Fulfilling Living through Oracle’s Guidance – Day 0
Oracle? What’s an Oracle?
By Darity Wesley
In ancient times, an oracle was considered to be either a person or agency which was thought to be a wise interface between humans and the gods. They generally were inspired by the gods and were able to provide prophetic predictions like fortune tellers or psychics. Really, it is just another form of divination and if you do not know what divination is, it is, from the Latin word divinare, which means to foresee or gain insight into a quest or a question. So, oracles would be consulted to answer questions about what to do, who to go to war with, how things would turn out, that kind of thing.
So you know, the word “oracle” comes from the Latin verb ?r?re which means “to speak” and therefore refers to the person providing the prediction or the information. In those classical eras where oracles were revered, they were thought to be portals through which gods spoke to the people. Perhaps you have heard of the Oracle of Delphi, this was part of Greek antiquity, and from what I understand it was through a priestess to Apollo that insights were sought.
The term “oracle” has also been applied to institutions of divination in other cultures. In China, oracles were common dating back to 1600 BCE. Most folks know about the I Ching or “Book of Changes” which was used as oracles then and continue to be used to this day. The Druids in the ancient Celtic tradition were the oracles of their time and in ancient India within Hinduism they played key roles in many of their traditional stories and I understand there are still existing and publicly accessible oracles in India.
