The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c32.s6.1

v2.c32.s6.1

The principle of divination is in large measure directly due to the doctrine of mimetic magic:⁷ if the use of a representation of things can produce them, it is also legitimate, if less easy, to deduce the future of events from the behaviour of things, which are supposed to be an imitation of the events. This, however, is no doubt not the whole ground of the belief in the power to read the future, and, moreover, the fact that the future was uncertain must have induced many people to resort to the gods for aid in unravelling it. In these cases the performances are indeed much the same as in an ordinary species of divination, but the belief is different: it is the view that the future is revealed by the god, through the means employed: magic here is supplemented as often by religious conceptions.