The Quirky Relation Between Divination and Wisdom
What exactly is divination, and how does it relate to wisdom? Dictionary definitions of divination frequently place a strong emphasis on the phenomenon’s supernatural component, but not all kinds of divination do. It’s critical to realize there are two types of this phrase that are essentially distinct in order to comprehend why this is the case.
The first type is predicated on the notion that specific communications may occasionally be transmitted by supernatural creatures of some kind, either spontaneously or in response to a suggestion. At oracles, this form of divination is performed. A question is posed, and a response is provided — typically by or on behalf of a deity or goddess — to it. A question is posed, and a response is provided — typically by or on behalf of a deity or goddess — to it. It is easy to understand how this type of divination and knowledge are related because divinities have long been linked to wisdom in various ways.
But there is another sort of divination entirely independent of the supernatural. A good illustration is a palmistry. According to palmists, a correlation exists between a person’s life’s general patterns and directions and the lines on their hands. Although palmists claim to be using an old science based on observation and experience, they have no interest in the paranormal.
Palmistry may be good science or bad science, but it does not invoke supernaturalism, according to a well-known defence of the practice that claims “almost all medical specialists accept now that the varied patterns of nails signal different ailments.”
Whether you believe it or not, palmistry has a degree of credibility that is more difficult to discover in other divinatory methods like lecanomancy. It appears that a painting at Pompeii’s Villa Dei Misteri depicts this procedure, which was common in ancient Mesopotamia. It involved a water-filled container with an oily coating floating on the surface of the water. By observing the behaviour of the oil when something was dropped into the container, divination was performed.
Lecanomancy appears to have been predicated, like many other types of divination, on the notion that the world was interconnected in such a way that learning about one aspect may lead to learning about another. Lecanomancy assumes a far larger form of connection than does palm reading, which assumes a clear relationship to the person whose palm it is. Lecanomancy also requires a subject to be created before it can be studied, unlike palmistry. There is no way that the oil on the water could possibly be the cause of anything; all it does is provide us a glimpse into how the world works. Lecanomancy is based on a particular understanding of nature rather than anything supernatural.
The relationship between this type of divination and wisdom may not be immediately apparent, but it does exist. In the beginning, it offers similar insights to the other kind but does so in a different way. Second, there may be a link between knowledge of the structure of the world and wisdom.
