Navel Gazing (Omphalomancy)
Reading Josh Gunn's blog today... about the cultural tendency to see signals of the end everywhere - the Virgin Mary on a PopTart, Jack Van Impe (Love him!), etc. Gunn identifies this interpretive tendency with the Greek term "pareidolia" as in "para" (around) and "eidos" (roughly, idea). I would have posted a comment there but couldn't for some reason.
I've been quite interested in approaching interpretation in this way - drawing form from chance or noise. Normally this goes by a number of names - divination, scrying, etc. One can divine the future seemingly from anything at hand, birds, chicken entrails, clouds, stars, waving grass. People have looked at pans of water, gazed into candle flames, tossed the Tarot. My grandmother used to read the day in the coffee grounds at the bottom of the cup. The names of many of these techniques have some form of the word manteis attached to the end (-mancy). Manteis literally means "prophet" or "seer." The word "mantis," as in the insect "praying mantis" is related to this word. The Greeks named the insect genus "mantis" because it appeared to be in the archetypal prayer position, a divine body pose. The "divinator" is literally one who is acting as the divine - as a god, or as an artist.
The "casting of lots" is another powerful component of divination. I grew up Mormon, and this was expressly forbidden (gambling and card playing). But I suspect the prohibition against the casting of lots goes deeper than the idea that one could lose one's shirt gambling. Insofar as monotheisms have evolved particular mechanisms of social control and dissemination, they have also evolved mechanisms for stability. Chance has its place at the top (usually administered by a pope or endowed prophet), but among the flock it is trouble, resulting in splinter groups, etc. Thus, the casting of lots is factored out of the religious discourse. It is a sign of witchery (from "wicca," to bend, as in wicker chair or wicked) or sorcery (a word with direct roots in the "casting of lots"). Remember Leviticus: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." One culture's crucified prophet is another culture's sorcerer burning at the stake; the two are closely related. They are both probably on the edge of insanity, ecstasy, or some kind of sublime holy (wholly) state.
The casting of lots has something to do with idols as well, and their counterpart, the jealous God. Once one has divined an image from chaos (a sign in the coffee cup), it may or may not be assimilated into the discourse at hand (say, Christianity). If the sign functions as strengthening the social bonds of the faith or is useful for some contingent adaptation, it will be embraced. If not, it will be rejected as a false idol. Thus, divination could be seen as a kind of "mutant gene" phenomenon in an organic discourse like Islam or Christianity, where the bending of reality (in the form of artistic figurative representation) is outlawed (as in some Islamic sects), heavily policed (as in medieval art) or looked upon skeptically (Jesse Helms and the NEA). Evolutionary biologists tell us that nature is always "oscillating" and preparing to adapt. The change is part of an adaptation, part of a new species, or the change kills the organism (cancer).
The casting of lots is even "told out of" history. As Foucault suggests, history is not contiguous, but rather it is a series of episteme or abrupt shifts and mutations. We tell history back into shape retrospectively, but then these stories too suffer their mutations. By closely examining history (what Foucualt calls "genealogy") the present story by which we understand the world is destabilized. I am reminded of the surrealist Max Ernst and his method of floating a canvas in water to form random paint patterns before filling in the scene. This is the artist-as-sorcerer equation that is fundamental to the idea of divination. This is, in part, the sorcerer's art - to potentiate the present with the force of chance.
I've been quite interested in approaching interpretation in this way - drawing form from chance or noise. Normally this goes by a number of names - divination, scrying, etc. One can divine the future seemingly from anything at hand, birds, chicken entrails, clouds, stars, waving grass. People have looked at pans of water, gazed into candle flames, tossed the Tarot. My grandmother used to read the day in the coffee grounds at the bottom of the cup. The names of many of these techniques have some form of the word manteis attached to the end (-mancy). Manteis literally means "prophet" or "seer." The word "mantis," as in the insect "praying mantis" is related to this word. The Greeks named the insect genus "mantis" because it appeared to be in the archetypal prayer position, a divine body pose. The "divinator" is literally one who is acting as the divine - as a god, or as an artist.
The "casting of lots" is another powerful component of divination. I grew up Mormon, and this was expressly forbidden (gambling and card playing). But I suspect the prohibition against the casting of lots goes deeper than the idea that one could lose one's shirt gambling. Insofar as monotheisms have evolved particular mechanisms of social control and dissemination, they have also evolved mechanisms for stability. Chance has its place at the top (usually administered by a pope or endowed prophet), but among the flock it is trouble, resulting in splinter groups, etc. Thus, the casting of lots is factored out of the religious discourse. It is a sign of witchery (from "wicca," to bend, as in wicker chair or wicked) or sorcery (a word with direct roots in the "casting of lots"). Remember Leviticus: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." One culture's crucified prophet is another culture's sorcerer burning at the stake; the two are closely related. They are both probably on the edge of insanity, ecstasy, or some kind of sublime holy (wholly) state.
The casting of lots has something to do with idols as well, and their counterpart, the jealous God. Once one has divined an image from chaos (a sign in the coffee cup), it may or may not be assimilated into the discourse at hand (say, Christianity). If the sign functions as strengthening the social bonds of the faith or is useful for some contingent adaptation, it will be embraced. If not, it will be rejected as a false idol. Thus, divination could be seen as a kind of "mutant gene" phenomenon in an organic discourse like Islam or Christianity, where the bending of reality (in the form of artistic figurative representation) is outlawed (as in some Islamic sects), heavily policed (as in medieval art) or looked upon skeptically (Jesse Helms and the NEA). Evolutionary biologists tell us that nature is always "oscillating" and preparing to adapt. The change is part of an adaptation, part of a new species, or the change kills the organism (cancer).
The casting of lots is even "told out of" history. As Foucault suggests, history is not contiguous, but rather it is a series of episteme or abrupt shifts and mutations. We tell history back into shape retrospectively, but then these stories too suffer their mutations. By closely examining history (what Foucualt calls "genealogy") the present story by which we understand the world is destabilized. I am reminded of the surrealist Max Ernst and his method of floating a canvas in water to form random paint patterns before filling in the scene. This is the artist-as-sorcerer equation that is fundamental to the idea of divination. This is, in part, the sorcerer's art - to potentiate the present with the force of chance.
posted by thebaffler at 11:50 AM
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