SUMMARIES
Kazimiera Mikoś
BASQUE NAMES FOR THE DAYS OF THE WEEK;
CONTROVERSIES AROUND THE GENESIS OF WORDS: ASTELEHEN, ASTEARTE,
ASTEAZKEN AND EGUAZTEN
Names for the days of the week can be very helpful in religious studies analysis. Comparative linguists were able to explain the Indo-European names of weekdays, except in a few cases, in a satisfactory manner. It is otherwise with the Basque vocabulary.
Intensive research has not yielded results proportionate to efforts, mainly due to the specific characteristics of the Basque language and the nature of the sources. Some of the Basque borrowings of weekdays, or at least those composed under foreign influence, are easy to recognize. Other quite numerous origins still pose a research problem, without a good prognosis for a satisfactory solution. The present paper, apart from providing a brief summary of current research on the issue, proposes to examine this problem from a perspective that has so far not been sufficiently taken into account.
The author focuses on such name days as Monday, Tuesday and (two) Wednesdays: astelehen, astearte, asteazken and eguazten. These names, translated as “first in the week”, “middle in the week”, “the last in the week” and “the last day”, gave rise to the belief that the original week of the Basques consisted of three days. At the end, however, the concept of Basque’s three-day week was abandoned, and the weekday names were considered unexplained.
According to the author of this paper, who undertook further efforts to clarify this problem, the weekday names, are in fact astrological or planetary. Moreover, they contain a rule according to which the planetary weekday names were created and aligned in an array. In this respect they are a rarity that requires special scientific attention.
Bożena Gierek
THE DRUIDIC DIVINATION SKILLS
Celtic culture remains inspiring for many people of various backgrounds and interests; druids especially, however, seem to attract much attention. They were learned women and men belonging to the caste called aes dana. They were at the centre of society, holding the highest position in it. Everyone sought their advice, including kings and chiefs. It is said that none of the kings would have been so bold as to speak first, before the chief druid did. The druids were highly skilled in every art. They possessed a quite sophisticated art of divination.
The author of the article presents the divination skills of the druidical groups, based mainly on written sources, both classical and native (Irish and Welsh). The article starts with an introduction into the “druidical groups”, explaining the differences between druids and
other groups very closely linked with them. Further, quotations from ancient writers related to druids are included. Special attention is given to female druids – druidesses. The name druid was a subject of intense study; hence there have been various attempts to give its interpretation. The author of the article brings those together here. The same concerns the word vates (filid), which stands for the group of the learned men, who, although they were not as high in the social ranks as druids, also enjoyed a high status and privileges.
The skill of divination was closely linked with the skills of composing poetry, which is presented in the second part of the article, comprising a description of the skills of a poet. Finally, the author describes various ways of divination, giving appropriate examples from Irish and Welsh literature. Some examples of certain divinations taken from Irish literature andancientwritten sources arepresented to give an idea aboutthenature ofdruids’divination skills.
Anna Radziwiłł
THE ORACLE AT DODONA
Dodona is considered to be the oldest oracle in the territory of Greece and it was regarded by the ancient Greeks as having a Pelasgian origin. However, its traces had been lost in modern times and for a long period the exact location of the sanctuary was not known to archeologists and other scholars. Thus the paper recalls the history of its finding and then of attempts to investigate the kinds of oracular techniques used in Dodona.
Another problem dealt with in the paper is the character of the gods venerated at Dodona along with the ever-returning question of the Pelasgians and their role in the history of the Greek religion.
Marcin Kaleta
ONEIROMANCY AND PREDICTION
OF THE FUTURE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
The tradition of the fortune-telling dates back to ancient times. In some civilizations, like those of Greece and Rome, augury became a permanent element of religion. Reading dreams or oneiromancy was one of the kinds of augury most often practiced. Not only were entire temples devoted solely to divination of dreams, but there was also a special class of fortune-telling people who specialized in reading dreams. Asclepius was regarded as the god responsible for sending divine dreams, and people swarmed his sanctuaries in order to know the future or to find a cure for their illness. Oneiromancy, however, existed beyond religion, and was also somehow connected to magic. There are some magic papyri with spells for sending dream visions and containing knowledge about the future events. Examples of such spells were presented in this paper.
Dorota Brylla
ON THE DEPRECIATION OF THE TERM KABBALAH
This article deals with the issue of Kabbalah and the problem of its depreciation. Kabbalah is popularly defined as being: a) a fortune-telling, a cartomancy, a divination; b) a kind of occultism, magic, and a New Age pop culture phenomenon; c) a modern quick and easy way to attain personal enlightenment. Yet, from an academic and scientific point of view, Kabbalah is the mystical, esoteric trend in Judaism, which originated in the twelfth century. In a broader sense the concept of Kabbalah designates the totality of Jewish mystical ideas concerning God and the spiritual dimension of humans and the world. The situation of confusion about the term Kabbalah – which is incidentally a Hebrew word – has in all likelihood resulted (the present text assumes) from the fact that the history of Jewish mysticism abounds with esoteric, theurgist, magical, astrological, numerological and folkloristic, not infrequently even superstitious, views and conceptions. The successive systems of thought referring to the Jewish Kabbalah, which for their part identified their tradition with magic, astrology, tarot and divination, were the Christian Cabala and the Hermetic (Occult) Qabala(h), and they ware based on both microcosm–macrocosm parallelism.
Dorota Barańska
BLOOD TYPES IN EAST ASIA – BETWEEN SCIENCE AND DIVINATION
In 1900 the Austrian biologist and medical doctor Karl Landsteiner discovered blood types. The discovery turned out not only to be a very important life saver, but in East Asia it become something more than a purely medical issue. In 1927 the psychology professor Furukawa Takeji claimed that he had discovered the relationship between blood type and personality. Type A was supposed to be more intellectual and quiet and Type B the opposite. In the 1970s Nomi Masahiko and his son Nomi Toshitaka continued Furukawa’s research. Ketsueki-gata (blood type) became more and more popular, but at a certain point it has been used for discriminatory purposes. Many Japanese and Korean professors protested against discrimination; writing articles on blood types from the biological point of view, they held that the blood type is determined by parents’ proteins and has nothing to do with personality. Also the Japanese Ministry of Health protested against checking blood type during job interviews.
The blood type stereotype is very common in popular culture. The information about blood type is widely shared by music, sports, and film stars, and even by politicians. Not only do the real people have blood types – the manga, anime Japanese cartoon characters, have them also. However, it is still hard to determinate if the blood type issue is a social problem, an economic opportunity, merely fun, or perhaps something in between.
Kazimiera Mikoś
SCIENCE AND ITS POPULARIZERS IN VIEW OF 2012 PHENOMENON
The paper is not so much concerned with the so-called 2012 phenomenon, on which there is already a significant literature, but with the stance of science towards this phenomenon. The author states that the outlook of science on this topic has changed in recent years. Initially, after some irritation and mockery, and at best ignoring of the pseudo-scientific reasoning about the beliefs of the Mayan people that on December 21, 2012, doomsday will occur, scientists began to explain what the Mayan people and their descendants said on this matter.
The author agrees with the opinion that such great popularity of the “2012 phenomenon” is an excellent occasion to convey scientific knowledge about the Mayan civilization to a large number of recipients. It is up to the individual, whether one accepts a scientific or pseudoscientific explanation of the Mayan civilization. To have a choice is most important. Yet, in the avalanche of pseudo-scientific literature, despite the above-mentioned changes, good high-quality popular science books are rare.
Translated and subedited by Stanisław A. Wargacki
Kazimiera Mikoś
BASQUE NAMES FOR THE DAYS OF THE WEEK;
CONTROVERSIES AROUND THE GENESIS OF WORDS: ASTELEHEN, ASTEARTE,
ASTEAZKEN AND EGUAZTEN
Names for the days of the week can be very helpful in religious studies analysis. Comparative linguists were able to explain the Indo-European names of weekdays, except in a few cases, in a satisfactory manner. It is otherwise with the Basque vocabulary.
Intensive research has not yielded results proportionate to efforts, mainly due to the specific characteristics of the Basque language and the nature of the sources. Some of the Basque borrowings of weekdays, or at least those composed under foreign influence, are easy to recognize. Other quite numerous origins still pose a research problem, without a good prognosis for a satisfactory solution. The present paper, apart from providing a brief summary of current research on the issue, proposes to examine this problem from a perspective that has so far not been sufficiently taken into account.
The author focuses on such name days as Monday, Tuesday and (two) Wednesdays: astelehen, astearte, asteazken and eguazten. These names, translated as “first in the week”, “middle in the week”, “the last in the week” and “the last day”, gave rise to the belief that the original week of the Basques consisted of three days. At the end, however, the concept of Basque’s three-day week was abandoned, and the weekday names were considered unexplained.
According to the author of this paper, who undertook further efforts to clarify this problem, the weekday names, are in fact astrological or planetary. Moreover, they contain a rule according to which the planetary weekday names were created and aligned in an array. In this respect they are a rarity that requires special scientific attention.
Bożena Gierek
THE DRUIDIC DIVINATION SKILLS
Celtic culture remains inspiring for many people of various backgrounds and interests; druids especially, however, seem to attract much attention. They were learned women and men belonging to the caste called aes dana. They were at the centre of society, holding the highest position in it. Everyone sought their advice, including kings and chiefs. It is said that none of the kings would have been so bold as to speak first, before the chief druid did. The druids were highly skilled in every art. They possessed a quite sophisticated art of divination.
The author of the article presents the divination skills of the druidical groups, based mainly on written sources, both classical and native (Irish and Welsh). The article starts with an introduction into the “druidical groups”, explaining the differences between druids and
other groups very closely linked with them. Further, quotations from ancient writers related to druids are included. Special attention is given to female druids – druidesses. The name druid was a subject of intense study; hence there have been various attempts to give its interpretation. The author of the article brings those together here. The same concerns the word vates (filid), which stands for the group of the learned men, who, although they were not as high in the social ranks as druids, also enjoyed a high status and privileges.
The skill of divination was closely linked with the skills of composing poetry, which is presented in the second part of the article, comprising a description of the skills of a poet. Finally, the author describes various ways of divination, giving appropriate examples from Irish and Welsh literature. Some examples of certain divinations taken from Irish literature andancientwritten sources arepresented to give an idea aboutthenature ofdruids’divination skills.
Anna Radziwiłł
THE ORACLE AT DODONA
Dodona is considered to be the oldest oracle in the territory of Greece and it was regarded by the ancient Greeks as having a Pelasgian origin. However, its traces had been lost in modern times and for a long period the exact location of the sanctuary was not known to archeologists and other scholars. Thus the paper recalls the history of its finding and then of attempts to investigate the kinds of oracular techniques used in Dodona.
Another problem dealt with in the paper is the character of the gods venerated at Dodona along with the ever-returning question of the Pelasgians and their role in the history of the Greek religion.
Marcin Kaleta
ONEIROMANCY AND PREDICTION
OF THE FUTURE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
The tradition of the fortune-telling dates back to ancient times. In some civilizations, like those of Greece and Rome, augury became a permanent element of religion. Reading dreams or oneiromancy was one of the kinds of augury most often practiced. Not only were entire temples devoted solely to divination of dreams, but there was also a special class of fortune-telling people who specialized in reading dreams. Asclepius was regarded as the god responsible for sending divine dreams, and people swarmed his sanctuaries in order to know the future or to find a cure for their illness. Oneiromancy, however, existed beyond religion, and was also somehow connected to magic. There are some magic papyri with spells for sending dream visions and containing knowledge about the future events. Examples of such spells were presented in this paper.
Dorota Brylla
ON THE DEPRECIATION OF THE TERM KABBALAH
This article deals with the issue of Kabbalah and the problem of its depreciation. Kabbalah is popularly defined as being: a) a fortune-telling, a cartomancy, a divination; b) a kind of occultism, magic, and a New Age pop culture phenomenon; c) a modern quick and easy way to attain personal enlightenment. Yet, from an academic and scientific point of view, Kabbalah is the mystical, esoteric trend in Judaism, which originated in the twelfth century. In a broader sense the concept of Kabbalah designates the totality of Jewish mystical ideas concerning God and the spiritual dimension of humans and the world. The situation of confusion about the term Kabbalah – which is incidentally a Hebrew word – has in all likelihood resulted (the present text assumes) from the fact that the history of Jewish mysticism abounds with esoteric, theurgist, magical, astrological, numerological and folkloristic, not infrequently even superstitious, views and conceptions. The successive systems of thought referring to the Jewish Kabbalah, which for their part identified their tradition with magic, astrology, tarot and divination, were the Christian Cabala and the Hermetic (Occult) Qabala(h), and they ware based on both microcosm–macrocosm parallelism.
Dorota Barańska
BLOOD TYPES IN EAST ASIA – BETWEEN SCIENCE AND DIVINATION
In 1900 the Austrian biologist and medical doctor Karl Landsteiner discovered blood types. The discovery turned out not only to be a very important life saver, but in East Asia it become something more than a purely medical issue. In 1927 the psychology professor Furukawa Takeji claimed that he had discovered the relationship between blood type and personality. Type A was supposed to be more intellectual and quiet and Type B the opposite. In the 1970s Nomi Masahiko and his son Nomi Toshitaka continued Furukawa’s research. Ketsueki-gata (blood type) became more and more popular, but at a certain point it has been used for discriminatory purposes. Many Japanese and Korean professors protested against discrimination; writing articles on blood types from the biological point of view, they held that the blood type is determined by parents’ proteins and has nothing to do with personality. Also the Japanese Ministry of Health protested against checking blood type during job interviews.
The blood type stereotype is very common in popular culture. The information about blood type is widely shared by music, sports, and film stars, and even by politicians. Not only do the real people have blood types – the manga, anime Japanese cartoon characters, have them also. However, it is still hard to determinate if the blood type issue is a social problem, an economic opportunity, merely fun, or perhaps something in between.
Kazimiera Mikoś
SCIENCE AND ITS POPULARIZERS IN VIEW OF 2012 PHENOMENON
The paper is not so much concerned with the so-called 2012 phenomenon, on which there is already a significant literature, but with the stance of science towards this phenomenon. The author states that the outlook of science on this topic has changed in recent years. Initially, after some irritation and mockery, and at best ignoring of the pseudo-scientific reasoning about the beliefs of the Mayan people that on December 21, 2012, doomsday will occur, scientists began to explain what the Mayan people and their descendants said on this matter.
The author agrees with the opinion that such great popularity of the “2012 phenomenon” is an excellent occasion to convey scientific knowledge about the Mayan civilization to a large number of recipients. It is up to the individual, whether one accepts a scientific or pseudoscientific explanation of the Mayan civilization. To have a choice is most important. Yet, in the avalanche of pseudo-scientific literature, despite the above-mentioned changes, good high-quality popular science books are rare.
Translated and subedited by Stanisław A. Wargacki
