Figured I’d post my collection of divination. It’s far from complete, but I tried to organize them by type and some have more extensive information in links (mostly on my website, but some elsewhere). Enjoy!

Since the dawn of humanity, we have sought
knowledge of the future. Techniques have been discovered and lost.
There are several branches of psychism which are still in common
practice: Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, Psychometry, etc. These have
given rise to many different forms of divination.

Your Future written in Stone

Cleromancy (figures or shapes made by pebbles, sea shells, or peas)

Geomancy (figures on the ground and Earth’s movements)

Lithomancy (precious stones)

Molybdomancy or Ceromancy (molten lead or tin)

Your Future in the Skies

Astrology, includes Roadomancy, or Astromancy (the sky and movement of the stars and planets), and sometimes Meteoromancy
Astrometeorology (weather patterns)

Austromancy (wind)

Ceraunoscopy or Ceraunscopy and Brontoscopy (lightning and thunder)

Chaomancy (clouds)

Divination through flame

Botanomancy (burning branches and leaves)


Capnomancy (smoke of vervain or other sacred plants)


Causimomancy (behavior of objects placed in fire)


Daphnomancy (burning of a laurel branch)


Lampadomancy (flame of a candle or lamp)


Libanomancy (incense and prayers) Similar practices include Thurifumia

Pyromancy (sacrificial fire)


Pyroscopy (burn stains left on light surface)

Scapulomancy (shoulder blade)


Sideromancy (marks of straws burned with hot metal)


Spodomancy (ashes from sacrifices)


Tephramancy (tree bark ashes)


Xylomancy (dry wood found or sticks of firewood burning)
and Capnomancy.

Looking for answers in the bottom of a cup

Aeromancy or Nephelomancy (ripples in water)


Hydromancy (any movement of water)


Lecanomancy (sound or image made by something falling in water)


Pegomancy (water of a fountain)

Flora & Fauna

Alectromancy or Alectryomancy (black hen)

Apantomancy (animal meeting)

Augury (birds)

Cephalomancy or cephaleonomancy (skull of donkey or goat)

Cromniomancy (onion)

Dendromancy (oak and mistletoe)

Entomancy (animal behavior)

Floromancy (flowers)

Hepatoscopy or Haruspication (sheep liver)

Hieroscopy or Hieromancy (sacrificial victim)

Hippomancy (horses)

Ichthyomancy (fish)


Margaritomancy (pearls)

Myomancy (rats, mice)

Ophiomancy (serpents)
Ornithomancy (bird song)

Phyllorhodomancy (rose leaves or petals)

Sycomancy (leaves)

Divination by Food

Aleuromancy (the origins of the fortune cookie)

Alomancy (patterns in salt)


Coscinomancy (seive)


Crithomancy or Critomancy (gritty item or barley cakes on flat surface)


Oinomancy or Oenomancy (wine)

Ooscopy, Oomantia, or Oomancy (eggs)

Tasseography or Tasseomancy (tea leaves or coffee grounds)

Tiromancy (cheese)

Letters & Numbers

Bibliomancy or
Stichomancy (word or verse from book)


Cyclomancy (wheels)


Graphology (handwriting)


Gyromancy (spinning)

Numerology, Authmancy or Arithmancy (numbers)

see also, the Kabbalah

Onomamancy (names)


Psychography (writing)

Rhapsodomancy (poetry)

Cledonismancy or cledonomancy (chance words)

Inside and Out

Amniomancy (baby’s caul)

Anthropomancy (human entrails)

Chiromancy (palmistry) (palm and fingers), Onychomancy, Onimancy or Onycomancy (human fingernails), and Chirognomy (shape of hand)

Geloscopy (person’s laugh)

Metoposcopy (forehead lines)

Moleosophy divination by moles on the body, see also moles
Oculomancy (eyes)

Omphalomancy
Oneiromancy or Oniromancy (dreams)

Physiognomy or Anthroposomancy (person’s features or form)

Phrenology (bumps on the head)

Stolisomancy (attire)

Divination with Weapons

Axiomancy

Belomancy


Rhabdomancy

Divination of criminal acts

Alphitomancy (innocence or guilt through barley bread)

Cleidomancy or Clidomancy (book and key used to find thief or murderer)

Divination with Spirits

Demonomancy (demons)

Metagnomy (visions in trance)

Necromancy (the dead)


Sciomancy (channelling)

Divination by chance

Astragolomancy or Astragyromancy (dice, dominoes, i-ching coins)


Cartomancy (cards, tarot)

Kleromancy, Cleromancy, or
Sortilege (lots)

Ragalomancy (knucklebones) (thrown shapes)

Dowsing

Dactylomancy (rings)

Dowsing (pendulum or rod used to find something)

Radiesthesia (pendulum)

Scrying

Catoptromancy (mirror and moon)

Crystalomancy or Crystallography (scrying using a crystal or other reflective surfaces)

The Ghanta Karna in late July or early August is a Nepalese festival celebrating the defeat of a demon guilty of such endless acts of slaughter and depravity that its mouth was filled with blood. In answer to the prayers of the suffering people, one Hindu god turned itself into a taunting frog who teased the demon into chasing it down a well. Villages stoned the trapped monster to death and burned the remains. Children wait at crossroads to collect money from passerby in order to raise funds to create effigies of the demon to be paraded through the town before being burned. A man of the untouchable caste takes on the persona of the demon and demands alms. Refusal to pay brings disease and bad luck. After the celebration, people go home quickly to avoid meeting the vengeful spirit of the dead demon.

I am sick… I am sick of being sick. I have been sick more times this year (counting from August to August) than I have in the past ten. Not to go into detail here, but I had to bolt to the bathroom at 3:30 this morning (because I was well aware that I was about to be sick) and in the process… broke the toilet seat and “woke up” with my head in the magazine bin next to the toilet. That’ll be the third time I’ve been sick this year and fainted, the fourth time in two years. I never fainted in my entire life until now, in my thirties, when I get sick, apparently I faint. I banged my head near my eye and it’s all sore. I couldn’t find my glasses at first and thought maybe in my haste that I left them in my room. When I did find them, the frames were bent and I had to ever so carefully bend them right again and Hope that I did not break them in the process.

But hey! It’s been a week since I finally stopped bleeding, so there’s that. :-/ I don’t know if I shared this, but tried to make an appointment with a gyno because of the fact that I hadn’t stopped bleeding in 5 months and they basically told me to go to an emergency room. Some help they were. Jerks. But since I stopped on my own, I’ve been thinking of making an appointment somewhere (not the place that I called who made me cry with their indifference). Now I don’t know if I should make an appointment with a regular doctor because of my proclivity for fainting when I’m sick (I also break out into a cold sweat before/during the fainting spell and wake up sopping). I’m thinking my blood pressure is either going really low or really high. I’m leaning towards low though because it’s always been lowish. On the other hand, it might just be that I’m fainting because this usually happens in the middle of the night, so I wake up from a sound sleep to stumble down the stairs before “impending doom” strikes and that I am not actually fainting (though the sweat thing leads me to belive otherwise). Maybe I am just falling asleep from sheer exhaustion and waking upon impact.

I don’t know, but I am tired of it. Really, really tired of it. I called in to work today because, so far, there have been no fainting spells at work, though there’ve been a couple times where it came close. I Really would rather not lose consciousness at work. Talk about embarrassing. At least I’m not a girly-girl… I don’t have to worry about the awkwardness of a wardrobe malfunction in the midst of a loss of consciousness if I’m at work. And of course, aside from my head aching around my eye, I’m still sick. I do hope this doesn’t trigger more bleeding… I just got done with that, but that’s kind of how it started five months ago…

I am going back to bed now. Goodnight/morning/afternoon.

The Dog Days of summer, deriving their name from the Dog Star Sirius, visible before sunrise between July 3rd and August 11th, will end soon. The appearance of Sirius coincided with the rise of the Nile, but for the Greeks and Romans, it merely meant a time of heat and disease associated with irritability, ill health, and death. Sounds like summer to me.

This is Tij Day in Nepal, also known as Woman’s Holiday or Haritalika. It honors Parvati, the consort of Shiva, and Krishna. A married woman may visit her parents on this day. Women wear green saris.

You know what’s really embarrassing… I can’t remember what my favorite book was before I started reading on my own. My mother started reading the Hobbit to me in first grade and by the end of the school year I took it from her because she was reading too slow. I can’t even remember her reading to me at all before that, but when I started learning how to read for myself, that’s when she got all excited about sharing her favorite book with me. I will assume she read to me before this, but I have no evidence. In fact, my little sister and I are only a year and a half apart, so it’s entirely likely that my mother did not have time to read to me until I was six years old because my sister needed her attention more.

But my favorite book when I was a child was the Hobbit, maybe because it was also the first book I read for myself. I remember learning to read in the first grade with Dick and Jane, and at the same time, I had my mother reading the Hobbit, one chapter a night. I grew to loathe Dick and Jane‘s tedious existence. And their stupid dog Spot too. The Hobbit was so much more exciting. When I took it from my mother, we were only half way through the book. I finished it and read it repeatedly over the years. I read it so much that the book (which I still have) was falling apart long before my little brother (who is eight years younger than me) became interested in reading and read it until it did literally fall apart. The faux green leather binding of it’s limited edition cover is currently held together with electrical tape, the maps have long been missing, and some of the pages are loose. From the Hobbit, I went to the LOTR trilogy and many of Tolkien’s other writings. They are not in much better condition. I also have Tolkien’s The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, a collection of poetry which is in comparatively better shape, though the insides of its cover are “decorated” with crayon. I cannot say who did that, though I suspect my sister. She later did the same to my comic book collection when we were much older (not with crayon, but you get the idea). My sister has never been a booklover. She was “held back” in first grade for “behavioral problems” and her disinterest in reading. My brother on the other hand, loves to read, but does not take good care of his books. I stopped loaning him my books for a while because he would shove paperbacks in the pocket of his coat, and by the time I got them back, they were often literally held together by scotch tape.

In any event, it is from Tolkien’s books that I “inherited” my love of mythology and fantasy. His poems gave me the courage to write my own, as his writing inspired me to the desire to craft my own mythologies. You could say that if not for Tolkien’s books, I would be a very different person.

Currently, I am wrapping up China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station which I have been reading for my horror bookclub. Certain descriptors leap to mind… gritty, grotesque, ostentatious, effluvient. It is a quagmire of politics, science, xenography, society… though you don’t realize it until nearly the end, there is one unifying theme to all the stories occuring throughout the 600+ page book. The name of the book is a clue, but the Weaver is the other. I won’t give it away of course. You should read the book. It is loathesome and decadent in description, but worth reading if you have the time to inch your way through the dense prose.

Two days after the end of Tinne, the Tan Hill Festival (related to Lammas) takes place, commemorating personified holy fire, the Celtic Tienne or Tan.

In Egypt, this was the Festival of Nut and Ra, and the chief festival of Thoth.

Women of ancient Athens and Alexandria mourned the death of Adonis, wounded by a boar. Climbing ladders to the roofs of their homes, they would chant : Woe, woe Adonis.

In Egypt, this day was called the Breaking of the Nile or the Opet festival. The original festival lasted 11 days but was later extended to 27 days. The statue of Amun, the state god of Egypt, was taken in a floating procession from Karnak to Luxor.

Heidenkind did a really good post on this topic, but I’m going to add my own two cents.

Time, in essence, is the measured and orderly progression of events. But in order for those events to be measured, they must be observed, documented. Without the ability to observe events, their progression is left open to interpretation. Within the realms of archeology, they have the method of carbon dating which can narrow the range of years, but cannot pinpoint an exact date within more than a thousand years.

Time, as we measure it, is largely artificial. Though based on the transit of the sun, it is applied unequally through the time zones. It also changes from season to season due to the tilt of our planet’s axis. During the winter, our planet is actually closer to the sun than in the summer, but thanks to the tilt of our world, the summer is hotter than the winter. And as the seasons move towards the colder winter months, the days grow shorter and the nights longer. Right now, there is still light at 8pm in the evening where I live, but in a month or so, daylight will only extend to 7pm.

Time is largely a side affect of observation. Some people are better at correlating the progression of time with the artificial man-made measurement. For instance, I can usually tell someone the time within 15 minutes or less of what a clock might say, even though I cannot wear a watch (metal allergy… very unpleasant). It’s more an instinct than a talent.

But without the benefit of knowing the time, we still measure its progress by our ability to observe events as they unfold. Even without knowing the time, you can say you got up in the morning, went to the bathroom, ate something, got ready for work or school, left the house… etc, etc. They say, time stops for no one. What they mean is, time is motion. No matter what you observe, it is moving. Things never stop moving, and that is time. It has nothing to do with our ability to observe it, though when we do observe it, it becomes fixed in our memories. When we observe it, we can measure it. If we do not observe it, were can only try to observe it and possibly come close to an approximate time frame, as I do when I guess the time without the benefit of a watch or clock. I am always close, but I’ve never once been dead on.

So if a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to see, did it really fall? Of course it did and we can even guess at when if we pay attention to the details… decay, insects, the growth of brush, erosion from the roots… we can see that time has past, though having not been there for the events, we cannot say exactly how much time… only approximately. Time exists whether we observe its passage or not, but it only takes on the importance we give it. In the larger scheme of things, it hardly matters if the tree has fallen except in how it contributes as a tree or as raw matter to be recycled by the environment. Only man concerns itself with the passage of time. Every other creature just accepts it as a non-event.

 Lugh Dydd, the Day of Lugh, begins at sundown.

Answer any one or all of these questions in the coming
week. I try to mix the whimsical with the serious here, so hopefully
there is at least one question here for everyone.

Chapter 1.1 in which Glory is not mindful of the store
Chapter 1.2 in which Glory is made to do something she would really rather not
Chapter 1.3 in which Glory thinks she might be sick
Chapter 1.4 in which Aaron makes a mistake
Chapter 1.5 in which Glory is made to see the error of her ways
Chapter 1.6 in which the circle remains unbroken

Chapter 2.1 in which Aaron makes another mistake
Chapter 2.2 in which Glory reflects on her path
Chapter 2.3 in which we learn Aaron is not really a nice boy
Chapter 2.4 in which Glory speculates on the holiness of salt
Chapter 2.5 in which Glory learns of the necessity for upper body strength, but makes do with  what she has
Chapter 2.6 in which Aaron tries to make amends, but is still pretty much an ass

Boy, time has really flown this week. Probably because I was on all days at work. When I work days, getting up at the crack of dawn and working till 3, fighting rush hour traffic home (why is it they call it rush “hour” but it typically extends from 3 to 7?), eat something, and then twiddle away the few remaining hours before I have to crawl into bed to be up at the crack of dawn to do it all over again, it seems like such a waste of a day. I much prefer working nights. My days seem so much more productive then. I have “my” time, and “work” time, and it’s all separated. When I work days, I’m too tired when I get home to really have any “my” time. When I work days, I find myself getting cranky and anxious the closer it gets to me clocking out. I want to leave. When I work nights, I have a pretty good idea of what will happen and when I will be able to leave even though I have to wait on others finishing their tasks before I can leave. When I work days, I know there is a specific time I am supposed to clock out, come hell or high water, and I resent every second I am forced to go over that time by circumstance. When I work days, I feel less in control of my time. Even though I am slated to start work three hours before the store actually opens in order that I set up the weekly displays, once the doors open, my time is sharply regimented. There are specific things I need to do in the day after we open, that I do not need to worry about at night. When I work days, I have a lot more to cram into my allotted time than I do when I work nights. Nights flow and I am in the flow. Even when it is busy, I get things done. Days are a jumble that stress me the heck out before I can finally leave. Friday I had such a migraine at work that when I finally left, I considered calling my mother and asking her to pick me up. By the time I got home, it was 90% better. That tells me that my migraine was work related. If work makes you sick, is it really worth going there, even if you do get paid?

If you want something, go out and get it. Don’t blame others for your shortcomings. If you hate your job(s), it’s not the job, it’s you. Switch jobs or suck it up. There’s no reason to run yourself into the ground over a job that barely pays enough to sustain you monetarily or psychologically, but if you opt to do nothing, not even try, then you deserve to suffer. If you cannot find a job that suits you, maybe you should take some classes so that you qualify for a job you might actually like. That’s what I’ll be doing in October. Hopefully as soon as next year, I’ll be able to open my own bookstore and do things my way. I know it won’t be easy, but nothing worth having is ever easy. At least I’ll be working for myself and not some faceless corporation that has assigned me a number and thinks of me as an extension of itself rather than a thinking being with my own ideas.

Am I a pessimist, optimist, or realist? What I think we should do, all of us, is grow up a little bit. Take responsibility for our lives. If you’re miserable, for whatever reason, own it and do something about it. No one is responsible for your happiness but you. So our government sucks and the people willing to pay us for our time think as little of us as the USDA thinks of the cattle it daily slaughters to put blubber on our butts (well, your butt. I’m a vegetarian. Nice imagery though, right?). Oh I am so sick of people complaining about their jobs, but they just keep going back, day after day, to the same job they hate. They never even try to find a better job. Get up, get out, and do something about your misery. You only hate your job/life because you’ve lost the right to self-determination. You do what you’re told and bemoan the fact that you have no choice.

You have a choice!

The choices may not be the best, but you have them. Each choice leads to another. Some better, some worse, but you have a choice, choices. Work for “them,” or work for yourself. Even if you continue to work for “them,” if it is to further your own goals, then you are working for yourself. Working for yourself does not mean you are working to afford a big screen TV or an SUV. Those are such short term goals. Don’t work for stuff. Work to make your future better. Stuff will never make you a better person. Stuff never satisfies; it just pacifies. Material possessions have become the opiate of the masses (thank you Marx). The ultimate satisfaction can be had by defining your goals, defining the steps needed to reach those goals, and then doing it! Let it not be said that I was born, I worked hard all my life, and was promptly forgotten at death because I made no lasting contribution to humanity. Such a life belongs to the worker bee… a mindless drone upon whose back the hive is built. Honestly, I have nothing against the hive, but I was born to be a Queen, not a worker. I was born to create, to direct others with my words. I was born to be a person, not a number.

So were you.

Most people who read this will either shake their heads in disgust or nod in agreement. Of all the people who read this, maybe one percent will actually follow my advice and take responsibility for their lives. Because, truth be told, it’s much harder to get up and work for your dreams than it is to sit on your butt and complain. That’s why we have urban decay and governments that feed off their people like social parasites. We let them control us. We let them tell us there’s a recession, but they created it with their inflated gas prices. If they really wanted to help the economy they’d lower gas prices and work on replacing gas with an alternative fuel source within the next five to ten years. But they won’t. There’s no money in it for them, even though the money would be spent elsewhere if they did cut gas prices, never fear. The government saps our strength and optimism with their announcements of recession and terrorism, arguments about health care and rumors of no more Social Security in a generation. The media generates a climate of fear… of your neighbor, cutbacks and tax hikes, of war, terrorism, and religious zealotry. We are made to forget that, no matter our differences, we are all one race, responsible for our actions and how those actions impact our brothers and sisters in the world.

Most people will never own up to their responsibilities. You who read my blog on a regular basis, I know most of you already live responsibly because more often than not, you agree with me or write things in your own blogs that I agree with, but together, we’re less than 1% of the population… maybe .001%. We really need to get out there and make people aware of how they live and how the way they live impacts everyone around them. We have to let them know they have a choice. If all we ever do is sit around and agree with each other, about the good or the bad, we’ve done nothing to change the plight of the world. And really, the world has become a crap shoot for nearly everyone who lives in it. We’re responsible for ourselves, but we’re also responsible for our families, our neighbors, our countrymen, our species, and the state of the world.

Gandhi said, we must be the change we wish to see in the world. And so we must.

The harvest season in Japan begins today with a ritual called Aomori Nebuta. Huge wire and bamboo effigies painted with intense facial expressions are paraded through the streets to drive away sleep. Farmers need to be wide-awake to labor hard at the harvest.

Is it your first one or did you change it? If
you’ve changed it, tell us why and let us know why you felt you needed
to change it, what did you change it from and why did you choose the
first name, or however many names you’ve had? Is there a reason behind
everyone of them? Let us in on why you’ve chosen them and your
current name!

With a nod to my Celtic heritage, a nod to my love of history and mysticism, and a nod to my taste in literature, my blog name is a combination of many things.

Harmony0stars… Harmony O’Stars, a child of the cosmos. I plumb its secrets and share what I learn with others…. sometimes.

Harmony0stars, or with a thesaurus in hand…. music of the spheres, musica universalis. The celestial music that the planets are said to revolve to as they make their transits through the aether.

And finally, Harmony0stars…. Harmony zero stars… it appeals to the nihilist in me, and also to my collection Lovecraftian horror. When the stars are right, the elder things will come down from the stars to reclaim the earth as their own.

Mainly, my blog name is one tremendous in-joke.

It’s actually one of a few names I adopt wherever I go online. Chances are, if you see harmony0stars, The Bibliophile, or the Mystery Cultist online somewhere, it’s probably me. Of course, the internet’s a big place, so maybe not. Harmony0stars is the only name I’ve ever had at Xanga though. I’m The Bibliophile elsewhere because I am a cornucopia of useless information. I am the Mystery Cultist because of my love again for Lovecraftian horror. There’s a whole subculture for Lovecraft fanatics. Some of them think it’s all real. (They’re crazy and we normal lovers of the genre avoid them.)

Actually…. all my online names are in-jokes.A

August was named for the Roman emperor, Augustus Caesar (September 23, 63 BC – August 29, 14 BC). Demeter or Ceres is the tutelary goddess of August.  The Anglo-Saxon name for this month was Weodmonath, “vegetation month.” Aranmanoth, “corn ears month,” was the Frankish name. The Asatru call it Harvest. The Irish name this month Lunasa or an Lunasdal, from the Irish Lughnasadh, the festival of Lugh.

The first Full Moon is called the Sturgeon, (Green) Corn, or Barley Moon, names it shares with September. August’s moon is also referred to as the Dispute Moon and the Moon When Cherries Turn Black. A few tribes referred to this moon as the Red Moon because it appears reddish through the humid haze of summer. It shares the name Thunder Moon with July.

Leo gives way to Virgo around August 23rd as the sun passes from one constellation to the next. Gladiolas are the flowers for the August-born, and their stones are carnelian, sardonyx, moonstone, topaz, alexandrite, or peridot. The birthstones of Leo are onyx, ruby, and smoky quartz, while Virgo claims the sapphire. Other stones associated with Leo are amber, carnelian, chrysocolla, citrine, fire agate, garnet, pink tourmaline, ruby, and topaz. Virgo is connected to amazonite, amber, carnelian, chrysocolla, and citrine.

Lughnasadh, Lughnas, or Lughnasa is held in honor of Lugh of the Long Arms, god of light and the declining sun. It may mean “Lugh’s Wedding,” but is more often considered to have originated in the funeral games held in honor of Lug’s foster-mother Tailltiu. Tailte or Tailltiu was a chieftainess of the Fir Bolg. The Tailtenean games were held every year at Talten or Teltown, a mountain in Meath, for fifteen days before, and fifteen days after, the first of August. In addition to the sports played at this event, there were marriage contracts made in the “Marriage Hollow.”

This is the first festival marking the transformation of the goddess into her Earth Mother aspect. This is also a harvest celebration of wild foods and the first harvest of the year. During medieval times, a maiden dressed in white would sit atop a hill while villagers placed offerings of blackberries, acorns, and crab apples in her lap. A dance and procession home followed. Under Christian dominance, this holy day became “loaf-mass” or Lammas. Into the 1900s, Scottish farmers ceremonially cut handfuls of grain to twirl around their heads in honor of the harvest god. Sickles were thrown to divine who would marry, grow ill, or die before the next Lammas. The first grain was cut and baked into a loaf to be offered to the goddess in thanksgiving.

Carman exhibits to a marked degree the concept of the magical powers of the female as opposed to the physical force employed by the male. Carman and her three sons “came from Athens to Wexford.” Women played a conspicuous part in this fair; the women had aireachts of their own to discuss those subjects specially pertaining to women. There was also racing, poetic competition, satires, and history.

In some places, it was the custom to light a great bonfire an certain hills. A wheel, which was normally a heavy oaken wagon-wheel, was heated until it glowed red, and then it was bowled down the hillside.  From its course, auguries were made on the coming season. The wheel symbolized the descent of the sun from its midsummer height. The festival of Lughnasadh was also associated with the myth of the marriage of Lugh to Bloddeuedd on the continent.