Soothsayers, Diviners, Prophecy, Oracles & THOSE IN POWER

This reminds me a great deal of the sort of relationships I imagine have always existed between soothsayers and those in power, across all cultures and eras. Whether you call it AI, AN, trendcasting or some other pseudo-scientific method, the arrangement is pretty much the same!

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“Because onmyōji displayed methods that could avert disasters with their skills of divination and magic, the superstition afforded onmyōji influence over the personal lives of the Emperor and the nobility of the court. Consequently, popular awareness of onmyōdō gradually spread from court society to Japanese society as a whole, strengthening its development into a characteristically Japanese art. [...]

During the Heian period the nobility organized their lives around practices recommended by onmyōji. The practice of “lucky and unlucky directions” provides an example. Depending on the season, time of day, and other circumstances, a particular direction might be bad luck for an individual. If one’s house was located in that direction, such an individual was advised not to go back directly to his house but had to “change direction” (katatagae), by going in a different direction and lodging there. Such a person would not dare to go in the forbidden direction, but stayed where they were, even if that resulted in absence from the court, or passing up invitations from influential people.”

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This entry was written by happy thanksgiving, y'all!, posted on December 23, 2008 at 1:22 pm.

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  1. #USR04
    Posted December 23, 2008 at 1:29 pm | Permalink

    Onmyōji were specialists in magic and divination. Their court responsibilities ranged from tasks such as keeping track of the calendar, to mystical duties such as divination and protection of the capital from evil spirits. They could divine auspicious or harmful influences in the earth, and were instrumental in the moving of capitals. It is said that an onmyōji could also summon and control shikigami.

2 Trackbacks

  1. By Pre-Christmas Google Keyword Trends (Before I Leave) - [tmbchr]â„¢ on December 24, 2008 at 11:40 am

    [...] This one may be more prescient, or else a coincidence… Yesterday on this site and on related Twitter accounts, we spoke a great deal about clouds, cloud computing, cloud shamanism, cloud warfare, etc and we even spoke about divining the future. Today, we see as number 17 in the top 100 USA Google trends, “lenticular clouds.” So this is a direct hit, since I had downloaded two photos of lenticular clouds at that time to use in upcoming posts. Here they are: [...]

  2. By Korean Wizard Arrested For Being Too Magical - [tmbchr]â„¢ on January 12, 2009 at 9:36 pm

    [...] Yesterday, a story appeared that Minerva was arrested. Now why do you think they would go and do a thing like that? [Directly relevant link about the political power of diviners in feudal Japan] [...]

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