Divination and oracles of the world

An oracle is a way of asking a question and receiving an answer from beyond ordinary knowledge. This covers the cards of tarot, the yarrow stalks and coins of the I Ching, the cowries and palm nuts of Ifa, the bones thrown by a sangoma, the runes, the tea leaves, the horoscope and the ancient temple at Delphi. Practitioners and clients say they are used to decide, to warn and to comfort.

Methods around the world

The methods are many. In China, the I Ching is consulted through lines built by chance. In West Africa, Ifa divination produces one of 256 Odu, each linked to verses. In southern Africa, a diviner reads a set of tossed bones and objects. In Europe, the Greek oracle at Delphi spoke through the Pythia, a priestess, and tarot cards began in fifteenth-century Italy as a card game before being adopted for divination in the eighteenth century.

Who reads and who may

Reading can be a hereditary calling, a profession learned by apprenticeship, a gift announced by a spirit, or a hobby. In Ifa, women are generally not initiated as babalawo, though they can hold other senior roles, while tarot reading is open to anyone. Class matters: court astrologers advised kings, while street readers served the poor, and the law has often treated the two differently. Other places have their own tools: Roman augurs watched birds, Mesopotamian priests read animal organs, and Tibetan monks use dice and mirrors, each with its own rules for asking a question.

Law, faith and fraud

Islam, Judaism and Christianity have each warned against fortune-telling, and many states restrict or tax it. Fraud is a real problem: psychics who tell a grieving client that a curse must be removed for a fee are a familiar case in courts from London to Mumbai. Some places have banned fortune-telling and then licensed it. Clients may come from every walk of life, and the same method can be a respected profession in one country and a side business in another, with a different relation to the law and to the church.

How scholars read it

Psychologists point to the Barnum effect, in which vague statements feel personal, and to confirmation bias. Anthropologist Omar Khayyam Moore described how hunters used cracked caribou bones as a randomising device. Others argue that oracles work as a structured way to break a deadlock and talk through a decision. Practitioners, for their part, speak of guidance and not of forecasting. In practice, a reading is often a conversation, and the diviner is a listener and an adviser as much as a seer.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

Omikuji: C121749n, Public domain, source

Moon blocks: Hsiung/d6478coke, CC BY 2.0, source

Kau chim: No machine-readable author provided. 9old9 assumed (based on copyright, Public domain, source

I Ching divination: A.Davey, CC BY 2.0, source

Jiaobei: Jnzl's Public Domain Photos, CC BY 2.0, source

Onomancy: Unknown author, Public domain, source

Scapulimancy: Albert Peter Low, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Podomancy: Eyefive45, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Chinese fortune telling: Lai Afong, Public domain, source

Tang-ki: Bunkichi Chang, CC BY 2.0, source

Fuji: Unknown author, CC BY 4.0, source

Divination and oracles