Divination and Performative Accountability: Co-Producing Prophetic Authority in the Western Himalayas

This paper examines how prophetic authority is formed, interpreted, and sustained within divinatory practices in the Western Himalayas. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research, it analyzes annual encounters in which village deities speak through human mediums to deliver forecasts, moral evaluations, and ritual instructions. Rather than treating divination as a mechanism for resolving uncertainty, the paper argues that prophetic authority emerges through a relational process in which divine statements are questioned, negotiated, and adapted by their audiences. This interactive dynamic, described as performative accountability, shows how authority depends on responsiveness and evaluation rather than inherent divine status. The paper also explores how shifting descriptions of the celestial realm, local disagreements over predictions, and the availability of digital and meteorological alternatives shape responses to prophetic speech. Together, these practices demonstrate how doubt, interpretation, and ritual engagement sustain divine authority across cycles of divination.