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How Did the Oracle at Delphi Really Prophesy?


Still Waters

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The Oracle at Delphi is referenced throughout Greek myths and history. Supposedly she was rendered psychic by Apollo. Realistically, she was off her skull on gas that seeped out of the fissures of the temple in which she lived. Here is the scientific explanation for what caused this woman to utter her confused prophecies.

http://news.discover...#mkcpgn=rssnws1

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I remember hearing somewhere that the Oracles chewed on a plant that "aided" their "prophesying". I can't remember if we were told that in Greece or I read it somewhere later.

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As the movie "300" told, it was a bunch of girls getting high saying random things and the priests explained it out and/or I'm looking at it like Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce. I think someone intelligent is planting thoughts in minds.

Edited by kampz
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They looked into this on 'Digging for The Truth'. Quite interesting, IMO. Gases coming up through fissures in a volcanic area is what was determined.

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  • 2 months later...

I like how no one here is actually addressing the issue... You are all just looking for a rational way that the oracle went into a altered state, but are flat out ignoring the fact that she could give true answers..

I'm not saying that she wasn't stoned off her ass... But the fact that she was able to divine answers that were reliable (at least far more often than not)... Even if it wasn't 100% accurate, it was still more than chance would say that she could get right.

Lets face it, you can smoke/drink/eat/snort almost anything, get ****ed up, and start trying to tell the future... But what percent of what would come out your mouth would be right? But at Delphi, she was right enough that she was considered reliable...

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I like how no one here is actually addressing the issue... You are all just looking for a rational way that the oracle went into a altered state, but are flat out ignoring the fact that she could give true answers..

I'm not saying that she wasn't stoned off her ass... But the fact that she was able to divine answers that were reliable (at least far more often than not)... Even if it wasn't 100% accurate, it was still more than chance would say that she could get right.

Lets face it, you can smoke/drink/eat/snort almost anything, get ****ed up, and start trying to tell the future... But what percent of what would come out your mouth would be right? But at Delphi, she was right enough that she was considered reliable...

Not believing in predicting the future is not an issue to be addressed. I personally don't believe it either. That has nothing to do with not addressing the issue.

The problem with these oracles is, that most of the time, Delphi included, they would say a whole lot of things but it was the priests that interpreted whatever was being said. Meaning that it was the priests that were "telling the future" in a way. And we all know that certain types of people wouldn't be afraid to make sure that the prophecy would come true, even if this meant they had to give a little shove, so to speak.

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I like how no one here is actually addressing the issue... You are all just looking for a rational way that the oracle went into a altered state, but are flat out ignoring the fact that she could give true answers..

I'm not saying that she wasn't stoned off her ass... But the fact that she was able to divine answers that were reliable (at least far more often than not)... Even if it wasn't 100% accurate, it was still more than chance would say that she could get right.

Lets face it, you can smoke/drink/eat/snort almost anything, get ****ed up, and start trying to tell the future... But what percent of what would come out your mouth would be right? But at Delphi, she was right enough that she was considered reliable...

You have to take in mind that her interpertations of what the "high" people were so vauge and general that it could be applied to almost anything and taken in almost anyway, most likely the recipeants of the prophecy acted based upon their interpertation of the prophecy.

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I like how no one here is actually addressing the issue... You are all just looking for a rational way that the oracle went into a altered state, but are flat out ignoring the fact that she could give true answers..

I'm not saying that she wasn't stoned off her ass... But the fact that she was able to divine answers that were reliable (at least far more often than not)... Even if it wasn't 100% accurate, it was still more than chance would say that she could get right.

Lets face it, you can smoke/drink/eat/snort almost anything, get ****ed up, and start trying to tell the future... But what percent of what would come out your mouth would be right? But at Delphi, she was right enough that she was considered reliable...

I'm sure she was considered reliable if her prophecy told what you wanted to hear.

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I like how no one here is actually addressing the issue... You are all just looking for a rational way that the oracle went into a altered state, but are flat out ignoring the fact that she could give true answers.

Please provide us with evidence that any predictions from Delphi were actually true.

Harte

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They looked into this on 'Digging for The Truth'. Quite interesting, IMO. Gases coming up through fissures in a volcanic area is what was determined.

Yea that's what I thought.

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I think these ancient oracles worked like other soothsayers and fortunetellers worked then and now. Read your customer and make interpretable predictions.

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How they did it is well known. The used this:

magic8ball.jpg

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Shakespeare, Henry VI part 2, act 1, sc. 4:

The duke yet lives, that Henry shall depose;

But him outlive, and die a violent death.'

Why, this is just

'Aio te, AEacida, Romanos vincere posse.'

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I like how no one here is actually addressing the issue... You are all just looking for a rational way that the oracle went into a altered state, but are flat out ignoring the fact that she could give true answers..

I'm not saying that she wasn't stoned off her ass... But the fact that she was able to divine answers that were reliable (at least far more often than not)... Even if it wasn't 100% accurate, it was still more than chance would say that she could get right.

Lets face it, you can smoke/drink/eat/snort almost anything, get ****ed up, and start trying to tell the future... But what percent of what would come out your mouth would be right? But at Delphi, she was right enough that she was considered reliable...

The old idea of gas seepage is not well accepted by most academics and is mostly entertaining fodder for TV specials (like in the good old days when the History Channel used to have programs about history instead of redneck swamp dwellers).

But the oracular divinations preserved in ancient writings reveal prophecies so vague as to be generic. All of them could be interpreted in numerous ways. Let's review a couple of the most famous.

Croesus and the Persians

Croesus, king of Lydia, went to Delphi to see if he should take on the advancing Persians. His oracle: "If you cross the Halys River, a great empire will be destroyed." Naturally Croesus believed it meant that he would destroy Persia, but the story works great for the Greek mind because they were all about hubris. As it turned out, it was Croesus' empire that was destroyed.

Athens and the Persians

As the Persians under Xerxes were approaching Greece, an Athenian delegation went to Delphi to ask for advice. Their oracle: "Athens will be saved by her wooden walls." Some felt this meant the wooden palisade on the Acropolis, so numerous Athenians remained in the city and took up arms on the Acropolis as Persia invaded the city. Themistocles argued that it was a reference to Athens' great naval fleet, and most sided with him. The Athenians on the Acropolis were slaughtered, while the fleet under Themistocles defeated the Persian navy and sent Xerxes packing.

In both cases, the divinations could be taken more than one way. They were sure to please at least a lot of people—who only wanted to be told what they wanted to hear. It's human nature. In all probability, the priests of Delphi who "interpreted" the mumble-talk of the Pythia in "commune" with Apollo, were hedging their bets and striving to remain as generic as possible. They needed to earn a living, after all.

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Please provide us with evidence that any predictions from Delphi were actually true.

Harte

You know, Oedipus wanted that proof the oracle at Delphi was true, too. Didn't work out so well for him.

--Jaylemurph

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According to the Greek mythology there were some kind of fumes in the Oracle of Delphi – which could have been of course just incense. We do not know what kind of fumes it was, which makes the fumes theory a hypothesis at the moment.

In my opinion it wasn't just that. Greek mythology mentions secrete weapons and an entrance to the center of the Earth. Which probably explains why the Nazi’s in the Second World War made a secret underground tunnel (complete with a metallic structure, ladders and lights) under Delphi searching for something. It is known that the Nazi’s searched for relics all over the world, which means that they had found something under Delphi – and no one knows what this was. I have personally been to that tunnel in Delphi, which is now only known to a very few old people who lived during the Second World War - and soon will become a legend.

You cannot go at the end of the tunnel because you need diving equipment at some point. Maybe during a specific time of the year it is not flooded. Who knows!

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The old idea of gas seepage is not well accepted by most academics and is mostly entertaining fodder for TV specials (like in the good old days when the History Channel used to have programs about history instead of redneck swamp dwellers).

But the oracular divinations preserved in ancient writings reveal prophecies so vague as to be generic. All of them could be interpreted in numerous ways. Let's review a couple of the most famous.

Croesus and the Persians

Croesus, king of Lydia, went to Delphi to see if he should take on the advancing Persians. His oracle: "If you cross the Halys River, a great empire will be destroyed." Naturally Croesus believed it meant that he would destroy Persia, but the story works great for the Greek mind because they were all about hubris. As it turned out, it was Croesus' empire that was destroyed.

Athens and the Persians

As the Persians under Xerxes were approaching Greece, an Athenian delegation went to Delphi to ask for advice. Their oracle: "Athens will be saved by her wooden walls." Some felt this meant the wooden palisade on the Acropolis, so numerous Athenians remained in the city and took up arms on the Acropolis as Persia invaded the city. Themistocles argued that it was a reference to Athens' great naval fleet, and most sided with him. The Athenians on the Acropolis were slaughtered, while the fleet under Themistocles defeated the Persian navy and sent Xerxes packing.

In both cases, the divinations could be taken more than one way. They were sure to please at least a lot of people—who only wanted to be told what they wanted to hear. It's human nature. In all probability, the priests of Delphi who "interpreted" the mumble-talk of the Pythia in "commune" with Apollo, were hedging their bets and striving to remain as generic as possible. They needed to earn a living, after all.

You do us a great favor with this information; especially how the prophesies were so subject to variable interpretations.Another fact is that the oracle refused to see most who came. This is typical of fortune tellers, who choose from there audience only those they are able to "read."

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You know, Oedipus wanted that proof the oracle at Delphi was true, too. Didn't work out so well for him.

--Jaylemurph

S'okay.

My Mom died several years back, Dad a couple years after.

I'm already going blind anyway, it seems.

Harte

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Wasn''t there a Prophesy from the Oracle that went something like... "When the Bush throws his spears at Babalyon, the King Saddam will be captured and hung". :whistle:

But seriously, I heard it was volcanic vapors too.

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Wasn''t there a Prophesy from the Oracle that went something like... "When the Bush throws his spears at Babalyon, the King Saddam will be captured and hung". :whistle:

...

No, silly, that was Nostradamus. Get your prophecies straight!

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No, silly, that was Nostradamus. Get your prophecies straight!

I thought the Nostradamus one was...

"Shrubbery eats men.

Fire lauched into Sand.

Men surrender to the Souless.

Much cash is spent to bring down the Babalyon King."

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But the oracular divinations preserved in ancient writings reveal prophecies so vague as to be generic. All of them could be interpreted in numerous ways. Let's review a couple of the most famous.

Ahh.... The John Edwards of the day. "I feel there is someone in the audiance whos name startes with a J. And they have a relative who died within the last 20 years. And they live or have lived in New England for some time...."

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