Question Three: On Divination

S. Th. II-II, q. 95.

777. Divination and its various species. - Those who presume to foreknow and foretell future contingent things attribute to themselves something which is proper to God, and therefore they are called diviners, and their action divination (waarzeggerij). By extension this word designates every undue inquiry into hidden things by the help of a demon (a. 1).

It is twofold: 1. Express, which is made by expressly asking the intervention of a demon, and which is divided into various species according to the diverse modes by which he himself is consulted, or responds: prestige, if he appears under some sensible form; necromancy, if he responds through the dead, whom he falsely presents as present; pythonism, if through the living whom he invades; oracle, if through idols; haruspicy, if through the entrails of sacrificed animals; geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy, pyromancy, if from signs in inanimate things; oneiromancy or divination of dreams, etc.

2. Tacit, which is made by seriously employing means which, unless a demon intervened, are wholly ineffective for the knowledge of hidden things, and thus by implicitly imploring his help. For he who employs means disproportionate and vain for naturally detecting a thing, by that very fact expects help from an intelligent being. But God or a good angel cannot approve these vain inquiries, nor do they involve themselves in them or furnish aid; but if the means is not valid for divine aid, by that very fact someone expects help from malign spirits, who willingly insert themselves into vain inquiries. Nor does it suffice to protest that he does not intend this; he acts against the protestation while he uses means disproportionate and otherwise ineffective. This is done in two ways:

a) Either by considering, for foreknowing future things, certain dispositions of things; as judicial astrology does, from the position or even motion of the stars; augury or auspice from the voices or motion of birds; chiromancy from the lines of the hands; physiognomy from the lines of the face; spatulamancy from the shoulder-blades of animals; omen from a chance occurrence, for example, meeting a funeral or human words said without intention which someone twists toward future things, etc.

b) Or by doing something and considering the action for knowing hidden things, and this is called divination by lots or sortilege (a. 3).

778. Divination is a mortal sin of superstition from its whole genus. - For the diviner, even if he acts without the mind of honoring a demon, in fact enters into a certain society with the enemy of God and ours, and implicitly subjects himself to him as teacher of truth (Lev. XX, 6, 27; Deut. XVIII, 10-12; Is. XXVIII, 15; Gal. IV, 10, 11). Whence divination is a sin.

It is a sin of superstition. For by divination divine worship is exhibited to a demon, since a) the hidden things which are investigated often are future free things or secrets of the heart, of which certain knowledge is proper to God; whence he who expects the manifestation of such things from a demon attributes to him a certain divine excellence;¹ b) even outside this case, because the demon, through society with men, intends to usurp something of the excellence of God and of the honor owed to Him by men; and therefore one consulting a demon consents to him and cooperates in the usurpation of divine excellence, and thus works superstitiously against religion (a. 2 and 4).

¹ It should be noted that demons cannot with certitude know future contingent things, nor even things wholly hidden, and especially the secrets of hearts, but nevertheless they know far more than men about future and other hidden things, for various reasons: 1. because the natural intellective power of spirits is much more perfect than the intellect of man; moreover this natural intellective power was not diminished in demons by sin; 2. because through the experience of ages they know sufficiently perfectly what is accustomed to happen in certain circumstances even from contingent causes; 3. because with wonderful speed they can pass from one place to another and transfer corporeal things, and thus predict effects from causes which they see placed in distant places; 4. because, God permitting, they can apply natural causes to effects, indeed also instigate free causes to producing certain effects, yet not with every kind of certitude.

Hence it is a grave sin from its whole genus: for that in a small matter a demon be summoned as friend is always gravely injurious to God.

Nevertheless, if it is done tacitly, in fact it will often be venial because of imperfection of the act, whether from ignorance and simplicity of the agent, or from play and levity by which it is performed rather than from serious intention, or from the fact that full faith is not employed.

779. Spiritism pertains to express divination. - Its origin is in rotating tables (1832), which soon gave answers. For when two sisters of the Fox family (1847-48), from mysterious noises heard at home, began to ask whether they proceeded from the souls of the dead, having received, as they said, an affirmative answer, they themselves established communication with spirits.1 Whence it happened that tables gave answers by distinct knocks even concerning unknown matters, indeed by a pen attached to one foot they wrote answers; from which arose dissensions among families through suspicions or defamations excited by the answers, unknown and distant things detected, etc. At last the dead were directly evoked and questioned by the help of persons commonly called mediums, that is, those functioning in the office of mediator, by whom the most astonishing things were produced, doubts against faith and revealed truths were excited, indeed new dogmas introduced.

Moreover effects of a threefold genus are attributed to Spiritism:

A. Mechanical, namely: 1. rotations of tables, which are touched by the extended fingers of those present and are moved by the command of the will alone; but the rotating table sometimes strikes one or another of those standing by;

2. noises of a table which strikes the ground with its foot and gives answers through pulsations or knocks;

3. motion at a distance or without apparent contact;

4. levitation, by which a body is lifted into the air without any apparent cause;

5. indeed transfer of bodies through the air and bringing of things from distant places, even with doors and windows closed.

B. Sensitive: 1. luminous, as in flashes and gleams suddenly appearing, flames, lights of various color;

2. auditory, for example, creakings and sounds heard, pulsations and noises, harmonic sounds imitating a human voice, and sounds of musical instruments which are moved by no hand;

3. touches exercised upon those present by an invisible being;

4. writing which seems as if automatic, or even direct, without the intervention of any human hand;

5. materializations of spirits or the formation of organs, a figure or face, and apparitions of a head, limbs, or the whole body of a person speaking with those present, which sometimes leaves photographic impressions. But many are persuaded that these spirits are nothing other than persons who are called mediums, clothed in special garments and masks; it has been ascertained that the matter is so in some cases;

6. ectoplasmy or the production and projection outside oneself of a material substance, which offers itself to be organized, and thus bilocation.

C. Physiological, namely, hyperesthesia, exaltation of the senses, of sight and perceptions, disturbance of vital functions:

1. clear intuition of hidden things, for example, behind the head, or through a membrane with eyelids, or of things concealed;

2. knowledge of distant things;

3. direct transmission or reading of thoughts and of the secrets of the heart;

4. warnings and premonitions and foretelling of future things;

5. communication of unknown science or language;

6. transposition of the senses;

7. exteriorization of sensibility.

1. One of the Fox sisters in the year 1888 openly declared that all things had been feigned; but this testimony was not accepted by Spiritists, and the use of Spiritism was widely diffused, so that it even attracted physicians and cultivators of the natural sciences!

780. Judgment concerning the causes of the phenomena and concerning the morality of Spiritism. - Concerning Spiritism it should be observed:1

1. From the Second Council of Baltimore, n. 36: "It seems well established that many things which are said to be exhibited as marvelous phenomena in Spiritist circles are either altogether feigned and produced by fraudulent collusion of the operators among themselves, or are chiefly to be ascribed to the imagination of the persons who are called mediums (that is, mediators) and to the credulity of the spectators, or finally are to be attributed to a certain manual dexterity, such as is in use among conjurers. Nevertheless it seems scarcely to be doubted that at least certain of them are to be referred back to satanic intervention, since they can scarcely be explained sufficiently in another way." Moreover, Spiritist mediums generally do not permit others to study the phenomena produced by a scientific method.

2. Although someone may judge that demons rarely or in no way intervene, the practice of Spiritism is superstitious, because it attempts the evocation and consultation of spirits, since from Catholic doctrine it is clear that neither angels nor separated souls do such things (S. Off., 4 Aug. 1856 and 30 Mar. 1898).

For if by inept means someone seeks preternatural effects, a protestation against the intervention of a demon in this matter changes nothing, nor does it prevent that intervention from being implicitly sought.

3. Besides, adherents of Spiritism often constitute a heretical sect, which professes doctrines opposed to Catholic dogma and is adverse to true religion.

They more often favor Pantheism; they are accustomed to admit the permanence of human personality after death, and metempsychosis for all, and to deny the eternity of punishments. They affirm Christ and the prophets to be "mediators." In moral matters they favor philanthropic altruism, and therefore they attack Catholicism and proclaim indifferentism toward all religions.

4. Hence those sin gravely by superstition who presume or feign themselves to be mediators and, by exercising merely natural arts, invite others to true manifestations of spirits; who serve in Spiritist experiments as a medium; who consult mediators, even for health, or actively cooperate with them (S. Off., decree issued July 30, transmitted Aug. 4, 1856). Indeed those sin who without grave reason assist even merely passively, for the sake of experiment, curiosity, or levity, even with a protestation against the demon having been made beforehand, because to favor or cooperate with a thing intrinsically evil is illicit (S. Off., 27 Apr. 1917); which sin, if it includes a sense of approval or grave scandal or danger of perversion, is mortal, as ordinarily happens for those who habitually or rather often assist; otherwise it is probably only venial.

According to several, a grave reason is judged present for an upright and learned man, so that for the sake of experiment he may detect the true nature of Spiritism or manifest the error, yet scandal being excluded. But at least it is to be advised that he first approach the bishop for the sake of opportune counsel, or institute a merely private examination in a laboratory.

5. Only the phenomenon of rotating tables through magnetism seems to be explained from natural forces, whether of nerves and muscles or of some fluid, excited in the bodies of those seated, by which the table can even be lifted and dropped repeatedly, and give answers by striking the ground with its foot or by writing with the help of a pen.

Yet the practice is dangerous, because vain, as being of no utility, and it easily provides an occasion of passing over to illicit things, such as answers which not rarely injure honesty or charity, or superstitious things, such as the attempt to divine or to communicate with spirits; whence the faithful are to be deterred from this practice. But if the answers are alien to the mind of those present, especially if they are malicious, impious, or turn upon unknowable things, likewise if effects certainly preternatural are produced, they cannot be ascribed to a natural cause; but to attribute them to divine or angelic operation would be blasphemous, since both the mode is ridiculous and the end dishonest or vain; therefore nothing is left except a diabolical cause.

6. Among entirely marvelous effects, a) some are from themselves entirely preternatural, such as more than human knowledge of future contingent things, of things altogether hidden or of the secrets of the heart, instantaneous acquisition of an unknown science or language, true materialization of a spirit. But these things are proved with certitude only with very great difficulty: for conjectural knowledge of future contingent things is possible to man in some way; small indications of the secrets of the heart can appear in the face or bearing of the body to persons of subtler and more vehement sensibility; knowledge of an unknown language or science is sometimes explained by the subconsciousness of one who has heard of the language or science or has looked at a book; materialization by hallucination or fiction, etc.

b) Others are effects of which no plausible natural explanation has been given up to this time, and which therefore generally have been held as preternatural, which nevertheless it is not altogether repugnant to explain naturally, indeed perhaps it can be hoped for from the progress of science, such as levitation, motion without apparent contact, transfer of bodies, clear vision of hidden things, knowledge of distant and unknown things, transposition of the senses, direct transmission and reading of thoughts, etc. These facts, nevertheless, have not yet been sufficiently proved by a scientific method. Hence although to produce and explain these things naturally could speculatively seem perhaps not impossible, nevertheless practically it is improbable, and therefore they cannot be safely sought, but one should rather abstain from them as from vain, inept, and dangerous inquiries into which the demon willingly inserts himself, unless there is a grave reason, such as scientific investigation, and scandal or cooperation in superstition is absent.²

² Concerning Spiritism, there can be consulted: among Spiritists, Allen Kardec, Le livre des esprits, 1864; Le livre des mediums, 1865; and two periodicals: Annales des sciences psychiques, edited at Paris; and Proceedings of the Society for psychical Researches, published at London; also Maxwell, Les phenomenes psychiques; Davis, La fin du monde des esprits. Besides: Meric, Le merveilleux et la science; L'imagination et les prodiges; Franco, Le Spiritisme; Helot, Le Spiritisme; Nevroses et possessions diaboliques; Lapponi, Hypnotisme et Spiritisme; Surbled, Spiritualisme et Spiritisme; Spirites et mediums; Gibier, Le Spiritisme; Wundt, Das Spiritismus, eine sogenannte wissenschaftliche Frage; de Munnynck, in Echo religieux de Belgique, 1911; Grasset, Le Spiritisme devant la science; Idees medicales; Le psychisme inferieur; L'occultisme hier et aujourd'hui; Castelein, Les phenomenes de l'hypnotisme et le surnaturel; Schneider, Der Neuere Geistesglaube; Thurston, Spirit phenomena, in The Month, 1917, 1920, 1924; Laenen, Het Spiritisme; Roure, Le merveilleux spirite, Le Spiritisme d'aujourd'hui et d'hier; Richet, in Rev. Phil. 1922, and Traite de metapsychisme; Adj. Drieghe, Over Gedachtenlezen; Spiritisme; Occultisme; Metapsychisme, in Ons Geloof, 1914, 1919, 1926 and 1928; Charles, A propos de Spiritisme, in N. R. Th. 1921; Ludwig, Okkultismus und Spiritismus, 1921; Zacchi, Le Spiritisme et la survivance de l'ame (translated from the Italian); Heredia, Spiritisme and common sense; Mainage, La religion spirite; Leroux, L'Antoinisme; and various articles in Rev. Eccl. de Liege, 1921-1924; Van Roy, Le Message des esprits; Gatterer, Der wissenschaftliche Okkultismus und seine Verhaltnis zur Philosophie, 1927; Feldmann, Okkulte Philosophie, 1927 (Dutch adaptation by Van Dueren: Occulte verschijnselen, 1938); Mager, in Stimmen der Zeit, 1934. Among manuals of moral theology, Tanquerey, Prummer, and Vermeersch are more to be commended.

Namely, to direct oneself by improbable opinions and mere hypotheses without foundation is to act imprudently, and indeed in a matter of great moment, because the danger of superstition and scandal and therefore of graver sin is easy. But if at some time a truly probable demonstration or truly scientific explanation were found, then to seek those effects would not be sinful, provided someone consider them as natural effects and not intend the attempt of communicating with spirits.

1. Thus we understand the decrees (S. Off., 4 Aug. 1856; 23 June 1840; 31 Apr. 1841 [printed thus]; 28 July 1847; S. Poen. 1 July 1841) and the Ritual (tit. XI; c. 1, n. 3), when they are applied to these things. Conformably to the Council of Mechelen, n. 42, and to St. Alphonsus, l. III, n. 20.

781. Divination by the stars. - Astrology is distinguished as twofold: one natural, which from natural causes conjectures natural effects such as wind, storm, cold, etc., and this of itself is not illicit; the other judicial, which, namely, from the aspect of the stars judges concerning things depending upon man's free choice, or concerning events merely fortuitous or otherwise altogether hidden, for example, if from them are foreboded the days or mode of death, the course of life, health, honors, offspring, prosperity, etc.: but this astrology is altogether illicit, as manifestly superstitious. "Then it is vain and false," Cajetan notes, "when through them someone wishes to foreknow things which cannot be foreknown through heavenly bodies."

And indeed every corporeal sign is either an effect, or a cause, of that of which it is a sign, or proceeds from the same common cause with the thing signified, and thus, while it designates the cause, it also signifies the effect. But the stars a) are not effects of fortuitous events or of human actions; b) nor can they be reduced into a common cause except into divine providence; but the motions and positions of the stars and contingent events are diversely disposed by divine providence: the former according to the account of necessity, so that they always and in the same mode come about; the latter according to the account of contingency, so that they contingently happen variably; c) nor are they the cause of fortuitous and free effects: not of fortuitous effects, because fortuitous events are beings per accidens, since they are not simply a being, nor simply one but many, as that by a stone falling an earthquake happens, or that by a man digging a grave a treasure is found, does not have one determinate natural cause but several; nor also of free effects, because intellect and will, through which free acts proceed, are spiritual powers, into which bodies such as the stars cannot directly impress or act, and consequently cannot determine them (a. 5).

The same must be said of divinations through the observance of exterior things, such as auguries, physiognomy, etc. They can be natural signs of meteorological events, or of temperament, inclinations, health, etc.; but not of free acts or altogether fortuitous events (a. 7).

782. Divination of dreams. - "Dreams are signs of certain future events, insofar as they are reduced to some cause common to dreams and future events... Therefore it is to be considered what is the cause of dreams, and whether it can be the cause of future events, or can know them" (a. 6). Now dreams are sometimes caused divinely: to which certainly faith is to be given insofar as their origin is established; sometimes diabolically: therefore if someone seeks to be instructed by a demon in such a mode, he is guilty of express divination through dreams; generally, however, naturally, from the habit of soul and body, the influence of the air, etc., and these dreams are certain natural signs of health, complexion, passions, occupations of the dreamer, but not of future events or free acts: whence he who gives faith to these common dreams, through which certainly God does not speak, interpretatively has recourse to the demon, who sometimes inserts himself into the phantasies and dreams of men.

783. Use of lots. - Divisory lots, which are employed for dividing or attributing goods, of themselves contain no superstition or other malice, but by positive law they are prohibited in elections to ecclesiastical offices and benefices. - Consultory lots, which are employed for knowing what one ought to do, if counsel is expected explicitly or implicitly from a demon, are superstitious. If the providence of God alone is implored, they are sometimes licit: when they are done either from divine command or instinct, or at least from urgent necessity and every defect of counsel, with due reverence; but regularly they are illicit because they contain a tempting of God. - Divinatory lots are generally illicit: for lots do not receive this power of laying open hidden truth divinely, outside most special circumstances, nor indeed do they have it from their own nature; whence he who inquires into truth through lots either tempts the Lord, or expects the intervention of a demon (a. 8).

784. Observation. - Concerning predictions by cards or by inspection of hands, face, or writing, note that such seers generally do not believe their own art, but conjecture certain things for deceiving the credulous and delighting the curious. But 1. if they pretend that they act seriously, they sin by deceiving unjustly and by cooperating with those by whom they are consulted superstitiously; 2. those who consult seriously sin gravely, unless they are excused by ignorance; but if it is done from jest, levity, vain curiosity, without employing faith, per se it is only venial; 3. if the seers and those consulting act from jest, no sin per se is present.