Field of Omens: A Study in Inductive Divination

Despite its ubiquitous character and its significance, divination has received scant attention, especially in its 'inductive' form where inferences are drawn from omens, contingencies, and randomly-arranged objects. In contrast to a universal religious sentiment, divination's epistemological claim to truth founded in such inconsequential methods is almost impossible for modem educated opinion to countenance. This dilemma is addressed through Kant, in whose philosophy the divide between the archaic possibility and the modem impossibility of divination is revealed. This thesis interprets anthropological insights into the participatory consciousness of 'primitive mentality', posited by Levy-Bruhl. This suggests a divinatory analytic - definitions of typical experiences within divination, facilitating a description of its various acts and interpretations. Some elements are unfamiliar, especially the chicane. defined as an intentional sleight inducing changes in physical, social and spiritual well-being. This characterises shamans and witch-doctors worldwide, and is suggested to be determinative for divination. Extending the analysis to classical Greece we identify the double-consciousness of divinatory intelligence in the hermeneutic poles oftheoros, pilgrim and enquirer, and hermeios, priest and diviner. Reports across cultures, together with theories of participants and critics, develop the model, while Socratic divination reveals a teleological dimension placing prophecy and divination in a common spectrum. The theological challenge from Judeo-Christianity precipitates a crisis of ultimacy, the final outcome of which is far from decided; yet in parallel, medieval scholasticism offers hermeneutic analyses that illuminate essential features within ordinary divinatory experience. The resulting analytic is applied to judicial astrology, the leading divinatory form in Western culture. Astrology's sophisticated divinatory allegoric is indicated, together with issues raised by its Stoic legacy as a science of fate. The study concludes with the post-Kantian dilemma of psychological and parapsychological interpretations, and poses - but does not answer - the question of whether these may carry divination into post-modernity.