Divination not an art but revelation.
William states that the proper meaning of divination is imitation of the deity, but that the term is usually not applied to the revelations made by good spirits and prophets but to the revelation of hidden things, especially the future, by evil spirits.[1223] For he also affirms that divination is not a human art but a matter of revelation. The medical prognostications of physicians, although they may seem occult to other men, are based on experience of their art and astronomers are not called diviners but men of learning. While William may deny that the diviner is an artifex, he has to admit that some diviners use tools or materials and so give their predictions the appearance of being based upon some art.
Divination by inspection of lucid surfaces.
Of this type is the practice of predicting the future by gazing upon polished and reflecting surfaces which are rubbed with oil to increase their lucidity.[1224] Among the substances employed are mirrors, two-edged swords, children’s finger-nails, egg shells, and ivory handles. Usually a boy or a virgin is employed to gaze thereupon, and sometimes exorcisms, adjurations, and observance of times are added. William affirms that many experiences have demonstrated that only one boy out of seven or ten sees anything therein, and he is of the opinion that the whole apparatus simply conceals “the impiety of diabolical sacrifices.” Some ancient sages, nevertheless, notably Plato, have thought that the soul of the gazer is thrown back upon itself by the luminosity of the object seen and then exercises its latent powers of natural divination. We sometimes see such revelations by the irradiation of spiritual light in the insane, the very ill, dreamers, and those in whom because of great fright or care the mind is abstracted from the body.[1225] William therefore finally concludes that the theory of the philosophers as to divination by inspection of lucid bodies “is undoubtedly possible,” but he still maintains that demons are often involved.
Other instances of divination, ancient and modern.
William also tells us of an ancient Latin magician who believed that the soul of an immaculate boy who had been slain by violence would have knowledge of past, present and future.[1226] He therefore murdered a boy, and then went insane himself and imagined that he heard responses from the boy’s soul. This was surely the work of demons. Other ancient philosophers blinded boys or themselves in order to increase the power of the soul in divination.[1227] William further mentions the old-wives of his own time who still persisted in divination and interpreting dreams and could not be made to desist even by beatings.[1228] He states that these old women still cherished the superstition of the augurs that if you find a bird’s nest with the mother bird and little ones or the eggs, and preserve it intact, all will go well with you, while if you harm it or separate any bird or egg from it you will encounter ill fortune.[1229]
His treatment of astrology.
William has much to say in his various works of the heavens and the stars, and he rarely overlooks an opportunity to have a tilt with the astrologers. Most of his statements and arguments had been often employed before, however, and he also repeats himself a great deal, and his long-drawn scholastic listing and rebutting of supposed reasons pro and con at times becomes insufferably tedious. We shall therefore compress his treatment to a very small space compared to that which it occupies in his own works and words.
The philosophers on the nature of the heavens and stars.
William states that Plato and Aristotle, Boethius, Hermes Trismegistus, and Avicenna, all believed the stars to be divine animals whose souls were as superior to ours, as their celestial bodies are.[1230] Since these philosophers regarded the stars as nobler, wiser, and more powerful than mortals, they made them guardians and guides of humanity, and distributed all earthly objects under their rule. Such doctrines William recalls examining when he was young in the books of judicial astrology and the volumes of magicians and sorcerers, from whom he would appear to distinguish the above-named philosophers none too carefully. He indeed explicitly classes “Plato and Aristotle and their followers” with “those who believe in judgments of the stars.”[1231] He also tells us that Plato regarded the entire universe as one divine animal, and that his followers regarded the tides as the breathing of this world animal; but that Aristotle and his school included only what is above the moon or even only the heaven of the fixed stars.[1232] Avicenna, too, called the heaven an animal obedient to God.