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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Yes – it’s that freaky oracle scene from the 2006 film 300, directed by Zac Snyder – oracles evoking the random or at least cryptic utterances that pop up in one form of cledonomancy

(9) CLEDONOMANCY (CLAMANCY & CHRESMOMANCY)

Serendipity and synchronicity.

Or crowd-sourcing your divination.

Cledonomancy is divination by chance events or overheard words, using the prefix cledon- from the Greek root for rumor.

“A kind of divination based on chance events or encounters, such as words occasionally uttered…rumor, a report, omen, fame, name.”

In some ways cledonomancy seems the inverse of cryptomancy or divination by omens, at least omens as big, bad or weird events. Instead cledonomancy involves mundane events of chance significance or synchronicity.

Apparently one example of cledonomancy was for the querent to whisper a question into the god’s ear at a shrine (presumably of a statue or something similar) and then listen for the god’s answer among chance words of pedestrians outside the shrine.

This is also styled as clamancy, divination by random shouts or cries heard in crowds, at night or so on – although I also have a soft spot for chresmomancy or divination by the ravings of lunatics, or its contemporary equivalent of Twitter.

As a method of divination, it has a certain appeal and force to it – serendipity in common parlance or what Jung styled as synchronicity. It also seems immensely practical – easy to do at home (especially through ‘surfing’ radio, television, or internet), at work, or generally out and about.

As a school of magic, it would seem to be in the same territory of entropomancy, chaos magic, or wild magic as cleromancy.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Hopefully not that ominous – Ten of Swords, Rider-Waite Tarot illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith

(8) CRYPTOMANCY

It’s an omen!

According to Wikipedia’s list of methods of divination, cryptomancy is divination by omens, although the prefix crypto- designates hidden or secret, as in hidden or secret signs. Which begs one of the biggest questions for this method of divination – what is an omen?

And there’s the rub. The problem with this as a distinct method of divination is that most, if not all, methods of divination ultimately relied on what might be described as divining or interpreting omens from whatever it was they looked at for their subject matter.

Augury, for example, often used as a synonym for omen, originates in interpreting omens from the behaviour or flight of birds – or ornithomancy, as we saw in theriomancy. And so on.

Accordingly, omens can be somewhat mundane, but I prefer my omens to be portentous – as in portent, also often used as a synonym for omen. I also prefer my omens to be ominous – a word I understand to be derived from omen, and to convey foreboding.

In other words, I prefer my omens to be big and bad – and ideally weird. Comets and eclipses. Animals born with two heads or no eyes. Spontaneous animal or human combustion. Raving and gibbering hooded figures. And so on.

So as a method of divination, it’s not distinct from any other method of divination, except to the extent its omens might be bigger, badder or weirder.

It doesn’t exactly leap out as a school of magic either, but perhaps with a little imagination might be adapted to a school of magic powered by charms, curses, and hexes. I can imagine a luck-fuelled school of magic in urban fantasy, perhaps styled as tychomancy, based on superstitions, lucky symbols or signs of bad luck – perhaps even powered by channelling signs of bad luck (broken mirrors and so on) into good magic, like some sort of mojo judo.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Lotus flower – public domain image

(7) BOTANOMANCY

“The force that through the green fuse drives the flower”

Sadly, botanomancy or divination by plants seems to get short shrift compared to theriomancy or divination by animals, even though both probably originate in prehistory – with prehistoric humans depending as much on observations of plant life as they did animal life.

Even the term botanomancy itself is read more narrowly, at least in the Wikipedia entry for it, as divination by burning particular plants (similarly to burning laurel wreaths or daphomancy), but this seems more in the nature of pyromancy.

There are also references to anthomancy or divination by flowers (as well as phyllorhodomancy or divination by rose petals), dendromancy or divination by trees, and phyllomancy or divination by leaves (as well as sycomacy or divination by fig leaves).

However, none of these references elaborate anything by way of divinatory practice in history, although the specificity of some of those references – rose petals or fig leaves – suggest some specific practice. One can imagine divination by scattering rose petals in much the same way as dirt in geomancy and it would make for a more romantic date, if nothing else.

At very least, there’s that romantic divinatory game of plucking petals from a flower – s/he loves me, s/he loves me not…

One can also imagine divination by spots in leaves or fruit and so on, or perhaps patterns of where they fall. There’s also that Celtic tree alphabet (or ogham), which was the weird focus in Robert Graves’ The White Goddess – although it’s hard to tell with that book – in a manner suggestive of divination or magic. In fairness, the Wikipedia reference to dendromancy does note particular trees – “especially oaks, yews, or mistletoe” – and druids seemed to go nuts for that last one.

Ironically, the (vaguely) botanomantic reference which is elaborated in most detail is tasseomancy or divination by patterns in tea leaves or coffee grounds – which however is both a relatively recent method of divination and also more akin to hydromancy by brewing.

As a method of divination, botanomancy just seems a little low tier in comparison even only to theriomancy – perhaps plant life operates on too long (or slow) a time scale for practical divination, or perhaps we just have more of an emotional attachment to animals. Unless you’re communing with the Green in the style of Swamp Thing or Poison Ivy.

As a school of magic, however, I rank it as top tier – again essentially combining the Dungeons and Dragons classes of wizard and druid. It’s arguably up there with the elemental schools of magic – indeed the Chinese had five classical elements, one of which was wood. That’s especially so if you can control or grow plants, again in the style of Swamp Thing or Poison Ivy.

Alternatively, with a little fantasy or imagination it’s up there with theriomancy, but as a literal way of plant powers – with one of many applications replicating the effects of plant-based toxins or drugs.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Yes – it’s one of my favorite memes, the math lady / confused lady featuring Brazilian actress Renata Sorrah playing Nazare Tedesco in a scene from Senhora do Destino

(6) ARITHMANCY

Lucky numbers and sacred geometry!

Also Pythagoras – whom I used to think of as a grounded philosopher and mathematician from his theorem at school, because schools don’t teach how much of a mystical kook he was as well. Mind you, the same goes for Greek philosophers in general, as E.R. Dodds propounded in The Greeks and the Irrational.

And yes – apparently numerology was known as arithmancy prior to the 20th century, and frankly still should be rather than coopting a name more appropriate to a science to itself, similarly to astrology. Also – numeromancy was sitting right there!

In fairness, similarly to astrology contributing to astronomy, numerology may have contributed to science, albeit more numerology in the broader sense of numeric patterns – as per British mathematician I. J. Good, “there have been a few examples of numerology that have led to theories that transformed society…It would be fair enough to say that numerology was the origin of the theories of electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, gravitation….”

Arithmancy or divinatory numerology essentially involves “a belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events” – or that certain numbers have certain mystical or symbolic properties. Or in short – lucky (and unlucky) numbers. The same concept can also be applied to the mathematical properties of geometry – hence sacred geometry.

As for the numbers themselves, they may come from some process of random selection (not unlike modern lotteries) or from assigning numeric values to other things, such as an alphanumeric system for letters in words or names (overlapping with my previous special mention for nomancy or onomancy).

That last is also known as gematria, a practice dating back to ancient history and (in)famously appearing in the Bible as 666 or the Number of the Beast in the Book of Apocalypse – or as I like to quip, that sixy beast – for which the scholarly consensus is that it is an alphanumeric key to the Roman Emperor Nero. (It’s a little more messy than that – I understand it wasn’t the actual Nero, but some sort of projected supercharged revenant Nero back from the dead, and could also be rendered alternatively as 616, as it was in some versions).

The strength of arithmancy or numerology as both method of divination and school of magic lies in the elegance and explanatory power of mathematics to explain the fundamental properties of our reality – something which is ever more so in modern science, where whole swathes of reality only seem explicable entirely as increasingly arcane mathematical formulae.

To the point that our physical reality often seems a coalescence or crystallization of mathematics or numbers – it is not so much that everything has a true name but a true number.

I can’t resist closing with two of my favorite incarnations of arithmancy in science fiction.

The first is the basic arithmantic principles underlying the Laundry series by Charles Stross – where the magic is essentially arithmancy or mathematics (and where the growing computing power of humanity and its machines will reach a threshold drawing the attention of hostile Lovecraftian entities).

The second is my favorite version of arithmancy in a charming (and characteristically horny) short story by Fritz Leiber – in which the number seven assumes a sexy female personification. Hot damn – that would have made maths classes more interesting at school!

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Tetragrammaton in Palaeo-Hebrew, ancient Aramaic and modern Hebrew scripts created by Zappaz and Bryan Derksen for Wikipedia and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

(5) NOMANCY / ONOMANCY

“The name is the thing, and the true name is the true thing.”

Yes – we’re talking the divination or magic of names. Although typically it involves not just any names, particularly the names we so casually toss about for ourselves in our daily lives, but true names or names of power, even if they have to be discovered through nomancy or onomancy itself, sometimes to those who have forgotten or don’t know their own true name or nature.

“A person’s true name might be self-determined, or bestowed on them by someone else — possibly in a religious or magical ritual, or it could be stolen, or given away”. It also tends to be something a person or being jealously guards or keeps secret – although that often applies to names in general, as with Odysseus with his name to Polyphemus.

A true name perfectly describes something’s essential nature – one might well say its soul or spirit – and knowing a true name gives one power over the owner of the name.

It is a concept with a long pedigree in mythology and folklore which I suspect originates in prehistory with human language itself and our ability to vocalise or for verbal thought, which often seem magical of themselves.

Some of the most striking illustrations of it are in the Bible, particularly in the creation myths of Genesis – from God essentially naming or speaking creation into existence to Adam naming the animals. True names might be said to reflect the divine language of heaven or the primal language of creation.

Interestingly, that goes for the name of God as well and there’s a whole running theme in or from the Bible about the power of God’s true name or names – from the Tetragrammaton (or four letters YHWH representing God) to the multiple or secret names of God giving power over creation, hence the various taboos revolving around the name (or names) of God (including one of the Ten Commandments).

I would argue that it also underlies the concept of Plato’s Forms – indeed, it might be argued that one’s true name essentially corresponds to one’s Form. It also perhaps underlies magic words or incantations in general.

There is even a myth, whether it has any historical truth or otherwise, that the city of Rome had a true name, safeguarded and kept secret lest her enemies learn of it to curse her or gain power over her.

All that is very well but it doesn’t seem to make for much by way of a method of divination – except of course to divine a true name as part of magic. Well, perhaps for things like those childhood or adolescent games in which one “calculates” the compatibility of a crush or love interest, although they tend to involve alphanumeric keys based on letters.

As a system or school of magic, it comes close even to oneiromancy as arguably the original source of all divination, as well as magic and religion in general – the ability to shape reality to our conceptual and verbal thought, perhaps even to define things into existence.

Not coincidentally, it is a concept that often underlies or is at least invoked by game mechanics for magic in Dungeons and Dragons – although not as a core mechanic given its potential power. Hence the class of truenamer, which on paper was a decent concept, but its actual mechanics in game play were so bad that it was widely acknowledged to be so hopelessly broken as the worst class of the game.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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X Wheel of Fortune – Rider Waite Tarot (artist Pamela Colman Smith)

(4) CYCLOMANCY (GYROMANCY)

Wheel of Fortune!

No, seriously – as illustrated by the medieval concept of fate or fortune subsequently used in Tarot cards, although perhaps better known for the modern game show concept.

Cyclomancy – or divination by wheels – is the third of my casino trinity of mancy for special mention, obviously invoking roulette.

Of course, it didn’t so much involve the wheel itself, but things inscribed on the wheel, and spinning the wheel as a means of randomizing selection of outcome – not unlike the game show concept.

“Bust a deal, face the wheel” – Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome might be my least favorite of the franchise but it did have some interesting (and memorable) concepts, one of which was its cyclomantic system of justice or law enforcement. Yet again, however, it illustrates that such things usually boil down to how the diviner assigns the possible outcomes – with Aunty Entity stacking the wheel heavily in her favor with a large part of it designated as Aunty’s Choice.

I don’t know how prevalent cyclomancy was as a means of divination in classical Greece – I suspect not very as against more dramatic or emotive methods of divination – but I’d like to imagine the Delphic Oracle as a game-show style of Wheel of Fortune, spun by a delectable Pythoness. Although probably the better game show model would be something like Family Feud, down to the actual feuding families – “we surveyed a hundred divine beings and if your answer is not up on the board…”

Cyclomancy is part of that stereotypical childhood or adolescent game of spin the bottle – as for that matter is gyromancy or divination by dizziness, except for games where you’re the thing being spun. Sometimes you spin the bottle and sometimes the bottle spins you.

As a method of divination, it shares the powerful simplicity of its random mechanic with cleromancy, albeit one readily cheated by not only stacking the wheel in your favor, but also with various carnival means of interfering with the spinning of it.

As a school of magic, it does not seem so readily applicable – although I like the image of wizards using spell wheels in the manner of prayer wheels or similar objects (or, for the Dungeons and Dragons class of cleric, using prayer wheels).

However, it has a thematic applicability similar to the random nature (or entropomancy) of cleromancy, except also the reverse – in that it is not so much random but cyclical, ultimately moved by a larger pattern or even cosmic balance. What goes up must come down – and part of the art of cyclomancy is riding the wave of the cycle in your favor.

Cyclomancy can even overlap with sacrificial hieromancy – in that you can spin the wheel of fortune in your favor but you have to pay a price, at least when the wheel spins back, or perhaps even to take a spin in the first place.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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The various different sided dice designed and used for Dungeons & Dragons – particularly including the iconic and definitive d20

(3) CLEROMANCY – ASTRAGALOMANCY

God does play dice with the universe!

Or in other words a crapshoot…

The second of my casino trinity of mancy for special mention

Strictly speaking, cleromancy is divination by casting lots, as the prefix clero- derives from the Greek root for lot – a method of divination or random selection used frequently in ancient history, not least in the Bible where it even appears to be positively endorsed as a means to divine God’s will.

However, it is used more generally as a label of convenience for divination by other means of random selection – interestingly, for which casting also tends to be used as a verb, most definitively casting a die or dice, often styled as astragalomancy (for “dice” from bones).

It can extend to similar things such as the I Ching in China. One might also extend it to numismatomancy or divination by coins, although typically one flips or tosses a coin rather than casting it in modern parlance.

As a means of divination, it has the powerful simplicity of its random mechanic, arguably the most random of any method of divination, although it still boils down to how the diviner assigns the possible outcomes.

And as a school of magic – well, perhaps it’s not so random that the other thing for which the word cast or casting is frequently used is magic, as in casting a spell or spellcasting. Or that dice are famously used as the mechanics of gameplay for magic in games such as Dungeons and Dragons.

I also like the idea of magic as inherently random in nature – what I’d like to style as entropomancy, or the archetypal tropes of chaos magic or wild magic. Powerful perhaps but potentially dangerous or tricky, prone to turning in the hand, or wand as it were – with a will of its own that is more coaxed than controlled, and with unintended consequences even at the best of times when you can shape it to your purpose.

I mean – that’s kind of the point of magic, to indeed play dice outside or with the usual rules of the universe, albeit ideally to load those same dice in your favor. Funnily enough, it seems to me that human life (and biological life in general) is the reverse – brief moments snatched from the basic entropy of the universe.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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