Excerpt from Prophecy by Carissa Véliz, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Excerpt
Prophecy

Divination is not just good for business; it's a good business in itself. Prophets are merchants of prediction. The Delphic Oracle sat on Mount Parnassus, on the northern coast of the Gulf of Corinth, around ninety miles northwest of Athens, near the port of Crisa. We first hear about the Oracle in the Odyssey, although Plutarch, who served as a priest at the sanctuary, is a more informative source.

To get to the Oracle, you had to ascend the Sacred Way to Apollo's temple, your sandaled feet treading worn limestone steps that countless pilgrims had climbed before you. The mountain air grows thinner and sweeter as you rise, carrying the smoked scent of burning laurel leaves and the earthy perfume of wild thyme that grows between the cracks of the ancient stones.

Below are the twin cliffs of the Phaedriades tower, like guardian giants, their red-gold faces catching the morning sun. The sound of trickling water from the Castalian Spring, where you stopped to wash yourself and quench your thirst, mingles with the notes of someone singing Homeric verses in the distance, accompanied by a lyre. As you approach the temple, you pass between rows of magnificent votive offerings-gold-rimmed tripods on which oracles sit to pronounce the future, marble maidens, and bronze warriors gleam in the dappled sunlight filtered through cypresses and olive trees.

The temple's massive columns rise before you, their surfaces still bearing traces of vibrant paint-blues, reds, and golds. Inside, it is dark and cool. The air grows heavy with the smoke of incense and the sweet metallic tang that rises from a deep fissure in the earth below; it's the breath of Python, they say, slain here by Apollo himself Those who inhale the fumes feel intoxicated. Centuries later, the chemist Jeffrey Chanton will find traces of ethylene in the earth's chasm that could have been the cause of altered states of consciousness, which fits with Plutarch reporting a sweet smell.

Your heart quickens as you approach the inner chamber where the Pythia, the priestess, dressed in a white robe, sits upon her bronze tripod, wreathed in sacred vapors. Originally, the Pythia was a young virgin girl from a respectable family. But after one Echecrates the Thessalian raped one of these young girls, the Delphians decided that the Pythia would be an elderly woman who was bound to celibacy during her service. The old woman's eyes are wild and distant, seeing beyond the veil of ordinary reality. Your palms sweat as you wait for the words that will echo with double and triple meanings, prophecies that will haunt you long after you descend from Apollo's mountain.

The Oracle was not only an experience to remember. First and foremost, it was a commercial enterprise. In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, the god promised the priests of his new Delphic cult that if they built an oracle, they would never again want for food or comfort. A successful oracle put a place on the map and fed its people.

Each visitor to Delphi had to provide a sheep for sacrifice before consulting the god, from which priests could choose a cut of meat. Early Delphic priests had a reputation for snatching the best cuts before anyone else stood a chance. The skin of the sheep was then sold to tanners for a handsome price.

Consulting the Oracle was a lengthy process. The priestess worked only during days in which Apollo was believed to be present at Delphi to channel his wisdom to the Pythia. There were preliminary purification rituals to go through, as well as sacrifices. The queue could be long, and it could be made longer by a high dignitary cutting in. It could take days or weeks to get a response, which was convenient for local hotels and taverns in charge of housing and feeding the visitors. Entertainment grew around oracles. Much as going to Niagara Falls might surprise the visitor who was expecting a natural oasis and finds something closer to an amusement park, places like Delphi and Dodona, the oldest Hellenic oracle, weren't quite the tranquil spiritual havens that the naive might imagine.

Excerpted from PROPHECY: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI by Carissa Véliz. Reprinted by Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2025 by Carissa Véliz.