Divination, Oracles & Omens

A spellbinding collection of twenty-four divinatory techniques from around the world exploring our need to appeal to powers beyond our realm for prediction and clarification.

The past, present and future are full of tantalizing mysteries: questions about our own and other people’s lives that we long to answer. Across history, human cultures have devised a wide range of methods to discover what might lie ahead or to understand past events. This fascinating book features twenty-four divinatory techniques from around the world that have been and are still used to uncover hidden information: from astrology, palmistry, and Tarot to egg divination and Chinese Yijing. Each chapter is beautifully illustrated with a wide range of associated objects, such as cards, dice, altars, candles and texts, and even mathematical tools including astrolabes and astronomical tables. While these practices are often seen as light-hearted entertainment, a soothsayer’s uncannily accurate reading can catapult a client from scepticism to serious engagement. From ancient times to the present day, this spellbinding collection explores our need to appeal to powers beyond the realm of our day-to-day understanding for prediction and clarification, and how the questions we ask can reveal more than the answers we are given.