Oracles of the Dead: Ancient Techniques for Predicting the Future

This is the first book I've read by Robert Temple and I am definitely inclined to read more of his work. Temple engages in some good scholarship into the ancient arts of divination from ancient Greece to ancient China. He discusses the Ancient Oracles/Temples in Greece and what is now Italy, the I-Ching "book of changes" in China and ancient divination by looking at animal entrails and animal bones. I never new animal livers and intestines could be so interesting. Although I still find the idea of looking at animal livers and intestines pretty gross no matter how much Temple tries to explain the Ancient people's logic behind this form of divining. Is Temple right to suggest that our squeamishness over this stuff is a kind of modern neuroticism about the body and its internal workings? Maybe?Temple suggests that the ancient Greeks and Chinese were not simply superstitious folk inclined to magical thinking and pareidolia, but that their closer connection to nature enabled them to perceive patterns in nature that maybe genuinely helped them predict future events. Temple notes some interesting facts such as certain hexagram sequences in the I-Ching system being a form of binary notation developed long before the development of binary notion by Gottfried Leibniz. Temple's discussion on the I-Ching is the best simple introduction to the I-Ching I have read so far.Toward the end of the book, Temple makes a fascinating suggestion that the ancients examined and used the cracking of bones and tortoise shells as an oracle by distinguishing the angle of the crack lines. Temple develops the hypothesis that a 60 degree angle of cracking of bones creates the hexagonal or hexagonal-like cracking or tiling as seen throughout much of nature and that this reflects the most stable energetic configurations of physical bodies where force is evenly distributed. While a 90 degree cracking, or close to 90 degree cracking, is a sign of a directional force. Hence the 60 degree and 90 degree cracking of bones were seen by the ancients as kind of like "yes" or "no" signs or "answers" for the questions the ancients had about their future. In ancient China this difference also reflected the "Yin and Yang" of nature. The idea is intriguing, regardless of whether it is true or not that this was indeed how the ancients actually used the bones to divine.Toward the end of the book temple elaborates on these hexagonal patterns in nature and their reflection of a kind of scared geometry in the universe. Although Temple tried to explain his theory simply, it was a little bit hard for me to fully see what he is getting at. Temple begins discussing the significance of the 60 degree hexagonal cracking and ninety degree cracking of the bones by entering into the importance of acknowledging the presence of empty space or voids in nature. Temple notes that hexagonal packings or tessellations of space are energetically and configurationally optimal ways of tiling or filling empty space. Is Temple suggesting that this points to some hidden ordering principle in nature, manifest in the "sacred geometry" of hexagonal patterns and that this than affects the fate of even our daily lives? Temple indicates that what we call empty space is actually a plenum of perfectly balanced energy at equilibrium where all forces cancel out. This universal energetic equilibrium, or "vector equilibrium" (the geometry of the "Vector Equilibrium" is architect and thinker Buckminster Fuller's idea, also noted by Temple in the book) is represented by the hexagonal lattice or higher dimensional equivalents of the hexagonal lattice. This hexagonal harmonious equilibrium of nature is contrasted to the 90 degree angle that represents an anisotropic force that perturbs or disturbs this harmony. How this abstract Yin/Yang energetic principle of nature may have helped ancient Chinese Emperors work out if they should go to war against someone I'm not sure, but clearly the principle of everything in nature being connected was at play in the minds of these ancient diviners.I really appreciated this book for Temple's inquisitiveness and explorative depth, although there were a few times Temple points the reader in certain directions before telling us that the ideas are too complex for him to go into, thus I felt Temple leaves the reader feeling a little bit high and dry in those moments. Still, I guess the reader can always do their own deeper research later.

Having read three of temple's books I allways come away with some great insights into the world and possibly the universe. He is IMO one of the best alternate historians out there. He does his work people. In this book he goes on the trail of what he considers the underworld or Hades in Baia Italy. He present a good case. But more then that he has stumbled onto what he calls the hexagonal oracular lattice. He should investigate this more as there is a great truth to the beginnings of all life in this. I give him credit for his work in this It has not been reconized by many people and those who have do not understand it. Great book with solid work done in it. Keep the good work up Robert you are coming closer to the answers you are searching for.

I've been an admirer of Robert Temple ever since reading THE SIRIUS MYSTERY back in the late 1970s. Unlike Von Daniken or Zechariah Sitchen, Temple's scholarship is impeccable, and his blistering rebuttal of Carl Sagan's pathetic attempt to "explain away" the Sirius material deserves a place in -- dare I hope? -- a 3rd edition of that terrific book.I've spent more money in the last 30+ years purchasing books that Temple mentioned in the bibliography of THE SIRIUS MYSTERY, just to check and see if he was quoting his sources responsibly, and not just making it all up. No other book has prompted me to buy ever more books than that one!If you haven't read "THE CRYSTAL SUN" yet, go and read it. It, too, is a magnificent bit of scholarship.Which brings us to "ORACLES OF THE DEAD". When I first read the blurb about this book -- the notion that the Journeys into the Underworld taken by the epic heroes of "myth" are based on ritual journeys taken by real people into a real place -- I just about had a heart attack. Long before Masons had their little rituals involving "death"-enactments for the purposes of some sort of initiation into a "mystery" the Ancients had sculpted a landscape meant to serve various functions both for the individual suppliant and for the powers-that-be who controlled their societies, both politically and religiously.The world is poorer for not having become acquainted with the sites Temple discusses, these man-made landscapes of Hades. That "ORACLES OF THE DEAD" isn't being mass-produced and read by the multitudes who devour pot-boilers like "THE DA VINCI CODE" is a travesty. I wouldn't even have known about this book had I not been a fan of Robert Temple's prior work. Lucky for me that I had previously been enthralled by his thought-provoking books, and was easily willing to shell out money for a book that isn't stocked on the shelves at the Barnes & Noble in my home town.

Was VERY disappointed ....reviews and title lead you to think this is a book of 'how to DO ancient oracles' ....when in essence it is a history-being-unraveled-type of book. If you are are a history buff you may like it, but I certainly did not !

This book made an interesting reading. Did realy easy follow his explanations. In the end a good book to own.