The Art of Divination in the Ancient Near East

The Art of Divination in the Ancient Near East PDF Author: Stefan M. Maul
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781481308595
Category : Divination
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
The art of divination in the ancient Near East : reading the signs of heaven and earth by Stefan M. Maul (2018).

The Art of Divination in the Ancient Near East

The Art of Divination in the Ancient Near East PDF Author: Stefan M. Maul
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781481308595
Category : Divination
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
The art of divination in the ancient Near East : reading the signs of heaven and earth by Stefan M. Maul (2018).

The Art of Small Things

The Art of Small Things PDF Author: John Mack
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674026933
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
This richly illustrated book celebrates the art of the miniature, but also looks beyond it at the many aspects of "small worlds"--in particular, their capacity to evoke responses that far exceed their physical dimensions. Mack explores the talismanic, religious, or magical properties with which miniatures are often imbued. Considering a wide range of objects, he examines the use of the miniature form in various cultural contexts.

The Druidic Art of Divination

The Druidic Art of Divination PDF Author: Jon G. Hughes
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1644110253
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 375

Get Book Here

Book Description
A complete guide to the techniques of the pre-Celtic Druids for understanding the past, present, and future • Offers step-by-step instructions for a wealth of practices passed down across five generations of Welsh Druids • Explains the three forms of divination used by the Druids: interpretive divination, such as reading the Sevens; inductive divination, such as reading the wind or smoke; and intuitive divination, whose tools include cup-stones and scrying mirrors • Provides comprehensive instructions on how to craft and utilize your own magical instruments and tools, including botanical compounds, scrying wands, and slate speculum vitae In this practical guide, Jon G. Hughes shares ancient secret Druidic techniques of divination passed down to him across five generations in an unbroken lineage of influential Welsh Druids. Hughes explains the three forms of divination used by his tradition: interpretive divination, used by readers of the Sevens (small staves with engraved sigils); inductive divination, which includes instructions for reading the wind, reading smoke, and divination using water; and intuitive divination, whose tools includes cup-stones and slate mirrors for scrying. Providing step-by-step instructions for practices in each of the three forms, he offers a wealth of divinatory techniques and explains how to access the altered states of consciousness necessary to read time backward and forward. He also explores the crafting and use of all tools and mixtures the reader will need to perform each type of divination, including botanical compounds, scrying wands, and a slate speculum vitae, the “mirror of life.” He reveals how the prime function of divination in this school of Druidic lore is to gain insight into past, present, and future events through a process of internalizing them, akin to empathy, and then interpreting them. By providing an understanding of pre-Celtic beliefs and clear instructions for Druidic practices, Hughes offers each of us the opportunity to begin our own practical experimentation and journey of discovery into the ancient art of Druidic divination.

The Art of Divination in the Ancient Near East

The Art of Divination in the Ancient Near East PDF Author: Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Studies Stefan M Maul
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781481308601
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
You stars of Anu, I call on you! You stars of Enlil, turn to me! You stars of Ea, all of you together, gather around me! I have offered you a pure sacrifice, I have scattered pure incense to you, I have poured out pure beer for you. Eat what is pure, drink what is sweet! With these words, the Babylonians invoked the gods of the night as they prepared their sacrifices under a clear, starry sky. Discovering divine will was a part of everyday life for the people of the ancient Near East. Every state action and every military campaign was preceded by a king's meticulous ritual that petitioned the gods for a sure answer about the outcome of their endeavors. But royals were not alone in their quest. Wealthy merchants, simple craftsmen, poor widows--everyone wanted and needed certainty for future undertakings. Those who could afford it sacrificed a flawless sheep, whose liver was used by the diviner to determine the answer. Others sought guidance in oil and flour. The desire for certainty in the face of an unknown future unified all classes in the ancient world. Stefan M. Maul, a noted expert on ancient Near Eastern divination, offers an overview of this fascinating subject. Maul surveys the "art" of divination as it expanded from Sumerian roots to Babylonian mastery, cataloging its evolving methodology--from entrails to astrology--and the class of experts who performed it. He argues that the discernment of the will of the gods, though vital for political counsel, was far from a cynical ploy of the elite: at root this was a genuine attempt to unite Mesopotamian cultures under a common purpose. What seems to the post-Enlightenment world a mere superstition was, in its own way and to its own ends, a robust scholarly enterprise that lent these ancient peoples a sense of control over a world populated by fickle forces. These practices remind us that the desire to know the future is a part of what it means to be human, regardless of time or place.

Mesopotamian Magic

Mesopotamian Magic PDF Author: I. Tzvi Abusch
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9789056930332
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume, edited by Tzvi Zbusch and Karel van der Toorn, contains the papers delivered at the first international conference on Mesopotamian magic held under the auspices of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies (NIAS) in June 1995. It is the first collective volume dedicated to the study of this topic. It aims at serving as a bench-mark and provides analytic and innovative but also sythetic and programmatic essays. Magical texts, forms, and traditions from the Mesopotamian cultural worlds of the third millennium BCE through the first millennium CE, in the Sumerian, Akkadian and Aramaic languages as well as in art, are examined.

The Art of Conjecture

The Art of Conjecture PDF Author: Bertrand de Jouvenel
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412847087
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Thought

The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Thought PDF Author: Abiola Irele
Publisher:
ISBN: 0195334736
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1025

Get Book Here

Book Description
From St. Augustine and early Ethiopian philosophers to the anti-colonialist movements of Pan-Africanism and Negritude, this encyclopedia offers a comprehensive view of African thought, covering the intellectual tradition both on the continent in its entirety and throughout the African Diaspora in the Americas and in Europe. The term "African thought" has been interpreted in the broadest sense to embrace all those forms of discourse - philosophy, political thought, religion, literature, important social movements - that contribute to the formulation of a distinctive vision of the world determined by or derived from the African experience. The Encyclopedia is a large-scale work of 350 entries covering major topics involved in the development of African Thought including historical figures and important social movements, producing a collection that is an essential resource for teaching, an invaluable companion to independent research, and a solid guide for further study.

The Art of Conjecture

The Art of Conjecture PDF Author: Bertrand de Jouvenel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351305662
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Get Book Here

Book Description
Commissions of experts regularly meet to reply to questions such as: What will be the population of the country, or even of our planet, in ten, fifteen or twenty-five years? In what proportion will production have increased, what modifications will its composition and utilizations have undergone? The attraction of efforts to forecast the future continues. That is a fact. How does it proceed? That is a problem, one on which de Jouvenel focuses on in this book. The Art of Conjecture clearly explains what the "study of the future" can mean. De Jouvenel emphasizes the logical and political problems of forecasting and discusses methods in economics, sociology, and political science by which the future can be studied. More importantly, he discusses the fallacies to which the "study of the future" is peculiarly likely to give rise. The author argues that it is natural and necessary for the population to have visions of the future. Without this, he states, we would only be able to set one opinion of the future against another. If the origins and meanings of these predictions remained obscure, only the event could decide among the opinions. If any man can be said to have created the serious "study of the future" in our time, it is Bertrand de Jouvenel. Futuribles, a periodical he created, continues to represent a major turning point in contemporary social science. Jouvenel aimed to show how "the art of conjecture" could inform prudential judgment and allow citizens and statesmen to detect troubles before they arise.

Leo Strauss On Plato's Symposium

Leo Strauss On Plato's Symposium PDF Author: Leo Strauss
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226776859
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Get Book Here

Book Description
The first major piece of unpublished work by Leo Strauss to appear in more than thirty years, Leo Strauss On Plato's "Symposium" offers the public the unprecedented experience of encountering this renowned scholar as his students did. Given as a course in autumn 1959 under the title "Plato's Political Philosophy," at the University of Chicago, these transcripts previously had circulated in samizdat fashion, passed down from one generation of students to the next. They show Strauss at his best, in his subtle and sometimes indirect style of analysis, which has attracted almost as much commentary as has the content of his thought. Strauss presents a coherent and complete interpretation of the Symposium, proceeding by a meticulous reading from beginning to end. Operating on the once common hypothesis that commentary is an excellent method of expounding the truth, Strauss sheds light not only on the meaning of the dialogue and its place in the Platonic corpus, but also on a host of important topics, including the nature of eros and its place in the overall economy of human life; the perennial quarrel between poetry and philosophy, and the relation of both to piety, politics, and morality; the character of Socrates and the questions of his trial; and many other matters. As provocative as they were a half century ago, these important lectures will be welcomed by students of classics, philosophy, politics, psychology, and political philosophy.

Women's Divination in Biblical Literature

Women's Divination in Biblical Literature PDF Author: Esther J. Hamori
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300213360
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Get Book Here

Book Description
Divination, the use of special talents and techniques to gain divine knowledge, was practiced in many different forms in ancient Israel and throughout the ancient world. The Hebrew Bible reveals a variety of traditions of women associated with divination. This sensitive and incisive book by respected scholar Esther J. Hamori examines the wide scope of women’s divinatory activities as portrayed in the Hebrew texts, offering readers a new appreciation of the surprising breadth of women’s “arts of knowledge” in biblical times. Unlike earlier approaches to the subject that have viewed prophecy separately from other forms of divination, Hamori’s study encompasses the full range of divinatory practices and the personages who performed them, from the female prophets and the medium of En-dor to the matriarch who interprets a birth omen and the “wise women” of Tekoa and Abel and more. In doing so, the author brings into clearer focus the complex, rich, and diverse world of ancient Israelite divination.