It’s my top 10 mancy list. I’m talking the suffix -mancy, ultimately originating from the Greek manteia (of itself or through the Latin mantia), for divination.

I could have called it top ten methods of divination, but where’s the fun in that? A top ten mancy list is just more fun and I do indeed have my criteria that each entry must have the suffix. Also, while the suffix -mancy technically only connotes divination, it has been used more widely for systems or types of magic in general.

This conflation of the suffix -mancy to connote both divination in particular and magic in general is not entirely misplaced. After all, divination tends to operate by or be a type of magic.

Indeed, it is arguably the primary purpose for which people have sought to use magic, rivalled only by protective magic – apotropaic magic as it is more technically known, or abjuration as it is called as a “school” of magic in Dungeons and Dragons.

It is also not a stretch to regard all magic as ultimately originating in divination, divining the secret knowledge and cosmic power underlying magic itself. So much so in editions of Dungeons and Dragons, while one could pick and choose between schools of magic, the one compulsory school was divination.

But I digress – for the purposes of my top ten mancy list, I look at each -mancy in terms of ranking it both as a method of divination in particular and as a ‘school’ of magic in general.

And now to the suffix itself, there is an almost overwhelming number of variants of divination (or magic) with that suffix -mancy, and their sheer abundance has always fascinated me. In part that reflects the ease by which one can coin such a word, usually by combining a Latin or Greek root word with -mancy. However, it predominantly reflects connoting forms of divination actually used by people as observed or recorded in history or anthropology – as people have used almost anything and everything as the magical means of divination.

Of course, some or even many are incredibly esoteric or obscure as a result – to use just one example to illustrate, belomancy (or bolomancy) is the art of divination by use of arrows. I have preferred broader brush strokes for my top ten or special mention, although entries might include more specialized methods of divination within their general theme.

Finally, it goes without saying that the top ten or special mentions does not reflect any personal beliefs in methods of divination or forms of magic, just my interest in them. It’s one of my dreams to walk in on an appointment with a psychic, smack them in the head, and exclaim “didn’t see that one coming?” – or just for all purported psychics to be prosecuted for fraud.

So here is my Top 10 Mancy list, all in the one post compiled from their previous individual entries (and also in their own page).

 

 

(10) SOMATOMANCY – CHIROMANCY

 

“Man is the measure of all things”

It’s perhaps not surprising that one of the first basic tools likely to have been used by humans for divination (or magic) is the human body itself – which is what somatomancy is, divination by the human form or body.

Of course, it tends to be more specialized to parts of the body. My top pick is chiromancy, divination using the palms of hands, or as it is better known, palmistry – which apparently had such a high profile that it was classified as one of the seven “forbidden arts” in the Renaissance and was actively suppressed by the Church.

As for the balance of a top ten within my top ten – a top ten for somatomancy – my nominations are…

2 Amniomancy – divination by the placenta (or caul)
3 Cephalonomancy – divination by the skull. (Historically it tended to use animal skulls but I’m adapting it to phrenology)
4 Maculomancy – divination by spots on the skin
5 Oculomancy or opthalmancy – divination by the eyes
6 Omphalomancy – divination by the navel (or the ultimate navel-gazing)
7 Onychyomancy – divination by fingernails and toenails
8 Podomomancy – divination by the soles of the feet
9 Trichomancy – divination by hair. Okay – I’ve just coined that using the Greek word for hair
10 Phallomancy – divination by the phallus (or swing of the phallus). Disappointingly, while Wikipedia includes phallomancy in its list of methods of divination, there is no further entry or details for it – but it is kind of how I divine everything in life…

Sadly, the various forms of somatomancy rank in the tail end of my top ten for a reason – and then by virtue of the prevalence of chiromancy or palmistry, even today.

As a method of divination, most forms of somatomancy seem somewhat limited to a one-off basis, given the fixed nature of the bodily attributes they use, and only to divine the future or qualities for the individuals to whom the parts of the body belong.

Similarly, somatomancy seems limited as a school of magic. After all, the whole point of magic is to transcend or at least extend human limitations (or those of nature), particularly those of the human body.

Although with a little imagination or fantasy, it has substantial potential. At very least, one can adapt somatomancy to a system of magic that uses bodily attributes, gestures or movements as the components of magic, whether for the wider schools of magic in Dungeons and Dragons, or something like the ‘bending’ of elements in Avatar incorporating martial art style movements.

Indeed, higher levels of magic could require higher levels of athleticism or physical ability, disposing of that “squishy wizard” trope in Dungeons and Dragons or similar fantasy. No more stats-maxxing intelligence at the expense of strength or dexterity. Building on that, with the almost infinite variety of physical attributes (or sports) from which to draw, one can propose that different physical attributes could underlie different types or schools of magic. Athleticism on land could underlie very different magic from that of skill in swimming or diving and so on. Similarly strength or endurance could involve very different magic from speed, agility or dexterity and so on, more so if one extends it to other qualities such as physical beauty.

Similarly, one might propose different schools of magic that are specialized by aspects or parts of the body – it doesn’t take too much to adapt the magic school of illusion (or divination for that matter) in Dungeons and Dragons to one of eyes and ears (or more widely the senses), or the magic school of enchantment to one of mouth and voice, and so on.

Even if we stick to somatomancy as a school of magic in a more literal sense, one might propose it effectively as a form of conjuration of (or transmutation to) any peak human ability or attribute. That is, to conjure up for oneself the peak ability of any Olympic athlete, the peak immunity or resistance to disease, and so on, at any time or in any combination.

Even more so if we extend somatomancy as a form of fantasy transhumanism – to extend, project or perfect bodily attributes or abilities beyond existing peaks, as indeed is often attributed to Asian mystical arts. For example, to achieve longevity or even immortality, “diamond body” and so on…

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

 

 

(9) THERIOMANCY – ORNITHOMANCY

 

The way of animal powers

Similarly to my previous entry for somatomancy, theriomancy, or divination by animals, is likely one of the first methods of divination in human history – or prehistory.

After all, prehistoric humans depended on closely observing animal behavior, including in effect to divine patterns from that behavior, so it was not much of a conceptual leap to divine patterns beyond animal behaviour altogether to other things or forces in the natural or supernatural worlds.

And of course there is the contemporary ritual theriomancy of Groundhog Day.

Again similarly to my previous entry for somatomancy, theriomancy tends to be more specialized to particular animals or types of animal.

My top pick has to go to ornithomancy & alectryomancy – the former is divination by birds (or the flight of birds), with the most famous being the Roman practice of augury (from Latin for looking at birds) and the latter is literally divination using a rooster or roosters, but also more broadly chickens or other fowl.

This is because of its historical documentation or prevalence, particularly in classical Greek or Roman history, in turn perhaps reflecting how birds have always seemed to earthbound humans as liminal beings between heaven and earth.

One form of alectryomancy involved divination using a bird or number of birds, ideally a rooster or cockerel, pecking at grains which are scattered on letters and interpreting meaning from the letters or words spelt out. Something of that may survive in the apocryphal story of the western Roman emperor Honorius and his favorite chicken.

Close runner-up is apantomancy, or divination by chance or random encounters with animals.

As for the balance of another top ten within my top ten – a top ten for theriomancy – I’m going to stick to alphabetical order as their individual details are somewhat scant

3 Ailuromancy – cats
4 Arachnomancy & entomomancy (myrmomancy) – the former is divination by spiders and the latter is divination by insects (with myrmomancy being divination by ants). The former is something I’d imagine as being used by the arachnophile Drow in Dungeons & Dragons – and as an arachnophobe, I see it as the most evil method of divination, even more so than my top ten entry famed for being evil
5 Batrachomancy – frogs
6 Canomancy & ololygamancy – divination by dogs, with the latter as divination by the howls or howlng of dogs
7 Hippomancy – horses
8 Ichthyomancy – fish
9 Myomancy – rodents, particularly mice or rats. Much like modern science and its lab testing, amirite?
10 Ophidiomancy – divination by snakes

What adders came to shed their coats?
What coiled obscene
Small serpents with soft stretching throats
Caressed Faustine?

Although I’d like to imagine it extends to delirious visions from snakebite, a la snake-handling.

Shout-out to dracomancy – included in Wikipedia’s list of methods of divination as divination (or magic) by dragons, obviously limited outside of fantasy or mythology (arguably an example of the latter is Sigurd or Sigfried gaining divinatory powers from the heart of the dragon Fafnir).

Also honorable mention to conchomancy or divination by shells.

As a method of divination, theriomancy seems to be of much wider versality than somatomancy and the same seems to go for it as a school of magic, which would seem to combine the Dungeons and Dragons class of wizard with that of druid (or perhaps medieval witches with their animal familiars).

And with a little fantasy or imagination, it has even wider potential – even if we confine ourselves to theriomancy as being a literal way of animal powers, as being able to replicate the abilities (or form) of any animal, particularly if we extend that throughout the animal kingdom including extinct animals or even microscopic fauna. There’s a reason the Dungeons and Dragons spells of polymorph or shape change are considered broken by being ridiculously overpowered. Of course, one could restrict this by proposing different schools of magic for different taxonomic divisions (or for different habitats or biomes).

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(8) PYROMANCY

 

Burn, baby, burn!

But seriously, we come to the first of the four classical elements, with pyromancy as divination by fire or flames.

Similarly to somatomancy and theriomancy, it is likely that pyromancy was one of the first methods of divination in human history or prehistory, reflecting the importance of fire itself in human prehistory.

Fire was the first major human tool or technology – game-changing in the power it gave humans to change or shape their environment (and indeed themselves, by the ability to cook or prepare food), such that it might be compared to the Industrial Revolution. And that’s before its use in other technologies that might be similarly compared to the Industrial Revolution, such as pottery or smelting. For that matter, the Industrial Revolution itself revolved around combustion – and much of human technology before and since might be compared, literally and figuratively, to humanity holding up its flaming torch in the clearing it has made for itself with fire or combustion.

SF writer Arthur C. Clarke famously observed that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Typically, we tend to apply that to our contemporary technology or projections from it, but it has also applied to technological thresholds in our history or prehistory – the use or smelting of metal for one was often compared to magic, and even more so fire itself, portrayed as magic or even divine.

“The most basic form of pyromancy is that in which the diviner observes flames, from a sacrificial fire, a candle, or another source of flame, and interprets the shapes that he or she sees within them”. However, there are several variations on pyromancy, particularly when combined with burning or casting particular substances into fire (such as salt, in one variation of alomancy or divination by salt).

There’s probably enough variations of pyromancy for yet another top ten within my top ten, but I’ll just go with some major ones here – capnomancy or divination by smoke (or movements of smoke), causimancy (or causinomancy or causimomancy) and empyromancy or divination by burning, and lampadomancy or divination by a flame or flames.

Shoutout also to carromancy (divination by melting wax) and ceromancy (divination by dripping wax in water) – which I would like to adapt to my obsession with lava lamps (lavomancy?)

As a method of divination, pyromancy would seem to have considerable potency and versatility – particularly if one combines it with visions from burning, ahem, particular substances, or smoke inhalation.

As a school of magic, it would seem to be powerful but limited in versatility – pretty much like the school of evocation in Dungeons and Dragons. Sure, it feels reassuring to stride into a dungeon loaded up with fireball spells to shoot from your fingertips, but there’s not much else one can do with that except, well, shoot fire from your fingertips.

On the other hand, one can imagine pyromancers being at the forefront of fantasy Industrial Revolutions – as firebenders and the Fire Nation were in the animated Avatar series. Also, pyromancy becomes somewhat broader if one extends it to other forms of energy, heat and light, particularly in more metaphorical senses (such as life energy or heat of passion).

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(7) HYDROMANCY

 

Glug glug glug…

But seriously, hydromancy or divination by water has one of the longest pedigrees of any method of divination, no doubt reflecting the importance of water for human survival or life in general, and of bodies of water to human civilization or societies.

Divination by water should be distinguished from divination for water, most famously that of dowsing – or attempting to divine the location of water, typically wells or other underground bodies of water.

Just as divination for water tends towards forms of dowsing, divination by water or hydromancy tends towards forms of scrying by looking at water or bodies of water, particularly those identified as divine or sacred.

Think Galadriel’s Mirror in The Lord of the Rings – except why couldn’t it have been Galadriel’s Jacuzzi? I’m sure I’d have had many meaningful visions, particularly with Galadriel in it.

The permutations of hydromancy are almost endless, including observations of color, ebb or flow, tides or currents, ripples from pebbles or other objects cast into water, or the movement (or flotation) of objects in water.

Again, one could probably squeeze out enough drops of hydromancy for their own top ten within my top ten, but I’ll just mention two here as worthy of distinction – cryomancy or divination by ice or snow, and hydatomancy or divination by rain or rainwater. To which I’d add my own invention of flotsamancy and jetsamancy, for divination by flotsam and jetsam.

As a method of divination, hydromancy would appear to be as or even more versatile than pyromancy, although perhaps lacking quite the same potency for visions, at least from burning particular substances.

As a school of magic, hydromancy would similar seem more versatile than pyromancy – particularly if one extends it throughout all forms of water from snow and ice to clouds or mist, not to mention the full volume of it as the surface area of our planet and within our bodies or all life (in the style of blood-bending within water-bending in the Avatar series), even more so if one extended it in more metaphorical senses of cleansing, healing and life. Or ebb and flow, rhythm and tides – in the style of the metaphorical comparison of the Tao to water.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(6) AEROMANCY

 

What the thunder said.

Aeromancy is not so much divination from the classical element of air, given that air is invisible and intangible of itself, but more divination from atmospheric conditions or weather.

As such, it has a long pedigree in history. Obviously, humans have always been concerned with atmospheric conditions or weather, albeit perhaps more to divine those atmospheric conditions or weather themselves rather than divining other things from them – particularly for agriculture.

Still, the sky and weather readily lend themselves to expressions or perceptions of the divine or supernatural reality – storms particularly so. Even now, for me one of the primary aspects of modernity is how we have harnessed the divine power of lightning for our own use, as our prehistoric ancestors harnessed the divine power of fire.

Yet again, there’s probably enough variations of aeromancy for their own top ten, but I’ll focus on those corresponding to different atmospheric or weather conditions.

Anemomancy or austromancy – divination by wind (depending on whether one goes by the Greek or Latin root for wind)

Ceraunomancy – divination by thunder and lightning. Of course, one can divide that further into divination by lightning or astropomancy, and divination by thunder or brontomancy.

Nephomancy – divination by clouds, no doubt replicating much of that favorite childhood game of seeing shapes in clouds, as humanity was also to do with the stars (but more on that later).

Wikipedia also lists chaomancy for divination by aerial visions, and uranomancy for divination by the sky, in its long list of methods of divination, but these would seem to largely correspond with one or another of the above.

As a method of divination, aeromancy would appear to be almost as versatile as hydromancy, particularly in combination of all its variations, although similarly lacking quite the same potency for visions as pyromancy. On the other hand, divination by thunder or lighting would seem more dramatic than hydromancy – similarly to the use of thunder or lightning as effects in stage or film.

As a school of magic, aeromancy would seem similar in versatility to hydromancy, particularly if one extends it through all atmospheric or weather conditions, although they also seem to overlap in such things as clouds, fog, mist, rain, sleet and snow.

I always thought that the airbenders in Avatar were unfairly nerfed to being essentially just windbenders – anemomancers or austromancers rather than true aeromancers in our parlance of mancy. At very least, I call shenanigans in the series giving lightning to firebenders.

Indeed, there are few things in nature with such raw elemental power as storms, up there with tsunamis (for hydromancers) or volcanic eruptions and earthquakes (for pyromancers and our next entry).

Similarly to pyromancy and hydromancy, aeromancy becomes even more potent if one extends it to sound, or more metaphorical uses of air as a medium such as breath (including the breath of life) and voice.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(5) GEOMANCY

 

O sweet spontaneous
earth… how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods…
thou answerest
them only with
spring”

Standing stones, ley lines and feng shui (although technically the latter translates as wind-water)

“Geomancy is a method of divination that interprets markings on the ground or the patterns formed by tossed handfuls of soil, rocks, or sand” – which prompts me to speculate if it had origins in prehistoric tracking.

It might also extend to lithomancy, or divination by stones – or crystals, including scrying into crystals or crystal balls. Or to spelunking for visions in caves – or climbing for them on mountains (oromancy or divination by mountains). Shoutout also to topomancy or divination by geography or geological formations.

As a method of divination, geomancy seems somewhat, well, meh – lacking the versatility, potency or intensity of the other methods of divination in our top ten so far, which begs the question of its ranking above them.

To be honest, part of its top ten ranking was to complete the set of four classical elements – although that still begs the question of why it is ranked over pyromancy, hydromancy and aeromancy. However, the major part of its ranking is more as a school of magic or mysticism – channeling or harnessing the magical or mystical energy of the earth itself.

Of course, there is something of an overlap with divination, but what might be considered a more proactive form of divination – not passively attempting to divine good fortune from physical features, but actively attempting to channel or harness their energy to make good fortune, literally grounding the expression that you make your own luck.

The archetype of this active creation of good fortune is the Chinese tradition of feng shui – “manipulating the flow and direction of energy based on aesthetics, location, and position of objects and buildings”.

At its widest, that archetype of geomancy is extended to things that are broadly dubbed “Earth mysteries” in Western popular culture – including those projected back to megalithic or monumental history or prehistory. The megaliths or standing stones of Europe, pyramids in general and particularly in Egypt, so-called ley lines, and so on.

As a school of magic harnessing the power of the earth itself, geomancy ranks high in potency, even more so if one combines it with actual geology – not to mention such things as earthquakes, volcanoes, lava or earth’s molten core, geological time, tectonic plates, earth’s electromagnetic field, and gravity. Or the metaphorical or symbolic meanings of earth and ground.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(4) ASTROMANCY

 

The fault in our stars.

Yes – I’m talking astrology, except it should be called astromancy rather than coopting a suffix that should rightly be applied to an actual science, instead of forcing that science to go by astronomy instead.

Astromancy – divinatory astrology – needs little introduction, as it sadly persists even today, although we often overlook distinctions between different traditions of astrology. The predominant tradition is that of Western astrology, which can be traced back to Mesopotamia, although Eastern or Chinese astrology is also popular. Year of the Dragon and all that.

And as opposed to other forms of divination or magic, often seen as grubby, particularly by Christianity, astrology has always seemed to command a respectable status, even an elevated one, perhaps consistent with the heavenly bodies of its subject, typically seen as divine or gods of themselves, or at least reflecting the design of gods or God.

Again, it is likely to be one of the first methods of divination, certainly as demonstrated by its pedigree in recorded history or archaeology, but probably in prehistory.

The sensory power of the night sky and stars may be somewhat diminished to the average inhabitant of modern cities with artificial illumination (and corresponding light pollution), but its raw elemental vision loomed large to our ancestors – such that historian Geoffrey Blainey in his History of the World devoted a chapter to the impact of the night sky in history.

The night sky and stars are literally heavenly and hence archetypally divine – a compelling Rorschach test upon which humanity has avidly projected meaning.

While its root Greek word would strictly only apply to divination by the stars or their movements, astromancy or astrology (sigh) typically extends to other heavenly bodies (such as the planets). As such, it includes things that are occasionally styled as more specialized – such as heliomancy or lunamancy for sun and moon, or cometomancy for comet or their tails, and so on.

As a method of divination, astromancy is undoubtedly popular, reflecting the emotional power of the sight of heavenly bodies, but it would also seem to have the problem of its sheer scale – that is, how cosmic movements or positions can relate to individual events or people.

As a school of magic, it varies on interpretation. If limited to invoking the quality of the stars themselves, as visually impressive as they are, they don’t do much else other than shine, at least as we experience or see them, and then only at night (mostly). Although even conjuring starlight in darkness can be potent, as Frodo and Sam found in Shelob’s Lair.

Of course, astromancy become more potent if it extends to conjuring or invoking stars in all their stellar or astral symbolism or metaphor – often dreamlike, fey or ethereal in nature.

Once you throw in the moon and even more so the sun, astromancy starts playing with power. That’s particularly so if it extends to lunar symbolism or metaphor – lunacy, tides and so on. Or literal or figurative solar power – light, heat, growth, fertility (or aridity).

Ironically, if one combines the cosmic conjuration of astromancy with the actual science of stars of astronomy or astrophysics, astromancy potentially becomes ridiculously overpowered on godlike levels.

For example, conjuring cosmic forces of nuclear fusion, radiation, the speed of light and electromagnetic spectrum, gravity, time, entropy, the vacuum of space, absolute zero, supernovae, black holes and singularities. Not to mention either end of the Big Bang or heat death of the universe – and all the various theories of cosmology.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR SHOULD THAT BE STAR-TIER?)

 

 

 

(3) HIEROMANCY

 

“Who are these coming to the sacrifice?”

No doubt some are wondering what could exceed the cosmic power of the previous entry, astromancy? Or the elemental power of the preceding methods of divination or schools of magic?

And yes – astromancy might top the scale for sheer raw power, even absurdly so, but it lacks the conceptual force that underlies hieromancy, which is that divination or magic COSTS. When it comes to either, there is no such thing as a free lunch – particularly when it comes to breaking the normal rules of reality as they do. No snatching the secrets from the stars just by looking at them as in astrology – that’s just cheating or cutting corners.

There’s a price to be paid, in full – and very often in blood. And we all have to make sacrifices. The world is indeed a vampire, at least when it comes to divination or magic.

That can be the case even combined with other methods of divination or schools of magic. For example, one can still channel or harness power from some cosmic, elemental or other source but it needs a hieromantic payment or sacrifice, as a trigger or ignition point, as a focus or means, or as a key to unlock it.

This concept that divination or magic requires some payment or sacrifice has a logic and therefore potency to it, to avoid being reality-breaking or story-breaking if magic is too easy. For example, it is striking just how low magic The Lord of the Rings is compared to the high magic of your average Dungeons and Dragons setting. If The Lord of the Rings was a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, it could be over in a few turns by casting some sort of divination spell on the ring and magically teleporting to Mount Doom.

Strictly speaking, hieromancy is divination by sacred or holy means or objects (from the Greek root hiero- for sacred or holy), although typically that is by sacrifice. I mean, have you read all the sacrifices at the Temple prescribed by the Bible in Leviticus and those books? The place sounds like an abattoir.

The archetypal hieromancy is divination by entrails from animal sacrifices, or as it was known from Latin, haruspicy (performed by a haruspex). One might say that hieromancy is like hydromancy, except that it involves scrying blood and guts rather than water. The liver was of particular interest – hence hepatoscopy or hepatomancy.

Of course, when the chips were down, the ultimate form of hieromancy was anthropomancy – or divination from human sacrifice, again particularly by entrails of the dead or dying sacrificial victims. Perhaps it worked best if you ate the liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti? I’d also like to imagine that when Aztec priests dressed up and danced around in the flayed skin of their sacrificial victims, that anything they said would be taken as oracular utterances.

As a method of divination, it doesn’t seem particularly instructive, other than telling that whatever was sacrificed is dead.

As a school or even more so system of magic, it has a conceptual force to it. Much like the rest of life, you get what you pay for – by exchange, payment, or sacrifice. That would also extend to contracts or Faustian pacts with divine or infernal powers.

Perhaps the archetypal hieromantic magic is the trope of blood magic (which I suppose technically might be haematomancy or hemotomancy).

“Spilling of blood is a potent force in the working of magic. It may be a token sacrifice, but it may also be the loss of life that fuels the spell. Expect mages who practice blood magic to be portrayed as evil, or at least charcoal grey, with possible exceptions made for druid like nature cults that may be considered amoral…Some blood may be indicated to be more powerful than others. Common types are human blood, monster blood, the blood of royalty, the blood of a special line, the blood of an innocent, a child’s blood, the caster’s own blood, or virgin’s blood. Sometimes only a single person’s blood has power, and any other blood is powerless. Sometimes it also makes a difference whether the blood being used was offered willingly or taken unwillingly”.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER – although ironically the gods and similar beings usually get their magic for free as part of their being or nature)

 

 

 

(2) NECROMANCY

 

Dead men do tell tales!

That’s right – it’s the mancy everyone knows, virtually synonymous with evil and death or the undead in popular culture, hence its high ranking although I refuse to give it top spot.

For example, Sauron styles himself as the Necromancer in The Hobbit, although he doesn’t seem to do much actual necromancy – he probably would have done better with armies of the undead in The Lord of The Rings. Of course, he was also a vampire AND a werewolf at various points, because the First Age was trippy.

Necromancy has a far older literary pedigree – indeed the oldest, at least for the two sources of Western literary culture, the Bible and the epics of Homer, albeit the Odyssey rather than the Iliad.

The Bible has the Witch of Endor, whom Saul consults to raise the prophet Samuel from the dead. Interestingly, it is presented as working, although both Samuel and God seem pissed about it. It could also be argued to present with the same deception or trickery as a séance.

The Odyssey has the archetypal journey into the underworld by its protagonist to consult the shade of the prophet Tiresias, with the nice necromantic component of pouring out sacrificial blood to attract the dead – also perhaps demonstrating the substantial overlap with hieromancy and blood magic from the previous entry.

Interestingly, in both cases, while the necromancy involved raising or summoning the dead person, but the actual divination or prophecy part did not originate from them being dead, but that they had been prophets in life. Although Odysseus’ dead mother also has useful information for him – and I have read (and prefer) adaptations that extend the divination to other shades.

Necromancy has a pedigree older than literature or writing, as its inclusion in the Odyssey, originally an oral epic, suggests. Indeed it has probably the oldest, likely one of the first methods of divination in history or prehistory – originating from when humans first associated death or the dead with a mystical or supernatural realm, from which one could see things not seen by the living.

Strictly speaking, necromancy is defined not as the hardcore zombie apocalypse type of necromancy we see in popular culture, but only calling on or communicating with the dead for divination – divining things beyond the knowledge of the living, whether past, present or future. After all, the dead reside in eternity as opposed to time.

As such, it was not necessarily evil in origin – indeed, quite the contrary, seeking out or summoning the spirits of ancestors or dead heroes for guidance. To the extent that it extended beyond communing with ancestors or heroes, it probably involved positive aspects of keeping balance between life and death, or with the spirit realm or souls, for purposes such as healing.

“But since that’s not nearly as interesting as zombies”, necromancy in popular imagination and culture is, as I said, virtually synonymous with evil and death, or rather, the undead – the ultimate crossing lines that were not meant to be crossed between life and death, animating or controlling the dead (or generally playing with dead things).

“The career of necromancer is an excellent choice for evil-doers who are not a ‘people person’. Though some might say there is not much point to turning the earth into one gigantic graveyard, these people are fools and will never understand anyway. Good career entry points for becoming a necromancer include occultists, dabblers in voodoo, grave diggers, morticians, possessed eight-year-old girls, and inheritors of scary books wrapped in human flesh.”
— Neil Zawacki, How to be a Villain

As TV Tropes points out, necromancy commonly overlaps with the trope of necromantic (a pun of necromancy and romance) – bringing back a loved one lost to death. Also, “it’s not unheard of for a necromancer to be one of the undead themselves, often a lich. Even if they aren’t liches or other forms of undead themselves, they are likely to have unlocked other ways of prolonging their own lives to unnatural lengths. Furthermore, they may become partially undead.”

As a means of divination, it’s up there with the original and the best, the dead perhaps being second only to the divine or infernal (and often overlapping with those) in secret knowledge. Speaking of infernal, necromancy definitely overlaps with the more rarely used necyomancy (or divination by summoning damned souls) or demonomancy (or divination by demons).

As a school of magic, it is similarly one of the most powerful, if distasteful. It was notoriously overpowered in Dungeons and Dragons, such that opting out of it was effectively nerfing your wizard – although ironically the class of cleric made for better necromancers than wizards, which certainly makes me think differently of the average priest.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
GOD-TIER (OR IS THAT DEVIL-TIER – OR DEATH-TIER?)

 

 

 

(1) ONEIROMANCY

 

“Your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams”.

Oneiromancy, or divination by dreams, may not have the brand recognition of necromancy in second top spot, but it takes out the top spot all the same.

That’s somewhat like Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, where Dream gets top billing as the titular protagonist. In fairness, Death remains his older and more powerful sister, but she’s also nice and not at all necromantic.

On the subject of fantasy in popular culture, one of my favorite depictions of oneiromancy as the core for a fantasy or SF series is that of Robert Silverberg’s Majipoor series, particularly in the first book Lord Valentine’s Castle.

However, its top spot here goes beyond my enjoyment of Sandman or Silverberg, and for that matter a preference for dreams over death or the undead.

It can be argued – and effectively has been by anthropologist Pascal Boyer – that oneiromancy probably was the original source of all divination, not least of necromancy, or indeed, of magic and religion in general, and for much the same reason as for necromancy. That is, that we see dead people in our dreams – prompting us to believe that they live on or have some continuity in a spirit realm or supernatural reality.

As Joseph Campbell famously opined, mythology overlaps with dream – “myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths”.

Prophetic dreams and their interpretation recur surprisingly frequently in the Bible, from Genesis to the Gospels and arguably to Apocalypse. And when they are not actual dreams, it is striking how often God or angels reveal themselves by night rather than day – in divine dream-like revelations. Unlike other methods of divination, oneiromancy seems respectable or even ordained in the Bible, to the point that God himself might be styled the god of dreams.

Biblical oneiromancy is only one of many throughout world mythology – with written or literary records including manuals of dream interpretation dating back to the beginning of recorded history in Mesopotamia.

And one might say we’re still at it – with modern psychology originating as a form of oneiromancy, not least with that landmark work The Interpretation of Dreams by that leading modern (sexual) oneiromancer, Freud.

In turn, this originates with the raw and vivid emotional power of dreams for each of us. Who among us does not secretly believe that our dreams are true or meaningful in some transcendent way? Although, I always recall a quip that dreams can mean everything and nothing – or that dreams are the bowel movements of the brain.

It does not seem an exaggeration to suggest that all divination is ultimately a form of oneiromancy, whether by way of using dreams and visions as a focus for divination, or by similar means of symbolic interpretation.

Nor does it seem an exaggeration to suggest that all magic is also ultimately a form of oneiromancy – essentially acts of lucid dreaming to shape reality to our imagination, or to impose dream-logic on reality to make it fluid like dreams.

At very least, oneiromancy would seem to be a straightforward one-on-one correspondence to the schools of enchantment and illusion in Dungeons and Dragons, but readily also adapts every other school of magic, perhaps most vividly conjuration and transmutation by dream-logic. Also abjuration – necromancy too if one counts nightmares.

Nor does it seem exaggeration to style all supernatural reality as the Dreaming, as in indigenous Australian culture, which has been widely adopted by popular culture well beyond its original context.

The versatility and power of oneiromancy was perhaps best stated in the Sandman, where the titular personification of dream confronts the powers of hell, mocking him that he has no power there. He replies simply what power would hell have if those in it could not dream of heaven? And of course one might say that heaven and hell are but themselves dreams, albeit fever dreams for the latter.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT DREAM-TIER?)

 

 

 

 

TOP TENS – MYTHOLOGY:
TOP 10 MANCY (TIER LIST)

 

S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

(1) ONEIROMANCY
Divination or magic using dreams

(2) NECROMANCY
Divination or magic using the dead…and undead

(3) HIEROMANCY
“Who are these coming to the sacrifice?” – sacrificial divination or blood magic

(4) ASTROMANCY
The fault in our stars – divination or magic using stars, planets and other celestial phenomena

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Divination or magic using the classical elements

(5) GEOMANCY
Earth – standing stones, ley lines and feng shui

(6) AEROMANCY
Air or atmospheric conditions / weather

(7) HYDROMANCY
Water

(8) PYROMANCY
Fire

(9) THERIOMANCY – ORNITHOMANCY
The way of animal powers – divination or magic using animals (with ornithomancy using birds or augury)

(10) SOMATOMANCY – CHIROMANCY
“Man is the measure of all things” – divination or magic using the human form or body (with chiromancy using the palms of the hands or palmistry)