How oracles received answers from the gods and how the Delphic Oracle worked

Oracle means an answer. Oracles foretold the future, while priests and soothsayers watched the course of the ceremonies and sacrifices, paying attention to the appearance and strength of the sacrificial fire and to the shape and colour of the entrails of the victim: from these it could be told whether the gods had accepted the offering, after which a question might be put. The god was to be consulted by way of a medium or Pythia, who inhaled narcotic vapours or, as at Argos, drank the blood of the victim. When it became evident that the spirit or deity had entered the body of the intermediary, the priest put his questions and received answers, which it fell to the questioner himself to interpret. The famous Oracle of Delphi stood on Mount Parnassus. A statue of Apollo wreathed in laurel was hidden in a secret sanctuary, the rocks around produced an echo, and poisonous fumes rose from the caves nearby. The Pythia sat on a golden tripod, breathing in the vapour from a cleft in the rock.