Divination, Oracles, and Omens

This network will run from January 2025 to December 2026. 

Making decisions in the face of the unknowable is a universal human experience. Every day we confront the limits of our own capabilities when it comes to the enigmas of the past and the uncertainties of the future. Across history and around the world, humans have developed techniques that promise to unveil the concealed, disclosing knowledge that offers answers to private or shared dilemmas. 

Today, forecasting is the bread and butter of many disciplines, from medicine and epidemiology to economics, meteorology, and climate science. Historically, these fields have sat on the same spectrum as more arcane practices of divination, such as astrology, Tarot, and extispicy. At least as far back as ancient Mesopotamia, the same kinds of questions have been asked of specialist forecasters: Will I be happy? Should I take this job? Should I make this investment? When will my city recover from this epidemic? Techniques of divination come in a wide variety of forms, but all have helped and continue to help people diagnose present problems and make decisions about future actions, gratifying the human desire for certainty.

The Divination, Oracles, and Omens Network is dedicated to the interdisciplinary, global, and transhistorical study of divination and forecasting. The Network is established on the back of the ‘Oracles, Omens & Answers’ exhibition (curated by Michelle Aroney and David Zeitlyn), which is open to all at the Weston Library from 6 December 2024 to 27 April 2025. 

Network Leads:

Dr Michelle Pfeffer, Faculty of History

Dr Parsa Daneshmand, Faculty Asian & Middle Eastern Studies

Prof. David Zeitlyn, Faculty of Anthropology 

Contact email: divination_project@anthro.ox.ac.uk