Question I: What Divination Is
The nature of divination is explained.
Question II: What Hidden Things a Demon Can Divine
He does not know all things, but only certain things. A passage of Marchi’s history is explained. Concerning free contingents he can do nothing except by probable conjecture. The example of the fanatic Basilacius, who predicted matters to Isaac.
Some things which depend on necessary causes he can predict certainly. Some other things he can predict only by conjecture. Whence the ancient oracles arose. What he knows about past things; what he knows about present things. Whether he knows human thoughts. The example of Scotus of Parma. Demonic frauds in this matter. In what way he sometimes predicts deeds as if they were to be done. Examples of Apollonius, of a certain young man, and of Charibert and Caesarius, a modern impostor of this kind, are referred to.
Question III: How Divination Is Distinguished from Prophecy and from Conjectation
The mark is taken from the proportion between the thing to be known and the cause. A mark is taken from the mode and nature of the question. A mark is taken from the intention of the person asking. What things excuse from sin. The last verse of Proverbs 19. When it is lawful to ask for a sign.
Question IV: What Kind of Sin Divination Is
When it is heresy; when it is superstition; when it is only illicit.
When implicit divination is venial.
When a joke is wholly lawful.
Question V: How Many Kinds of Divination There Are
What an implicit and an explicit pact are. The scholastics do not speak with sufficient propriety in assigning the species.
Question VI: On the Species of Divination in Which Open Divination Intervenes
Oracles and vaticinia: those of Jupiter, Dodona, Ammon, Trophonius, Delphic Apollo, Clarian Apollo, and so on; also that of Venus of Gaza.
What is the physical cause of these? Against most authors, there is no true physical cause; the cause is a demon.
Why in one place rather than another? Why did the ancient oracles cease?
On Pythonic prophets: the old ones, such as the Dodonian doves, the Gallicenae, the Delphic Pythia, the prophets of the Branchidae, Colophon, and Soracte, and the Frankish pythoness of Merovech. Ventriloquists, engastrimyths, and sternomants. Eurycles, pythons, household demons or prophets. The example of a peasant in Meissen, breathed into by a demon; fanatics and enthusiasts; many names of them. What is said about the Sibyls. Qabbal and ectasy.
Section II: Necromancy, or psychomanteia
Necromancy is described at length; rites are collected from the ancient poets. Several passages of Statius and Lucan. The superstition of the Melindensians. Two modes of necromancy: bare invocation and sacrifice. The witches first mutter, then utter an incantation, and third, threaten. The form of threats.
The penalty for this kind of divination. In it the demon appears in place of the soul. What skiomanteia, nekromanteia, and kledon are. The example of the magician Santeberenus. What it is to divine by a python; the passage 1 Samuel 28:7. How dangerous this is is proved by examples. Psalm 105:28 and Isaiah 8:19.
Section III: Various Kinds of Hydromancy
There is the hydromancy which Andronicus used; one kind was done by a ring, another by pebbles, another from the agitation of the sea. Eastern peoples baptize the sea; the Venetians betroth themselves to it. Another kind proceeds from the color of water and from images. Pagomancy. Various springs formerly served this purpose: the craters of the Palici, the Alphacena cistern, the marsh of Juno, Thyrxean Apollo, and the Rhine of the Germans. Another kind is by a cup; cyathomancy, as when women at Fessa and German women at whirlpools of water practiced it. A present-day superstition: putting the names of suspects into water. The Aretine spring stopped by Blessed Bernardino of Siena.
Section IV: On Other Kinds of Great Divination
On lecanomancy, old and recent. Gastromancy. Catoptromancy. Crystal-divination. Two recent examples. It is taught from two other recent examples that anyone can safely break such objects.
Dactylomancy, with various old and new examples. Onychomancy, practiced otherwise among the ancients and otherwise now. A certain deed of Queen Quevedo. Acromancy. Pharmaceia. Coscinomancy. Axinomancy. Cephaleonomancy, of the Germans and Lombards. The calumny of Apion and Tacitus against the Jews. Cleidonomancy. On the manner of striking out a thief’s eye. Various examples.
Question VII: On the Species in Which There Is Either No Explicit Pact or One Very Hidden
Section I: On Haruspicy or Ariolation
What Gazareni means. On divination by victims. Extispicy. A passage of Juvenal. Pyromancy; the Lithuanians use it. Whether the custom of leaping over bonfires belongs here. On lustration by fire. Capnomancy. A passage of Statius. Statius’s incense-smoke. Libanomancy in Dio. Tephramancy. A passage of Sophocles. A certain species of it today. A passage of Moschus. Another hydromancy. Goinomancy. What is common to all these with this one.
Critomancy, alphitomancy, and aleuromancy. The klx verax. A passage of Horace; the superstition of seeking a thief by a cake. Tyromancy. Ichthyomancy. Osmancy of the Isiac priests. Ceromancy. Anthropomancy: that it was once very frequent is proved. The sacrifice of children in Topheth among the Hebrews. Daphnomancy. Botanomancy. Sibylline leaves. Sycomancy. Divination by tamarisk, once very solemn. Praise of the tamarisk.
Omphalomancy. Amniomancy. On the membranes in which the fetus is wrapped: chorion, allantoides, and amnion; in German, den Helm; superstition concerning these. Those who are born with the head wrapped. Jovius is noted. The divination of the Jews by ieduim; the iedua is a marvelous animal, but a fable. A description of the Scythian lamb.
Lithomancy. Whether it was in use among the Jews. Leviticus 26:1; the question about the reading and meaning. Our interpreter is defended against Oleaster. A certain superstition of those who wear amethyst. Rhabdomancy, of many kinds: one kind by incantation, another by lot, another by auspice, another by omen. Examples of each. A narrative about Pope Gregory VII. Lampadomancy and lamp-divination. Parthenomancy, of many kinds. A passage of Catullus.
Section II: On Augury and Auspice
A passage of Aristotle. What augury is, and what its species are. Those sought from the sky; those sought from birds; from the feeding-tripudium of chickens. The difference and names of singing birds. To strike. The solemn tripudium. The omen of sound. Those sought from quadrupeds; pedestrian auspices. From the horses of the Germans and the Lusitanians; from wolves and other living creatures.
On the diversity of all these. Augury, omen, and prodigy are often confused. Teratoskopia. Various examples from tombs, apparitions, and specters. What an ostentum, a portentum, and a monstrum are. What may be observed in these and what may not.
On the military auspice from spear-points.
Section III: On Lots
What Phur is. A passage of Josephus. The lots of the Chinese, Gauls, and Jews.
On the divinatory lot. On oracle. Palomancy, pettomancy, astragalomancy, cubomancy or dice-divination. Rhabdomancy, of many kinds. That of arrows, in Ezekiel 21:21; qilqel, belomanteia. That of rods, in Deuteronomy 18:21, with the Vulgate defended. Why enchanters are called chabarim. To ask in wood, Hosea 4:12. The vanity of geomancy. Kinds of stoicheiomancy. Its various examples among Gentiles and Christians. What the Lots of the Apostles were formerly called. The chapters Aliquanti and Si quis clericos, 26, question 5, are explained. In what way St. Augustine, Gregory of Tours, St. Francis, Peter of Blois, and others used these lots. On the Ephesian letters. The dodecahedron, or game of the shepherds. A certain saying of Cesalpino.
Alectryomancy and its many modes. The error of Zonaras, Socrates, and Cassiodorus. Onomancy. A passage of Prudentius. Names imposed on children by a prophetic spirit. It is religious to impose the names of saints. The pontiffs piously change their name at inauguration. Arithmancy. The twofold Cabala of the Jews. The consideration of vowels in a proper name. The book of Alchindrinus. Ornithomancy in John Leo.
Section IV: What Kind of Sin There Is in All These
How dangerous the matter is. On the consultory lot, and when it is illicit today. How dangerous it is to consult magicians. Examples of three kings.