Lexicon Foundation

Divination (Mantik)

Definition

Divination, the mantic art (Greek mantikḗ téchnē), is the art of seeing and soothsaying, the reading of signs such as stars, lots or oracles. Gwendolin Kirchhoff calls it the reading of the world, or the reading of the signs of the world.

By Gwendolin Kirchhoff · Philosopher 13 min read

Divination, which German calls Mantik, is the art of interpreting signs: the word goes back to the Greek mantikḗ téchnē, the “art of soothsaying”, formed from mántis, the soothsayer (DWDS, n.d., “Mantik”). Gwendolin Kirchhoff, in her conversation with the astrologer Markus Termin, defines it as “the reading of the world, or the reading of the signs of the world” (Kirchhoff, G., 2024, “Kompass Astrologie”, 17:34–17:37, translated from the German). Astrology she calls the great mantic lore here; the Yijing (the I Ching) and tarot she counts among the mantic systems; the oracles of antiquity belong to the same field. This entry follows the term from Plato and Cicero to the question of what an oracle does, as Gwendolin Kirchhoff understands it, and what it does not take off the questioner’s hands.

#What does divination mean?

Divination, Mantik in German, is “the art of seeing and soothsaying” according to the Duden dictionary (DWDS, n.d., “Mantik”, definition after Duden GWDS 1999, translated from the German). Among related terms the dictionary lists sign-reading, the interpretation of the future, fortune-telling (marked as pejorative) and divination (ibid., after OpenThesaurus). The word was already argued over in antiquity. In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates says the ancients named “the noblest of arts, that which foretells the future” after madness, calling it the manic art, “but nowadays people call prophecy the mantic art, tastelessly inserting a T in the word” (Plato, Phaedrus 244c, tr. Fowler). Socrates sets apart from it “the investigation of the future which rational persons conduct through observation of birds and by other signs” (ibid.). Beside divinely inspired prophecy, for which Socrates names the prophetess at Delphi and the priestesses at Dodona, Plato thus places a reading of signs by rational reflection (cf. ibid., 244a–d).

Cicero opens his treatise De divinatione by noting that the Greeks call divination μαντική, “id est praesensionem et scientiam rerum futurarum”, that is, a foreboding and knowledge of future things (Cicero, De divinatione I,1). In the first book his brother Quintus defends divination and distinguishes: “Duo sunt enim divinandi genera, quorum alterum artis est, alterum naturae”, two kinds of divining, one belonging to art and one to nature (ibid., I,11). To art, according to Quintus, belong for the most part the inspectors of entrails, the interpreters of portents and of lightning, the augurs, the astrologers and the lots; dreams and prophecies are considered natural (cf. ibid., I,12). In the second book Cicero himself objects: divination by dreams should be rejected “pariter cum ceteris”, along with all the other kinds (ibid., II,148).

#What is an oracle, according to Gwendolin Kirchhoff?

For Gwendolin Kirchhoff, an oracle is “access to what is” (Interview with Gwendolin Kirchhoff, 2026, unpublished, translated from the German). The oracle itself, she says, is a bounded space on which, “as in a fractal or in an analogy”, what is emerging and what is at work in the whole context is mapped (ibid.). That oracles can exist at all she calls “an enormous phenomenon”: a quality of time can be mapped onto something else and thereby become readable (ibid.). The oracle, in her words, forms an interface between space in its totality and the concern of the person asking, and its function is “only to reveal how it is” (ibid.). “In that sense the oracle does not serve the wishes and interests of the person who has the concern.” (ibid.). If it is a strong oracle, she adds, it also gives counsel on how to move within this whole context (cf. ibid.).

That kings always consulted an oracle as well is a very old practice, Gwendolin Kirchhoff says in the same interview; famous examples, she says, are the Babylonian kings, who in ancient Sumer had an oracle practice based on reading the liver of a sheep (cf. ibid.).

#What types of divination are there?

Divination exists, according to Gwendolin Kirchhoff, “in a certain sense in all cultures”; in the Chinese world it is all grouped around the Yijing, the I Ching, and here around astrology “as the great mantic lore” (Kirchhoff, G., 2024, “Kompass Astrologie”, 17:37–17:46, translated from the German). In the same conversation Markus Termin distinguishes between mantic systems: astrology, he says, is not a system like the I Ching, and it lacks the element of chance; “No dice are thrown, no cards are laid, nothing is played.” (ibid., 18:22–18:26; cf. 18:09–18:26). An element of chance can make sense under certain circumstances, he says, but in astrology the points are fixed and can be calculated exactly (cf. ibid., 18:26–18:42).

Personally, Gwendolin Kirchhoff says at the start of her conversation with Sarah Weyrich, she has “hardly engaged” with tarot; she comes rather “from the Chinese side”, from the Yijing (Kirchhoff, G., 2024, “Tarot – Logik der Bilder”, 00:29–00:33, translated from the German). In the conversation on the Kings and Queens Tarot channel she compares the two: the I Ching has a different orientation from tarot, “because the aspect of movement is simply the strong one, and the aspect of relationship” (Kings and Queens Tarot, 2024, “I Ging Seelengespräch”, 14:38–14:43; cf. 14:33–14:43, translated from the German). Tarot, she says, is “really a quite different approach. More this mirroring, really.” (ibid., 28:03–28:07).

To Sarah Weyrich’s description of tarot as a mirror of the soul, Gwendolin Kirchhoff responds with a follow-up question: it is, then, “in that sense not what people always think, reading the future”. Sarah Weyrich replies that one can indeed ask about a future development, or at least a tendency of development, but that it depends on the idea one brings to it (Kirchhoff, G., 2024, “Tarot – Logik der Bilder”, 32:35–32:38; cf. 32:29–32:57, translated from the German).

#Is the zodiac arbitrary?

Gwendolin Kirchhoff calls the tropical zodiac “not arbitrary at all”: it is always the angle in relation to the centre and to the horizon line through that point, she says, and so it has “a very great unambiguousness” (Kirchhoff, G., 2024, “Kompass Astrologie”, 1:01:43–1:01:47; cf. 1:01:37–1:01:47, translated from the German). It is, she says, “an imagined circle”, not really the starry sky at all but a “clock laid over the starry sky” (ibid., 12:38–12:49); Markus Termin adds a precision: the zodiac is laid not over but, so to speak, under the starry sky, and the earth carries it along with it (cf. ibid., 12:50–13:01). The tropical zodiac is “simply to be seen like a clock face, really, and not as a picture of the so-called sidereal zodiac” (ibid., 28:04–28:10). No zodiac signs change there, she says; nothing changes at all (cf. ibid., 1:01:34–1:01:37).

At the start of the conversation Gwendolin Kirchhoff calls astrology a great exception, if a very suppressed one, a little laughed at and kept small as esoteric, in a present in which, for us, the night sky and with it the cosmos has no meaning. Astrology, she says, is highly interesting in many respects and represents “the first orientation of human beings” by way of the zodiac, not only in time but also in space and as orientation in life (ibid., 01:54–01:58; cf. 01:21–02:07, translated from the German).

Jochen Kirchhoff wrote about the zodiac in 1989, in a different context. In Klang und Verwandlung he objects to the impression that the assignment of the twelve keys to the twelve signs of the zodiac, which Friedrich Oberkogler makes following Hermann Beckh, already covers the whole spherical-cosmic dimension of music: that, he writes, is in a certain sense a geocentric idea, “similarly geocentric to the whole of traditional astrology”; music, in his conviction, reaches considerably further into the cosmic, “whereas the zodiac (Zodiakus) is a perspectival illusion conditioned by the earth’s motion” (Kirchhoff, J., 1989, Klang und Verwandlung, pp. 181–182, translated from the German). Which geocentric presupposition Jochen Kirchhoff criticises in natural science itself is described in the entry Methodological Geocentrism.

#How does astrological sign-reading differ from pure rationality?

The astrological, according to Gwendolin Kirchhoff, is always embedded in the inner and the outer, whereas pure rationality taken by itself lacks the finer context of the when and the where. There is the actual place-in-time, she says in the conversation with Markus Termin, and inner and outer are always integrated with one another (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2024, “Kompass Astrologie”, 21:12–21:24). An architecture conceived sub specie aeternitatis, under the aspect of eternity, and then set down in space is by contrast literally the “timeless and spaceless form of thinking”, “pure rationality taken by itself”, without the finer context of the when and the where (ibid., 21:39–21:44; cf. 21:24–21:49, translated from the German).

#Is the I Ching about the future or about self-knowledge?

Asked whether the I Ching is more about the future and fate or about self-knowledge, Gwendolin Kirchhoff calls it “very action-oriented”; in Chinese philosophy, situations are “like a sign in space”, in a state of change (Kings and Queens Tarot, 2024, “I Ging Seelengespräch”, 10:30–10:39; cf. 10:05–10:40, translated from the German). You do not get a psychological understanding from it, she says, but “an insight into what is at work in the situation”, and into what is appropriate in it (ibid., 13:17–13:20; cf. 13:07–13:21). How C. G. Jung conceived the meaningful coincidence of inner and outer events is described in the entry Synchronicity; the book itself is introduced in the entry I Ching.

#Who decides when you consult an oracle?

The decision, according to Gwendolin Kirchhoff, is made by the person asking: you need a source of information in some form, and on that basis you make your decision (cf. Interview with Gwendolin Kirchhoff, 2026, unpublished). “No oracle takes this decision away”, she says in the same interview; the oracle is simply meant to provide a basis of information about the matter at hand, and leadership then decides what is to be done (ibid., translated from the German). Leadership is wise, she adds, when it takes the whole context into account (cf. ibid.).

Of the I Ching she says that it assumes “that you are a noble person”: you are addressed as one of the noble, since otherwise you would not consult the I Ching, because you want to take responsibility for your life (Kings and Queens Tarot, 2024, “I Ging Seelengespräch”, 40:15–40:18; cf. 40:12–40:28, translated from the German). The I Ching, she says, can give counsel only in the measure of one’s readiness to take responsibility (cf. ibid., 40:28–40:38). Of her own interpretation of the images she says: “Of course I can’t be sure that the way I interpret things is right in that sense.” (ibid., 25:38–25:43). Asked whether she offers the I Ching as a consultation, she replied in 2024: “I wouldn’t offer a consultation, because I think it needs one’s own individual access” (Kings and Queens Tarot, 2024, “I Ging Seelengespräch”, 42:33–42:40; cf. 42:14–42:40).

How to consult the I Ching with coins is described in the essay Consulting the I Ching; why the word oracle can mislead when applied to the I Ching, in the essay The I Ching Is Not an Oracle. The capacity to recognise what is essential in a unique situation is the subject of the entry Judgement.

#Sources

Frequently Asked Questions

What does divination mean?
Divination, in German Mantik, is the art of interpreting signs. The German word goes back to the Greek mantikḗ téchnē, the art of soothsaying; the Duden dictionary defines Mantik as the art of seeing and soothsaying. Gwendolin Kirchhoff, in her conversation with the astrologer Markus Termin, calls it the reading of the world, or the reading of the signs of the world.
Where does the word mantic come from?
Mantic comes from the Greek mantikḗ téchnē, the art of soothsaying, formed from mántis, the soothsayer. In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates says the ancients named this art after madness (mania), calling it the manic art; people later inserted a T and called it the mantic art.
What kinds of divination are distinguished in Cicero's De divinatione?
In Cicero's De divinatione, his brother Quintus distinguishes two kinds of divination, one belonging to art and one to nature. To art, he says, belong for the most part the inspectors of entrails, the interpreters of portents and lightning, the augurs, the astrologers and the lots; dreams and prophecies are considered natural. In the second book Cicero himself rejects divination by dreams along with all the other kinds.
Is astrology a form of divination?
Gwendolin Kirchhoff, in her conversation with Markus Termin, calls astrology the great mantic lore here, just as in the Chinese world the mantic arts are grouped around the Yijing, the I Ching. Markus Termin sets astrology apart from the I Ching: it lacks the element of chance; no dice are thrown and no cards are laid.
What is an oracle, according to Gwendolin Kirchhoff?
In a 2026 interview Gwendolin Kirchhoff describes the oracle as access to what is: a bounded space on which, as in a fractal or an analogy, what is emerging and what is at work in the whole context is mapped. The oracle, she says, does not serve the wishes and interests of the person who brings the question.
Does an oracle make the decision for you?
No. Gwendolin Kirchhoff says in the 2026 interview that no oracle takes the decision off your hands; it is only meant to provide a basis of information about the matter at hand, and leadership then decides what is to be done.
Gwendolin Kirchhoff
Gwendolin Kirchhoff “Nature thinks. The human being is the place where it recognises itself.”

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