Applying ancient divination to modern intuition | Peter Struck | TEDxPenn

Most ancient people were in the habit of imagining that messages from their gods were built into the world around them: in the oracles they consulted, in their dreams, and in the animals they sacrificed. They drew on them to sort out their thinking on knotty issues they faced in their lives, seeing more deeply into the past, present, or future. This talk explores the similarities between these ancient habits of mind and our own modern fascination, attested to in the discoveries of the cognitive sciences that lay behind books like Malcolm Gladwell's.

Peter Struck is Associate Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His research engages with the history of the construction of meaning, in divination and in ancient notions of the organism. In 2004, he won Penn's Lindback Award, the university's highest award for teaching. Currently, he is writing about the applications of Greek and Roman divination in "Divine Signs and Human Nature: A Cognitive History of Divination in Antiquity".

[bakaichigo]

Awesome information. As a modern-day tarot reader I can say this is actually how it works. Answers that wouldn't come when I was obsessing over the problems and options came far more easily working on the visual puzzle of the cards. This also translates into other areas of my life; for example when I get overwhelmed by a problem, I'll sleep on it or go outside to sit and play with my dog - and find when I return to the issue later that I have a clearer, more balanced mind and perspective. :)

[Arnoric]

One of my autistic traits is that the intuitive mode is my basic mode. Discursive thinking feels alien to me. Magic Mushrooms helped me a lot to understand how my capacity to understand works

[random_corner]

So in Laymen’s terms divination is a form of meditation to allow the intuitive mind formulate thinking on how to solve a problem compared to the conscious mind that if we focus on that problem we get further and further away from the solution we are seeking? If that is the case then there is something to it. I’ve been curious about divination for a while since it’s a mystery to me

[gabrielaahumada]

wowowowo that´s my profesor for Greek and Roman Mithology chulada de profesor, lo best regards from Mexico.

[Marina-ntmy]

Awesome I'm glad I got this on my feed randomly

[charlesodonnell]

This follows well from the metaphysics of analytic idealism.

[FionaLundy]

Awesome talk!! I studied history at university & looooved it!! I bet he’s a great lecturer!! 👏🏻👏🏻

[evvie]

Very cool. Especially to my 10 year-old self who knew everything was/is connected back in 1971.

[aniruddhamitra]

even in ancient world, the sound quality was far better!

[MaryJaneHancock]

Well said. And, I agree. So glad you posted. Thank you.

[skylark]

Maybe I need to re-watch this. Sounded to me like he was trying to provide a rational explanation for a primordial, spiritual divination system.

[Space.Pimpin]

if anyone else was using both their rational and intuitive mind, they would agree this guy took a long time to say very little

[fairyfortunes]

I am absolutely blown away by this presentation. There have been some recent studies with the Ouija board and the theory as I understand it is that the Ouija board allows the brain to access subconscious knowledge. Hence the Ouija board may in fact be able to help people with dementia communicate and access information. I'm not sure that I agree with John Milton, intuition is not rare to humans, we need to remove it from the realm of the elite so that we can better process information.

[alecmisra]

If it is about a trance state why did they have very specific rules for interpreting flights of birds and other forms of divination?

[thedruiddiaries]

Pithea was a title. The female Oracle changed, as they we chosen from the community and their answers were not always riddles.
There wereno 'pulsating entrales'. Animals were brought to becrutually slaughtered, but did not have their entraiks riped outcwhike aluve. The god or gids answered the querrues by alterations that were revealed after the death of the animal and during a sort of autopsie that was recorded and compared to previous procedures. .. it was more like a contempirary autopsie.

[boxfox]

And the lots' fell toward Jonah. Notrodomis used Jewish divination that incorporates a bowl of water and hullusnigins. Islamic geomancing, uses dots. That looks like DNA strands. The building blocks of life.

[ebinuyasha]

I thought this was a divination guide for rs3

[sophiamayaK]

Isaiah 1:6-22…this man speaks of occult practices. The end times are here. It’s your choice: choose salvation and deliverance with Jesus…or spend eternity in the infernal fire of Satan….it’s your choice.

[thedruiddiaries]

First time I've given a thumbs down to a Ted Talk. It was based on glaring historical inaccuracies about ancient divination.

[MrAKjosh]

Superstitions are a little more believable if you’ve ever had a psychedelic experience.