The art of predicting the future and finding the lost by a host of techniques. Divination has existed in all civilisations throughout history. The responsibility for divination customarily falls to a pries, prophet, oracle, witch, shaman, medicine man, psychic, or other person reputed to have supernatural powers. All divination is an attempt to communicate with the divine or supernatural in order to learn the will of the gods. A skilled diviner also employs a keen sense of intuition and an innate understanding of human psychology. A typical divination consists of advice as well as prediction.

All cultures employ divinatory methods that consist of interpreting artificial signs. The most common involve sortilege, or the casting of stones, bones, and other objects, which yield answers from the patterns of their fall. Two popular divination methods, Tarot cards and the I Ching, are of this type. In the East divination is more an accepted part of daily life than it is in the West. In Western society divination has been associated with sorcery, but despite disapproval from the church and the scientific community, and the many laws against fortune-telling, divination has never been eradicated.