Introduction
Since ancient times, oracles and diviners have combined their collected wisdom
with close observation of the world. Occupying a unique position in society and
often living in the margins, these diviners attempted to gain insight into their
personal circumstances and improve the lives of their communities. Whether they
chose to cast bones and shells, palm nuts gathered in gourd and calabash, read
footprints in the dust, or rely upon a complex system of calculations rooted in
sacred works such as the Path of Odu or the I Ching, they drew upon cultural
traditions handed down through generations.
And these seemingly disparate practices of ancient cultures that spanned
throughout Africa, Greece, Etruria, China, Tibet, and India shared one thing in
common: the desire to change and impact the future.
This desire to alter one's path, to understand how things have come to pass, is
one of our most basic human impulses, and over the centuries it has inspired and
informed much of our creative art forms, including our literature. Speculative
fiction writers share this in common with diviners, attempting to gain i ... read full excerpt from: Dark Matter: Reading the Bones ebook
