A moonlight shadow by W.Carter on a jetty at Holma Boat Club by Gullmarn fjord, Lysekil Municipality, Sweden – public domain image Wikipedia article “Shadow”

(12) SCIOMANCY

“And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you”

Literally a divination from or of shadows, although Wikipedia’s list of methods of divination also includes it as divination by spirits, presumably along the lines of the usage of shades for spirits or ghosts in the underworld, a meaning in use even today although it originates from usage in classical Greece and Rome.

Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn’t elaborate on either in terms of method of divination, linking sciomancy to an article on theurgy. I’d like to imagine it involving oracles as some form of literal shadow play or shadows cast on a wall, perhaps even originating from the shadows cast from the flickering fires of prehistory.

One might even argue that Plato saw all but philosophers like himself as metaphorical sciomancers, as the reality of our perception effectively consists of shadows cast from the true metaphysical reality of ideal Forms.

Or in other words, the world of our perception is smoke and mirrors – although that seems an awesome combination with sciomancy as a method of divination or school of magic of shadows, smoke and mirrors, which would obviously lean heavily into illusion and perception. Throw in echoes as well and now we’re cooking.

Or for that matter combining sciomancy with the abacomancy of the previous entry – or with the necromancy of the more metaphorical use of shades or shadows. Or of darkness in general. Or all of the above.

Interestingly, Dungeons and Dragons has effectively featured sciomancy as part of its prestige or specialist classes of character, albeit typically as an arcane or magic enhancement of its rogue class.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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A dust storm blankets Texas houses, 1935 in a photograph by George Everett Marsh Jr – public domain image used in Wikipedia article “Dust”

(11) ABACOMANCY

“I will show you fear in a handful of dust”

“Ah what a dusty answer gets the soul
When hot for certainties in this our life”

I could do these dusty quotes all day, although apparently dusty answer has become a term used for unsatisfactory reply, which does not bode well for abacomancy or divination by dust. However, I just couldn’t resist special mention for it and not just because it was literally the first entry in alphabetical order in Wikipedia’s list of methods of divination.

Disappointingly, it didn’t involve oracles in temples full of dust and cobwebs, but apparently something akin to geomancy – divining patterns in dust, dirt, sand, silt or ashes after being thrown or dropped on a flat surface. Also, Jackson Pollack was into it, doing a series of paintings for it.

Of course, I prefer to cite abacomancy as my go-to excuse for not cleaning my home.

As a method of divination or school of magic, abacomancy seems a little, well, dusty. Although I’d like to imagine abacomancy as a school of magic in a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting – magic powered by dust and detritus, flotsam and jetsam, rust and ruins. Essentially, necromancy but for objects instead of living things (although the two could overlap), a Magic of Broken Things along the lines of the God of the Lost in Stephen King’s The Girl of Who Loved Tom Gordon (although again those could overlap).

Come to think of it, a Magic of the Wasteland – both in terms of the form and style of T.S. Eliot’s poem of that name, the source of my handful of dust quote.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Illustration of the Dutch explorer Joris van Spilbergen meeting King Vimaladharmasuriya I of Kandy (in modern Sri Lanka) from a 1602 book – used for the Stranger King article in Wikipedia

(10) XENOMANCY

“A prophet is never accepted in his home town”

The divination and magic of strangers, stranger kings, stranger things…and aliens?

Unlike gynomancy, Wikipedia’s list of methods of divination includes xenomancy or divination by strangers, but there is nothing beyond its mere inclusion in the list.

Similarly to gynomancy, however, it might be defined in one of two ways – as divination of strangers, or as divination by strangers. In other words, the stranger as omen or oracle, portent or prophet – the stranger as divinatory object or the stranger as divinatory (or magic) figure.

In the first, the querent divines their answer from the appearance or characteristics of strangers. And to be honest, it doesn’t seem to offer much as a method of divination, much less a school of magic, except as something akin to that game of anticipating the color of the next car one sees driving past.

Of course, strangers arriving at one’s home have more of an import, but it would probably be a safe bet for a diviner to foresee trouble, particularly if the strangers are armed.

The latter – where the stranger is the diviner or magical figure – has far more potential. The wandering stranger was basically Odin’s schtick – and he was hardly alone among gods, angels or kings in that. Even Jesus pulled this trick, accompanying two of his followers unrecognized after his resurrection, only to vanish when they recognised him.

My featured quote was also by Jesus, who turned out to be the biggest stranger prophet of all for the Roman Empire, among various cults of mysterious strangers from the east, and of course beyond that to the world.

In the Bible, Jonah played a similar role on a smaller scale as stranger prophet to the Assyrian Empire – everyone remembers him being swallowed by a “fish” but forgets why he was swallowed in the first place, because he was trying to shirk his role as a stranger prophet.

And then there’s the theory of stranger kings, a theory developed by anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, essentially as to ‘native’ peoples accepting foreign rulers (particularly in the context of European colonialism) – a theory which may well overlap with stranger prophets or strangers as magical figures.

Xenomancy has intriguing fantasy narrative potential as underlying either divination or magic – that people can practice divination or use magic but only as strangers away from their homeland, but the most common trope involves them being in another world altogether, from portal fantasy in literature to isekai in Japanese manga or anime. Two examples spring readily to mind – Narnia (although there they are more stranger kings or heroes) and the Thomas Covenant Chronicles.

It even has intriguing SF narrative potential, particularly when one uses xeno- for its most common contemporary application to aliens – aliens as divinatory or magic figures to humans (or perhaps vice versa). One could even conjure up a contemporary form of xenomancy of divination (or magic) using alien or UFO sightings or lore.

Of course, fantasy often does much the same, but for particular fantasy races with respect to humans – elves effectively being a magical or semi-divine race to the more mundane humans or hobbits in The Lord of the Rings. For that matter, divinatory or magical aliens in SF often tend to be effectively space elves.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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