Omens, Oracles, and the Symbolist Worldview

?Things here are signs,? the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus once declared. With these words, he gave expression to a worldview that has, in one form or another, influenced human thought since the earliest stirrings of civilization. Sometimes referred to as symbolist, this perspective regards the world as a kind of sacred text, written in the language of symbols, and holds that all phenomena harbor a deeper meaning beyond their obvious appearances. If one applies the proper key, these meanings can be decoded, and everyday life unveiled for its deeper truths.

While the symbolist worldview encompassed a wide range of symbolic patterns, one of these in particular ?the omen?came to hold special importance for traditional societies. ?Coming events cast their shadow before them,? an ancient proverb proclaims. Through the study of omens, men and women sought to glimpse future possibilities and shifts of fortune and thus prepare themselves for the challenges and opportunities awaiting them.

As with all aspects of symbolist thought, the concept of the omen has expressed itself at widely varying levels of sophistication. At their subtlest, omens exist in a world where the boundaries between past, present, and future are permeable. Influences of past conditions or events still echo within the present, while from the other direction, what is to come sends ripples into the now, like the bow waves preceding an advancing boat. Hence the phenomenal play of each moment represents the complex blending of symbolic influences from all three dimensions of time, with those from the future designated as omens.

When classifying omens, it can be useful to distinguish between literal and symbolic forms. Literal omens require little translation. For instance, the South American novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez once recalled the time he answered his doorbell to find a stranger saying, ?You must change the electric iron?s cord?it is faulty!? Then, realizing he had come to the wrong house, the stranger promptly apologized and left. A half-hour later, Marquez's iron burst into flames?the result of a faulty cord. Here, the apparent omen foreshadowed the later event in a straightforward way.

Far more common, however, are those instances when an omen takes on a metaphoric dimension, appearing in ways that, like dreams, require greater skill and intuition to interpret. In the British television production of Robert Graves?s I Claudius, the death of a central character (Herod) is foreshadowed by an owl landing on his chair during a public ceremony. The owl hoots several times, with the number of hoots corresponding to the number of days before his death. The relationship between the omen and what is signified by it was entirely symbolic and involved several levels of meaning. To make sense of such an image, we must perceive it with a discerning eye. As creatures of flight, birds are metaphorically associated with the soul?s flight at death. Moreover, the owl is specifically a night bird, emphasizing even more dramatically the idea of otherness, the negative (or passive) half of the day/night polarity, and, by analogy, the opposing side of the life/death polarity. The number of hoots emitted by the bird represents a proportional reference to the number of days until the individual's death. In this way, a single and seemingly simple event encodes several dimensions of information and meaning at once.

In ancient times, birds represented one of many different types of omens. Other notable areas of study included the behavior of snakes, randomly situated pieces of wood along the road, patterns on bodies of water, omens derived from celestial phenomena of any sort, and even moles on the human body.
Identifying Omens

Is there any way to determine whether an event is an omen? Although such events don't lend themselves to easy classification, there are some useful guidelines we can hold in mind.

T

Does divination have to coincide with an event to be recognized?

Thanx for bringing this up Q.

Ladydane coming your question -- omens/divinations....is a matter of belief that individuals carry. The problem is even if you believe in this..you cannot restrict your life by tryingto search for omens which could predict some on coming event. Certian things have happened in my life in which omens have preceeded of an oncoming uncommon event.It is like a certain name you see in print & it pulls your heart strings..eah time.. without fail... & then a few months later that person has a main significance in your life!!!

Looneybird...

Couldn't have said it better..........!
Owe you 11 buckets of rose to you...!

Dear Q !!! Let the roses keep on coming in.....I have decorated every nook & corner of my home with 'em....A Vase on each side of this PC..LOL...

How to have roses looking fresh n smelling sweet in a tropical country for a week? Any ideas?🙂