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Divination (from Latin ''divinare'' "to foresee, to be inspired by a god",〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=LacusCurtius • Greek and Roman Divination (Smith's Dictionary, 1875) )〕 related to ''divinus'', divine) is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual.〔Peek, P.M. ''African Divination Systems: Ways of Knowing.'' page 2. Indiana University Press. 1991.〕 Used in various forms throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact with a supernatural agency. Divination can be seen as a systematic method with which to organize what appear to be disjointed, random facets of existence such that they provide insight into a problem at hand. If a distinction is to be made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a more formal or ritualistic element and often contains a more social character, usually in a religious context, as seen in traditional African medicine. Fortune-telling, on the other hand, is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Particular divination methods vary by culture and religion. Divination is dismissed by the scientific community and skeptics as being superstition. In the 2nd century, Lucian devoted a witty essay to the career of a charlatan, "Alexander the false prophet", trained by "one of those who advertise enchantments, miraculous incantations, charms for your love-affairs, visitations for your enemies, disclosures of buried treasure, and successions to estates",〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Lucian of Samosata : Alexander the False Prophet )〕 even though most Romans believed in prophetic dreams and charms. ==Categories== Psychologist Julian Jaynes categorized divination into the following four types: # Omens and omen texts. Chinese history offers scrupulously documented occurrences of strange births, the tracking of natural phenomena, and other data. Chinese governmental planning relied on this method of forecasting for long-range strategies. It is not unreasonable to assume that modern scientific inquiry began with this kind of divination; Joseph Needham's work considered this very idea. # Sortilege (cleromancy). This consists of the casting of lots, or ''sortes'', whether with sticks, stones, bones, beans, coins, or some other item. Modern playing cards and board games developed from this type of divination. # Augury. This ranks a set of given possibilities. It can be qualitative (such as shapes, proximities, etc.): for example, dowsing (a form of rhabdomancy) developed from this type of divination. The Romans, in classical times, used Etruscan methods of augury such as hepatoscopy (actually a form of extispicy) (for example, Haruspices examined the livers of sacrificed animals). Augury is normally considered to specifically refer to divination by studying the flight patterns of birds. But also, the use of the rooster through alectryomancy may be further understood within that religious character and likewise defined as a cockfight, or cockfighting〔Encyclopaedia Perthensis; or Universal dictionary of the arts, sciences, literature, &c. intended to supersede the use of other books of reference, Volume 1; Printed by John Brown; 1816. ()〕 with the intent of communication between the gods and man. # Spontaneous. An unconstrained form of divination, free from any particular medium, and actually a generalization of all types of divination. The answer comes from whatever object the diviner happens to see or hear. Some religions use a form of bibliomancy: they ask a question, riffle the pages of their holy book, and take as their answer the first passage their eyes light upon. Other forms of spontaneous divination include reading auras and New Age methods of ''feng shui'' such as "intuitive" and "''fuzion''". In addition to these four broad categories, there is palmistry, also called chiromancy, a practice common to many different places on the Eurasian landmass;〔Bhojraj Dwivedi. Wonders of Palmistry pp. 16-20〕 it has been practised in the cultures of India, Tibet, China, Persia, Sumeria, Ancient Israel and Babylonia. In this practice, the diviner examines the hands of a person for whom they are divining for indications of their future. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「divination」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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