Origins of Divination

Although the art of divination has a cloudy origin, the first known written account of divinatory practices shows up in early 2nd millennium and comes out of ancient Mesopotamia, China, and Egypt (Gabbay 2024). These early cultures were not so concerned with foretelling the future, but were instead seeking divine manifestation from the natural world around them. Celestial divination was important to the ancient Mesopotamian diviners as they looked to the stars when seeking manifestation.

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Babylonian astrological practices evolved divination from using elements of nature like wind, water and the night sky, to charting births and horoscopes around the 5th century B.C.E.. While divination traveled through time to other cultures, its methods expanded from nature based elements to non-nature based components such as reading tea leaves, bones, and cards.  The purpose of seeking hidden knowledge remained the same while its ritualistic forms and methods expanded. This ever evolving practice or art of divination, eventually found its way to early modern Europe. There is little evidence of its travels across the millennia to modern day as ephemeral practices rarely leave a trace.