Delphi Oracle Quotes

...the whole 'know thyself' thing isn’t a journey to a fixed destination. Learning about myself changes me, forcing me to learn more. 'Know thyself' isn’t a goal; it’s a road.

Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem.

Oracle of Delphi Speaks: In my deep mystery I breathe your fragrance swirling in your odourless soul I return your mystery revealing your destiny deep in the seed of your God Self

The Oracle at Delphi contained three maxims emblematic of Greek life. "Know yourself." "Nothing in excess." and, "Offer a guarantee and disaster threatens.

Wise random strangers at bars are modern-day Oracles of Delphi, except drunk and sometimes leaving abruptly when it's their turn for karaoke.

His laugh was like nails to a chalkboard. "I cannot remember a time when anything was new to me. I only ever see the tattered remains of what once was.

What are you doing?” Percy asked. “Sending a message,” Annabeth said. “I just hope Rachel gets it.” “Rachel?” Percy asked. “You mean our Rachel? Oracle of Delphi Rachel?” “That’s the one.” Annabeth suppressed a smile. Whenever she brought up Rachel’s name, Percy got nervous. At one point, Rachel had been interested in dating Percy. That was ancient history. Rachel and Annabeth were good friends now. But Annabeth didn’t mind making Percy a little uneasy. You had to keep your boyfriend on his toes.

all started at the Temple of Apollo In Delphi. One of his friends approached the oracle with the question: “Is anyone wiser than Socrates?” the answer was “No.” Socrates was profoundly puzzled by this episode. He claimed to know

They're trying to breed a nation of techno-peasants. Educated just enough to keep things going, but not enough to ask tough questions. They encourage any meme that downplays thoughtful analysis or encourages docility or self indulgence or uniformity. In what other society do people use "smart" and "wise" as insults? We tell people "don't get smart." Those who try, those who really like to learn, we call "nerds." Look at television or the press or the trivia that passes for political debate. When a candidate DOES try to talk about the issues, the newspapers talk about his sex life. Look at Saturday morning cartoon shows. Peasants, whether they're tilling fields or stuffing circuit boards, are easier to manipulate. Don't question; just believe. Turn off your computer and Trust the Force. Or turn your computer on and treat it like the Oracle of Delphi. That's right. They've made education superficial and specialized. Science classes for art majors? Forget it! And how many business or engineering students get a really good grounding in the humanities? When did universities become little more than white collar vocational schools?

Bob,” she said, “offerings burned in the mortal world appear on this altar, right?” Bob frowned uncomfortably, like he wasn’t ready for a pop quiz. “Yes?” “So what happens if I burn something on the altar here?” “Uh…” “That’s all right,” Annabeth said. “You don’t know. Nobody knows, because it’s never been done.” There was a chance, she thought, just the slimmest chance that an offering burned on this altar might appear at Camp Half-Blood. Doubtful, but if it did work… “Annabeth?” Percy said again. “You’re planning something. You’ve got that I’m-planning-something look.” “I don’t have an I’m-planning-something look.” “Yeah, you totally do. Your eyebrows knit and your lips press together and—” “Do you have a pen?” she asked him. “You’re kidding, right?” He brought out Riptide. “Yes, but can you actually write with it?” “I—I don’t know,” he admitted. “Never tried.” He uncapped the pen. As usual, it sprang into a full-sized sword. Annabeth had watched him do this hundreds of times. Normally when he fought, Percy simply discarded the cap. It always appeared in his pocket later, as needed. When he touched the cap to the point of the sword, it would turn back into a ballpoint pen. “What if you touch the cap to the other end of the sword?” Annabeth said. “Like where you’d put the cap if you were actually going to write with the pen.” “Uh…” Percy looked doubtful, but he touched the cap to the hilt of the sword. Riptide shrank back into a ballpoint pen, but now the writing point was exposed. “May I?” Annabeth plucked it from his hand. She flattened the napkin against the altar and began to write. Riptide’s ink glowed Celestial bronze. “What are you doing?” Percy asked. “Sending a message,” Annabeth said. “I just hope Rachel gets it.” “Rachel?” Percy asked. “You mean our Rachel? Oracle of Delphi Rachel?” “That’s the one.” Annabeth suppressed a smile. Whenever she brought up Rachel’s name, Percy got nervous. At one point, Rachel had been interested in dating Percy. That was ancient history. Rachel and Annabeth were good friends now. But Annabeth didn’t mind making Percy a little uneasy. You had to keep your boyfriend on his toes. Annabeth finished her note and folded the napkin. On the outside, she wrote: Connor, Give this to Rachel. Not a prank. Don’t be a moron. Love, Annabeth She took a deep breath. She was asking Rachel Dare to do something ridiculously dangerous, but it was the only way she could think of to communicate with the Romans—the only way that might avoid bloodshed. “Now I just need to burn it,” she said. “Anybody got a match?” The point of Bob’s spear shot from his broom handle. It sparked against the altar and erupted in silvery fire. “Uh, thanks.” Annabeth lit the napkin and set it on the altar. She watched it crumble to ash and wondered if she was crazy. Could the smoke really make it out of Tartarus? “We should go now,” Bob advised. “Really, really go. Before we are killed.” Annabeth stared at the wall of blackness in front of them. Somewhere in there was a lady who dispensed a Death Mist that might hide them from monsters—a plan recommended by a Titan, one of their bitterest enemies. Another dose of weirdness to explode her brain. “Right,” she said. “I’m ready.” ANNABETH LITERALLY STUMBLED over the second Titan.

It was the cause of many of Dad's outrages too, when people elected themselves his personal oracle of Delphi... They'd made the mistake of abridging Dad, putting Dad in a nutshell, telling Dad How It Was (and getting it all wrong). ... "The act of being personally misconstrued," Dad said, "informed to one's face one is no more complex than a few words haphazardly strung together like blotchy undershirts on a clothesline-- well, it can fall the most self-possessed of individuals.

Emotional position is part of it, but as an individual you are not your emotions, neither are you your intellect. These are things that you have . They're not things that you are . Therefore you have to start to become aware of the different requirements that human beings have, the different areas that they like to be satisfied in. Which means becoming aware of yourself. I mean, as a writer you're gonna have to understand pretty much the whole universe. But the best place to start is by understanding the inner universe. The entire universe – for one thing – only exists in your perceptions. That's all you're gonna see of it. To all practical intents and purposes this is purely some kind of lightshow that's being put on in the kind of neurons in our brain. The whole of reality. So. To understand the universe there's worse advice than that which was carved above the shrine of the Delphi oracle. Where it just said: “Know thyself”. Understand yourself. Know thyself is a magical goal, but like I say to me there is very little difference between magic and creative art in any sense – the laws of one apply perfectly well to the other.

The greatest blessings granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift. —SOCRATES, ON THE ORACLE OF DELPHI

the Oracle at Delphi—once threw a man out of the temple for abandoning his friend.

It’s my fault Python retook Delphi,

Offer a guarantee and disaster threatens. —ANCIENT INSCRIPTION AT THE ORACLE OF DELPHI

[Apollo], whose oracle is in Delphi, neither speaks nor suppresses, but indicates.

The Oracle waved him over to the leather seats. Zane rubbed his leg dramatically as they moved toward them. “You know, it’s funny, but I never seem to get any comp time or pay no matter what happens to me out in the field. I’d like to speak to HR before I leave.” The Oracle shook his head. “Comp pay? Aren’t you the man who owns two personal airplanes? And besides, I am HR, so you can just talk to me.

For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.

402Emotional position is part of it, but as an individual you are not your emotions, neither are you your intellect. These are things that you have . They're not things that you are . Therefore you have to start to become aware of the different requirements that human beings have, the different areas that they like to be satisfied in. Which means becoming aware of yourself. I mean, as a writer you're gonna have to understand pretty much the whole universe. But the best place to start is by understanding the inner universe. The entire universe – for one thing – only exists in your perceptions. That's all you're gonna see of it. To all practical intents and purposes this is purely some kind of lightshow that's being put on in the kind of neurons in our brain. The whole of reality. So. To understand the universe there's worse advice than that which was carved above the shrine of the Delphi oracle. Where it just said: “Know thyself”. Understand yourself. Know thyself is a magical goal, but like I say to me there is very little difference between magic and creative art in any sense – the laws of one apply perfectly well to the other.

For me, without question and despite certain Oracle of Delphi moments concerning my own thighs, it was my belly. The belly that refused to turn into abs no matter how many crunches I performed or how few carbs I ate. (This obviously led to alternating phases wherin there were no crunches and only carbs, to soothe the pain.) Either way, the belly hung there over the edge of my otherwise fabulous low-slung jeans, rounded and spiteful, despite my best efforts. I was convinced the belly made me a troll. That it was disfiguring. That it was the outward evidence of my true inner unlovableness. No one could convince me otherwise.

Now an ancient oracle of Delphi was current among the Lacedaemonians, bidding them let the suppliant of Ithomaean Zeus go free. So the Messenians left Ithomè with their wives and children; and the Athenians, who were now the avowed enemies of Sparta, gave them a home at Naupactus,a place which they had lately taken from the Ozolian Locrians. (Book 1 Chapter 103.2-3)

Those men have never done anything in their lives except stare at the clouds and the stars. The Indians take them food and tobacco, and on certain evenings gather around the fire as they tell their tribesmen all the strange thoughts and dreams which they have had. Huicholes believe that men cannot have pure thoughts if they are required to participate in the daily tasks of life.

Whenever I renew a commitment to studying raptors or gulls or crows or the birds in my backyard, more are given, more show themselves. Our efforts are rewarded, our studies are enhanced in experience. I cannot explain this, and I am reluctant to sound to woo-woo but we can take this as confidently as if it came from the Oracle at Delphi: the more we prepare, the more we are "allowed" somehow to see.

Now Brutus had deliberately assumed a mask to hide his true character.  When he learned of the murder by Tarquin of the Roman aristocrats, one of the victims being his own brother, he had come to the conclusion that the only way of saving himself was to appear in the king's eyes as a person of no account. If there were nothing in his character for Tarquin to fear, and nothing in his fortune to covet, then the sheer contempt in which he was held would be a better protection than his own rights could ever be.  Accordingly he pretended to be a half-wit and made no protest at the seizure by Tarquin of everything he possessed. He even submitted to being known publicly as the 'Dullard' (which is what his name signifies), that under cover of that opprobrious title the great spirit which gave Rome her freedom might be able to bide its time. On this occasion he was taken by Arruns and Titus to Delphi less as a companion than as a butt for their amusement; and he is said to have carried with him, as his gift to Apollo, a rod of gold inserted into a hollow stick of cornel-wood - symbolic, it may be, of his own character. The three young men reached Delphi, and carried out the king's instructions.  That done, Titus and Arruns found themselves unable to resist putting a further question to the oracle.  Which of them, they asked, would be the next king of Rome? From the depths of the cavern came the mysterious answer: 'He who shall be the first to kiss his mother shall hold in Rome supreme authority.' Titus and Arruns were determined to keep the prophecy absolutely secret, to prevent their other brother, Tarquin, who had been left in Rome, from knowing anything about it. Thus he, at any rate, would be out of the running. For themselves, they drew lots to determine which of them, on their return, should kiss his mother first. Brutus, however, interpreted the words of Apollo's priestess in a different way. Pretending to trip, he fell flat on his face, and his lips touched the Earth - the mother of all living things.

The vast majority of all the ancient Greek literature that has survived comes from this period of imperial rule. To give a sense of scale, the work of just one of these writers – Plutarch, the second-century CE biographer, philosopher, essayist and priest of the famous Greek oracle at Delphi – extends to as many modern pages as all the surviving work of the fifth century BCE put together, from the tragedies of Aeschylus to the history of Thucydides.

The geneticist Antoine Danchin once used the parable of the Delphic boat to describe the process by which individual genes could produce the observed complexity of the natural world. In the proverbial story, the oracle at Delphi is asked to consider a boat on a river whose planks have begun to rot. As the wood decays, each plank is replaced, one by one—and after a decade, no plank is left from the original boat. Yet, the owner is convinced that it is the same boat. How can the boat be the same boat—the riddle runs—if every physical element of the original has been replaced? The answer is that the “boat” is not made of planks but of the relationship between planks. If you hammer a hundred strips of wood atop each other, you get a wall; if you nail them side to side, you get a deck; only a particular configuration of planks, held together in particular relationship, in a particular order, makes a boat. Genes operate in the same manner. Individual genes specify individual functions, but the relationship among genes allows physiology. The genome is inert without these relationships. That humans and worms have about the same number of genes—around twenty thousand—and yet the fact that only one of these two organisms is capable of painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel suggests that the number of genes is largely unimportant to the physiological complexity of the organism. “It is not what you have,” as a certain Brazilian samba instructor once told me, “it is what you do with it.

Ecstasy. From the Greek Ekstasis . Meaning not what you think. Meaning not euphoria or sexual climax or even happiness. Meaning, literally: a state of displacement, of being driven out of one’s senses. Three thousand years ago in Delphi the Oracle became ecstatic every single working hour. That night in a hunting cabin in northern Michigan, so did Calliope. High for my first time, drunk for my first time, I felt myself dissolving, turning to vapor. Like the incense at church my soul rose toward the dome of my skull—and then broke through.

Do you see those dull stars?" She outlined the formation with her finger. "A pentagram," whispered Scott. "Yes, but not just any pentagram. Take a look through the telescope." Scott approached the eyepiece. "They're not stars!" "What do they look like?" asked Jenn. Scott studied each of the figures. "It can't be," he stuttered. "Planets?" "Exactly what I thought." "But how? They're completely off their orbits." "The earth's off its axis." "Mount Etna erupted." "Greece had a earthquake." "The whole universe has gone mad!" Scott exclaimed. "And my friends have supernatural powers," said Jenn.

At any rate,’ he continued, ‘we hoped that once the war was over the Oracle might start working again. When it did not … Rachel became concerned.’ ‘Who’s Rachel?’ Meg asked. ‘Rachel Dare,’ I said. ‘The Oracle.’ ‘Thought the Oracle was a place.’ ‘It is.’ ‘Then Rachel is a place, and she stopped working?’ Had I still been a god, I would have turned her into a blue-belly lizard and released her into the wilderness never to be seen again. The thought soothed me. ‘The original Delphi was a place in Greece,’ I told her. ‘A cavern filled with volcanic fumes, where people would come to receive guidance from my priestess, the Pythia.’ ‘Pythia.’ Meg giggled. ‘That’s a funny word.’ ‘Yes. Ha-ha. So the Oracle is both a place and a person. When the Greek gods relocated to America back in … what was it, Chiron, 1860?’ Chiron see-sawed his hand. ‘More or less.’ ‘I brought the Oracle here to continue speaking prophecies on my behalf. The power has passed down from priestess to priestess over the years. Rachel Dare is the present Oracle.’ From the cookie platter, Meg plucked the only Oreo, which I had been hoping to have myself. ‘Mm-kay. Is it too late to watch that movie?’ ‘Yes,’ I snapped. ‘Now, the way I gained possession of the Oracle of Delphi in the first place was by killing this monster called Python who lived in the depths of the cavern.’ ‘A python like the snake,’ Meg said. ‘Yes and no. The snake species is named after Python the monster, who is also rather snaky, but who is much bigger and scarier and devours small girls who talk too much. At any rate, last August, while I was … indisposed, my ancient foe Python was released from Tartarus. He reclaimed the cave of Delphi. That’s why the Oracle stopped working.’ ‘But, if the Oracle is in America now, why does it matter if some snake monster takes over its old cave?’ That was about the longest sentence I had yet heard her speak. She’d probably done it just to spite me. ‘It’s too much to explain,’ I said. ‘You’ll just have to –’ ‘Meg.’ Chiron gave her one of his heroically tolerant smiles. ‘The original site of the Oracle is like the deepest taproot of a tree. The branches and leaves of prophecy may extend across the world, and Rachel Dare may be our loftiest branch, but if the taproot is strangled the whole tree is endangered. With Python back in residence at his old lair, the spirit of the Oracle has been completely blocked.

As an institution that could not tell a lie, they were unique in the contrivances of gods and men since the Oracle of Delphi. As office managers, they were no more than adequate, but now, as autumn approached, with the exiles crowded awkwardly into their new sections, they were broadcasting in the strictest sense of the word, scattering human voices into the darkness of Europe, in the certainty that more than half must be lost, some for the rook, some for the crow, for the sake of a few that made their mark. And everyone who worked there, bitterly complaining about the short-sightedness of their colleagues, the vanity of the news readers, the remoteness of the Controllers and the restrictive nature of the canteen’s one teaspoon, felt a certain pride which they had no way to express, either then or since.

Our king Apollo, O child of mighty Zeus, when you were born your father gave you a gold headband and a lyre of tortoise shell, and more: a chariot drawn by swans. You were to go to Delphi and the Kastalian springs whose waters are the gift of broad Kephissos, and there deliver justice to the Hellenes through the oracles. But when you seized the reins, you made the swans sail north to the distant land of the Hyperboreans, and though the Delphians begged you to return—with paeans of flutes and circles of women dancing about the tripod— Apollo, you remained to rule that people through the long year. Came the season when the tripod rings loud and clear in Delphi, you turned the swans to Parnassos. It was high noon of summer when you glided back from the far northlands; swallows and nightingales were singing; cicadas also sang about you; silver brooks poured down from Kastalia, and the great river Kephissos threw blue-foaming waves into the bright wind, yes, even the waters knew a god was coming home.

Are you sure you won’t be too bored here, waiting for us to come back? We don’t know how long our time with the Pythia will last; I hope you’ll find something to do.” “Of course I will,” I told him. “I’ll be exploring Delphi.” “No you won’t,” my brothers responded in perfect unison. Then they took turns telling me exactly why I couldn’t do what I wanted. “You wouldn’t be safe,” Castor said. “You’d get lost if you went wandering around the city on your own,” Polydeuces added. “It’s too big.” “Too noisy.” “Too confusing.” “Too busy.” “You could run into the wrong sort of people.” “Dangerous types.” “But sneaky enough so you couldn’t tell they’re dangerous until it’s too late.” “We’re responsible for your safety.” “We have to know where you are at all times.” “It’s not that we don’t trust you, Helen.” “It’s them.” “It’s for your own good.” I flopped down on my bed. “Fine. Go. I’ll stay here,” I told the ceiling. Castor and Polydeuces each grabbed one of my wrists and pulled me back to my feet. “I don’t think so,” Castor said, chuckling. “You’d stay here, all right. You’d stay here just until you saw us go into Apollo’s temple, and then you’d be a little cloud of dust sailing out through the gates.” “You don’t have to come with us,” Polydeuces said. “But if you want to tour this city, you’ll have to do it on our terms.” With that, he left me in Castor’s company. “Where’s he going?” I asked. “Probably to see if the priests of Apollo have an oil jar big enough to stuff you inside for safekeeping.” He winked at me. No matter how much I loved my brothers, I wasn’t in the mood for more teasing. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll insult the Pythia if you don’t go to see her right now? You were summoned. She could foretell terrible fates for the two of you if you keep her waiting.” Castor didn’t seem worried. “If she’s truly blessed with the gift of prophecy, she already knows we’re going to be delayed. And if she can’t foretell that, she’s as much of an oracle as I am, so why should I care what she predicts?” He laughed out loud, then added, “But don’t tell Polydeuces I said that. He’s the devout one.

but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written. It is not enough even to be able to speak the language of that nation by which they are written, for there is a memorable interval between the spoken and the written language, the language heard and the language read. The one is commonly transitory, a sound, a tongue, a dialect merely, almost brutish, and we learn it unconsciously, like the brutes, of our mothers. The other is the maturity and experience of that; if that is our mother tongue, this is our father tongue, a reserved and select expression, too significant to be heard by the ear, which we must be born again in order to speak. The crowds of men who merely spoke the Greek and Latin tongues in the Middle Ages were not entitled by the accident of birth to read the works of genius written in those languages; for these were not written in that Greek or Latin which they knew, but in the select language of literature. They had not learned the nobler dialects of Greece and Rome, but the very materials on which they were written were waste paper to them, and they prized instead a cheap contemporary literature. But when the several nations of Europe had acquired distinct though rude written languages of their own, sufficient for the purposes of their rising literatures, then first learning revived, and scholars were enabled to discern from that remoteness the treasures of antiquity. What the Roman and Grecian multitude could not hear, after the lapse of ages a few scholars read, and a few scholars only are still reading it.

The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and generosity we have. The modern cheap and fertile press, with all its translations, has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity. They seem as solitary, and the letter in which they are printed as rare and curious, as ever. It is worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an ancient language, which are raised out of the trivialness of the street, to be perpetual suggestions and provocations. It is not in vain that the farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard. Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.

To sum up: history is written by the experienced and superior man. He who has not experienced greater and more exalted things than others will not know how to interpret the great and exalted things of the past.When the past speaks it always speaks as an oracle: only if you are an architect of the future and know the present will you understand it. The extraordinary degree and extent of the influence exercised by Delphi is nowadays explained principally by the fact that the Delphic priests had an exact knowledge of the past; now it would be right to say that only he who constructs the future has a right to judge the past. If you look ahead and set yourself a great goal, you at the same time restrain that rank analytical impulse which makes the present into a desert and all tranquillity, all peaceful growth and maturing almost impossible. Draw about yourself the fence of a great and comprehensive hope, of a hope-filled striving. Form within yourself an image to which the future shall correspond, and forget the superstition that you are epigones. You will have enough to ponder and to invent when you reflect on the life of the future; but do not ask of history that it should show you the How? and the Wherewith? to this life. If, on the other hand, you acquire a living knowledge of the history of great men, you will learn from it a supreme commandment: to become mature and to flee from that paralyzing upbringing of the present age which sees its advantage in preventing your growth so as to rule and exploit you to the full while you are still immature. And if you want biographies, do not desire those which bear the legend ‘Herr So-and-So and his age’, but those upon whose title-page there would stand ‘a fighter against his age’.

Moses and Hesiod, David and Sappho, Deborah and Tyrtaeus, Isaiah and Homer, Delphi and Jerusalem, Pythian tripod and Cherubin-sanctuary, prophets and oracles, psalms and elegy–for us, they all lie peacefully in one box, they all rest peacefully in one grave, they all have one and the same human origin, they all have one and the same significance–human, transitory and belonging to the past. All the clouds have dispersed. The tears and sighs of our fathers no longer fill our hearts but our libraries. The warmly pulsating hearts of our fathers have become our national literature, their fervent breath of life has become the dust of our bookshelves…. Do these departed spirits rejoice in the literary gratitude of our present generation? Whom do they recognize as their true heirs? Those who repeated their prayers but forgot their names, or those who forget their prayers but remember their names?

Man, know thyself, and thou wilt know the universe and the gods. —INSCRIPTION AT THE TEMPLE OF DELPHI

Having sent gifts and messengers to the oracle at Delphi, the king of the Lydians sent this message: "[The king] asks you again now whether he shall march against the Persians, and if so, whether he shall join with himself any army of men as allies." The oracle replied that, "if he should march against the Persians he should destroy a great empire." Little did he know which empire he was to destroy. It was to be his own, of course, as Cyrus the Great was ascendant. Quotations from Herodotus' Histories.

Herodotus, a historian (and occasional teller of tall tales) living in the fifth century BCE, told of how King Croesus of Lydia (he of the famed wealth) had tested out various oracles to see which was the most accurate in prophesying and settled on the oracle at Delphi. Croesus later asked the oracle whether his army should check the advance of the strengthening Persian Empire into his country. He received the response, “If Croesus goes to war he will destroy a great empire.” Satisfied, off he went to engage the Persians, only to be roundly defeated. The great empire he destroyed was, in the end, his own. One might wonder whether the dictum to know thyself was a warning about the dangers of failing to challenge our assumptions.

I know one thing: That I know nothing,” is what Socrates famously told the Oracle of Delphi when Socrates was declared the wisest man on earth. The fact that he thinks that he knows nothing makes him wise. That’s a way of thinking.

if he cares, he will flay; if he loves, he will slay you

younger brother, Proteus, would take over the kingdom, and the two of them hated each other. In desperation, Acrisius took a trip to the Oracle of Delphi to get his fortune read. Now, going to the Oracle is usually what we call a bad idea. You had to take a long trip to the city of Delphi and visit this dark cave at the edge of town, where a veiled lady sat on a three-legged stool, inhaling volcanic vapour all day and seeing visions. You would leave an expensive offering with the priests at the door. Then you could ask the Oracle one question. Most likely, she’d answer you with some rambling riddle. Then you’d leave confused, terrified and poorer. But, like I said, Acrisius was desperate. He asked, ‘O Oracle, what’s the deal with me not having any sons? Who’s supposed to take the throne and carry on the family name?’ This time, the Oracle did not speak in riddles. ‘That’s easy,’ she said in a raspy voice. ‘You will never have sons. One day your daughter Danaë will have a son. That boy will kill you and become the next king of Argos. Thank you for your offering. Have a nice day.’ Stunned and angry, Acrisius returned home. When he got to the palace, his daughter came to see him. ‘Father, what’s wrong? What did the Oracle say?’ He stared at Danaë – his beautiful girl with her long dark hair and lovely brown eyes. Many men had asked to marry her. Now all Acrisius could think about was the prophecy. He could never allow Danaë to marry. She could never have a son. She wasn’t his daughter any more. She was his death sentence.

The thundering inscription over the oracle at Delphi—“Know thyself!”—does not seem to mean “Know what you personally enjoy most at breakfast.” It seems rather to mean “Be aware that you are a limited human being and that you lack godlike powers.” So, too, Plato’s Socrates seeks to know how a human being could be both a fleshy animal, subject to sleepiness, sickness, and death, and yet also the locus of insight into eternal realities. To seek after self-knowledge is to seek to understand the kind of thing one is—that is, the kind of thing a human being is. Augustine does not deny us a view of the shape of his intimate individuality: his compulsive attachment to sex, his fierce competitive egoism, his haunted inner thirst for understanding. But he is careful to embed these elements in philosophical discussions of general interest and to lead us through them into yet more universal considerations. He suggests that these discussions and considerations have shaped him as an individual, and he describes his life in order to display its general human elements.

In the mountains north-west of Athens, at Delphi, there stood an oracle; and so teasing were its revelations, so ambiguous and riddling its pronouncements, that Apollo, the god who inspired them, was hailed as Loxias—‘the Oblique One’. A deity less like Ahura Mazda it would have been hard to imagine.

A witch honors all that is sacred: from natural wonders, such as caves and hot springs, to ancient monuments, such as the pyramids of Giza or the Oracle of Delphi, and countless other examples. But what is sacred above all else for the witch is the home. It is your temple, your laboratory, and your sanctuary.

Ha!” Octavian said. “You’re the Oracle of Delphi? Right. And I’m the Emperor Nero!” “At least Nero could play music,” Grover muttered.

Samos, like Ephesos, did have a Sibyl but not a cult of Apollo. An interesting fact insofar as prophesying women goes, be they the Delphic Pythia or a Sibyl, was that they were thought to be the mouthpieces of Apollo. The myth has Apollo slay the dragon Python, a monstrous son of Gē (Earth) and guardian of her oracle at Delphi. From that moment on, Apollo controlled the oracle.

Grover muttered something about girls being harder to understand than the Oracle at Delphi,

Art depicting the Pythia as a young, naked woman Chapter 4: Prophetic Inspiration and Oracular Response The ruins at Delphi An illustration depicting the Pythia “There are two ways opposite to each other, one leading to the house of freedom, the other to the house of slavery. Lead the people on the road that goes through courage and harmony; avoid that which leads through strife and ruin.

Delphi was the religious center of all the city-states. It was the home of Pythia, the famous Delphic oracle. This city-state became the shrine to the god Apollo during the Classical period.  

Delphi to ask the Oracle, "Is there any man wiser than Socrates?"  The priestess replied, "There is no man wiser than Socrates."  Socrates didn't understand the Oracle’s riddle, because he certainly didn't think he was the wisest man in all of Athens, so he set out to disprove the Oracle.  He went to speak to all of the wisest men he knew of, men who surely were wiser than he was.  Socrates began to realize though, after questioning these men at great length, that they all thought they were very wise, but at their core they knew very little.  Socrates was unable to find anyone that, like himself, was aware of his own ignorance.  He ultimately concluded that the Oracle was right; he was the wisest man in Athens, because he was the only man who knew that he really knew nothing.

All official letters are written in such a language that the oracles of Delphi sound as examples of clear, outspoken, straightforward statements compared with them.

Yeah, Mel! If she shoves you again, smack her in the face!" bellowed Mika. Kira glared at Mika. "I mean, beat her in the race!

Now I know why I had that dream last night. It was a premonition forewarning me of the death of my cooking career!" "I doubt that your cooking career is over. You may be working at Coney Island until you retire, but you'll still be a chef," smiled Colleen. Alice laughed, her face softened. "Hey! Maybe if you're lucky you could work at Denny's!" said Melaine. "They're open twenty-four-seven and have an incredible breakfast menu. I would definitely come and support you." "Thanks Mel, but I'm more of a IHOP girl," said Alice.

You have to come downstairs now!" panted Alice. "What's wrong?" "Everything! Izzy's floating, Melanie ran into the wall, my hand made a silver ball and Colleen smashed my keys though the wall!" Alice huffed. "Wait, what? Slow down, I didn't catch a word you said," said Jenn. "Come on!

Where's Izzy?" cried Alice. "I'm right here!" Izzy was heard, but there was no sight of her floating friend. "Izzy's invisible!" yelled Melanie. "Invisible and flying!" Colleen added nervously.

We still can't see you!" groaned Alice. "How do we fix that?" asked Melanie. "I don't know...think visible thoughts," said Colleen. "Think visible thoughts?" yelled Melanie. "Actually, that might work. Do it Izzy,

True. The planets are in a formation, a pentagram. It's as if they were pulled together on purpose." "Maybe they were. Where is the earth aligned with these planets?" asked Jenn. "It looks as if we're right in the center. Earth would be the middle point to the pentagram." "So the planets are surrounding us," said Jenn. Scott nodded. "The planets are surrounding us.

There are various, centuries-old, true British traditions to secure this aim. 1. All orders and directives to the public are worded in such a way that they should have no meaning whatever. 2. All official letters are written in such a language that the oracles of Delphi sound as examples of clear, outspoken, straightforward statements compared with them. 3. Civil Servants never make decisions, they only promise to ‘consider,’ — ‘consider favourably’ — or — and this is the utmost — ‘reconsider’ certain questions. 4. In principle the British Civil Servant stands always at the disposal of the public. In practice he is either in ‘conference’ or out for lunch, or in but having his tea, or just out. Some develop an admirable technique of going out for tea before coming back from lunch.

From the early days of its existence, cryptology had served to obscure critical portions of writings dealing with the potent subject of magic—divinations, spells, curses, whatever conferred supernatural powers on its sorcerers. The first faint traces of this appeared in Egyptian cryptography. Plutarch reported that “sundry very ancient oracles were kept in secret writings by the priests” at Delphi. And before the fall of the Roman empire, secret writing was serving as a powerful ally of the necromancers in guarding their art from the profane. One of the most famous magic manuscripts, the so-called Leiden papyrus, discovered at Thebes and written in the third century A.D. in both Greek and a very late form of demotic, a highly simplified version of hieroglyphics, employs cipher to conceal the crucial portions of important recipes.

For your people’s sakes, therefore, look to your hearts.”[1] Similar to the advice inscribed on the wall outside the temple of Apollo where the Oracle at Delphi dwelt that one “Know Thyself,” Baxter is urging that pastors would have a keen understanding of who they are and a constant attention to the state of their souls, their passions, their motivations and their desires. For him, that encompassed both the positive and the negative; that is, their desire for God and for right-intentioned ministry, and also their desires for the things which would hinder them in that ministry. One of the common things I hear when speaking to husbands or wives who have committed adultery is “I don’t know how I got here.” We know it’s not the case that one day we simply wake up to find ourselves in an adulterous relationship or other sin, or spiritual deadness, or loss of faith, but rather that when we find ourselves in those places, we do so because of a long string of choices made and opportunities to turn around missed. We do so, because unaware of the state of our hearts and souls we wander off the path of discipline, onto easier paths of self-indulgence, self-centeredness, self-abandon; everything but self-awareness. Baxter, following Paul, who also told Timothy to “watch [his] life and doctrine closely,”[2] urged those in ministry to keep their eyes open on their own hearts and lives. This is where formation begins, as we understand how unlike the character of Christ is ours, in what areas we need attention and growth, and begin to understand how God wants to work formation in us. “For your people’s sakes, therefore, look to your hearts.”[3] Questions: How would I rate my level of self-awareness? Do I truly understand my motivations and desires? When I sin, do I understand what it is I am really looking for? Look ahead 10 or 20 years and imagine you have been disqualified from ministry. What is the issue that is most likely to have been the reason? What are you doing now to avoid it becoming a bigger problem than it already is? Meditation:

Plutarch, in the first century AD, mentions the pneuma (translated as “wind,” “air,” “breeze,” “breath,” or “inspiration”), and that occasionally the oikos was filled with a “delightful fragrance” as a result of the pneuma, but he does not describe its exact nature. Instead he relays a long-running argument among his friends about why the oracle is less active now than it was in the past. The arguments include less pneuma; the moral degeneration of mankind leading to its abandonment by the gods; the depopulation of Greece and the departure of the daimones (spirits) responsible for divination. But Plutarch also insists that the Pythia did not at any point rant or rave. Instead, he comments that, after a consultation session, the Pythia “feels calm and peaceful.

The picture of the Pythia breathing in vapors from a chasm below her tripod has always been the dominant model for understanding how the oracle at Delphi functioned. To such an extent that finding the mechanism of the vapors was originally regarded as the litmus test for successful archaeological investigation at Delphi. The original excavators of the site were extremely disappointed not to find a chasm below the temple—they felt almost cheated by the “deception” of the literary sources. The stakes were understandably high: at the time of Delphi’s excavation in the 1890s, interest in the oracle, and in psychic research more generally, could not have been stronger. In 1891 the burlesque opera Apollo, or The Oracle at Delphi played to great acclaim on Broadway. In the same year, John Collier painted his famous Priestess of Delphi in which a sensual priestess breathes in vapors from her tripod over a chasm (see plate 4), and the Society of Psychical Research was started by Cambridge academics and published its first volume examining the oracle at Delphi. In the wake of the disappointing excavations, thus, there was a feeling that the ancient sources had lied. The scholar A. P. Oppé in 1904 in the Journal of Hellenic Studies argued that the entire practice at Delphi was a farce, a sham, put on by the priests of Apollo, tricking the ancient world. Others sought different explanations for the Pythia’s madness: they focused on the laurel leaves, and suggested the Pythia had been high from eating laurel. One German scholar, Professor Oesterreich, even ate laurel leaves to test the theory, remarking disappointedly that he felt no different. Others opined that the answer relied not in some form of drug, but in psychology. Herbert Parke and Donald Wormell argued in the 1950s that the Pythia, in the heat of the moment after so much preparation on the particular day of consultation, and after so many years perhaps involved with the temple as one of the women guarding the sacred flame, would have found herself in an emotionally intense relationship with the god, and could easily have fallen victim to self-induced hypnosis. More recently, scholars have employed a series of anthropological approaches to understand belief in spirit possession, and applied these to how the Pythia may have functioned.

The importance of divination does not mean, however, that the oracular system was never mocked in Greek culture. The consultation of oracles was lampooned in Greek comedy: in Aristophanes’ Knights and Birds, for example, oracle sellers are figures of fun. The strength of their connection with the divine too could be questioned. Euripides, in a fragment of an otherwise lost play (Frag. 973N), wrote “the best seer is the one who guessed right.” Sometimes too their usefulness could be questioned. Xenophon, in the fourth century BC, argued that divination became useful only when human capacity ended.⁵¹ We shall see in the coming chapters instances wherein even the oracle of Apollo at Delphi was said to have been bribed and to have become biased, or was treated with circumspection by even its most loyal consultants. But all these instances represent an aberration from the norm, an aberration that did not in the long term shake belief in the system as a whole, a system that continued to speak of divination as a useful and real connection to the gods.

12. Know Yourself The most sacred place in the ancient world was the oracle at Delphi in central Greece. Kings, warriors and envoys travelled from across the known world to hear the prophecies of the oracle. Above the gates at Delphi, a short inscription greeted every weary traveler: Know thyself. This simple advice was considered the most important piece of knowledge anyone could possess. And to understand what the oracle told you, you first had to understand yourself. There is good reason for this: if we do not know our own mind, our dreams, strengths and failings, how can we reach the heights we seek? We become like a ship with no rudder. Which is why knowing yourself is so important: it helps you make decisions that make you happier, because you end up pursuing goals that are true to your very nature and core.

Oracle at Delphi. The Gospel of Thomas says, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

On our first night looking at the new book, we marveled over the photo and description of Argiope aurantia, the Black and Yellow Argiope spider, common throughout the United States. And the very next day, for the first time ever, we found a wriggling cluster of freshly emerged argiope spiderlings under the lowest wooden step of our back deck. While Claire hovered over the spiderlings and sketched them in her notebook, I wondered over the fact that if we'd found these spiders just the day before, we would have known nothing about them. And I was sure, on some level, that it was learning about them that allowed us to find them, Whenever I renew a commitment to studying raptors or gulls or crows or the birds in my backyard, more are given, more show themselves. Our efforts are rewarded, our studies are enhanced in experience. I cannot explain this, and I am reluctant to sound too woo-woo but we can take this as confidently as if it came from the Oracle at Delphi: the more we prepare, the more we are "allowed" somehow to see. This is a guarantee: select a subject, obtain a proper field guide, study it well, and you will see more than you ever have of your chosen subject — and more than that besides.