Pythia
(Gr.). Modern dictionaries inform us that the term means one who delivered the oracles at the temple of Delphi, and “any female supposed to have the spirit of divination in her—a witch.” (WD) This is neither true, just nor correct. On the authority of Iamblichus, Plutarch and others, a Pythia was a priestess chosen among the sensitives of the poorer classes, and placed in a temple where oracular powers were exercised. There she had a room secluded from all but the chief Hierophant and Seer, and once admitted was, like a nun, lost to the world. Sitting on a tripod of brass placed over a fissure in the ground, through which arose intoxicating vapours, these subterranean exhalations, penetrating her whole system, produced the prophetic mania, in which abnormal state she delivered oracles. (TG)
The approaching time must put at the disposal of every sensitive spirit the tripod of Pythia. (LMG II, p 46)
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