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Anthropomancy
Alternatively named
Splanchomancy,
Anthromancy and Antinopomancy.
Derived from the
Greek anthropos
('man') and manteia ('divination'), this is a gruesome method of
divination, by means of interpreting the entrails,
particularly the intestines, of dead or
dying men, women or children, through sacrifice.
Variants included taking omens from the
interpretation of the victims death-spasms, desperate screams, by the way
they fell, bled or burned, and by how long they took to die.
This horrible and barbaric procedure of
divination is extremely ancient, and is believed to have originated in the
Neolithic era. Many times this practice involved tearing open the body of a
live human being to proceed with an examination of the entrails at work, and
by its movements and sounds, and sometimes by the color of the unfortunate
victim organs, accordingly determine the future or the truth.
One of the specialized forms of this type of
divination was Antinopomancy, which was by the exclusive sacrifice of
children. Another specialized form, Splanchomancy, consisted of divination
by the entrails of women, especially young virgins. The Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Japanese,
the Celts, the Comanche Indians, the Incas, the Egyptians and the Greek, amongst others,
all practiced Anthropomancy at one time or another.
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The famous Ouija
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Heliogabalus the Roman emperor Varius Avitus Bassanius, 205-221 AD, also
known as Elagabalus, killed with his mother by the
Praetorian guard for deviant and
perverse practices was one of the known practitioners of this type of divination.
He was said to have been particularly fond of it, and to have performed this
method of prediction on a regular basis.
Julian the Apostate (Flavius Claudius Julianus, 332-363 AD, another Roman emperor, nephew of
Constantine the Great), in his pursuit of magical
knowledge and operations, also caused a large number of children to be slowly sacrificed
in moonlit rituals, so that he might consult and interpret the movements in their
entrails. During his last experiment at
Carra,
Mesopotamia, he
enclosed himself within the Temple of the Moon. Unexpectedly being called
upon to combat the Persians, he sealed the temple's doors, and placed a
guard at its entrance. But Julian did not survive the fight, dying in
battle. When the temple was reopened by his successor's men, they discovered a
woman inside, hanging by her hair with her liver torn out.
Herodotus wrote that
Menelaus, king of
Sparta, also practiced Anthropomancy.
The story goes that, when detained in Egypt because of contrary winds, he
sacrificed two country children in order to discover his destiny.
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