What is the relationship between ancient divination and Chinese characters?

In the early days when Chinese characters appeared, social productive forces were not developed, and people's understanding of nature was still very poor. Many natural phenomena are difficult to understand and explain. At that time, people believed that there was an incomparable power that could control everything in the world. This is the so-called god ?

? People hope to communicate with God and understand his will, so as to predict the future under the guidance of God and avoid the occurrence of evil events. The way to communicate with God is divination. In this case, Chinese characters appeared and changed with the development of society. Chinese characters are naturally related to divination.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the earliest existing Chinese character, which is mainly used to record the divination activities in Shang Dynasty. The configuration of Chinese characters such as "Bu", "Zhao" and "Zhan" is directly similar to the tortoise shell divination method at that time. "Bu" is the image of cracks in turtle shell baking, and different styles represent different gods' wishes.

The article "White Tiger Tonggui Gui" records that "Gui is a long story" and "Bu Guiyue". The ancients believed that Bout used tortoise shells to represent divination. Because the tortoise is a long-lived thing, it can predict what will happen soon. According to the crack of tortoise shell obtained by divination, the fortune teller interprets it as the guidance of God. Later, officials in charge of divination were called "fortune tellers". Homophonic simplification is adopted in simplified Chinese characters, and "Bu" representing "radish" is merged into "Bu".

Whether the moral at that time was simple or complex, it must be carefully analyzed and understood by the fortune teller. Then express it in words or words. This process is called "occupation". The word "Zhan" is spoken, which means that the meaning contained in divination should be spoken.