Divination forms a big part of many people’s practise, whether that’s reading the tarot (cartomancy) or casting the runes.
But there have been a variety of different methods used over the centuries in order to attempt to get a glimpse into what the future may hold.
From peasants and common folk, to emperors, kings, queens and governments, divination has played an important role in our history.
We still commonly say simple rhymes and phrases today which hark back to our divination obsessed past.
Probably the most common one is the rhyme we say when we see magpies - “one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret, never to be told”.
This simple rhyme comes from a basic form of ornithomancy, the reading of the behaviours of birds in order to foretell the future.
Humans over the centuries have used some bizarre things for their divination practises.
From prognostication - the study of the stars to divinate the future - to the use of animal kidneys -known as haruspicy - we’ve utilised all sorts of things to try to get a heads up.
We’ve used chremetismemancy - the practise of the interpretation of horses neighs - to tell us what lies ahead for us, or osteomancy, the practise of reading animal bones.
There’s the common ones such as pyromancy (the reading of flames or fire) and ceromancy, the reading of candle wax.
Then there’s palomancy, which is the interpretation of bodily twitches.
There’s heptoscopy, the practise of reading omens in the livers of animals, as well as lecanomancy, the reading of patterns in water, and the common one of tasseography, which is the reading of tea leaves.
I think one of the oddest types of divination though is possibly that of the engastrimythoi, which literally translates as “belly speakers”.
These were a group of mediums who spoke in deep “belly” voices, whilst in a trance state, in order to bring messages of the future over from the other side.
With so many ways for the divination of the future, it’s a wonder we don’t always know what’s ahead of us..!
Whatever the method though, it proves one thing has been a constant throughout human history - that we have always been afraid of the unknown.
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