The Translation of Southern African Sangoma Divination Towards a Global Format, and the Validity of the Knowledge It Produces
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Cleansing the Cosmos
CLEANSING THE COSMOS: A BIBLICAL MODEL FOR CONCEPTUALIZING AND COUNTERACTING EVIL By E. Janet Warren A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Theology and Religion College of Arts and Law The University of Birmingham November 14, 2011 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSRACT Understanding evil spiritual forces is essential for Christian theology. Evil has typically been studied either from a philosophical perspective or through the lens of ‘spiritual warfare’. The first seldom considers demonology; the second is flawed by poor methodology. Furthermore, warfare language is problematic, being very dualistic, associated with violence and poorly applicable to ministry. This study addresses these issues by developing a new model for conceptualizing and counteracting evil using ‘non-warfare’ biblical metaphors, and relying on contemporary metaphor theory, which claims that metaphors are cognitive and can depict reality. In developing this model, I examine four biblical themes with respect to alternate metaphors for evil: Creation, Cult, Christ and Church. Insights from anthropology (binary oppositions), theology (dualism, nothingness) and science (chaos-complexity theory) contribute to the construction of the model, and the concepts of profane space, sacred space and sacred actions (divine initiative and human responsibility) guide the investigation. -
DIVINATION SYSTEMS Written by Nicole Yalsovac Additional Sections Contributed by Sean Michael Smith and Christine Breese, D.D
DIVINATION SYSTEMS Written by Nicole Yalsovac Additional sections contributed by Sean Michael Smith and Christine Breese, D.D. Ph.D. Introduction Nichole Yalsovac Prophetic revelation, or Divination, dates back to the earliest known times of human existence. The oldest of all Chinese texts, the I Ching, is a divination system older than recorded history. James Legge says in his translation of I Ching: Book Of Changes (1996), “The desire to seek answers and to predict the future is as old as civilization itself.” Mankind has always had a desire to know what the future holds. Evidence shows that methods of divination, also known as fortune telling, were used by the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Babylonians and the Sumerians (who resided in what is now Iraq) as early as six‐thousand years ago. Divination was originally a device of royalty and has often been an essential part of religion and medicine. Significant leaders and royalty often employed priests, doctors, soothsayers and astrologers as advisers and consultants on what the future held. Every civilization has held a belief in at least some type of divination. The point of divination in the ancient world was to ascertain the will of the gods. In fact, divination is so called because it is assumed to be a gift of the divine, a gift from the gods. This gift of obtaining knowledge of the unknown uses a wide range of tools and an enormous variety of techniques, as we will see in this course. No matter which method is used, the most imperative aspect is the interpretation and presentation of what is seen. -
The Cultural Evolution of Epistemic Practices: the Case of Divination Author: Ze Hong A1, Joseph Henricha
Title: The cultural evolution of epistemic practices: the case of divination Author: Ze Hong a1, Joseph Henricha Author Affiliations: a Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Avenue, 02138, Cambridge, MA, United States Keywords: cultural Evolution; divination; information transmission; Bayesian reasoning 1 To whom correspondence should be addressed: [email protected] 1 ABSTRACT While a substantial literature in anthropology and comparative religion explores divination across diverse societies and back into history, little research has integrated the older ethnographic and historical work with recent insights on human learning, cultural transmission and cognitive science. Here we present evidence showing that divination practices are often best viewed as an epistemic technology, and formally model the scenarios under which individuals may over-estimate the efficacy of divination that contribute to its cultural omnipresence and historical persistence. We found that strong prior belief, under-reporting of negative evidence, and mis-inferring belief from behavior can all contribute to biased and inaccurate beliefs about the effectiveness of epistemic technologies. We finally suggest how scientific epistemology, as it emerged in the Western societies over the last few centuries, has influenced the importance and cultural centrality of divination practices. 2 1. INTRODUCTION The ethnographic and historical record suggests that most, and potentially all, human societies have developed techniques, processes or technologies that reveal otherwise hidden or obscure information, often about unknown causes or future events. In historical and contemporary small-scale societies around the globe, divination—"the foretelling of future events or discovery of what is hidden or obscure by supernatural or magical means” –has been extremely common, possibly even universal (Flad 2008; Boyer 2020). -
African Concepts of Energy and Their Manifestations Through Art
AFRICAN CONCEPTS OF ENERGY AND THEIR MANIFESTATIONS THROUGH ART A thesis submitted to the College of the Arts of Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by Renée B. Waite August, 2016 Thesis written by Renée B. Waite B.A., Ohio University, 2012 M.A., Kent State University, 2016 Approved by ____________________________________________________ Fred Smith, Ph.D., Advisor ____________________________________________________ Michael Loderstedt, M.F.A., Interim Director, School of Art ____________________________________________________ John R. Crawford-Spinelli, D.Ed., Dean, College of the Arts TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………….. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS …………………………………… vi CHAPTERS I. Introduction ………………………………………………… 1 II. Terms and Art ……………………………………………... 4 III. Myths of Origin …………………………………………. 11 IV. Social Structure …………………………………………. 20 V. Divination Arts …………………………………………... 30 VI. Women as Vessels of Energy …………………………… 42 VII. Conclusion ……………………………………….…...... 56 VIII. Images ………………………………………………… 60 IX. Bibliography …………………………………………….. 84 X. Further Reading ………………………………………….. 86 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Porogun Quarter, Ijebu-Ode, Nigeria, 1992, Photograph by John Pemberton III http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/cosmos/models.html. ……………………………………… 60 Figure 2: Yoruba Ifa Divination Tapper (Iroke Ifa) Nigeria; Ivory. 12in, Baltimore Museum of Art http://www.artbma.org/. ……………………………………………… 61 Figure 3.; Yoruba Opon Ifa (Divination Tray), Nigerian; carved wood 3/4 x 12 7/8 x 16 in. Smith College Museum of Art, http://www.smith.edu/artmuseum/. ………………….. 62 Figure 4. Ifa Divination Vessel; Female Caryatid (Agere Ifa); Ivory, wood or coconut shell inlay. Nigeria, Guinea Coast The Metropolitan Museum of Art, http://www.metmuseum.org. ……………………… 63 Figure 5. Beaded Crown of a Yoruba King. Nigerian; L.15 (crown), L.15 (fringe) in. -
The Evolution of Variability in Magic, Divination and Religion
THE EVOLUTION OF VARIABILITY IN MAGIC, DIVINATION AND RELIGION: A MULTI-LEVEL SELECTION ANALYSIS A Dissertation by CATHARINA LAPORTE Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Chair of Committee, Michael S. Alvard Committee Members, Jeffrey Winking D. Bruce Dickson Jane Sell Head of Department, Cynthia A. Werner December 2013 Major Subject: Anthropology Copyright 2013 Catharina Laporte ABSTRACT Religious behavior varies greatly both with-in cultures and cross-culturally. Throughout history, scientific scholars of religion have debated the definition, function, or lack of function for religious behavior. The question remains: why doesn’t one set of beliefs suit everybody and every culture? Using mixed methods, the theoretical logic of Multi-Level Selection hypothesis (MLS) which has foundations in neo-evolutionary theory, and data collected during nearly two years of field work in Macaé Brazil, this study asserts that religious variability exists because of the historic and dynamic relationship between the individual, the family, the (religious) group and other groups. By re-representing a nuanced version of Elman Service’s sociopolitical typologies together with theorized categories of religion proposed by J.G. Frazer, Anthony C. Wallace and Max Weber, in a multi-level nested hierarchy, I argue that variability in religious behavior sustains because it provides adaptive advantages and solutions to group living on multiple levels. These adaptive strategies may be more important or less important depending on the time, place, individual or group. MLS potentially serves to unify the various functional theories of religion and can be used to analyze why some religions, at different points in history, may attract and retain more adherents by reacting to the environment and providing a dynamic balance between what the individual needs and what the group needs. -
Book of African Divination
B 0 0 K S Destiny Books Rochester, Vermont I NTRO D UCTI ON 1 1. DIVINATION 2. AFRICA AND AFRICAN LIFE 9 3. AFRICAN DIVINATION 23 ~.. VENDA DIVINATION 28 5. ZULU DIVINATION 39 6. YORUBA DIVINATION 54 7. TIKAR SPIDER DIVINATION 8. SAMPLE READINGS 116 BIBLIOGRAPHY 135 INDEX 137 n Africa there is a strong relationship between divination and spirituality. A supernatural cause is attributed to all events in life, whether the life of the individual or of the society. There are many methods of divination by which humankind has tried, over millenia, to see into the future and to discover the will of the gods. Although some few methods have become popular around the world-Tarot cards and astrology, for example-most people are unaware of the wide diversity of systems in existence and certainly have only a vague idea of the types found in Africa. African divinatory practices are .remarkably varied and have traditionally embodied African spirituality in everyday life. We have tried to bring together some of the previously widely scattered information on African divination. With the continuing Western interest in all forms of fortune-telling, this constitutes a rich, virtually untapped vein of material, and one that-even apart from its interest to the occultist-should be preserved. A great deal of the religio-magical practices found throughout the Ameri- cas, among the descendants of the African slaves, remains very similar to the African Yoruba system. In the New World, individual peoples’ beliefs and meth- ods of divining suffered a blending as the Africans were mixed and then di- vided, to the point where the legends and myths found extended life in the Voodoo of Haiti, the Santeria of Cuba, and the Macumba, Candomb~, Umbanda, and CLuimbanda of Brazil and other parts of South America. -
On the Religious and Cultural Aspects of Divination in Japanese Society
Audrius Beinorius On the Religious and Cultural Aspects of Divination in Japanese Society LATVIJAS UNIVERSITĀTES RAKSTI. 2016, 813. sēj. ORIENTĀLISTIKA 84.–109. lpp. https://doi.org/10.22364/luraksti.os.813.09 On the Religious and Cultural Aspects of Divination in Japanese Society Zīlēšanas reliģiskie un kultūras aspekti Japānas sabiedrībā Audrius Beinorius Vilnius University, Lithuania Center of Oriental Studies Universiteto g. 5, Vilnius 01122, Lithuania Email: [email protected] This article presents an overview of the multifaceted history of divination and astrology in Japan. The questions addressed in this paper are the following: What was the place of divina- tion in the traditional Japanese society and within ancient bodies of knowledge? What part of traditional science and cosmology does it form? What are the main methods of divination used in Japan? How was divination related to the Shinto and Buddhist worldview and reli- gious practices? What elements of Indian astrology and divination have been introduced by the Buddhist monks to Japan? And which forms of divination are of Chinese origins? Finally, which of the mantic practices are likely to persist even nowadays and why? These and similar questions are discussed, emphasizing some resumptive cross-cultural and hermeneutic meth- odological considerations. The hermeneutical examinations of those practices are significant for the comparative history of ideas and also for understanding of contemporary religious practices and beliefs. Such approach can also assist in revealing the local modes of cultural transmission of knowledge in Asia, methods of social control, and the nature of the cultural norms, that shaped the traditional epistemic field. -
African Traditional Religions in Mainstream Religious Studies
AFRICAN TRADITIONAL RELIGIONS IN MAINSTREAM RELIGIOUS STUDIES DISCOURSE: THE CASE FOR INCLUSION THROUGH THE LENS OF YORUBA DIVINE CONCEPTUALIZATIONS Vanessa Turyatunga Thesis submitted to the University of Ottawa in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master of Arts in Religious Studies Department of Classics and Religious Studies Faculty of Arts University of Ottawa © Vanessa Turyatunga, Ottawa, Canada, 2019 Abstract The history of African Traditional Religions (ATRs), both inside and outside academia, is one dominated by exclusions. These exclusions were created by the colonial framing of ATRs as primitive, irrational and inferior to other religions. This colonial legacy is in danger of being preserved by the absence of ATRs from the academic study of religion, legal definitions of religion, and global and local conversations about religion. This thesis will explore the ways that a more considered and accurate examination of the understudied religious dimensions within ATRs can potentially dismantle this legacy. It will do so by demonstrating what this considered examination might look like, through an examination of Yoruba divine conceptualizations and the insights they bring to our understanding of three concepts in Religious Studies discourse: Worship, Gender, and Syncretism. This thesis will demonstrate how these concepts have the ability to challenge and contribute to a richer understanding of various concepts and debates in Religious Studies discourse. Finally, it will consider the implications beyond academia, with a focus on the self-understanding of ATR practitioners and African communities. It frames these implications under the lens of the colonial legacy of ‘monstrosity’, which relates to their perception as primitive and irrational, and concludes that a more considered examination of ATRs within the Religious Studies framework has the potential to dismantle this legacy. -
Christian Divination in Late Antiquity Late in Divination Christian
EASTERNSOCIAL WORLDS EUROPEAN OF LATE SCREEN ANTIQUITY CULTURES AND THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES Wiśniewski Christian Divination in Late Antiquity Robert Wiśniewski Christian Divination in Late Antiquity Christian Divination in Late Antiquity Social Worlds of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages The Late Antiquity experienced profound cultural and social change: the political disintegration of the Roman Empire in the West, contrasted by its continuation and transformation in the East; the arrival of ‘barbarian’ newcomers and the establishment of new polities; a renewed militarization and Christianization of society; as well as crucial changes in Judaism and Christianity, together with the emergence of Islam and the end of classical paganism. This series focuses on the resulting diversity within Late Antique society, emphasizing cultural connections and exchanges; questions of unity and inclusion, alienation and conflict; and the processes of syncretism and change. By drawing upon a number of disciplines and approaches, this series sheds light on the cultural and social history of Late Antiquity and the greater Mediterranean world. Series Editor Carlos Machado, University of St. Andrews Editorial Board Lisa Bailey, University of Auckland Maijastina Kahlos, University of Helsinki Volker Menze, Central European University Ellen Swift, University of Kent Enrico Zanini, University of Siena Christian Divination in Late Antiquity Robert Wiśniewski Translated by Damian Jasiński Amsterdam University Press The translation of the text for this book was funded by a grant from the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities (Poland) project 21H 18 0098 86. Cover illustration: Oracular ticket from Antinoë discovered on 21 October 1984 at the East Kom (sector D 2 III) and published by Alain Delattre (2017). -
Dicing and Divination in Early China
SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS Number 121 July, 2002 Dicing and Divination in Early China by Mark Edward Lewis Victor H. Mair, Editor Sino-Platonic Papers Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 USA [email protected] www.sino-platonic.org SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS FOUNDED 1986 Editor-in-Chief VICTOR H. MAIR Associate Editors PAULA ROBERTS MARK SWOFFORD ISSN 2157-9679 (print) 2157-9687 (online) SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS is an occasional series dedicated to making available to specialists and the interested public the results of research that, because of its unconventional or controversial nature, might otherwise go unpublished. The editor-in-chief actively encourages younger, not yet well established, scholars and independent authors to submit manuscripts for consideration. Contributions in any of the major scholarly languages of the world, including romanized modern standard Mandarin (MSM) and Japanese, are acceptable. In special circumstances, papers written in one of the Sinitic topolects (fangyan) may be considered for publication. Although the chief focus of Sino-Platonic Papers is on the intercultural relations of China with other peoples, challenging and creative studies on a wide variety of philological subjects will be entertained. This series is not the place for safe, sober, and stodgy presentations. Sino- Platonic Papers prefers lively work that, while taking reasonable risks to advance the field, capitalizes on brilliant new insights into the development of civilization. Submissions are regularly sent out to be refereed, and extensive editorial suggestions for revision may be offered. Sino-Platonic Papers emphasizes substance over form. We do, however, strongly recommend that prospective authors consult our style guidelines at www.sino-platonic.org/stylesheet.doc. -
Then Apply the Ancient African IFA Oracle (And Its Subset the I Ching) to Describe History, Including the Future History of Global Finance
Abstract Dan Brown in his 2009 book "The Lost Symbol" said "... The ancients possessed profound scientific wisdom. ... Mankind ... had once grasped the true nature of the universe ... but had let go ... and forgotten. ... Modern physics can help us remember! ... the world need[s] this understanding ... now more than ever. ...", but the rest of his book fails to provide convincing support for that statement, although it does provide a clue: "... The secret hides within the Order Eight Franklin Square ... of the numbers 1 through 64 ...". The purpose of this paper is to support that statement in enough detail to convince a diligent reader that following that clue can show that the statement is true. To follow the clue: begin with the "Order Eight" Clifford Algebra Cl(8) whose 2^8 = 256 dimensions represent the 256 elements of the Ancient African IFA Oracle and the 256 Elementary Cellular Automata, so that the True Lost Symbol is the 8-dimensional HyperCube with 256 vertices as shown on the cover of this paper; then multiply (by tensor product) 8 copies of Cl(8) to produce Cl(64) whose 2^64 dimensions represent the first 10^(-34) seconds of the Zizzi Inflation Phase of our Conscious Universe and an event of Penrose-Hameroff Human Conscious Thought; then analyze the details of the 256 Cellular Automata and the E8 Lattices containing 256-vertex 8-dimensional HyperCubes to construct a realistic unified theoretical model of the Standard Model plus Gravity; then analyze the Fractal Structure of the Ancient African IFA Oracle; then apply the Ancient African IFA Oracle (and its subset the I Ching) to describe History, including the Future History of Global Finance. -
A List of Other Psychic Arts
List of Psychic Arts - Compiled by Gary L. Wimmer - www.garywimmer.com/psychic PSYCHIC ART DEFINITION 1 Abacomancy The art of foretelling future events by the observation of patterns of dust 2 Aeromancy Divination from the air and sky, cloud patterns, comets and other phenomena not normally visible in the sky 3 Alchemy Transmutation, dissolving or combining of base metals to form gold though chemical or supernatural processes 4 Alectryomancy Divination by means of a bird picking grains of corn from a circle of letters 5 Aleuromancy Divination with flour and baked goods such as fortune cookies 6 Alomancy A form of divination by using salt 7 Alphitomancy Divination using barley or cakes digestible by persons with a clear conscience but are unpleasant to others 8 Amniomancy Divination by using a caul or membrane which sometimes envelopes a child's head at birth 9 Anthropomancy Divination using human entrails, often from human sacrifices 10 Anththroposcopy Divination by observing facial features 11 Apantomancy Divination of an object, but usually an animal, which presents itself by chance 12 Arithmancy Divination by numbers 13 Aromatherapy Holistic health practice of seeking to heal certain diseases or illnesses by inhaling scented steam or fragrances 14 Ashagalomancy A system of divination of casting small bones or dice, also known as Astraglomancy or Astragyromancy 15 Astrology Ancient system of divination based on the position of the planets and the Zodiac 16 Augury Divination by studying the behaviour and flights of birds 17 Aura reading