There was a marvelous advertisement on PBS last year. I really do not know if they are still playing it since I usually check into a PBS show a few minutes after the hour so I do not have to look at lies perpetrated by Exxon or British Petroleum telling me what a fine job they are doing for the environment.

The scene starts with a man at home playing his piano.  He has a pencil ready to record each note he comes up with for his new song or sonata and he is stuck on one note. Ding, ding, ding. He is blank paging as any writer knows. In the midst of his despair he gazes out the window, lost in thought and all of a sudden birds appear at various positions on telephone wires.  The viewer sees that these birds appear as notes on a page of music.

All of a sudden the composer smiles and finishes his work.

According to Julian Jaynes*  this is a type of divination. Divination occurs when the individual seeks outside help to make a decision. There are four basic categories of divination:

1. The Omen
2. Sortilege or the casting of lots
3. Augury
4. Spontaneous Divination
                                                 THE OMEN

This has nothing to do with Gregory Peck.  But Julian Jaynes sees it as a more simplistic series of myths:       

The most primitive, clumsy, but enduring method of discovering the will of silent gods is the simple recording of sequences of unusual or important events...

While the first traces of omens occur among the Semetic   Akkadians, it is really only after the loss of the bicameral mind toward the end of the second millennium BC that such omen texts proliferate everywhere.   In the library of King Ashurbanipal at Nineveh about 650 BC, at least 30percent of the twenty to thirty thousands tablets come into the category of omen literature. 


If a town is set on a hill, it will not
be good for the dweller within that town

If black ants are seen on the foundations which have been laid, that house will get built, the owner of that house will live to grow old.

If a horse inters a man's house, and bites either an ass or a man, the owner of the house will die and his household will be scattered.

If a fox runs into the public square, that town will be devastated.
(237-238)

These, of course, are silly superstitions, like that Elvis song:

Superstitions, torment my heart
Superstitions, keep us apart.
Why torture me?

Except for the part where the quick brown fox jumps into the public square because I saw that happen once and...well terrible things happened. I mean I saw this happen once and the mayor started sleeping with the neurologist and the police chief started taking bribes and the head of Social Services in the area began just giving anybody welfare, and I mean anyone.  Unless that was something I saw on the Sci Fi Channel. I will get back to you on this. Although personally, I am keeping MY horses out of the house.


                                                 SORTILEGE

Sortilege or the casting of lots differs from omens in that it is active and designed to provoke the gods' answers to specific questions in novel situations.   It consisted of throwing marked sticks, stones, bones, or beans upon the ground or picking one out of a group held in a bowl or tossing such markers in the lap of a tunic until one fell out.

This is kind of like when I would pin up a WSJ on the wall and threw darts at it and then invest my 401 k funds into the stocks that the darts picked out. Sure go ahead and make fun of me. But it worked for Bernie Madoff for decades. I mean he had money coming out of his ears. And he even had enough money to bribe people at the SEC.

Jaynes points out ...throwing the lots, like consciousness itself, has metaphor as it s basis. ...the unexpected commands of the gods compose the metaphrand which is to be logically widened, and the metaphier if the pair or assembly of lots, be they stick, beans or stones. The paraphiers are the distinguishing marks or words on the lots which then project back into the metaphrand as the command of the particular god invoked.

                                                  AUGURY

A third type of divination and one that is closer to the structure of consciousness is what I shall call qualitative augury. Sortilege is ordinal , ordering by rank a set of given possibilities.  But the many methods of qualitative augury are designed to divine a great deal more information from the unspeaking gods. It is the difference between a digital and an analog computer...it might consist of pouring oil into a bowl of water held in the lap, the movement of the oil in relation to the surface or the rim of the bowl portending the gods' intentions concerning peace or prosperity, health or disease,.

Metaphrend: intention of the god

Metaphier: the oil moving about the surface of the water

Paraphier: The specific shapes and proximities of the oil.

Remember now, the gods are no longer speaking directly to people-except special people like Pat Robertson-and the statues are no longer doing their part either.


                                       SPONTANEOUS DIVINATION

I initially thought that this was when a person would be sitting in their living room and, all of a sudden, they were burst into flames. But evidently not.  I know I worry about this. But my pajamas are now fire retardant and if I watch my cigs everything should be ok now.

Then I thought that is was like when I lost my toe in that silly electric knife accident and it grew back.

But these are not examples of spontaneous divination at all. Spontaneous divinations are like epiphanies. All of a sudden you see the light. There is a new clarity to your life. Oh, I get it now.

This entire idea came to me as I was posting a blog. I will be typing and some old song comes on the television, an song I once loved.It is totally serendipitous and it brings back some emotion.  As long as I do not turn around and see that it is now being used to sell feminine products, I am fine.  And the song may give me an idea for my next series of paragraphs. Or I decide I can play Wierd Al again and rewrite the lyrics to fit into my rag.

Or the big fat squirrel that visits me everyday pops into the window and it reminds me of some older character I wrote about and I put him into my dream sequence.  Or sometimes the squirrel will look at me funny and I get scared and close the drapes and....

And this type of epiphany is different than when those young men in cheap suits come over to your house and begin tell into about the way, the light and the truth. Of course the good part about them is that no matter how many hours they stay and visit, your liquor cabinet is safe. Not like that Q guy.

The piano player in my introduction, is experiencing spontaneous divination. You ever find yourself working on a project and you are stumped. I mean something banal like trying to fix the periodic running of your toilet or attempting to complete a knitting project or trying to figure out how best to beat your little children for letting the cats outside again when you told them a thousand times not to let the cats out and that the screens must be on before opening the window and......

Well, you decide to 'take a break.' So you go for a walk rather than light up a big fatty and turn on the Grateful Dead. And you finish your walk and you return to your chore. But this time, while you went on your walk something happened.  And you were able to complete your chore.

You noticed a strange turn in the road that you had not noticed before. And you thought about the pipe leading from the toilet to the stream outside your cabin. And, you went back home and fixed the toilet. And all of a sudden, you feel better although you are still worried about the EPA.

Or you noticed during your walk that the clouds were streaming and moving in a specific manner. And, there was  the pattern best suited on your knitting project.

Or you walked by the playground, the police were taking this nice lady away while she was screaming to the three and four year old:

You both are just like your father. Running around and mooning everyone all the time. THATS NOT RIGHT. And talking back to me all the time. THATS NOT RIGHT, THATS JUST NOT RIGHT TALKING BACK TO ME ALL THE TIME.  And putting mud on your head and running around screaming the sky is falling, the sky is falling. THAT'S JUST NOT RIGHT.

And then you realize that since we live in a communist country, your children might report you to the authorities for locking them in a closet for two days.

So the next time you become confused, go for a walk or look out your window or turn on the radio or go back to your porn site-the answer is there.




The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Ma 1982