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Some forms of divination are much older than the Middle Ages, like haruspication, while others such as coffee-based tasseomancy originated in the 20th and 21st centuries. The chapter "How Panurge consulteth with Herr Trippa" of Gargantua and Pantagruel , a parody on occult treatises of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa , contains a list of over two ...
Aspidomancy (from the Greek word aspis meaning shield) [1] is a form of divination based on the interpretation of patterns on a shield. Reading the patterns is believed to give some insight into the future. Readers study the shield, looking for a pattern that may represent symbols or pictures.
Greek divination is the divination practiced by ancient Greek culture as it is known from ancient Greek literature, supplemented by epigraphic and pictorial evidence. Divination is a traditional set of methods of consulting divinity to obtain prophecies (theopropia) about specific circumstances defined beforehand.
If a distinction is made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a more formal or ritualistic element and often contains a more social character, [citation needed] usually in a religious context, as seen in traditional African medicine. Fortune-telling, on the other hand, is a more everyday practice for personal purposes.
Ultimately, the meaning of the visions is up to the individual practitioner to decide. Catoptromancy continues to be practiced today, although it is not as widespread as it once was. There are a number of websites and books that offer instructions on how to perform catoptromancy, and there are even some practitioners who offer professional ...
The first recorded mention of tyromancy is believed to be in Oneirocritica, a 2nd-century AD treatise on dream interpretation by Greek diviner Artemidorus of Daldis. [1] [2] He claimed it to be one of the most unreliable forms of divination, writing that "the truth is spoken by sacrificers and bird-diviners and astrologers and observers of wonders and dream diviners and liver-examiners alone".
For the king of Babylon standeth at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination; he shaketh the arrows to and fro, he inquireth of the teraphim, he looketh in the liver. [1] [2] One Babylonian clay model of a sheep's liver, dated between 1900 and 1600 BC, is conserved in the British Museum. [3]
This method of divination is one of the few which may have occurred sporadically, or independently in different places, as there is so much in a ringing, vibrating sound which resembles a voice. The custom is very ancient and almost universal; so Joseph (Genesis 44:5) says ("Vulgate"), "Scyphus quam furati estis, ipse est, in quo bibit Dominus ...