Divination from ashes

 Divination from ashes

Nowadays, divination has become a widely available ( though not cheap) popular pastime for many, a respite from daily cares, sometimes a pastime that evokes an indulgent smile. At a time when current divination techniques, such as tarot, were not yet known, divination was done with a variety of other available materials, from sand, the entrails of birds sacrificed to the gods, to beer, ashes, even the ashes of the dead.

Abacomancy, also known as amatomancy (from the Greek amathos, meaning sand), is the practice of predicting the future from omens (signs, shapes resembling something) formed in dust or from dust, dirt or sand. Sometimes the fortune teller uses(s) the ashes of a deceased person. The exact origins of this method of divination have been forgotten over time. It is certain, however, that this method of divination was invented in ancient times.

Closely related to abacomancy is spodomancy, also known as tuframance. It involves divination using cinders, ashes or soot left over from the hearth/altar on which the sacrificial fire burned. A specific type of spodomancy, which used patterns formed in the ashes from the burned sacrifices, was often called tephromancy. In the case of spodomancy, divinations were read from marks drawn in the ash with eyes closed.

In the Middle Ages, hollow, rectangular cinders (i.e. lumps of burned ash) were said to indicate the imminent death of someone in the family, while oval-shaped cinders, known as "cradles," predicted the birth of a child. Cinders that formed a round shape, called "wallets," suggested affluence and the so-called "smile of fate," while cinders arranged in a "heart-shaped" manner foretold a new affection.