The practice of consulting seers, oracles and dream interpreters to know what the future holds dates back to antiquity.

Their advice was eagerly sought not only by ordinary people, but also by mighty kings, emperors, pharaohs and other heads of state. The ancient oracles and seers were the forerunners of today’s fortune tellers, mediums and psychics.

The most famous case in ancient times of such prophetic consultations is the story of the great King Croesus of Lydia (now part of Western Turkey). According to Herodotus, King Croesus reigned for 14 years, from 560 BC until his defeat by the Persian King Cyrus the Great in 546 BC.

Croesus was known for his great wealth and for issuing the first true gold coins with standardized purity for general circulation.

Faced with imminent war against Persia, King Croesus wanted to know which of the known seers and oracles of his time was the best. “He sent ambassadors to the most important oracles, ordering that on the 100th day of their departure from Sardis (the capital of Lydia), they should ask what he, Croesus, was doing on this exact date.

On the 100th day, the envoys entered the Oracle of Delphi to ask the King’s question, and the Pythia (the high priestess of the Temple) replied that “she can smell a hard-shelled tortoise being cooked in a bronze cauldron with lamb’s meat, and the cauldron is also covered with a bronze cover.”

The only correct one

That was exactly what King Croesus was doing at that time. He deliberately did something he did not usually do to test if the Oracle could really see what he was doing. Of all seers consulted by the messengers of the king, the Oracle of Delphi was the only correct one.

As a gesture of gratitude to the Oracle, King Croesus had 3,000 animals sacrificed as offerings, plus large amounts of minted gold and silver.

He also ordered his artists to make a copy of a lion out of pure gold and wine-mixing bowls of gold, and gave all these to the Oracle of Delphi.

So, when King Croesus was faced with the decision whether to invade Persia or seek alliance with it, he asked the Oracle of Delphi what would happen if he invaded Persia. The Oracle replied, “If Croesus attacked Persia, he would destroy a great empire.”

He lost. He failed to ask the Oracle which empire would be destroyed.

There is one great lesson we can learn from this story. King Croesus applied the wrong test to what he wanted to ask the Oracle of Delphi. He tested the various oracles for remote viewing or traveling clairvoyance when he asked them what he was doing on a certain day without having to be there. But what he actually asked the Oracle was to predict the future, which is precognition.

The Oracle of Delphi was very accurate and specific in remote viewing (clairvoyance), but was vague at precognition or predicting the future. This is one of the pitfalls of consulting fortune tellers or psychics. You can seldom get a concrete or definite answer. At best, they are vague generalizations.

Remote viewing is the ability to project one’s consciousness or awareness to a distant place and describe it accurately. It was first secretly studied at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California, in the 1970s and secretly funded by US government agencies, including the CIA, Nasa and the Defense Department. It was code-named Stargate Project, and was terminated and declassified in 1990.

Today, remote viewing is taught to some military intelligence agencies. It can be done by almost everybody with outstanding results, given some training.

Remote viewing is also an excellent method or exercise for developing one’s intuitive faculties.

The next Soulmates, Karma and Reincarnation Seminar will be held April 27, 1-7 p.m., in Makati. E-mail [email protected]; tel. 8107245,
0998-9886292.