“Predicting the present”—that is Michel Foucault’s brief (and puzzling) definition of prophecy. The lecture will open up some smaller chapters in the vast history of a divinatory practice that employs anticipated futures to better grasp the present day. With the emergence of prophets in the Axial Age, new ways of mastering reality appeared that may regain momentum today, in a historical situation where apocalyptic prospects haunt the collective imagination.
