Prophecy is the science and art of foretelling probable future events and responses for individuals, groups or nations. Throughout history, individuals and groups such as the Oracles at Delphi, from all over the world have used their gift of insight to help guide leaders and their communities. Cultures which have contributed to prophecy include the American Indians, Mayans, Celts, Druids, Chinese, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Egyptians, Romans, Hebrews, Christians, Tibetans, Greeks and more.

Nature of Reality in Prophecy

To understand prophecy and the nature of reality from the mystic's point of view, let's use the analogy of viewing life in the future (or past), to watching a 21st century film. When you create a movie, you capture moments of time through a camera. When you watch a film, you see the film frame by frame, from the perspective of what you think is the beginning to the end. (In reality, film scenes are normally shot "out of sequence" and edited together to present the illusion of a linear sequence) From the everyday human perspective, life appears to occur in a linear sequence of events and responses, just like watching a film. From the mystic's viewpoint, the whole "film of life" is complete rather like a DVD or video, and can be experienced in a nonlinear order. What does that mean? Consider viewing life like a DVD where you can witness any sequence of events, forwards or backwards in time, and at any point of the "life movie" that you like.

In viewing the past, the seer can witness both the events and the responses, much like watching a full color movie. In viewing the future, the seer may witness events and possible future responses. Based on an individual's past responses, the seer can then determine the individual's possible future responses, and hopefully narrow down the most probable future response. This would be analogous to seeing numerous possible endings to a movie and then picking the most probable. There are a few seers/prophets who have attained a more advanced understanding of reality and themselves, and so can view the probable future responses and know the one definite response that will be chosen. The majority of these people would be considered enlightened mystics.

The Choice of Prophecy

In this sense watching the future, or the past, becomes more about your choice, and the topics you can choose to view are unlimited - just like the movies. Some seers such as everyday meduims and clairvoyants look at individual futures, others such as shaman concentrate on only those events that will affect their community, while others such as Nostradamus and Mother Shipton concentrate on events that will affect humanity throughout time.

How can one choose to see the future or the past? Many would say that mystics are 'chosen' rather than chose themselves, certainly some people seem to possess an inate ability to see the future, while others seem firmly anchored in the here and now. Consider watching television; to watch television you need the proper medium, ie a tv set, energy in the form of electricity, and tuning to the correct frequency - otherwise you simply see static. With prophecy, the person becomes the medium, their own bioelectric energy is the power supply, various meditative techniques then help attune the individual to the correct frequency.

Intent of Prophecy

Mystics such as Edgar Cayce have tried to give "signposts" of events throughout history as an offering to help alleviate fear and increase awareness of not only our future, but also our past. Unfortunately, people can get sidetracked by obsessing about the signposts instead of paying attention to the destination - your response.The future is only the future while we carry on, on the path we are travelling, by heeding the warnings of these signposts and changing out path we can affect our own destiny. Our responses create outcomes, which create circumstances. In the realm of prophecy, information is offered so we can change our outcome and circumstances by changing our response, both individually and en masse. By offering clues about possible future events and our possible responses, humanity could recognize the signs and become empowered rather than afraid. This enables people to prepare more efectively, choose different responses and thus change the immediate outcome, by doing that they create a chain reaction that in turn affects the ultimate outcome or at least the effect of the prophecy.

Specifically, if an event is immutable (definitely going to happen, though the timing may vary) then knowing about it in prophecy, we could simply prepare for it. Consider knowing that you're going to be tested in school. What is the amount of fear in taking an exam after studying for two weeks versus taking a pop quiz with no notice? How does your fear affect you and those around you - not only in the moment but over time? However, if an event is mutable (changeable, not necessarily going to happen), then we could change our response (less fear, more awareness) which in turn changes our outcome and circumstances. Consider that a friend tells you that a mountain road is slippery - black ice has formed which isn't readily visible. Normally you would whip around the mountain curves for the sheer fun of it. While driving on that road for your weekend getaway, you decide to slow down and because of that, you don't slide off the side of the mountain. Having an accident was a probability in this scenario, not a certainty, and your response changed the outcome and your circumstances.

Interpretation of Prophecy

Using the movie analogy once again, we can see how the interpretation of prophetic insights is determined by everyone's individual filters. Consider watching a movie with your friends. While you are app arently witness ing the same movie, your experience and interpretation of it could be quite different based on various factors - your past experience, social conditioning, unreleased trauma, lack of energy or awareness, your need to be right, etc. So while each mystic might be viewing the same information about the past or future, interpretations will vary. The more adept someone is at being able to remain in the "witness" state, not taking anything personally, not projecting meaning onto anything, the clearer the interpretation will be. Releasing any internal struggle and practicing techniques over time increases a seer's ability to accurately foresee.

History of Prophecy

From about 7,500 BCE up through the 20th century, mystery schools in Egypt and later, Greece were created; places where initiates could learn the art of prophecy. These schools created structured programs of manual labor and moral tests, to watch the initiate for many years, before gradully revealing practical divination techniques and life mysteries. This was partly to prepare the initiates by deconditioning them from limiting concepts, beliefs and feelings imposed on them from society and family, and partly to study the initiates to see what their true intentions were. If someone was found to be dishonest, greedy, or simply not ready to comply with the conditions established by that particular school, the initiate could not progress and had to return to normal society. An example of this would be that in an Egyptian mystery school, the initiate would walk through or have to work in various chambers containing promises of wealth, power, sexual pleasure - all the temptations that could be offered. Especially from 400CE to 1800CE, many of these mystery schools were forced to operate in secrecy to prevent their own destruction, and from information being spread to malicious hands such as the Romans and the newly founded Christan religion or  the Catholic church itself during the Inquisition.

Historical evidence of prophecy dates back to the Tibetans and societies in the Himalayan regions, where the monks told of future events. The Egyptian prophets were highly revered in their society as they helped the Pharoahs make decisions to deal with the daily activities of their people. Many Egyptian murals can still be found depicting these seers advising the Pharoahs. The Chaldean prophets and astrologers were so renowned that if a Chaldean person was found to be traveling outside of Chaldea, they were automatically thought to be able to prophesy and read the stars. People came from all over the world to consult the Greek Oracles - who used a variety of techniques that included sitting in hot springs caves, dancing, singing, and meditation. The Delphic seer in particular was known as the "eyes and ears of God". The Roman historian Pompeius Trogus declared that the Celts excelled at prophecy when reading from the Akashic Records and the stars. On his way to Rome, St. Malachy (Maelmaedhog au Morgair) fell into a trance and uttered prophecies about every pope from 1143CE to the end of the Catholic Church. The accuracy of it can still be verified today. Nostradamus, who studied Egyptian, Sufi, Kabbalistic, and Christian mysticism, predicted events that spanned over seven centuries. He not only told of individual futures, but spoke of nations, cultures and religions in surprising detail.

Prophecy has been eagerly sought in many cultures; magical spells and folk charms to produce prophecy are common. Some forms of astrology can also be regarded as a quasi-scientific form of prophecy.

Prophecy in Religion

In many religions, God,or the gods, or other supernatural agencies are thought to sometimes provide prophecies to certain individuals, known as prophets. The Old Testament of the Bible contains prophecies from various Hebrew prophets who foretold of their people's trials and tribulations in detail. The Book of Revelation, in the New Testament, is accepted by many Christians as a prophecy related by its author John of the events of the end times and of Armageddon (the "End of the World"). Christians have long held that Jesus fulfilled many prophecies of the Old Testament, thus proving Jesus is the messiah. Jesus' ability to tell the Samaritan woman at the well all about her life, or to tell the apostles not only what their individual futures would look like, but what the world would experience in the future, is an example of prophecy. Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, had a spiritual awakening in a cave, and from that point on spoke about teachings that came from the one God - Allah.