Last year, my younger brother, Ben, spent three months in Ghana filming and documenting the use of drum rhythms in the divination ceremonies of the local witchdoctors as part of an anthropological musicology study. It was interesting to see how drums were employed and to learn about the interesting rhythms of their culture, but it was also rather uncomfortable. Witchcraft and the occult have always been taboo among the Saints. I remember growing up in Provo we would, now and then, hear urban legends of wayward LDS youth experimenting with witchcraft in the abandoned BYU Academy building, which is now the Provo Public Library.
As a missionary I taught a family where the wife had been heavily involved in witchcraft and the occult, all of which she renounced when she joined the church.
The Lord specifically condemned the occult in chapter 18 the book of Deuteronomy, verses 9-15:
When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch; Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God. For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the LORD thy God hath not suffered thee so to do. The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;
I am not really interested in discussing the occult at length. I would rather spend my time testifying of the power of the Lord, and the Atonement, than testifying of the power of Satan. Yet there is at least one type of divination that is commonly utilized by the saints that I would like to discuss a little.
Bibliomancy is a form of divination by interpretation of a passage chosen at random from a sacred book, especially the Bible. It s a branch of Stichomancy. The most common procedure involves placing the book on its spine, and with eyes closed, allowing the book to fall open to a random page. Then, with the eyes still closed placing a finger on the open page and reading the passage indicated. I do not know how widespread the use of bibliomancy is among the members, but I have known quite a few members of the church who have used this method of divination in conjunction with prayer.
Sortilege, or casting lots, seems to be another kind of divination that is at times acceptable. The word sorcerer, like sortilege, comes from the Latin root sors, sort which means “a lot, fortune”. A sorcerer is specifically defined as “one who who foretells events by casting lots.” Yet, there are many places in the scriptures where casting lots is employed by the people of God to make decisions (see this list). There must be a difference between sorcery and the casting of lots employed by the faithful in the scriptures. The most obvious difference is the source on whom they rely upon to direct the outcome of the divination. The saints look to God while the sorcerers rely upon familiar spirits. There is also a difference between casting lots as a way of divining the future and casting lots as a method of impartially making a decision—that is, only God can control its outcome, if he so chooses.
This idea of allowing God to make a decision by employing divination like methods and chance was actually codified in early English law in the form of Trial by Ordeal. An individual accused of a crime could optionally elect to allow God to prove his innocence through a trial by ordeal. The ordeal was administered by official of the church. One common ordeal involved having the accused either carry a piece of molten iron for a specified distance or retrieve a heavy stone or ball from a cauldron of boiling water:
1. And the ordeal, we charge by the commands of God and of the archbishop and all the bishops, that no man come into the church after they carry in the fire with which they must heat the ordeal, except for the priest and he who must undergo it. And from the stake to the mark shall be measured nine feet, by the feet of the man who undergoes it. And if it be by water, they are to heat it until it becomes hot enough to boil, whether the vessel be iron or bronze, lead, or clay.
2. And the if accusation be single, the hand is to be plunged in up to the wrist to reach the stone, and if it be three-fold, up to the elbow.
3. And when the ordeal be ready, then two men from either side are to go in, and they are to be agreed that it be as hot as we said earlier.
4. And an equal number of men from either side are to go in and stand down the church on both sides of the ordeal; and all those are to be fasting and abstaining from their wives at night; and the priest is to sprinkle holy water over them all; and each of them is to taste the holy water; and give them all the book to kiss, and the sign of Christ’s cross. And no one is to continue making up the fire after they begin the consecration; but the iron is to lie upon the embers until the last collect; then they are to lay it upon the post, and no other words are to be spoken inside, except that they are to earnestly to pray Almighty God that he make the whole truth plain.
5. And he is to undergo it, and they are to seal up the hand; and after the third day they are to look and see whether it be corrupt or clean within the seal.
6. And the ordeal is to be invalid for him who breaks these rules, and he is to pay the king a hundred-and-twenty shillings as a fine.
The idea was that God would make the decision of innocence vs. guilt by either preventing the burned flesh from becoming corrupt or infected or by allowing it to fester. Trial by ordeal began to fall into disuse when King Henry II established trial by jury as the norm in the Assize of Clarendon.
While on the one hand trial by ordeal my be viewed as a kind of faith, on the other hand it seems a lot like tempting God. From a tempting God point of view this bears an interesting similarity to gambling and in fact it is believed that sortilege developed into modern playing cards and board games.
Still, in the church, we seem to have retained a little of this idea that we can allow God to express his will in what appears to be chance, like bibliomancy and casting lots.
Then there are more borderline uses of divination among the saints. When I was growing up in Provo, we had a wonderful neighbor. He was a faithful latter-day saint and professor at BYU. Every summer he would go to Alaska for a month or two to hunt for gold. One summer evening, shortly after he had returned from his latest gold hunting expedition, we were chatting with him in his front yard and he pulled out a pouch filled with gold nuggets that he had found. My father asked him how he was able to find the gold. “Let me show you.†He replied.
We were surprised when he produced a divining rod. He explained that just like some people use a divining rod to find water, he used it to divine for gold. He showed us how to hold it, and explained to us how it feels when it is attracted to the metal. He then hid a nugget in his yard and handed the rod to my brother, Ben, and told him to try to locate the nugget using the divining rod. Ben successfully located the nugget in record time. He practically walked right to it.
This Brother then told us that he believed that the ability to locate water, or gold, was a gift that God gave to some people.
This was a very strange experience for me and I have often wondered about the propriety of employing divining rods and such. Those of you who are familiar with Orson Scott Card’s fictional Alvin Maker series know that the characters possessed “knacks†not unlike the gift my neighbor utilized. I wonder if Card had known my neighbor.
What is the proper relationship between chance and God’s will? As a people we seem fairly comfortable with bibliomancy, but gambling has been explicitly forbidden. At what point does our trust in the lord cease to be faith and become tempting the Lord Our God?
Do people have “knacks†that God gives to them? If so, what is their proper role?