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Divination, Oracles & Omens

David Zeitlyn editor Michelle Aroney editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Bodleian Library

Published:6th Dec '24

£25.00

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Divination, Oracles & Omens cover

A spellbinding collection of twenty-four divinatory techniques from around the world exploring our need to appeal to powers beyond our realm for prediction and clarification.

The past, present and future are full of tantalizing mysteries: questions about our own and other people’s lives that we long to answer. Across history, human cultures have devised a wide range of methods to discover what might lie ahead or to understand past events.

This fascinating book features twenty-four divinatory techniques from around the world that have been and are still used to uncover hidden information: from astrology, palmistry, and Tarot to egg divination and Chinese Yijing. Each chapter is beautifully illustrated with a wide range of associated objects, such as cards, dice, altars, candles and texts, and even mathematical tools including astrolabes and astronomical tables. While these practices are often seen as light-hearted entertainment, a soothsayer’s uncannily accurate reading can catapult a client from scepticism to serious engagement.

From ancient times to the present day, this spellbinding collection explores our need to appeal to powers beyond the realm of our day-to-day understanding for prediction and clarification, and how the questions we ask can reveal more than the answers we are given.

Beautifully illustrated, Divination, Oracles & Omens presents an array of related objects used in divination practices, such as cards, dice, altars, candles, astrolabes, and astronomical tables...More than just a survey of divinatory techniques, this spellbinding work explores what it means to seek answers in an unpredictable world, revealing that our questions often speak volumes about our lives and the times we live in.

-- Gang Li * New Publication Announceme

ISBN: 9781851246335

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 666g

192 pages