First comes lecanomancy, which Psellus and Nicetas mention, and which Cedrenus testifies was used by John the Magus, teacher of the emperor Theophilus. Curopalates calls him John, the iconomach patriarch; Glycas writes that Nectanebus, king of Egypt and the true father of Alexander, most skilled in magic, learned by this art that Egypt would come under the power of enemies. The Turks use it today. They throw precious stones, little plates of gold and silver, and various characters into a basin full of water; then a response is heard from the bottom of the basin.
[margin: Psellus, in the place just cited, final chapter, and Nicetas, cited book 2, on lecanomancy; Cedrenus and Curopalates on John the Magus; Glycas, Annals 2, on Nectanebus]
Second is gastromancy. This was done through bellied glass bowls similarly full of water, with a pure boy or a pregnant woman looking in. In place of a response, certain figures and images appeared.
Third is catoptromancy, which displays in polished mirrors the figures of things sought. It was used by Didius Julianus, the emperor who bought the empire. Spartian says of him: “There was besides this madness in Julianus, that he performed many things through magi, by which he thought either the people’s hatred could be softened or the arms of the soldiers restrained. For they sacrificed certain victims not suited to Roman rites, chanted profane incantations, and did those things which are said to be done at a mirror, in which boys with their eyes bound are said to look at the crown of the head after incantation. Julianus did this. Then the boy is said to have seen both the arrival of Severus and the departure of Julianus.”
[margin: Spartian, in the life of Didius Julianus, on the mirror rite and the boy seeing Severus and Julianus]
Pausanias reports another form mixed with pegomancy when treating Patrae in Achaia. In front of the temple of Ceres, he says, there is a spring separated from the temple by a stone wall. “I learned that in that place there was an oracle that was most truthful. From it they predicted the outcomes not of all matters, but only of diseases. They lower a mirror, suspended by a slender cord, balancing it so that it is not wholly submerged in the spring, but touches the surface of the water at its lowest edge. Then, after they have burned incense and duly prayed to the goddess, they look into the mirror, and from its images divine whether the sick person about whom they consult will die or live. This divination of the water extends no further.” Recent writers also record of Pythagoras that he used to inscribe letters tempered with human blood on a concave mirror, set the mirror opposite the moon, and thus divine.
[margin: Pausanias in Achaia on the Patrae mirror-oracle; Peter Le Loyer, On Specters, book 4, on the Pythagorean mirror tradition]
Fourth, not unlike the preceding, is crystallomancy, except that it is done in pieces of crystal enclosed in a ring or in some other vessel, or even naked, and formed into a cylinder or obelisk, in which they pretend that a demon dwells. They say that in Nuremberg, in the year 1530, a certain man saw in crystal treasures shown by a demon. Later, when he was seeking them by digging at a place outside the city, with one familiar present as witness, and when they had already seen in the cave a chest and a black dog lying by it, the magician entered the cave to open the chest and drive off the dog. But he had not brought the Cerberian morsel with him; therefore the dog shook the top of the cave and buried the wretch in its collapse, and the cave too was filled with earth.
A certain man in our fathers’ memory, learned in Greek and Latin letters, and fortunate if only he had not presumed to handle the mysteries of the faith with unwashed hands, published in Germany a learned commentary on the nature of demons and prefixed it to Plutarch’s little book On the Failure of Oracles. From it, in his own words, the following story is taken. Some who consult about unknown things see manifestly in crystals the matters about which inquiry is made. He said that he had known a man of one of the leading families of Nuremberg. This man once came to him, brought a crystal gem wrapped in a little silk cloth, round in shape, and said that it had been given to him by an unknown man who, many years before, had chanced to take lodging with him when he came to the market; he had brought the man into his house and kept him with him for three days. When the man departed and left this gift as a sign of gratitude, he taught him this use of the crystal: if he wished to become more certain about anything, he should bring out the crystal, order a chaste male child to look at it, and ask from him what he saw. For everything he wanted to ask would be indicated by the appearances seen by the boy. This man affirmed that he had never been deceived in anything, and that by the indications of boys he had learned marvelous things, although all others saw nothing but a bright and pure gem when looking at it. At the time when his pregnant wife was carrying a male child in her womb, even to her also the appearances were presented in the crystal.
First of all, the form of a man was accustomed to show itself in the dress commonly worn at that time. Then it revealed, one after another, the other things about which it was asked; and when all had been explained, that figure of a man withdrew again and the rest vanished. As it departed, the figure of the man just mentioned was often seen walking through the city and entering churches. A rumor about these indications had spread widely, so that when people denied or concealed some wrongdoing, it was commonly threatened that the matter would be reported to that little man who showed himself in the crystal. It was even found that certain learned men, about their doubts in literary studies, had sometimes proposed I know not what and read the answer in the crystal.
When Spengler had recalled these and many other things of this kind, he said that this man once came to him with this explanation: he thought the time had come for him at last to abstain from such use of the crystal. He had now become persuaded that no slight sin was committed by it, and that he had suffered very grave torments of disturbed mind; therefore he had resolved that he would henceforth have no dealings with that experiment. He handed over to Spengler what he had received, and asked him to remember what it had often shown him, and not to be ignorant of the rumors that had spread through the city. He permitted him to do with it whatever he pleased. Then Spengler, after praising him, said that he took the crystal, crushed it into very tiny pieces, and threw it together with the silk wrapping into the latrine. Well done, indeed, well done; nothing could have been more suitable. Would that all destroyed such instruments of superstition.
[margin: Crystallomancy; Peter Le Loyer, On Specters, book 4; the Nuremberg crystal story and Spengler’s destruction of the crystal]
No one should fear that perhaps a demon will avenge himself. This has gone unpunished for all who have done it in faith. At Bordeaux a certain advocate had a familiar spirit in a glass phial. After he died, his heirs neither wanted to keep the phial nor dared to break it. Seeking counsel, they went to the fathers of the Society of Jesus. The fathers ordered the phial to be brought to them and said that they would smash it on the ground in their presence. They brought it, but begged them not to break it before them, saying that they feared terrifying sights. Therefore, when the heirs withdrew, the fathers threw the phial with great force into a furnace that happened then to be nearby, and heard nothing but a brief hiss from the conflict of the two elements.
[margin: Bordeaux Jesuit destruction of a familiar spirit’s glass phial]
When, in the year 1578, I was still serving as a judge, among the papers of a certain licensed man seized by the fiscal authorities, besides a little book full of magical characters, there was also brought to me a small case fashioned like a ball of wheat meal. In it was a little mandrake man, black and covered with filth and mold, with abundant hair but beardless. Common people think it wonderfully effective for divinations, profits, and many other things. I took the book, the box, and the counterfeit corpse. This last I first tore apart, breaking and pulling off its arms. Those present kept saying that great danger hung over me and my household. I laughed and ordered those who were afraid to leave. When they had gone, I threw it into the fire that was there, and perceived nothing except the smell of a burned root.
[margin: Del Rio’s own 1578 judicial handling and destruction of a mandrake figure]
Fifth in place follows dactylomancy, which divines by rings constructed or enchanted according to a certain position of the heavens and moved over a tripod at certain words. Ammianus described it in book 29; we shall give his words in Section 3 of Question 7. Or it is done by enchanted rings, such as Gyges’ ring, relying on which, according to Herodotus, he killed Candaules. Such also were the two rings of the Phocian tyrants, of whom Clement writes in the Stromata: by a sound made spontaneously they warned him about a suitable time for carrying out affairs; nevertheless he could not by this means escape the plots of the conspirators.
Such a ring was fatal to a certain Hieronymus Cacellarius of Milan, as also to another man who threw it into the fire, though not with a good mind, and was immediately seized by a demon and driven into madness. A certain prince in this age bought another ring for twenty gold pieces. The seller had promised that as long as he wore it, dice and card-playing would always be profitable. The prince goes and plays first; it turns out not unhappily. He returns to the dice box, but with great loss of money. Seeing himself thus deceived, he ordered the ring, which he ought not to have bought, to be broken.
[margin: Dactylomancy by rings; Ammianus, book 29; Herodotus on Gyges; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, on the Phocian tyrants’ rings; Hieronymus Cacellarius and another ring example]
Sixth comes onymancy or onychomancy. In this art they smeared the fingernail of an unpolluted boy with oil and soot; then, with the fingernail turned toward the sun and with something certain muttered under the breath, they saw what they desired. Today the evil has advanced farther. I knew at Quevaucamps a certain veteran Spanish soldier, more renowned for war and arms than for piety. At the time when the Duke of Medina Celi was setting sail from Galicia, bound for Belgium, this soldier showed clearly at Brussels, to more than one person in his own fingernail as in a mirror, the fleet departing from the port of Corunna and a little later violently afflicted by storms. He is the same man who also healed the wounds of others by words alone, though he refused either to heal his own in this way or to allow them to be healed by others.
[margin: The Greek label for onymancy or onychomancy; the Quevaucamps Spanish soldier and fingernail divination]
Seventh, some think that the Aristophanic aeromancy in the Clouds belongs here. But that practice, if it considers thunder, lightning, birds of omen, and similar things, belongs to augury; if it considers favorable and unfavorable aspects of the planets, to astrology; if it considers certain unusual appearances of airy specters, such as horsemen, arms, and the like, it must be referred to teratoscopy. Only that practice belongs here which gave oracles from conjured air, about which Pictorius writes in On Magic, chapter 10. Cardano’s aeromancy, which he discusses there, should rather be called hydromancy.
Eighth, one may speak of pharmakeia. Enchanters or epodoi use this when they divine relying only on commerce with a demon, applying nothing except incantation, as certain little women among the tribades do at Fez, and as some Egyptian women or Zingarae do, of whom later, wandering through all Europe; likewise a certain Diophanes once did in the Byzantine forum and in Apuleius’ ass.
[margin: John Leo Africanus, Description of Africa, book 3, on Fez]
Ninth is coscinomancy, used by the ancients, whence the proverb “to divine by a sieve.” A sieve was placed on pincers; they grasped and lifted the pincers with two fingers; after fixed words had first been spoken, they supplied the names of those whom they suspected of having committed theft or some other hidden crime. They judged the guilty person to be the one at whose name the sieve trembled, nodded, moved, or turned, as if the man who held the pincers with his fingers could not move the sieve at his own choice. That Pictorius sets out a formula of words to be pronounced caused him to act imprudently; that he used it three times and predicts a certain outcome caused him to act impiously, and he lies by making the promise.
[margin: Theocritus, Lucian, and Pollux on coscinomancy, the sieve-divination proverb, and related usage]
Tenth, axinomancy was used for the same purpose. They fixed an axe in a round stake and from its movement detected a thief. When divination of future success was sought, they placed a gagate stone on the axe, as Pliny reports.
[margin: Pliny, book 36, chapter 19, on axinomancy with an axe and gagate stone]
Eleventh was cephalonomancy. They performed it by roasting the head of an ass over coals. They say it was in use among the ancient Germans. The Lombards afterward used a goat’s head, to which they paid divine honor. I strongly suspect that the earlier kind, taken from the Arcadian animal, was sometimes spent by wicked Jews on divination. From this it happened that Apion and the other Egyptians, followed by Tacitus, falsely charged that the Jews worshiped an ass’s head as God.
[margin: Gregory, book 7, epistle 7, and Dialogues, book 3, chapters 26 and 28, plus homily 1, on Lombard goat-head superstition; Del Rio links this with the false Egyptian and Tacitean charge about Jewish worship of an ass’s head]
Twelfth is cleidomancy, through a key. Around it they wrapped a little paper inscribed with the name of the suspected person. Then they tied the key to a codex of Sacred Scripture; a virgin held this up, and when certain words had been muttered, the paper turned and moved toward the name of the guilty person.
Thirteenth may be what a certain German jurist reports in these words: “Today a thief is also known by the striking out of an eye. First psalms are murmured with a litany. Then follows a fearsome prayer to God the Father and Christ, and also an exorcism against the thief. After this, in the middle of a trace like the shape of an eye, a circular figure marked with barbarous names is fixed, and a triangular bronze nail, consecrated under certain conditions, is driven in with a cypress hammer. Then it is said, ‘You are just, O Lord,’ etc.; then the thief will be revealed. A certain man of Rustach had put money aside in a certain place. When afterward he could not find it quickly enough, he went to a smith and asked him to strike out the thief’s eye. By this arrangement the master himself, who had used the smith’s diabolical work, immediately lost an eye.” Did not this man, best reader, fall by God’s just judgment into the pit he had made, and deservedly suffer what, by a most wicked art, he was unjustly devising against another?
The same author adds: “A certain man of Gustrin had lost a silver spoon. Since he desired to know the thief by an eye likewise struck out, he went to a smith and asked him by his magical art to deprive the thief of an eye. This was done, and immediately the little son of the man, who had thrown the spoon into a certain corner, lost an eye.”
[margin: Cleidomancy by key and Scripture-codex; a German jurist’s eye-striking divination, including the Rustach and Gustrin examples]
I also find another kind of diabolical divination in the histories of the Indies, in those accounts which treat the affairs of the Floridians. We may call it aspidomancy. They report the following about King Holata Outina: when he had ordered his army to halt, he called in an old magician more than a hundred and twenty years old and ordered him to declare in what state the enemy’s affairs were. The magician prepared a place in the middle of the army, and when he saw the shield of Ottigny, which his boy carried, he ordered it to be requested. When it was granted, he set it down, drew a circle five feet in diameter around it, added certain characters and marks, and then sat on the shield with knees bent and heels tucked in, so that he touched the ground in no part. Muttering something or other, he expressed various gestures, as if he were laboring over some vehement prayer. When this had continued for a quarter of an hour, he appeared so horrible to them that he no longer expressed a human form; for he so twisted all his limbs that they heard them cracking as if being dissolved, and he did many things beyond nature. When these things were finished, he returned in a moment to his former state, though very exhausted and almost stunned. Then he went out of the circle, greeted the king, and indicated to him the number of the enemies and the place where they were awaiting them.
[margin: Histories of the Floridians on King Holata Outina, the shield of Ottigny, and aspidomancy]
Let John of Salisbury close the series. In book 1 of the Policraticus, chapter 11, he writes: “Imaginaries are those who make images and send them, as it were, into the possession of presiding spirits, so that they may be taught by them about doubtful matters. Sacred Scripture proves these to be idolaters, and persons to be condemned by the judgment of divine majesty.”
[margin: John of Salisbury, Policraticus, book 1, chapter 11, on imagers or image-makers as idolaters]
In all these things magical words commonly intervene; therefore it cannot be doubted that they belong to this question.