Coping with Uncertainty: Oracles, Divination and Decision-Making

By Francine Barone

That we live in uncertain times is almost certainly and understatement. Every day, news headlines feature an unprecedented use of the term “unprecedented” to describe events as they occur around the world. How do humans deal with uncertainty? Is it the same everywhere? How do we cope in the face of chaos, turbulence, and unpredictability?

Humans are naturally adept decision-makers, generally taking into account all available knowledge at our disposal and filtering out what we believe to be the most important criteria for our choices. Every day, each of us makes a series of both small and large decisions. Most of our daily choices are probably inconsequential. But even mundane choices require calibrating a number of competing factors, both known and unknown. Should I make coffee at home, or pick it up on the way to work? While seemingly innocuous, this decision requires weighing a number of pros and cons, such as wasting or saving money and/or time. And then there are those much bigger decisions. Should I get married? Should I buy a home? Here, some of the key deciding factors exist far outside of any individual person’s control and are even compounded by global uncertainties. That is, many of aspects to weigh could be entirely unknowable, from the state of the world economy to future housing availability or the job market. And, well, is your fiancée the one? Without being able to predict the outcome of our choices before we make them, how can we ever know what to do?

Divination & Oracles

Divination, Oracles and Omens, edited by Michelle Aroney and David Zeitlyn, explores how, across history and around the world, humans make decision in the face of the unknowable by “using techniques that promise to unveil the concealed, disclosing knowledge that offers answers to private or shared dilemmas” (2025: 9). These attempts to access underlying truths are at the heart of the practice of divination, which takes many different forms across societies. Since “discovering, or uncovering, this hidden information can help diagnose present problems and empower us to make decisions about future actions” (ibid), it is common for people to seek out the assistance of diviners or oracles whose access to this secret knowledge enables them to offer guidance to those seeking answers.

Divination can be more commonplace than you think. Magic 8 balls, Ouija boards, fortune cookies and tarot cards are all examples of ways people seek help in making decisions, even if just for fun. Practitioners of divination look for patterns or clues and interpret them according to certain rules in order to make a judgement, prediction or explanation. As Aroney and Zeitlyn describe, beyond cards and dice, diviners might look for clues in seeds, bones, guts, birds, spiders, or celestial bodies, sometimes with the help of sacred or ceremonial tools, texts or objects (ibid. 13-18). It may or may not involve a form of possession where a spirit speaks through the diviner (ibid. 25). Much like a priest or physician, diviners bring specialist knowledge, training and other standardized methods to assist their clients.

Two main uses of divination described by Aroney and Zeitlyn are for the purposes of diagnosis (looking back to provide explanation) and prognosis (looking forward to offer a prediction). A diagnostic question might be, “why did I get sick?”; while a useful prediction might be, “will it be safe to travel tomorrow?” Examples of types of divination covered in the volume by Aroney and Zeitlyn include tarot and other cards; necromancy; cartomancy; palmistry; oracles in Ancient Greece, spider divination in Cameroon; Thai, Indian, Renaissance European and Ottoman astrology; Tibetan rope divination, Ancient Jewish bibliomancy, African basket divination and Nuoso Egg divination.

Such a wide variety of practices across cultures points to divination being a near human universal across place and time, with recorded examples from as far back as the 2^nd millennium in Mesopotamia (Koch 2021). What can we learn about the universality and cultural significance of divination and oracles? What are the commonalities and differences in how people in different places use divinatory methods when encountering uncertainty in their everyday lives?

If you are interested in conducting a cross-cultural study into divination and oracles, rich ethnographic data can be found in the eHRAF World Cultures database, where you can search over 360 cultures using the OCM subject identifiers 787 Revelation and Divination or 791 Magicians and Diviners. Some of these examples will be explored below.

Diagnosis

In many societies, diviners are among a series of practitioners alongside priests, magicians, shamans and other intermediaries between the supernatural world and human beings. Diviners may be called upon to determine the reason for an illness or misfortune. With or without the assistance of biomedicine, diagnosing illnesses and prescribing cures is a common use for divination.

For the Manus of Papua New Guinea, a diviner might be invoked in cases where the cause of an illness is not readily apparent, so that the disease and its proper treatment may be determined: “This man would use betelnut, lime, a pepper leaf, and his saliva to get answers from the spirits. The running of the red-coloured saliva on the pepper leaf would determine whether the answer to a question was ‘yes’ or ‘no’” (Otto 1998:85). Like the Manus, the Gonds of Madhya Pradesh, central India, believe that “most diseases and misfortunes are caused by the machinations of evil spirits and offended deities”, and it is the role of diviners to find out which supernatural agencies have caused the illness and determine how they must be appeased (Fuchs 2011: 7).

Similarly, the Tonga use divination to determine the causes of sickness and misfortune as well as a means of witchfinding, as witchcraft and sorcery are believed be forces that can cause spiritual and bodily harm. Divining bones, magic mirrors and charms are combined with medicinal and herbal cures (Reynolds 1968: 185-186), so that traditional healing and supernatural methods work together towards curing various aspects of an ailment. Even as European biomedical practices and diagnoses became more readily available in Tonga in the 1960s, divination continued to provide information about the forces that make people susceptible to illness (Colson 1971: 249).

Prognosis

Pineda Giraldo and Muirden describe how the indigenous Goajiro people of Venezuela and Colombia use burning tobacco or fire as a means of divination that allows certain men or women to see secret events that have occurred or foresee future events yet to occur (1950: 60). For example, in the case of a robbery where there are stolen objects, a fire divination ceremony is used to locate and return the objects:

There are diviners who make use of a burning reed or cane for this ceremony. They hold it in the hand and do not take their eyes off it, paying close attention to the changes in the flame, if any, in the blazing up or dying down of the ember, and any other variations they may see. According to all these details, they decide on what divinatory acts are called for” (1950: 61). During this process, “the spirit of the diviner disengages itself from his body and goes in search of the lost articles, following the track of the thief until it finds the hiding place and consequently the stolen goods, returning then to the body of the diviner to communicate the result to him so that he can, on his part, transmit the information to the party who has come to consult him (1950: 60).

While divination sometimes required trained ritual specialists, other times it is something that anyone can perform on a daily basis. Skilled Goajiro diviners are specialists who are called upon to solve mysteries like the thefts described above; however, any person in La Guajira can learn the signs for divination and prophecy and make use of them to help others or themselves by finding answers to questions they may have about the unknown.

For example, wives commonly engage in divinatory arts to learn what their absent husbands are up to:

The process is as follows: First the tobacco is lit, then a special prayer is recited asking that what is occurring, or is going to happen, be revealed. Then the woman starts to suck on the tobacco and to observe most carefully every change in the tobacco once it begins to burn. For example, if it emits sparks this means that the person about whom the divinatory enquiry is being made is going to receive money; if it opens in the middle it means that the husband is ill; and he is gravely ill if the ash goes black. Other characteristic signs show when the husband has taken another woman and when he is with her (1950: 62).

Through these methods, any “ordinary” Goajira person is capable of foretelling the future by reading these signs.

The Aymara in Bolivia make use of a great proliferation of divinatory techniques in almost all aspects of life for the explanation of misfortune or catastrophe as well as concerns about the future. Indeed, “It is quite likely that every adult Aymara, just as he seeks to read omens in nearly all nature, also indulges in private divination of one type or another” (Tshopik 1951: 221b). Coca leaves are commonly used in Aymara divination as follows: “If, when thrown from the hand, the green side of the leaf falls upward, good luck will ensue; if the light side falls upward, luck will be bad; and if a black leaf is included in the handful someone will die, the age of the victim being designated by the size of the black leaf” (La Barre 1948: 70). Additional methods for divining include seeking omens in the movement of spiders’ legs, corn kernels, and reading the stars; while yet more omens also guide daily life: “owls and the whistle of a guinea pig presage death; comets forecast bad crops; and to see a condor while planting means good fortune (Tshopik 1946: 564).

Massé and Messner (1954: 245) describe divination by Qur’an – a form of bibliomancy – in Iran:

Whenever one is in difficulty over some choice or some undertaking, one consults the Koran or a rosary. You take the Koran in your left hand, think about what you want, close your eyes, put the fingers of your right hand at random on the top edge of the book, open it and read it. You then base your decision on the meaning of the verse which begins the page (there are three degrees of interpretation: good, fair, bad). Or else you close your eyes and open the Koran. You count backwards for seven pages and read the passage on which your eyes open.

Aroney and Zeitlyn liken oracular consultations to therapy. As “a technology that assists decision-making”, divination appeals to people who are typically seeking answers that will help them to make decisions or to legitimize decisions that they have already made, thus putting their minds at ease (2024: 39). When dealing with uncertainty, sometimes reassurance is enough guidance to help make a decision between two paths, the outcome of which is impossible to predict until it has unfolded. Life’s most difficult decisions are largely clouded by either information overload (too many options) or opacity (too many unknowns). Since all humans encounter both small, largely inconsequential decisions in everyday life as well as big, life-changing ones, it is understandable why oracles and divination are likely to be cultural universals. Whether it is a deck of cards, a pile of bones, or a spirit medium, the oracle is the simply the messenger. The recipient must ultimately decide their fate. It is preferable to feel less alone while doing so.

Keep Searching

The above examples are just a few of the ethnographic findings on divination and oracles in the eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology databases. To conduct your own cross-cultural comparison of divination, try searching with the OCM identifiers 787 Revelation and Divination or 791 Magicians and Diviners. If you’re not yet a member, free trials and membership information are available here.

Free Teaching eHRAF Activity

If you are an instructor interested in teaching with eHRAF World Cultures, visit my Teaching eHRAF activity on this subject: Divinations and Oracles. There is also a workbook version available here.

eHRAF Cultures mentioned:

Manus (OM06)
Gonds (AW32)
Tonga (FQ12)
Goajiro (SC13)
Aymara (SF05)
Iran (MA01)

References

Aroney, M. and D. Zeitlyn (eds.) 2024. Divination: oracles & omens. Oxford: Bodleian Library Publishing.

Colson, Elizabeth, and University of Zambia. Institute for Social Research. 1971. “The Social Consequences of Resettlement: The Impact of the Kariba Resettlement upon the Gwembe Tonga.” In Kariba Studies. 1971, Manchester. Manchester University Press. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/cultures/fq12/documents/004.

Fuchs, Stephen. 2011. “Culture Summary: Gond.” 2011, New Haven, Conn. Preprint, Human Relations Area Files. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/cultures/aw32/documents/000.

Koch, Ulla. 2021. Divination and Omens. In Biblical Studies. Oxford University Press (available on-line: https://oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195393361/obo-9780195393361-0287.xml, accessed 13 January 2026).

La Barre, Weston. 1948. “The Aymara Indians of the Lake Titicaca Plateau.” In Memoirs, No. 68, vol. 50. no. 68. 1948, Menasha, Wis. American Anthropological Association. https://ehrafworldcgonultures.yale.edu/cultures/sf05/documents/003.

Massé, Henri, and Charles A. Messner. 1954. “Persian Beliefs and Customs.” In Behavior Science Translations. 1954, New Haven [Conn.]. Human Relations Area Files. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/cultures/ma01/documents/007.

Otto, Ton. 1998. “Local Narratives of a Great Transformation: Conversion to Christianity in Manus, Papua New Guinea.” Folk : Journal of the Danish Ethnographic Society Vol. 40: 71–97. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/cultures/om06/documents/012.

Pineda Giraldo, Roberto, and Sydney Muirden. n.d. “Aspects of Magic in La Guajira.” In Revista Del Instituto Etnologico Nacional, No. 1, vol. 3. no. 1. [S.n.]. Accessed January 13, 2026. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/cultures/sc13/documents/002.

Reynolds, Barrie, and Kariba studies (National Museums of Zambia). 1968. “The Material Culture of the Peoples of the Gwembe Valley.” In Kariba Studies, v. 3. 1968, New York. Praeger. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/cultures/fq12/documents/003.

Tschopik, Harry. 1946. “The Aymara.” No. 143. Vol. 2. no. 143. 1946, Washington, D.C. Preprint, Smithsonian Institution. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/cultures/sf05/documents/001.

Tschopik, Harry. 1951. “The Aymara of Chucuito, Peru: 1. Magic.” In Anthropological Papers, vol. 44. 1951, New York. American Museum of Natural History. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/cultures/sf05/documents/002.

Image credits: