DIVINATION (Lat. divinatio), the art or act of fortelling future events, or discovering things secret or obscure, by the aid of superior beings, or by other than human means. The deri vation of the word indicates a belief that omens are sent by divine interposition. Natural divina tion was anciently thought to come by divine afflatus; artificial divination, by signs, omens, etc. At an early time divination formed a regu lar science, intimately allied with religion and furnished with rules and regulations. Even though divination did not have its origin in fraud, it became a fruitful source of imposition. Moses prohibited divination expressly (Dent. xviii, 11). Saul expelled "those that had famil iar spirits, and the wizards," from his kingdom; yet he was weak enough to consult the famous witch of Endor shortly before the battle in which he fell. The Egyptians and Greeks had their oracles. With the Romans divination and witchcraft were brought into a kind of system, and constituted part of their religion. (See AUGURIES and Auseic.es). The ancient Ger mans had consecrated white horses, from whose snorting and neighing they drew favorable or unfavorable signs. They also followed the guidance of prophetesses, whom they called Al runes. Many Christians, from the period of the 3d century, adopted the sortes biblicz or corks sanctorum —a mode of judging of the future by opening the Scriptures at random, and forming an opinion from the passage on which the eye happened to fall. (See Binuoidatqcv). In early times Virgil's d'Eneid was also used for the same purpose (sortes All the ancient Asiatic tribes had modes of divination; and sorcerers are common among the Indians of America. Many of the old forms of divina tion continue to be practised in Christian na tions at the present day, sometimes from super stition, sometimes for amusement, gypsy for tune-tellers being often resorted to. There are many names for the different modes of prog nosticating the future by means of the various appearances which nature and art present, from the revolutions of the stars down to the grounds of a coffee-cup. The following by no means
exhaust the list, as the different modes of divination that have been practised are almost endless: Aeromancy, divination by air; aleuro mancy, by flour; arithmomancy, by numbers; bibliomancy, by the Bible; capnomancy, by smoke; catoptromancy, by mirrors; cheiro mancy, by the palm; cleidomancy, by keys; ciromancy, by wax; geomancy, by the earth; hepatoscopy, by the liver of animals; hydromancy, by water; lampadomancy, by lamps; necromancy, by corpses; nephelo mancy, by clouds; oneiromancy, by dreams; pyromancy, by fire; rhabdomancy, by rods. The works on this subject are very numer ous, including the mystical productions of the East, the Cabala (q.v.)), the treatises on astrology, witchcraft, etc., in the Middle Ages, and the studies of more recent writers. See ASTROLOGY; BLACK ART; CUP, DIVINATION BY CLAIRVOYANCE; ORACLE; PALMISTRY; WITCH CRAFT.
Bossier, (Documents assyri ens relatifs aux presages' (Paris 1894) ; Bouche-Leclereq, 'Histoire de la divination dans l'antiquite (4 vols., Paris 1882) ; Cicero, 'De Divinatione ; Daremberg and Saglio. des antiquites' ; Ennemoser, (His tory of Magic' ; Jung-Stilling, der Geisterlcunde); Holliday, (Greek Divination' (New York 1913) ; Hoffman, (Das Orakelwe sen im Alterthum' (Stuttgart 1877) ; Konig, 'Das Orakelwesen im Alterthum' (Crefeld 1871) ; Maury, (Histoire des religions de la Grece antique: La divination et les oracles) (Paris 1837) ; Pauly, 'Realencyclopadie' (Vol. II, Stuttgart 1842) ; Plutarch, (De Pythiae Oraculis'; id., 'De Defectu Oraculorum); Fontaine, Divinationum Origine et Pro gresso' (Rostock 1867) ; Schneider, (Die Divina tionen der Alien mit besonderer Riicksicht auf die Augurien der ROmer) (Kolthen 1862).