In religion, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or preternatural knowledge, for example of future events. They can be revealed to the prophet in various ways depending on the religion and the story, such as visions, divination, or direct interaction with divine beings in physical form. Stories of prophetic deeds sometimes receive considerable attention and some have been known to survive for centuries through oral tradition or as religious texts.
16th century woodcut of a soothsayer delivering a prophecy to a king, deriving it from stars, fishes, and noises from the mountains
David and Saul, detail from an 1878 oil painting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
The revolution of 1831. As prophesied by that learned astrologer General Ikey Wether-Bridge
Religion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements—although there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacredness, faith, and a supernatural being or beings.
The Buddha, Laozi, and Confucius – founders of Buddhism, Taoism (Daoism) and Confucianism – in a Ming dynasty painting
Budazhap Shiretorov (Будажап Цыреторов), the head shaman of the religious community Altan Serge (Алтан Сэргэ) in Buryatia
A manuscript depicting the climactic Kurukshetra War in Hindu epic Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is the longest epic poem known and a key source of Hindu mythology.
The Yazılıkaya sanctuary in Turkey, with the twelve gods of the underworld
