Divination Through the Ages: Human

In a nutshell, human divination types require a person as the translator of messages from your deity of choice. They don’t require external tools, because the input comes directly from their mind or senses. Think oracles and priests. A nice gig, if you can get it!

A woman with her head lowered walks toward the camera on a snowy street at night — Credit: Roman Denisenko

Årsgång

Where: Sweden

What: At Christmas or New Year’s Eve, Year Walkers got glimpses of what would happen in the coming year IF they followed certain instructions or solved particular challenges. For example, walking into a forest before first light on Christmas Eve, without looking at a fire and without food or drink, and walking so far that the crowing of a cock cannot be heard.

When: Unknown (ancient folk practice), but it was referenced in an 1871 edition of Harper’s Magazine.

Fun Fact: Simogo game studio made a game based on this tradition, called Year Walk, in 2013.

A red-lit Aztecan stone carving of the wheel of time — Credit: Luis Domenech

Day-Keepers

Where: Mesoamerica

What: Specialized priests or members of the royal family conjured dead ancestors to give advice, acted as intermediaries with patron gods, read the stars (astronomy), and understood rituals in a way that enabled soothsaying.

Basically, blessed folks whose job was to advance the family by supernatural means. Sign me up!

When: 1300 CE in the Basin of Mexico (near Mexico City), though Mesoamerican peoples have used ritual for divination from the earliest memory through modern day.

Fun Fact: The Nahua (Aztecs) believed that the future used to be knowable to all. But some time before their current Fifth Age, the gods deliberately “clouded the mirror” of the future for humans…either to keep humans less powerful than the gods, or to save us from the terrible fate of knowing what comes next.

Also, one of an Aztec person’s multiple names was always based on their day of birth. Many characteristics of their lives were predetermined by this date/name.

A young woman in modern dress with arms raised and hair flying, looking like she's in a trance — Credit: Bulbul Ahmed

Oracle

Where: Greece

What: A woman, supposedly possessed by a god or spirit, utters some ambiguity in answer to a question.

The most famous, of course, was the Oracle at Delphi (by Apollo’s temple). We have no idea what questions were asked, what answers were given, how the oracle arrived at these answers, or whether you needed a priest to act as intermediary.

We do know that only men could query the oracle (aka the Pythea), after ritually cleansing themselves and sacrificing a goat. If the goat quivered, Apollo was ready to answer. Guys could do this 1 day/month, 9 months/year (Apollo had winters off). And the Pythea (a middle-aged local woman dressed as a young virgin) was in a calm trance the entire time, sitting on a 3-legged stool.

Y’all, divination is wild.

When: 800 BCE, for the Oracle of Delphi. It’s likely smaller oracles operated before then, dedicated to more local gods.

Fun Fact: Entire myths and plays have been based on how easy it is to misinterpret a prophecy or oracle (an observation of how biased humans are), like:

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus
Iphigenia at Aulis by Euripides
The Myth of Croesus (mentioned in Herodotus)
Agamemnon by Aeschylus
The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia by Philip Sidney

Two hands, palms open and facing the camera, against a black background — Credit: Luis Quintero

Palmistry

Where: Sumer, Babylonia, Arabia, Canaan, Greece, Persia, India, Nepal, Tibet, and China

What: A human practitioner divines traits about you and things about your life from the lines, mounts, and crease shapes in your palm.

When: Unknown. There’s potential evidence of it in ancient Vedic scripts, and there’s a rumor about Aristotle discovering a treatise on it around 334 BCE.

Fun Fact: A popular figure in the modern palmistry movement was William John Warner, known as “Cheiro.” He studied under gurus in India, then set up a palmistry practice in London. His clients included: Mark Twain, W. T. Stead, Sarah Bernhardt, Mata Hari, Oscar Wilde, Grover Cleveland, Thomas Edison, the Prince of Wales, General Kitchener, William Ewart Gladstone, and Joseph Chamberlain.

A woman's hand holds an embellished brassed hand mirror with a background of a flowering bush — Credit: Tooth and Toad

Scrying

Where: Near East, British Isles, and basically all of Eurasia

What: The diviner gazes into a reflective surface, like a mirror, crystal, or pond, and enters a trancelike state from which they make predictions and prophecies.

When: The earliest written accounts date back to ancient Mesopotamia, around 3000 to 2000 BCE. It’s referenced in the Hebrew Bible (Genesis, ch 44) and the Shahnameh (10th-century Persian epic poem).

Fun Fact: Nostradamus (yeah, we’ll cover him later) practiced scrying. Also, did you ever play “Bloody Mary” as a kid? That comes from mirror scrying.

Have you tried any of these? What was your experience like? Let me know in the comments below! This dabbler is super curious about palmistry, because I’ve got wrinkly-AF hands.