The term ‘omen’ occupies a significant, if structurally dispersed, position across the depth-psychology corpus, appearing most densely at the intersection of archaic Greek religious practice, bicameral consciousness theory, and the psychology of divine communication. The corpus reveals no single unified theory of omen but rather a constellation of positions. Jaynes treats omens—celestial, oneiric, and divinatory—as historically diagnostic: they are the compensatory apparatus of a consciousness recently severed from its bicameral gods, a civilization learning to read the silence of heaven. Benveniste grounds omen-adjacent terminology (phēmē, sēma, teras, monstrum) in the Indo-European semantics of portent and divine speech, showing how the ‘voice of the people’ and the thunderclap both function as equivalent manifestations of divine will. Padel situates the Greek oionos—the bird-omen—within the broader ecology of animal symbolism and prophetic interpretation, noting that birds incarnate what lies beyond human grasp. López-Pedraza, reading the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, develops a distinctly archetypal-psychological argument: Hermetic omens are bodily, comic, and deliberately anti-Apollonian, challenging the oracular gravity of Delphi with flatulence and a sneeze. Across these positions, a productive tension emerges between omen as rational instrument of divination and omen as eruptive, somatic, or unconscious signal—a tension that mirrors depth psychology’s own ambivalence about the irrational.
Hermes is expressing the omens that belong to his psychology. Perhaps he was teaching Apollo, well-known for his omens, another kind of omen so that Apollo would respect him.
López-Pedraza argues that Hermetic omens are corporeal and disruptive by nature, constituting a psychologically distinct mode of omen-making that challenges and confounds the rational, oracular Apollonian variety.
, Hermes and His Children, 1977thesis
“Bird omen,” oionos, is a general word for “omen.” “You call every kind of omen a bird,” chants Aristophanes’ bird-chorus. The birds in this play go on strike, cutting communication between human beings and gods.
Padel establishes that the Greek oionos conflates bird and omen into a single term, situating all divination within the fragile ecology of human-divine communication and the animal as conduit of sacred meaning.
, In and Out of the Mind Greek Images of the Tragic Self, 1994thesis
Dream omens became (as they still are) a major source of divination. Particularly in the late Assyrian period during the first millennium B.C., dream omens were collected into dream books.
Jaynes reads the proliferation of omen systems—celestial, oneiric, divinatory—as a civilizational response to the collapse of bicameral consciousness, with omens filling the void left by silent gods.
, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, 1976thesis
Odysseus expects the phēmē as an utterance of divine character, as a manifestation of the will of Zeus, equivalent to a sign; and in fact, a woman is the first, while a thunder clap is heard, to utter a phēmē and this phēmē is a sēma, a portent for Odysseus.
Benveniste demonstrates through Homeric philology that the spoken phēmē and the celestial sign are functionally equivalent omen-forms, both expressing divine intention and carrying the force of a portent.
, Indo European Language and Society, 1973thesis
let someone inside speak in words of omen, and Zeus, display another sign outside. Zeus, Lord of Cunning, heard him, and he thundered from bright Olympus.
The Odyssey presents omen as a paired phenomenon—verbal speech and natural sign operating simultaneously—confirming that divine communication requires multiple channels for human validation.
, The Odyssey, 2017supporting
while Apollo held him in his hands, sent forth an omen, a hard-worked belly-serf, a rude messenger, and sneezed directly after. And when Apollo heard it, he dropped glorious Hermes out of his hands on the ground.
The Homeric Hymn to Hermes provides the primary textual basis for López-Pedraza’s reading of the Hermetic omen as a somatic, transgressive act that undoes Apollonian composure.
, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, -700supporting
OiWVOC; [m.] ‘bird of prey, observed by the soothsayer’ (11.), ‘prognosticating bird, omen’ (11., also in prose).
Beekes traces the etymology of oiōnos from a Proto-Indo-European root for ‘bird,’ establishing that the Greek word for omen is inseparable from the observation of birds as vehicles of prophetic meaning.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010supporting
the plain man knew a little about omens and, merely seeing his shaft miss its mark or the enemy prevailing, concluded that Zeus had assigned defeat to himself and his comrades.
Onians situates omen-reading within Homeric fatalism, showing that the ordinary warrior interprets chance occurrences as divine communications that confirm a pre-ordained portion.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
OIcel. heil means ‘good omen’; similar is OE hael ‘good omen, happiness, omen’; and the derived verb in Icelandic is heilsa ‘salute, wish good health.’
Benveniste reveals that the Germanic semantic field linking health, wholeness, and holiness passed through the intermediate concept of ‘good omen,’ indicating the omen’s deep connection to ideas of sacred integrity.
, Indo European Language and Society, 1973supporting
monstrum denotes ‘something which is out of the ordinary’ and sometimes ‘something hideous, which violates in a repulsive way the order of nature, a monster.’
Benveniste’s analysis of monstrum as a derivative of moneo locates the Latin omen-concept within a vocabulary of divine warning, where the portentous is that which violates natural order as a signal from the gods.
, Indo European Language and Society, 1973supporting
neither yourself be a bird of bad omen in my palace. You will not persuade me.
Priam’s dismissal of Hecuba as a ‘bird of bad omen’ illustrates the colloquial extension of omen vocabulary into interpersonal speech, where the term marks speech deemed inauspicious or ill-willed.
, The Iliad of Homer, 2011supporting
the magical birds make the weather before they portend it.
Harrison distinguishes the magical from the merely predictive function of bird-omens, arguing that in archaic Greek religion the bird does not merely foreshadow events but participates in their causation.
, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912supporting
their immediate reference is to be the ill omen of fabricating one’s own death, an omen Or. is prepared to risk.
Cairns notes in passing that Orestes acknowledges the ill-omened character of feigning his own death, treating the omen here as a moral-religious category that qualified ethical agents must consciously weigh.
, Aidos: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature, 1993aside
oaaa, ij ‘a rumour… ominous voice or sound, prophecy, warning…’ LSJ adduce no example from tragedy.
Renehan’s lexicographical note extends the semantic range of omen-adjacent Greek terminology by identifying ossa as a rare term for ominous sound, expanding the field of divination vocabulary.
, Greek lexicographical notes A critical supplement to theaside