In course of time the profession can no longer be satisfied with interpretation by guesswork, but elaborates the principles of the subject, the Art of Divination, upon which, perhaps, as much painstaking and ingenuity have been expended as upon industry and science put together. The savants who carried out such work were probably (many of them) as honest as fanatics can be; but the result always was to raise the reputation of the profession for occult knowledge and mysterious insight.
Diviners are either free and independent seers, soothsayers, fortune-tellers, mostly poverty-stricken and disreputable, though sometimes eminent and influential, like Tiresias and Epimenides; or else officials (a much smaller party) attached to some temple or government. Official soothsayers have often exercised immense power in society and politics. They are not found, of course, at the bottom of the scale of culture, where there is no government in Church or State; but in the lower barbarism, among the Bantu tribes (for example), Diviners have a highly influential station. The chief of a tribe usually has a specially trusted Diviner, and also consults others in discovering sorcerers and in forecasting the future.[363] In the Mazwaya clan of the Thonga there is an official Diviner who alone knows the exact composition of the royal “medicine,” on which the welfare of the whole tribe depends. He is very much feared: no one dares dispute with him; and he has the right of cursing even the chief himself.[364] Such a powerful subject naturally excites the jealousy of the chief, who sometimes endeavours to get into his own hands all the medicines and occult virtues possessed by any of his tribesmen.[365] The danger of opposition between Church and State was also felt in Melanesia and Polynesia; and in Hawaii it was decisively overcome; for when the oracle was to be consulted, the king, concealed in a frame of wickerwork, gave the responses himself.[366]
In Greece (sixth and fifth centuries B.C.) oracles were still more powerful: the record may be read in Herodotus. The most flourishing States observed the Omens, and never ventured to go to war without consulting the Oracles; and the Oracles undertook to advise on war and peace and alliances, to settle disputed claims to sovereignty and the constitution of States, to sanction new laws and the foundation of colonies, to order the erection of new temples and even the worship of new deities—some of them of very dubious reputation: to say nothing of the infinite extent of their private practice. Their utterances were often unintelligible; they were sometimes known to have accepted bribes; yet the most enlightened people in the world continued to consult them: whether in good faith, or for their effect upon the vulgar both friends and enemies, or perhaps to share responsibility for an action with the gods, or even because one then felt more comfortable than in leaving them alone. But the diffusion of philosophy was too much for them; and, as Cicero says,[367] even the Delphic Oracle declined in reputation, not because with lapse of time the divine virtue failed of those exhalations that inspired the priestess, but when men became less credulous. Perhaps it was also because social life had become, under Roman government, safer and more settled and regular; so that a reasonable amount of foresight could be exercised without supernatural aid. Still, after the Oracles seemed to have been struck dumb, they revived from time to time for two or three centuries; Plutarch was far from incredulous; and the equivalent of them will (I suppose) continue to revive now and then, unless insane desire, and anxiety, and pusillanimity, and wonder and confusion of mind shall one day be extinguished.
In the great empires of the higher barbarism, the Magi amongst the Medes and Persians, and in Egypt, Babylonia and India the priesthood who practised soothsaying and vaticination with their other functions, obtained still greater control over national life. The development of Astrology has always been imputed to the Chaldeans; and the importance of dreams and their interpretation in Egypt and Babylon is reflected in the stories of Joseph and Daniel as well as in the profaner pages of Herodotus.
The character of Omens and the way of obtaining Oracles and of being inspired in Greece were merely modifications of those that have been in vogue amongst savages. Imagination-beliefs, in spite of their extravagance, have, in fact, a short tether and move in narrow circles, perpetually renewing the same themes. The ravings of the Pythoness possessed, which are said to have sometimes frightened the priests, might have been studied in Fiji. This was what happened when a priest was inspired: he “becomes absorbed in thought ... in a few minutes he trembles; slight distortions are seen in his face, and twitching movements in his limbs. These increase to a violent muscular action, which spreads until the whole frame is violently convulsed, and the man shivers as with a strong ague-fit. In some instances this is accompanied by murmurs and sobs; the veins are greatly enlarged, and the circulation of the blood quickened. The priest is now possessed by his god, and all his words and actions are considered as no longer his own, but those of the deity who has entered him. Shrill cries of Koi au! Koi au! ‘It is I! It is I!’ fill the air, and the god is supposed thus to notify his approach. While giving the answer the priest’s eyes stand out and roll as in a frenzy; his voice is unnatural, his face pale, his lips livid, his breathing depressed and his entire appearance that of a furious madman. The sweat runs from every pore, the tears start from his strained eyes; after which the symptoms gradually disappear. The priest looks round with a vacant stare, and as the god says ‘I depart,’ announces his actual departure by violently flinging himself down on the mat, or by suddenly striking the ground with a club.... The convulsive movements do not entirely disappear for some time.”[368]
To become inspired by means of visions or dreams, or endowed with the powers of a prophet or diviner, the obvious plan is to go to places frequented by spirits, namely, tombs, caves and temples. The Oracle of Trophonius in Bœotia was situated in a cave into which the consultant descended, and there saw visions or heard strange noises, and lost his senses: on returning to the upper air, he sat in the Chair of Memory and reported to the priests what had happened; and they delivered him to his friends “overpowered with fear, and quite unconscious of himself and his surroundings.”[369] Afterwards he recovered his wits. At Oropus was a sanctuary of Amphiaraus, who (against his better judgment) had joined the expedition of Adrastus against Thebes and, amidst the general defeat of the army, fled and was swallowed up in the earth. His death ought to have occurred where his sanctuary stood; for it was a famous Oracle, and to consult it you purified yourself and sacrificed a ram and, spreading the skin under you, went asleep there, awaiting a revelation in a dream.[370] In the temple of Pasiphæ, too, near Sparta, one might hope for a divine message in a dream; and a shepherd, sleeping by the grave of Orpheus at Libethra, was moved to sing the verses of Orpheus.[371]
To lose one’s memory and afterwards recover one’s wits is incidental to many initiation ceremonies, and the darkness and secrecy of caves—which, moreover, are often burial-places—have always deeply impressed our imagination. Amongst the Arunta there is a way of obtaining powers of Magic and Divination by going to sleep at the mouth of a cave; when the Iruntarinia (a kind of spirits), who live there, pierce the sleeper’s head with lances, drag him into the cave, disembowel him and give him new entrails. He awakes dazed and silly; and the spirits lead him home, where gradually he recovers his right mind.[372] Amongst the Kurnai, again, one may become a wizard and diviner by sleeping at a grave; for in the night the dead man disembowels one, and provides new visceral organs.[373] Elsewhere in Australia a candidate for the wizardly profession is tied down at night in the tribal burial-ground and visited by spirits who force a stone into his head—apparently a kind of crystal, by gazing into which a wizard is able to see the past, the distant and the future.[374]
The seeking of enlightenment where spirits dwell in caves or graves, loss of wits by contact with them and subsequent recovery—all this may remind us of stories in Pausanias; but what of the disembowelling and renewing of the viscera? We are told by Spencer and Gillen that during the performance of certain traditionary ceremonies, an Australian’s emotion is very great, so that he says his inward parts get “tied up in knots,” and sometimes acquire “sight” and give omens;[375] and Howitt tells us that fat of the kidneys is believed to be the seat of a man’s prowess and other virtues.[376] To extract and renew a man’s entrails, therefore, is to renew his spirit, just as we speak metaphorically of a “change of heart,” so that he has more vivid emotions, firmer courage, clearer insight. In fact, it is the magical equivalent of inspiration; the crystal, too, of the Euahlayi is a magic source; and this is as far as the Australians have got:[377] gross materialism, which the progress or (at least) the movement of animistic thought has happily superseded by conceptions more refined, if not more truthful.