The traditional Chinese audience often interpreted Tang poetry as magical discourse: the product of divine inspiration. The audience considered certain poetic utterances to be magical, serving as communications between the observable human universe and the sphere of the marvelous, providing for otherwise unknowable revelations concerning the nature of the human sphere. Specifically, the audience believed poetic expression to be the vehicle for several types of magical communication, usually originating in the spirit world. The readers also believed that spirits used poetry to communicate with the living, often to insinuate truths they were not permitted to reveal directly. The poems could also be predictions of personal relevance to the writer. Finally, there were verse prophecies of national significance whose magical nature even the dynastic histories accept.