Divination and Power

2008/06/01 by Rowan K. Flad · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Chinese history and philosophy #Anthropological Studies and Insights #Cultural Differences and Values #Divination #Bureaucracy #Power (physics) #State (computer science) #Politics #China #History #Ancient history #Ethnology #Political science #Law #Art #Archaeology #Literature #Computer science

paper · doi:10.1086/588495

openalex publication_date 2008/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22

Abstract

Divination is a ritual practice frequently employed as a source of social and political power. Elaborate forms of divination can be crucial to state control and have widespread influence. In ancient China as elsewhere, divination was the domain of ritual specialists who used their skills to mediate uncertainty, but the role that these specialists played in society differed considerably from one place to another. An examination of divination remains from the Neolithic, Shang, and Zhou periods of China suggests that more elaborate divination procedures are associated with bureaucratic institutions as a source of state power.

Citations

• The Power and Ideology of Artistic Creation
• The Sources of social power, Volume 1, A history of power from the beginning to AD 1760
• New zooarchaeological evidence for changes in Shang Dynasty animal sacrifice
• Language, Ideology, and Political Economy
• The Power and Ideology of Artistic Creation: Elite Craft Specialists in Classic Maya Society
• Outline of a Theory of Practice

Cited by

• Oracle bone script [wikipedia]

Related

• Divination in the Works of the Shishuo Genre, China and Japan
• Object and Objectivity in Divination
• Animals and Divination
• Revealing Secrets: Talismans, Healthcare and the Market of the Occult in Early Twentieth-century China
• Signs of Power: Talismanic Writing in Chinese Buddhism