Oracle

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This article is about the classical medium. For the software company, see Oracle Corporation.

The word oracle in Latin verb means ōrāre "to speak" and properly refers to the priest or priestess uttering

In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or

prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination.

the prediction. In extended use, oracle may also refer to the site of the oracle, and to the oracular utterances

themselves, calledkhrēsmoi (χρησμοί) in Greek.

Oracles were thought to be portals through which the gods spoke directly to people. In this sense they

were different from seers (manteis, μάντεις) who interpreted signs sent by the gods through bird signs,

animal entrails, and other various methods.^[1]

The most important oracles of Greek antiquity were Pythia, priestess to Apollo at Delphi, and the oracle

of Dione andZeus at Dodona in Epirus. Other temples of Apollo were located at Didyma on the coast of

Asia Minor, at Corinth andBassae in the Peloponnese, and at the islands of Delos and Aegina in the

Aegean Sea. Only the Delphic Oracle was a female; all others were male.^[2] The Sibylline Oracles are

a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexametersascribed to the Sibyls, prophetesses who

uttered divine revelations in a frenzied state.

Something interesting for me to consider in the development of my work is the idea of the latin origin - to speak.

There's a possibility to push my idea into something more interactive, maybe using a voice box that I pre record,

and then placing that into whatever product I end up making?

I do think that the oracle idea fits in well with speaking from experience, and the whole idea of trusting the

words of someone a little wiser to the course.

I also think that it's interesting because of how mystical and interesting the history of them is.

11 May 2012