Methods of Divination: Bibliomancy----Fortune-telling by the Book

As long as human being have been conscious of the future, we have searched out methods to determine what is going to happen in the days to come; and as long as there have been books, there has been bibliomancy.

Bibliomancy, as practiced today, involves taking a book that is considered to a vessel of the truth, placing it on its spine while thinking of a matter or question of importance, and letting it fall open; the diviner then randomly seeks a passage from the open book, using it as an omen or message about the matter or question.

It is an old technique. The Council of Vannes, in 465 AD, prohibited the practice; those who still used the method were to be placed under the pain of excommunication.

The idea that books contain the truth, and can tell us something about matters of great importance, and indicate the course of future events lies in how people view writing and certain books. To primitive illiterate people, there is something magical about writing; to the true believer some books are the word of god, or at the very least, the result of inspiration by the divine.

Imagine that you are an illiterate messenger serving a king. There is an enemy approaching your city, and the king hands you a scroll to take to another city and give to the ruler of that land. When you arrive, the ruler opens up the scroll and looks upon the marks made on the parchment. He then asks you questions that indicate that he knows what is happening in your country. It seems like magic to the illiterate how these strange marks can convey meaning to those who can read.

The act of being able to read and write was so powerful that ancient civilizations attributed the invention of writing to the gods. In ancient Egypt, it was considered to be the invention of the god Thoth, the ibis headed god; in later times, the Egyptians also consider Isis as the inventor of writing. The ability of being able to read and write that in ancient civilizations, learning to do so elevated one into the privileged classes.

The holier the book, the better its value as a bibliomancy device; this lead to the Bible being used among Christians and the pagans they converted; the Bible is the word of god; therefore it has power to tell the future. This belief is especially true when one considers the weight placed on Revelations.

Among the Greeks, the works of Homer were used while the Romans used the works of Virgil. Some Moslems have used their holy book, the Koran, just as the occasional Jew has used the Torah and this despite religious prohibitions against practicing divination. And modern bibliomancers use a variety of books, including works of popular fiction, as their bibliomancy tool.

Even the illiterate could use bibliomancy. One would enter a church and use the first passage of the bible that one heard as a sign to one's question. In fact, many preachers use random Bible passages to inspire their sermons.

In modern times, the technique has spread to the internet, with webomancy and blogomancy being invented by web surfers, plus many divination and fortunetelling sites springing up on the web.

The practice of reading Tarot cards is considered a form of bibliomancy by some; its pages being merely unbound.

One of the dangers of using bibliomancy is that often a person will use a book that they have studied or read a lot; the book is liable to fall open naturally to sections that the reader finds of particular value. Because of this, many bibliomancers recommend randomly generating the page and line number using dice, cards, or some other method.

In modern occultism, the members of the Thelemic Golden Dawn, every equinox, chose a Tarot card (typically one of the Major Arcana) and a verse from the Holy Books of Thelema (typically from the Book of the Law which was received by Aleister Crowley in 1904) as an indication of the spiritual energies for the next six months following the equinox.

Among the Adepts of the Hermetic branch of the Golden Dawn, a bibliomancer imagines the image of a god, or goddess, surrounding them as they perform the operation of divination. Their choice of image is often Thoth or Isis.

One of the silliest things to come out of the field of bibliomancy is "The Book of Answers" by Carol Bolt (1999). It is bibliomancy using a book that is the paper equivalent of a Magic Eight-Ball. Each one of its pages has a short answer such as "You'll have to compromise" or "Don't doubt it." Just like a Magic Eight-Ball, it works better if you are either an initiate or believe that it will work.