In Johnston’s Book Ancient Greek Divination he describes the female oracle of Delphi, also known as the Pythia, whose body would be inhabited by the Greek god Apollo so that she could give prophesy about questions submitted by an individual offering a sacrifice to the god. The practice of divination varied greatly across time and geographic location, but there are general classifications that have been made such as a technical diviner versus an inspired diviner. Like the Pythia, many oracles would preform what Michael Flower describes as inspired deviation in his book The Seer in Ancient Greece. The inspired diviner is one who is cast into an altered state of consciousness through means such as meditation, hypnotic rituals, or ingestion of drugs. The power these altered states had over an individual varied as the diviner was expected to be able to hear a request or question and respond in an often cryptic manner which would then require further analysis. As was the case with the Pythia, it was generally believed that inspired diviners were being possessed or controlled by a god. As for technical diviners (not necessarily independent inspired diviners) relied on the collection and interpretation of events which were seen …show more content…
Everything under the sun could now be viewed as delectable, understandable, and functional including the most intimate inner workings of the human mind. Soon dreams founds themselves under this lens of scrutiny. These ideas had suffused all of educated culture throughout Europe and was being reverberated through other facets of culture, such as art. The exploration of dreams found its way to the art movement know as Symbolism and later Data. One can not talk about the birth of psychology without mentioning the man most often known as its father, Sigmund Freud. Like other developing branches of science, early psychologist employed experimentation and the scientific method, but unlike germs one could not simply peer into the mind with a magnifying glass. With little but history, intuition, and a dash of dumb luck, Freud fleshed out many of what would become fundamentals on how the mind is viewed, even to this very day. Kind among these Freud suggestion a structure of the mind including the id, ego, and super ego. The id or “it” describes the primitive and instinctive component of our mind, such as our biological imperative to breathe, sleep, eat, avoid death and procreate. The id is viewed as the impulsive, unconscious part of the psyche that responds immediately and directly to instincts. The id is exemplified by the