We are pleased to be able to present the first issue of this journal on prognostication and divination. Its birth can be traced back to the establishment of the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities “Fate, Freedom, and Prognostication” in 2009. From its very beginning, the Consortium has aimed at exploring traditional ways of predicting the future, with the initial emphasis on China and the European Middle Ages. In its further development, other civilizations (e.g., India, Africa, Japan, Tibet, European Antiquity) were increasingly taken into account.

In accordance with its mission, the Consortium has encouraged research on predictive practices as well as on the world-views and cultures in which these practices were embedded. A close relationship to the history of science and philosophy has been one of the characteristics of its research.

So far, more than 150 visiting scholars have contributed to this endeavor. In 2015, the International Society for the Critical Study of Divination was established, and the present journal is the result of our combined efforts, which have turned a hitherto marginal field of studies into a major area of research.

The first issue of our journal reflects this multidisciplinary, transepochal, and transcontinental approach by inquiring into commonalities and differences, family resemblances, comparison, and histories of encounter of practices related to divination and prognostication.

We are very grateful to the Consortium and its members for their support and help in finding authors and improving the quality of the articles. It is to be hoped that the International Journal of Divination and Prognostication will provide momentum for future research.

Michael Lackner

Charles Burnett