Attempts to foretell the future, contact the dead or read minds were made as far back as distant antiquity. Sorcerers, diviners and astrologers appeared in every known ancient culture, where they often served as priests. Magic, including divination, usually coexisted with religion. This was the case among the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Canaanites, Greeks, Romans and Celts, and among the peoples of Africa, Australia and the Americas. Divination techniques are also known and used in many world religions that originated in India and China: Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism.
The only known exception are the faiths based on the beliefs of the ancient Hebrews (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), because of the very particular picture of the spirit world they adopted from the Old Testament.
The spirit world in the Old Testament
Contact with the spirits of the dead was impossible, because they departed to a land of sleep and oblivion called Sheol (Genesis 37:35; Psalm 6:5, 89:48; Ecclesiastes 9:10; Isaiah 38:18). God allowed the dead to contact the living only in very exceptional circumstances (1 Samuel 28); in all other cases contact was made with demonic spirits impersonating the dead (Isaiah 8:19), which is why the Old Testament calls spiritualism and divination spiritual adultery (Leviticus 20:6).
Foretelling the future belonged to the prophets of Yahweh, but Moses warned that prophets of other gods would sometimes practise it successfully too (Deuteronomy 13:2–3), and that demonic spirits stood behind them (Deuteronomy 32:17). That is why Moses forbade all occult practices (Deuteronomy 18:10–11), while later prophets condemned astrology and clairvoyance (Isaiah 47:13; Jeremiah 27:9; Micah 3:7; Zechariah 10:2).
Reading other people’s thoughts and learning hidden facts about their lives was possible only through divine revelation, since God alone knows the depths of the human heart (Genesis 41; 1 Kings 8:39; Psalm 139; Daniel 2). Demonic spirits roaming the earth, however, could pass on some of their knowledge to people practising various forms of the occult (Job 1:7, 2:2; Deuteronomy 18:14).
For these reasons divination was punishable by death under the Mosaic law, and in practice all occultists were driven out of Israel (1 Samuel 28:3; 2 Kings 23:24; Zechariah 13:2).
Over time, however, Judaism adopted the Kabbalah, which is a form of divination.
Christianity condemned all occult practices (Acts 19:19; Galatians 5:20; Revelation 22:15) but at the same time rejected the penal requirements of the Mosaic law (John 8:3–11). When Christianity became the state religion of ancient Rome, the Old Testament principles returned, and in the fourth century the death penalty was reintroduced for practising any form of astrology. In the Middle Ages many women suspected of fortune-telling were burnt at the stake, mainly at the instigation of the Inquisition. At first, only members of pacifist Protestant denominations (the Waldensians, Hutterite Anabaptists and Quakers) opposed this. In Poland the last witch trials ending in burning at the stake took place in the eighteenth century.
The Quran (5:3 and 5:90) likewise forbids followers of Allah to practise divination.
First published (Polish original): 13 January 2009. Written by astrologers and esoteric specialists working with our editorial team; edited and translated for HOROSCOP.SPACE. © All rights reserved.
