Fortunes and Dreams / A practical manual of fortune telling, divination and the interpretation of dreams, signs and omens

by Astra Cielo

THE ANCIENT ORACLES

The telling of fortunes and the predicting of the future in ancient times was the work of the Oracles. In the ancient religions the Oracle was believed to be a revelation made by some god or divinity in reply to the questions of men. The word “oracle” was applied both to the answer and to the sacred place where the answer was given. The responses were made either by priests and priestesses or by signs and portents.

At the Oracle of Dodona the responses were given either by the movements of leaves, the noise of brazen vessels, or the murmurings of the waters of a fountain. Usually springs or grottos of which the waters were known to have delirious effects were selected for the sites of the oracles. At Dydima the vapor of the water affected both the priestess and person who consulted her. At Delphi the priestess, who was called the “Pythia,” delivered her utterances from a tripod placed over a chasm, from which intoxicating vapors arose. In some of the oracles, incense and artificial fumigations were used.

The answers of the oracles were famous for their obscurity and lack of meaning. They were often susceptible of two or more meanings. When King Crœsus asked of the oracle whether he should make war against Alexander, the reply was: “If you make war you destroy a great kingdom.” Crœsus began the war thinking that he would destroy Alexander, but it was his own kingdom that he destroyed.

The responses of the Pythia were not considered authoritative till they had been submitted and approved by the presiding priest. Delphi was the most famous oracle and became the center of all the Greek oracles. Even the Romans believed in its power.

With the coming of Christianity, the oracles lost much of their influence. Eusebius affirms that Christ put an end to the reign of Satan on earth and thereafter the oracles became silent.

In Greece there were altogether twenty-two oracles to Apollo, which were consulted for various purposes. One was used exclusively for the interpretation of dreams, another for the foretelling of battles, still another was consulted by those who went into the Olympian games to find out whether they would be victorious. At Patræ sick persons came to inquire whether they would get well. At Nysa the priests would take patients and induce a cataleptic sleep, during which the sick man prescribed his own remedy.

It is easy to see why many of the utterances of the oracles came true. They appealed to the superstition of the primitive people, who took the replies as coming from their gods, and tried to live up to them. The will to see the prophecy fulfilled was often sufficient to make it come true.