renown

of the shrine was doubtless increased by the fact that Asklepios was a

god of healing.[1655]

+923+. As a dream was often obscure the services of a trained

interpreter became necessary in order that the dream might be effective.

The interpreters were magicians, priests, or sages[1656]--men in

intimate association with deities and acquainted with their modes and

vehicles of revelation;[1657] dreams thus became equivalent to oracular

responses. An interpreter would become famous in proportion to the

number of fulfillments of his interpretations, and his god would share

in the glory of his renown.[1658] Of the particular conditions through

which certain men and certain shrines attained special fame we have few

details.

Oneiromancy, in unorganized form, was studied in very early periods of

religious life. It shared in the general advance of thought, and in the

course of time a traditional science of the explanation of dreams arose.

There were records of experiences, particularly of notable fulfillments,

and it became possible to make lists of dreams with

interpretations;[1659] these were written down and passed on from

generation to generation, increasing in volume as they went. Such

manuals have played no inconsiderable part in the life of the

people.[1660]

+924+. _Ordeals._ Divination has played an important part in civil life

as a means of determining the guilt or innocence of an accused person.

From very early times ordeals of various sorts have been devised for

securing a judicial opinion when ordinary means of investigation have

failed. One of the simplest methods is to require an accused person to

swear that he is innocent, the belief being that the god will avenge

false swearing with immediate and visible punishment.[1661] This method

is employed by the Ashanti:[1662] the accused is required to drink a

certain decoction; if he is made sick by it this is proof of his

innocence;[1663] and if there be a question between two men, and one

after drinking is made sick, the other is regarded as guilty, and

executed. On the Lower Congo the accused swallows a pill made of a bark

said to be poisonous; if he soon vomits it he is declared innocent, if

not, he is adjudged guilty.[1664] A similar procedure was employed in

Samoa:[1665] standing in the presence of representatives of the village

god, the suspected person laying his hand on the object wishes that if

he is guilty he may speedily die. Among the Hill people of Ceylon also

this custom exists. Ordeals in Loango are described by Purchas.[1666]

+925+. Among the ancient nations the earliest example of an ordeal

occurs in the code of Hammurabi (about 2000 B.C.). Here the accused is

thrown into the sacred water, and if not drowned is declared innocent;

he is protected by the deity.[1667] The same principle appears in the

old Hebrew ordeal: when a woman was accused of unfaithfulness to her

husband the accused was made to drink sacred water; if she was innocent

no bad consequences followed; if she was guilty she died.[1668] In

India, where various tests by fire, water, and food have been and are

employed, the decision is sometimes as in the Hebrew procedure;

sometimes (when the accused is thrown into the water) the principle

(found elsewhere abundantly) is recognized that it is the innocent

person that suffers and the guilty that is uninjured.[1669] The ordeal

as a civil process continued in Europe until the Middle Ages. In the

submersion in water of a woman suspected of being a witch the principle

of decision was the same as is now practiced in Ashantiland and

India--if the woman was drowned it was a sign that she was innocent, but

if she rose unharmed from the water she was adjudged guilty and was put

to death.[1670]

+926+. The imprecation is similar to the ordeal. A man invokes the curse

of the deity on his enemy, and it is supposed that such curse will bring

its punishment.[1671] A curse was regarded as an objective thing, which

reached its object quite independently of guilt or innocence.[1672] In

Morocco a conditional curse is pronounced and is supposed to become

effective if the wrong complained of is not righted.[1673] These ordeals

and imprecations were sometimes effective in fixing guilt; the dread of

incurring the wrath of the deity sometimes forced a guilty person to

confess, or his dread of the punishment produced signs of guilt. On the

other hand, it is probable that just as often innocent persons were

convicted and punished through such tests.

With all such systems of signs may be compared the Chinese quasi-science

called Fung-Shui ('Wind and Water'), which determines proper sites for

graves and for temples and other buildings by observations of the

influences of the sky (moisture, warmth, wind, thunder), of waters and

hills, and of the earth, and by the study of various magical

combinations. Thus, it is held, it is possible in important undertakings

to obtain the favor and support of the good Powers of the world. The

site of a grave, affecting the future of the dead, is of especial

significance, and the Fung-Shui interpreters, regularly trained men,

levy what contributions they please from surviving relatives, sometimes

purposely prolonging their investigations at a ruinous cost to the

family of the deceased.[1674] The system sprang from the Chinese

conception of heaven and earth as the controlling Powers of the world;

but, neglecting the higher side of this conception, it has sunk into a

fraudulent trade.[1675]

+927+. _Oracles._ As men went to the tents or palaces of chiefs or kings

for guidance in ordinary matters, so they went to the dwelling places of

superhuman Powers for direction in matters that were beyond human ken.

Such appeal to divine or quasi-divine beings began early in religious

history. In Borneo and the islands of Torres Straits the abodes of

skulls are places from which responses are obtained;[1676] speaking

heads are found there and elsewhere. The Sunthals of West Bengal have

the ghost of a specially revered ancestor as a dispenser of superhuman

knowledge.[1677] When local gods arose every local shrine, it is

probable, contained an oracle.[1678] The shrines of the great gods

naturally acquired special prominence, their oracles were consulted by

kings and other leaders on affairs of importance, and thus came to exert

a great influence on the course of events.[1679] The stars also, though

they had no earthly habitations, were consulted through their

interpreters. Such astrological oracles, as used by men like Posidonius,

the teacher of Cicero, might be morally inspiring; but when, at a later

time, the consultation of heavenly bodies fell into the hands of

wandering "Chaldeans" (who might be of any nation) it became a system of

charlatanry, and thus morally debasing.[1680]

The greater nations of antiquity differed considerably among themselves

in regard to the part played in their lives by oracles. In general, the

organization of oracular shrines grew in proportion to the rise of

manlike gods--deities whose relation to men was socially intimate. In

Egypt such shrines were not of prime importance;[1681] the functions of

the gods were mainly governmental--the most human of them, Osiris,

became an ethical judge rather than a personal friend. The

pre-Mohammedan Arabs did not create great gods, and their resort to

local divinities was commonly in order to ask whether or not a proposed

course of action was desirable; the answer was "yes" or "no."[1682] The

famous warrior and poet, Imru'l-Kais, desiring to go to war to avenge

his father's death, received at a shrine three times a negative answer,

whereupon, hurling abusive epithets at the god, he exclaimed, "If it

were your father, you would not say 'no.'" Such independence was

probably rare; most men would have accepted the divine decision. The

answer of the Hebrew oracle was, as among the Arabs, "yes" or "no" (by

urim and thummim)--the gods were remote, and the oracle, whose minister

was a priest, gradually yielded to the prophet, the human interpreter

of the deity.[1683] The Philistines appear to have had well-organized

oracles; when King Ahaziah was sick he sent to inquire of Baalzebub, god

of Ekron, whether or not he should recover.[1684] Many Babylonian and

Assyrian deities gave oracular responses;[1685] it is not known whether

the shrines were resorted to by the people at large, and their

importance was probably diminished by the great rôle played by the

priestly interpretation of omens, whereby the will of the gods was held

to be clearly revealed. The Romans under the republic were practically

independent of oracles at shrines: in household affairs they had a

family god for every department and every situation, and for State

matters they found the Sibylline oracles sufficient.[1686] Later, with

the widening of the horizon of religion, the resort to Greek and other

oracular shrines became general--a departure from the old Roman

constitution.[1687] The greatest development of oracular service took

place in Greece. The Greek gods, with their anthropomorphically

emotional characters, entered intimately and sympathetically into human

life, communal and individual. The great shrines of Zeus at Dodona and

Apollo at Delphi were centers of Hellenistic religious life, and there

were others of less importance.[1688] Zeus, as head of the pantheon,

naturally took a distinguished place as patron of oracles; and Apollo's

relation to music and inspiration may account in part for the

preëminence of his oracular shrine. In many cases, however, the grounds

of the choice of a particular deity as oracle-giver escape us.

The human demand for divine guidance long maintained the influence of

oracles everywhere, and it is not improbable that in general they

furthered what was good religiously and socially. They were bonds of

union between communities, and their authoritative rôle would naturally

force on them a certain sense of responsibility. As to the character of

the mouthpieces of the gods and the material on which they based their

answers to questions we have not the means of forming a definite

opinion. There can be little doubt that the official persons were

sometimes sincere in the belief that they were inspired--such is the

testimony of observers for both savage and civilized communities--and

many modern instances bear out this view. On the other hand, there is

reason to suppose that pretense and fraud often crept into the

administration of the oracles. When the questions were known beforehand

the responses may have been based on information that came from various

quarters and on insight into the particular situation about which the

inquiry was made. When the questions were not known beforehand we are in

the dark as to the source of the answers. Sometimes, doubtless, they

were happy or unhappy guesses; sometimes they were enigmatical or

ambiguous in form, so that they could be made to agree with the events

that actually occurred. In most cases the authorities would know how to

explain the issue in such a way as to maintain the credit of the oracle.

The best-known and the most impressive of the utterers of oracles is the

priestess of Apollo at Delphi, the Pythia. She occupied a commanding

position in the Hellenic world (and beyond it), such as was enjoyed by

few persons of the time.[1689] She was invested with special sanctity as

the dispenser of divine guidance to the Western world (to nations and

individuals). It was required of her that she be morally and

ceremonially pure, and she had to undergo a special preparation for the

delivery of her message. The manner of her revelation did not differ

from that of similar officials in noncivilized communities--she spoke in

a condition of ecstasy; she is the best representative of the intimate

union of the diviner and a great god, a union that tended to give

dignity and wisdom as well as authority to the oracular utterance.[1690]

She was, thus, in the best position for exerting a good influence on the

world of her time. How far the oracles of Apollo and other deities

furthered the best interests of religion it may be difficult to say--the

data for an exact answer are lacking. Socially they were useful in

maintaining a certain unity among peoples, and they may sometimes have

upheld justice and given judicious advice, but they were always exposed

to the temptation of fraud.

_Necromancy._ While in ancient times the dead were everywhere placated

by gifts and were sometimes worshiped, the consultation of them for

guidance seems to have been relatively infrequent. The attitude of

existing lower tribes toward ghosts varies in different places,[1691]

but the predominant feeling seems to be fear; these tribes have not

accomplished that social union between themselves and the departed

without which, as it appears, the living do not feel free to apply to

the latter for information concerning things past, present, and

future.[1692] Savage and half-civilized peoples depend for such

information on divination by means of common phenomena (omens) and on

the offices of magicians and soothsayers, and references in published

reports to necromantic usages among them are rare and vague. But among

civilized peoples also application to the dead is not as frequent as

might be expected; there is still fear of ghosts, and the part assigned

in early times to spirits in the administration of human life has been

given over to gods--family divinities and the great oracular deities

supply the information that men need. There are few signs of dependence

on necromancy in China, India, Persia, and Rome. The Babylonian mythical

hero Gilgamesh procures (through the aid of an Underworld god) an

interview with his dead friend Eabani in order to learn the nature of

the life below;[1693] this story points, perhaps, to necromantic

usages, but in the extant literature there are no details of such

usages. Application to the dead is certified for the old Hebrews not

only by the story of Saul's consultation of Samuel (which, though a

folk-story, may be taken to prove a popular custom) but by a prophetic

passage condemning the practice.[1694] Teraphim were employed, probably,

for divination, but there is no proof that they were connected with

necromancy.[1695] After the sixth century B.C. we hear nothing of

consultation of the dead by the pre-Christian Jews. Among the Greeks

also such consultation seems not to have enjoyed a high degree of favor.

There were oracles of the dead (of heroes and others), but these were

inferior in importance to the oracles of the great gods[1696] and

gradually ceased to be resorted to. Where the practice of incubation

existed, answers to inquiries were sometimes, doubtless, held to come

from the dead, but more commonly it was a god that supplied the desired

information.

The stages in the history of necromantic practice follow the lines of

growth of psychical and theistic beliefs. There was first the era of

spirits when men were doubtful of the friendliness of ghosts, and held

it safer in general to trust to soothsayers for guidance in life. Then,

when the gods took distinct shape, they largely displaced ghosts as

dispensers of knowledge of the future, and these latter, standing

outside of and in rivalry with the circle of State deities, could be

approached only in secret--necromancy became illicit and its influence

was crippled. And when, finally, in the earlier centuries of our era,

the old gods disappeared, the rise of monotheistic belief was

accompanied by a transformation of the conception of the future of the

soul; it was to be no longer the inert earthly thing of the old theories

but instinct with a high life that fitted it to be the companion of

divine beings and the sharer of their knowledge and their ideals.[1697]

This conception led to the belief in the possibility of a nonmagical

friendly intercourse with the departed, who, it was assumed, would be

willing to impart their knowledge to their brethren on earth. Saints

have thus been appealed to, and it has been attempted in recent times to

enter into communication with departed kin and other friends.

+928+. The office of diviner, though it has always been an influential

one, has followed in its development the general course of social

organization, becoming more and more specialized and defined. In the

simplest religions the positions of magician and diviner are frequently

united in one person. In Greenland the Angekok, acting as the

interpreter or mouthpiece of a supernatural being from whom men learn

how they may be fortunate, foretells the condition of the weather and

the fortunes of fishing.[1698] A similar combination of the offices is

found among the Ainu, and apparently among the Cakchiquels, among whom

the divining function is said to have related particularly to war.[1699]

+929+. There was, however, as is remarked above, a tendency to invest

the priest with the function of divination. The Arabian _kahin_ was a

soothsayer, the Hebrew _kohen_ was a priest.[1700] The Yorubans have a

special god of divination whose priest is the soothsayer of the

community. In Ashantiland priests and priestesses, who are exceedingly

influential and powerful, owe a great deal of their importance to their

ability to explain signs and omens, especially to discover guilt and to

foretell events.[1701] In the elaborate divinatory ceremonies of the

Ahoms of Southeastern Asia, the conductors, who are highly considered in

the community, are priests; these people are partly Hinduized, but

probably retain much of their ancient religious forms.[1702] A

noteworthy specialization of functions is found among the Todas of

Southern India, who distinguish the diviner from the magician, the

prophet, and the dairyman. The diviner is inspired by a god, gives his

utterances in an ecstatic state, and for the most part limits himself

to the explanation of the origin of misfortunes.[1703] It would be a

matter of interest to trace, if it were possible, a history of this

specialization, but the early fortunes of the Toda religion are without

records and can only be surmised. In ancient Gaul the diviner, it is

said, was distinguished from the priest and the prophet.[1704] Where

divination is the duty of the priestly body, there is sometimes a

differentiation within this body, some persons devoting themselves

specifically to soothsaying; so among the Babylonians, where this

function was most important.[1705]

+930+. Among the old Hebrews the soothsaying function is connected not

only with priests but also with prophets.[1706] The priest was the

official diviner, employing the urim and thummim. Prophets and dreamers

are mentioned together as persons of the same class and as sometimes

employing their arts for purposes contrary to the national religion;

various classes of diviners are mentioned as existing among the

Israelites in the seventh century B.C., but the distinctions between

them are not given.[1707] From a statement in Isaiah ii, 6, it may

perhaps be inferred that some form of divination was imported into

Israel in the eighth century or earlier from the more developed

Philistines and from the countries east of the Jordan;[1708] and the

passage just referred to in Deuteronomy probably reveals Assyrian

influence. While the Egyptian documents have much to say of magic, they

give little information with regard to the existence of a class of

diviners; but it appears, according to a Hebrew writer,[1709] that the

art of divination might belong to any prominent person--Joseph is

represented as divining from a cup.

+931+. The greatest development of the office of the diviner in ancient

times was found among the Greeks and Romans.[1710] The Greek word

_mantis_ appears to have been a general term for any person, male or

female, who had the power of perceiving the will of the gods. The early

distinction between the _mantis_ and the _prophetes_ is not clear.

Plato, indeed, distinguishes sharply between the two terms:[1711] the

_mantis_, he says, while in an ecstatic state cannot understand his own

utterances, and it is, therefore, the custom to appoint a _prophetes_

who shall interpret for him; some persons, he adds, give the name

_mantis_ to this interpreter, but he is only a _prophetes_. We find,

however, that the terms are frequently used interchangeably; thus the

Pythia is called both _mantis_ and _prophetis_. Whatever may have been

the original sense of these terms, the office of diviner in Greece was

in the main separate from that of priest. It is found attached to

families and was hereditary. It was recognized by the State from an

early time and became more and more influential. According to Xenophon

Socrates believed in and approved divination.[1712] Plato held that it

was a gift of the gods, and that official persons so gifted were to be

held in high esteem.

+932+. In Rome, in accordance with the genius of the nation, soothsaying

was at a comparatively early period organized and taken in charge by the

State. There were colleges of augurs,[1713] standing in various

relations to political and social life, having their heads (chief

augurs)--thus in their organization similar to the priesthood, but

standing quite apart from this. The same sort of organization was

established in the Etruscan office of _haruspex_[1714] when this was

introduced into Rome. The members of these colleges were at first

Etruscans and, as such, looked down on; but gradually Roman youth of

good family and education were trained for the duty, and in the time of

the Emperor Claudius the social difference between augurs and haruspices

seems to have been almost eliminated.[1715]

+933+. _Sibyls._ In the old Græco-Roman world inspired women played a

great rôle.[1716] The belief in such personages goes back to the old

conception of the possession of human beings by a supernatural being,

which, as we have seen, was common in early forms of religion. This idea

assumed various shapes in Greece, and in the course of time the inspired

women were connected with various deities. In the Dionysus cult the

orgiastic rites (in which women took a chief part) seem to have grown up

from old agricultural ceremonies in which the spirit or god of

vegetation was invoked to give his aid. Such ceremonies naturally

coalesced here as elsewhere with the license of popular festivities. The

legends connected with the Dionysus cult introduced savage features into

the rites, as, for example, in the story of Pentheus.[1717] But whatever

may have been the case in Thrace, whence the cult came to Greece, it was

not so in historical times in Greece, where the celebrations were

controlled by the State. These exhibit then only the natural frenzy of

excited crowds without the element of divination.

+934+. The development of the rôle of women as representatives of

deities is illustrated by the character of the priestesses of oracular

shrines.[1718] These, like the Dionysiac devotees, are seized and

possessed by the god, and speak in a state of frenzy. But their frenzy

is controlled by civilized conditions. It exists only as a preparation

for divination; it is the movement of the god in them laboring to

express himself, and his expression is couched in intelligible human

language. The priestess is a part of an organized and humanized cult

and, as such, represents to a certain extent the ideas of a civilized

society. The Dionysiac woman yields to an excess of animal excitement,

without thought for society; the priestess feels herself responsible to

society. A similar progress in civilized feeling appears among the old

Hebrews; the incoherency of the earlier prophets[1719] gives way to the

thoughtful discourses of the ethical leaders.[1720] The manner and the

expression of revelation always conform to existing social usages.

+935+. Of a still different character is the figure of the Sibyl,

created by the Greeks and adopted by the Romans.[1721] She, too, is

possessed by a god and sometimes, at least, raves in ecstasy; but she

does not officiate at a shrine and is not controlled by any official

body. She dwells in a cave or a grotto, has her life in the open air,

and gives her answers on the leaves of the forest. She represents the

divine voices that are heard by early men everywhere in the world; in

the myth, when she displeases Apollo she is condemned to fade finally,

after a long life, into a voice.[1722] She is not, like the Pythia, an

actual human being--she is never seen except in legends and myths. She

is a creature of Greek imagination, the embodiment of all the divine

suggestions that come to man from the mysterious sounds around him.

+936+. The historical origin of the fully developed figure of the Sibyl

is obscure.[1723] In the literature she appears first in the sixth

century B.C. along with the Pythia, but she was then thought of as well

established and ancient. She is not mentioned by Homer or Hesiod, but

their silence is not proof positive that the conception of the character

did not exist in their time; they may have had no occasion to mention

her, or the figure may have been so vague and unimportant as not to call

for special mention. For such a figure it is natural to assume a long

development, the beginnings of which are, of course, enveloped in

obscurity. However this may be, the Sibyl appears to have received full

form under the religious impulse of post-Homeric times, under conditions

the details of which are not known to us.

+937+. In the scant notices of the figure that have been preserved the

indications are that there was originally only one Sibyl--she was the

mythical embodiment of divine revelation, as the muse was the embodiment

of intellectual inspiration. At a later time many sibyls came into

being; Varro reckons ten and other authors give other numbers.

Apparently a process of local differentiation went on; when the idea of

the revealer was once established and the historical beginnings of the

figure were unknown, many a place would be ambitious to have so noble a

figure domiciled in its midst. One line of tradition referred the

original Sibyl to the Ionian Erythræ, and when the Sibylline Books were

burned in the year 83 B.C., it was to Erythræ that the Romans sent to

make a new collection of oracles. Whatever the original home of the

figure, one of the most famous of the Sibyls was she of Cumæ.[1724] She

was regarded as being very old, and she was probably a permanent diviner

of that place. It was from Cumæ, according to the legend, that the

Sibylline Books came to Rome. The story of how they were first offered

to King Tarquinius Priscus, who refused to pay the price, how three of

them were destroyed and then three more, and how finally the required

price was paid for the remaining three, points to a belief that the

material of the oracles had once been larger than that which came to

Rome. There is also the assertion that the utterances of the Sibyl were

at that time recorded in books. This fact suggests that oracular

responses had long been known at Cumæ, and that some persons, of whose

character and functions we know nothing, had from time to time written

them down, so that a handbook of divination had come into existence.

+938+. In whatever manner the oracles were first brought to Rome it is

certain that they were accepted by the Romans in all good faith, and

they came to play a very important part in the conduct of public

affairs. They were placed in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus under the

charge of two men (_duumviri_), and later a college was established for

their guardianship. They were used in Rome especially for guidance in

national calamities: when the existence of the city was threatened by

the victorious career of Hannibal, it was the Sibyl who prescribed the

importation of the worship of the Phrygian Great Mother. It is certain

that the books were manipulated by political and religious leaders for

their own purposes, old dicta being recast and new ones inserted as

occasion required;[1725] but probably this procedure was unknown to the

people--it does not appear that it affected their faith. Even Augustine

speaks of the theurgi as dæmones, and cites a passage from the Erythræan

Sibyl as a prediction of Christ.[1726]

+939+. To the poetical books which have come down to us under the name

of Jewish Sibylline Oracles no value attaches for the history of the

Sibyl except so far as they are an indication of the hold that the

conception kept on men's minds.[1727] They are a product of the passion

for apocalyptic writing that prevailed among the Jews and Christians in

Palestine and Alexandria, from the second century B.C. into the third

century of our era. The fame of the Græco-Roman Sibyl was widespread,

and to the Jews and Christians of that time it seemed proper that she

should be made to predict the history of Judaism and Christianity;

possibly it was believed that such a prophetess must have spoken of this

history. Naturally the Jewish Sibyl has a Biblical genealogy--she is the

daughter of Noah.

+940+. Her utterances, given in heavy Greek hexameters, have been

preserved for us in a great mass of ill-arranged fragments, with many

repetitions, indicating them as the work of various authors. What we

have is clearly only a part of what was produced, but the nature of the

whole body of pseudo-predictions is easily understood from the material

that has been preserved. They follow the history down to the author's

time, giving it sometimes an enigmatical form, and the future is

described in vague phrases that embody the guesses or hopes of the

writer. It seems certain that all of the existent material of these

oracles is from Jewish and Christian hands. Even when Greek mythical

stories are introduced, as in the euhemeristic description of the origin

of the Greek dynasties of gods in the third book, the whole is

conceived under the forms of Jewish or Christian thought. The Sibyllines

are quoted by Josephus and by many Christian writers from Justin Martyr

to Augustine and Jerome and later. They give a picture of certain Jewish

and Christian ideas of the period and of the opinions held concerning

certain political events, but otherwise have no historical value. An

illustration of the fact that the belief in them as real inspired

prediction continued to a late time is found in the hymn _Dies Irae_, in

which the Sibyl is cited along with David as a prophet of the last

judgment. The whole history of the figure is a remarkable illustration

of the power of a written record, held to be a divine revelation, to

impress men's minds and control their beliefs and actions.

+941+. While divination has played a great part in the religious history

of the world, it has rarely brought about important political or

religious results.[1728] The exceptions are the great Greek oracles of

Dodona and Delphi and the Roman Sibylline Books; to these last, as is

observed above, the Roman people owed the introduction of some important

religious cults. But for ordinary procedures priests and other

officiators everywhere were disposed to give favorable responses,

especially to the questions of prominent men; and military and other

political enterprises were usually in such form that they could not

conveniently be modified in accordance with unfavorable omens--the omen

had to be favorable. There were exceptions, but this was the general

rule. The science of divination, however, did good service in fostering

the observation of natural phenomena, and especially in the development

of astronomy and anatomy. In connection with these observations it

called into being bodies of men--corporations that in process of time

became centers of general culture.

+942+. On the ethical side it may be doubted whether divination has been

an advantage to society. It has produced much deceit, unconscious and

conscious. Whether diviners believed or did not believe in their

science, the result was bad. If they did not believe, they fostered a

system of deceit. Whether there was real belief or not, the practice of

divination encouraged false methods and turned men's minds away from

immediate appeals to the deity, and in general from a spiritual

conception of religion. On the other hand, it helped to maintain the

external apparatus of religion, which for ancient life was an important

thing. Like all great institutions its effects have been partly good,

partly bad. It belongs to a lower stage of human thought and tends to

disappear gradually before enlightenment.