Tree and earth oracles

The belief that certain trees contained a divine essence, for whatever reason, was one which was commonly held by ancient man. To prehistoric communities, already in awe of the natural phenomena of the world around them, it was no less believable that the rustlings and movements of the branches of a tree were caused by the god who dwelt within, than that the sun should fall out of sight every night, only to reappear on the opposite horizon the following dawn. When reputably wise men claimed to be able to interpret the meanings of those movements, the concept of natural oracles was born.

EARTH ORACLES

The earliest were the earth oracles, and the part played by natural fissures, springs and trees in the ceremonies connected with them grew from their closeness to the earth.

The most famous oracle of antiquity, at Delphi, was situated at the opening of a natural cleft of rock, believed at that time to be the centre of the earth, and was originally presided over by the great earth-mother Gaia. The shrine was later dedicated to Apollo - hence its association with the Laurel, Laurus nobilis, which once grew in the cleft, for, in the legend, the nymph Diane turned into a Laurel tree rather than succumb to the advances of the god.

Another famous oracle, that of Trophonius at Lebadea, near Mount Helicon in Boeotia, was modelled on the idea of descent into the underworld.

The antiquity of this conception is found in an account of the initiation of an angur on a Babylonian tablet now in the British Museum. He was made to descend into an artificial imitation of the lower world, where he beheld "altars amidst the waters, the treasures of Anu, Bel and Ea, the tablets of the gods, the delivery of the oracle of heaven and earth and the Cedar tree, the beloved of the great gods."

TREE ORACLES

Here tree and earth oracles are seen in conjunction, but tree divinity goes back still further than that. In a bilingual text of a much earlier date we are told of, "the cedar tree, the tree that shelters the power of the incubus, upon whose core is recorded the name of Ea" (the god of wisdom).

There are several allusions to oracular trees in the Bible. The Tree of Knowledge was obviously intended to be one, and the fact that God spoke to Moses from a burning bush could be taken to indicate as being fairly common the idea of trees as means of divine revelation. A holy tree near Shechem was called "the oak tree of the fortune tellers" in Judges 9:37 and "the sacred tree of Moreh" in Genesis 12:6 and Deuteronomy 11:30.

The prophetess Deborah gave her responses under a Palm near Bethel, which was said to be marking the grave of Rachel; and David, asking God for an indication of the right moment to attack the Philistines, received His sign in "the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees."

The oracle of the Pelasgic Zeus at Dodona in Epirus took the form of a very ancient tree contained within a sacred grove of Oaks. The responses of the deity who dwelt there were interpreted from the rustling of branches, the murmur of a sacred spring welling forth at its foot, or the drawing of oracle lots from an urn kept at the foot of it.

The origin of the practice is lost in the mists of time now, but it is known to have predated the dedication of the shrine to Zeus. Herodotus claims the authority of priestesses at Dodona and priests at Thebes for an account of the kidnapping by Phoenicians of two women from the temple at Thebes. Sold into separate slavery - one into Libya and the other into Greece - the women were obviously induced to give up the secret knowledge they had, for the concept of earth oracles followed them to their new homes.

The oracle of Zeus-ammon which was established in the Libyan desert was also vested in an ancient tree. That at Dodona was said to have lasted until the fourth century AD, when it was reputed to be two thousand years old. During the earlier period of its deification, it was frequently adorned with wreaths and fillets, a practice common in Egypt, where sacred trees such as Sycamore and Palm (Phoenix dactylifera) were also decorated in this way. Excavation at the site during the last century revealed lead tablets inscribed with questions addressed to the god by his votaries c. 400 BC.

THE DELPHIC ORACLE

Of all the oracles of the ancient world, however, none is better documented than that at Delphi.

According to legend, its properties were discovered when gas which emerged from a cleft in a regular stream caused convulsions in a number of goats grazing nearby. A goatherd who went to their rescue was also affected and went into a trance, during which he uttered words which were individually clear, but meaningless when strung together.

The prophet was always a woman - the Pythia. The earliest holders of the office were virgins of noble birth and good od appearance, but, after a Pythia had been seduced in the sacred cave, the qualifications were revised and subsequent incumbents were as old and unattractive as possible.

Consulting the Delphic oracle was an expensive business, usually beyond the pockets of the ordinary people. Once a year, however, the Pythia would leave the sanctuary and allow the poor to consult her on the temple steps, without any of the trimmings for which the richer people paid.

What the latter got for their money always began with the ritual purification of the Pythia, who was then escorted by priests to the chamber where the omphalos was situated. There a goat was sprinkled with holy water, and if it shivered in a prescribed fashion the auspices were considered favourable and the ritual was allowed to continue. Dressed in her sacred robe and crowned with Laurel, the Pythia would descend deep into the sanctuary, where she inhaled the vapours and chewed Bay leaves, to increase the hallucinogenic action. Then, as incense burned, the Pythia sat and awaited the visitation of the god, with a priest on hand to interpret the enigmatic message for the client who waited outside the sanctuary.

Delphi survived for at least eight hundred years, and the fact that its power eventually waned and its prophecies became inaccurate seems to argue that the opposite was once the case.

Even Cicero, who was a noted sceptic, said of Delphi that it could, "never have been so overwhelmed with so many important offerings from monarchs and nations if all the ages had not proved the truth of its oracles". The philosopher Heraclitus took a more jaundiced view, however, saying that, "the god of Delphi neither reveals nor conceals but hints", a charge later levelled at the similarly vague prophecies of Nostradamus.

The decline of the oracles set in by the second century AD. The Romans retained something of the idea, with a prophetic Ilex grove (Ilex aquifolium - the common Holly) on the Aventine Hill, sacred to Faunus and Picus, and a grove oracle dedicated to Faunus at Tibur, beside the Albumean Spring, but they lacked the reputation and the status of the earlier ones.

The oracle of Jupiter at Preneste harked back to an earlier period of history. Here oracle lots were fashioned from the wood of a sacred Oak, in a practice which was common throughout the ancient world, when Scythian soothsayers divined by the use of a number of rods which they placed on the ground, uttering predictions as they gathered them up again, one by one.

The oracular tradition was not to be preserved, however When the Emperor Julian the Apostate asked the Delphic oracle itself how it could be restored, he received its final pronouncement by way of reply. Its day was done and it would never be revived. Sadly it proved to be the most accurate prophecy of all.

If you want to know more why not buy a copy of Brian W Taylor's  e-book  Sacred plants of the world from Neolithic times until the present day - how and why they've been worshipped - or its hardback version - Gardens of the Gods. Recently given five stars by a satisfied reader.