WEBVTT - Oil and Troubled Water, Part 1 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:14.960 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.119 And my name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.720 We have a fun journey to take you on in 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:25.239 the next couple of episodes, probably going to be a 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:27.440 two parter, but who knows. We never know. We don't 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:29.400 know what the future is going to bring. But this 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:33.160 is one that on the surface of things, you might think, oh, well, 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:38.400 oil and water, how interesting could that get? But it 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:40.400 gets pretty interesting because you know, we're going to get 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:43.680 into divination, We're going to get into the idea of 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:48.960 pouring storm oil into the sea to calm turbulent waters. 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:51.440 There's a lot to talk about here, but at the 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:56.600 very base level, oil and water two things that famously 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:01.960 don't mix. You've probably observed varying levels of the interaction before. 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:03.880 Perhaps you've just seen like a film of oil on 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.200 the surface of a puddle, or you've observed the separation 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.360 of cooking oil combined with another liquid in a mixing bowl. 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:12.959 It instantly catches the eye. I'm not going to say 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:18.880 it necessarily always captures the human imagination, but there is 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:20.560 something about it that you can't help. 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:23.080 But notice, did you ever have one of those toys 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.000 when you were a kid? Where there is I actually 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:28.880 don't know what liquids they use in these, but presumably 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.360 it's water and then some kind of lipid based colored liquid, 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:35.760 maybe like red or blue, that bubbles through the water 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:38.959 and maybe spins a little pin wheel or something. 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:41.280 Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. I 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.400 do remember these. They're really fun for a brief period 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:46.560 of time, and then they go into the junk drawer. 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:49.960 Well, maybe I'm just easily amused. I remember turning mine 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:51.440 over and over a lot. 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:54.920 Yeah, well, I mean it's memorable. I'm not saying it's 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:58.320 forgotten that it certainly ends up in the toy chest. 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:03.000 I bet that one's really fun when it breaks. That'd 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:05.920 be a great origin story for like a long dormant 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:10.519 virus or something, the dangerous microorganism. In case, within the 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:12.480 item of power. 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.839 What strange oil did they end up using. Yeah, well 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.680 it's not just children, it's not just the inner child 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:22.640 as well. Humans have found interactions of oil and water 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:27.000 intriguing since ancient times. And yeah, indeed it does trace 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:30.799 back into the realm of ancient magic. And divination, you know, 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:32.960 various tales and we'll touch on some of these, of 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:38.120 like ancient kings and so forth, seeking out the word 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:42.560 and the wisdom of diviners who use various methods to 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.919 sort of reach into the murky future and make sense 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:50.040 of the strange shapes there. Now. Divination is, of course 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.680 the attempt to seek guidance concerning the future and decisions 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:57.040 that impact future events. As we've discussed in the show before. 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:58.920 You can certainly think of it as a as the 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:03.079 right of supernatural guidance, which it is, but especially in 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:05.480 the ancient context too, we might think of it as 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.799 well as a means of sort of generating a randomized 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.600 direction that is weighted by belief or superstition. You know, 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.360 if presented with two choices, all things being equal, you know, 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:17.920 flip a coin, but not a trivial coin, not a 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:22.040 completely trivial coin, because this coin is weighted by supernatural belief. 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.280 But then also you keep it from being just you know, 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:29.600 completely random, because it also entails an art of interpretation. 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:32.400 It's not just a coin anyone can flip and anyone 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:36.120 can read. You need a specialist who's going to read 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.640 the coin read whatever it is you're reading and perhaps 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:43.960 too you know, read the client, read the patron, and 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:46.600 or the you know, the larger events going on and 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:49.920 so so, Yeah, there's a there's an art to divination 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:50.560 as well. 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:54.000 So it's often interesting when you think about a lot 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:58.160 of the stories of what the interpreter does. I mean, 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.839 there are some cases where they get real secific about things, 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:02.480 but most of the time it seems like they are 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:07.120 adding in ambiguity that makes it harder to falsify the prediction. 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.280 Yeah, sort of the you know, there's obviously an art 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:15.040 to the cold read, and you know there's a level 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.919 of manipulation to carrying it out as well. And also 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.320 there's a lot of self preservation, especially when you're dealing 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:24.960 with you know, dark and gloomy kings and ancient times. 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.919 If you want to be a diviner that lives a 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.240 long life, or even a reasonably long life, you do 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:35.600 have to read the room and figure out exactly what 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:38.960 kind of message you're going to relay to the ruler. 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:42.520 Look, I always said there would be a decisive victory. 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:44.360 I didn't say which side would get it. 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.280 So there are various methods of divination that have been 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:51.760 used over the years. We talked about about many on 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:54.880 the show before in the past, and we're going to 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:59.000 touch on several different ones here, but specifically concerning oil 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:03.800 and water divination. This is what the ancient Greeks would 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:08.200 come to call lacanamancy, the use of oil poured into 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:10.640 a basin of water to tell the future. 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:16.320 Yeah. So the name lacanomancy comes from the Greek lacane, 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:21.920 meaning bowl. So this is lacanomancy meaning bowl divination. And 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:24.520 in the literature, yeah, it seems most often to refer 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:27.680 to omens in mixtures of oil or water, either in 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:30.040 a bowl or in a cup, and could apparently be 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:32.880 done either way, maybe by I think more often by 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.479 pouring oil into water, but maybe also by pouring water 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:39.720 into oil. Though there are some other definitions for this 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:43.920 word that seem to overlap with the concept of hydromancy, 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:47.760 meaning divination through water. And since the name only means bowl, 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:49.880 like the name doesn't mean oil, I guess it could 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.520 also involve these other things like you have a bowl 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:54.800 of water and you drop gems in it and see 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:56.839 what they do to get your omen, or you drop 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:00.240 gold or silver coins in, or you like move, you know, 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:02.800 move the water around and see which way the ripples go. 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:04.880 There are a number of ways of doing this, but 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.600 the oil in water one seems to have been prominent 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:08.760 in the ancient Near East. 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:11.800 Yeah, yeah, this lines up with what I was reading 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:13.920 as well. I was looking at a book from nineteen 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:18.240 eighty one titled Oracles and Divination, and in particular, there's 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:22.000 a section in it by O. R. Gurney that says, yes, 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.480 these these practices, they tended to involve a bowl or 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.080 a basin of some sort. And yes, one would either 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:31.120 pour oil into water or water into oil, and the 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.839 oil would cause various shapes on the surface of the water, 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.240 and these would be used through the diviner's ar or 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.720 the barrus art. I believe barrow is the term in 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:45.840 like ancient Babylon to predict the future. There is also 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:51.400 a variation called al romance, which used flour instead of oil. 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:53.599 So you know, take heart, if you're out of oil 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:55.599 and you have some flour on hand, you can also 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:56.640 go with that. 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:59.640 Method make you the loosest of dose. 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:07.279 Now. Gurney also mentions that there now are slash were 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:09.120 I'm not sure if this is like the current count. 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:14.000 This is againotext from eighty one the six known surviving 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:20.680 tablets from ancient Mesopotamia dealing with oil omens, and the 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:23.920 author includes a couple of examples here that I wanted 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:28.640 to read. So these would be different nuggets of wisdom 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:35.040 to help you the diviner interpret what's happening in the bowl. Quote. 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:37.840 If from the middle of the oil two drops come out, 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:41.040 one big, the other small, the man's wife will bear 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.480 a sun for a sick man. He will recover. And 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:46.640 then the next one here concerns the use of flower 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:49.920 instead of oil. If the flower in the east takes 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:52.600 the shape of a lion's face, the man is in 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:55.280 the grip of a ghost of one who lies in 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:58.760 the open country. The sun will consign it, the ghost 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.280 to the wind, and he will get well. 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:05.200 Oh wow, that's creepy. So wait, flower forms a lion's face, 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:07.720 What does that mean? The ghost of one who lies 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:09.800 in the open country? Does that mean a ghost of 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:12.680 someone who didn't receive a proper burial? Would that be? 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.160 That was what it made me think of. I'm not certain, 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:18.480 and the author doesn't go into detail on this, but yeah, 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:22.400 it made me think of other superstitions we've discussed from 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:26.800 other traditions involving the unburied or the improperly buried dead. 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.080 This was a subject often of great concern in the 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:32.640 literature and folklore of the ancient world. That like people 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.880 like not getting a proper burial was really something you 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:36.440 didn't want. 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:41.280 Yeah. Now, another form of divination that he mentions is lebanomancy, 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:45.160 which is divination by smoke from throwing cedar shavings on 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.120 an incense burner. And this would be kind of similar, 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:52.199 like you throw the wood shavings on their smoke billows up, 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:56.680 and however the smoke is moving, what shapes it seems 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:00.360 to be forming that is the basis of your vision 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:02.960 of the future. Now, he writes that the use of 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:08.160 entrails and a sacrificed animal would become more popular, but oil, 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:11.920 flower and smoke based divination would remain a cheaper option, 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:15.640 but also still one that would be invoked and used 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:20.640 by various important individuals, including kings, such as when Cassite 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:24.600 King Agam the Second, he says prayed to the god 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.000 Shamish by oil before setting out on a quest to 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:31.680 reclaim stolen statues of Marduk and Sarpanitum. 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:36.160 It's interesting that you mentioned lacanamancy as a cheaper alternative 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:41.120 to reading omens in the entrails of sacrificed animals. I 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:43.640 came across that exact same claim in some other sources. 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.440 I don't know if they're citing from a common source 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:50.360 that says that, but yeah, that is interesting obviously. So 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:54.240 I guess the benefit of reading the entrails of a 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.840 sacrificed animal is you're almost like, you know, you're paying 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:02.520 for the really high price ticket your message from the gods, 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:05.360 Like you're taking a good animal getting it sacrificed. I 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:09.280 suppose at the altar of the god you're asking for 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:11.640 the answer from and then it's entrails will tell you 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:14.800 something and the budget option, yeah, is just a little 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.120 bit of olive oil and some water or some flour 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:18.040 or something like that. 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:21.520 Yeah. And I'm just guessing here, but I mean, maybe 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:25.080 that's not always available. Maybe sometimes the old ways are 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:27.200 thought the best, or maybe sometimes you have a situation 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.120 where even a king is getting a second or third 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:33.240 opinion on a matter and it's like, well, okay, what 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.960 do the laconda mancers have to say about this? Maybe 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.199 they'll give me the answer that I want to hear. 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:45.040 Now the author here Gurney goes on and mentions that 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:49.840 there's also a form of lacando mency that was used 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:53.439 by the Hittites that involved a basin or a tub 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:57.000 filled with water. Certainly, but instead of adding oil or flour, 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:00.640 you would add what might be a snake or possibly 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.960 an eel, and its movements in the enclosed space of 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:07.160 the tank would foretell the future. And it does not 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:10.480 in this case sound like the animal was sacrificed. It's 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:13.320 just about you put the animal in there, watch it 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:17.240 swim around. How does it behave its movements are going 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:20.720 to reveal what the future holds for us? Now, another 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:24.559 source I was looking at concerning this topic appears in 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.560 the Influence of surface films on interfacial flow Dynamics from 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:32.559 nineteen ninety seven by Sean Patrick McKenna, and this author 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:35.400 writes that lakana manci is, of course one of the 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:38.880 forms of divination practice during the eighteenth century BCE in 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:43.319 the Hamarabi ruled Old Babylonian Empire, and points out, yeah, 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:46.000 there's several tablets of the time period unearthed in the 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.480 nineteenth and twentieth centuries that list examples of the kind 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:53.160 of mancy and guides for interpreting what's going on in 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:57.720 the water. This author also shares some examples translated from 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:02.040 these tablets. A few of these include the following. If 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:05.319 the oil sinks, then rises and spreads around the water 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:09.959 for the campaign, unfavorable consequences for the sick divine punishment. 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.720 If the oil splits in two for the campaign. Both 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.760 camps should march together for the sick death. If a 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.160 drop emerges in the east and remain stationary for the campaign, 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:26.720 booty for the sick recovery. If two drops emerge, one large, 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.480 one small, a male child will be born for the 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:34.000 sick recovery. If the oil fills the bowl for the 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.800 sick death for the campaign, defeat for the leader. 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.720 This last one actually raises questions for me, because the 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:46.080 question is if the oil fills the bowl. Knowing what 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:48.760 we know about the physics of oil and water today, 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:52.160 I mean, I think what will pretty much always happen 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.199 is that over time, any oil in the water will 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:57.319 spread out as far as it can, and so it 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:00.000 will pretty much always spread to fill the surface of water. 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:04.160 Are in a bowl, so it takes time for it 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:05.680 to do that. So maybe you've got to put a 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.240 time limit on it. Otherwise it's always going to be 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:10.720 death or defeat for the leader, I would think. 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.079 Yeah, I think there has to be an immediacy to this. 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:16.719 And obviously, if you especially if you don't have a 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:21.320 steady hand, all of your divinations can't be you know, 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.360 death for the sick and defeat for the leader of 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:27.880 an army. That's going to be bad for business, I think. 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.000 But it's interesting to see the pairings of the different 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:36.320 interpretations with like the two different kinds of battles, the 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:38.880 battle for health within the body in the battle you know, 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.600 for the in the military campaign going on for the king. 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:45.080 So some of these pairings make sense to me, Like 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:50.040 unfavorable consequences for the military campaign with divine punishment for 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:55.920 the sick death and defeat death and defeat booty and recovery. 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.079 That pairing makes sense. The one I was confused about 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:00.960 is if the oil splits in two, that means for 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:05.000 the sick death for the campaign, both camps should march together. 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:07.920 Yeah. I'm not exactly sure what to make of that either. 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:12.120 Yeah, though, I like that because that's not just stating 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.320 an outcome, that's giving advice Yeah. 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.680 Now, obviously another issue that all this raises is you know, 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:21.880 what what kinds of oil are you using? What kinds 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.760 of water? You know, there could conceivably be differences in 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:31.720 the reaction that takes place. Well, one source I looked 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:35.360 at this is from D. Tabor. This is from nineteen 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.160 eighty Babylonian Lacanomancy, an ancient text on the spreading of 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.720 oil on water, and in that the author suggests that 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:44.760 the water here is likely rain water and the oil 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:48.680 is some manner of vegetable oil. I found that interesting, 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:52.040 like the rain water, especially because on one hand, okay, 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:54.520 I guess this is going to be how you're going 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:58.320 to obtain the purest water that is also free of 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:02.000 any oils that might you know, otherwise contaminated. And then 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.680 on the other hand, there is something kind of supernatural 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:06.840 to it as well, like this is the water that 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:09.640 came from the sky, from the realm of the gods, 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:12.400 and therefore I can imagine that playing a role in 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:24.560 all of this as well. Now, another interesting thing that 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.880 came up in one of these sources is they pointed 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:33.400 this out Joe that apparently in the Old Testament, in 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:37.960 Genesis forty four or five, there is a reference to lacanamancy. 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.600 There's a there's a bit that goes, is not this 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:45.720 it in which my Lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth, 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.240 he have done evil in so doing so? 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:51.800 This is a very interesting case. I think this is 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:56.400 not necessarily a reference to lacanomancy, though that is a 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:59.160 good candidate for what it is referring to. It is 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:03.680 definitely refer to a form of divination, which means I 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:05.880 think maybe this is a good time for a digression 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:11.000 on references to divination in the Bible. And here I 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:14.200 have to apologize because I got seriously over zealous in 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:17.440 pursuing this digression, which is only lightly related to the 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:19.960 topic to begin with, So please bear with me. But 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:23.760 I think it's an interesting subject. So there are actually 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:27.960 a lot of references to divination in the Bible. The 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.200 Hebrew Bible, or what Christians would call the Old Testament, 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.640 contains references to a bunch of different methods of divination. 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:39.080 First of all, there is actually a divination method officially 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:42.120 sanctioned by the Torah and by the priest class in 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.239 the Bible, which is known as the Urim and Thummim, 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:49.120 which seems to have been some other kind of object. 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.920 It's like a pair of objects worn on the ceremonial 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:57.760 breastplate of the high priest. And while the exact form 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.000 of these objects and the procedure for using is not certain, 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.800 it seems they would essentially be used for casting lots 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.359 of some kind by the high priest in order to 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.399 receive answers from God, possibly answers to yes or no 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:13.560 questions about what would happen in the future, will we 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:17.600 be successful in battle and so forth, or answers to 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.479 questions about the guilt or innocence of an alleged sinner. 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:24.760 Sometimes they're represented as like gems that flash with a 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.679 divine light in order to project messages. I think there 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:31.520 were some interpretations in the later rabbinical literature like this, 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.800 but I think that's all sort of like later writers 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:38.879 speculating on what these original passages in the scriptures meant. 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:43.679 Now the urim and thummim here, if I'm correct on this, 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:45.959 this is this kind of often depict that is kind 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.520 of a multi code. Like you said, crystal plate that 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:54.320 is worn from the neck, And I remember as a child, 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:59.440 I would experience a certain amount of excitement and maybe 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:01.680 a little bit of fusion, because at the time I 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:04.359 would have my Star Wars books on one hand, and 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.440 then I would have, you know, some of these illustrated 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:10.520 like Old Testament stories books on the other, and these 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:12.520 looked like kind of these made me think of the 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:13.840 chest plate of Darth Vader. 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.160 Oh wow, yeah, well the chess plate of Darth Vader. 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:19.440 Like it's got all the little tic TACs and stuff on it. 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:23.160 Red lights and all, and oftentimes these illustrations you see 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:25.120 some sort of like red gems in there as well. 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.399 Yeah, so I think what it does. What is clear 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:32.199 is that these objects are linked to the breastplate of 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:34.399 the high priest in some way, like it said that 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:38.000 maybe they are put in or put on the breastplate, 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.720 but it's not exactly clear what they are. But what 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:45.880 is clear is that they are somehow used in an 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:51.120 officially in bounds divination process. This is what the followers 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.840 of the God of Israel were supposed to use for 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:57.919 divination purposes if they needed to. But the Hebrew Bible 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:02.480 also contains numerous references to other forms of divination, such 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:06.639 as necromancy. This is apparently a big concern in the 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:11.000 era of the Mosaic Law, and despite its modern interpretation 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.359 as a kind of evil sorcery used for like calling 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:18.800 up armies of undead skeleton soldiers and zombie swarms to go, 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:24.239 you know, get your paladins, Originally necromancy meant communication with 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:28.280 the dead for the purpose of divination, not raising zombie soldiers. 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:31.320 Now, to be clear, even in like the modern Dungeons 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:34.000 and Dragons ecusage of necromancy, yes, there's a lot of 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:36.639 calling up the dead and using all sorts of you know, 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:39.159 weird spectral hands and so forth. There is still a 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:41.960 little bit of talking to the dead, though they keep 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:43.960 it real a little bit there, and we see a 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:46.040 bit of that in the recent Dungeons and Dragons movie. 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:48.600 There's a whole scene of speaking with the dead and 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:50.720 trying to gain wisdom from them. 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:53.919 Oh yeah, it's played mostly for comedy, I recall. Yeah, 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:56.640 like they have a fixed number of questions they can 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:59.640 ask and so forth. Yeah, so that's what necromancy means 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:03.400 in this though it's not. Yeah, it's not the zombie soldiers. 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:05.879 It's the talking to the dead for the purposes of 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:10.640 gaining hidden information or knowing the past or knowing the future. Anyway, 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:14.639 in the Mosaic law there are general prohibitions against divination 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.600 and wizardry and magic of all forms, but one of 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:21.679 the forms of divination that is specifically called out in 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:25.280 these verses is necromancy. Also, there is a very famous 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:30.040 story in the Bible about a consultation with a dead prophet. 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:34.600 This is in First Samuel chapter twenty eight, where Saul, 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:37.760 the King of Israel, famously he goes to a village 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.919 called Indoor to meet with a wise woman or a 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:44.399 witch who can speak to the dead. And this is 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:48.159 significant in the story because Saul has condemned witchcraft and 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:52.240 has previously banished all the wizards and fortune tellers from Israel. 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:57.000 But then he's facing a military conflict with another nation, 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:59.960 with the Philistines, and he wants to know what he 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.359 should do, and apparently he tries to get an answer 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:07.840 from the sanctioned methods of information. He tries to consult 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:10.720 the Urim and Thummim, He tries to have a dream 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:13.760 from God or get some kind of direct revelation, and 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:17.320 nothing ends up with no guidance and has no idea 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:20.240 what to do from any of the official channels, so 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:24.080 he goes rogue he violates his own edict. He puts 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:28.040 on a disguise and seeks out a necromancer to speak 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:32.480 to the dead prophet Samuel. He wants to get Samuel's 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:35.919 advice on what he should do, and this does not 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:38.560 go well, so he does go to the woman in disguise. 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:41.280 She figures out it's Saul by the way. She's like, oh, 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:43.240 wait a minute, you said we're not allowed to do this, 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:45.000 and he's like, oh no, don't worry about it. I 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.199 need you to talk to Samuel. So she raises Samuel 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:50.280 from the grave. I think she can see him, but 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:53.159 Saul can't, and he's trying to talk with him, and 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:55.840 Samuel just does not help. He seems to be kind 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:58.879 of irritated for being woken up from the sleep of death, 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:02.880 and then he condemn for his treachery, and then Samuel 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:05.639 tells him that his army is going to be defeated 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:08.160 and he will lose his kingship, and Samuel is right. 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:10.800 The army is defeated and Saul falls on his own 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:13.800 sword and dies. And this story seems to, at least 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.879 in part, emphasize how you really shouldn't go off trail 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:18.280 on divination methods. 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:23.200 Yeah, stick to the legal methods. Don't go into a 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:24.080 legal divination. 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:27.240 By the way, if you've never seen it, everyone should 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:30.919 look up William Blake's painting of Saul and the Spirit 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:32.480 of Samuel and the Witch of Indoor. 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.680 Brilliant, brilliant. Yeah, I mean all of Blake's illustrations. Those 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:41.320 hand colored illustrations are always so great. This one's no exception. 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:44.680 By the way. The Witch of Indoor would also come 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:46.480 to play a part in the nineteen eighty five film 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:51.120 The Battle for Indoor. Weird how cinema listeners may remember 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:54.359 no real connection to the Biblical account other than the 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:56.560 other that we're dealing with a moon of indoor and 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:57.600