Lithomancy is a form of divination by which the future is told using stones or the reflected light from the stones. The practice is most popular in the British Isles.1
History
The earliest verified account of lithomancy comes from Photius, the patriarch of Constantinople, who describes a physician named Eusebius using a stone called a baetulum to perform the ritual.12 However, some writers also claim that Helenus predicted the destruction of Troy using the ritual.3
Practice
Lithomancy as a general term covers everything from two-stone and three-stone readings to open-ended stone castings utilizing an undetermined number of stones.4
In one popular method, 13 stones are tossed onto a board and a prediction made based on the pattern in which they fall. The stones are representative of various concepts: fortune, magic, love, news, home life and the astrological planets of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the sun, and the moon.5
References
References
- Cheung, Theresa (2006). The Element Encyclopedia of the Psychic World. Harper Element. p. 401. ISBN 978-0-00-721148-7.
- Spence, Lewis (2003). An Encyclopaedia of Occultism. Dover Publications. p. 252. ISBN 978-0-486-42613-6.
- Elworthy, Frederick Thomas (2003). Evil Eye the Origins and Practices of Superstition. Kessinger Publishing. pp. 444–445. ISBN 978-0-7661-3242-9.
- Saint Germain, Jon (2018). Lithomancy: Divination and Spellcraft with Stones, Crystals, and Coins. Lucky Mojo Curio Co. ISBN 978-0996147194.
- Lewis, James R. (1999). Witchcraft Today: An Encyclopedia of Wiccan and Neopagan Traditions. ABC-CLIO. p. 177. ISBN 978-1-57607-134-2.