Comments on: The future via haruspicy

The future via haruspicy

JanetLand — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 08:17:35 -0800

Need to know the future? Try a little haruspicy. Full details, including a script in Greek, here (don't worry, they use an egg). For the animal rights activist, there's a cruelty-free method.

By: milovoo

milovoo — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 08:33:59 -0800

and more divination types in wikipedia, some are pretty weird.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 08:42:02 -0800

I don't get the last link - it's based on looking at a liver. How are you supposed to get the liver out? Or are they using liver to mean something other than, uh, a liver?

By: bifter

bifter — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 08:46:11 -0800

Er... yeah. I wrote my classics BA dissertation on animal based divination methods like haruspicy, augury and the like. Reading omens in offal was most definitely not a cruelty free method. Is the guy proposing use of x-rays or something?

By: bifter

bifter — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 08:49:34 -0800

A convenient period guide to haruspicy of course exists in the form of the piacenza liver. Handy if anyone is planning to make like a homebrewed haruspex...

By: JanetLand

JanetLand — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 08:49:40 -0800

I think you're supposed to deal the cards out that come with the book, using them like tarot cards.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 08:52:45 -0800

By: reklaw

reklaw — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:00:19 -0800

milovoo: Why oh why do people slag off Wikipedia? That list is brilliant.

By: hsoltz

hsoltz — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:01:39 -0800

Haruspicy is also the Word of the Day at wordsmith.org today.

By: bifter

bifter — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:05:16 -0800

I think you're supposed to deal the cards out that come with the book, using them like tarot cards. Hm... I can see some serious divine displeasure with that scam. Ducking lightning bolts left, right and centre...

By: rough ashlar

rough ashlar — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:11:47 -0800

Or you have the time machine of http://halfpasthuman.com/ that uses the text of the internet to predict the future. You get more material than using offal that way.

By: milovoo

milovoo — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:18:00 -0800

GuyZero, the second picture in the last link of the post makes it pretty obvious, the locations of fatty spots and blood vessels are interpreted in a traditional way to mean various things. It's just like a magic 8-ball only with more gore. milovoo: Why oh why do people slag off Wikipedia? That list is brilliant. I don't know either, but since I've been editing it for a few years and have a great respect for the idea, I just tend not to listen to those people. It's usually just mainstream-media-hype-of-the-week anyway. i.e. "OMG, someone posted something that's wrong, and now it's there forever, we should never use wikipedia again!"

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:28:35 -0800

I had interpreted as reference material for a traditional haruspicy, rather than cards that get cut apart and dealt out.

By: clockzero

clockzero — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:46:23 -0800

Haruspection? Haruspectator?

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 11:50:40 -0800

JanetLand, Way cool post! Thank you. I, Claudius is one of my favorite BBC series. It's all about the wacko descendants and family of Caesar Augustus (Livia the poisoner, nutso Caligula and Nero et alia). But I never knew how the haruspicy (sounds like a Japanese-American condiment) thing worked. The Tibetans have a system of divination, called "mo". Usually their mala (Sanscrit for the Tibetan "treng-nga"= rosary beads) is used. There's a site that teaches how to do a mo. And a book. At the bottom of the page on your first link is one to people reading Roman poetry. Having had to study Caesar's Gallic Wars and Virgil's Aeneid in school, it's wonderful to hear Latin verse read in clips at Viva Voce.

By: eegphalanges

eegphalanges — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 14:36:39 -0800

I'll stick to pigeon augury. Someone with the skills and time should do an augury fortune generator like facade.com does with tarot, runes, I ching and such. Though I guess animated sheep guts would be even more entertaining.

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 15:39:19 -0800