#alectromancy

[astra-ravana]

Types Of Divination

Divination is the practice of seeking knowledge of the unknown or future through supernatural or symbolic means. There are hundreds of divination methods used across cultures and time periods, each utilizing different tools, elements, or techniques. Below is a categorized and comprehensive list of various divination practices.

Classical & Symbolic Divination

These methods use symbols, numbers, and abstract concepts to gain insight.

A. Alphabet & Writing-Based Divination

• Abecedarian Divination – Using letters of the alphabet in random patterns for messages.

• Onomancy – Divination through names.

• Graphomancy – Analyzing handwriting for hidden meanings.

• Lexomancy – Opening a book randomly and interpreting the first word or passage seen.

• Spirit Boards(Ouija) - Spirit divination using an alaphet board and planchette to spell out messages.

B. Number-Based Divination

• Numerology – The study of numbers and their mystical meanings.

• Arithmancy – Using numbers associated with names or events to predict outcomes.

• Geomancy – Casting marks on the ground or sand to form patterns for interpretation.

C. Sound & Speech-Based Divination

• Echomancy – Interpreting random or accidental sounds.

• Oinomancy – Using the sounds and bubbles of poured wine for divination.

• Geloscopy - Divination using the sound of someone's laugh.

• Cantiumancy - Drawing messages and predictions through music.

• Phonomancy - Divination through people's voices and speech.

Elemental & Nature-Based Divination

This category includes divination methods that rely on natural elements like fire, water, earth, and air.

A. Fire Divination

• Pyromancy – Divination using flames.

• Capnomancy – Studying smoke patterns.

• Causimomancy – Burning objects and interpreting how they react.

• Spodomancy - Divination using ashes.

• Ceromancy - Interpreting the patterns/shapes in melted candle wax.

B. Water Divination

• Hydromancy – Scrying or divining using water.

• Pegomancy – Studying the movement of sacred wells or springs.

• Aspidomancy – Scrying with whirlpools or moving water.

C. Air & Wind Divination

• Aeromancy – Divination through atmospheric conditions.

• Anemoscopy – Studying wind direction and patterns.

• Chaomancy – Observing air currents and swirling dust or leaves.

D. Earth Divination

• Lithomancy – Casting and reading stones or crystals.

• Geomancy – Reading marks or patterns in soil, sand, or earth.

• Spatalamancy – Divination through cave formations.

• Halomancy - Divination using salts.

• Abocomancy - Divination based on interpretation of the patterns in dirt, silt, sand, or dust.

Animal & Plant-Based Divination

These methods rely on interactions with living things and biological matter.

A. Animal-Based Divination

• Ornithomancy(Augury) – Observing bird flight patterns.

• Ailuromancy – Watching the behavior of cats.

• Myomancy – Interpreting mouse or rodent behavior.

• Ophiomancy – Observing snakes.

• Ichthyomancy - Divination using fish.

• Zoomancy - Divination through the actions of wildlife.

• Alectromancy - Using roosters or hens to make predictions.

• Apantomancy - Interpreting chance meetings with animals, such as the familiar black cat crossing your path.

• Myrmonancy - Discerning the future through observing ants eating food.

B. Plant-Based Divination

• Dendromancy – Divination using tree bark or branches.

• Botanomancy – Burning plants and interpreting the smoke.

• Xylomancy – Interpreting patterns in fallen branches or wood.

• Tasseomancy - Gaining wisdom by reading tea leaves

Object-Based Divination

Using objects, artifacts, and physical tools to gain insight.

• Bibliomancy – Interpreting messages from the open page of a fallen book.

• Rhabdomancy – Divining with rods, wands, or sticks.

• Belomancy – Throwing arrows and interpreting where they land.

• Oomancy - Divination using eggs.

• Crystallomancy – Scrying into crystals (e.g., crystal ball gazing).

• Curiomancy - Divination by casting random or obscure objects.

• Catoptromancy - The art of scrying with a mirror.

• Psychometry - Scrying of a held or touched object.

• Astagyromancy - Divination performed by tossing dice.

• Dactylomancy - Using a ring suspended on a cord/chain or a pendulum to divinate.

• Papyromancy - Folding paper into shapes, then interpreting the forms and shadows created.

Death & Spirit-Based Divination

Methods focused on communicating with spirits, ancestors, or the dead.

• Necromancy – Summoning or consulting spirits of the dead.

• Oneiromancy – Interpreting dreams.

• Psychomancy – Communicating with spirits and being able to hear their voices.

• Osteomancy – Reading bones or skeletal remains.

Energy & Psychic Divination

These methods rely on intuitive abilities or the reader's energy field.

• Morphic Resonance - Using the concept of collective memory and patterns from the past to predict future patterns.

• Aurascopy – Reading auras and energy fields.

• Cryptomancy - Supernatural insights through secret signs and omens.

• Intuitive Counseling - Offering guidance based on intuitive feelings.

• Remote Viewing - Psychically perceiving a distant or unseen target.

• Energy Scrying - Divining information about a person’s physical or emotional state through their energy.

• Channeling - Mediums communicate with spirits to convey messages or predict future events.

Popular & Modern Divination Systems

These systems have structured methods and are widely practiced.

• Cartomancy/Tarot – Using cards to interpret the past, present, and future or speak to spirits.

• Runecasting (Runology) – Reading ancient runes for insight (Futhark, Ogham, Witch Runes, etc).

• I Ching (Yi Jing) – Using hexagrams derived from coin or stick throws.

• Astrology – Studying celestial bodies and their influence on human affairs.

• Palmistry - Reading the lines on a person's hand.

[anastasiaoftheironwood]

I'm not sure what fandom I might be in at this point (having given up on the MCU years ago), but I can go on endlessly about: *Italian Renaissance history *Fountain pens *Historical costuming—Medieval, Renaissance, and Victorian *Herbs and herbal practices *Divination in various forms (alectromancy, anyone?) *Loki (the Norse deity, not Mr. Hiddleston) and his family *Ask me about my bindrune collection Tagging @writernotwaiting and @calyxaomphalos, if they feel like playing!

Creating my own tag game cause I can

Say one thing that is not your main fandom that you could rant about for hours then tag mutuals you wanna get to know <33

I personally could talk about generational differences along with sibling roles and dynamics for ever it fascinates me

Your turn!: @little-doggy-girl-collar @fatallyaddictedtofiction @roseandgold137 @sad-girl-shit11 @starchasing-cryptid @6kate1bishop6 @10dunksfansinatrenchcoat @biterflies @aliteralchicken @transgnckon @annah-kitathryne @masterofthew1cket and anyone else who sees this <3

[witch-upon-starr]

Fun fact

Alectromancy is divination by observing roosters pecking their food.

Make a circle using the letters of the alphabet (use chalk, use sticks to write in mud, use cut out letters, etc).

Place an equal amount of grain on top of each letter.

Put a rooster in the center of the circle and let him loose.

Observe the order the rooster picks up the grain. The words that are formed is your oracle.

[proflambeovt]

People have a lot of methods to tell the future, but personally I wouldn't put a lot of stock in the rooster to foretell the winning soccer team. #instaart #artistoninstagram #cartoon #characterdesign #oldlady #fortuneteller #alectromancy #rooster #chicken #lineart #disneyanimation #pixarstudios #cartoonnetwork #blueskystudios #laikastudios

[chickensinliterature]

Magic and Divination from CHICKEN by Annie Potts 

This post welcomes you to our new page “Chicken Recommended” wherein us chickens get to bring you some things we particularly like and care about.  Click here.

“Chickens play a role in divination for many cultures. The Azande tribe of Sudan feeds chickens benge, a substance poisonous to them, and determines the answer to a problem depending on whether or not the birds survive. Africans taken to America as slaves brought with them beliefs about divination and magic; one traditions deemed that ‘the avid scratchings of a wildly feathered, “frizzled” chicken in the earth [revealed] that some dangerous unknown maleficence lay beneath the surface’.The Pwa Ka Nyaw Po of Myanmar and Kariang or Yang tribes of Thailand use bamboo splinters insertied in the holes of chicken bones during rheir fortune-telling ceremonies, and decisions are based on the angles thet the splinters arrange into when placed inside the perforations.

The role of chickens as soothsayers goes back to ancient times. In Greek legend Alectryon was sent to guard against intrusion while Ares and Aphrodite conducted and illicit affair. Because he fell asleep at his post, leaving the two lovers to be discovered by Helios the sun, Alectryon was turned into a rooster so that he would forever remember to announce the coming dawn. Fortune-telling involving chickens is therefore called alectromancy, from the Greek for alectruon for ‘cock’ and manteia meaning ‘divination’. Alectromancers interpret chicken entrails during ritual named haruspicy; they examine stones found in the stomachs of roosters (a practice called alectorii); and they observe chickens’ appetites through a process called oraculum ex tripudio. For the latter method a circle is created using the letters of the alphabet, each sprinkled with an equal quantity of grain. A rooster or a hen is placed in the circle and observed to see how quickly he or she eatsand which letters are favoured. The letters chosen spell out a prophesy—a gallinaceous precursor of the Ouija board. 

The Etruscan civilization of ancient Italy and Corsica used another version of alectromancy: a high priest interpreted the order in which hens pecked at corn. The Etruscans also originated the wishbone custom—the practice of pulling apart the chicken’s dried clavicle bone to determine who gets the longer fragment and is thereby granted a wish. Both traditions were adopted by the Romans when they colonized Etruscan society at the end of the sixth century BC.” 

Painting of Woman Feeding the Hens from Tacuinum sanitatis, a medieval health and wellness book (ca. 1370-1400).

[escher-room-with-a-view]

elaborating on my autism headcanons!!

- sarah -

her special interests are usually between one and three. once she develops a special interest, it stays with her for years; in fact, some of her interests, like reading and writing, have been with her for as long as she can remember. her other special interests are theatre and arts and crafts; the latter is quite a broad category, but it includes things like sewing, felting, embroidery, watercolor painting, book binding, and making collages. sarah delves further into her interests the more they’re encouraged, but she also uses them as coping mechanisms to feel better about or distract herself from the real world around her. in the cases of acting and crafts, she uses these to express how she feels, whereas reading and writing are used more as forms of escapism. her favorite genre of literature is fantasy, though she doesn’t mind any particular fantasy subgenres and is willing to broaden her knowledge of the genre by reading most of them. meanwhile, she isn’t anywhere near as selective when it comes to theatre. so long as there’s a soundtrack and cast that resonates with her, she doesn’t care if it’s opera or ballet, tragedy or comedy, contemporary or dating back thousands of years. indeed, she doesn’t ever feel like her knowledge of theatre is complete—and while it feels unattainable, she’d like to develop at least a cursory knowledge of every play there is.

sarah stims by talking to herself, chewing on her lips or hair, pacing, doing needlework, doodling, and absentmindedly writing. she also has echolalia, repeating the same word or phrase to herself either out loud or in her head; certain phrases can get stuck in her head for weeks on end. she’s rather quiet when she talks to herself—in fact, most of the time, she just whispers or mutters. furthermore, when pacing, she walks in circles or back and forth. she doesn’t use stim toys very much because they don’t appeal to her, though she does like the idea of making her own stim toys and other objects, such as slime or reversibles.

her relationship with routine is complicated. on the one hand, she doesn’t take change well and has difficulty adapting to new situations, especially those that are unfamiliar and stressful. this means that, to some extent, she prefers it when things stay the same. however, this is more of a general status quo sort of sameness that she likes to maintain. on a smaller level, she’s easily bored by sameness and likes it when at least one novel or interesting thing happens each day. for instance, if sarah has gone to the same school her entire life, she’s going to be upset—even devastated—if circumstances force her to change schools without any sort of preparation or warning. however, if her commute to the school every day is identical, she’ll grow bored of it easily and may one day consider taking a different path there just to see what happens.

sarah tends to struggle with eye contact and, on the rare occasions that she wants to maintain it, has to force herself to do so. it makes her immensely uncomfortable to look someone in the eye for an extended period of time. while irene sometimes mistakes this for her not listening, sarah is trying to explain that it’s not something within her control.

she is hyposensitive to (and indeed fascinated with) colors and lights. however, loud noises bother her and can be painful for her. sarah also prefers not to be touched unless she initiates the contact first. being touched without her permission startles her and makes her immensely uncomfortable, as does being surrounded or cornered; all of these can easily overwhelm her in the right circumstances. she hates haunted houses for this exact reason. her hyposensitivity also extends to texture and physical sensations, albeit not in the same way; rather than being obsessed with or actively seeking out sensations and textures, sarah is so hyposensitive to both of them that she sometimes doesn’t even notice sensory input unless it’s excruciatingly painful or needs constant adjusting. her senses of taste and smell are neither above nor below what’s considered average, though she has a preference for sweets, white meat, and anything crunchy. 

something else that she and jareth have in common is the fact that their living spaces, specifically their rooms, both have to be organized in a very specific way. any alterations in this organization are bothersome and overwhelming to the both of them; this includes rearranging or removing objects, changing the location of the room entirely, or changes in things like how much light or air the room receives. 

- jareth -

he tends to have a lot of special interests at a time, and they change often. his current ones are architecture, illusions, astronomy, fashion, humans/anthropology/sociology, various pseudosciences, and surrealist art. however, in the past he’s been interested in ornithology, geology, romanticism in art and literature, the labyrinth’s prehistory, wordplay and rhetorical/literary devices, cats, different types of governments, letter writing, collecting trinkets and antiques, choreography, and many, many more. living for such a long time has provided him with the opportunity to both develop and engage in a wide variety of passions. in fact, some of these past special interests still remain with him today and simply aren’t considered his “main” ones anymore because they’re not as strong.

his favorite pseudosciences are graphology, phrenology, and astrology. he also likes to try and determine the future via methods like alectromancy, astromancy, augury, scrying, and lithomancy.

he stims using crystals/via contact juggling. this is usually when he’s understimulated, absentminded, or just needs something to occupy himself with. it’s also enjoyable to him. he has other ways of stimming, though, many of which are meant to self-soothe. for instance, feeling nervous or excited might drive him to shake one leg or hand; he also feels compelled to chew on things in such instances. when overwhelmed, he scratches his arms as one would if they had an itch. jareth is trying to stop doing this and is thus looking for alternatives. he views stim toys as some of humanity’s greatest inventions. if he lived aboveground, i imagine he’d have different versions of the same stim toys for different purposes: neutral colors when he needs to prevent overstimulation, bright colors when he’s just stimming because it makes him happy.

he doesn’t mind loud noises, but he is sensitive to bright lights and colors. in fact, he’s so nonchalant toward noise that, when he listens to music, he likes for it to be as loud as possible. in his mind, good music is never quite loud enough. there are certain textures and tastes he doesn’t like, which drives him to be very selective with what he wears and what he eats. with regards to clothing, he likes silk and leather but can’t stand wool, denim, anything baggy or distressed, or velvet. because he conducts magic through his hands, he has sensitive palms; his gloves allow him to touch things without being bothered by them, while also allowing him to use magic undeterred. he’s especially sensitive around food, preferring things that are bland or savory and refusing to eat anything with a consistency that’s too soft. for instance, he finds eggs revolting in most forms.

without a routine, jareth tends to become dejected or burnt out. unfortunately, though, his frequent executive dysfunction makes it difficult for him to plan out and adhere to routines without frequent reminders—which, when they come in the form of goblins, usually annoy him more than anything else. this is why he hasn’t had a proper schedule in years. it’s a bit of a vicious cycle; his unhappiness has led to a lack of motivation, and his difficulty creating something he can stick to has made him even more unhappy. he works best with clear, written instructions that are placed where he can see them. he especially needs specific times to eat and sleep; without them, irritability and physical discomfort set in. in the event that he does have a routine, changes that might seem small to others are often nerve-racking to him.

though he sometimes uses eye contact and close proximity to others to intimidate, he genuinely feels uncomfortable without eye contact and has difficulty remembering to mind others’ personal space most of the time. he can be quite touchy-feely when he cares about someone—even platonically—and isn’t afraid of showing it, but he doesn’t really know when or if to back off unless explicitly told to.

- didymus -

when it comes to special interests, he and sarah have a lot in common. they both love drama and literature; however, didymus has a particular interest in folklore, both that of humans and that of the labyrinth. he only has two special interests: literature (including plays) and history. both of these influenced his desire to become a knight and continue to influence his behavior, as he seeks to emulate the idea of a noble and valiant knight to a T. he has some difficulty responding appropriately to or understanding various social cues. as a result, he spends most of his nights and some of his mornings scripting out how his day is going to go: how he’s going to speak to other people, how they might respond to him, and how he’s going to respond to their responses. whenever didymus makes a new friend, he puts effort into studying their mannerisms and personality so he can adequately pinpoint how they might behave toward him and thus figure out how he’s going to interact with them. furthermore, he speaks and acts like a gallant knight from a fairytale or play because of his constant reading. his consumption of literature provides him with a consistent model of behavior that’s bound by a set of rules, unlike the behavior of people in the real world—which can often be unpredictable, and whose rules are less coherent. as a result, didymus believes that emulating the kinds of characters he admires will make others admire him in turn, and make him easier to understand. 

his favorite earth authors are william shakespeare, miguel de cervantes, and alexandre dumas. he is also especially fond of arthurian legend and various human mythologies, such as norse, celtic, and japanese.

one of his favorite ways to stim is by chasing or wagging his tail. he also stims by absentmindedly practicing swordfighting moves with his cane, scratching behind his ear with a hind paw, pacing, and talking to himself. pacing is the only one out of all of these that doesn’t lift his spirits; rather, he does it when he’s thinking because it helps his ideas flow. didymus is most inclined to chase his tail or scratch his ears when he’s bored, practice his parries when excited, and talk to himself when he’s overwhelmed. in the last case, this is often combined with pacing; together, both stims provide a good release for emotions he has difficulty expressing otherwise. when didymus talks to himself, he is unlike sarah in that he doesn’t do so quietly. his volume remains the same as it usually is in a conversation; when he grows passionate, it raises accordingly. sarah introduced him to stim toys; his favorite ones are the ones that make noise, whether they click or woosh or do something else. he also uses dog toys as substitutes and enjoys the ones that squeak, though he has to keep his own set somewhere where ambrosius won’t find it.

his strongest sense by far is his sense of smell; it isn’t necessarily a lot of scents at once that can be upsetting for him, but rather scents that he finds unpleasant. these include sharp or chemical smells such as vinegar, ammonia, spices, perfume, citrus, alcohol, cleaning products, and herbs. aside from these, there aren’t any smells he can confidently say he doesn’t like. he also has hypersensitive hearing and prefers soft classical music, hymns and chants, or music that dates back thousands of years. he hates the sound of bells chiming, loud drums, or thunder; the last of these especially bothers him, though he would never admit it. he was once bothered by the sound of metal objects clanging together when he was a kit, but he appears to have outgrown that in particular. he has poor color vision, as do most canines, so bright colors don’t affect him at all. he finds flashing lights mildly frightening in some cases and annoying in others.

to didymus, routine is the thief of joy. he craves adventure every day and hates when things are the exact same; even having to do the same task in the same way as he did the day before, for instance, is enough to bore him out of his skull. as a result, he likes to mix up how he does things by placing his daily activities in different orders, doing them with his friends, or replacing some activities with others entirely. for instance, he, hoggle, and ludo take turns with household chores—not only so that they can share responsibilities, but so that didymus can have time to go off and pursue his knightly dreams. much of the time, his friends are willing to accompany him on his adventures so long as he’s able to keep them safe—and so long as they can be home by dinner.

he doesn’t really like eye contact, but he tries to maintain it because he thinks doing so is respectful. he does see one perk to his small stature; he’s too short to meet eyes with most people, so his lack of eye contact usually isn’t judged. it wouldn’t be either way because almost everyone in the labyrinth either is ND or knows someone who is ND, but he really does want to maintain eye contact because the books he reads make him think that it’s the proper thing to do. his friends are trying to convince him that he doesn’t need to make eye contact if it makes him uncomfortable; however, because he seems to believe that it’s a rule, he has difficulty convincing himself not to follow it. in fact, didymus is very much inclined to follow the rules that are provided to him and becomes anxious when encouraged or required to break them. without clear rules, the world becomes nonsensical and unpredictable—and therefore upsetting—to him. it was his idea to propose a set of rules for his friends’ home; they accepted and have worked together to write them down so that guests know how to behave.

he gets along really well with the wiseman; despite his typical impatience, didymus is one of few people who actually have the patience to listen to the wiseman. in fact, didymus isn’t just patient with him; his ramblings actively intrigue didymus, and whenever he has the opportunity he makes his contributions as big as he possibly can. didymus really appreciates it when his friends let him infodump, and he figures it’s only fair that he should let others do the same. in fact, didymus also places a lot of value on fairness; it’s the whole reason he opposes jareth in the first place.

[theladymorganlefay]

Alectryomancy 

(also called alectoromancy or alectromancy) is a form of divination in which the diviner observes a bird, several birds, or most preferably a white rooster or cockerel pecking at grain that the diviner has scattered on the ground. The observer may place grain in the shape of letters and thus discern a divinatory revelation by noting which letters the birds peck at, or the diviner may just interpret the pattern left by the birds' pecking in randomly scattered grain.

In another version, the observer tethers the bird in the center of a circle, around the perimeter of which is marked the alphabet, with a piece of grain at each letter. For each grain the bird pecks, the observer writes down the letter which that grain represents. The observer also replaces each grain as the bird eats it, so that letters may be repeated. The sequence of letters recorded will presumably contain a message.

[smallandtinyhomeideas]

Wishbone Tiny Homes | Teal Brown & Associates

photos / Christopher Tack

Gentle reminder: dry your bones thoroughly prior to alectryomancy.