Osteomancy anyone?

[EvaSegovia]

Osteomancy is divination by the examination of bones. My ancestors were nomads throughout Central Asia. They herded horses, camels, sheep and goats. The knucklebones of the sheep are known as Shagai, and were used for games and divination. I've recently gotten very interested (even managed, after MUCH searching, to find a set of Shagai. Does anyone here do bone divination? Shagai or some other form? Please let me know I'm not the only one... (?)

 

[mahafrins]

Wow interesting what's the procedure for doing this.. I don't do this though..

 

[EvaSegovia]

The procedure for Shagai is actually pretty simple. There are 4 bones, each with four sides: horse, camel, sheep, and goat. Each of the 4 sides are shaped differently, so it's easy to tell if it's a horse or a camel, etc. The bones are rolled as dice. Horse is the best possible answer; goat is the least -- with everything else in between. The bones are probably best at answering questions of degree, such as: What can I expect from plan A? How about plan B? I'd like to combine them with Tarot somehow, but not quite sure how yet. Taking all suggestions if you have them...

 

[Barleywine]

I once investigated lithomancy (divination with cast stones) and cleromancy (a form of "sortition" using small items sometimes called "lots"), which can use anything from polished pebbles to small "found" objects (buttons, shells, beads, bits of jewelry, coins, bones, etc.) of some kind. I created a personal form of "astro-lithomancy" based on my research. I also use small stones in my geomancy practice, but they are "drawn" following Israel Regardie's method and not "thrown" onto a prepared field.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleromancy

 

[EvaSegovia]

Hey Barleywine... Thanks for posting the link. I followed it through some of its various threads for a good hour. Fascinating! Do you ever use any of these 'mancies in some sort of combination with Tarot? If so, can you post how you do it? Thanks

 

[Barleywine]

Hey Barleywine... Thanks for posting the link. I followed it through some of its various threads for a good hour. Fascinating! Do you ever use any of these 'mancies in some sort of combination with Tarot? If so, can you post how you do it? Thanks

I haven't used any of the ones we've been discussing in combination, but I did just post a spread that uses dice in addition to cards.

 

[EvaSegovia]

Just checked out your spread, Barleywine. It's a doozy! I'm going to have to school on it a bit though... figure out if/how I can use the bones in place of dice. It looks like an awesome spread. Thanks so much for posting it!

 

[EmpyreanKnight]

It's quite unnerving, but I've heard that human bones have also been used in osteomancy too.

 

[EvaSegovia]

Yeeeps! Do you know where?

 

[EmpyreanKnight]

I read it in a non-fiction book somewhere, in a section that discusses chilling divinatory practices like the aforementioned osteomancy, using the entrails of human sacrifices, necromancy, etc. I will try to find the title, EvaSegovia.