Although the consultation of oracles remains popular in many tribal cultures, in the West, where it is frequently considered superstitious, it has been supplanted by other methods of divination. Yet in the ancient Greek and Roman cultures, as in Sumerian, Babylonian, and Hittite society, oracles had a sacred position, and no important decision in life of either of the individual or business nature, were taken without consulting them.
The ancient Greeks had a specific word for divination-mantike, Its purpose was to seek the advice of the gods rather than to discover the future. Although they consulted more primitive oracles-seeing omens in the entrails of slaughtered animals, for example- and sought the help of female, cave-dwelling sibyls, the Greeks developed a sophisticated system of sacred oracles, of which the Delphic oracle is the best known. At the shrine of Apollo at Delphi, the Pythia, or Pythoness- a priestess-acted as the medium between Apollo and the enquirer: although widely consulted, she often perplexed the enquirer by the obscurity of her responses.
Given that the Romans borrowed many aspects of the Greek pantheon and forms of worship, it is not surprising that the Roman oracles operated in much the same way as the Greek. In addition, the Romans placed particular emphasis on natural occurences, such as the appearance of birds or lightning over desiganted Oracular Temples. Prodiga were particularly bad omens, indicating that the peace of the gods had been broken. They manifested themselves through such unmistakeably dramatic events such as earthquakes. As in several other societies, no important state decisions could be taken without prior consultation with the oracles, which were interpreted by sacerdotes or priests, of the college of Augurs on the order of the Senate.
Human oracles--people with psychic gifts who enter a trance state in much the same manner as Shamans--are still consulted in Tibet, where there are also state oracles, located in monestaries. Among the latter, the most important is that of the destructive deity Pe Har, whose oracle is at Nechung Gumpa. It has helped to identify a number of reincarnated Dali Lamas, and warned the present Dalai Lama of the chinease invasion of 1959, allowing him to escape: the exiled Dalai Lama now consults an oracle in Dharamsala in India.
In the Bible, oracular messages from God were termed "prophecies" and although they are essentially similar concepts, prophecies are regarded with rather less skepticism that oracles in Modern Westren Society. The prophets were designated messengers of the Gods of the established religions, particularly Judaism, Christianity and Islam, of whom the most famous were Moses, Christ and Mohammed respectively. These messengers exclusively revealed the will and purpose of God or Allah. More modern Religious prophets include Joseph Smith Jr. (1805-44), the founder of Mormonism in the nineteenth century.
In occult terms, however, prophecy operates within a less rigidly religious framework. People have been hailed as prophets since the dawn of time, but undoubtedly the most famous secular prophet was Michel De Notredame (1503-66). A French doctor of Medicine and an Astrologist, he established himself as a prophet in about 1547. His two collections of prophecies, written in the form of somewhat elliptical quatrains, and recorded in Les Propheties de M. Michel Nostradamus (also known as Centuries) in 15555 and 1558, still continue to fascinate today. |
