Page 15 - Kallima Spiritual Centre Newsletter - August / September 2021

Though the last of these, Extispiry, was available only to the wealthy, the vast majority of common citizens could perform some type of divination. Because omen observation had a long history, and incurred little or no cost, this was by far the most widely used form among all social classes.
Apparently, no one technique of divination was thought to be more effective than any other. After all, the deities themselves had revealed these methods to humans. Their express reason for doing so was to offer their worshippers tools by which they could communicate with their deities.
Problems did sometimes arise among official diviners, but as in Babylon, the fault lay in dishonest humans, not in the techniques they used. Many diviners were forced out of business and potential clients became more careful of their selection of a seer. The writer Artemidorus, in his work on dreams, warned his audience against relying on the multitude of sham fortunetellers and readers that were in business throughout ancient Rome.
Ancient Germany
When we talk about ‘Germany’ we refer to the area spread across much of Scandinavia and Iceland centuries before the Viking Age. This is an early, mainly, undocumented time. Most of the information we have regarding this ‘Germanic’ history is largely due to the ancient Roman writers. More is known about the Vikings, who represent the last survivors of the original practitioners of these ancient arts, separated from the earliest Germanic times by 900 years, and discussed only in passing.
Divination became so firmly established in what is now known as Germany that the first German national council, held in 743 C.E., warned of the continuing reliance of the German people on divination, despite centuries of Christian dominance. Three hundred years later new laws were passed that forbade the practice of divination.
The early Germanic people saw divination as a means of determining the fate that their deities had allotted to them. In this regard they were in perfect agreement with most other cultures of the time. Tacitus and Julius Caesar both attest to the faith that the Germanic peoples placed in divination. What does somewhat separate early Germanic peoples from other cultures is the apparent complete acceptance of women in the role of divine, especially in the use of lots.
Though the information is sketchy we can form a partial picture of the divinatory practices of this ancient people. Perhaps the most commonly used technique was that of casting the lots.
Lots
In this ancient art, a variety of tools are thrown or otherwise manipulated to determine the future. The deities themselves were said to direct the manner in which the lots fell, and from them the future was determined.
According to the Roman writer Tacitus, lot casting usually began with prayer. In later Viking times, this was almost invariably addressed to Odin, who was a master of these arts. We know little of the deities to whom such prayers were addressed in the earliest periods.
The procedure for consultation of the lots was time- honored and rarely altered. Tacitus describes it as consisting of the use of small strips of wood sliced from a fruit-bearing tree. Upon these lots were inscribed various signs. These tools, which seem to have been made afresh for every casting, were then tossed at random on a white cloth spread out before the diviner.
The diviner offered up a prayer and stated a specific question that needed to be answered. Sitting on the ground, gazing at the sky, the diviner chose at random three of these marked sticks. The response was revealed in the symbols, which were read both separately and in common, with the question in mind. Additional castings were often used to determine the original response's truthfulness.
The later Vikings certainly used a similar method. We know that they marked runes on their staves or sticks. Though the symbols used by the earliest Germanic peoples weren't recorded, it appears likely that they resembled the runes used in later times.
Lot casting was sometimes employed to select the most suitable human victim for sacrifice (from among the collected prisoners of war).
In contrast to Tacitvs, who said that men usually divined, Julius Caesar wrote that divination was usually performed by women. In Latin they were known as the ‘Mattes Familiae’. These were usually older women (during this period of hard, short lives, they might be thirty or forty years old).
In one famous example of lot-casting by women, the ancient leader Ariovistus abandoned a planned attack against the Romans because the divining woman had, through her rite, discovered that no move should be made before the full moon.
Other Forms of Germanic Divination
Other forms include divination by the observation of birds: the behavior of special horses kept for this purpose; duels (between two men, one from each side in a battle, to determine the chances of victory or defeat for both sides). The casting of lots was probably the most favoured of all forms.
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