Forms Of Divination Research Articles

“Coca says that the hill fell out of jealousy”: testimonies about a threatened practice and episteme in Ancash, Peru

Purpose This study aims to promote the preservation of endangered traditional knowledge and practices in the Andes of Peru by documenting, publishing and disseminating them. Design/methodology/approach Based on a literature review of coca and coca divination, the author will describe these types of divination practices. Subsequently, the author will address the context and characteristics of a coca reading conducted in October 2022. Afterwards, the threats and prejudices faced by this type of indigenous knowledge and practice are discussed. Findings Coca divination in the Andean region of Ancash differs from the most common form of divination with coca leaves performed in northern Argentina, Bolivia, northern Chile, Colombia and southern Peru. The results of the coca reading conducted in October 2022 align with Andean worldviews. These practices and the associated episteme face various threats from academic, social and political actors and their discourses. Practical implications Scientific and academic researchers should be aware that their work can foster and maintain epistemic colonialism in Latin American territories. Archaeological excavations and interpretations should respect ancestral and traditional worldviews and practices. Originality/value This study advances the understanding of coca divination in the Andes of Ancash, Peru, by providing nuanced insights into this cultural practice in relation to a landslide event that occurred near a 3,000-year-old temple. The implications extend beyond academic discourse, offering valuable perspectives for conducting archaeological excavation activities that respect ancestral and traditional local beliefs. Future research should build on these findings to deepen comprehension of threats to traditional beliefs and practices.

Attempts to Understand the World: The significance of divination inEtruria in the mid first millennium BCE

The paper focus on divination in the Etruscan area. By tracing the evolution of divination in the Etruscan civilization and comparing it to other forms of divination in different regions, it aims to elucidate the proximate link between the evolution of divination in ancient societies, exemplified by the Etruscans, and the advent of urbanization. Furthermore, the paper seeks to illuminate the similarities between divination in the ancient Mediterranean and the Near East since the Iron Age, which reflect a marvelous resonance between two different societies during a period of transformative urban states. The preceding discussions collectively converge upon the central tenet of this paper: divination represents one of the figurative embodiments of the cosmology of the ancient ancestors, and it is their significant endeavor to read the world in a systematic manner.

Cicero on Natural and Artificial Divination

Cicero distinguishes between two forms of divination: natural and artificial divination. Most contemporary scholars assume that Cicero presents a Stoic division and some even draw far-reaching conclusions about the scientific status of divination based on this distinction. However, his justification for the division is apparently contradictory and neither fits with Stoic nor Peripatetic claims that are found elsewhere. This paper examines the exact meaning of the division and sheds light on its Stoic and Peripatetic origin. In this way, we will not only be able to better understand the overall argument of Cicero’s De divinatione, but also to assess his real achievement as a philosophical author.

Metoposcopy redux

Phrenology is the pseudoscience in which practitioners claim that they can discern one's character and personality traits by studying the structure of the skull. Long before “head bumps” were viewed as determinants of character, skin lines were analyzed to provide similar information and to divine one's future. Palmistry, also called chiromancy, is the interpretation of the lines of the palms and is one of the oldest forms of divination. A similar pseudoscience, metoposcopy, suggests that facial lines and marks, mainly forehead lines, can reveal one's personality and foretell events in one's future. Metoposcopy was first practiced by the ancient Chinese and was popularized during the Renaissance by Girolamo Cardano and later by Richard Saunders. Metoposcopy is a largely forgotten form of skin-based pseudoscience that is no longer practiced today, unlike palmistry.

Schelling and the problem of evil

Abstract This article contributes to discussions about the problem of evil and Schelling studies by analysing Schelling's conception of the problem in his 1809 Freiheitsschrift essay. I explicate Schelling's critical response to four classic solutions to the problem (embodiment, degree, dualism, and divine forms) and outline his positive solution. My thesis is that Schelling offers a unique theodicy by arguing for a dialectical conception of the infinite omnipotence of God. In contrast to traditional notions of the infinite as the opposite of the finite, Schelling claims that God is only truly infinite if also embodied in the finite, an embodiment enacted through the human freedom to do evil. To explore Schelling's project, I draw parallels between his account of God's omnipotence and Hegel's ‘good infinite’ and situate Schelling's thesis within Mackie's discussion of the problem of evil in ‘Evil and Omnipotence’.

Beyond Veracity: The Pursuit of Postmodern Truth in Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot

Truth used to be a monolithic monad which was single and absolute. Postmodern truth is contrarily multiple and ambiguous. It is no longer the divine Form held by Plato, nor does it solely depend on the verifiability as suggested by Ayer. It is also viewed as a cultural phenomenon and constructed by power which according to Foucault is productive rather than depressive. Postmodern truth is closely related to Nietzsche’s view that there is no truth, only interpretations. Barnes presents it as perspectival and various with the bootless tracing of the two parrots that claim to be the specimen used by Flaubert.

Ghuluww and the Belief in Supernatural Abilities for Human: An Investigation into the Concept of Ghuluww in the Qur’an

Ghuluww is one of the Qur’anic concepts that holds a special place in Islamic theology. Despite its significance, however, there still remains some ambiguity around this concept. Specifically, while the Qur’an strictly forbids ghuluww, it also attributes supernatural qualities or abilities to certain individuals. This gives rise to the question as to what exactly the Qur’anic concept of ghuluww is, and what distinguishes it from non-ghuluww. The present article is an attempt to elucidate the concept of ghuluww through the verses of the Qur’an as the only indisputable source among all Muslims. The article classifies the relevant Qur’anic verses into two categories: verses prohibiting ghuluww, and those approving of seemingly exaggerated attributes for certain individuals. By exploring these verses through the lens of tafsir works and considering their collective connotations, the author concludes that ghuluww, as per the Qur’an, is to attribute any form of divinity to any individual besides God, or to ascribe to them any superhuman qualities independently of God. As such, to affirm superhuman qualities or abilities for a certain individual, if verifiably established, would not be ghuluww as long as they are regarded dependent on God.

The Sibylline Books in the Early Roman Empire

Abstract Many scholars have suggested that Augustus and Tiberius were afraid of prodigies and the Sibylline Books. Not only, they claim, did these emperors suppress prodigy reports, they also destroyed parts of the official Sibylline collection. This paper argues that the early emperors were not afraid of state divination. Rather than being a threat to their power, prodigies, expiations, and the Sibylline Books were used to confirm their position and to counter the authority of competing forms of divination.

Apostrophe as Play in Seventeenth-Century Lyric

This article offers a renewed consideration of the figure of apostrophe in seventeenth-century literature by focusing on a genre in which it is especially prominent: lyric poetry on the Creation. Drawing on Jonathan Culler’s account of apostrophe’s “effects of presence,” it shows that Renaissance poets apostrophize the created world not merely to praise it as something outside and before them, but also to channel the power that created that world into the rhetorical present of the poem. In readings of Italian, French, and English poems, the article argues that poetry’s own linguistic vitality, conferred by the “event” of apostrophe, becomes in these texts a proxy for the event of Creation itself, in which God’s word breathes life into matter—Creation understood, however, not as harmony or fixed order but as a power of free play. At the same time, the article is attentive to the ways in which the powers of apostrophe shift in different cultural contexts. In English poetry in particular, the overt exuberance of apostrophe’s “effects of presence” as seen in continental poetry turns inward, reflecting the creative power of a mind cut off from external Creation rather than recapitulating it. But the article shows that despite these differences, apostrophe’s function as a fundamental medium of rhetorical power—and as a means of negotiating the divide between human and divine forms of Creation—is a constant across lyric written in several languages at a time when national literary traditions are often thought to be diverging.

New Find of Divine GeoArts in India and Neighbouring Countries

GeoArt deals with spectacular creations on the earth (Geo) by Mother Nature in the form of artistic (Art) developments of landforms and landscapes, which are appreciated when viewed from the air or sky-space. Initially Geoart was considered for any artistic natural or geological feature, and irrespective of scale. The stunning beauty of satellite views was brought out by NASA in a book ‘Earth as Art’ in 2012. Many considered these as ‘Geoarts’ relating it with geosciences and art. Large numbers of spectacular GeoArts are identified by the author through surfing of Google Earth images of India and neighbouring countries. Most of these are found related to human and animal-bird lives. Some, however, have attained manifestations of divine forms relating to God/ Goddess or their association; hence, are regarded as Divine GeoArts. Brief details of 20 such spectacular Divine GeoArts are presented in the paper. The approachable sites of some of these amazing GeoArts may find its place in future geotourism as these, like other landforms and landscapes, have potentiality to communicate scientific perception for their development through natural agencies or divine forces of Mother Nature.

The Art of Visualising Reality: Jīva Gosvāmī’s Aesthetics and the Role of Ritual Imagination

Abstract This paper reconstructs an otherwise problematic role of ritual imagination in the sixteenth-century Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava thinker Jīva Gosvāmī’s seminal treatise, Ṣaṭ-sandarbha. As part of his explanation of worship under the broader theme of bhakti as practice, the author recasts a set of Pāñcarātric visualisation rituals to suit Gauḍīya theology and praxis centred on devotional visualisations of divine forms. However, while explaining the rituals, he paradoxically claims that the visualised forms, despite being imagined, are not to be considered imaginative. I argue that this paradox dissolves if we view Jīva’s rationale on this issue through the lens of a similarly re-orientated version of ancient dramatic and poetic rasa theory that he employs to map the higher experiences of devotion at the culmination of his treatise. Although he does not mention using this strategy for the visualisation rituals, it can be inferred through the correlations I make between his descriptions of their visualised content and certain categories of rasa theory. Through this reconstructive analysis, the reality of the ritual imaginals can be explained and the paradox dissolved.

The Celebration of Children’s First Birthday (Asyandi/асянди) in the Korean Community of the Primorye Region in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century: History and Significance

Asyandi (асянди) in Hamgyŏng dialect (in Seoul dialect, tol 돌) is one of the most important holidays in the Korean diaspora around the world. It is the celebration of the first birthday of a child. In addition to an evening meal organized in honor of the birthday child, a form of divination is also carried out in the morning. This event, according to Korean tradition, determines the life of the child. The form of divination in the Primorye region is very different from the equivalent event in areas of the Korean Peninsula in modern times. The aim of this research note is to study asyandi as an event and consider its significance and processes in the local Korean diaspora in the southern part of the Russian Far East where this celebration is observed.

IBN ARABI AND HIS CHALLENGES ON THE ISSUE OF FREE WILL

Criticising Mutazilite and Asharite interpretations of free will, Ibn Arabi accepted free will in the human being and considered it as a kind of human independency, although he was doubtful about the meaning of free will in two specific contexts – divinity and humanity. Therefore, he provided contradictory ideas about the issue. This paper deals with the origin of the contradictions in his ideas on the issue through the review of his two major theories, namely the unity of being and the divine form of human being. Based on the concept of unity of being, there is no existence but God. Therefore, there is no effective function of free will by creatures since they are manifestations of God. However, Ibn Arabi at least provided two interpretations of the divine form of human beings: man possesses all the divine names including the name Al-Murīd (The Desiring), and also man is vicegerent of God on earth, which means man is responsible, and hence he has free will to assume his responsibility.

Traditional Navajo Teachings: A Trilogy—Volume I, Sacred Narratives and Ceremonies; Volume II, The Natural World; Volume III, The Earth Surface People

Traditional Navajo Teachings: A Trilogy—Volume I, Sacred Narratives and Ceremonies; Volume II, The Natural World; Volume III, The Earth Surface People

The Covid‐19 app and the fire spirit: Receiving messages in Britain and Siberia

The UK's National Health Service Covid‐19 ‘track and trace’ app was designed as a critical public health technology. So why has it encountered so much resistance? The authors compare alerts on the phone regarding exposure to possible Covid‐19 infection with messages from a Siberian nomad's domestic fire, which sometimes crackles warnings of potential illnesses or accidents. Though these prediction technologies may seem radically different, they are both instruments for thinking about possible futures and adjusting behaviour. The authors interpret them as forms of divination that differ not so much in their logic as in their embeddedness in wider cosmologies of person, fate and society. The Siberian fire generates meaning as a focal point of coherence within many narrative strands concerning family and landscape; acceptance of its messages is rooted in intimacy and entanglement. This highlights how the Covid‐19 app belongs to a state of emergency and exception. Its statistical idiom of risk and its culturally hyper‐valued focus on privacy conceal the identities of people caught in the chain of infection, blocking social and narrative coherence and thereby encouraging suspicion and cynicism.

Front and Back Covers, Volume 37, Number 6. December 2021

Front and back cover caption, volume 37 issue 6COVID‐19 DIVINATIONFront cover: Domestic fire makes human life possible in the Siberian Arctic. The fire also communicates warnings and predictions to those who can listen and understand it, like this Nenets woman.Back cover: The UK National Health Service (NHS) designed its Covid‐19 (‘track and trace’) app to avoid ambiguities like those of Siberian fire interpretation, but in doing so, it creates a climate of detachment and cynicism.This app serves as a critical public health technology by warning users that they have been near someone who has subsequently turned out to be infected. So why has it encountered so much resistance and non‐cooperation?In this issue, Roza Laptander and Piers Vitebsky look for an answer by comparing these on‐screen phone alerts with messages from the domestic fire of nomadic Siberian reindeer herders as it crackles alerts about potential illnesses or accidents. Though these prediction technologies may seem radically different, they are both instruments for thinking about possible futures and adjusting behaviour.They are both forms of divination that differ not so much in their logic as in their embeddedness in wider cosmologies of person, fate and society. The Siberian fire generates meaning as a focal point within many narrative strands concerning family, landscape and the movement of animals; its properties contribute to local ideas of normality, and acceptance of its messages is rooted in intimacy and entanglement.This highlights how the Covid‐19 app belongs to a state of emergency and exception. Its statistical idiom of risk and its culturally hyper‐valued focus on privacy deliberately conceal the identities of people caught in the chain of infection, thereby blocking social and narrative coherence.

Chinese Folklore for the English Public: Herbert A. Giles’s 1880 Translation of Pu Songling’s Classical Tales

Chinese Folklore for the English Public: Herbert A. Giles’s 1880 Translation of Pu Songling’s Classical Tales

Magic and maleficia in the Ancient World: The case of Roman Sardinia

Abstract This paper will focus on magic rituals aimed at causing maleficia in a specific area: Sardinia. Although difficult to retrace, there is some evidence, on the island, of the existence of forms of both necromancy and oracular divination that refer, with their own forms, to the culture spread in the Roman empire. Among the most significant documents, there are the tabellae defixionum, some epigraphic texts widely documented in the Roman world, and even earlier in the Punic world. The evidence, in this case, is quite interesting, also, because it reflects the combination of different cultures in Sardinia, whose results are “original”, also in the world of magic.

Гадание по хулилам среди монголов

Introduction. Various collections of Mongolian xylographs and manuscripts may contain works on divination practice with eight khulils. What does the word khulil mean? Why does one use eight khulils? What are the texts devoted to the khulil divination? This article deals with the practice of khulil divination in Mongolia, while introducing a Mongolian text devoted to this form of divination. Results. The divination practice goes back to the oldest Chinese source on divination Yijing (I Ching, Book of Changes, about the seventh century BC). Divination is carried out with the help of the trigram, or the three dashes, which are the result of casting coins or of some other method. A combination of trigrams means a particular future. These three lines are called khulil in Mongolian (gua in Chinese). Divination by 8 gua, or 8 khulils, and 64 (8 × 8) or 512 (8 × 8 × 8) combinations is the most common form of divination in China. Later, each trigram was represented by a year of the 12-year animal cycle so that the ninth year was the beginning of the next cycle. Thus, each of the 8 years symbolizes a certain trigram, or khulil, according to the ordinal number of the latter. Granted the number of Mongolian manuscripts on khulil divination in various collections, this divination form was widely practiced by Mongolians. By way of introducing the literature on the subject, the present article presents the Russian translation of the initial fragment of manuscript MN 1145 originating from Ts. Damdinsuren museum in Ulaanbaatar. This is a Mongolian translation from Chinese made relatively late that has few traces of Mongolization or efforts of adaptation to nomadic realia. Besides concerns for the illnesses of relatives or issues of choosing a son-in-law or a bride, which are of a universal character, the most popular topics are questions about farming, such as: should one expect rain? what will be the harvest of grain and raw silk? Also, there are many questions related to promotion and career, e.g., passing exams for the degree of an official. The text contains numerous Sinicisms, including idioms, expressions, and names of Chinese astrological signs; there is also a reference to buying a jins, which points to the Manchu period. Notably, neither Tibetan items nor Buddhist deities are mentioned in the text.

The Influence of Vedanta on the Writings of Emerson: A Philosophical Inquiry

This article explores the insights of Vedanta in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Vedanta proclaims that the ultimate reality is within us. The Vedanta propounds for the philosophical explanations of the Vedas. The absolute reality that Vedanta projects as Brahman is essentially inward, and the entire phenomenal manifestations are just the reflection of that ultimate reality. Every phenomenal manifestation is the qualitative growth of the absolute one. The ultimate reality rules everything that exists in the material world. In this way, Vedanta believes in unity between God, man and nature. These essentials of Vedanta have their influences on Emerson’s writings. His essays and poems talk about this cosmic unity. His concepts of Over-Soul and the self-reliance remain as the metamorphosis of the philosophical insights of Vedanta. His poem “Brahma” exactly reflects the impacts of Vedanta because the poem views an individual in an eternal divine form. Therefore, Emerson proves to be an American rishi (sage) in Concord who accordingly elaborates and qualifies the Vedanta with new insights. This article is exploratory and interpretive. It tries to correlate the concepts, ideas and essence of the Vedanta in the writings of Emerson. This study, in this way, makes a philosophical inquiry of Emerson’s writing with the perspective of Vedanta.