The Bodleian Libraries is set to launch a new exhibition, Oracles, Omens and Answers, exploring the diverse ways people have sought answers to the unknown across time and cultures.
From astrology and palm reading to weather and public health forecasting, the exhibition at the Weston Library will demonstrate the ubiquity of divination practices and humanity’s universal desire to tame uncertainty, diagnose present problems, and predict future outcomes.
Through plagues, wars, and political turmoil, divination, or the practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown, has remained an integral part of society. Historically, royals and politicians would consult with diviners to guide decision-making and incite action.
People have continued to seek comfort and guidance through divination in uncertain times — the COVID-19 pandemic saw a rise in apps enabling users to generate astrological charts or read the Yijing, alongside a growth in horoscope and tarot communities on social media such as ‘WitchTok’.
Many aspects of our lives are now dictated by algorithmic predictions, from e-health platforms to digital advertising. Scientific forecasters, as well as doctors, detectives, and therapists, have taken over many of the societal roles once held by diviners. Yet the predictions of today’s experts are not immune to criticism, nor can they answer all our questions.
Curated by Dr Michelle Aroney, whose research focuses on early modern science and religion, and Professor David Zeitlyn, an expert in the anthropology of divination, the exhibition will take a historical-anthropological approach to methods of prophecy, prediction and forecasting, covering a broad range of divination methods, including astrology, tarot, necromancy, and spider divination.
Dating back as far as ancient Mesopotamia, the exhibition will show us that the same kinds of questions have been asked of specialist practitioners from around the world throughout history. What is the best treatment for this illness? Does my loved one love me back? When will this pandemic end? Through materials from the Bodleian Libraries archives alongside other collections in Oxford, the exhibition demonstrates just how universally human it is to seek answers to difficult questions.
Highlights of the exhibition include oracle bones from Shang Dynasty China (ca. 1250-1050 B.C.E.), an Egyptian celestial globe dating to around 1318; a 16th-century armillary sphere from Flanders, once used by
astrologers to place the planets in the sky in relation to the Zodiac, a nineteenth-century illuminated Javanese almanac, and the autobiography of astrologer Joan Quigley, who worked with Nancy and Ronald Reagan in the White House for seven years.
The casebooks of astrologer-physicians in 16th- and 17th-century England also offer rare insights into the questions asked by clients across the social spectrum about their health, personal lives, and business ventures, and in some cases, the actions taken by them in response.
The exhibition also explores divination, which involves the interpretation of patterns or clues in natural things, with the idea that natural bodies contain hidden clues that can be decrypted. Some diviners inspect the entrails of sacrificed animals (known as ‘extispicy’), as evidenced by an ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet describing the observation of patterns in the guts of birds.
Others use human bodies, with palm readers interpreting characters and fortunes etched in their clients’ hands. A sketch of Oscar Wilde’s palms– which his palm reader believed indicated “a great love of detail… extraordinary brain power and profound scholarship” – shows the revival of palmistry’s popularity in 19th century Britain.
The exhibition will also feature a case study of spider divination practised by the Mambila people of Cameroon and Nigeria, which is the research specialism of curator Professor David Zeitlyn, himself a Ŋgam dù diviner. This process uses burrowing spiders or land crabs to arrange marked leaf cards into a pattern read by the diviner.
The display will demonstrate the methods involved in this process and the way in which its results are interpreted by the card readers. African basket divination has also been observed through anthropological research, where diviners receive answers to their questions in the form of the configurations of thirty-plus items after they have been tossed in the basket.
Dr Michelle Aroney and Professor David Zeitlyn, co-curators of the exhibition, said: “Every day, we confront the limits of our own knowledge when it comes to the enigmas of the past and present and the uncertainties of the future.
“Across history and around the world, humans have used various techniques that promise to unveil the concealed, disclosing insights that offer answers to private or shared dilemmas and help to make decisions. Whether a diviner uses spiders or tarot cards, what matters is whether the answers they offer are meaningful and helpful to their clients. What is fun or entertainment for one person is deadly serious for another.”
Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian, said: “People have tried to find ways of predicting the future for as long as we have had recorded history. This exhibition examines and illustrates how, across time and culture, people manage the uncertainty of everyday life in their own way.
“We hope that through the extraordinary exhibits and the scholarship that brings them together, visitors to the show will appreciate the long history of people seeking answers to life’s biggest questions and how people have approached it in their own unique way.”
The Oracles, Omens and Answers exhibition will run from 06 December 2024 to 27 April 2025 at the ST Lee Gallery, Weston Library. The exhibition will be accompanied by the book Divinations, Oracles & Omens, edited by Michelle Aroney and David Zeitlyn, to be published by Bodleian Library Publishing on 05 December 2024.
