Oracle Of Delphi Research Articles

Prophecy and Ambiguity

This article examines the role of oracles in Greek mythology, the way the concept is explored in the "Harry Potter" series, and the influence of Greek mythology on the portrayal of the oracle in the series, emphasizing the importance of free will and characters' choices in the face of destiny. Greek oracles, such as the famous Oracle of Delphi, served as intermediaries between gods and mortals, offering divine predictions and guidance. The character of Sybill Trelawney in "Harry Potter" reflects such an oracular tradition. Initially discredited due to her eccentric nature, her prophecies (especially the one on Harry Potter's birth and his confrontation with Voldemort) proved essential to the plot. Her narrative highlights the ambiguity of prophecies, a trait shared with Greek oracles, which often delivered enigmatic responses.

Thomas Traherne on Punctuation

Abstract Though Thomas Traherne’s punctuation has been harshly criticized for its idiosyncrasy, scholars have also frequently admired the stylistic effects that it creates. His punctuation is linked to baroque art and music, the use of periods to highlighting subordinate ideas, capitalization to its inability to foster figurative language, and parentheses to his writing and editing process. This essay draws attention to a related, but different, issue that has remained unaddressed: what does Traherne himself have to say about punctuation? An examination of Traherne’s works shows that Traherne’s understanding of punctuation falls into two broad categories: the complex-metaphoric and the politico-religious. His metaphoric understanding, which belongs to a long tradition, can be gleaned from his references to the oracle of Delphi’s capital letters inscription; Ficino’s translation of Plato; and Ben Jonson’s borrowing from a fourteenth-century translation of Julius Scaliger’s grammar. Traherne’s politico-religious understanding of punctuation emerges most clearly in his Roman Forgeries (1673) in which he critiques a long list of ecclesiastical sources—epistles, church canons, multi-volume works of the councils—to argue that Catholic scribes and editors used punctuation for ideological purposes: to obfuscate, hide, and forge religious doctrines. Traherne’s comments reveal that early modern readers were likely to skip over text within parenthesis and marginal annotations and to be impressed by the use of all capital letters. Traherne’s textual criticism through the lens of punctuation helps us to understand early modern reading habits as well as the history of textual editing and textual transmission.

The Oracle of Delphia molecular phylogenetic approach to Greek Cordulegaster Leach in Brewster, 1815 (Odonata: Anisoptera: Cordulegastridae).

Taxonomy of the genus Cordulegaster Leach in Brewster, 1815 in Greece is not completely understood. The taxonomic status of the subspecies C. helladica buchholzi (Lohmann, 1993), C. helladica kastalia (Lohmann, 1993), and C. heros pelionensis Theischinger, 1979 was still unclear. We applied a molecular genetic approach using sequences of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA fragmentscytochrome c oxidase I (COI) and Internal Transcribed Spacer 1 (ITS1). This approach revealed that specimens presently assigned to C. heros pelionensis should be considered as conspecific to the nominate subspecific taxon making C. heros a monotypic species. Two major monophyletic lines were found within the Greek representatives of the species grouped around C. bidentata Selys, 1843: the clade of the European endemic C. bidentata and the clade composed of three species: C. helladica (Lohmann, 1993), C. buchholzi (stat. nov., raised to species level), and C. insignis Schneider, 1845. Cordulegaster helladica is restricted to the Peloponnese. Cordulegaster buchholzi is not restricted to the Cyclades as previously thought, but widespread from the Cyclades over the island Euboea to south-east mainland Greece reaching in the west near Mount Parnassos, where it hybridize with C. bidentata. Hybridization between C. bidentata and C. buchholzi was detected at the Castalian Spring, where in ancient times the Oracle of Delphi was located, and some kilometres east of the Castalian Spring. These hybrids had been formerly named C. helladica kastalia. In the case of C. insignis montandoni St. Quentin, 1971 we have investigated specimens some kilometres away from the type locality in Romania, which all revealed hybrids between C. bidentata and C. insignis. However, we do not know if specimens phenotypically looking like C. insignis from further west in the SE Balkans represent isolated population of C. insignis within the range of C. bidentata or belong to a broader hybrid zone between C. bidentata and C. insignis.

The Oracles of Apollo in Asia Minor and the Oracle of Delphi: similarities and differences

The Oracles of Apollo in Asia Minor and the Oracle of Delphi: similarities and differences

Человек во времени: Россия — последнее столетие

The last century is filled with victories and failures, passions, and interests. World wars and revolutions, the change of political regimes, ideologies, and ideological orientations — all this provoked a formation of social and political chaos, which sometimes had to be overcome in a totalitarian way through sole commanding and by one-party dictatorship. At the same time, one can observe the successes of cognition, culture, scientific and technological development, which, however, can hardly be called “progress”. Because the mass destruction weapons of certain “partners” in globalism have also been increased. Ready for self-destruction, “man in time” did not become yet the master of his destiny in the last century, but in many ways remained a mystery to himself. Despite the fact that over the past century man has learned a lot about his own psychology, consciousness and subconscious, he still needs further self-knowledge no less than in those times when the Oracle of Delphi called for it. Today, as ancient times, one needs to know better what motivates his sometimes rational, and sometimes, mildly speaking, very strange behavior. Who is man in time? To understand this, one must go beyond the limits of itself being to other times and spaces. Even to times and spaces of a cosmic scale, to the spaces and to the depths of our Universe, where a man was born and will disappear, perhaps preserved in its cosmic memory. The memory of the Universe is symbolized by world constants that arose as a result of the Big Bang and the birth of the Universe from a singularity point. Memory of man inherits this property of the Cosmos. The memory is a system-forming factor that creates man and its world. This is what rigorous science can offer to explain the cosmic origin of man and his memory. Artistic imagery can continue the efforts of science. Culture, literature, first of all, can create imageries that will tell about man and his time more than abstract theory. The imageries will tell that man has not yet lost his freedom of creativity. He must remember the past, live in the present, look and go to the future.

Ceremonies and Time in Shakespeare

ABSTRACTThis essay considers some moments in Shakespeare's texts which exemplify the Janus-faced quality of ceremonies: their enactment in the present looking backwards to past traditions and forwards to inaugurate new social relations. The argument draws on Victor Turner's theorization of ritual as an event that gives shape to “liminality,” that which “eludes or slips through the network of classification that normally locate states and positions in cultural space,” and argues that this applies to time as well. It also considers the construction of time in terms of kairos, a moment of time infused with meaning. The essay analyses ceremony in three Shakespearean genres. First, it examines Bertram's and Helena's ring exchange in All's Well That Ends Well as a “distended” ritual that collapses time. It then turns to Richard III, unpacking its complex sequence of ceremonies of betrothal, mourning, and sovereignty that are “continuously disrupted”. The final section describes the ceremonial time of romance in The Winter's Tale, unfolding the power invested in the kairotic time evoked by the oracle of Delphi, the sheep-shearing ceremony, and Paulina's “resurrection” of Hermione.

O CONHECIMENTO DE SI NO ITINERÁRIO ESPIRITUAL DE ORÍGENES DE ALEXANDRIA

A famosa inscrição do oráculo de Delfos “conhece-te a ti mesmo” está presente ao longo da história do pensamento filosófico e da espiritualidade cristã. No Agradecimento a Orígenes, Gregório Taumaturgo apresenta o mestre como um verdadeiro filósofo. Segundo aprendeu do mestre, a excelência do filosofar encontra-se na realização do dito oracular “conhece-te a ti mesmo”. Este artigo pretende desenvolver esse aspecto do itinerário espiritual de Orígenes a partir de passagens de seu Comentário ao Cântico dos Cânticos, no qual o autoconhecimento está posto no reconhecimento do ser criado à imagem e semelhança de Deus (campo ontológico) e no conhecimento das disposições da alma (campo ético).

El daño moral como parte de la responsabilidad civil en el Derecho Internacional Comparado

Este trabajo deriva de la tesis de licenciatura intitulada: “El daño moral como parte de la responsabilidad civil en el Derecho Mexicano y el Derecho Internacional Comparado”, tema de una especial aridez, tanto práctico como doctrinariamente; esto derivado de las causas que especifica el legislador para determinar “razonablemente y en equidad” el “quantum numerarium” cantidad económica que tendría que resarcir afectaciones sentimentales, mentales o incluso pérdidas de vida. Labor encomiable del juzgador que tampoco puede ser pitonisa del oráculo de Delfos, para adivinar una reparación del daño moral tal indescifrable. En base al método del derecho comparado y adentrando en las diferentes teorías internacionales para la determinación del daño moral, se examinaron también diferentes instrumentos jurídicos mexicanos y del extranjero sobre la materia de estudio e Igualmente, se analiza diversas resoluciones judiciales dictadas por nuestros tribunales de justicia y algunas sentencias también emitidas en el derecho extranjero para darle una debida conformación al tema.

The Middle East Politics of Entrepreneurship: A Brief Review on Entrepreneurship as a Foreign Policy Tool in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries

Entrepreneurship could be used as a foreign policy tool in the world of politics. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a politico-economic alliance of six Arab states in close proximity to the Persian Gulf. The council embraces the states which actively apply entrepreneurship for the promotion of their national foreign policies through ‘bait-and switch,’ 1 i.e. by showing economic incentives (baits) they prepare the ground for the involvement of foreign partners through investment or getting loans, which is then used for other politico-economic motives (switches) under numerous strategies in service to their foreign policies, e. g. with the intention of increasing foreign direct investment, political legitimacy, domestic job generation, etc. In the following, each move toward state sponsored entrepreneurship by a GCC state will be unfolded as a potential motive for foreign policy advantage(s). A state’s support of any issue, especially when it is done or motivated by those high in the hierarchy of political decision-making and has absorbed great quantities of public investments, is not independent of pushing forward the state’s political strategies and policies. Moreover, a strategic interpreter is not the oracle of Delphi, unfolding rather than predicting the latent and plausible scenarios. The application of entrepreneurship to gain or facilitate the acquisition of strategically pre-defined visionary goals of foreign policy is the exertion of the ‘soft power’ of appeal and attraction. It is killing two birds with one stone, i.e. the generation of entrepreneurship inside, and reinforcement of foreign policy outside.

Sergeant-Major Perry on Sullivan's Island

Sergeant-Major Perry on Sullivan's Island R. T. Smith (bio) Mr. Poe, Sergeant Perry, Henri Le Rennét—what mortalwould be surprised to find I travel under various names,though I'm unknown to most citizens underany fabrication? I have a premonition that statuswill someday change. Exiled as a gunneryclerk among the unread, lice-ridden artillerists,I guard Charleston Harbor with its spires and cotillion gentrywho will never know of solace in the solitary,the candle-lit volumes of Europe's savants,nor find sanctuary in the cul-de-sacs of stone dreary-deepin Fort Moultrie. I converse with marsh hen and heronamid the myrtles and palmetto. Thanks to Providence,the reveling swells of Charlottesville taught me there's moreto ecstasy than whisky, and on Market Street I meet lascarsand celestials with tears of the poppy to barter for silver.Elevated near death's threshold, I can smell the asphodelsHomer and the Romans wrote of, and I feel no painbut pursue the stories I will conjure in my feverish brain,all rooted in my parents' speeches in the limelight,mother's triumph in Richard III. Though briefly hereas a child, it is for the wind-blown shadowsand the egret's cry I was born and orphaned. The Asian smoke I indulge in is most nights euphoric,and I discourse with souls and phantoms,foremost among them a chief called Osceola, [End Page 35] who will be betrayed in a truce and delivered herein chains over a decade hence—asi and Yahola,first for the magical black drink of yaupon, the otherfor he shouts, his tribal name unknown, though Spainwill call them Seminole, for renegades. Valiant warrior,orator extraordinaire, and invader's bane, silencedby hunger, he will end with quinsy, no holy pipeto smoke, no chants to ease him over.He will come as no stranger to visions or agony,and no mortal yet knows this, save yours truly,his kindred soul in exile, to whom he whispers saltmarsh secrets across time's chasms, or do I rave?If only it will serve to distract me from the latedemise of Belle, I would gladly rave. So much wisdom have I found in the mirling smokefrom a china pipe which tars and mystics venerateover the sea. Neither Dr. Ravenel nor Draton understandsnor approves, but the herb bestows upon me mysteriesreeking of Delphi's oracle. Tears of the poppy, blaze-scarletas the sun, tended by the moon. From my pallet I canascend to the ceiling to confer with infamous Tamerlaneor the miserable ghost of Meriwether Lewis, not prophecy,as he inflicted his demise over a decade past—a braceof pistols to accomplish what his elixirs could not.Mind-exciting roots and brandy were his demons,until he discovered laudanum. (Hear the Latin in that,the grandeur of a suffering tongue?) It is opium.My quest, of course, is for a more pure escape,undiluted and final. As yet the smoke will not crawlinto a vein, but if I remain with the wretches who keepthis suffocating outpost, inspiration will surelyfind me, and I will learn to distill precious sap of the pod.Nights I steal past the sleeping captain of the watchto tramp and slog the swamps where miasma hovers.It is among the snakes and fevers where I feel at home,and there I keep my cache of contraband cognac, [End Page 36] my dwindling supply of the ravenous flower's gift.Do not mock me. Alone, I am never alonein this soulscape where the soothing stories lurk.Shadows are my accomplices, words my foxfire,the wind's whisper company enough. I have since boyhood sought stronger mystery, a wilderphysic to ease the rigors of living, the ache and grief,to conduct me to that Xanadu Coleridge dreamed,the Abyssinian maiden grieving for her demonconsort, as well as my own cursed conjuriesto the country from which no traveler returns. Lossenough has already struck me, beloved young womenwho fall victim to the thousand natural shocks...

Plutarchos és a pogány monoteizmus

There is an ongoing scholarly debate about the role of monotheism in the religious history of the Roman Empire. In the recently developed framework the scholars question the antagonism/dichotomy of Christian monotheism and pagan polytheism, and introduce new terminology aiming to describe the changes of the religious horizon in this period. According to the paradigmatic shift the conceptions of the so-called henotheism, monolatry, or pagan/inclusive monotheism have recently dominated the field in the study of the religious history of the Roman Empire, emphasizing the view that personal, monotheistic choices among the gods are widespread phenomena of the Greco-Roman, i.e. non-Christian religiosity between the 1st–5th centuries AD. The Middle Platonic religious concepts of Plutarch (cc. 40–125) and his philosophical, theological and cosmogonic views are interpretable by means of the changing religious trends of this epoch. Plutarch in his Pythian dialogues displays the role of Delphi on the religious landscape of Hellas and attributes an outstanding role to Apollo in the Greek pantheon. Th e interplay between his monotheistic concept and the Apollonian religiosity comes forward mainly in his Pythian dialogue, De E apud Delphos. This controversial work about the mysterious E in the oracle of Delphi foreshadows the new theological and philosophical attitudes, which determined the religious horizon of the Roman Empire and interacted unequivocally with Christianity.

LA VERDAD COMO ALETHEIA, UN TRÁGICO ASUNTO EN EDIPO REY DE SÓFOCLES

To do justice we must know the truth. There are at least two types of justice: human and divine. Eventually the second one prevents errors of the first and amends uncontrollable human actions, imposing its power, order and punishment. This essay reflects on the theme of truth as aletheia, that is, as disclosure and remembrance in Sophocles' King Oedipus. In this drama, Apollo’s justice prevails and turns violent, because of unfortunate ―bloodshed‖ hidden and forgotten incidents. From the Delphi Oracle, the divine truth will emerge spilling blood from Thebas King’s eyes, demanding vengeance, without mercy for its players. The truth as aletheia is not only power, justice and punishment through the logos –this being what is relevant– but cry, blood and death, and tragedy.

The future of U.K. dermatology translational research through the Oracle of Delphi.

The future of U.K. dermatology translational research through the Oracle of Delphi.

Essential Anatomy of the Head and Neck: The Complete Delphi Panel List

Last year, lead by Professor Bernard Moxham from Cardiff University, we developed a core syllabus for the teaching of medical head and neck anatomy (Tubbs et al., 2014). This study aimed to identify consensus standards of essential features of Head and Neck anatomy via a Delphi (Fig. 1) Panel consisting of anatomists and clinicians who evaluated syllabus content structures (greater than 1,000) as “essential”, “important”, “acceptable”, or “not required.” The Pythia, also known as the Oracle of Delphi, was the name of any priestess of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, located on Mount Parnassus. The first Oracle is said to have been the goddess Themis shown here on a fifth-century B.C. cup holding a bowl and a piece of laurel, which was Apollo's sacred tree. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.] In the original paper, we failed to include the comprehensive list that was generated from the study. With this editorial, these original data are now available (under supporting information). This list also includes various anatomically related pathologies that our panel of experts graded based on relevance to the student of medicine. The goal of these data is to provide guidance for course directors who intend to provide the optimal balance between establishing a comprehensive list of clinically relevant essential structures and an overwhelming litany, which would otherwise overburden trainees in their initial years of medical school with superficial rote learning, which potentially dilutes the key and enduring fundamental lessons that prepare students for training in any medical field. Other programs such as dental or health related courses could easily modify this list based on specific course needs. While universal agreement on the details of a core syllabus is elusive, there is a general consensus that a core syllabus aims to identify the minimum level of knowledge expected of recently qualified medical graduates in order to carry out clinical procedures safely and effectively, while avoiding overloading students with unnecessary facts that have less immediate application to their future careers as clinicians. Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version of this article. Supporting Information Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.

A bittersweet story: the true nature of the laurel of the Oracle of Delphi.

It is known from ancient sources that "laurel," identified with sweet bay, was used at the ancient Greek oracle of Delphi. The Pythia, the priestess who spoke the prophecies, purportedly used laurel as a means to inspire her divine frenzy. However, the clinical symptoms of the Pythia, as described in ancient sources, cannot be attributed to the use of sweet bay, which is harmless. A review of contemporary toxicological literature indicates that it is oleander that causes symptoms similar to those of the Pythia, while a closer examination of ancient literary texts indicates that oleander was often included under the generic term laurel. It is therefore likely that it was oleander, not sweet bay, that the Pythia used before the oracular procedure. This explanation could also shed light on other ancient accounts regarding the alleged spirit and chasm of Delphi, accounts that have been the subject of intense debate and interdisciplinary research for the last hundred years.

Circe's Island: A Young Woman's Memories of Tuberculosis Treatment in the 1950s by Isabel Gillard

Health & History ● 16/2 ● 2014 167 Isabel Gillard, Circe’s Island: A Young Woman’s Memories of Tuberculosis Treatment in the 1950s (Glasgow, Unbound Press, 2010). ISBN 978-0-9558360-5-3 (PB). 140pp. Beautifully crafted by an author skilled in literary work, Circe’s Island is an intriguing title for a memoir about a young girl’s experience being treated for tuberculosis in the 1950s. The young Gillard, Bella Strahan is three-quarters through her second year studying literature at Edinburgh University. Results from a tuberculosis-screening program reveal that she has calcified deposits on her lungs. Bella has to be admitted for treatment, but the mildness of her condition allows her to see out the academic year. This grace period, however, is not without its complications. No longer to share a room with her sister Louise, Bella is prescribed bed rest, a high protein diet, and, in the hope of gaining an edge in the fight against the tuberculosis disease, the foot of her bed is raised 18 inches to increase blood flow to her lungs. Recounting these dramatic lifestyle changes, Gillard charms her reader with an engaging literary style. Tuberculosis infection rates in the UK had been declining in the first half of the twentieth century due to the development of a tuberculosis management system. World War II saw a drastic reversal of these promising advances. A perceived need for hospital beds for war-wounded soldiers meant that eight thousand patients with tuberculosis were vacated from sanatoria and ‘decanted into the community, where infection spread like wildfire’ (p. 128). By the time Bella Strahan was admitted to the Edinburgh sanatorium, the war had ended, household provisions were still tight, but the National Health Service had commenced and her treatment for tuberculosis was free. Her treatment occurred during a critical period in the history of tuberculosis where remedies were transitioning from the rest and fresh air method—otherwise known as the cold cure (p. 30)—through to surgical interventions, and finally to chemotherapy. During her eighteen-month stay in the Edinburgh Sanatorium, all three-treatment methods were used and thankfully chemotherapy ultimately proved successful. Success was unexpected as cure was not a certainty when Bella was first admitted. In a chilling reflection, Gillard writes: ‘of course, the real shock was the realisation that the outside world was being protected from the patients rather than the other way round. We assented of course in keeping our infection to ourselves, but it is one thing to volunteer and another to be constrained, however kindly the 168 BOOK REVIEWS constraint is applied’ (p. 56). The harshness of the cold cure and her surgeries leave the twenty-first-century reader spellbound. To an anthropologist, Bella’s crude surgical treatments seem no more scientific than any shamanic healing. Therefore when Gillard writes, ‘Doctors were revered like the Delphi Oracle and nurses were their acolytes’ (p. 85), her words appeal to the anthropological imagination. With surprising equanimity, Gillard is neither spiteful nor sycophantic towards the treatments that she received despite little or no explanation other than what more experienced patients told her. Through characters such as Dr E and The Black Douglas, Gillard demonstrates the mean personalities that the institutions of her generation tolerated. Through Grace, Amy, John, Isla Jamieson, Dr M, and Mr D, she reveals the beautiful friendships that accompanied her to recovery. She talks about the music that she enjoyed, the radio programs that she ardently followed, and the books that she plunged herself into. Passages like the sermon attacking worldly excesses to a sanatorium audience (pp. 102–3) and a personal reflection on caged domestic pets being the ‘sizzling emblem of liberty’ (p. 64) are particularly worthy of deeper contemplation. Each chapter offers a different portrait of Bella’s experiences. Her forays into life outside the sanatoria offer a delightful exegesis on her situation during treatment. In a place where hot baths, boiled eggs, and haircuts were a luxury, these interludes demonstrate the relationship of human interactions in these strict settings to the social norms of 1950s post-war Edinburgh. The title, Circe’s Island, is a reference to Odysseus’s drugged mariners who were enchanted by the sorceress Circe...

The Delphi Oracle's Potential in Emerging Markets: The Case of India's Automotive Industry in 2020

Managers of international enterprises are increasingly challenged by uncertainty and equivocality in their decision-making. This is particularly the case for emerging markets: Political and economi...

Maxims and Quotations of the Seven Sages of Ancient Greece

This paper contains a set of wisdom pieces of ancient Greece, in terms of the maxims of the oracle of Delphi and the quotations of the seven sages of ancient Greece. The seven sages were Thales, Pittacos, Bias, Solon, Cleovoulos, Periandros, and Chilon. They lived in ancient Greece over 600 years B.C. and before the advent of the classical Greek philosophers, like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc. The purpose of this paper is to make all readers (general public, educated and not, young, old, men, women, high school, college and university students, managers, workers, professionals, etc.) aware of a set of classical quotations that could be used to help them in all walks and stages in their personal and professional life, and hopefully enable them to understand, reflect upon, and improve their relationships, in the long term.

Gas is the New Oil: What Does It Mean for Young Professionals?

Forum - What will a shift from oil to gas mean for young professionals? Forty-two SPE young professional and student members, in various geographical regions and technical disciplines, were surveyed by TWA on the effect of the increasing importance of gas production on young professionals’ careers. In addition, several industry leaders were consulted to gain perspective into the nature of today’s oil and gas business. Natural gas is one of the cleanest and safest natural energy resources. It is a combustible mixture of hydrocarbon gases, primarily methane, and can include ethane, propane, butane, and pentane. It was discovered thousands of years ago in the Middle East, where ignited (probably by lightning) gas seeps were found, and provided fuel for the eternal flames of the fire-worshipping ancient Persians. Around 1000 BC, one of the gas seeps in ancient Greece was selected as the site for a temple that housed a priestess known as the Oracle of Delphi. It was not until 1821 that the first well specifically intended to obtain natural gas was dug near New York by William Hart, a few years ahead of the dawn of the oil industry. Gas transportation remained a major issue for a long time. After World War II, pipeline infrastructure boomed and new uses for natural gas were discovered. Competition characterizes the natural gas industry today. Increased efficiency and technological improvements have resulted in natural gas being obtained more efficiently, cheaply, and easily than before. However, the search for more natural gas to meet a growing demand requires new techniques and knowledge to obtain it from hard-to-reach places.

Mass extinction of life is imminent

When we chose the cover for this month's issue, the author advised care in selecting an image from the review of visual arts in hospital (JRSM 2010;103:490–9). Abstract art, he explained, makes patients feel uncomfortable, one of the messages of the paper. But the job of medical journals is to shake readers from their comfort zones. Clinical medicine is a place of uncertainty and clinicians are poorly trained at dealing with the limits of their knowledge. Confidence is king and ignorance an untouchable. While the culture of medical practice is being transformed by our information age – from paternalism to shared decision-making – it still takes extreme bravery for a clinician to admit ignorance in front of clinical colleagues or patients, not least because clinical colleagues and patients expect a knowledgeable answer. Yet medicine's bond with ignorance is ancient. The oracle of Delphi – and this issue of JRSM has a minor Delphic theme – proclaimed Socrates the wisest man of his age. Socrates argued that this was because he was prepared to accept the limits of his knowledge and unafraid of acknowledging his ignorance. Murray Enkin, an obstetrician from Canada, proposed seven stages of ignorance to summarize his clinical career ( Box 1). The seventh and highest stage of ignorance, he hypothesized, equated mostly closely with wisdom. Box 1 Seven stages of ignorance First stage: Innocence. You know you don't know, but you’re sure you can learn… Second stage: The facts. You know you still don't know, but facts are facts. Third stage: Naivete. You know what to do, but don't know how to do it. Fourth stage: Frustration. You know you don't know, but know that others know. Fifth stage: Expertise, the danger stage. You think that you know, and others think that you know. Sixth stage: Pyrrhic success. You know that you don't know, but others think that you know. Seventh stage: Ignorance. You know that you don't know, others know that you don't know, and it doesn't matter. From: Enkin M. The seven stages of ignorance. Birth 2008;35:169–70 The Socratic method is popular with medical teachers. Socratic dialogues often find their way into medical journals, as with this issue (JRSM 2010;103:484–9). But this appreciation of ignorance struggles to find its way to the frontlines of patient care. Clinical medicine remains a hard-nosed enterprise unable to eliminate the dynamics of power between doctor and patient. ‘Wise medical instructors do not fill students’ heads with facts,’ write our budding Platos, ‘but adopt a feigned position of ignorance from which to ask probing questions so they arrive eventually at insights that are the true prerequisite for gaining knowledge’. Unfortunately, those same students only realize many years later, possibly when they become medical instructors, that although knowledge is good, ignorance is not a professional sin. The JRSM's Socratic dialogue concludes with Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, advising that clinicians must hold their medical knowledge lightly and with humility, and constantly ask questions. She might also add that medicine must reconnect with the ethic of human kinship, by which the authors of an editorial on social governance argue that we should understand that as humans we share one humanity, live on one earth, and that our values, decisions, and choices affect others (JRSM 2010;103:475–7). Either that or we risk a sixth mass extinction, argues Dennis V Razis of the Delphi Society in Athens (JRSM 2010;103:473–4). More humility and greater human kinship might be important milestones on the path of reinventing the clinical professions, repairing the damaged relationship between doctors and managers – highlighted by your contributions to this issue (JRSM 2010;103:511–12) – and saving the planet from the catastrophe of the human species. As Razis puts it: ‘The risk of mass extinction of life is real and possibly imminent’. Where is Socrates when he is needed most?