In China the clarity that came from divination was called the "light of the gods", and brought the individual soul into harmony with the cosmos. This essential unity lies at the heart of the Yi Jing ("The Book of Changes"), the oldest complete divinatory system to survive from the ancient world. Its core text dates from well before 1500 B.C. and contains the roots of both Daoism and Confucianism. The Yi Jing uses sticks made from yarrow plant stems to compose up to 64 hexagrams that reflect all structures within a perpetually moving universe. The dynamic interaction between complementary pairs of opposites is believed to create images that mirror the structure of the human psyche. In ancient China, divination provided an access to the cosmic forces shaping a particular moment of time, and enabled skilled individuals to interpret the future.

Shamanic practices of divination are focused upon direct encounter with the spirit world. The Native American Ojibway people enact their sacred summoning ceremonies in a divination lodge known as "Shaking Tent" — a barrel-like structure, around 7 feet (2 metres) in height and covered with bark, canvas or skins. The shaman invokes his or her personal guardian spirits, or pawagonak. He or she may also summon assistance from the souls of the dead and the spirits of the natural world. The arrival of the spirits of the winds causes the tent to shake, and strange songs uttered by the spirit voices signal the start of the divination process.

Oracles have been an important feature of divination in the early civilizations of both East and West. Often located near symbolic physical features, such as caves, springs or rock clefts, they offered channels of communication with the gods or spirits. Highly respected and often sacred mediators engaged in dialogue with the gods, sometimes through utterances and movements produced in an ecstatic trance. At the famous Delphic oracle in Greece, the prophecies of the Pythia, the oracle's priestess, are thought to have been inspired by strong vapours emerging from a rock crevice. Questions put to oracles ranged from major political dilemmas — whether to wage war or to join an alliance — to simple domestic concerns. In taking counsel from an oracle, an individual sought to act in harmony with the governing principles of both physical and spiritual worlds.

The Tibetans practise many forms of divination. Before Chinese control was established, the State Oracle was a paid government official whose national duty involved entering into trance states to talk with the gods. Another celebrated Tibetan method of divination, known as prasena, enabled the unconscious mind to project visionary images onto the surface of a mirror.

Scientific materialism, often dismissive of divination, has still to resolve the vast complexities of cause and effect. The physicist Werner Heisenberg has observed that in examining nature and the universe, "man encounters himself" rather than finding objective truth. Science may yet come to support the ancient belief that our universe possesses a complex, intelligent structure, upon which the human psyche ultimately depends.




From The Secret Language of the Soul by Jane Hope (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1997).
Copyright © 1997 by Jane Hope

Used by arrangement with Chronicle Books.