Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-65f69f4695-w8vvr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-27T04:27:22.783Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Series:   Elements in the Psychology of Religion

Divination

A Cognitive Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2025

Ze Hong
Ze Hong
Affiliation:
University of Macau

Summary

This Element adopts a naturalistic, cognitive perspective to understand divination. Following an overview of divination and the historical background of its scholarly study, Section 2 examines various definitions and proposes a working definition that balances common usage with theoretical coherence. Section 3 surveys existing theories of divination, including symbolic and functional perspectives, while critiquing their limitations. Section 4 argues for the primacy of cognition in divinatory practices, emphasizing the role of universal cognitive mechanisms and culturally specific worldviews in shaping their plausibility and persistence. Expanding on these ideas, Section 5 investigates the interplay between individual cognition and societal processes, highlighting socio-cultural factors such as the preferential reporting of successful outcomes that bolster divination's perceived efficacy. Finally, Section 6 concludes by summarizing the Element's key arguments and identifying open questions for future research on the cognitive dimension of divination.
Get access

Keywords

divinationtraditional belief systemscognitive biasworldviewineffective technology

Information

Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in the Psychology of Religion
Online ISBN: 9781009541961
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 22 May 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Element purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ahern, E. M. (1981). Chinese ritual and politics. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ajala, A. S. (2013). Ifa divination: A diagnostic and therapeutic device in Yoruba healing system. In Peek, P. M. & van Beek, W. E. A. (Eds.), Reviewing reality: Dynamics of African divination (pp. 115–138). LIT Verlag.Google Scholar
Albert, M. (2009). Why Bayesian rationality is empty, perfect rationality doesn’t exist, ecological rationality is too simple, and critical rationality does the job. Rationality, Markets and Morals, 0(3). https://ideas.repec.org/a/rmm/journl/v0y2009i3.html.Google Scholar
Allum, N. (2011). What makes some people think astrology is scientific? Science Communication, 33(3), 341–366.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, J. K. (1970). Military theory and practice in the age of Xenophon. University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Annus, A. (2010). On the beginnings and continuities of omen sciences in the ancient world. In Annus, A. (Ed.), Divination and the interpretation of signs in the ancient world (pp. 1–18). Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Ban, G. (2022). Hanshu 漢書. In 點校本二十四史: 大字本 [Annotated and Collated Edition of the Twenty-Four Histories]. Zhonghua shuju.Google Scholar
Banks, G. C., Field, J. G., Oswald, F. L. et al. (2019). Answers to 18 questions about open science practices. Journal of Business and Psychology, 34, 257–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baratz, A. (2022). The roots of divination in archaic poetry. Classical Philology, 117(4), 581–602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnard, A. (2021). History and theory in anthropology. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnett, W. K. (1971). An ethnographic description of Sanlei Ts’un, Taiwan, with emphasis on women’s roles overcoming research problems caused by the presence of a great tradition. University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Barrett, J. L. (2000). Exploring the natural foundations of religion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(1), 29–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(99)01419-9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bartholomew, J. R. (1989). The formation of science in Japan: Building a research tradition. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Bartlett, R. (1986). Trial by fire and water: The medieval judicial ordeal. Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bascom, W. R. (1941). The sanctions of Ifa divination. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 71(1/2), 43–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beattie, J. (1960). Bunyoro: An African Kingdom (pp. ix, 86). Holt. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=fk11-002.Google Scholar
Beattie, J., & Middleton, J. (1969). Spirit mediumship and society in Africa (Beattie, J. & Middleton, J., Eds.). Africana Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar
Bell, L. (2017). Lawfinding, duality and irrationality: Rethinking trial by ordeal in Weber’s Economy and Society. Law and Humanities, 11(2), 266–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berger, P. L. (1977). Secular theology and the rejection of the supernatural: Reflections on recent trends. Theological Studies, 38(1), 39–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berglund, A.-I. (1976). Zulu thought-patterns and symbolism. Swedish Institute of missionary research.Google Scholar
Bergstrom, B., Moehlmann, B., & Boyer, P. (2006). Extending the testimony problem: Evaluating the truth, scope, and source of cultural information. Child Development, 77(3), 531–538.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bhawuk, D. P. S. (2010). A perspective on epistemology and ontology of Indian psychology: A synthesis of theory, method and practice. Psychology and Developing Societies, 22(1), 157–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanton, H., Jaccard, J., Christie, C., & Gonzales, P. M. (2007). Plausible assumptions, questionable assumptions and post hoc rationalizations: Will the real IAT, please stand up? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43(3), 399–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloch, M. (2012). Anthropology and the cognitive challenge. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohannan, P. (1975). Tiv divination. In Beattie, J. H. M. & Lienhardt, R. G. (Eds.), Studies in social anthropology (pp. 149–166). Clarendon.Google Scholar
Bok, B. J., Jerome, L. E., & Kurtz, P. (1975). Objections to astrology. Prometheus books.Google Scholar
Booth, N. S. (1978). Tradition and community in African religion. Journal of Religion in Africa, 9, 81–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdillon, M. F. C. (1976). The Shona peoples: An ethnography of the contemporary Shona, with special reference to their religion (Vol. 1). Mambo Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, R., Richerson, P. J., & Henrich, J. (2011). The cultural niche: Why social learning is essential for human adaptation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(supplement_2), 10918–10925.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boyer, P. (1994). The naturalness of religious ideas: A cognitive theory of religion. University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyer, P. (1996). What makes anthropomorphism natural: Intuitive ontology and cultural representations. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2, 83–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyer, P. (2020). Why divination? Evolved psychology and strategic interaction in the production of truth. Current Anthropology, 61(1), 100–123. https://doi.org/10.1086/706879.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bråten, E. (2016). Reading Holbraad: Truth and doubt in the context of ontological inquiry. In B. E. Bertelsen & S. Bendixsen (Eds.), Critical anthropological engagements in human alterity and difference (pp. 273–294).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bremmer, J. (1999). The birth of the term “magic.” Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik, 126, 1–12.Google Scholar
Brown, D. (2006). Astral divination in the context of Mesopotamian divination, medicine, religion, magic, society, and scholarship. East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, 25(1), 69–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bullivant, S., Farias, M., Lanman, J., & Lee, L. (2019). Understanding unbelief: Atheists and agnostics around the world. Technical report St Mary’s University, UK. https://www.stmarys.ac.uk/research/centres/benedict-xvi/understanding-unbelief.aspx.Google Scholar
Bunzel, R. L. (1952). Chichicastenango: A Guatemalan village. J.J. Augustin.Google Scholar
Burkert, W. (2005). Signs, commands, and knowledge: Ancient divination between enigma and epiphany. In Johnston, S. I. & Struck, P. T. (Eds.), Mantikê (pp. 29–49). Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burn, A. (1962). Persia and the Greeks: The defence of the West, c. 546–478 BC. Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Cabrera, F. (2020). Evidence and explanation in Cicero’s On Divination. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 82, 34–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Caldararo, N. L. (2008). Caching, money, magic, derivatives, mana and modern finance. Available at SSRN 1007819.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, S. (1985). Conceptual change in childhood. MIT press.Google Scholar
Chalupa, A. (2014). Pythiai and inspired divination in the Delphic Oracle: Can cognitive sciences provide us with an access to “dead minds”? Journal of Cognitive Historiography, 1(1), 24–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, D. (1915). 今日中国之政治问题. 新青年, 5(1), 6–9.Google Scholar
Cheng, C.-Y. (2011). The Yijing: The creative origin of Chinese philosophy. In Edelglass, W. & Garfields, J. L. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of world philosophy (13–25). Oxford Handbooks.Google Scholar
Chuang, R. (2011). Divination/Fortune telling (Zhan Bu/Xianming): Chinese cultural Praxis and Worldview. China Media Research, 7(4), 93–103.Google Scholar
Cicero, M. T. (1921). De divinatione (Vol. 1). University of Illinois [Press].Google Scholar
Clarke, J. D. (1939). Ifa Divination. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 69(2), 235–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clément, F. (2010). To trust or not to trust? Children’s social epistemology. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 1, 531–549.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cocker, P. J., & Winstanley, C. A. (2015). Irrational beliefs, biases and gambling: Exploring the role of animal models in elucidating vulnerabilities for the development of pathological gambling. Behavioural Brain Research, 279, 259–273.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coggin, P. (2006). Tossing a coin could well be as insightful to investors as a fund manager. Financial Times, 1.Google Scholar
Cohen, A. P. (1978). Coercing the rain deities in ancient China. History of Religions, 17, 244–265. https://doi.org/10.1086/462793.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, E. (2007). The mind possessed: The cognition of spirit possession in an Afro-Brazilian religious tradition. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colson, E. (1966). The alien diviner and local politics among the Tonga of Zambia. In Swartz, M., Turner, V. W., & Tuden, A. (Eds.), Political anthropology (pp. 221–228). Aldine Press.Google Scholar
Comaroff, J., & Comaroff, J. L. (2018). Occult economies, revisited. In Moeran, B. & de Wall Malefyt, T. (Eds.), Magical capitalism: Enchantment, spells, and occult practices in contemporary economies (pp. 289–320). Springer.Google Scholar
Cooley, J. L., Pongratz-Leisten, B., Strine, C. A. et al. (2014). Divination, politics, and ancient near Eastern empires. Society of Biblical Literature.Google Scholar
Coy, J. (2016). A Christian warning: Bartholomaeus anhorn, demonology, and divination. In Edwards, K. A. (Ed.), Everyday magic in early modern Europe (pp. 127–146). Routledge.Google Scholar
Cushman, F. (2019). Rationalization is rational. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 43, e28–e28. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X19001730.Google ScholarPubMed
D’Andrade, R. G. (1961). Anthropological studies of dreams. In Hsu, F. L. (Ed.), Psychological anthropology: Approaches to culture and personality (pp. 298–332). Dorsey Press.Google Scholar
David, M. (2022). The correspondence theory of truth. In Zalta, E. N. (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Summer). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Dawson, L. L. (1999). When prophecy fails and faith persists: A theoretical overview. Nova Religio, 3(1), 60–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Barra, M. (2017). Reporting bias inflates the reputation of medical treatments: A comparison of outcomes in clinical trials and online product reviews. Social Science and Medicine, 177, 248–255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.01.033.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Barra, M., Eriksson, K., & Strimling, P. (2014). How feedback biases give ineffective medical treatments a good reputation. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 16, e193. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.3214.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dein, S. (2016). The category of the supernatural: A valid anthropological term? Religion Compass, 10, 35–44. https://doi.org/10.1111/rec3.12194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denham, A. R. (2015). A psychodynamic phenomenology of Nankani interpretive divination and the formation of meaning. Ethos, 43(2), 109–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denig, E. T., & Hewitt, J. N. B. (1930). Indian tribes of the upper Missouri. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1987). The intentional stance. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Denyer, N. (1985). The case against divination: An examination of Cicero’s de Divinatione. The Cambridge Classical Journal, 31, 1–10.Google Scholar
Devisch, R. (2013). Perspectives on divination in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. In van Binsbergen, W. & Schoffeleers, M. (Eds.), Theoretical explorations in Africa (pp. 60–93). Routledge.Google Scholar
Dickson, D. H., & Kelly, I. W. (1985). The “Barnum Effect” in personality assessment: A review of the literature. Psychological Reports, 57(2), 367–382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, M. (1975). Implicit meanings: Essays in anthropology. Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Driediger-Murphy, L. G. (2019). Unsuccessful sacrifice in Roman state divination. In Driediger-Murphy, L. G. & Eidinow, E. (Eds.), Ancient divination and experience (pp. 178–199). Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durkheim, E. (1915). The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: A Study in Religious Sociology. Macmillan.Google Scholar
Eames, K. J. (2016). Cognitive psychology of religion. Waveland Press.Google Scholar
Ellis, W. (1917). A narrative of a tour through Hawaii, or Owhyhee: With remarks on the history, traditions, manners, customs, and language of the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands (Issue 2). Hawaiian Gazette.Google Scholar
Elvin, M. (1998). Who was responsible for the weather? Moral meteorology in late imperial China. Osiris, 13, 213–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. (1937). Witchcraft, oracles and magic among the Azande. Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Faki, E., Kasiera, E. M., & Nandi, O. M. J. (2010). The belief and practice of divination among the Swahili Muslims in Mombasa district, Kenya. International Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, 2(9), 213–223.Google Scholar
Fang, A. (2015). 唐代小说中的占梦文化研究. 新疆师范大学.Google Scholar
Fernandez, J. W. (1967). Divinations, Confessions, Testimonies – Confrontations with the Social Superstructure among Durban Africans. Occasional Papers of the Institute for Social Research (Winter–Spring) No, 9.Google Scholar
Ferré, F. (1970). The definition of religion. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 38(1), 3–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Festinger, L., Riecken, H., & Schachter, S. (1956). When prophecy fails. Harper and Row.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiedler, K., & Schwarz, N. (2016). Questionable research practices revisited. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7(1), 45–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Figal, G. A. (1999). Civilization and monsters: Spirits of modernity in Meiji Japan. Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Fiskesjo, M. (2001). Rising from blood-stained fields: Royal hunting and state formation in Shang China. Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 73(49), 48–191.Google Scholar
Flad, R. K. (2008). Divination and power. Current Anthropology, 49(3), 403–437. https://doi.org/10.1086/588495.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flower, M. (2008). The seer in Ancient Greece. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Forbes, T. R. (1959). The prediction of sex: Folklore and science. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 103(4), 537–544.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. (1966). Religious premisses and logical technique in divinatory ritual. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 251(772), 409–422.Google Scholar
Foster, K. R., & Kokko, H. (2009). The evolution of superstitious and superstition-like behaviour. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 276, 31–37. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.0981.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fourie, P. J. A. (1988). The birth of the mechanistic worldview (and consequently: The redundancy of the God concept). Scriptura: Journal for Biblical, Theological and Contextual Hermeneutics, 25, 36–47.Google Scholar
Frankish, K. (2009). Partial belief and flat-out belief. In Huber, F. & Schmidt-Petri, C. (Eds.), Degrees of belief (pp. 75–93). Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frazer, J. G. (1890). The golden bough: A study in comparative religion (Vol. 2). Macmillan.Google Scholar
French, R. (2005). Ancient natural history: Histories of nature. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furley, W., & Gysembergh, V. (2015). Reading the liver: Papyrological texts on ancient Greek extispicy (Vol. 94). Mohr Siebeck.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furnham, A., & Schofield, S. (1987). Accepting personality test feedback: A review of the Barnum effect. Current Psychology, 6, 162–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaifman, M. (2018). The art of libation in classical athens. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures (Vol. 5019). Basic books.Google Scholar
Gelfand, M. (1956). Medicine and magic of the Mashona. Juta.Google Scholar
Gershman, S. J. (2019). How to never be wrong. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 26, 13–28. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-018-1488-8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gigerenzer, G. (2007). Gut feelings: The intelligence of the unconscious. Penguin.Google Scholar
Gilbert, D. T., Tafarodi, R. W., & Malone, P. S. (1993). You can’t not believe everything you read. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(2), 221–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gmelch, G. (2010). Baseball magic. In Moro, P. A. & Myers, J. E. (Eds.), Magic, witchcraft, and religion: A reader in the anthropology of religion (pp. 320–326). McGrow-Hill.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. I. (1994). Argumentation and social epistemology. Journal of Philosophy, 91, 27–49. https://doi.org/10.2307/2940949.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goody, J. (1961). Religion and ritual: The definitional problem. The British Journal of Sociology, 12(2), 142–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greisman, H. C. (1976). “Disenchantment of the world”: Romanticism, aesthetics and sociological theory. The British Journal of Sociology, 27(4), 495–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffiths, M. D. (1990). The cognitive psychology of gambling. Journal of Gambling Studies, 6(1), 31–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gross, J. (1937). Trial by Ordeal in Ancient Hebrew Law. Detroit Law Review, 7, 78–108.Google Scholar
Grout, L. (1864). Zululand: Or, life among the Zulu-Kafirs of Natal and Zulu-land, South Africa. With map, and illustrations, largely from original photographs. Presbyterian.Google Scholar
Gurval, R. A. (1997). Caesar’s comet: The politics and poetics of an Augustan myth. Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, 42, 39–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guthrie, S. (1980). A cognitive theory of religion [and comments and reply]. Current Anthropology, 21(2), 181–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guthrie, S. (2013). Anthropomorphism. In Runehov, A. & Oviedo, L. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of sciences and religions (pp. 111–113). Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habkirk, S., & Chang, H. (2017). Scents, community, and incense in traditional Chinese religion. Material Religion, 13(2), 156–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacking, I. (1990). The taming of chance (Issue 17). Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hallowell, A. I. [Alfred I.] (1942). The role of conjuring in Saulteaux society. In Publications (Vol. 2, pp. xiv, 96). University of Pennsylvania Press [H. Milford, Oxford University Press]. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ng06-004.Google Scholar
Hallowell, A. I. (1960). Ojibwa ontology, behavior, and world view. In Diamond, S. (Ed.), Culture in history: Essays in honor of Paul Radin (pp. 20–52). Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Han, X. (2015). 董仲舒天人关系的三维向度及其思想定位. 哲学研究, 9, 45–54.Google Scholar
Hand, D. J. (2004). Measurement theory and practice: The world through quantification. Wiley .Google Scholar
Hanegraaff, W. J. (2003). How magic survived the disenchantment of the world. Religion, 33(4), 357–380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hankinson, R. J. (1988). Stoicism, science and divination. Apeiron, 21(2), 123–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harding, S. (1976). Can theories be refuted? Essays on the Duhem–Quine thesis. D. Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, P. (2006). Social cognition. In Damon, W., Lerner, R., Kuhn, D., & Siegler, R. (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (6th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 811–858). John Wiley.Google Scholar
Hatsis, T. (2018). Psychedelic mystery traditions: Spirit plants, magical practices, and ecstatic states. Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Head, M. L., Holman, L., Lanfear, R., Kahn, A. T., & Jennions, M. D. (2015). The extent and consequences of p-hacking in science. PLoS Biology, 13(3), e1002106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heald, S. (1991). Divinatory failure: The religious and social role of Gisu diviners. Africa, 61(3), 299–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heindel, M. (2006). Simplified Scientific Astrology. Cosimo, Inc.Google Scholar
Heintz, C., & Scott-Phillips, T. (2023). Expression unleashed: The evolutionary and cognitive foundations of human communication. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 46, e1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, C. G. (1966). Philosophy of natural science. Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Henrich, J. (2009). The evolution of costly displays, cooperation and religion. credibility enhancing displays and their implications for cultural evolution. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30, 244–260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.03.005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J. (2016). The secret of our success: How culture is driving human evolution, domesticating our species, and making us smarter. Princeton University Press. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-18797-000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J., & Broesch, J. (2011). On the nature of cultural transmission networks: Evidence from Fijian villages for adaptive learning biases. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366(1567), 1139–1148.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hewitt, J. N. B. (1902). Orenda and a definition of religion. American Anthropologist, 4(1), 33–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hignett, C. (1963). Xerxes’ invasion of Greece. Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hiltunen, M. (1986). Witchcraft and sorcery in Ovambo. In Transactions of the finnish anthropological society; Suomen Antropologisen Seuran toimituksia (Issue No. 17, p. 178). Finnish Anthropological Society. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=fx08-015.Google Scholar
Hiltunen, M. (1993). Good magic in Ovambo (Issue 33). Suomen Antropologinen Seura.Google Scholar
Holbraad, M. (2009). Ontography and alterity: Defining anthropological truth. Social Analysis, 53(2), 80–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holbraad, M. (2019). Truth in motion: The recursive anthropology of Cuban divination. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Holleman, J. F. (1969). Shona customary law: With reference to kinship, marriage, the family and the estate. Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Homola, S. (2016). Judging destiny: Doubt and certainty in Chinese divinatory rituals. In Good, A., Berti, D., & Tarabout, G. (Eds.), Of doubt and proof (pp. 39–58). Routledge.Google Scholar
Homola, S. (2019). Reducing uncertainty through computation in Chinese divinatory arts. In Schäfer, D., Lu, Z., & Lackner, M. (Eds.), Accounting for uncertainty: Prediction and planning in Asian history (pp. 55–68). Preprint 496, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.Google Scholar
Hones, S., & Endo, Y. (2006). History, distance and text: Narratives of the 1853–1854 Perry expedition to Japan. Journal of Historical Geography, 32, 563–578. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2005.10.008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hong, Z. (2022a). Combining conformist and payoff bias in cultural evolution. Human Nature, 33, 463–484.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hong, Z. (2022b). Dream interpretation from a cognitive and cultural evolutionary perspective: The case of oneiromancy in traditional China. Cognitive Science, 46(1), e13088. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13088.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hong, Z. (2022c). Ghosts, divination, and magic among the Nuosu: An ethnographic examination from cognitive and cultural evolutionary perspectives. Human Nature, 33, 349–379. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-022-09438-8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hong, Z. (2023). The cognitive origin and cultural evolution of taboos in human societies. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 30, 724–742.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hong, Z. (2024, January 3). Chance as a (non)explanation: A cross-cultural examination of folk understanding of chance and coincidence. PsyArXiv, https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/ezxqp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hong, Z. (2024). The cultural evolution of games of chance. Human Nature, 35, 89–113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hong, Z., & Chen, Y. (2024). Persuading the emperors: A quantitative historical analysis of political rhetoric in traditional China. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11(1), 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hong, Z., & Henrich, J. (2021). The cultural evolution of epistemic practices. Human Nature, 32, 622–651.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hong, Z., & Henrich, J. (2024). Instrumentality, empiricism, and rationality in Nuosu divination. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hong, Z., Slingerland, E., & Henrich, J. (2024). Magic and empiricism in early Chinese rainmaking–A cultural evolutionary analysis. Current Anthropology, 65(2), 343–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hong, Z., & Zinin, S. (2023). The psychology and social dynamics of fetal sex prognostication in China: Evidence from historical data. American Anthropologist, 125(3), 519–531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horton, R. (1960). A definition of religion, and its uses. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 90(2), 201–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horton, R. (1967). African traditional thought and western science. Africa, 37, 50–71. https://doi.org/10.2307/1158253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horton, R. (1968). Neo-Tylorianism: Sound sense or sinister prejudice? Man, 3(4), 625–634. https://doi.org/10.2307/2798583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, B. (2022). The religious and technological history of the Tang Dynasty spherical incense burner. Religions, 13(6), 482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hyams, P. (1981). Trial by ordeal: The key to proof in the early common law. In Arnold, M. S., Green, T. A., Scully, S. A., & White, S. D. (Eds.), On the laws and customs of England (pp. 90–126). University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Jahoda, G. (1970). The psychology of superstition, Penguin.Google Scholar
Jarvie, I. C. (1986). Thinking about society: Theory and practice. D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Jarvie, I. (2018). Rationality and irrationality revisited or intellectualism vindicated or how stands the problem of the rationality of magic? In Bronner, G. & Iorio, F. Di (Eds.), The mystery of rationality: Mind, beliefs and the social sciences (pp.115–129). Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffers, A. (2007). Interpreting magic and divination in the ancient near east. Religion Compass, 1(6), 684–694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, S. I. (2001). Charming children: The use of the child in ancient divination. Arethusa, 34(1), 97–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, S. I. (2005). Introduction: Divining divination. In Johnston, S. I. & Struck, P. T. (Eds.), Mantikê: Studies in ancient divination (pp. 1–28). Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, S. I. (2009). Ancient Greek divination. In Ancient Greek divination. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444302998.Google Scholar
Jong, J. (2015). On (not) defining (non) religion. Science, Religion and Culture, 2(3), 15–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jordan, D. K. (1982). Taiwanese poe divination: Statistical awareness and religious belief. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 21, 114–118. https://doi.org/10.2307/1385496.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jouan, F. (1990). L’orale, thérapeutique de l’angoisse. Kernos. Revue Internationale et Pluridisciplinaire de Religion Grecque Antique, 3, 11–28.Google Scholar
Jules‐Rosette, B. (1978). The veil of objectivity: Prophecy, divination, and social inquiry. American Anthropologist, 80(3), 549–570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Junod, H. A. (1927). The life of a South African tribe (Vol. 2). Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1972). Subjective probability: A judgment of representativeness. Cognitive Psychology, 3, 430–454. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(72)90016-3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1973). On the psychology of prediction. Psychological Review, 80(4), 237–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamali, E. P. (2018). Trial by ordeal by jury in medieval England, or saints and sinners in literature and law. In Gilbert, K. & White, S. D. (Eds.), Emotion, violence, vengeance and law in the Middle Ages (pp. 49–79). Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karcher, S. (1998). Divination, synchronicity, and fate. Journal of Religion and Health, 37(3), 215–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, P. R. (2013). “Superstition” and Its Discontents – on the Impact of Temple Destruction Campaigns in China, 1898–1948. Belief, Practice and CulturalAdaption 信仰, 實踐與文化調適. Taipei: Academia Sinica, 605–682.Google Scholar
Keil, F. C., Levin, D. T., Richman, B. A., & Gutheil, G. (1999). Mechanism and explanation in the development of biological thought: The case of disease. In Medin, D. L. & Atran, S. (Eds.), Folkbiology (pp. 285–319). MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kerridge, I. H., & Lowe, M. (1995). Bloodletting: The story of a therapeutic technique. The Medical Journal of Australia, 163(11–12), 631–633. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8538564.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kiernan, J. P. (1995). The truth revealed or the truth assembled: Reconsidering the role of the African diviner in religion and society. Journal for the Study of Religion, 8, 3–21.Google Scholar
Kindt, J. (2006). Delphic oracle stories and the beginning of historiography: Herodotus’ Croesus logos. Classical Philology, 101(1), 34–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kippenberg, H. G. (1997). Magic in Roman civil discourse: Why rituals could be illegal. In Schäfer, P. & Kippenberg, H. (Eds.), Envisioning magic (pp. 137–163). Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitz, A. M. (2003). Prophecy as divination. The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 65(1), 22–42.Google Scholar
Knight, G. R. (1993). Millennial fever and the end of the world: A study of Millerite Adventism. Pacific Press.Google Scholar
Kohol, B. N., & Akuto, G. W. (2019). Integration of divination therapy and modern counselling (rational emotive therapy) in combating fear among Tiv undergraduate students in Benue State, Nigeria. Journal of Culture, Society and Development, 53, 37–42.Google Scholar
Kuo, C.-L., & Kavanagh, K. H. (1994). Chinese perspectives on culture and mental health. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 15(6), 551–567.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lai, K. L. (2015). Cosmology, divinity and self-cultivation in Chinese thought. In Oppy, G. (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of contemporary philosophy of religion (pp. 93–113). Routledge.Google Scholar
Lambert, H. E. (1956). Kikuyu social and political institutions. International African Institute.Google Scholar
Landau, M. J., Kay, A. C., & Whitson, J. A. (2015). Compensatory control and the appeal of a structured world. Psychological Bulletin, 141(3), 694–722.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Landry, Aa. (2014). Plato’s conception of divination [Ph.D., York University]. https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10315/28162/Landry_Aaron_J_2014_PhD.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y.Google Scholar
Landy, J., & Saler, M. (2009). The Re-enchantment of the World. Standford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langdon, E. J. (2007). The symbolic efficacy of rituals: From ritual to performance. Antropologia Em Primeira Mão, 95, 5–40.Google Scholar
Lazaro, C. (2023). Algorithmic divination: From prediction to preemption of the future. Information & Culture, 58(2), 145–165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leeson, P. T. (2012). Ordeals. The Journal of Law and Economics, 55(3), 691–714.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, N. (2022). Do your own research! Synthese, 200, 356.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Li, G. (2018). Divination, Yijing, and cultural nationalism: The self-legitimation of divination as an aspect of “traditional culture” in post-Mao China. China Review, 18(4), 63–84.Google Scholar
Li, F., & Lang, M. (2012). 近代中国知识转型视野下的 “命学.” 社会科学, 6, 147–154.Google ScholarPubMed
Lindeman, M., & Svedholm, A. M. (2012). What’s in a term? Paranormal, superstitious, magical and supernatural beliefs by any other name would mean the same. Review of General Psychology, 16, 241–255. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindsay, D. S. (2015). Replication in psychological science. Psychological Science, 26(12), 1827–1832. Sage.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lisdorf, A. (2007). The dissemination of divination in roman republican times-A cognitive approach. Anders Lisdorf.Google Scholar
Lock, M. (2005). Eclipse of the gene and the return of divination. Current Anthropology, 46(S5), S47–S70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lohmann, R. (2003). Special issue: Perspectives on the category “supernatural.” Anthropological Forum, 13(2), 115–219.Google Scholar
Lupton, D., Donaldson, C., & Lloyd, P. (1991). Caveat emptor or blissful ignorance? Patients and the consumerist ethos. Social Science & Medicine, 33(5), 559–568.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mackey, J. L. (2016). Roman children as religious agents: The cognitive foundations of cult. In Laes, C. & Vuolanto, V. (Eds.), Children and everyday life in the Roman and Late Antique world (pp. 179–197). Routledge.Google Scholar
Ma-Kellams, C. (2015). When perceiving the supernatural changes the natural: Religion and agency detection. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 15(3–4), 337–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malinowski, B. (1992). Magic, science, and religion, and other essays. Waveland Press. https://books.google.com/books?id=EAESAQAAIAAJ.Google Scholar
Malkowski, E. F. (2007). The spiritual technology of ancient Egypt: Sacred science and the mystery of consciousness. Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Matthews, W. (2017). Making “science” from “superstition”: Conceptions of knowledge legitimacy among contemporary Yijing diviners. Journal of Chinese Religions, 45(2), 173–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthews, W. (2021). Reducing uncertainty: Six lines prediction in contemporary China. In Hon, T.-K. (Ed.), The other Yijing (pp. 269–301). Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthews, W. (2022). Reduction, generation, and truth: A comparative approach to divinatory interpretation. Current Anthropology, 63(3), 330–349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maxwell, K. B. (1983). Bemba myth and ritual: The impact of literacy on an oral culture (Vol. 2). P. Lang.Google Scholar
Maxwell, R. J., & Silverman, P. (1970). Information and esteem: Cultural considerations in the treatment of the aged. Aging and Human Development, 1(4), 361–392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mbiti, J. S. (1969). African traditional religions and philosophy. Heinemann.Google Scholar
McLoughlin, W. G., Conser, W. H., & McLoughlin, V. D. (1984). The Cherokee Ghost Dance movement of 1811–1813. The Cherokee Ghost Dance: Essays on the Southeastern Indians, 1789 –1861, 111–151.Google Scholar
Mendonsa, E. (1976). Characteristics of Sisala diviners. In Bharati, A. (Ed.), The realm of extra-human agents and audiences (pp. 179–195). Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mercier, H., & Boyer, P. (2021). Truth-making institutions: From divination, ordeals and oaths to judicial torture and rules of evidence. Evolution and Human Behavior, 42(3), 259–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Metzner, R. (1998). Hallucinogenic drugs and plants in psychotherapy and shamanism. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 30(4), 333–341.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, D. T., & McFarland, C. (1987). Pluralistic ignorance: When similarity is interpreted as dissimilarity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(2), 298–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miton, H., Claidière, N., & Mercier, H. (2015). Universal cognitive mechanisms explain the cultural success of bloodletting. Evolution and Human Behavior, 36, 303–312. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2015.01.003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moss, S. (2018). Probabilistic knowledge. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muller, J. (2018). The tyranny of metrics. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Myhre, K. C. (2006). Divination and experience: Explorations of a Chagga epistemology. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 12(2), 313–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nadel, S. F. (1954). Nupe religion. Routledge & Paul. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ff52-002.Google Scholar
Nemeroff, C., & Rozin, P. (2000). The makings of the magical mind: The nature and function of sympathetic magical thinking. In Rosengren, K. S., Johnson, C. N., Harris, P. L., Johnson, C. N., & Harris, P. L. (Eds.), Imagining the impossible (pp. 1–34). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511571381.002.Google Scholar
Newman, P. L. (1965). Knowing the Gururumba. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology, 2, 175–220. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.2.175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nordin, A. (2023). Gauging oneiromancy – the cognition of dream content and cultural transmission of (supernatural) divination. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 14, 161–182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nosek, B. A., Ebersole, C. R., DeHaven, A. C., & Mellor, D. T. (2018). The preregistration revolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 115, 2600–2606. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1708274114.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nürnberger, K. (1975). The Sotho notion of the Supreme Being and the impact of the Christian proclamation. Journal of Religion in Africa, 7(Fasc. 3), 174–200.Google Scholar
Obiechina, E. (1975). Culture, tradition and society in the West African novel. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Oppenheim, A. L. (1974). A Babylonian diviner’s manual. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 33(2), 197–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostler, S., & Sun, A. (1999). Fetal sex determination: The predictive value of 3 common myths. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 161(12), 1525–1526.Google ScholarPubMed
Palmié, S. (2007). Genomics, divination, “racecraft.” American Ethnologist, 34(2), 205–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Park, G. K. (1963). Divination and its social contexts. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 93(2), 195–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parsons, R. (1964). Religion in an African society. E.J. Brill.Google Scholar
Pasquale, F. L., & Kosmin, B. A. (2013). Atheism and the secularization thesis. In Ruse, M. & Bullivant, S. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of atheism (pp. 451–467). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Peat, F. D. (1994). Blackfoot physics: A journey into the Native American worldview. Red Wheel/Weiser.Google Scholar
Pecírková, J. (1985). Divination and politics in the late Assyrian empire. Archiv Orientalni, 53, 155–168.Google Scholar
Peek, P. M. (1991). African divination systems: Non-normal modes of cognition. In Peek, P. (Ed.), African divination systems: Ways of knowing (pp. 193–212). Indiana University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petrus, T. S., & Bogopa, D. L. (2007). Natural and supernatural: Intersections between the spiritual and natural worlds in African witchcraft and healing with reference to southern Africa. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 7(1), 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Planer, R. J., & Sterelny, K. (2022). The costs of magical thinking and hypervigilance: A comment on Singh 2021. Current Anthropology, 63(4), 454–455.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popper, K. (2005). The logic of scientific discovery. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, R. (1975). Saramaka social structure: Analysis of a maroon society in Surinam (Issue 12). Institute of Caribbean Studies, University of Puerto Rico.Google Scholar
Radding, C. M. (1979). Superstition to science: Nature, fortune, and the passing of the medieval ordeal. The American Historical Review, 84(4), 945–969.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radman, Z. (2012). Knowing without thinking: Mind, action, cognition and the phenomenon of the background. Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramsey, S. D. (2023). Argumentum ex divinatione: Divination and civic argument in the ancient world. Argumentation, 37(3), 419–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raphals, L. A. (2013). Divination and prediction in early China and ancient Greece. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rapisarda, S. (2022). Analogy at work in western medieval divination. In Herbers, K. & Lehner, H.-C. (Eds.), Dreams, nature, and practices as signs of the future in the middle ages (pp. 175–189). Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reiner, E. (1995). Astral magic in Babylonia. American Philosophical Society.Google Scholar
Richardson, S. F. C. (2010). On seeing and believing: Liver divination and the era of warring states (II). In Annus, A. (Ed.), Divination and interpretation of signs in the ancient world (pp. 225–266). Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Richerson, P. J., & Boyd, R. (2005). Not by genes alone: How culture transformed human evolution. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ringma, C., & Brown, C. (1991). Hermeneutics and the social sciences: An evaluation of the function of hermeneutics in a consumer disability study. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 18, 57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robertson, R. (2018). Divination. Psychological Perspectives, 61(2), 170–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rochberg, F. (2004). The heavenly writing: Divination, horoscopy, and astronomy in Mesopotamian culture. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rohr, C. (2022). Between astrological divination, local knowledge and political intentions: Prognostics and “epignostics” related to natural disasters in the Middle Ages. In Herbers, K. & Lehner, H.-C. (Eds.), Dreams, nature, and practices as signs of the future in the middle ages (pp. 128–172). Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rozin, P., & Nemeroff, C. (1990). The laws of sympathetic magic: A psychological analysis of similarity and contagion. In Stigler, J. W., Shweder, R. A., & Herdt, G. H. (Eds.), Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative human development (pp. 205–232). Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rozin, P., & Nemeroff, C. (2012a). Sympathetic magical thinking: The contagion and similarity “heuristics.” In Gilovich, T., Griffin, D., & Kahneman, D. (Eds.), Heuristics and biases (pp. 201–216). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511808098.013.Google Scholar
Rozin, P., & Nemeroff, C. (2012b). The laws of sympathetic magic. In Stigler, J. W., Shweder, R. A., & Herdt, G. (Eds.), Cultural psychology:Essays on comparative human development (pp. 205–232). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139173728.006.Google Scholar
Sahlins, M. (2022). The new science of the enchanted universe: An anthropology of most of humanity. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Saler, B. (1977). Supernatural as a western category. Ethos, 5(1), 31–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saniotis, A. (2007). Mystical mastery: The presentation of Kashf in Sufi divination. Asian Anthropology, 6(1), 29–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawden, K. (2018). This I know to be true: Ethnology, divination and the processes of authenticity. Ethnologies, 40(2), 93–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, M. (2014). Delphi: A history of the center of the ancient world. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Semetsky, I. (2011). Tarot and a new science. In Semetsky, I. (Ed.), Re-symbolization of the self (pp. 157–168). Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharples, R. W. (1983). Alexander of Aphrodisias on Fate. Duckworth.Google Scholar
Shipley, B. (2016). Cause and correlation in biology: A user’s guide to path analysis, structural equations and causal inference with R. Cambridge university press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silva, S. (2014). Mind, body and spirit in basket divination: An integrative way of knowing. Religions, 5(4), 1175–1187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silva, S. (2018). Taking divination seriously: From mumbo jumbo to worldviews and ways of life. Religions, 9(12), 394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, L. W. (1945). The role of the aged in primitive society. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Singh, M. (2022). Subjective selection and the evolution of complex culture. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 31(6), 266–280.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Skowronski, J. J., & Carlston, D. E. (1987). Social judgment and social memory: The role of cue diagnosticity in negativity, positivity, and extremity biases. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(4), 689–699. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.52.4.689.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skowronski, J. J., & Carlston, D. E. (1989). Negativity and extremity biases in impression formation: A review of explanations. Psychological Bulletin, 105(1), 131–142. https://doi.org/10.1037//0033-2909.105.1.131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smart, W. M. (1946). John Couch Adams and the discovery of Neptune. Nature, 158(4019), 648–652.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, R. J. (1986). “Knowing Fate”: Divination in Late Imperial China. Journal of Chinese Studies, 3(2), 153–190.Google Scholar
Smith, R. J. (2010). The Psychology of Divination in Cross-Cultural Perspective. In Conference Ming and Fatum–key concepts of fate and prediction in a comparative perspective, International Consortium for Research in the Humanities, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg (Vol. 1, p. 21).Google Scholar
Snoek, J. A. M. (2006). Defining “rituals.” In Kreinath, J., Snoek, J. A. M., & Stausberg, M. (Eds.), Theorizing rituals, Volume 1: Issues, topics, approaches, concepts (pp. 1–14). Brill.Google Scholar
Sørensen, J. (2007). A cognitive theory of magic. Rowman Altamira.Google Scholar
Sørensen, J. F. (2021). Cognitive underpinnings of divinatory practices. In Sørensen, J. F. & Petersen, A. K. (Eds.), Theoretical and empirical investigations of divination and magic (pp. 124–150). Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sørensen, J. F., & Petersen, A. K. (2021). Manipulating the divine–an introduction. In Sørensen, J. F. & Petersen, A. K. (Eds.), Theoretical and empirical investigations of divination and magic (pp. 1–20). Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soroka, S., Fournier, P., & Nir, L. (2019). Cross-national evidence of a negativity bias in psychophysiological reactions to news. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(38), 18888–18892. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1908369116.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sperber, D., Clément, F., Heintz, C. et al. (2010). Epistemic vigilance. Mind and Language, 25(4), 359–393. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2010.01394.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stahlberg, D., & Maass, A. (1997). Hindsight bias: Impaired memory or biased reconstruction? European Review of Social Psychology, 8(1), 105–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/14792779643000092.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stark, R. (1996). Why religious movements succeed or fail: A revised general model. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 11(2), 133–146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stépanoff, C. (2015). Transsingularities: The cognitive foundations of shamanism in Northern Asia. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, 23(2), 169–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stocking, G. W. Jr. (1986). Anthropology and the science of the irrational. Malinowski, Rivers, Benedict and Others: Essays on Culture and Personality, 4, 23–49.Google Scholar
Struck, P. T. (2016). Divination and human nature: A cognitive history of intuition in classical antiquity. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Subbotsky, E. (2010). Magic and the mind: Mechanisms, functions, and development of magical thinking and behavior. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Summers, J. S. (2017). Post hoc ergo propter hoc: Some benefits of rationalization. Philosophical Explorations, 20(sup1), 21–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sun, X., & Kistemaker, J. (1997). The Chinese sky during the Han: Constellating stars and society (Vol. 38). Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swedberg, R. (2020). On the use of definitions in sociology. European Journal of Social Theory, 23(3), 431–445.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swerdlow, N. M. (1999). Ancient astronomy and celestial divination. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Tedlock, B. (2001). Divination as a way of knowing: Embodiment, visualisation, narrative, and interpretation. Folklore, 112(2), 189–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tempels, P. (1945). La Philosophie Bantoue. Lovania.Google Scholar
Theuws, T. (1964). Outline of Luba culture. Cashiers of Economiques et Sociaux, 2(1), 3–39.Google Scholar
Thomas, K. (2003). Religion and the decline of magic: Studies in popular beliefs in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England. Penguin.Google Scholar
Tseng, L. L. (2011). Picturing heaven in early China. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Turnbull, C. M. (1965). Wayward servants: The two worlds of the African Pygmies. The Natural History Press. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=fo04-002.Google Scholar
Turner, V. W. (1968). The drums of affliction: A study of religious processes among the Ndembu of Zambia. Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Turner, V. (1975). Revelation and divination in Ndembu ritual. Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1973). Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5, 207–232. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases: Biases in judgments reveal some heuristics of thinking under uncertainty. Science, 185(4157), 1124–1131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tylor, E. B. (1871). Primitive culture: Researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, art, and custom. J. Murray.Google Scholar
van Beek, W. E. A. (2015). Evil and the art of revenge in the Mandara mountains. In Olsen, W. C. & van Beek, W. E. A. (Eds.), Evil in Africa: Encounters with the everyday (pp. 140–156). Indiana University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Beek, W. E. A., Blakely, T., & Thomson, D. L. (1994). The innocent sorcerer; coping with evil in two African societies, Kapsiki and Dogon. African Religion: Experience and Expression, 4, 196–228.Google Scholar
Van Binsbergen, W., & Wiggermann, F. (2000). Magic in history: A theoretical perspective, and its application to Ancient Mesopotamia. In Abusch, T., & Van der Toorn, K. (Eds.), Mesopotamian magic: Textual, historical and interpretative perspectives (pp. 3–34). Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Leeuwen, N. (2014). Religious credence is not factual belief. Cognition, 133(3), 698–715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Nuffelen, P. (2014). Galen, divination and the status of medicine1. The Classical Quarterly, 64(1), 337–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vance, B. E. (2017). Deciphering dreams: How glyphomancy worked in late Ming dream encyclopedic divination. The Chinese Historical Review, 24(1), 5–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vernon, J. L. (2017). Understanding the butterfly effect. American Scientist, 105(3), 130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voas, D., & Chaves, M. (2016). Is the United States a counterexample to the secularization thesis? American Journal of Sociology, 121(5), 1517–1556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vyse, S. A. (1997). Believing in magic: The psychology of superstition. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waley, A. (1958). The opium war through Chinese eyes. Stanford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503620711.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsham, A. (2008). Recording superstition in early modern Britain: The origins of folklore. Past and Present, 199(suppl_3), 178–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Q. E. (1999). History, space, and ethnicity: The Chinese worldview. Journal of World History, 10, 285–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wax, M., & Wax, R. (1963). The notion of magic. Current Anthropology, 4(5), 495–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waytz, A., Gray, K., Epley, N., & Wegner, D. M. (2010a). Causes and consequences of mind perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14(8), 383–388.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Waytz, A., Morewedge, C. K., Epley, N. et al. (2010b). Making sense by making sentient: Effectance motivation increases anthropomorphism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(3), 410–435.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weber, M. (1922). The sociology of religion. Methuen.Google Scholar
Wester, J., Delaunay, J., de Jong, S., & van Berkel, N. (2023). On Moral Manifestations in Large Language Models. Proc. CHI Workshop on Moral Agents, 1–4.Google Scholar
Willard, A. K., Turpin, H., & Baimel, A. (2023). Universal cognitive biases as the basis for supernatural beliefs: Evidence and critiques. In Tehrani, J. J., Kendal, J., & Kendal, R. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of cultural evolution. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, M. H. (1959). Communal rituals of the Nyakyusa. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, D., & Sperber, D. (2012). Meaning and relevance. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winzeler, R. L. (2012). Anthropology and religion: What we know, think, and question. Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Wootton, D. (2007). Bad medicine: Doctors doing harm since Hippocrates. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Xiong, Y. (2015). 近代中国读书人的命理世界. 学术月刊, 47(9), 147–160.Google ScholarPubMed
Yogeeswaran, K., Złotowski, J., Livingstone, M. et al. (2016). The interactive effects of robot anthropomorphism and robot ability on perceived threat and support for robotics research. Journal of Human-Robot Interaction, 5(2), 29–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yu, C. K.-C. (2022). Imperial dreams and oneiromancy in ancient China – we share similar dream motifs with our ancestors living two millennia ago. Dreaming, 32(4), 364–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zeitlyn, D. (2012). Divinatory logics: Diagnoses and predictions mediating outcomes. Current Anthropology, 53(5), 525–546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zeitlyn, D. (2021). Divination and ontologies: A reflection. Social Analysis, 65(2), 139–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zempléni, A. (1975). De la persécution à la culpabilité. Prophétisme et Thérapeutique, Paris, Hermann, 153–219.Google Scholar
Zhang, D. (2002). Key concepts in Chinese philosophy (Ryden, E., Ed.). Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Zhang, J., & Huang, Y. (1990). 中國古代天文對政治的影響─ 以漢相翟方進自殺為例. 清華學報, 20(2), 361–378.Google ScholarPubMed
Zhiwei, X. (2009). A discourse construction and the institution practice of “Otherization” – a rethinking of anti-superstition movement from Late Qing to Republic of China. Academic Monthly, 7, 130–141.Google Scholar
Zhu, A. (2013). 民国时期的反迷信运动与民间信仰空间 – – 以粤西地区为例. 文化遗产, 2, 112–120.Google Scholar
Zhu, X. (1987). Zhouyi Benyi 周易本義. Shanghai Guji Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Zuesse, E. M. (1975). Divination and deity in African religions. History of Religions, 15(2), 158–182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Divination
  • Ze Hong, University of Macau
  • Online ISBN: 9781009541961
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Divination
  • Ze Hong, University of Macau
  • Online ISBN: 9781009541961
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Divination
  • Ze Hong, University of Macau
  • Online ISBN: 9781009541961
Available formats
×