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Obviously it is not enough to study only the products of divination, only the resultant behavior. It is now clear that the key stage of divination is the dialogue generated by the oracular message (as the texts above demonstrate), but the manner in which that stage is reached is still critical. How are these patterns, these new perspectives, brought forward, recognized, accepted, and then integrated? I would argue that all of the drama of divination serves to move the participants out of their normal modes of thinking, shaking them up in order to change their minds because their current understanding of the situation is inadequate. |
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Here we need to recall the earlier confusion among scholars concerning the apparently contradictory aspects of intuitive and intellectual, inspirational and rational in divination systems. Significantly, these dichotomies mirror characterizations of the brain's hemispherical specialization in which the left hemisphere is associated with analytical, linear thinking and the right hemisphere with synthetical, analogical thinking.
21 I maintain that much as the brain must first discriminate, then integrate and synchronize the left and right hemispheres for proper problem solving, so the diviner must first establish a non-normal mode of cognition, then (with the client) mediate between two ways of thinking. In other words, through a radical shift, in literal and symbolic fashion, of the character and context of problem solving, the divination process is used to introduce a mode of cognition different from the cultural norm, whatever that might be; and then, even more important, the divination session creates a synthesis of the non-normal and normal modes as the plans of action are developed between diviner and client. |
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Striking testimony that such a cognitive change occurs is provided by Batammaliba diviners, who say that when the divining spirit enters one's body it "shifts one's mind to the side" (see Blier's essay above). Bucher's observation that the "possessed" diviner's brain waves shift to alpha rhythms supports the contention that a physiological change occurs (1980:99100).22 |
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The balancing of the left and right sides of divinatory configurations is significant because it reflects the overall integration of mind and body. Recall that the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body while the right hemisphere controls the left side. The mediation in divination also reflects the synthesis that is now believed to occur between right and left hemispherical functioning; we use both hemispheres with varying intensity all the time, but each contributes a distinctive perspective to our bimodal consciousness.23 Just as it is critical to keep the right and left sides of the divining chain separate, so as to read the configurations in proper order, the physiological separation of motor, sensory, and hemispherical functions is essential to permit necessary cerebral discrimination. But equally, there is a critical need for integration of these functions for the survival of the organism. Thus both divination and the brain are two-sided systems that function through differentiation and synthesis of both sides, often in fixed oscillation, for truly comprehensive and effective responses. |
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By introducing this level of analysis, which takes into account the brain's physiological differentiation of hemispheres and the mind's alternation of cognitive functioning, we are able to better understand divination's universality among human cultures. This approach does not deny earlier functionalist explanations of how |
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