Part 19

The whole process of this mysterious rite is given in the 29th book of Ammianus Marcellinus.

EXTISPICIUM,

(From exta and spicere, to view, consider.)

The name of the officer who shewed and examined the entrails of the victims was Extispex.

This method of divination, or of drawing presages relative to futurity, was much practised throughout Greece, where there were two families, the Jamidæ and Clytidæ, consecrated or set apart particularly for the exercise of it.

The Hetrurians, in Italy, were the first Extispices, among whom likewise the art was in great repute. Lucan gives us a fine description of one of these operations in his first book.

GASTROMANCY.

This species of divination, practised among the ancients, was performed by means of words coming or appearing to come out of the belly.

There is another kind of divination called by the same name, which is performed by means of glasses, or other round transparent vessels, within which certain figures appear by magic art. Hence its name, in consequence of the figures appearing as if in the belly of the vessels.

GEOMANCY,

Was performed by means of a number of little points or dots, made at random on paper; and afterwards considering the various lines and figures, which those points present; thereby forming a pretended judgment of futurity, and deciding a proposed question.

Polydore Virgil defines Geomancy a kind of divination performed by means of clefts or chinks made in the ground; and he takes the Persian magi to have been the inventors of it. De invent. rer. lib. 1, c. 23.

⁂ Geomancy is formed of the Greek γη terra, earth; and μαντεια, divination; it being the ancien custom to cast little pebbles on the ground, and thence to form their conjecture, instead of the points above-mentioned.

HYDROMANCY, ὙΔΡΟΜΑΤΕΙΑ,

The art of divining or foretelling future events by means of water; and is one of the four general kinds of divination: the other three, as regarding the other elements, viz. fire and earth, are denominated Pyromancy, Aeromancy, and Geomancy already mentioned.

The Persians are said by Varro to have been the first inventors of Hydromancy; observing also that Numa Pompilius, and Pythagoras, made use of it.

There are various Hydromantic machines and vessels, which are of a singularly curious nature.

NECROMANCY,

Is the art of communicating with devils, and doing surprising things by means of their aid; particularly that of calling up the dead and extorting answers from them. (See MAGIC.)

ONEIROCRITICA,

Is the art of interpreting dreams; or a method of foretelling future events by means of dreams.

From several passages of Scripture, it appears that, under the Jewish dispensation, there was such a thing as foretelling future events by dreams; but there was a particular gift or revelation required for that purpose. Hence it would appear that dreams are actually significative of something to come; and all that is wanting among us is, the Oneirocritica, or the art of knowing what: still it is the general opinion of the present day that dreams are mere chimera, induced by various causes, have no affinity with the realization of future events; but having, at the same time, indeed, some relation to what has already transpired.

With respect to Joseph’s dream, “it was possible,” says an old author, “for God, who knew all things, to discover to him what was in the womb of fate; and to introduce that, he might avail himself of a dream; not but that he might as well have foretold it from any other accident or circumstance whatever; unless God, to give the business more importance, should purposely communicate such a dream to Pharoah, in order to fall in with the popular notion of dreams and divination, which at that time was so prevalent among the Egyptians.”

The name given to the interpreters of dreams, or those who judge of events from the circumstances of dreams, was Oneirocritics. There is not much confidence to be placed in those Greek books called Oneirocritics; they are replete with superstition of the times. Rigault has given us a collection of the Greek and Latin works of this kind; one of which is attributed to Astrampsichus; another to Nicephorus, the patriarch of Constantinople; to which are added the treatises of Artimedorus and Achmet. But the books themselves are little else than reveries or waking dreams, to explain and account for sleeping ones.

The secret of Oneirocritism, according to all these authors, consists in the relations supposed to exist between the dream and the thing signified; but they are far from keeping to the relations of agreement and similitudes; and frequently they have recourse to others of dissimilitude and contrariety.

ONOMANCY, or ONOMAMANCY,

Is the art of divining the good or bad fortune which will befall a man from the letters of his name. This mode of divination was a very popular and reputable practice among the ancients.

The Pythagoreans taught that the minds, actions, and successes of mankind, were according to their fate, genius, and name; and Plato himself inclines somewhat to the same opinion.—Ausonius to Probus expresses it in the following manner:—