Divination in the Ancient World
In this chapter, you will learn some of the background information that will help you to practice ancient divination more successfully. First, I will tell some of the important Greek myths about the origins of divination, which will acquaint you with the gods who oversee the ancient art. Next, I will survey briefly the many arts of divination practiced in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, some of which are quite familiar, others quite strange. Finally, I will explain the theory of divination taught in ancient Neoplatonism, the deepest and richest Pagan philosophy and theology. You can always use a tool more effectively if you know a little about how it works.
Mythical Origins of Divination
Neopaganism adapts the religions of our ancient Pagan ancestors to the world we live in today, and so the lore that lies behind ancient practices can help us to use them today. Therefore, I will begin with the sacred myths that tell how the gods gave divination to mortals.4 Treating these myths as mere stories or as psychological metaphors dilutes the illumination and power they offer. Accept their gifts!
The Bee Nymphs of Mount Parnassus
As you might expect, I will have something to say about the Delphic Oracle, but not yet, for our story begins long before Delphi was established. Delphi is perched on the side of Mount Parnassus, which (like all mountains) is haunted by nymphs, who are daughters of Zeus. They often appear as attractive young women, who may seduce shepherds and take them as husbands. They frequent the oracular springs from which prophets draw their inspiration, for Earth is the font of wisdom.
In the earliest times, before the Greeks came and before Apollo arrived at Delphi, priestesses delivered oracles received from Earth goddesses. There were oracles of Gaia, the Earth herself (more commonly named Gê in Ancient Greek).5 There were also oracles of Demeter, the grain goddess whose name Dê-mêtêr is a variant of Gê-mêtêr, which means “Earth Mother.” Ancient lore also tells us that the goddess Themis delivered oracles at various sites, including Delphi, and she might have inherited this site from her mother, Gaia. (She is a daughter of Ouranos and Gaia: Heaven and Earth.) You might not be familiar with Themis. Her name is the word for something that has been established, and is often translated as custom, order, law, and what is right; in the plural it refers to decrees and oracles of the gods. Some say the Moirai (Three Fates), who spin and measure out the destiny of every mortal, are her daughters. Thus it is not surprising that the priestesses of Themis would deliver oracles by which mortals might guide their actions.
The Corycian Cave, on Mount Parnassus above Delphi, was such an oracular site, where people sought oracles from the nymphs inhabiting the springs in the cave. Occupied since Neolithic times, there is evidence that the Mycenaean Greeks were visiting the cave for oracles from at least 1400 BCE. More than 23,000 astragaloi (ankle bones used for divination) and a large number of dice have been found along with many goddess statues dedicated in gratitude. Delphi had a long history of divination before Apollo arrived around 800 BCE.
Homeric Hymn IV, To Hermes, tells of three nymphs who dwell on Mount Parnassus and use small stones for divination. They are described like bees—winged, buzzing, swarming, eating honey, etc.—but this is not as unusual as it sounds, for bees are associated with many oracles, including Delphi. In fact, the Pythia (the prophetess of Delphi) is called “the Delphic Bee.” The priestesses of Demeter were called Bees (Grk., Melissai), as were those of some other goddesses. What is the connection with bees?
Both nymphs and bees haunt caves and trees and live near water, but there are deeper connections. Not only do bees have souls, but Virgil (Georgics IV) says they are pure souls and have a portion of the divine mind. They subsist on honey, “the sweet food of the gods,” which inspires them with divine enthusiasm. Some ancient authors noted that bees reproduce parthenogenetically (by “virgin birth”) and that some priestesses were chaste, and thus like bees. Moreover, bees are clean, orderly, and civilized, and nymphs taught these virtues to our earliest ancestors. They taught morals and many practical skills to shepherds, who often encountered nymphs in the grottos and groves. For example, bee nymphs (Grk., melissai) first taught humans to eat the fruit of trees instead of human flesh. And a nymph named Melissa was the first to taste honey and to mix it with water to make hydromel. The bee (Grk., melissa) was named in her honor, and ever since, bees are sacred to her.
Another connection between oracles and bee nymphs is that prophecy is aided by taking in the divine spirit (Grk., pneuma; Lat., spiritus) in the form of a substance inhaled, drunk, or eaten. In early times, honey was the principal inspirational drink, often in the form of hydromel (which can be slightly alcoholic) or mead. Moreover, honey can be hallucinogenic if the bees frequent certain plants. (Wine as an inspirational drink arrived later with Dionysos.) Honey was the traditional food of the gods, often identified with nectar and ambrosia, which confer divine immortality. As you will see, Apollo governs both poetry and prophecy, which are identical in origin, and both are compared to honey when they are divinely inspired and, as a consequence, are both true and beautiful. Bees serve the Muses, the divine patrons of the arts and sciences, who were described as bees and sent bees to inspire their devotees with honey.
Bees attended many of the greatest poets in their infancy and fed them honey. This was told of Plato himself, and also of Hesiod, Pindar, and Virgil, among others. For example, Euadnê, a daughter of Poseidon and the nymph Pitanê, bore a son to Apollo. Because she was ashamed of her illicit pregnancy, she gave birth in secret in a field of violets, and abandoned the child there. Bees came and fed the infant honey, or some say that Mother Earth sent serpents to bring him the honey, which is called their blameless venom (Grk., ios). Either way, he acquired the gift of prophecy. Euadnê dwelled in the palace of King Aigyptos of Arcadia, and when he realized she had given birth, he asked the Delphic Oracle about the father. The Pythia replied that it was Apollo and that the boy would be a famous prophet. Therefore, the king ordered Euadnê to rescue the child, and since he was lying in a field of violets (Grk., ia), she named him “Iamos.” When he was a young man, he descended by night into the Alpheos River and invoked his father Apollo and his grandfather Zeus, seeking his destiny. Apollo led him then to Olympia and taught him prophecy. After Heracles established the Olympic Games, Iamos established the oracle there, and founded the lineage of Iamidai prophets, who were still active in the third century CE.
To return to the nymphs, the three bee nymphs of the Corycian Cave are named Melaina (Black One), Kleodôra (Famed for Her Gifts), and Daphnis (Laurel) or Corycia (Grk., Kôrukia, named for the cave). Daphnis was said to be the first prophetess of the oracle of Gaia at Delphi. Apollo says that when they are offered honey, the bee nymphs rave and give true prophecies.
These prophetic nymphs are perhaps the same as the “Thriai,” daughters of Zeus, whom Hesychius calls the first prophets. They invented divination using small stones or pebbles, which was the earliest form of divination in ancient Greece, for thriai is the word for pebble divination, and thriasthai means “to divine.” You might wonder, is this method of divination named for the nymphs, or are the nymphs the spirits of the pebbles and named for them? Another possibility is that the nymphs originally taught divination by leaves or petals (Grk., thria), and that the name of this form of divination came to be applied to other kinds of lots, including pebbles, and that the Thriai nymphs are the patrons of all these kinds of divination. No one knows.
There is an old story that Athena, the goddess of wisdom, learned pebble divination from the Thriai nymphs, or perhaps it is the other way around. Regardless, when Apollo was granted the exclusive right to know Zeus’s plans, he demanded that other forms of divination be made unreliable. Therefore, Athena discarded the thriai pebbles in a place since known as the Thriasian Plain (the region around Eleusis, where the Mysteries were celebrated). This is why the Pythia said, “Many are the pebble-casters (thrioboloi), but prophets are few.” No doubt she saw them as competition! Apollo learned prophecy from the bee nymphs when he was a shepherd on Mount Parnassus, which is the next story.
Pythian Apollo
Apollo is the archer god, ruler of the solar energies (which purify and reveal), lord of Delphi, patron of music and leader of the chorus of Muses (patrons of the arts and sciences), and a god of purification, clear thought, and wisdom. He is also the principal deity of oracles and divination. His twin sister, Artemis, is also an archer god, ruler of lunar energies (which nourish growth), virgin goddess of the chase, and the leader of a troupe of nymphs. The arrows of Apollo and Artemis symbolize the rays of the sun and moon, respectively. They are distant deities; they stand apart and shoot from afar. He has the epithet Hekatos and she has Hekatê, which come from hekas, meaning “far off.” Their mother is the gentle Titan goddess Leto, whose name refers to the heavenly darkness from which the twin lights are born. Together they are called the Delian Triad, as I shall explain.
When Leto was pregnant with Artemis and Apollo, she was driven out of every land, for Hera had declared that she could give birth nowhere on Mother Earth. (Hera was angry, naturally, because the father was Zeus, her husband.) When Leto came to Delphi, she was chased away by the monstrous serpent Pythôn, who was born from Gaia. He dwelled there with his wife, the dragoness Delphunê, where they guarded the Omphalos, the sacred stone marking the Earth’s navel. (The name “Delphi” is related to delphus, which refers to the womb.) They delivered oracles, as do oracular serpents in many sanctuaries of Earth goddesses.
After seven months, Leto came to Delos where she was able to give birth because it was a floating island unconnected to Earth; at Zeus’s command, four columns grew up through the sea from the roots of earth to anchor the island. Others say that the island appeared from beneath the sea, which is why it is called Dêlos, which means visible, manifest, clear to the mind (Apollonian attributes!). Leto was in labor for nine days, until Eileithuia, the birth goddess, was brought secretly to the island. Artemis was born first, on the sixth day after the new moon, which has been sacred to her ever since. It is said that she was born before her brother so she could midwife at his birth, which is why women in labor call on her. Leto grasped the holy palm tree, and a choir of snow white swans, sacred to the god, flew seven times around the island to herald Apollo’s birth, as is described in the Hymn to Apollo:
What force, what sudden impulse thus can make
The laurel-branch, and all the temple shake!
Depart ye souls profane; hence, hence! O fly
Far from this holy place! Apollo’s nigh;
He knocks with gentle foot; The Delian palm
Submissive bends, and breathes a sweeter balm:
Soft swans, high hov’ring catch the auspicious sign,
Wave their white wings, and pour their notes divine.
Ye bolts fly back; ye brazen doors expand,
Leap from your hinges, Phoibos is at hand!
—Callimachus (ca. 310/305–240 BCE), Hymn to Apollo,
adapted from a translation by H. W. Tytler (1793)
Apollo, then, was born at dawn on the seventh day, which is sacred to him. This was during the seventh month, Delphinios, which began with the new moon after the constellation Delphinus (the Dolphin) became visible in the morning. This month, which was the first after the winter solstice, contained festivals for Apollo Delphinios and Apollo Lukaios (Light Bringer). Pilgrims would plan their journeys to Delphi after Apollo returned in the following month, Bysios, when Delphinus became visible over the sheer cliffs east of Delphi.6
Leto fed the newborns on nectar and ambrosia so they became big and strong. Four days after his birth (gods grow quickly!), Apollo asked for a bow and arrows, and the Delian Triad went to Delphi to punish Pythôn. Cradled in his mother’s arms, he shot a golden arrow into the all-devouring creature of darkness, and then another, and a hundred gleaming arrows, flashing forth like the rays of the rising sun, and soon the dark dragon was dead. Some say Leto urged on her child (Ie, pai!), but others say it was the mountain nymphs who hailed him (Iê Ie Paian! using his name among the Mycenaean Greeks, “Paian”). In any case, he is thus invoked to this day, and their battle was reenacted in Delphic rituals. We find this myth in the Hymn to Apollo:
Now Iê! Ie Paian! rings around
As first from Delphi rose the sacred sound,
When Phoibos swift descending deigned to show
His heav’nly skill to draw the golden bow.
For when no mortal weapons could repel
Enormous Python horrible and fell,
From his bright bow incessant arrows flew,
And, as he rose, the hissing serpent flew.
Whilst Iê! Ie Paian! numbers cry,
Haste launch thy darts, for surely from the sky,
Thou came the great preserver of mankind,
As thy fair mother at thy birth designed.
—Callimachus (ca. 310/305–240 BCE), Hymn to Apollo,
adapted from a translation by H. W. Tytler (1793)
Apollo buried the corpse at the foot of Mount Parnassus and commanded it “Rot!” (Grk., Putheu!), and so it putrefied in the gentle heat of Helios the sun and was reduced to its essence, which returned to Mother Earth. (Alchemists will understand the significance of putrefaction.) Whenever the serpent stirs, Delphi feels the quaking earth. Some say the serpent is now called Pythôn (Grk., Puthôn) because of this putrefaction (Grk., puthein, to putrefy), and his original name might have been Delphunês (a masculine form of Delphunê). Delphi is also called Pythô after the serpent, and the Delphic prophetess is called the Pythia. She delivers her oracles while sitting astride a metal tripod over a cleft in the earth from which arise the prophecy-inspiring vapors (the pneuma Puthônos), which are also called Pythôn, for they are the spirit of the serpent. Apollo himself is called “the Pythian.” His gleaming arrows bring illumination and dispel darkness, but they are penetrating and can destroy.
Gaia complained to Zeus, and Apollo had to atone for killing her son Pythôn in the sacred precinct of Delphi. He was sent to the Vale of Tempe to serve King Admetos. When his purification was accomplished, he returned to Delphi wearing a laurel wreath and bearing a laurel wand, both from the sacred laurel tree in the Vale of Tempe. Thereafter he was known as Phoibos, the Pure. He taught mortals the healing songs called paeans (Grk., paian). He also inaugurated the Pythian Games in the serpent’s honor, enshrining its teeth and bones as relics in the cauldron on the Delphic tripod. The story shows that even a god must atone for shedding blood.
To learn the prophetic arts, Apollo sought out the Corycian nymphs and learned pebble divination from them. Since Apollo had killed Pythôn, he acquired the oracular site at Delphi from Themis and kept the Pythia as its prophetess. Lot divination continued to be used at Delphi until at least the time of Plutarch (ca. 46–120 CE), who was a lifetime priest there from 95 CE. He tells us that there was a bowl of thriai, and that before the Pythia sat astride her tripod and was ready to prophesy, the thriai would rattle. Others say it was the Pythôn’s teeth and bones that rattled in their cauldron; it amounts to the same thing.
The cauldron is an instrument of apotheosis, of rebirth into a divine state. The initiate is symbolically dismembered and boiled in order to be reborn as a prophet or seer (as in the Black Sea shamanic practices, which the Greeks learned in the seventh century BCE).7 In this way the prophetic Python was reborn in the Delphic tripod. By its means the Pythia is divinized and becomes the bride of Apollo, who impregnates her with his divine Ideas. The tripod is a celestial seat, which raises the priestess above the earthly realm, so she can survey both land and sea. Sometimes the Delphic tripod is depicted with wings, for it conveys the seeress through all the realms of heaven and earth. Some tripod cauldrons were fitted with hemispherical lids, some of which were decorated with stars and astronomical zones. Thus the tripod becomes a microcosm through which the seer surveys the macrocosm.
According to Homeric Hymn III, To Pythian Apollo, the god appeared as a dolphin (Grk., delphin) to some Cretan sailors and recruited them to build his first temple at Delphi and to become his priests. Pausanias informs us that the second temple was built by bees (Grk., melissai) out of beeswax and feathers. Apollo later sent this temple to Hyperborea, the land beyond the North Wind (Boreas), where he has his winter residence, for Apollo and Dionysos share Delphi, and Dionysos holds it in the three winter months, when the constellation Dolphin is not visible. Then Apollo ascends his swan-drawn chariot, given to him by Zeus, and journeys north to the Hyperboreans, who are holy people who suffer neither death nor disease. There the god delights in sacred festivals, with laurel-wreathed celebrants, maiden choirs, and music of flutes and lyres. Apollo’s garden is in Hyperborea, which can be reached by neither land nor sea unless Apollo shows the way. Three months later, when the Dolphin rises above the eastern mountains at dawn, choirs of Delphic youths chant a paean around the tripod, and the god ascends his chariot to return to Delphi, bringing song and prophecy. His golden lyre sings summer songs, while nightingales, swallows, and even cicadas sing their hymns to the god. The Castalian Spring flows with silver streams to purify the Pythia and her attendant priests.8
The Birth of Hermes
The other god who plays a major role in divination is Hermes, master of ingenuity, lord of barter, preeminent guide, boundary crosser, and interpreter (Grk., hermêneus). (The name of the corresponding Roman god, Mercurius, was explained as mentium currus, “mental activity.” 9 ) Therefore, Hermes is a god of clever speech, including eloquence, but also trickery and deceit: whatever works. He is a messenger for Zeus, communicating between Olympus and our world, and, as soul leader (Grk., psychopompos), he conducts souls into the underworld and back out, so we call on him when journeying to these realms. In addition to his winged shoes, by which he travels swiftly, he possesses the Cap of Hades, by which he becomes invisible, and a wand, the threefold caduceus, which represents the Cosmic Tree by which he can journey into the heavens or the underworld.10 Often he is accompanied by three nymphs or goddesses (and so he makes four, which is his number).
Whereas Apollo acts from afar, Hermes is suddenly present, giving uncanny guidance, arranging chance encounters and surprises, for better or worse. A hermaion is a windfall or god-sent bit of luck. Whenever a conversation is suddenly silent, we say Hermes has passed by. Apollo brings the bright clarity of day, but Hermes is at home in the night, when appearances are obscure, indistinct, confused, and changeable; when it is easy to become lost unless he appears and shows the way. For the night demands that we be more vigilant and perceptive, to peer into the darkness and be wary, to seek illumination, to be open to his aid. Out of the darkness the truth is revealed.
Hermes puts people to sleep and wakes them up with his golden wand; thus he is called “ruler of dreams” (Grk., hêgêtôr oneirôn). Hermes also brings these nocturnal surprises and transformations during the light of day, and so he became a god of mystery and magic. Therefore, in later times, Greeks and Romans understood Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth to be related aspects of the same god of magic and theurgy. As such, he is known as Hermes Trismegistus (“Thrice Greatest”) and credited with revealing or inspiring the Hermetic books.
Hermes’s mother is the nymph Maia, one of the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades, daughters of the Titans Atlas and Pleionê, daughter of Oceanus. She lived apart from the other Immortals in a cave on Mount Cyllene (Grk., Kullênê) in Arcadia. There, in the depths of night, she had her trysts with Zeus and soon was pregnant. After ten months, she gave birth to Hermes on the fourth day after the new moon, which has been sacred to him ever since. This was in the fourth month (called Hermaios in Argos), the first month after the fall equinox.11
Maia caressed the child, kissing and stroking him. He grew quickly and became strong. Soon he was able to stand up on his own and was looking for adventure. As Helios the sun, who sees all things, was setting on the day he was born, Hermes poked his way out of his swaddling clothes and went thieving.
Hermes found Apollo’s cattle in Pieria, where they were pastured. Since he desired the savor of meat, he cut fifty head from the herd and devised a clever plan to steal them. He drove the cattle backward and walked backward himself to confuse pursuers. He crafted sandals from bark so that he would make large, unrecognizable footprints. He drove the cattle hard through the night, fording the River Alpheos just as Helios arose in the east, and he hid the stolen herd in a spacious grotto near Pylos.
Baby Hermes selected the two best cattle for the first sacrifice. He slaughtered and skinned them, placing the skins on the rocks to dry. Using laurel for tinder, he made the first fire, divided the meat into twelve portions, and burned them for the gods. He enjoyed the savor of the burning fat, wafting toward heaven, but didn’t taste the meat, for gods don’t eat meat.
Then Hermes spied a tortoise crawling out of the cave and conceived a clever invention. He killed the tortoise and made the first lyre from its shell, stringing it with cow gut. As the evening of his second day approached, Hermes entertained himself on the lyre, celebrating his accomplishments. The next morning, he sneaked silently back to Mount Cyllene—as only Hermes can do—slipped through the keyhole like a mist or autumn breeze, wrapped himself in his swaddling clothes, and climbed into his cradle.
But Maia knew what he had been up to and scolded him. Hermes pleaded innocence, but he also promised his mother that he had a plan by which they could live as immortals among the Immortals on Olympus, rather than in a dismal cave.
As soon as Apollo discovered the theft of his cattle, he set out in pursuit. He was confused by the strange tracks, but he used his power of divination—specifically, reading the flight of birds—to find his way to the thief. Thus he came to Maia’s cave, where he accused the infant of theft. Hermes pretended to be an innocent baby and to know nothing of cattle, and so Apollo brought him before Zeus. He continued to protest his innocence, but Zeus, who knows everything, ordered him to lead Apollo to the cattle. All the gods, including Apollo, laughed at Hermes’s precocious cleverness and praised him for it.
The two sons of Zeus went to Pylos, where Apollo saw the ox hides drying in the sun. Hermes explained that he had sacrificed two cattle to the Twelve Olympian Gods.
“Twelve?” asked Apollo. “There are only eleven.”
“I am to be the twelfth,” Hermes modestly announced.
Apollo wondered that a tiny baby could do such a deed. “You do not need to grow any longer!” he said. He tried to restrain Hermes with strong bands, but they could not keep Hermes down, for they fell magically from the young god.
To soothe his older brother, Hermes pulled out his lyre and began to sing a hymn to the Immortals. Apollo was so enchanted by the lyre that he offered to trade the stolen cattle for it, to give Hermes the golden shepherd’s crook, and to make him keeper of herds. Hermes happily agreed and explained that one must have the proper knowledge and preparation for the lyre to answer pleasingly. (So also with divination!) Some say that Apollo increased the number of strings to seven from the four that Hermes had (seven and four being their special numbers). These seven strings represent the harmony of the seven planetary spheres, symbolized in the seven Greek vowels. Apollo’s gold plectrum symbolizes the rays of the sun, which evoke the music of the spheres. Hermes agreed never to steal anything else of Apollo’s, and in return Apollo gave him a golden three-branched magic wand capable of any task.
To amuse himself while he tended the herds, Hermes made a reed pipe (Grk., syrinx), which Apollo heard and desired very much. He offered Hermes whatever he might want, and the shepherd asked for the art of prophecy, for which Apollo was famous. Apollo said he could not grant this, for only Zeus knew his thoughts and plans, and Apollo had been granted the exclusive right to reveal them to mortals. He had sworn an inviolable oath to reveal the art to no one of gods or mortals. Instead, Apollo offered the divinatory art that he had practiced as a shepherd, but in the form of a riddle or enigma (Grk., ainigma).
“There are certain holy ones,” he said, “virgin sisters with wings, their hair dusted with pollen, who hum and swarm about. If Hermes seeks them out, he can learn this ancient art.” Were they the bee nymphs of the Corycian Cave under the ridge of Parnassus? Were they the same as the Thriai? We don’t know, but Apollodorus 12 says Apollo gave Hermes the art of pebble divination. Apollo further informed Hermes that the sisters must be offered honey in order to speak the truth, otherwise their prophecies would be unreliable.
Apollo granted Hermes permission to teach this art to mortals. If these holy sisters are approached with appropriate respect and wisdom, they will tell the truth, otherwise their responses will be unreliable. It is the same, Apollo explains, with the Delphic Oracle: if through preliminary divination Apollo reveals that a consultation is permitted, then it will be truthful. If an inquirer persists in consulting the oracle in spite of inauspicious omens, then the response will be unreliable. An important warning to keep in mind!
Hermes and Apollo are both riddlers. Apollo was called “Loxias,” which probably refers to his pronouncements being ambiguous and oblique (Grk., loxos). Delphic oracular verses are notoriously obscure. Greeks understood them to be a challenge to mortals to use their wits and wisdom to understand them correctly. Like Zen koans, they are enigmas (Grk., ainigmata) that act as spells—blessing or cursing their recipients according to how they are understood (more on this important topic later). Through their exchange of gifts, Apollo and Hermes became similar in bringing mortals both inspired divination and inspired poetry and song.
Now you know the story of how the bee nymphs first taught divination by pebbles, of how Pythian Apollo came to Delphi and became lord of prophecy, and of how Hermes learned divination by lots. Let’s move on to the divining, which this book will teach to you.
Methods of Divination
“Divination is at the heart of Greek religion.” 13 This is because, as the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus (ca. 279–ca. 206 BCE) explains, divination is the power to see, to understand, and to interpret the signs that the gods give to people.14 This is evident in the Latin word divinatio (divination), which comes from the same root as divinus (divine). Divination is not limited to predicting the future; thus, Homer sings of the famous seer:
Calchas, an augur foremost in his art,
Who all things, present, past, and future knew (Iliad I.70)
Often indeed, divination is intended to discover something about the past in order to illuminate the present. In this section, I will describe the various methods of divination used in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds.15
In his Phaedrus, Plato (ca. 428–348 BCE) might have been the first to distinguish two kinds of divination: natural and artificial. According to Plato, natural divination (also called intuitive or inspired) is superior, for through it the gods communicate directly to mortals. This is experienced as a kind of madness (Grk., mania, from the Indo-European root men, referring to mental power), which is why mantikê is the Ancient Greek word for divination, and mantis is the word for a diviner or seer. This is the sort of divination practiced by the Pythia, but also that in which we interpret those dreams that are sent by the gods. It is closely related to another kind of madness that comes from Apollo: the divine inspiration of poets and musicians. Oracles too are often expressed in verse, which indicates their divine origin, as does their obscurity.
Dream interpretation was commonly classified as natural divination, but there definitely was art involved in its practice. Artemidorus’s book of dream symbols still survives from the second century CE, but there were many others. The Neoplatonist Synesius (ca. 370–ca. 413 CE) wrote a treatise defending dream divination, but he thought that such dream books were useless, since dreams are so individual. In fact, as psychologist Carl Jung showed, there are common, archetypal symbols, but they take some analysis to interpret.
The other sort of divination, artificial (also, technical, inductive) depends on some learned technique or art (Grk., technê; Lat., ars). It depends on human skill and reason rather than on divine illumination, and therefore it is more fallible. We have seen this distinction already in the myth of Hermes’s birth, when he receives the divinatory art from Apollo, who reserved inspired prophecy for himself. In the divinatory arts, it is necessary to learn to read and interpret the signs, an error-prone process.
In practice, the distinction between natural and artificial divination is not so clear. On the one hand, natural divination usually requires some technique and skill. For example, a dream might be sent by the gods, but some skill is required to distinguish such dreams (which, Homer says, come through the Gate of Horn) from ordinary, mundane, insignificant dreams (which come through the Gate of Ivory).16 Second, skill is required to interpret the dreams, which is why the ancients had dream interpretation handbooks, as we still do today. Finally, while dreams might come unbidden, ritual and magical techniques can be used to seek an oracular dream, and there is definitely skill involved in these arts. There were certainly sophisticated ritual techniques deployed at the Asclepieia—the healing shrines of the god Asclepius—for seeking and interpreting the healing dreams. The Pythia also used specific techniques to enter her trance state, and there were elaborate rituals at other oracular shrines, such as the Oracle of Trophonius. Certainly, theurgy (rituals and practices for communing with gods and ascending to the divine) is a complex art.
On the other hand, the artificial divination techniques are not entirely a human enterprise. Typically, they involve a ritual to invoke Apollo or another god to bring a true oracle; the god’s presence is necessary for a successful divination. Moreover, wise diviners seek the god’s aid in finding the best interpretation of the signs. That is, they seek divinely inspired interpretations and do not depend on their own human wits alone.
In Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, the Titan god Prometheus—whose name means “Forethought”—informs us that he taught mortals to interpret dreams and to find omens in chance utterances, the flight of birds, the organs of sacrificed animals, and sacrificial fires. This might seem to contradict the myths about Apollo and Hermes, but I think it refers to the earlier history of divination, for Prometheus belongs to the older generation of Titans, who preceded the Olympian gods, such as Apollo, Hermes, Athena, and Zeus. According to some myths, Prometheus created humankind and was also the great human benefactor, bringing us fire and teaching many things, including the alphabet, numbers, agriculture, astronomy, medicine, and other arts and sciences. In particular, he taught mortals how to sacrifice to the gods, tricking Zeus into accepting the inedible parts so that people could keep the meat for themselves. Therefore, it is natural that he also taught us how to interpret the omens accompanying sacrifice, such as the condition of the victim’s internal organs and the behavior of the flames and smoke from the altar fire. These religious practices were well established before Apollo came to Delphi and Hermes acquired the divinatory arts from him.
Indeed, many divinatory arts may have their origin in omens accompanying sacrifice. When you make an offering to a god, it is natural to watch for signs that the god has accepted it. When you pour a wine libation on the altar fire and it flares up, the omen is auspicious. When you burn an incense offering, you look for signs the god has accepted it. And in ancient times, when an animal was sacrificed, specialists inspected its internal organs to divine the god’s reception of the offering. The liver was especially significant, because the ancients believed it was the source of blood, the seat of life, and the mirror in animals of the divine life force. The specialists in these kinds of divination—the haruspices (sing., haruspex)—also interpreted lightning and other ominous occurrences. No general would begin a battle without concurrence of the haruspices.
It is an easy path from observing the omens that accompany a sacrifice and indicate its success to performing a sacrifice for the sake of the omens that accompany it. For example, in ancient times it was customary to make offerings to the nymphs at their sacred springs. As people prayed, they tossed coins, medals, gemstones, cakes, and other small objects into the springs and watched for signs that they were accepted: if it sank, the offering was welcome. They also paid attention to the sound and ripples when it hit the water, and watched as it sank. These omens hinted at whether the prayer would be answered. From this, it is a small step to cast an object into the spring while praying for advice or for the answer to a query, and then to observe its behavior as a sign from the nymphs. The sign could be the side on which a coin landed, giving a positive or negative response. Casting dice or astragaloi could answer more complicated queries. As you have learned, such divination was performed at the Corycian Cave on Mount Parnassus.
Divination at sacred springs may have developed into bowl divination (lecanomancy, from Grk. lekanê, “dish,” and manteia, “divination”), a common method in the ancient world.17 Rather than conducting the rite at the sacred spring, a jug of its water could be poured in a dish. We know that the ancients sometimes divined by casting dice, astragaloi, or stones into dishes of water. Lots were also drawn, without looking, from such bowls. What happens if you are fresh out of water from a sacred spring? In this case you can invoke a deity into any dish of water before casting the lots into it. We have invocations to do this from the Greek Magical Papyri.18
Scrying might have a similar origin. At a sacred spring you can observe the ripples in the water to discern the nymphs’ response, or peer more deeply into the depths to observe images and other signs. The same can be done in a consecrated dish of water, but other liquids are also used, such as ink. Or you can dribble a little oil in the water and scry in the resulting patterns. Orpheus, who attached cosmic significance to the egg, wrote a lost book Ooscopy, which we know from descriptions of the book to be divination by scrying the forms assumed by egg white when dropped into hot water; it is practiced to this day. The ancient Greeks also scried in other reflective objects, such as mirrors and the polished blades of swords and daggers. Crystal gazing commonly used beryls of various colors. Ancient scriers often placed a candle or oil lamp so its light reflected in a bowl or mirror. They might also scry directly in the candle or lamp flame, which is akin to divining from the sacrificial altar fire.
Pausanias (second century CE) tells us that at a certain Oracle of Demeter a sick person could find out their fate. The querent lowered a mirror into a sacred spring until it just touched the surface. After burning incense and praying, the mirror was withdrawn and on its surface would be an image of the sufferer, either dead or alive.
As you can see, the ancients used many different media for divination. In another lost work, the scholar Marcus Varro (116–27 BCE) classified divination systems according to the four elements, earth, water, air, and fire. Hydromancy (water divination) includes, of course, divination in sacred pools and bowls. Empyromancy (fire divination) includes scrying in a candle, lamp, or other flame, but also observing how objects behave when they are burned, such as how they sizzle or crack in an altar fire. Earth divination (geomancy) depends on the power of the earth and includes the observation of oracular snakes; this might have been the practice when Pythôn still lived at Delphi. Finally, air divination (aeromancy) includes taking the auspices—observing the flight, calls, and other behavior of birds—but also observing lightning, clouds, smoke from incense or altar fires, and how barley, flour, or other materials behave when thrown in the air.
Roman auspicium refers primarily to the observation of birds (from Lat. avis, “bird,” and specio, “to look at”), but also to lightning and other aerial phenomena. Such omens might be sought (technically termed impetrative) or come unbidden (oblative). The diviner (called an auspex) might also seek auspices by observing how eagerly the sacred chickens ate their feed! They also noted unsought omens from the way quadrupeds fed and from unusual, ominous occurrences. In ancient times, the auspices were taken only to ascertain the gods’ concurrence with the timing of an action, and pertained to one day. If the outcome was inauspicious, you could try again the next day. To ascertain both the timing and the advisability of the action, the Romans resorted to augury, which was closely related, but the province of specialist augurs. They assisted in establishing temples and installing priests, which is where we get our word “inaugurate.”
Birds were also important in ancient Greek divination. The same word (oiônos) was used for any large bird of prey, for divination by means of them, and by extension for all kinds of divination. Due to their ability to fly and speak, birds are important messengers between mortals and gods. Birds are supposed to know all languages, and many legendary seers could understand the language of birds. Moreover, shamans use feathers and bird costumes for their ritual ascents, and Greek “healer-seers” (iatromanteis; sing. iatromantis) learned shamanic techniques after the Greeks established trade with the Black Sea in the seventh century BCE. Many myths, including Hermes’s birthday escapade, can be interpreted as shamanic journeys.19 For example, the legendary Latin king Picus (Lat. for “Woodpecker”) was turned into a woodpecker by the witch Circe (Grk., Kirkê, a feminine form of kirkos, a wheeling hawk or falcon), after which he delivered oracles. He is described wearing the ritual garb of an augur, so perhaps the woodpecker was his familiar. (There is an interesting parallel in the bee nymphs, who may have divined by the flight and buzzing of bees; the Pythia was called “the Delphic Bee.”)
The Sanctuary of Zeus at Dodona is perhaps the oldest Greek oracle (ca. 2000 BCE). Three priestesses called “Doves” prophesied and interpreted the splashing of the sacred spring, the rustling leaves of the Sacred Oak, and the behavior of oracular doves. Staff at the oracle would give a thin lead tablet to a querent, who would scratch their question into the tablet. Then they rolled it up and scratched their initials on the outside. In trance, a Dove would pull each rolled tablet out of a jug, read aloud the initials, and pronounce the answer to the question without unrolling it. Hundreds of these tablets have been found.
A common method of divination made use of chance utterances (Grk., klêdones), which could be understood as omens or oracles from the gods. These might come unbidden, but there are techniques for obtaining them. For example, Pausanias tells us that in the middle of the marketplace at Pharai (in Achaia, Greece) there was an oracle in the form of a herm, a four-sided pillar surmounted by a bust of Hermes.20 There was a stone hearth in front of it and bronze oil lamps on both sides. Querents would come at nighttime, pray for an oracle, burn some incense on the altar, fill and light the lamps, and place a copper coin to the right of the image. After whispering their question in Hermes’s ear, they covered their own ears, left the marketplace, uncovered their ears, and took the first words they heard as an oracle. Hermes is the appropriate god as the patron of merchants and wayfarers, but also a god of chance and the lucky accident. This simple method (called cledonomancy, but don’t bother remembering it) was practiced in many places.
Diogenes Laertius (third century CE) tells us that Pittacus, one of the Seven Sages, was consulted by a man who couldn’t decide which of two women to marry. Pittacus pointed his staff at children spinning tops some distance away and said, “They will give you a message; follow their track.” When the man approached, he heard them saying, as they whipped their tops, “Drive your own!” The man interpreted this to mean that he should marry the woman of his own class and not the one of higher station. The Greek words, however, are ambiguous and enigmatic, like most oracles. We don’t even know what the phrase meant in the context of the children’s game, for it could be telling the other children to keep to their own tops, or it could be encouraging the top to follow its own path (the usual meaning of the Greek phrase, which is proverbial) as it spins and wanders about. It might be a sort of ritual or magical command to keep it spinning. Nor is it coincidental that Pittacus directed the querent toward children whipping tops, for spinning tops and disks are traditional instruments of love magic, as is whipping. Moreover, after the top is whipped fiercely, it wanders indecisively, first one way, then another, like the querent in this case. More generally, spinning tops are symbols of the celestial spheres and the Spindle of Destiny, so it is unsurprising they are used for divination and invoking gods.21
These synchronistic utterances can be understood as a divine pronouncement (klêdôn, phêmê, omphê) granted in answer to prior prayer. Indeed, as the bringers of oracles, Klêdôn was sometimes worshipped as a god and Phêmê as a goddess, with their own sanctuaries, altars, priests, and sacrifices. They are also aspects of oracular gods, including Hermes, Apollo, Athena, and Zeus.
The mystic, mage, and healer-seer Pythagoras (sixth century BCE), who stands at the origin of the Western spiritual and philosophical tradition, practiced cledonomancy, hydromancy, augury, and numerology. Once he was visited by Abaris, a priest-magician of Apollo from Hyperborea, “the land beyond the North Wind,” who used his golden dart to travel around the world, including Greece. Some scholars believe that he came from Central Asia, perhaps Tibet, and that his “dart” was a phurba (Sanskrit, kîla), the Indo-Tibetan ritual dagger.22 On the other hand, Hecataeus of Abdera (ca. 360–290 BCE) identified Hyperborea with Britain, and said the Hyperboreans had a circular temple (Stonehenge?) where they worshipped Apollo, so perhaps he was a Druid. In any case, Pythagoras and Abaris instructed each other in their Mysteries. Abaris gave his dart to Pythagoras, and Pythagoras taught Abaris divination by numbers, for the inner circle of Pythagoreans were vegetarians and rejected animal sacrifice. Moreover, divination by numbers is more spiritual and less materialistic than divination from entrails, and so it is more suited to spiritual adepts. Unfortunately, we do not know what method Pythagoras used, but it’s highly unlikely to be the sort of “Pythagorean numerology” taught nowadays. The divination systems you will learn from this book can be consulted by means of numbers.
The ancients also practiced pendulum divination, in the simplest case to answer yes-or-no questions. Usually they used a finger ring hanging from a cord for their pendulums. (Rings symbolize the manifestation of eternity in the material world; they are receptive of divine power.) For a more complex question, they might hold the pendulum in a bowl with the alphabet inscribed around the rim. The pendulum would move from letter to letter (like the planchette on a Ouija® board) spelling out, for example, the name of the next emperor (which didn’t make you popular with the current emperor). A related method, which was popular in ancient Greece but is still used today, is sieve divination, in which a wooden sieve is held between the blades of a pair of scissors. The answer is read from the way the sieve turns.
Divination by icons is similar. After praying for an answer, the querent lifts a small statue of the god or a sacred stone near it; if it is easy to lift, the answer is favorable, but if it pulls the arm down, unfavorable. A sacred icon can give the sensitive mantis an answer in other ways, such as appearing to nod, smile, speak, shine, sweat, or exhibit other changes.
Astrology was, of course, practiced in ancient Greece and Rome, and astrological timing was used in magical operations, but it does not seem to have been especially popular as a method of divination. Palmistry was practiced on similar principles, discerning trines, squares, and other aspects in the lines of the palm. Necromancy (divination by communication with the dead) does not seem to have been important in ancient Greece or Rome outside of literary depictions.
Cleromancy
Let’s turn now to cleromancy, the kind of divination you will learn in this book. (You will be a cleromancer!) The term comes from the Greek word klêros, which means “lot,” and cleromancy is thus divination by casting or drawing lots. The Latin word for “lot” is sors (plural, sortes), and so the Latin word for one who draws (legere) lots is sortilegus. From it we have the English word “sortilege” for drawing or casting lots and “sortileger” for one who practices this art.
Many varieties of cleromancy were used in ancient Greece and Rome. Pebbles, stones, dice, and astragaloi might be cast into sacred springs, bowls of liquids, or dice trays. Stones, clay balls, beans, or inscribed objects (stones, wooden staves, thin metal leaves) were drawn from bowls, jars, or other containers (sometimes filled with water), or shaken out of them.
Sortilege was practiced at many of the shrines that are known primarily for inspired divination. There is no archaeological evidence that it was practiced at Delphi, but astragaloi and dice are found in the Corycian Cave, just seven miles away. We are also told that at Delphi the pebbles in a bowl above the tripod rattled before the Pythia was brought in to prophesy. It was perhaps a preliminary divination to determine the god’s willingness to speak through her. We also read that the “two-bean method of divination” (some kind of lot drawing) was conducted at Delphi. Plutarch tells of a situation in which several men wanted to be king of Thessaly, so each marked his name on a bean and put it in a jug, which was sent to Delphi. The Pythia drew a bean from the jug and thus decided the king. Cleromancy might have provided a less expensive or more accessible means of divination than consulting the Pythia, for she prophesied only on the seventh day of the nine non-winter months, when Apollo resided at Delphi, and consultants had to offer a sheep (expensive!). Astragaloi and dice are found among the ruins of many temples, and so we assume cleromancy was practiced at them.
Inspired or venerated texts, such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid, are used for book divination (bibliomancy). With your eyes closed, open one of those books to a random page and put your finger on a random line. That is your oracle. A related technique is the Homer Oracle, which lists the 216 throws of three dice, with a line from Homer for each one. You throw the dice and the corresponding Homeric verse is your oracle. Other collections of oracles, such as the Sibylline Oracles, were consulted by casting lots. In Chapter 5, you will learn a similar art, the Oracle of the Seven Sages.
The Sortes Astrampsychi (Lots of Astrampsychus) dates to the second century CE and is known from several papyri from the third to sixth centuries and from later manuscripts. It is a system of divination, supposedly from Astrampsychus, an ancient Egyptian sage or Persian magus, who credits the work to Pythagoras. It took the form of two books and a table. From a book of ninety-two questions, querents selected the one that best expressed their query. Next, the gods led them to pick a number from one to ten. An arithmetical procedure combined the two and used the table to find an appropriate answer in the second book. (An English translation is now available.23 )
Cicero recounts a story told in the annals of the city Praeneste (modern Palestrina, Italy). A certain Numerius Suffustius was plagued by dreams urging him to go to a certain place and split open a flint rock. Eventually the dreams became threatening, and so, in spite of the laughter of others, he went to the place, found the rock, and broke it open. Out fell a number of oak tablets inscribed in ancient characters (presumably the archaic Roman alphabet). These were the Sortes Numerii (Lots of Numerius), also known as the Sortes Praenestinae (Praenestine Lots). The place was declared sacred, and a statue of the infants Jupiter and Juno in the lap of Fortuna was erected by it. When the lots were found, a nearby olive tree began to exude honey, and the soothsayers declared that an arc or chest for the tablets should be made of the olive wood. A temple of Fortuna was built where the olive tree had been; it eventually became one of the largest sanctuaries in Italy (it’s still there). Consultation of the oracle was permitted only if the Fortuna statue agreed by nodding her head. Then, the lots would be taken out, shuffled, and a child would draw them. It is unknown whether the lots contained whole sentences, single words, or perhaps just letters, which would have to be arranged. Many thankful inscriptions from consultants of the oracle survive to this day.
The details in the story are not coincidental. The lots came out of a stone, which connects them with Gaia, but they were made of oak, which connects them with divination (recall the Sacred Oak of Zeus at Dodona, which gave oracles). The olive tree exuded honey, which is connected with divination, as you have seen. Finally, when ancient Greeks drew lots, they sometimes put an olive leaf in the jug, because the olive is good luck.
According to Suetonius, the Emperor Tiberius (42 BCE–37 CE) was afraid of divination (explained in the next section) and ordered all the oracles destroyed. He commanded that the Sortes Praenestinae be sealed in their arc and brought to him, but when the arc was opened, it was found to be empty. When it was returned to the temple, the lots miraculously reappeared in the arc. The oracle was closed by the Christian Emperors Constantine (272–337 CE) and Theodosius I (347–395 CE), never to reopen.
Pausanias described a shrine of Heracles in a grotto by the Boura River in Achaea, Greece.24 Inside was a statue of Heracles with a large number of astragaloi nearby. After praying, you picked up four and cast them on a table. There was an engraved tablet that gave the meaning for each combination of astragaloi. The method of consulting these oracles was probably similar to the Hermes of Pharai described earlier. Perhaps too there were local oracle interpreters hanging around to explain the oracle’s meaning—for a price! This grotto still existed as late as 1817, but it was obliterated by an earthquake in 1898. Fortunately, similar oracular tablets survive from other shrines; Nollé lists twenty-one in various states of completeness, most dating from the second century CE.25 The most common form uses five astragaloi, for which there are fifty-six possible throws (interestingly, the number of minor arcana in the tarot). These were commonly inscribed on the four sides of a stone pillar, six feet high and two feet wide. Sometimes they took the form of a herm, the characteristic bust of Hermes atop a four-sided pillar, because four is the sacred number of Hermes, who was born on the fourth day of the fourth month. The oracles are in the first person, and it seems that Apollo is the speaker. Hermes is involved for several reasons. He is the patron of travelers and merchants, but, as you know, he is also involved in cleromancy, as appropriate for the god of chance and good luck. Here he seems to function as Apollo’s prophet and messenger (another of Hermes’s offices). A prayer accompanying one astragalos oracle confirms his role:
Thou, Muses’ servant, Hermes, god, Apollo’s seer,
Hail, well-spoken Zeus’ and Maia’s son, my guide,
Reveal to me divine decrees in oracles.26
Closely related are the alphabet oracles, which are stone tablets (typically from three to five feet high) inscribed with twenty-four verse oracles, each of which begins with one of the twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet in order. By some (unknown) process of drawing or casting lots (perhaps like rune casting), a letter was chosen, and the corresponding oracle was the answer to the query. I won’t say more about the Alphabet Oracle here, since it is the subject of Part II, where you will learn how to use it.
Theory of Divination
In this section, I will say a little about how our Pagan ancestors understood divination. Although you don’t need to know this to use the systems in this book, the information you will learn will help you to improve your practice. As with any tools, you will be able to use them more effectively if you understand a little about how they work.
I will begin with the simplest explanation of divination, which is probably the way most of our Pagan ancestors understood it. The gods care for humankind and often answer our prayers (when it accords with their plans). For example, Prometheus, who created humans, has been our benefactor—bringing us fire, for example. In Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, he recalls how ignorant people were at first, how “beholding, they beheld in vain,/ And hearing, heard not.” 27 Therefore,
I made them wise and true in aim of soul!—
And I will tell you—not as taunting them,
But teaching you the intention of my gift.
Among many other arts, he taught us divination: “I fixed the various rules of mantic art,” he says, and proceeds to describe a few of them.
Clearly, divination will be most successful if accompanied by a sincere petition to the gods. This may be accompanied by a vow to be fulfilled if the god helps you out. Of course, you should fulfill your vow, or you’re asking for trouble! Think about that before you make your vow!
The ancient Stoic philosophers worked hard to understand divination, for they said that the efficacy of divination proves the existence of the gods, and the existence of the gods implies that they will aid us through divination. The Stoic Chrysippus (ca. 279–ca. 206 BCE) defined divination as “the power to see, to understand, and to interpret the signs that are given to humans by the gods.” 28 This power is a consequence of the universe being a harmonious whole. As Marcus Aurelius (IV.130) says,
Always think of the cosmos as one living being,
having one substance and one soul, …
and how intertwined is the fabric
and how closely woven the web.29
This fabric or web is a spirit (Grk., pneuma) that pervades the cosmos, just as a spirit pervades each of us, which integrates all the parts into one. This is manifested by a cosmic sympatheia, a sympathy, concord, or mutual affinity by which everything affects everything else. Therefore, the intentions and actions of the gods are mirrored throughout the universe and can affect, in particular, the casting or drawing of lots. Through divination, Stoics seek to discern the Providence of the gods, so that by living in conscious accord with it, they fulfill their individual destinies in the divine plan.
The Stoic Posidonius (135–51 BCE) explained that there are three ways by which dreams can reveal hidden truths.30 First, since the human soul is divine, being made of the same incorporeal substance as the gods, it has the same visionary powers as they do, but these powers are obscured and confounded by the soul’s entanglement with the body. When the soul is loosened from the body in sleep, however, it recovers some of its divine powers and can see more clearly. (The same happens when people are near death or in trance.) Second, the air is pervaded by daimons, which are spirits who mediate between gods and mortals, in particular, facilitating communication. When the sleeper’s soul is free of the body, it is better able to communicate with the daimons who are the messengers (Grk., angeloi, “angels”) of the gods. Third, the gods may speak to us directly, for that is their power. Although this is Posidonius’s explanation of prophetic dreams, it is applicable to other kinds of divination as well. It suggests that our divinations will be more successful if we do them in a meditative state, focusing inward and away from our bodies and the visible world. Invite the gods or their assistant daimons to bring the knowledge you seek.
The Neoplatonic philosophers developed the most complete and sophisticated theory of divination.31 “Neoplatonism” is the name that modern philosophers give to the new direction in Platonic philosophy first taught by Plotinus (204–270 CE). Neoplatonic spiritual practices center around theurgy, a kind of spiritual magic directed toward direct communion with the gods, and so divination is an essential practice for Neoplatonists.
To understand the role of divination in Neoplatonism and to use it to improve your skill in the art, I will have to explain a little about Neoplatonic philosophy. In addition to the ordinary, mundane world, in which everything is changing, both coming to be but also passing away, Neoplatonists are aware of another realm or plane of reality: the realm of the Platonic Forms, which are eternal, unchanging Ideas that exist independently of individual minds. Think of mathematical objects such as the perfect Circle or numbers such as One and Two. They are unchanging and eternal, unlike objects in this world. Our physical circles are inevitably imperfect images of Circle, and of course physical circles must be created and will eventually decay. Since a mind is composed of ideas, the sum total of Platonic Ideas makes up a sort of eternal Cosmic Mind. The material universe, in contrast, is the Cosmic Body.
More important for our purposes is the fact that the gods also reside in the Platonic realm. They may be considered the eternal Forms or Ideas of certain powers, energies, or patterns of action. The traditional myths about the gods hint at their nature, but cannot fully comprehend it. Neoplatonists treat these myths as enigmas, which must be solved by allegorical interpretation in order to understand the nature of the gods.
Like the Stoics, Neoplatonists perceive an all-pervading harmony in the Cosmos; Pythagoras coined the Greek word kosmos to refer to order and harmonious beauty. All of the Platonic Ideas—and thus all the gods—collectively create a divine Providence governing our world. This is in spite of the fact the gods may disagree with each other and even strive against each other. In fact, this contrast of their natures and intentions is necessary for our world to exist. (The ancient philosopher Empedocles [ca. 490–ca. 430 BCE]—who first explained the four elements—said all things come to be through Love and Strife, the powers of union and division, the yin and yang of ancient Greek philosophy.)
This principle of unity, this principle by which any thing is one thing, Neoplatonists call The Inexpressible One (To Arrhêton Hen). It is inexpressible because it cannot be described in words. This in turn is because, as the ultimate principle of unity, it is beyond duality, and therefore beyond is and is not. The only way to know it is by a process of mystical union, which is one of the goals of Neoplatonic theurgy. The Greek word arrhêton can also be translated “ineffable” and “unspeakable,” and can refer to the ancient Mysteries, about which it is unlawful to speak. The Inexpressible One is not a personal god, such as monotheists believe in; all the personal gods reside at the level of the Platonic Ideas.
We live in a world of time and space, but the Platonic realm is immaterial and eternal; it is outside of time and space. (The geometric Circle is not merely perpetual; it is literally timeless.) Now it is a principle of Neoplatonic philosophy that whenever opposites are joined, there must be some mediating element to make them a unity, a mediator that shares something with each of the opposites. Therefore, joining the Cosmic Mind and the Cosmic Body is a mediating spirit, the Cosmic Soul or Anima Mundi. It brings the timeless, spaceless Ideas into manifestation in space and time. The Cosmic Soul is often understood as a goddess—usually Hekatê or Isis—who is impregnated by the Ideas in the Cosmic Mind and gives birth to physical forms and embodied ideas in the material world (the Cosmic Body). She gives the Ideas substance and material existence. She turns being into becoming.
Because they reside in the Platonic realm, the gods are universal forces, and not so concerned with us as individuals (although their energies certainly affect our attitudes and actions). We are very much enmeshed in space and time, materially embodied, but the gods are not. Therefore, there are mediating spirits between them and us. They are eternal and immaterial like the gods, but nevertheless embedded in space and time like us. The ancient Greeks called them daimons. Because of their existence in space and time they are able to interact with us, to hear us and to communicate to us. Thus they are effective mediators between the gods and us; as the wise woman Diotima in Plato’s Symposium says, a daimon is:
A power that interprets and conveys to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of mortals, and to mortals the commands and rewards of the gods; and this power spans the chasm that divides them, and in this all is bound together, and through this the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all prophecy and incantation, find their way.32
When we think we are communicating with a god, usually we are communicating with one of their daimons, which is okay, since that is their job in the Cosmic Bureaucracy. In particular, it is daimons who assist in our divinations. (It should be apparent that there is nothing demonic about daimons—that is a Christian slander!—they are the rightful assistants of the gods.) Our individual souls are also daimonic and are part of the Cosmic Soul.
In summary, these are the planes of reality, from top down: (1) The Inexpressible One; (2) the Cosmic Mind, where the gods reside, Heaven or Olympus; (3) the Cosmic Soul, which we can think of as the air where the daimons reside; and (4) the Cosmic Body, earth, where we mortals spend most of our time. Of course, these planes are metaphorical, for all these realms exist everywhere simultaneously.
Neoplatonists understand that there are chains, lines, or lineages (Grk., seirai), originating in The One, that bind the planes of reality together. They are like rays of emanation by which The One imparts identity on the Ideas, which through the mediation of the Cosmic Soul give form, being, and life to material things, including us. Therefore, everything in the material world is in the lineage of some god; it is a manifestation of that god’s energy, and therefore a symbol (Grk., symbolon; Lat., signum) by which that god can be invoked, if we learn the correspondences. Through theurgy, we can use these chains to ascend toward the gods. Therefore, Neoplatonists understand that there are vertical lines of sympathy in addition to the horizontal lines recognized by Stoics.
Neoplatonists distinguish inspired (or natural) divination from artificial methods of divination. Inspired divination uses symbolic correspondences and vertical sympathies to attune the seer’s soul to the god’s energy. The mantis communes with the god by means of supra-rational, intuitive part of the soul, which ancient Greeks called the nous (pronounced “noose”). The individual’s nous is the image in the individual microcosm of the Cosmic Mind (Nous) in the macrocosm. Inspired divination is thus direct illumination from the gods (or their daimons), but it may be difficult to express or interpret in words, for these are rational processes that are lower than the nous. This is why at Delphi there were “prophets” to interpret the Pythia’s oracles. In Greek, a prophêtês is one who speaks (phêmi) on behalf of (pro) another. Inspired divination is the most direct kind of divination and the most beneficial. Iamblichus tells us that only divine divination (theia mantikê) allows us to participate in the divine life, experiencing the gods’ foreknowledge and noetic understanding of the Ideas.33 In this way, we experience divine benevolence.
Artificial divination, in contrast, depends on some teachable and learnable art. It makes use of skilled observation, language, discursive reason, conjecture, and interpretation. These are faculties of the nonintuitive, rational mind, which thinks sequentially in time. It is more horizontally focused than vertically. It depends on fallible human thinking rather than on direct insight from the gods. In these respects, it is inferior to inspired divination.
Nevertheless, as Iamblichus explains, the objects observed or manipulated in artificial divination are in the lineages of gods and are symbols of them.34 Moreover, artificial divination is often conducted in a ritual context, which invokes the gods, and uses consecrated tools for divination. Therefore, the gods are present, both to guide the fall of the lots and to guide our interpretation of them. Further, divining in a contemplative and mindful manner puts the diviner in a meditative state, opening them to inspiration from the gods. Therefore, while artificial divination relies more on art than does inspired divination, they are both directed to the same end: communion with gods and daimons.
In divinization by lots, the element of chance invites the gods to intervene in our world. The outcome is undetermined and can go in different ways; which way it goes is left in the laps of the gods. Therefore, it is a communication from the gods, in their symbolic language, and the subsequent interpretation completes the transmission of the message from the divine to the human world. Chance creates the bridge between the worlds, and divination is thus a dialogue between gods and mortals. In Cicero’s book On Divination, his brother Quintus explains that when a meaningful discourse arises from lots drawn by chance, it is by the will of the gods, and “among all people the interpreters of such lots are nearest to divinity.” 35
The objective of divination is happiness or well-being, in Greek: eudaimonia, which is literally to have a flourishing inner daimôn (soul). Iamblichus claims that the only way to achieve this is through knowledge (gnôsis) of the gods, by which we can align our wills with theirs. Our souls are in tune with the greater cosmic harmony. In this way, we free ourselves from the bonds of blind fate and manifest the goodness of the gods. Through self-knowledge we become more godlike, which is the ultimate goal of theurgy.
With gnôsis of the gods, there follows a turning toward ourselves and gnôsis of ourselves.36
Paradoxically, the gods’ concern for our spiritual development explains the enigmatic character of their oracles. Certainly, it was common opinion in the ancient world that oracles were obscure and ambiguous. Heraclitus (ca. 540–ca. 480 BCE) said that the god in Delphi neither speaks plainly nor hides, but “signifies.” Like Apollo and Nature herself, Pythagoras conveyed his wisdom in short enigmatic sayings, called “symbols” (symbola), which are like tiny seeds, which must be cultivated to bring forth fruit, or like embers of truth, which must be tended until they burn bright and illuminate the soul.37 The Emperor Julian (who temporarily restored Paganism in the Roman Empire, 361–363 CE) said that the gods make the oracles obscure so that we learn to use our own wits, to inquire into philosophy, and not to trust blindly the opinions of others. The gods reveal the truth, says Iamblichus, when it will benefit us, but withhold it when the uncertainty will lead to our greater moral development. The Neoplatonist Porphyry (ca. 234–ca. 305 CE), who wrote Philosophy from Oracles, said that oracles are enigmas (ainigmata) to hide their meaning from the profane and uninitiated, for whom they would be worse than useless. They must be read properly—allegorically and symbolically—to reveal their true meaning. Plato said that oracles must be solved, like riddles. They encourage the particular dialectical process that is, according to Plato, the means by which we ascend to The One. Like koans, paradoxical oracles defeat our rational minds. To solve them we must work with them symbolically, contemplating their allegorical meaning, exercising their symbols, until we grasp them noetically (in one’s nous). This is how you are initiated into the Mysteries, which cannot be expressed in words but must be transmitted in symbols. Therefore, we should not despair at the ambiguity and obscurity of the oracles. Rather, we should welcome them as challenges through which we win the benevolence of the gods. They are spells that transform our souls.
Divination is akin to magic. Or, to put it in Neoplatonic terms, divination is a part of theurgy, the arts by which we come into contact with the gods and consciously realize the destiny of the world and ourselves. Through divination the gods reveal potencies and potentialities (Grk., dynamis; Lat., potentia) in which we may participate. The process of actualizing these powers, this destiny, of manifesting their energies as actuality (Grk., energeia; Lat., actus), begins with interpretation of the oracle or omen. Prior to interpretation, the meaning of the oracle is open, though constrained by the signs.
This is why in ancient times prophets and lay people might compete to find the best interpretation of an oracle, and why emperors didn’t like someone divining about their death or successor! The most famous example is the story of Oedipus and the Sphinx, in which the price of failure is, as is often the case, death. Other examples are the divination contest of Mopsus and Calchas, and the ancient Contest of Homer and Hesiod, in which Hesiod challenged Homer with a series of riddles (a legend, for they did not live at the same time). Finally, there is the competition among the Seven Sages to interpret the Delphic oracle concerning the Tripod of Helen, about which you will learn in Chapter 8.
Once an oracle’s meaning is expressed in words and accepted, the potentials begin to collapse into one possibility. Therefore, it is important to formally reject the worst interpretations and to consciously and explicitly accept the best, thus manifesting the benevolence of the gods. Thus the wise mantis does not so much predict the future as guide it.
Once the oracle’s meaning has been accepted, the oracle (Grk., chrêsmos; Lat., oraculum) and its meaning become talismans—magical instruments to facilitate and reinforce its actualization. Thus divination blends seamlessly into magic. The oracle can be embodied in a concrete talisman (as explained in Chapter 6) in order to strengthen the manifestation of the oracle’s interpretation. Indeed, the ancients called omens and oracles “symbols” (symbola) because they are manifestations in our world of the power of the gods. As symbols, they can be used as vehicles of contemplation, theurgy, and magic to connect us with the gods.
Therefore, ancient philosophers collected oracles and used them in philosophy and theurgy. In fact, some scholars think one of the first uses of the alphabet was to record oracles.38 Someone who collects oracles is called a chrêsmologos, and the corresponding (art of) divination from them is chrêsmologikê (technê).39 The most famous oracle collection is the Chaldean Oracles (second century CE), which resulted from the divination of Julian the Theurgist and his father, Julian the Chaldean. These oracles were central to the theurgy of Iamblichus, Proclus, and other Neoplatonists. Other collections of oracles circulated, or were kept under wraps to prevent their misuse. According to Suetonius, Emperor Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE) had two thousand books of oracles burned in one day! Books of Orphic Oracles circulated, said to have come from the legendary mystic and religious reformer, Orpheus. The Bakic Oracles (eighth–sixth centuries BCE) were attributed to several different prophets named Bakis, one of whom was supposed to have learned divination from the Corycian nymphs. The oracles of Musaeus were collected during the reign of Peisistratus at Athens (561–527 BCE). The Roman senate and emperors kept tight control of their Sibylline Books (Libri Sibyllini), Greek oracles collected from the ten Sibyls, inspired prophetesses from around the Mediterranean. None of these books survive complete. On the other hand, we do have the ancient Text of the Alphabet Oracle and The Oracle of the Seven Sages, both of which you will learn in this book (and therefore become a chrêsmologos!).
4. There are many different versions of these myths, and scholars differ on some matters, such as the Thriai. The following stories are drawn primarily from Homeric Hymn III, To Pythian Apollo, and Homeric Hymn IV, To Hermes both in Evelyn-White translation of Hesiod, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936), Apollodorus’s The Library translated by James G. Frazer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921, III.10), and Kerényi, The Gods of the Greeks (London: Thames & Hudson, 1979, X.1). Kerényi’s Apollo (Dallas, TX: Spring, 1983) and Hermes (Dallas, TX: Spring, 1995) contain deep insights into the nature of Apollo and Hermes, respectively; Karl Kerényi (1897–1973) was a student of the Neopagan scholar Walter Otto (1874–1958). Additional information is from Fowler, Early Greek Mythography II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 81–83; Gantz, Early Greek Myth (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 37–38, 87–88; Keightley, The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy (London: George Bell & Sons, 1896), 100–124; and Otto, The Homeric Gods (New York: Pantheon, 1954), 104–124. On bees and nymphs, see also Cook, “The Bee in Greek Mythology,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 15 (1895): 1–24; Larson, Greek Nymphs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); and Scheinberg, “The Bee Maidens of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 83 (1979): 1–28. On the Delphic tripod, see Cook, Zeus, Vol. 2 (New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1965), 193–221.
5. In general, I will use familiar English names when they exist (e.g., Apollo, Gaia, Circe), as opposed to transcribed ancient Greek names (e.g., Apollôn, Gê, Kirkê), but I do use the Greek names in invocations and to show etymological connections.
6. The Delphic month, Bysios, corresponds approximately to February but could occur as early as late-January, or as late as mid-March. See Salt and Boutsikas, “Knowing When to Consult the Oracle at Delphi,” Antiquity 79 (2005): 564–572.
7. For example, Dionysos was dismembered, boiled, and eaten by the Titans. Apollo brought his essence to Delphi for divine rebirth. Other examples include the myths of Pelias, Iason, Pelops, Melikertes, and the Rites of Leukothea.
8 . The description of Apollo’s return is from a lost hymn by Alcaeus, which was described by Himerius (Keightley, The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy, 112; Otto, The Homeric Gods, 63–64).
9 . Bernardus Silvestris (fl. 1136 CE), Commentary on the First Six Books of Virgil’s Aeneid, Bk. 4 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 1979), 26.
10. Butterworth, Some Traces of the Pre-Olympian World in Greek Literature and Myth (Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter, 1966), 147–150 and 158–161. I use “shamanic” in a generic sense, but there are historical connections to ancient Greece, as I will mention later.
11. Kerényi, Hermes, 56–57.
12. For convenience, I use this traditional name for the unknown author of The Library (Grk., Biblioteca), which dates to the first or second century CE.
13. Hornblower and Spawforth, The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), s.v. Divination.
14. Cicero, On Divination (Oxford: Clarendon, 2006), 2.130.
15. Homeric quotation from William Cowper translation, 1791. Information in this section is primarily from Halliday, Greek Divination (London: Macmillan, 1913); Luck, Arcana Mundi (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), ch. IV; and Johnston, Ancient Greek Divination (Chichester, England: Blackwell, 2008), which is the best contemporary treatment of ancient Greek divination.
16. Odyssey, 19.560–9. The Greek word for horn, keras, is similar to the word for “fulfill,” krainô, and the word for “ivory,” elephas, is similar to the word for “deceive,” elephairomai.
17. There are technical terms for all of these methods of divination, such as “lecanomancy” for bowl divination. You can find lists of them online, but in most cases I don’t think it’s important to know them. I mention only a few, which are relevant.
18. The Greek Magical Papyri—cited as PGM for Papyri Graecae Magicae—is a modern collection of magical papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt, which date from the first century BCE to the fifth century CE; see Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1992) for a translation.
19. Butterworth, Some Traces of the Pre-Olympian World, 155–160.
20. Pausanias, Pausanias Guide to Greece, translated by Peter Levi (London: Penguin, 1979), VII.22.2–3; p. 285.
21. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925), I.80; Livrea, “From Pittacus to Byzantium,” The Classical Quarterly 45, 2 (1995): 474–480.
22. On the Tibetan connection see Kingsley, A Story Waiting to Pierce You (Point Reyers, CA: Golden Sufi, 2010) and Opsopaus, “Apollo’s Dagger,” Circle Magazine 108 (Spring 2011): 10–12.
23. Hansen, Anthology of Ancient Greek Popular Literature (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), ch. 10.
24. Pausanias, Pausanias Guide to Greece, Vol. I: Central Greece, Translated by Peter Levi (London: Penguin Books, 1979), VII.25.6[10]; pp. 298–299.
25. Nollé, Kleinasiatische Losorakel.
26. My translation of Greek text in Nollé, Kleinasiatische Losorakel, 213, from a seven-astragalos oracle from Termessos.
27. This and the following two quotations are from Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, lines 447–8, 443–6, and 484 found in Browning, Prometheus Bound and Other Poems (New York: C. S. Francis, 1851), 27–28.
28. Cicero, On Divination, 2.130. This work presents the Stoic theory of divination, which Cicero subjects to a rationalistic critique.
29. See MacLennan, The Wisdom of Hypatia (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 2013), ch. 6, for an introduction to the Stoic view of Nature.
30. Cicero, On Divination, 1.64.
31. The primary source for Neoplatonic theurgy and divination is Iamblichus’s book commonly known as De Mysteriis (On the Mysteries). Of secondary sources, Addey, Divination and Theurgy in Neoplatonism (Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2014), esp. ch. 7, is especially valuable for understanding the Neoplatonic theory and practice of divination.
32. Symposium (202e–203a) in Plato, The Dialogues of Plato, Vol. 1, translated by Jowett (New York: Scribners, 1909), 495.
33. Iamblichus, On the Mysteries, X.4 (¶289; pp. 346–7).
34. Iamblichus, On the Mysteries, III.16–17 (¶138–43), V.10 (¶209–10); pp. 160–1, 238–41.
35. Cicero’s On Divination (I.34); see Cicero, M. Tulli Ciceronis De Divinatione Liber Primus (1920), 151–3, and On Divination, 57. Scholars dispute the precise significance of the word here translated “divinity.”
36. Iamblichus, On the Mysteries, X.1 (¶286.9–10).
37. Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life (¶¶161–2; pp. 176–7). Several examples of these symbola are discussed in the Oracle of the Seven Sages.
38. Burkert, Greek Religion, translated by John Raffan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), II.8.5; 117.
39. Johnston and Struck, eds., Mantikê: Studies in Ancient Divination (Leiden, Germany: Brill, 2005), 18–19, 167–231.