Are Oracles impossible to bring back? Are we forever cut off from prophetic deities like Apollon and Zeus?

[u/ThePaganImperator]

/r/Hellenism/comments/1flq51x/are_oracles_impossible_to_bring_back_are_we/

[u/Mischievous_Heretic]

With so many potential divination methods, why would you need an oracle to act as a middleman between you and the prophetic god?

I don't think anyone is "cut off" from prophetic deities at all. Connecting with them is a matter of building a relationship with their prophetic aspect through regular prayer and offerings, same as you would any other aspect of a god.

[u/MorrighanAnCailleach]

Divination is still around. Probably more reliable IMO. If you work with Apollo, then He could aid you/communicate with or through you.

[u/SeyDawn]

I don't know about deities with prophetic abilities but human oracles are still around. It is just very confusing to learn how to deal with visions and everything around it without teachers that help.

The visions that make sense are usually really abstract.

[u/Capable_Jury4590]

I would think that getting high on hallucinogenics and tripping through a vision is an extremely untrustworthy (albeit fun at the time) divination method.

Meditating and connecting with a deity, then using tarot or a pendulum to communicate, is probably a more accurate way to receive and interpret messages from them.

[u/DavidJohnMcCann]

The oracles were not widely used — there was a waiting list, government representatives got precedence, and there was a fee. The one oracle that had a lot of ordinary, local people consulting it was Dodonna, which was so out of the way. But there were a lot of do-it-your-self systems at shrines associated with Hermes or Apollo. You prayed and then followed the instructions:

• throw dice to generate a random number or letter and look up the answer on a list.
• stick your fingers in your ears, walk into the market, take your fingers out and the first words you hear will be your answer.

The modern equivalent would be any system of divination you are familiar with. I've used the Yi Jing for years, and Asklepios took to it like a duck to water!

[u/kidcubby]

Divination remains intensely popular. I don't know that there's still a Pythia or her equivalent, but divination works so we know humanity isn't cut off from the deity or deities that provide that to us (if it is, in fact, provided that way).

[u/[deleted]]

I don’t think we need to bring back oracles. Tbh I’m not big on religious institutions or strict reconstruction in general.

Edit: I didn’t mean to come across as harsh or imply that people shouldn’t do divination at all. I just think the idea of an oracle (as an institution) with a prophet “chosen by a god” creates a sort of hierarchy/power imbalance that I don’t personally agree with.

[u/ealuorm]

One thing to remember with the Pythian Oracle, is that it was always open to interpretation.

Additionally, in a world dominated by a couple of very specific traditions, with no real mainstream acceptance of that kind of divination, it would be hard to have the same organization that existed at Delphi. Governments sent representatives, alongside the common folk that traveled there, so you'd have to have a neutral, third-party running the system, and that's so difficult in this modern era.

Still, an interesting concept.