sketch & study

HarvardX Free Course: PredictionX Omens, Oracles, & Prophecies 

Diviners were experts who accessed the hidden realms that held information about the future, accurately read the signs and acted as intermediaries between the visible and invisible worlds.

Diviners used a variety of tools and practices to predict the future. Roman priests read portentous omens in random natural acts like the appearance of comets or the flight of birds. Ifa and Christian diviners provoked messages through randomized processes like the casting of lots. A special few, like the Oracle of Delphi, were thought to have special abilities that allowed them to directly perceive the future. And astronomer-priests on every continent used non-random occurrences, like the motion of the planets, to divine future events. Today we draw boundaries between the domains of religion, philosophy, and science, but for thousands of years no such distinctions existed. Many so-called priests were also astronomers and astrologers, philosophers and mathematicians, advisors and diviners.

Once a year in ancient Egypt, the statue of Amun-Ra, the sun god, was carried out of its temple on a bark or palanquin and answer the questions of a lucky few. Prediction systems were embedded within cultural traditions that included public events and brought people together as a community at specific dates and times. Religious icons established social hierarchies and relations, and interactions with a common story allowed people to understand themselves in relation to something larger and older than any individual.

Every culture, no matter how distinct, seems to create and develop different ways to predict the future. Though the predictive systems are as unique and varied as the cultures themselves, certain features transcend the differences. Conceptions of the future, interpretation of hidden realms, and prediction as cultural tradition appear in civilizations divided by oceans, mountain ranges, and millennia.

today was an inspiring sunday; decided to write down few quotes by oscar wilde in my journal while drinking a glass, yes, a glass of coffee.

my safe place; should i do an apartment tour?🕊

043020 - Currently reading: Little Women