Oracles or life predictions. A universal and timeless need
Life unfolds in the present. But far too often, we allow the present slip away, letting time rush past unseized, and squandering the precious moments of our life worrying about the future.
Since the old times, humankind has dealt with deities to find an answer to an uncertain future. The ancient Greek world was full of gods. Gods who controlled the fate of mankind. In such an environment, it made sense for mortals to find out what the gods had in store. It was there that the practice of oracular consultation came into its own.
An oracle was a gateway to knowing the will of the gods, a cosmic information super highway for understanding what lay ahead. The most famous oracle was the priestess of the temple of Apollo at the sanctuary of Delphi. So important was this sanctuary and its oracle that Delphi even became known as the omphalos, the belly button, of the ancient Greek world. Rulers and wealthy citizens of the known world as well as famous philosophers made the journey to this mountainous site to make the most important decisions of their lives and the lives of those around them. Indeed, war and peace were determined by these messages.
While today scientific analysis can provide us with better general comprehension of how the world works, it doesn’t always help us to understand our own experience. We as humans keep up the need to predict what will happen far into the future. For the same reason we do it now as centuries before. To give ourselves the feeling of control over our fate. Fate as in safety, survival, life and death. The study of the psychology of risk perception has found that one of the most powerful influences on fear is uncertainty. The less we know, the more threatened we feel, because lack of knowledge means we don't know what we need to know to protect ourselves, which equates to a lack control over health and safety, life and death.
What does the future hold?
We continue being mesmerized by ancient prophecies, such as Nostradamus' Quatrains. And we certainly pay very well to pundits, economists, and intelligence analysts who try to predict coming social, economic, and political events. Unfortunately, this abiding interest in prediction has not translated into the ability to forecast future events with much accuracy.
It is impossible to predict the future, we all know, yet many of us still try to do it in one way or another. And as David Bouchier articulates
”only mothers really know the future.”