Divination facts for kids

A diviner in Rhumsiki, Cameroon.

Divination (Greek μαντεια, from μαντις "seer") is an attempt to get information through omens or supernatural things. The verb form is to divine, but this should not be confused with the adjective divine. Divining the outcome of things has been done by many different methods, such as the ones listed below.

Divination is different from fortune-telling. Divination is more ritual, usually religious. Fortune-telling is more for personal things.

Types of divination

• Astrology (by celestial bodies)
• Ailuromancy (by the behaviour of felines)
• Augury (by the flight of birds)
• Aura-Soma, based on colors
• Bibliomancy (by book, frequently but not always a religious text)
• Cartomancy (by cards, e.g., playing cards, tarot cards, and non-tarot oracle cards; see also Taromancy)
• Cheiromancy (by palms; see Palmistry)
• Chronomancy (by time; lucky/unlucky days)
• Coscinomancy (by a sieve)
• Crystallomancy (by crystals or other reflecting objects; see also Scrying)
• Extispicy (from the entrails of sacrificed animals)
• Geomancy (by earth), includes Feng Shui divination
• Graphology (by handwriting)
• I Ching divination (ancient Chinese divination using I Ching): (But using an I Ching manual can make it also a form of Bibliomancy/Stichomancy)
• Heruspicy (by the organs of sacrificed animals)
• Necromancy (by trying to ask the dead)
• Numerology (by numbers)
• Oneiromancy/Incubatio (by dreams)
• Onomancy (by names)
• Ouija board divination
• Palmistry (by palm inspection)
• Phrenology (by the shape of one's head)
• Pyromancy, or pyroscopy (by fire)
• Rhabdomancy divination by rods
• Scrying ("seeing" in a crystal ball, a mirror, or water
• Runecasting / Runic divination (by runes)
• Sternomancy (by markings or bumps on the chest)
• Taromancy (by specially designed cards: Tarot; see also Cartomancy)

Other pages

• Oracle

Images for kids

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  Display on divination, featuring a cross-cultural range of items, in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England.

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  Russian peasant girls using chickens for divination; 19th-century lubok.

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  Joseph Enthroned. Folio from the "Book of Omens" (Falnama), Safavid Dynasty. 1550. Freer Gallery of Art. This painting would have been positioned alongside a prognostic description of the meaning of this image on the page opposite (conventionally to the left). The reader would flip randomly to a place in the book and digest the text having first viewed the image.

See also

In Spanish: Adivinación para niños