Prophecy

In religion, mythology, and fiction, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person (typically called a prophet) by a supernatural entity.

Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or preternatural knowledge, for example of future events.

Stories of prophetic deeds sometimes receive considerable attention and some have been known to survive for centuries through oral tradition or as religious texts.

[13] The Haedong Kosung-jon (Biographies of High Monks) records that King Beopheung of Silla desired to promulgate Buddhism as the state religion.

Ichadon schemed with the king, convincing him to make a proclamation granting Buddhism official state sanction using the royal seal.

When Ichadon was executed on the 15th day of the 9th month in 527, his prophecy was fulfilled; the earth shook, the sun was darkened, beautiful flowers rained from the sky, his severed head flew to the sacred Geumgang Mountains, and milk instead of blood sprayed 100 feet in the air from his beheaded corpse.

[15] A recognized form of Christian prophecy is the "prophetic drama" which Frederick Dillistone describes as a "metaphorical conjunction between present situations and future events".

The church claims people receive messages about their future, in the form of promises given by their God and expected to be fulfilled by divine action.

In the Apostolic-Prophetic Movement, a prophesy is simply a word delivered under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that accurately communicates God's "thoughts and intention".

[20] The Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders was a council of prophetic elders co-convened by C. Peter Wagner and Cindy Jacobs that included: Beth Alves, Jim Gool, Chuck Pierce, Mike and Cindy Jacobs, Bart Pierces, John and Paula Sanford, Dutch Sheets, Tommy Tenny, Heckor Torres, Barbara Wentroble, Mike Bickle, Paul Cain, Emanuele Cannistraci, Bill Hamon, Kingsley Fletcher, Ernest Gentile, Jim Laffoon, James Ryle, and Gwen Shaw.

Joseph Smith claims to have been led by an angel to a large hill in upstate New York, where he was shown an ancient manuscript engraved on plates of gold metal.

"The name prophet, from the Greek meaning "forespeaker" (πρὸ being used in the original local sense), is an equivalent of the Hebrew Navi, which signifies properly a delegate or mouthpiece of another.

With the fusion of the functions of the seer-priest with the functions of the temple-sacrificial priests and ecstatic prophets, two main groups developed: the priests occupied with cult and sacrifice [...] and the 'prophets' who 'continued the more "pneumatic" aspect of the character and work of the old "seers"' and 'were mediums of the divinely inspired "word" which was "whispered to" them, or "came to them"' [...] The prophets retained, in guild fashion, the old seer relationship to the cult [...].

Prophecies sometimes included conditioned promises of blessing for obeying their god, and returning to behaviors and laws as written in the Torah.

There exists a problem in verifying most Native American prophecy, in that they remain primarily an oral tradition, and thus there is no way to cite references of where writings have been committed to paper.

In another type of example, it is recorded that there are three Dogrib prophets who had claimed to have been divinely inspired to bring the message of Christianity's God to their people.

It is known that he suffered several tragedies in his life, and was persecuted to some degree for his cryptic esoteric writings about the future, reportedly derived through a use of a crystal ball.

His esoteric cryptic foreseeings have in some cases been assimilated to the results of applying the alleged Bible code, as well as to other purported pseudo-prophetic works.

Most reliable academic sources maintain that the associations made between world events and Nostradamus's quatrains are largely the result of misinterpretations or mistranslations (sometimes deliberate) or else are so tenuous as to render them useless as evidence of any genuine predictive power.

Moreover, none of the sources listed offers any evidence that anyone has ever interpreted any of Nostradamus's pseudo-prophetic works specifically enough to allow a clear identification of any event in advance.

Bill Whitcomb in The Magician's Companion observes, One point to remember is that the probability of an event changes as soon as a prophecy (or divination) exists.

Psychiatrist and neurologist Arthur Deikman describes the phenomenon as an "intuitive knowing, a type of perception that bypasses the usual sensory channels and rational intellect.

[45] Child development and consciousness author Joseph Chilton Pearce remarked that revelation typically appears in symbolic form and "in a single flash of insight.

"[48] Some cite aspects of cognitive psychology such as pattern forming and attention to the formation of prophecy in modern-day society as well as the declining influence of religion in daily life.

[53] Contemporary American poetry is also rich in lyrics about prophesy, including poems entitled Prophecy by Dana Gioia[55] and Eileen Myles.

[56] Other modern poets who write on prophets or prophecy include Carl Dennis, Richard Wilbur,[57] and Derek Walcott.