Pulp Fantasy Divinations

[Whitewings]

As the title says. In the setting I’m currently developing, astrology works. That’s a given. But I’m wondering what other methods might be suitable, remembering that this is a TL3^ setting mostly based on Europe and a bit of Egypt and North Africa.

[johndallman]

There's a good list on pp. 108-109 of GURPS Magic.

[RyanW]

Some classical methods practiced in the past include examining the entrails of animals, the flight of birds or other animal behaviors, the fall of objects (like stones, bones, or dice), markings or drawings done without looking (or while in a trance), or objects (or pages in a book) selected at random.

[whswhs]

According to Unlocked Books, the only form of divination that was not condemned by the Catholic Church was oneiromancy, because scripture provided too many cases of God sending messages to people in dreams. Of course there were people who used the forbidden ones.

[Dalillama]

Sortilege is one of the most common flavors of divination, that being the casting of bones, dice, coins, yarrow stalks, etc. and interpreting their fall.

[The Colonel]

Anything with -mancy on the end was, historically, a form of divination.

The font of dubious knowledge provides the following list:

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

Originally Posted by whswhs

According to Unlocked Books, the only form of divination that was not condemned by the Catholic Church was oneiromancy, because scripture provided too many cases of God sending messages to people in dreams. Of course there were people who used the forbidden ones.

There was, IIRC, a certain amount of nuance - seeking to tell the future was forbidden: if God wanted you to know what was going to happen He would tell you (and then it's prophecy not divination, despite the Divine aspect), but various methods - including astrology - could be used to tell you about the way things were (recall that astrology was a normal part of medical diagnosis in medieval Europe, and the only place you could get a medical degree was in a church run university). The sortes sanctorum - a form of bibliomancy using the Bible as a divinatory text, was also sometimes used, as was the casting of lots (which had plenty of Biblical precedence) ... but again, these were not meant to predict the future but as ways of determining the divine will when it was not otherwise obvious...