Roman augury, which entailed inspecting the entrails of a slaughtered animal, always struck me as an inexplicably disgusting way of forecasting major events. But on thinking it over, I’m beginning to see its merits.

Everybody, in every age, has wanted to know what’s going to happen. Not what is likely – i.e. what can rationally be inferred from one’s present knowledge, but what actually will happen.

Some people want to know so badly they resort to magic. Those brought up to yearn for a rational, evidence-based world scorn the use of magic – by which I mean trying to railroad the outcome by shadowy means. If they believe in God, or a higher power able to arbitrate in human affairs, they might resort to praying to their god for the outcome they yearn for. Which strikes me as trying to bribe the judge rather than twisting his or her arm.

Yet others, for whom I have more sympathy, wouldn’t even think of trying to bribe or extort the godhead, but do believe it is in their power to ask the said higher power to reveal what’s already been decided. The obvious choice is a priest in whatever tradition has the greatest following among the populace, especially if it is not a private matter but one affecting the general public, or an important section of it. If it’s about giving battle, then that section is the soldiery who are going to fight it.

The question on everybody’s lips will then be: are we going to win the battle? A yes-or-no answer will do.

For the Roman soldiery, that higher power was Jupiter, the Lord of Victories, and the most trusted method of divination was haruspicy, or the inspection of the entrails of a freshly slaughtered animal, typically the liver of a chicken.

I think the way we ought to judge the purpose and efficacy of this ritual is from the point-of-view of a rational pagan, not someone steeped in our cultural prejudices. Now if you’re a Catholic, say – not an inconsiderable proportion of the US population – whether or not you believe in the ritual is all-important. But if you’re a pagan, what you believe is your own business, based on your own individual experience. Out of solidarity with your family, your tribe or your nation, in the matter of public ritual you do what everyone else does. Observance is everything.

So the best oracle from the pagan point-of-view is one fulfilling the following conditions:

  • It is going to give a result that the soldiery will accept, because that will determine their appetite for the fight.
  • It is protected from the weather or other environmental influence, and is tamper-proof.
  • It is maximally contingent, or as we loosely say nowadays, truly random.

The first condition has been covered already. Like the Rule of Law, the overwhelming majority of the people affected must accept it.

The second condition stands to reason. Plenty of people will have a strong opinion about the advisability of giving battle. Footballers may be satisfied with the toss of a coin for kick-off, but they’re mostly confident of surviving the game. But soldiers have the motivation, the numbers and the resources to compromise the ritual by tricking or threatening the priest. The latter must plausibly demonstrate he has no way of faking the outcome. Now the priest might indeed have sole charge of the sacred chickens, but way back then there was no known way of making legible marks on the liver of a live chicken. There still isn’t.

The last condition is an interesting one. The ritual must be what a statistician would call a random process. But if we’re honest with ourselves, there’s no such thing. To guard against unknown dependencies, the best we can do is eliminate all known ways of skewing the outcome. The best source of randomness known to science is radioactive decay. But we’re fools if we suppose there’s nothing capable of influencing it.

What about all that dark matter/energy out there – all around us? It’s estimated to comprise 95% of the universe. What do we know about it? Virtually nothing. Can we be sure it’s minding its own business? Seems a bit rash to me.

If there exists an all-powerful God, or even a Lord of Victories like Jupiter, then surely He can determine the outcome of a haruspicy as readily as He can determine the outcome of the ensuing battle. If He is a personal God, then you can talk to Him (through his priest) and invite Him to synchronise the two events, if He hasn’t already got the matter in-hand. In recent times psychiatrists like Carl Jung, and even physicists like Wolfgang Pauli, have coined a word for it: synchronicity. Let’s not argue about the scientific validity of the term here. It’s also called Acausality – which looks as if it’s daring you to challenge it.

Now there was one way – and almost by definition the only way – for the haruspicy not to be predictive of victory, and that was for the haruspex to “do it wrong”. That was why several sacred chickens were on-hand, and why the ritual was carefully watched by the general, who could disallow the result without explanation and call for another chicken.

Generals were known to have worked through the entire flock! But what puzzles me is how it went when there was only one chicken left. Was the general compelled to accept the result? Or did he retain the option to sacrifice the haruspex?

The Romans didn’t invent the rite. They got it from the Etruscans, and were too smart to go tinkering with it. But what of today? Do we have a better oracle than the Romans had?

Judging by the conspicuous failure of the pundits to predict the outcome of the US Presidential Election of 2024, the answer is no. If the costly and divisive US election ritual is ever again to take place, Congress ought to seriously consider haruspicy. Not only to predict the result – thereby saving the $2 billion spent by the superpacs, to be spent – no, not on welfare, but on higher and thicker walls to repel immigrants. There’s a case for fortifying the Canadian border too, if only to keep the more valuable US citizens from fleeing north. Congress might consider replacing the election process itself, flawed and challengeable as it is, with a single haruspicy, which would be the logical next step. If a chicken doesn’t sound too grand, they could use a turkey. Why not wait three weeks or so, and instead of pardoning a turkey on Thanksgiving Day, the future of the nation could be laid upon its glistening liver.